Alex Ikonn - How To Make Money $$$

Full transcript: Alex Ikonn on London Real

11:55 Welcome to London Real. Yeah, thank you. Great to be here. You know, you do a lot of videos, you know, you make us look bad with the number of videos you do on YouTube and you talk straight to camera and I was watching someone and one of them really hit me and it was one that you said you talked about how to make money and you said a few things like right away and that really hit me and I think people would be interested in the first thing you said was no one cares if you make money and then you went on to say to stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about others which is probably the advice that people would least likely expect when it comes to how to make money and I was wondering for people that don’t know you if you could just summarize what you were talking about in that video because it was good.

12:35 Well, yeah, I guess sometimes I make videos and I myself like forget. So I’ll try to remember, but usually because when I do them, it’s usually in a superb moment I’m in the flow. I’m like, you know, I just want to talk about this. Okay. And I think what happened was so many people, you know, on my channel or they’ll message me, they’ll ask me a lot of times like, Alex, you know, I want to make money.

12:55 I’m young. I’m starting out. How do I do it? And just in my own experience, what I found out because I come from, you know, a background a poor background, I didn’t have money, I grew up wanting to make money. So I always ask that question myself, like, so how do I make money, how can I make money?

13:12 And when I look back now and I’m in this really great financial position, I’m like, okay, how did I do that? So in that video, I kind of just kind of thought, you know what, when I started making money is when I stopped thinking about myself and I started thinking, okay, how can I deliver value to this world? What can I do for other people? Because no one’s gonna, like I said in that video, no one cares about you trying to make money. Right.

13:38 No one cares about your selfish interests. Yeah, but when you’re thinking, okay, how do I make money? You’re thinking of yourself. You’re thinking, how do I make money? But that’s not a really good question to ask, because a really good question to ask is, how do I make money?

13:52 Well, you make money by, people will give you money if you give them some sort of value. And the way I see really money like the currency, I see it as like the bill itself, is like to transfer a value, right? So that’s how I really see it. So if I deliver value to other people in some way, I will make money. So the way I see it is the people who make the most money are the people who deliver the most value into this world.

14:19 And some people say, well, you know, there’s some people that, you know, do bad stuff and they’re still making money. Well, they’re still delivering value to this world. So if you’re ruining the rainforest and whatever, you’re still given value, let’s say, to Ikea who’s using those trees or the resources or whatever it may be, right? So someone’s going to get value from that and that’s how they’re making money. And you mentioned like Apple, for example, and you were saying how the reason that they’re so valuable is because they go out of their way to predict all of your issues and to deliver you this wonderful, gooey device where all of your problems are figured out before you even think of them, right?

14:55 You could say Google does the same thing. Yeah, I think any, like, I think really, if you just study, like, and that’s what I love to do, I love to study success, right? And if you look at anybody who’s doing well, you will see them really trying to deliver value as much as possible to their customers. So you just like to mention Apple, right? Apple is always trying to think, you know, how can we really enhance the experience of the customer from opening the box to turning it on, to it just being there and being beautiful, right?

15:24 But they’re looking at the whole experience and they’re not thinking how do we make more money and maximize, they’re thinking how can we make this experience better? So even in our own business or any business I’m involved in, I always try to think of how can we make this better for the customer and the experience, right? And not how can we make more money. Right, yeah, I’m listening to this book called In the Plex which is like all the creation of Google and it’s fascinating to listen to but in the beginning, like that’s what they wanted.

15:51 They’re like, we’re gonna do a better search and it’s got to be better and better and better and we don’t care about making the money or doing anything else. We just want to provide people the best search. If they leave the platform, we don’t care. And it was like, that’s what spurned the billions and billions after that. And it’s always, it’s interesting to think.

16:06 I mean, I guess you didn’t always think that way. No, no, like I said, starting out, I’m like, I want to make money. Like, you know, like, I need it. How do I get a hold of it? And it was very kind of money driven.

