Hi everyone, I'm Hilary Kerr and this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who

have truly inspiring careers.

We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of setting

aside their doubts or fears and what happens when they embark on their second life.

Today, I am so thrilled to have Erica Gide Cohen, the co-founder and CEO of Lume, which is a

Los Angeles-based, empowered education and wellness center that focuses on everything from periods

to parenting. She wants people to truly understand their bodies in a very feminist,

inclusive, sex-positive, fact-based way, and I think she's well on her way to making that happen.

She's also the author of Nurture, a modern guy to pregnancy, birth, early motherhood,

and trusting yourself in your body, and she just launched a five-part online birth course that

draws directly from her book. So even if you're not Nalle or you don't like books, you can still

benefit from her incredible wisdom. But of course, you know that since this is Second Life,

Erica wasn't always planning on being an entrepreneur in this space. After starting her career with a

distant and culinary school, she became a birth and postpartum doula before making a real leap

and founding her business, Lume, in 2016. Moving from essentially a freelance position to running a

company that offers community classes and individual coaching on every stage of the sex and reproductive

spectrum is a huge leap and she's here to tell us all about it. Now, on Second Life, it's Erica Gide Cohen.

So Erica, on this podcast, we like to start at the beginning. What did you study in school and

what did you think you were going to be when you grew up? My family, well my father and I

and my younger brother immigrated to South Africa, and I completed middle school and high school

there, and so I went to an all-girls-aglican school. So I think I had a pretty, you know, predictable

high school education. The main difference was that they had home economics. Really?

...