Call Me CEO: Moms Building Businesses, a Woman's guide to Balancing it All

308: She Built an App in 7 Weeks After Emergency Surgery

• Camille Walker • Episode 308

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What if the thing standing between you and your next big idea isn't time, money, or experience—but simply taking the first step?

In this episode of Call Me CEO, Camille sits down with entrepreneur and app founder Julia Leffler to discuss the creation of Releve, a habit-tracking app designed to help people build consistency through community accountability and AI-powered coaching.

What makes Julia's story especially inspiring is that she launched the app in just seven weeks while recovering from emergency gallbladder surgery and raising two young children. She shares how she self-funded the project, used AI tools to streamline development and marketing, and embraced progress over perfection to bring her idea to life.

Together, Camille and Julia discuss entrepreneurship, motherhood, habit-building, mindfulness, and why waiting for the "perfect time" often keeps women from pursuing their biggest goals.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Julia built and launched Releve in just seven weeks
• The surprising low-cost strategy she used to develop the app
• How AI tools helped accelerate content creation and business growth
• Why community accountability can make habits stick
• Practical ways to reduce decision fatigue as a busy mom
• How consistent small actions create momentum in business and life
• The connection between mindfulness, self-care, and leadership
• Why "There's never a right time. There's just now."

One of Julia's biggest lessons from building Releve is a reminder every entrepreneur needs to hear: You may be more qualified than you think. The only way to find out is to start.

Connect with Julia:


Connect with Camille:

  • Instagram: @CamilleWalker.co
  • Podcast: @CallMeCEOPodcast

Try the 5-minute routine tomorrow and tag @CallMeCEOPodcast on Instagram with your biggest takeaway.

Schedule a free discovery call with Camille!

https://calendly.com/callmeceopodcast/discovery-call-with-camille 

Welcome And Flexible Habit Systems

Camille

So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family, and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know. This is Call Me CEO. Welcome back, everyone, to Call Me CEO. This is your host, Camille Walker, and here we celebrate mothers building businesses and spotlighting ambitious women building businesses that navigate motherhood, leadership, life, how to make systems and processes better for you. If you've been here for any time at all, you know that I'm a big atomic habits fan. I love habit stacking. I'm all about making life easier, if not more proficient. I heard someone say today that I interviewed in a podcast right before this. She said, I'm a type A mom, but a type B mother. I like to have open-ended opportunity to change things around and make open space. And that is what I am about. I love having habits that relate in a way to my life that I feel more productive, but that don't make me feel restricted. So if that is you or if you feel like that relates to you, you're going to love today's guest. It is Julia Leffler. She is the founder of Releve, which is a habit tracking app built around community, accountability, and an AI coach named Demi. What makes Julia's story so remarkable is that she launched a fully functioning iOS app in just seven weeks. So cool. No coding background while recovering from emergency surgery and raising two boys under four. Okay, superwoman. Hello. In this episode. Hello. Hello. We're talking about what happens when motherhood, resilience, and emergence emerging technology collide. Julia shares how she is using AI as a force multiplier and why the philosophy of something over nothing changed her life and what moms need to know about leveraging AI to create opportunities for themselves. I hello. If you are in this world, which we all are, building a business, juggling motherhood, wondering how AI could help you work smarter. This conversation is going to be packed with inspirational and practical insights for you. So let's welcome Julia to the show. Thank you for the show.

SPEAKER_01

That's such a lovely intro. Thank you so much.

Camille

You're welcome. I mean, it's all about you. And I I have we've been chatting for a moment here and talking about what it is that you're doing and what you've built. And I'm just so excited about hearing your journey. And I love there are things about technology that can make us feel disconnected as humans. I was just having a conversation about this. So it's like fresh on my mind. However, there if you're using it properly, and AI is used in a way that helps you to save time so that you have more time to connect in person and with the people that you love. I am all about that. So I'm really thrilled to share about how your app releve is allowing people to do that so that they have the time to create meaningful connection and showing up in their business and in their life the way that they want to. So tell us more about you. Like I'm so thrilled that you're here.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Um,

From Corporate Career To Full-Time Mom

SPEAKER_01

yes, so I started my career in corporate America. Uh, I spent almost a decade there until I had my first child, uh, and then went back to work right after having him and just really felt uh pangs. You know, it's it's such a special time and um it was so much to juggle full-time career and trying to spend more time with him. Uh, and so when I got pregnant with my second child, I decided to step away from my career for a little time and uh become a full-time mom. And so for about almost a year, I was um doing that when my body had other plans. I

Emergency Surgery Sparks A New Idea

SPEAKER_01

woke up uh in January of 2026 at maybe 2, 3 a.m. in horrible, horrible pain. I was having a gallbladder attack. I was convinced I was having a heart attack. And, you know, this is obviously not the point of this particular episode. But it is, but it is just be aware, ladies. Uh, being female, being near the age of 40, and having had children are all risk factors for gallbladder attacks.