16:19 But then when you’re really into mindset thing, when you really change your mindset in terms of how can I deliver value to people? How can I help people? And that’s what I see now, I tell anybody now that that’s your focus, switch your focus into that. Now that’s when magic happens. Like that’s, you were talking quickly before we started this interview about that book Give and Take and Givers and Takers.

16:40 Well, you know, I like to give. I think if you give a lot of value and that’s how we build our business entirely, that’s how you get, you get by giving. And it’s pretty crazy. counterintuitive. I want to get into the creation of the business but a couple more things that you talked about on your videos first. You talked about something that you and Mimi do which is gratefulness walks. I’ve heard of the gratitude journal I think Tim Ferriss mentioned that when he was here but what is a gratitude walk and is it true that you used to do them before you had things to be grateful for or were you grateful for things you didn’t have at the time? Yeah well you just mentioned Tim as well like mentioned the gratitude thing. I don’t know if you also know I have the five-minute journal and the whole thing. Yes, this is another company you have. I want to hear about that. Yeah, we’ll talk about that too but yeah Tim uses that so that’s super awesome. I’m really grateful for him to do that but that’s kind of really what inspired the five-minute journal as well but before that is before we we had money and when Mimi and I when I got you know after I got fired from the bank and we’re just kind of unemployed, or as I call it, business development stage, and you have no money, no.

17:50 But you’re like, I want to be an entrepreneur, how can I get there, I want to have money, I want to have this lifestyle, I want to live the four-hour work week. Right. You had read that, obviously. Of course. That was a huge inspiration.

18:00 So then Mimi and I, Tony Robbins was kind of one of the first people that was really inspirational in terms of, you know, you really can change and live a different life by itself, you know, and it’s really by your mindset. He talks about this thing about like the power, I think power hour in the morning or something like that where your first hour in the morning should really be inspiring and one of those things you should do is you should go out and get active and go for a gratefulness walk. So gratefulness walk, so Mimi and I, my wife, you can do it alone, we used to go out in the mornings and go out and just say things we’re grateful for but also add in things that we didn’t have that we’re grateful for as well.

18:38 So we would say we’re really grateful that we have this really successful business, that we child the world, that we’re financially successful, all that stuff, even the car we have, because we wanted a certain car. And- Did you ever do anything really crazy? Like, I’m grateful for my Oscar. Or- No. And are you guys telling this to each other?

18:59 Like, one person goes, the other person goes? Yeah, kind of like, we’re just kind of like having conversation, but we’re still talking. It’s a little weird, you know, you feel shy sometimes, you’re walking, there’s people walking by, you know, you quiet down sometimes when there’s people walking. But Mimi’s kind of, my wife, she’s kind of ruthless, she doesn’t care, she just says it. And it was the funniest thing from that, like one of the best stories is we used to do it and Mimi’s dad calls like midway through one of these walks and he calls and he’s like, what are you guys doing?

19:27 Like, oh, dad, we’re just out for a gratefulness walk. He’s like, what? Gratefulness walk? He’s like, you guys need to get a job. Stop, stop, stop doing these gratefulness walks.

19:36 They don’t work, right? And now looking back, you know what I mean? We’ve been, we kind of really say a lot of times, you know, that kind of still, those kind of activities really give us the mindset to still go after the things. I really call them kind of, you know, kind of mind anchors. You’re just telling your mind to what to focus on and that’s it and then you then still have to take the action.

20:02 It’s not like the secret and things are going to appear, right? You’re just kind of anchoring and putting a new tune into your mind and guidance kind of missile, and then you take the action, and then just when you’re taking actions, you know what you need to focus on. Why do you think that gratitude is so important? My mom just saw me recently, she came through to town and she said, there is no happiness without gratitude. And she’s like point blank, and I was thinking about that, and I’m like, geez, you might be right.

