Ep. 78 - Everything Is Figureoutable: Joy, Money, and Natural Mosquito Repellent with Inez Adams of Heiress Oils

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

What happens when financial obsession leaves no room for joy — and a mosquito problem becomes the spark for a natural wellness brand? In this episode, Dr. Kristian Edwards sits down with Inez Adams, founder of Heiress Oils, for an honest, wide-ranging conversation about happiness, healing, and building something from scratch. Inez opens up about losing her mother, spending years in financial catch-up mode, and forgetting how to have fun — and how she's reclaiming her joy one intentional experience at a time. From smart money lessons to the science of Reiki, guided meditation to natural mosquito repellent born from necessity, this episode is full of wisdom, warmth, and a few unexpected turns that make it one you won't want to miss.

CALLOUT QUOTES

From Inez Adams:

"I met my goals, but I felt like I forgot how to have fun."

"Everything is figureoutable. I just jumped in the deep end of the pool."

"Sometimes life feels, if not hard, it just feels heavy — like going through the motions. And Reiki just makes the motions easier."

"If I had been saving 10 percent of everything I ever received my whole life, that would have been huge — and it would have gotten me into the habit. That's it."

From Dr. Kristian Edwards:

"God puts us in a position to get the information we need to have the happy life we're supposed to have — without us doing any work for it. It just happens."

"A credit card is not money. If you're borrowing something from someone that you're going to pay back more than what you took, you literally cannot afford it."

"Toxins exist in a lot of places — in products, in food, in thoughts, in negative self-beliefs. Black and Green is helping people remove toxins from all of those places."

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Happiness is something you have to be intentional about reclaiming. After years of financial hustle and grief, Inez made happiness her word of the year — scheduling joy and making appointments with it on purpose.
2. Start saving early, even in small amounts. The habit matters more than the dollar amount. Saving 10% of everything you ever received, starting in childhood, builds both wealth and a lifelong mindset around money.
3. Debt is one of the biggest financial traps. Understanding the difference between good debt (a mortgage) and bad debt (credit cards) is essential — and recognizing that borrowing money costs you double is a mindset shift that changes everything.
4. Reiki is energy work, not quackery — but it requires an open mind. Inez describes it as clearing and rebalancing your energy field. The results aren't always euphoric in the moment, but she's found it makes life feel lighter and more manageable.
5. Your meditation practice should fit you, not a mold. Guided meditation, transcendental meditation, movement-based meditation — there's no wrong answer. The goal is to quiet the external noise so you can hear your own intuition.
6. Natural mosquito repellent is a clean beauty necessity. Putting chemical-based DEET on your skin twice a day from May through October adds significant toxic load. Heiress Oils was born from Inez's refusal to compromise — and it turned out to also heal existing bites, which she discovered by accident.
7. Your thoughts drive your reality. Whether it's building a business or getting out of debt, believing something is figureoutable is what makes it figureoutable.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• Inez's word of the year: happiness — and why she made an appointment to go to a University of Maryland basketball game for the first time in decades
• The emotional backstory: an only child, single, no kids, who feared that when her mother passed, no one would be left who loved her unconditionally — and how that fear fueled her financial obsession
• The older woman at the phone company who silently signed Inez up for a 401k without asking — and how that one act changed her financial trajectory
• Inez's work as a qualitative researcher shadowing investors at a financial firm — watching real people invest in real time and realizing "I can do that"
• Dr. Edwards's breakdown of good debt versus bad debt, and why a credit card is not money
• The discovery of Reiki — how Inez became a Reiki master, and her vivid description of what it feels like to receive a session for the first time
• A conversation about the relationship between the inner self and the external world, and how to choose peace regardless of what's happening around you
• Dr. Edwards's honest share about growing her meditation practice — from thinking she couldn't meditate at all, to discovering guided meditation and movement were her entry points
• Inez's transcendental meditation practice and why focusing on a mantra gave her overactive brain the rest it needed
• The vineyard metaphor: roses planted around wine vines act as early warning systems for whatever threatens the crop — and how Inez sees Black people in America as those roses
• The birth of Heiress Oils: two cold-weather dogs, mosquito happy hour, an aromatherapy background, and a refusal to put chemicals on her skin twice a day
• The accidental discovery that the repellent also heals existing bites — confirmed by multiple customers independently
• Future product ideas: a facial oil targeting melasma, and an aromatherapy-based sleep blend using lavender and jasmine