Camille

So what were the symptoms? Just, I mean, awareness is so big. What what was it like for you other than feeling like you're dying? Which it sounds like Yeah, just that.

SPEAKER_01

Um, no, I I remember having really, really severe kind of abdominal slash chest pain. And it was so bad, it it literally permeated my dreams. It woke me up. Yeah. Um, yeah, and I I thought, like, this isn't, you know, indigestion. I've been pregnant twice. I know what that feels like. Right. This isn't, you know, a strained muscle or something. This is something deeper. And so I wound up taking an Uber into the hospital. Um, my husband stayed home with the kids, and they kind of within an hour had diagnosed me with having a gallbladder attack, and I had to have it removed. Um, thankfully, I am so glad for modern medicine. It is a very simple procedure. It was like a very, very quick surgery. I have a tiny little scar. But because it was an abdominal surgery, I wasn't allowed to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds for six weeks. And uh anyone who has spent time as a full-time caregiver knows that's a huge part of the job.

Camille

Yeah, it's like anything heavier than a milk jug, which you're like, yeah, everything is heavier.

SPEAKER_01

And I'm like, you know, I have like a 15-month at home, a 15-month-old at home. Like, this is I I have more than 10 pounds that I lift on a regular basis. And so both of my boys uh wound up going to full-time daycare while I recovered. And suddenly I was in this quiet house and I didn't have anyone to take care of or anything to really do with myself as I was recuperating. And I

Designing A Gentle Habit Tracker

SPEAKER_01

started thinking, well, how can I reclaim this time for me? You know, what's something that I as a mom, as a wife, as just a person operating in the world have been putting off that I finally have this moment to do. Um, and I'd always wanted to create my dream habit tracker because I am also a big atomic habits and productivity kind of girl. Um but where I had felt left out from everything that was on the market was I wanted a habit tracker that was gentle with me, that understood, especially as a mom. I don't, I can't do a perfect street every single time, and that's still okay. Um, I can't commit to, you know, a one-hour workout every single day, every week. I might want to be able to say my habit, I'm gonna do two workouts a week, and that's enough. Or um I want to be able to check in with some friends and for us to say, we're gonna just keep each other accountable. And so, you know, we might not be able to meet up to do this together, but at least I can see when you've done it and you can see when I've done it. And I couldn't find anything on the market that worked the way I wanted it to. And so I decided to build it. Um, and because this was happening in 2026 and we live in this brave new world, I actually had the tools to do so that I'd never had before. My background, I should say, is in project management and marketing and creative strategy. So this was completely out of my element. I was not a technical person, but I used AI to do a lot of the technical work for me.

Camille

And amazing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it was it's the kind of thing where it felt like a perfect storm, like a perfect meeting of circumstances where I could actually realize my vision with this new technology that had never been available to me before.

Camille

Now I'm curious what what AI engine did you use?

SPEAKER_01

I use Claude. I'm a big Claude guy.

Camille

I love Claude. Yeah. Okay, perfect. And in terms, I my sister, she's doing brain performance psychology right now. And in she has an emphasis in dream studies and how that affects our performance and our resiliency. It's incredible. She's doing a doctorate and she's like, yeah, I built an app in five hours. And I'm like, what? And she's putting it together to bring together dream studies and brain performance and all of this. And I'm like, this is so cool. It's unlocking so many different facets of I, to your point, a group where as moms, we are not in control of our day. We have little tiny CEOs that tell us how the day is gonna go. And we might think we know the rough outline of what that looks like day to day, but truly, we do need flexibility. We have to be able to give ourselves grace and still show up for ourselves in a way that oftentimes feels daunting or unachievable. So I love that your app is more geared toward, hey, let's create it's almost like the 75 days soft instead of the 75 days hard. That's like what I'm hearing as you talk about it. Would you think that that's a good way to explain it?

