Inspiring founders: Naomi Hirabayashi & Marah Lidey

Naomi Hirabayashi and Marah Lidey created Shine with an acute awareness that while we’re all different, the need for self-care is universal. We caught up with the co-founders and CEOs about creating a truly inclusive mental health app, being women in leadership, and more.

Naomi Hirabayashi & Marah Lidey: We started Shine because we didn’t see ourselves – a Black woman and a half-Japanese woman – and our experiences represented in mainstream “wellness.” Our bodies, our skin color, our financial access, our past traumas – it all often felt otherized. At Shine, we’re on a mission to make taking care of your mental health easier, more representative, and more accessible.

As first-time founders and women of color, we’re setting a new example of what leadership structures can look like. Often people struggle to see themselves in the traditional versions of leadership. We want more women, people of color, and anyone from a marginalized community to see successful examples of leadership rooted in inclusion, collaboration, and compassion.

Remember, you're building a new version of leadership. Early on in our careers, there was a lot of pressure to conform to a certain "type." A certain type of employee, a certain type of manager, a certain type of leader. And all of those personas were rooted in outdated, toxic male systems. We would tell our younger selves to keep honoring a new model we're trying to develop.

We recommend starting the day with the Daily Shine. It’s a new, fresh meditation in the Shine app every weekday that’s relevant to what’s happening in the world and designed to help you create a daily self-care ritual. After you listen, reflect on your mood with a Check-in or share how you're putting the day’s Daily Shine theme into practice in the Daily Discussion.