We recently connected with Catalina “Kitty” Martone and have shared our conversation below.
Catalina “Kitty”, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
From birth, I suffered from debilitating health issues through childhood, and as an adult from autoimmune conditions to gut, mood, and behavioral disorders. I was on the “endless medication and doctors visits” loop. I reached a turning point of knowing there had to be a better way. I started studying alternative methods, and I became an author, health journalist and health educator. In the process, discovering countless experts who manage health and healing in much more effective and affordable ways than conventional options. My goal for 17 years has been to get this information into the hands of as many people as possible. Because I believe everyone deserves a chance at a healthy life, free of unnecessary, physical suffering.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My journey has morphed into many different versions of a passionate health educator. Working with my husband who is a chiropractor in Santa Monica for over 20 years. I jumped in the deep end, fresh out of school, working with children in the autistic spectrum and with severe debilitating health issues. That led me to working with some nutritional Giants like Donna Gates, and Dr Robert Marshall, which catapulted my career as The Healthy Gut Girl, and blossomed into a podcast specific to hormones and gut health, primarily because of my own issues with infertility. Because of my large social media presence in The Estrogen Dominance Support Group on Facebook, I came to meet Ona Green, the owner of Ona’s Natural, plant based hormone support.
She started her company because of her debilitating struggles with catamenial epilepsy. A hormonally driven form of epilepsy. We became fast friends and began to work together. A few years after she passed in 2017, I took over as CEO of the company in hopes to carry on her legacy of providing natural alternative relief for anyone struggling with hormone related issues.
It’s been a journey that I would have never guessed for myself, but I am proud that I never questioned the opportunities that came my way. Never questioned the doors that God opened for me.
I hope to continue to grow Ona’s natural, and I am currently moving my social media platform on to The healthy gut girl mighty network. My goals is to bring together women and men with hormone & gut imbalances so that we can share experiences, trade ideas with each other through our health challenges and navigate the complex info of supplementation, diet and detox remedies so that we can take responsibility for our own health and empower one another to heal.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I should have a PhD in “pivoting” if there were ever such a thing. And when I began my career as a wellness center owner and nutritional consultant, I thought that would be it. I would just continue to do that, and it would just grow and get bigger. I had no idea I would become an author, a researcher, a journalist, a social media “influencer”, a podcast host, a community leader in the field of gut health, and hormones, and the CEO of a thriving natural hormone product company.
I honestly believe it is my faith that has allowed me to completely change directions at a time when I thought I was doing pretty well going the way I was going. I have very specific goals in mind, long-term goals, short-term goals even daily goals, but one thing I have become very good at is not attaching to the outcome of anything. I truly believe God has a plan for all of us and though my goals are certainly important and they give me a framework from within which I cam operate I don’t drive the outcome or rely on the outcome
And I think one of the biggest mistakes I have made throughout my younger life and I watch people making all the time is being attached to that very specific outcome. When things start to go a different direction we stay on the path we created and try to force the square peg into the round hole, and all it does is create more struggle.
Yes, it can be disappointing to not watch one of your goals come to fruition, but every single time I am always shocked with the much better idea that God had in store for me.
How’d you meet your business partner?
I met my new friend Ona in my Facebook group. Sweet, ambitious, filled with ideas, and incredibly generous and kind. She was so grateful to me for my Facebook community, helping her to grow her business. She wanted very much to work with me until her untimely passing. Sadly, I didn’t get to know her partner and husband, so that relationship fizzled out for several years until the pandemic hit and the company had taken a turn for the worse. Luckily her husband was rifling through her emails and came across our email exchanges. He didn’t realize how much of an impact my community and my outreach had on their business. I got a random email from Ona’s husband and partner asking, quite frankly, “Would you like to become the CEO of Ona’s?” For over two years now, my new business partner, Ona’s husband, and I have managed to grow the company quite nicely. It’s doing so well but we are having growing pains keeping up with filling orders, which is a really good problem to have.
I remember reading millionaire messenger, many many years ago, and one of the things that stood out the most to me was a statement, something like this, “spend the money on people who are experts in the areas that you are not.” so basically delegating the jobs that I am terrible at. It’s a tough thing to do because it usually is very expensive to find experts who are good at things like marketing, label, creation, etc. and its hard to relinquish control of those things, but I think it’s probably the most valuable statement that I have ever read that years later made a huge impact on me as a CEO currently.
Contact Info:
- Website: Healthygutgirl.com
- Instagram: Healthygutgirl_
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1426024567689906/?ref=share_group_link
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@HealthyGutGirl
- Other: Healthy Gut Girl’s Mighty Network , Ona’s Natural https://us.onasnatural.com/