Demi The AI Coach And Grace

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the the phrase that I always use in our in our marketing, because my background is marketing, is that something always beats nothing. And so you can have the loftiest goals, but you know, honestly, I was definitely the kind of person who fell into very black and white thinking, where it's either I did it or I didn't. And if I missed it, then everything was ruined and kind of shame spiral, and we wound up back at the beginning.

Camille

Either you get to A or you flunk the test. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. Uh, and so instead, the way I've really positioned things is set small, achievable goals, really think about what's important to you. And uh one of the other aspects of our app that I didn't mention is we actually have a coach built in, built on Claude, an AI coach named Demi, who can suggest lighter versions of your habit for those days where baby didn't sleep and you have no energy and it is already, you know, 6 p.m. and you really wanted to do your 45-minute workout, but it's just not in the cards today. And Demi can say, okay, well, how what if you do a five-minute ab workout? What if you walk around the block a couple times? That still counts. That's still something. And so we really wanted, and I use the royal we here, it's me, solo founder. Um, I really wanted an app that allowed women to get that grace from an external source because I feel like it's very hard to conjure sometimes when we're in it like that. And then also we we don't run on streaks the way a lot of app habit trackers do. We just say, you know what, you missed today. That's fine. Come back tomorrow. Every day is new, every day is fresh. Um, and I should briefly go into the uh the name of the app and kind of where the where it comes from.

Camille

Yeah.

The Ballet Meaning Behind Releve

Camille

You named it relevant. I know you have some ballet background. Is that right? Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_01

So you correctly said it it is a ballet term. It's a move, it's it's honestly one of the most foundational moves in ballet. And I'm sure a lot of moms out there took ballet at some point in their life.

Camille

Many, many, yes.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. Um, but what I loved about it is when you really break that move down, it's two parts. You plie down, so you bend your knees and you kind of ground down, and then you rise and you straighten your legs and you go up on your toes and you get as tall as you can. And I thought it's just the perfect metaphor for a habit tracker because you're grounding yourself in these small actions every day, and maybe they don't even feel that significant, doesn't feel like they're adding up to very much, but over time you are rising higher and higher. And so I just loved the idea that you have to be be present, be grounded in order to achieve greater heights. And for those of you listening at home, because it is French, I'll spell it out. It's relevant R-E-L-E-V-E.

Freemium Pricing And Platform Setup

Camille

Awesome. Now tell us a little bit more in terms of building an app and turning that into a business. That seems to be something that is an emerging business idea. How did you take it from conception and building into monetization? What did that look like?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's it's really um kind of a brave new world that we can just set off on our own and be these explorers finding these new um pockets of monetization. So it all started with the concept, and then um our app follows the kind of freemium model uh where it's free to download. You can set up your first three habits for free, you can create an accountability group for free, you get um a trial conversation with Demi for free, and then we have a premium tier that you can pay monthly or annually for. Um, and it just unlocks kind of the full functionality of the app. And so what I really set out to do is I wanted to make this a tool that every person could use, but also create a real value add if you want to upgrade to premium. So you can get full access to Demi, say, or you can do as many habits as you want, because some of us want way more than three habits. I personally have six right now that I'm tracking. Um, it just kind of allows you to use the app more fully.

Camille

And is that something that you set up just in like the functionality, the backside of things? Because, you know, you have your Android users, you have your Apple users. I know when I set up this podcast, I had to go through, you know, checks and balances of different requirements to make it live. So what does that look like in terms of getting it onto platforms so that it can be utilized?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I started with Apple. I'm I'm personally an Apple user. I am too. And uh I'm about to launch Android, actually. It should be out in the next week or two. Awesome. Uh but honestly, the beautiful thing about AI is it it truly I treated it like my technical co-founder.

Building With Claude As Co-Founder

SPEAKER_01

And so I was able to tell Claude, I had the funniest setup when I was working on it in depth, where I had Claude chat windows creating prompts for Claude Code. And I would copy paste the prompt into Claude Code and it would write the code and then give me an output. And I would copy paste the output back into the chat to translate it into English for me. And so I could say to it, hey, I want to start in Apple, but you know, always make sure you have considerations that I do eventually want to launch an Android. Um, you know, we use uh Revenue Cat, which is a platform for tracking pricing and setting uh different pricing tiers and everything to track our premium. And so it helped me set up that integration completely. It really walked me through literally everything, even just installing um the coding outputs on my computer, uh, just being able to have our um prompt to enter very simple um you know save states, things that Cloud Code couldn't do, Claude Chat would walk me through.