20:28 You need to have some gratitude to appreciate anything in your life. But why is it not just a goal, because all the Robbins guys are like, set your goals, But there’s a difference between gratitude and a goal. Why is it that the gratitude is like the enabler, do you think? I think, you know, it just, I can only say this from my own personal experience. And a lot of times we don’t, as people, we’re always like, once again, going back to the initial thing you asked me for, we’re always thinking a lot of times, how can we get?

20:56 Right? But we forget to what we actually have. And a lot of times we have a lot. And before we can get, we have to kind of just look at and be grateful for what we have. And also being grateful for things that we don’t have yet, but we’re going to have in our lives.

21:16 You’re kind of like almost tricking your mind. But at the same time, I think just for happiness overall, it’s, that’s what, like you said, your mom said, right? It’s like, it’s what happiness is all about. It’s like having an understanding. You can be the richest, the healthiest, whatever person in the world, but if you don’t see that and I’m sure you’ve met so many people who are really successful right or you know and maybe financially or they may be really successful in terms of the friends that they have and everything but if they don’t see that they’re not if they don’t have the gratitude for what they have then it’s empty then they don’t have it so that’s why it’s so important to practice it and kind of enable it yeah no it’s so true I mean you think about all the famous people over the years Sinatra apparently was famous for just Not being very happy, you know out of all the success and all these trappings But you know, he was always a little had a little angst in him, you know And I listened to an audio interview with Robin Williams recently You know before he died and it was four years ago and it was with Mark Marin and Mark said, you know You got an Oscar, you know, that should make you the happy the rest of your life And he said the Oscar lasted two weeks, you know, and then he was you know, then it didn’t mean much anymore Yeah, so it’s it’s tricky, you know people always there’s anything people always think successful people have no problems

22:27 Everybody has problems. Yeah, we’ll get to another one of your videos where you talk about hanging out with successful people but let’s talk about your business really quick because I think it draws people to you. Obviously, people ask you a lot of questions about your business even though you’re not your business. It’s a line from Fight Club. You’re not your khakis.

22:44 But you know, you grew this business I think four years ago, I think you saw a problem in the market and you went after it. It almost sounds too good to be true, almost too simple. But I’m going to read a quote that I think is from you and tell me if this is right. You said, quote, when it comes to video and content marketing, focus on creating content that has independent value and lacks a direct sales pitch. This will help you build an audience position, positioning you as an authority and ultimately sell your products in an under the radar way.

23:11 Is that accurate? And is that what your business is about or not? I guess in a way, like anything, you recall something, you said like, did I really say that? Yeah, plus print. You never know what print.

23:24 Yeah. That’s why shows like this are better because you can’t be paralyzed. But I guess quickly, kind of to summarize the business, the business started, like I said, about four and a half years ago, and we found it with my wife and her sister at the time. And we’re just both in a position. Me and my wife, we’re about to get married.

23:39 I proposed to her a year before when I didn’t have a job. Now, a year later, I still don’t have a job. She doesn’t have a job. We’re unemployed, but we’re gonna get married, and she needed hair extensions for the wedding. And I didn’t know what hair extensions were, so that’s the product we sell now.

23:55 But I’m like, and then she was just in the room, she was just disappointed with the product that she bought from the mall. And I was just in the room, kind of on my phone, kind of just wasting time thinking, how can I be an entrepreneur? And then she was just really frustrated. And then I was like, what’s the problem? And she’s like, you know, I bought these hair extensions and they suck, and I spend money and I can’t return it because once you open it and wear it, you can’t.

24:19 So it sucks, I just blew like whatever, hundreds of dollars. Right, women spend a lot of money on beauty. Yeah, and that’s the best, like the women market is just, I can be most of my life in just women beauty products. I think it’s a great business to be in. So, but there, I think, and that’s to anybody though, even starting out, if you watch any entrepreneurs, it’s, that was the perfect moment.

24:43 Because at that moment when I’m just sitting, I’m like, okay, and just read the for our work, or you could write before, I’m like, okay, how can I have my muse, or the business that will create this kind of lifestyle. I was observant enough, because once again, my mind was already focused. My mind was already focusing on, okay, I need a business, I wanna be an entrepreneur. What’s the product? Because that’s a lot of the problem.

