Find someone who supports and encourages your being, your deepest dreams and aspirations. Work together as a team.
Name:
Gabrielle Mirkin
Current Occupation:
Founder + CEO ACTIVIST
# of Children and their Ages:
Cisco River, age 6
Tallulah Blue, age 3
What do you love about being a working mom?
ACTIVIST is a Mānuka Honey company that I founded with my husband Luke, almost five years ago. We specialize in The Ultimate topical and ingestible Mānuka products for beauty, wellbeing and immune support. You can find ACTIVIST offerings at the best clean beauty, lifestyle and department stores, organic grocers, juice bars and cafes across the globe.
I am deeply passionate about ACTIVIST; it’s my third baby and receives almost as much love as the other two!
It’s important to me that my children get to see how you can love what you do in life so much; how work doesn’t have to be work; it can be your life calling and something that brings you joy.
I have a very strong work ethic ever since I was a young teenager at school in New Zealand; working as a barista making coffee, nannying for young children and designing magazines from an early age. I like to teach my children that they can do something they truly love and to find their dharma, be happy, work hard and always be kind and compassionate to others in life and work.
Cisco and Tallulah get so excited about ACTIVIST too; they are our Mānuka Honey mascots: tasting our different grades of honey, especially a teaspoon of 850+MGO Mānuka daily, trialing our Mānuka Honey Masks, wearing our Green Botanical Serum, taking our Mānuka Immune Elixir every day before school and diffusing our pure Mānuka Essential Oil in their rooms every night.
They are very much involved in our business and we only create products from a personal use and need for ourselves and our children!
What is the biggest challenge of being a working mom?
Being spread too thin all the time. Not being 100% present with my children or not being 100% focused on my work. Trying to create better boundaries between mothering and working.
Also having absolutely zero time for myself and selfcare; all my time is spent mothering my children or mothering my business.
If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you change about working mom life?
Creating more help and a village to help each other. One thing I so appreciate, which is a really big support, is someone cooking a homemade meal for me. I do all the cooking in our home. A magic wand for fresh, nutritious and delicious meals every night would be a blessing!
What tips do you have for other working moms?
Try not to stress too much about the small stuff.
If your child/children are healthy, that’s all that really matters in life.
Any relationship tips for working moms?
My husband and I have been together for 18 years since our early 20s; we have lived many lives together in many different places around the world. We are not only life partners but also partners in work; we spend all our time together! I think I’m very blessed in the fact that we don’t seem to get sick of each other’s company and rarely fight.
Find someone who supports and encourages your being, your deepest dreams and aspirations.
Work together as a team. Now that our children are at school every day, we want to try and make the time to go for a hike together, a surf or even just a coffee in the sunshine together daily. We don’t do ‘date nights’; I’d rather go on a beach date together!
What's the best piece of advice your own mother gave you?
“This time too will pass.”
I don’t know if it’s the best advice but it’s definitely helpful in times of distress for me.
This advice reminds me to breathe and that this moment in time will pass; the temporary nature of the human condition; the good moments and the bad.
What stresses you out?
Too many things; this is something I am trying to work on.
Mostly when my children are sick, especially my son. He has a scary history of croup and we’ve had many sleepless nights with him. My kids were so sick last year with everything imaginable that they caught at school. When they are sick, they are at home with me and then I can’t work and then I get stressed about my work and then I can’t sleep and am up at night with sick kids; it’s a vicious cycle that I am hoping breaks this year.
When my kids are healthy, life is just so much more in the flow and harmonious.
How do you mother yourself?
My favorite things to do are swimming in the salty ocean, hiking in the thick native New Zealand bush, yoga and cooking nutritious meals for my friends and family.
I would like to do a lot more of all these things this year, as well as surf again with my husband. They nourish my soul and being! Also, a Mānuka Honey Mask every night is an essential ritual of mine.
How and why do you take CBD?
I am new to taking CBD and can’t wait to try MotherBar CBD Mints! I will take them for relaxation and stress relief.
Please use GABRIELLE20 at checkout for 20% off your order of Moment CBD mints made for busy, working moms like Gabrielle who believes in the importance of a supportive partner, letting go of the small stuff, and following what brings you joy.