Camille

That is so neat. Okay, I'm just loving this because I'm geeking out thinking, how cool that you integrated that and you were able to figure out the both sides and using it so that you could communicate because it is different languages, but it has the ability to translate for you. Yeah. So why not? Like I just think that's so cool.

Shipping In Seven Weeks

Camille

Okay, so up and going from concept to launching, like truly putting it out there, how it was seven weeks.

SPEAKER_01

Seven weeks. Uh technically six and a half.

Camille

So cool. And now that it's out there, when did you go live? Like what was that date?

SPEAKER_01

So we were live in App Store April 22nd. And uh again, it's June 4th today that we're recording. I'm aiming for like mid-June to go into Android. Android's been a little bit trickier to get approval for, but um, just a lot of hoops to jump through with Google. Uh it's it's been like a fascinating. So I guess we've been up about six weeks now. Um, and it's just been so interesting kind of being back in my element where it's finally time to do marketing.

Camille

That's where I'm like, hey, that's my weak point. So what what are some tips and tricks with that for marketing something new like this? What has been working well?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I mean, I'll be transparent. It is it is definitely a slow grind going from zero to zero.

Camille

As it is. As it is, like that's anything new. I say plan on three years where you're like, okay, I still feel new, and that's okay. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And it's funny because even though marketing was was my corporate world, I was working for some really big companies. I I worked for Amazon, I worked for Disney, I worked for DirecTV. And so I was used to a lot of name recognition and budget for paid media and all sorts of kind of built-in infrastructure that I'm building myself here. Um, so it is like a fun combination of things I know how to do, and it's still very um challenging, and I'm learning new things every day. Um, I've been relying really heavily on social media. Uh, I'm on TikTok and Instagram at Releve Habits. And uh we I am just trying to build up a lot of consistency. Uh I've actually also used Claude to help me track my content calendar. And um I will say, you know, there is a lot of debate, certainly in marketing circles, about how much to rely on AI when it comes to uh marketing, for example, copy or concepts, things like that, art direction.

Marketing With AI As Your Agency

SPEAKER_01

Um what I have found works for me and gets me the best result is I kind of treat my AI like an agency. And so I come to Claude and I say, Hey, I want to do a campaign. Right now I'm in the midst of a campaign. The Tony Awards are this Sunday, uh, which is kind of the Oscars for Broadway. And uh I my background is um I was born and raised in New York City. I've always loved the theater. I'm very connected to the theater community in that way. And so I wanted to honor that by saying all the different musicals that are nominated for Best Musical or Best Revival of a Musical this year. Uh what do they have to say about habits and habit personalities? And so that was kind of the creative brief. And then I brainstormed with Claude to try to come up with the exact angle that we could take for each one to say, you know, uh the Rocky Horror show is one of the uh nominees. And so we have the personality type of the Antissa Pater who just is ready to go but hasn't actually made that leap. Or for example, uh Shmigadoon is one of the other musicals that's up this year. And so we talk about the perfectly imperfect person who just needs to know that it's okay to do things not completely technicolor, all out perfect, and it still counts. Um and so you know, we we came up with that creative brief. I then executed it in Canva. Uh, I was using Claude as kind of a soundboard to bounce ideas off of. Um but I think the more you can treat AI as a tool and less as a all-out solution, you definitely need to be careful that it still has the human touch because there is just so much that gets lost if you just say, AI, come up with this for me wholesale.

Camille

Yeah. I love your approach to that. You can tell that you've done it professionally when you're when you have a concept and then you're like, okay, we're going to execute this campaign. How do I do this so that this is translated and you're capitalizing on what's in the media right now, which is the Tony Awards? That's very clever. Is what's been the most rewarding thing that you've seen so far? I know you're in a you're in the beginning stages. Like this is still very new, but what are some of the rewarding moments that you've had so far?

First Launch Highs And Beta Test Proof

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I mean, I I think the first one that comes to mind was, you know, I was um I was so in the weeds setting up accounts on everything. Like the first two or three days that I was doing this, I felt like I was getting absolutely nowhere. It was just very monotonous work. And suddenly I was able to uh launch a phone simulator on my laptop to kind of see what it would look like long before it actually hit a test device. Um, and I just saw a blank screen with our logo on it, and I teared up because it was something that I created. Um, and it had never existed before, and now it did. Um, and so I took a screenshot of that and called it Releve is born.