25:06 Then I was just observant enough to see, hey, she’s not satisfied, there’s a problem. That means there’s a market opportunity to make her happy. Once again, to deliver value to her. So I started asking, I’m like, what are hair extensions? So all these things we put, when we put in there hair, I’m like, why would you need that?

25:23 You already have. Why would you do that? You already have hair. Right? It’s like, well, it’s making it more beautiful, it’s for a special day.

25:31 I’m like, all right, great. I’m like, so how much are they? And she showed me the price, and I quickly went on Alibaba and looked at how much they actually cost and went through some manufacturing. I was like, oh, wow. You know, salon sell these for $300 to $500.

25:45 What if we just cut out the middleman and we just go pretty much wholesale direct to the consumer and be the last middleman online and kind of sell it directly to the customer and really provide amazing customer service, photos and everything or whatever, have that vision of providing like an Apple experience. Right. And- Is anyone selling them online at the time? Yeah. So at the time, that was another thing, right?

26:08 There’s nobody in the catering to the US market. So at that moment, right, there was, I believe, two companies in the UK, because hair extensions are huge in the UK so there are two companies in the UK but think about it so you’d have to and especially when you’re from US right people in US is the biggest market and in the US especially then nobody wants to order internationally nobody knows what customs and duties are in the US you know people in Europe are used to like especially that time for four or five years ago to be used to paying you know customs or duties when you order stuff and waiting like 3-4 weeks, but in the US, no one’s going to wait more than 5 days. So what we really saw was kind of there was nobody really feeling that demand inside the market and have the ability to deliver a product within 3-5 days without custom fees and all that.

27:01 And because I had a small standard of experience, kind of with my friend before, I knew how to kind of create that model. Had you gone down this rabbit hole before? Have you seen other ideas like around the house or with friends where you were like I can do this or was this just the first pitch and the first hit for you kind of seeing a flaw in the market and thinking I can capitalize on it? Because that’s it, you have to be fairly confident to do that, right?

27:29 I guess so, and we really like, we’re kind of the, those entrepreneur stories where we had nothing and we just had like credit cards and line of credits and then my mom’s line of credit and we just put up all the money that we didn’t have but had access to. You couldn’t make the story any better. Yeah, seriously. And it was like about, I think we had to scramble around $20,000 to $30,000 to start. And it was your own credit card debt and your mom’s line of credit.

27:56 Yeah, it was Mimi’s line of credit. It was my line of credit. And we also, this is the funniest. In Canada or in the US, I don’t know if in the UK they have this, sometimes you’ll get letters your credit card saying like hey here’s this you can use this these interest free checks for six months and don’t pay any interest to transfer your balances whatever so I’m no kidding we got one of these checks it was like it was like six months interest free and I’m like and I had to access I believe to like ten thousand dollars on my credit card and I’m like sweet I’m like we have six months to make money. So their marketing worked on you. It worked but we used that but it was it was a really kind of great initiative to like okay we have six months to make money to pay them back. Yeah so six months later you were you were making money. No we’re profitable really fast so the idea came you know March we built the whole business kind of from idea to initiation in three months and pretty much we’re profitable in like two months after launch and well we already already because what I did before was my smallest one before was like kind of kind of a social media consultant in 2008 2009 when things were just starting out and so I really believe in the power of YouTube of blogging of just these emerging tools coming out there will enable you know people to really use it and kind of market your business or market yourself where it may be and really

29:32 Amplify it all around the world. So right away I said, okay, you two girls, so Mimi and her sister, I’m like, you’re going to start videos doing videos right away, do them weekly and just do hair tutorials, just provide people value. All right. So YouTube was part of your marketing strategy from day one. Yes.

29:47 Had you uploaded videos before? Have you had experience with it? No. But you were using it. You were watching it.

