<p>Lulu Ge came to this country at four and a half not speaking a word of English, internalized the immigrant instinct to shed everything different about her, and spent her 20s in fashion corporate strategy running a $300M budget at Saks. Hormonal acne, hair falling out, periods so unpredictable she bled through her white French lace wedding dress during cocktail hour at her Tuscan wedding. Park Avenue gynecologists offered the same three things on rotation: pill, patch, ring; antidepressants for the mood swings; opioids for the pain. It was her mom who finally said: you need to give Chinese medicine a try. One blend of herbs from a doctor who read her tongue, three months of boiling them down at home, and her next period arrived without warning. No cramps, no signal, just a body that finally felt like her own. She is now the founder and CEO of Elix, the first modern east-meets-west wellness platform integrating 5,000 years of Traditional Chinese Medicine with clinical research. She launched March 8, 2020, the same weekend Cuomo declared a state of emergency, and grew 2,000% in the first 18 months running the company from her childhood bedroom.</p><p>In this episode, Lulu breaks down why 60% of birth control is prescribed off-label as a band-aid for symptoms it was never invented to treat, and the East/West split she's spent six years bridging. She teaches a real-time tongue read you can do right now: red tip means heart-organ stress and overthinking (most high-powered women have it), scalloped edges mean dampness and bloating, red dots mean blood stagnation and likely period cramps or headaches. Plus the warming-vs-cooling food framework (red inflamed acne = internal heat, eat cucumber and watermelon; whitehead acne with fatigue = internal cold, skip the salads and ice drinks). She walks through the science behind the formulas: Daily Harmony, based on a 1,000-year-old cortisol-regulating formula that's the #1 selling formula in Asia; and the new mental clarity formula featuring reishi, lion's mane, and cordyceps. She also gets honest about telling her immigrant parents she was quitting her dream Saks job ("my mom looked me in the eye and burst into tears"), and the Wharton EMBA professor Ethan Mollick who pulled her aside after Entrepreneurship 101 and said "if you decide to do this full time, I'll fund you" (six months later he followed through). Plus her advice for young founders: know your why before you raise a dollar.</p><p>Whether you're a woman who came off birth control and watched everything go haywire, a founder weighing whether to leave a corporate job for an idea your parents are scared of, or someone who has never once thought to look at her own tongue in the mirror on a Friday night, this one's for you.</p><p>🎁 A gift from us + Elix: Use code WOMANSPLAIN15 at checkout on <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://elixhealing.com">elixhealing.com</a> for 15% off your first purchase.</p><p>Find Elix:🔗 <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://elixhealing.com">elixhealing.com</a>📲 @elixhealing📲 Lulu: @lulug and @luluth​eherbalist on TikTok</p><p>Find Womansplain:📲 @womansplainpod✉️ <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="e-10270-text-link e-10270-overflow-wrap-anywhere encore-internal-color-text-announcement e-10270-text-link--use-focus sc-bVwUFz fPTGFC" href="mailto:[email protected]">⁠</a><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="e-10270-text-link e-10270-overflow-wrap-anywhere encore-internal-color-text-announcement e-10270-text-link--use-focus sc-bVwUFz fPTGFC" href="mailto:[email protected]">⁠</a></p>