Camille

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_01

And um, yeah, that was that was a huge moment. I think the first time I was able to actually download it on my phone and use it, even though it was buggy and I had to go through weeks. weeks of debugging and that was so difficult. Um, but just being able to see my logo that I created and this app that I thought up right next to all of my other apps that I pay for or got through, you know, major companies and things like that was just insanely rewarding. And then I I recruited about eight or nine friends to be beta testers. And the first time they downloaded the app and I was able to not creepily look on the back end and see that they were logging habits and they were using it and they, you know, were generating rows in these superbased tables that I had set up with Claude's help was just so thrilling to know that real people were using it. It was something that had just been in my head two months ago.

Camille

That's crazy. And so exciting. I love that I'm talking to you right now about it because we're going to have to do a follow-up in a year and see how everything's gone and just the exciting of it because I think in the beginning of a business it's almost like you have this explosion of thoughts, ideas, excitement and at that year mark, typically just because I've I've done this almost six years now it's really interesting to me to see the waves and the the pickups and the pitfalls and the pickups again, knowing that they'll come the fact that there is very low overhead and that you were able to pick up and to run with an idea so quickly I think puts you ahead of that march because it's so exciting and there's not a whole lot in in as far as like loss of you know people putting funds in or having to worry about other people's opinions or making sure that you appease someone else's wants. And so I'm just so excited for you because I think that that has got to feel really empowering.

SPEAKER_01

It really does. Thank you. Yeah and I mean you know self-funded but I I will tell you transparently I've been keeping very close tabs on how much I'm spending on this and it's been a couple hundred dollars. I think the single most expensive thing has been the App Store makes you pay a developer fee that's $99 a year. But otherwise you know buying our URL was maybe $10 or so the Claude membership I don't have anything super fancy. I just have the $20 a month package. And you know I would occasionally hit the the usage limit which was frustrating but in a way it was really good because it kind of set a boundary for myself. I would always say well I can't work on this anymore for the next three, four hours. So what can I do? Can I go out and work out? Can I clean something? Can I meal prep? You know, can I even just take some time I'm going back to the beginning of our conversation I very much identify as a perfectionist. I always have I'm very type A. And so I would get into coding and I would just get completely lost in it and just get really, really excited and and want to keep going and want to keep pushing and having this kind of external roadblock was actually beneficial for me and for my mental health to be forced to step away. Of course I would make the hours of you know 430 to 730 or so were kind of golden sacred hours that I ever touched because that was my primary time with my kids. But while they were at school all day I really didn't have anything else to do. So I could easily have seen myself spending all of those hours exclusively on this. And while it might have felt good in the moment, I'm sure it would have come back to bite me. But I digress.

Low-Cost Startup And Beating The Mom Penalty

SPEAKER_01

Back to costs. I think you know the beautiful thing is with these tools so readily available and especially as women who have historically been kind of shut out from the developer community I love that we're able to carve out our own seat at the table. I love that we're able not have to play in this man's world that big tech kind of became and there's a backdoor now. I'm also really excited because as a woman who took a power pause, stepped away from a corporate career, I was always worried about the mom penalty. It's it's very real. I know a lot of moms feel it. I was kind of um feeling it breathing down my neck even while I was away and worrying about how to re-enter the workforce and it's just so gratifying to be able to do it on my own terms in my own way and and be my own boss and not be dependent on someone willing to hire someone who has a gap on their resume or something like that. And instead say, well I can make this and bring it to the world and be the one who founded this.

Camille

Yeah. So cool. I'm curious what is one habit that has been the biggest impact of your success would you say to this point?

SPEAKER_01

I so I it this was actually the very first habit that was ever logged on Releve ever and it was work on releve. And it it is a a daily habit that I I have a pretty low bar for myself. It doesn't have to be something crazy. It could just be one little outreach email it could be reaching out to an influencer. It could be one bug fix. It could be something small it could be adding a full new feature but I try to do something pretty much every day. And just that consistency, that knowledge that I know this is always going to be a part of my day has been huge for me. I I also took a screenshot of the first time work on releve showed up on our today screen my own personal user.