29:52 It was still early days. Wow. Yeah, it was it was you know at that time in the beauty space people would say wherever you like, you know It’s already late. There’s so many there’s an already like Michelle fawn She would already have like a million subscribers by then and and the beauty space was coming I never listened to anyone telling you it’s too late Because I thought it was too late, you know in the podcasting and that was three years ago, you know, you’re never too late I don’t know. It’s just a reason to not try right exactly. It’s just an excuse so but it was just a huge opportunity so right away we jumped in and YouTube like you said was the biggest we knew I knew that you know even now you know that YouTube is just a powerhouse it just that’s where people are going to and that’s where people are finding products because the way Mimi showed me kind of told me about the products I’m like what are hair extensions she then went to YouTube right and she showed me videos of girls and their reactions kind of using the product and I was like that’s what hooked me I was like right I’m like wow because you get to see their happiness yes yes because through video you know you get to really feel a genuine reaction like we’re talking about you know the show’s called London Real and you were talking about real reactions how people were really glued onto real reactions and when people are genuine and they’re

31:15 Real people feel it because video is the closest thing to being really like in real life and we can really feel each other’s emotions through the video so I knew that it’s such a great medium to really be able to kind of just get in the way to kind of talk about your product and introduce people but not really pitching the product which is a whole a different thing well that’s the other thing I mean was that a choice you made consciously in the beginning like not to overtly pitch because I think even the American way is the overt pitch the It has to have a big sell there at the end and very few companies don’t do that You know the good ones do but is that something you decided early on? Yeah, that’s not an obvious decision at all I think I think it kind of is because I think when we started the business and I Really recommend this to anybody really starting out you want to start something that you want to see in the world and at that moment You know, like I said, I worked in the bank before retail level So meaning, you know, I was a kind of my what Mimi was a teller and I was kind of like an account manager, which is like, you know, you sell credit cards and mortgages and stuff like that.

32:21 So, think about it, daily, we were kind of forced, that’s our job, right, to try to pitch people. You know, my manager would come in and here’s a list, cold call these people, right, sell them on this new offer we have. And I always felt like wrong doing it, and I just sucked at selling myself. So, when we kind of started doing what we were doing in our whole strategy of kind of not selling, I’m like, I don’t believe in selling that way. I believe that you could sell by actually building a relationship.

32:52 I believe you could sell by actually giving people value because what I saw even in the bank or even just a previous life, like what I enjoy doing at the bank is, so my manager would be like, Alex, why are you spending two hours with this lady, right? And just talking to her in your office? I’m like, because I’m just having conversations, I’m just building a relationship. So to the bank at that time, that didn’t seem like I’m doing anything worthwhile. I’m just kind of wasting time just chatting, right?

33:20 But in the end, she comes two months later and has a million dollars and who does she want to deal with? She wants to give that money to Alex, you know, to invest in whatever because she trusts me and we built a relationship together. And that’s what I really believe in. I really believe in relationships. I really believe in long-term thinking and I really believe kind of, like we said, really delivering people value.

33:42 Okay, so your videos in the beginning were just educational. This is how to make your hair. This is how to do this. With using your products in the videos or not even necessarily doing that? So in the beginning when we started, we already started working on the product.

33:55 So meaning we had to source the product, package it, put the website together, everything. But we didn’t have the product. So by already told kind of Mimi and Leila, already start building out, kind of building your audience and start kind of making the channel. So make videos every week. So they would do it and then just do useful stuff, right?

34:14 So, and also just thinking back of specialization, we were just gonna focus on making hair tutorials. Okay. And anything hair related. Okay. Because at that time, there were so many people, you know, doing everything online, like, so many things, they’re talking about their cat, they’re making breakfast, and they’re doing mascara or whatever.

34:31 Okay, so pick a sub-vertical or whatever. You have to really focus and be known for something, right, because it’ll really allow you to grow, like, okay, these guys are hair related, So anything I need to do with my hair, I’ll come to them. And then later when we introduce a product, that’s also related to what we’re talking about. It’s just seamless. It’s easy.

