Who is MaryRuth and How Was MaryRuth’s Created?
MaryRuth Ghiyam founded MaryRuth’s in 2014 with her mother, Colleen.
MaryRuth’s was created to help others reach their goals and achieve their dreams by being empowered to take their health and wellness into their own hands.
Let’s dive a bit deeper into MaryRuth’s brand story with MaryRuth herself!
Did you have any mentors on your journey?
I had many, many mentors on my journey. They are all cumulatively very powerful, and I learned a little bit from each person along the way.
I went to college at Fairfield University in Connecticut as a Sociology major and graduated in 2006. Afterwards, I worked and lived in Manhattan for more than 10 years. I think being in New York City, being in what I consider the capital of the world where everyone is always working hard and it’s survival of the fittest, you just get exposed to so many people who have radical thinking in an amazing and mind-blowing way.
I remember some other places that were really helpful. I lived at Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida for over 3 months, where I became a certified health educator and nutritional consultant. Although I don’t fully believe in their philosophy of raw food lifestyle, I learned so much there about digestive enzymes, chlorophyll, wheatgrass and the digestive tract and the body.
Another place I went to many, many times was Canyon Ranch in Arizona. Someone who really made an impact on me was Dr. Mark Hyman. After my brother died we went to Dr. Mark Hyman — he was my actual doctor — and he is the most amazing functional medicine doctor. He is an amazing man and a New York Times best selling author thirteen times! He really goes back to basics and is an inspiration.
I had a lot of naturopaths and functional medicine doctors when I would go to different clinics in New York City for my Lyme Disease or when I was having trouble getting pregnant, and I was exposed to many people who all had an impact on me, even if I met them only once.
The universal truth I learned from people who are older than me in health and wellness — and this is really important — is how you can tell when someone really knows a lot in their field or niche. It’s because when you ask them a question about health or diet or exercise or nutrition, they say, “well it depends.”
If their answer is too rigid or strict such as you must be paleo, you must be keto, or vegan or gluten-free, I reject that. I don’t believe it’s a universal truth. That’s what I look for in a mentor, fluidity and saying, “tell me a little bit about yourself.”
When people would come into my office in NYC, I would ask them to tell me about themselves. Do you want to lose weight? Have more energy? Overcome any health challenges? What do you like to eat? Once you ask these kinds of questions, then it is a paradigm you can work around. Just like when someone comes to us in a direct message asking what they should buy from our many options of products. We ask questions such as “how are you,” “what is your blood work like,” and “what ailments do you have?” This is something important to keep in mind.
As MaryRuth’s continues to grow, what is something you hold onto as the most important reason for why we do what we do?
This question is very easy for me, very simple, and very short.
I do this because of everything I went through with my 17-year-old brother, Daniel, passing away suddenly and my 42-year-old father, Richard, passing away so suddenly, and then it just being my mom Colleen and I, and then her having her two brain tumors, being paralyzed on one part of her body, and learning to walk again. I then had 7 years of crippling financial debt and a total of 3 miscarriages while working and now having a special needs child.
Just having a lot of very intense things happen in a short amount of time — I know that what we do is give people tools, meaning vitamins and supplements, to help them overcome challenging times in their life and then to move forward and have self-awareness with what makes them happy. I want people to achieve the things that are important to them — and everyone has different things that are important to them — to bring them happiness. I feel we offer tools to help people have more energy and support their health, and that will directly correlate to their quality of life.
So it’s a connection between the micro and macro, watching my own family and seeing what happens when you don’t have health and people are passing away, versus when you are taking supplements that support the immune system, there is no doubt that I feel we are helping so many people every single day.
What do you hope that MaryRuth’s provides to people?
This is 100% the concept of move forward every day. This is the whole goal of our brand story, our health education, all the content we share, every time our customer care team answers a question, or any time anyone reads a brochure, ad, or direct message or sees a video.
I hope that they, more and more, gradually over time, just associate our brand, our content, and our vitamins, with the vehicle or tool to help them move forward. Both in a physical way through actual products and in a quantum physics, quantum field, and energy field way, that they think of us with the strength and the will to move forward.
I want them to think of us or see our logo and say, ‘you know what, no one small action should ever be taken for granted.’ I want them to know that every single thing they do cumulatively, gradually, over the course of 365 days a year, year upon year upon year, matters. When they think of us, I hope they have the internal strength to move forward.
And it’s a beautiful concept: being present but moving forward.