Camille

That's very cool. And in terms of having two young children you have kids that are ages three and a half, one and a half right now that's a very busy time as

Decision Fatigue And Better Home Systems

Camille

a mom. We were talking about that before we officially pressed record that it can be a lot and it's hard to navigate the when and the how have you used Relevate to influence the way you use your time as a mom yeah I mean I I loved what you were saying earlier about being able to come up with a system that keeps everything on track so that you can have free time and creativity.

SPEAKER_01

I always think of one of my favorite books that I've ever read is called the checklist manifesto by a physician named Atul Gwande. He's a surgeon at Massachusetts General and a professor at Harvard. And he was talking about when they first started rolling out the safe surgery checklist which is standard now in pretty much every hospital where they say you know who's the patient, what's the procedure which side are we doing it on things like that and just run down the checklist before anyone makes a cut. And he said you know they got a lot of pushback because a lot of people said you're insulting the surgeon's intelligence that you're making them recite all these basic things like that's they're going to be so upset about that. And he said it's actually the opposite by not making them worry about this and carry this in their brains and take up that cortical real estate, they're able to think more freely they're able to adjust on the fly as things happen during surgery and the results are outstanding. And so I definitely recommend this book. It's just beautifully written and so applicable to every area of life. And so the more I can think of the little things that I want to get done for myself every day being in the app, written down, I can even set reminders for myself. So every morning at 730 my take vitamins habit pops up and I remember oh yes I have to do that. Just little things that I don't have to carry in my brain anymore frees me up to be more present for my children and to be more in the moment. And I think we can all agree that's what kids value the most. That's the beautiful gift that they give us.

Camille

Absolutely is being present. Really that's the number one gift we can give our kids it's our time, our attention and I was just talking with someone about decision fatigue and I think that's something as women as and as mothers of what am I even cooking for dinner tonight? That can be a thing we were just discussing. And if you haven't yet listened to my mother or my summer bucket list episode that I did if listen to it now because we're kind of talking about that concept but what I really appreciate about your app and what I've done in my motherhood of now 18 years is that I try to create some kind of an outline of what the game plan is so that I reduce decision fatigue. And I think that that's something that your app is doing as well is creating a space where we can create habits that are important to us to take care of ourselves. Because I think a lot of times when we're decision fatigue goes so much outside of ourselves and what of what everyone else is needing that things like taking our vitamins, going for the walk, um touching grass, talking to a friend like those are the things that keep us sane that we need for our mental wellness and health and everything else and it often gets left behind. So what's also really freeing and I think is really cool about your app is that once you develop a a habit that then becomes part of your ritual that you don't even have to think about anymore is that you can release that and it's already a part of your programming so to speak and you can level up. And so if it's just even starting with one thing where you're like hey I know for me a big part I have a podcast called Five Minute Meditations for Kids. It is a baby we just hit a thousand on YouTube which we're really excited about. But that's one thing that I really want to develop more time for my mental wellbeing and my meditation my mental stillness and so that's something that when I created a space for that to become a habit for me that I'm now currently working on again I love that your app that's probably one of the first things I would put there is to have that moment of stillness because when we create that space for ourselves and become practitioners of mindfulness, meditation, stillness, prayer whatever that looks like for you our children learn from that and want to integrate that and copy your behaviors and check out five minute meditations for kids. That's actually something I built in 2020 as a resolution to try to integrate that more into my life as a mom but I'm like I don't want to make it harder I want to make it easy for moms, you know, where this is their five minutes but hey while they're doing their five you go do your five too so I love that it's just that concept of creating space and success without perfection and that's what it's

Modeling Self-Care Kids Can Copy

Camille

all about.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I I love meditation as well it even again two minutes three minutes five minutes whatever you can spare and um like you said my boys are are both pretty little and they're very uh rambunctious but the three and a half year old is getting to the point where he sees what mommy's doing and he wants to copy it and he he can recognize you know I've I've always been extremely mindful about how we approach when he's got big feelings and being really honest when I have big feelings and saying hey I'm mommy's worried about this or you know mommy is feeling really stressed right now and that's why mommy seems a little frantic and I had this beautiful moment with him where I was you know we were trying to get out the door everything was going wrong we were meeting up with someone I was feeling guilty um and I was getting more and more frantic and he just walked over and took my hand and said mommy do you want to take three deep breaths and that's something that I say to him when he's you know being a three year old and and getting into his feelings. And it was just so beautiful to see you know they they really are sponges and they absorb what you give them. And so being able to model what taking care of yourself as a mom looks like means you're raising kids who realize that taking care of yourself is something that you should prioritize.

