We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kristy Green a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kristy, appreciate you joining us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?

I worked at a high-end resort on Lido Key in Sarasota for a while at the front desk, and that position was extremely difficult and taxing on me mentally, but I learned so many valuable lessons within the chaos.

I can officially say that I know how to handle any and every type of person and situation after holding that job. It taught me how to speak clearly, listen carefully, pause before responding, and how to hold eye contact with someone without feeling uncomfortable. Once I was confident in myself and the knowledge that I had in working that position, I felt as though I was invincible. Taking those experiences with me into my own business has really helped me form trustworthy and respectful relationships with my customers.

When you are confident in what you do, what you sell, and who you are as a person, this really makes things flow in a more graceful way and people will rarely bark at you for anything if they respect who you are and what you’re doing. The respect and understanding has to go both ways though, and those are the biggest lessons my prior job taught me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I have always been a very creative person. I grew up loving music, animals, and nature. When I was in my early 20’s I started living a more natural and holistic lifestyle, and once my first child was born, I really started diving into holistic medicine/plant medicine, and anything natural that could possibly take the place of something over the counter. I have always had the mindset that there is more than one way to do something and not every shoe fits every foot.

For my family, I personally liked the direction of holistic medicine and when 2020 happened, I thought, what better time than now to get this knowledge and prepare for the worst. Just in case!

So, I signed up for an herbalist course in Wesley Chapel, FL with a lovely woman named Rose Kalajian and I studied under her for a whole year, apprenticing and learning everything I could about becoming an herbalist and what plant medicine really meant. It was a lot of homework and a lot of energy for someone who had a baby at home, while running my silversmithing business, Mystik Sister Silver, but I somehow graduated and was able to start my new business, Mystik Green Apothecary, LLC.

The journey to opening this new business and getting it off of the ground meant many sacrifices; one of those being no more silversmithing. I turned all of my attention and energy towards my apothecary and quickly got it up and running all while dealing with so many personal issues.

I think for me, the biggest thing is through all of the trials and tribulations, there is no quitting, no matter what. You can take a break and rest, but you cannot stop, and you definitely can’t give up when it gets too hard.

Once I got over quite a few hurdles, I had multiple products, my social media was doing well, and my website was booming, just in time for the holidays. I had decided that I really liked going in the direction of “Women’s Health” for most of my products.

I came up with recipes and products for menstrual cramps, candida issues, UTI’s, postpartum depression, PMS, and issues women face during menopause, such as lack of libido.

Seeing these products WORK for women and making their life easier was a game changer for me. There is no way to really describe how it feels to relieve someone of what they’re going through with a recipe that you came up with. And these recipes are made with so much love and intention, and I think my customers see that and feel that when they take these tinctures.

That’s why it’s called “intentional plant medicine.” There are pure intentions of healing that go into the herbs from my heart and my hands; and that energy moves through the medicine and into the person who takes it.

I truly just want to help people and give them a different approach to healing whatever it may be that’s going on in their bodies or their minds. And as my slogan says. “I believe in the power of plants.”

I think I am most proud of myself as a whole for going through so much personal pain and suffering while getting this business off of the ground and seeing how it really takes a lot to slow me down and knock me off of my feet. I never gave up on myself and I never quit even during the nights when I thought “what the heck am I even doing?!”

I’m also proud of the branding that my friend Verocoya helped me with. She did my logo and she does all of my artwork/branding and it’s the energy behind the products; earthy, calming, and unique. I get so many compliments on the branding when I do markets, and it really makes me feel good.

I think what sets me apart from others is just who I am as a whole. I have always been 100% transparent with my customers and it makes me vulnerable, but to my customers, they see me for me and that I’m a real person, not just a face behind a business.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I think the best source of new clients come after I do a local market. This is one of those things that isn’t for everyone, but I love interacting with people and getting to know them in person verses behind a message box on Instagram. When you get to exchange energy and see the person behind the brand face to face, there’s a new sort of trust that comes from those customers, especially when dealing with plant medicine. They get to meet me and see that I truly care about helping them, and I’m not just trying to push my products on them.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Technically, this was my side hustle and silversmithing was my main source of income while I was studying to become an herbalist. But after I graduated, I had to put all of my energy towards this business to really get it going and looking professional; that’s when it became my full-time job.

Now that a year has passed and everything is more organized and in place, I was able to start silversmithing again as well as doing this. So now I do both full-time and have quite a bit on my plate, but I love what I do and have never been happier.

Contact Info:

• Website: mystikgreenapothecary.com
• Instagram: mystik.green
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mystikgreenapothecary/

Image Credits
The more professional looking pictures were done by Kay Pots (Instagram @kaypots)