Camille

Yeah. Oh I love that what a cool payday for you as a mom to see that reflected back to you. Good job. That's I think that's amazing. That's that was a good day. Really I know oh my gosh. Okay

Rapid Fire Habits And Entrepreneurship

Camille

I'm gonna give you some rapid fired questions before we close up here. I did not prep her with these questions so we're just gonna go for it. Okay coffee or tea?

SPEAKER_01

Coffee morning person or night owl I'm more of a night owl but I'm trying to be a morning person.

Camille

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Favorite productivity app besides your own I was gonna say um honestly I'm pretty old school I just have a to-do list that I keep running in my notes app and I live and die by it. Yeah one non-negotiable habit I would say my non-negotiable habit is I try to work out two times a week and even if that's a small workout just moving my body it keeps me sane.

Camille

Yeah yeah essential best business investment under a hundred dollars to make today or that I ever made?

SPEAKER_01

Ever I guess whatever you want um oh that's a good one I'd say the first time I bought a Fitbit because I I'm pretty sure I got like the lightest cheapest version that was right around a hundred bucks and it was what really put me on the path of being able to track my behavior and analyze it and use it to make uh changes going forward and that eventually bloomed into releve.

Camille

Amazing that's really cool because that did inspire you your path you know what's funny my son my youngest just turned 10 and he asked for a Fitbit he loses everything. So I'm like uh we'll start with Timu I found him uh a watch on there $18 stop and it it works great and I'm like hey if you lose this break this whatever I won't cry but this is a good test to see if this is something you really want to do. I wear the Apple watch and he watches me track and follow my health habits and he wanted to mirror that too. So it's really cool to see that you know evolve into what your kids they're watching and they mirror. It's true.

SPEAKER_01

Okay one word that describes entrepreneurship perseverance biggest lesson from launching releve there's never a right time there's just now I like that okay favorite way to recharge honestly just being in the park with my kids yeah that's that's my favorite if I can take my dog and my kids and my husband to the park especially now that the my dog is sitting on the couch and is looking up because I said the P word um but especially now that the weather is getting nice and we're summer is almost upon us I I love just being outside with my family.

Camille

Yeah oh the best and what's a dream future or sorry feature that you'd love to add to the app someday.

SPEAKER_01

I'm our next iteration and I don't know when it's coming is I want to start adding one off tasks that you need to do.

Camille

Okay kind of like a to-do list.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah so in addition to your daily habits that you need to do you can also see the one off things you need to do and it just becomes kind of a one-stop shop for your day.

Camille

Very cool. All right so one last question what's one thing you tell the mom listening right now who has an idea but doesn't think she's qualified to pursue it I don't think there's ever been a better time in history to have an idea and I think that even if you're not qualified, start taking those steps and you'll find you're a lot more qualified than you thought. I love that and you're such a good example of that and I love that your story is so at the beginning and that it came together so beautifully I really feel like there are moments of inspiration that are meant for us that will drop down and be given to us and if we're ready to latch it up take it and run with it. There are the universe God whatever it is that you believe in movement will happen and things will open up and the doors will be open for you and it just takes that moment of bravery to really go forward and weeks and long months of keeping it going of course but Julia thank you so much for sharing your story and please tell our audience where they can find you and support you and try Releve.

Where To Find Releve And Support

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much for having me. Yes so you can find us online at relevehabits.com that's r-e-l-e-v-ehabits.com uh we are currently in the iOS app store under Releve Habit Tracker we will be launching in on Android very soon so if you don't see us now check back and you will uh and you can find us on Instagram and TikTok at relevehabits.

Camille

Okay that's so perfect and I love this reminder that success doesn't always have to look about having more time more resources or more expertise sometimes it comes from just taking that next step. And if you have an inspiration something that you're thinking of that you want to take that next step download the Relevate app. Those first three app tracker or trackers for habits are free. Why not give it a try? And if you enjoyed this episode please give us a rating and review that helps other moms and women to discover this podcast and help inspire and continue these stories which is so powerful to say I can do it too. And if you're looking for coaching or help one-on-one for that I am here to help you with that and you can find me at Call Me CEO podcast and at CamilleWalker.co thank you so much and we'll see you next time.

Final Review Request And Goodbye

Camille

Hey CEOs thank you so much for spending your time with me if you found this episode inspiring or helpful please let me know in a comment in a five star review. You could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at callme CEO podcast and remember you are the boss