34:51 There’s no kind of push. We’re not pushing something that’s way different. I don’t say 10 videos that, say, me, me, or sister would make, how many push the product? Just to get a rough idea. Yeah, so we only introduce the product, let’s say, in three months.

35:08 And they were building the videos and getting them? Yeah, kind of just building up, making videos, and it’ll just be like different hair tutorials without the product, then we introduce the product, then they’ll start using the product and the tutorials. But once again, we never pitched it. So they had to go and find out how to buy it? Yeah, no.

35:25 The only, our only pitch in the entire, even now, right, if you watch the videos, is they’ll use the product. Okay. Right? And they’ll just say, for today’s hair tutorial, I’m using Luxi hair extensions. That’s it, done.

35:38 That’s it. at the very bottom of the YouTube thing, or they have to… Not even in the video, it’ll be in the description. In the notes, okay. So they have to look a little bit.

35:45 Yeah, you have to look a little bit, it’ll just say, okay, if she used this, right? And because I think it’s, in a way, it’s, if you’re, I feel like if the person’s interested and it’s something that they want, they’re gonna go out and buy it themselves, they’re gonna look for it, because then they’re actually looking for it. Because when you’re forced onto something, like people, there’s a great saying, right? People love to buy, they hate being sold to, right?

36:11 So if they really want to buy it, they’ll find it. So and the beauty of video and YouTube once again, you know, it’s very like aspirational marketing in a way. You know, you get to see these girls and you get to see kind of, wow, okay, once they put on the product or once they have the product then, they’re like, you will see like, okay, how come I just did this hairstyle and my braid doesn’t look like her braid? What the hell just happened? What makes her hair better than mine?

36:40 Oh, she used that product. That’s why YouTube in general is so powerful as a tool because I’m telling you anything that’s in our video sells, meaning from the bed that’s in the background to the sheets to you’ll have a picture frame, anything because once again it’s aspirational marketing. What you’re selling really, you’re never selling the product. You’re selling the lifestyle. I guess the greatest examples that I ever saw is one of my friends, Todd Herman, he kind of posted it in one of these groups we’re in.

37:16 You know like Mario, right? You know like the Mario character. But you know when Super Mario gets like big? Yeah, I think so. You know Super Mario?

37:23 Yeah, okay. Mario and then you eat something and you eat like a mushroom. Okay. Thanks for sending me out there, I’m sure. Okay.

37:30 And then you go like, is this Super Mario? Yeah. Right? And then you’re like, you have superpowers, right? So the same thing, so the way my friend taught it was in that picture, he put it, so okay, so the customer is just a regular Mario, right?

37:46 Your product is kind of like that mushroom that will make them be Super Mario, right? But you’re not selling the product. No one cares about the product. Everyone wants to be Super Mario. People want to be better.

37:59 So how’s your product going to make them better, right? So by our kind of even our videos or whatever you do is it just allows people to see, hey I can look like Mimi if I have hair extensions as well. And you don’t, we don’t have to say it to them. They kind of, people just kind of know themselves. They kind of just realize that themselves, hey, she looks like this.

38:22 If I have this, I’ll have the same kind of hair, right? And like you said, we travel and whatever, maybe I’ll have a lifestyle like there as well. Right. Because I mean, so now it’s kind of morphed into whether intentionally or not. Now you guys have your own followings and you have your own personalities that are loosely associated with the brand, but now it’s almost become a lifestyle choice to kind of be like me me and it’s not just hair, it’s like adventures now.

38:45 And so was that just a natural progression of what you guys were doing? Well I guess to anything and just to say like we’re kind of moving away from the business as well. We’re here in London, the business is staying back in Toronto, we’re doing other things, we’re starting new business here in London. So we’re kind of moving away and always growing and evolving and we’re having different interests, right? So with how it evolved, I guess, really, like you said, we really kind of just always doing what we want to do.

39:17 Right, so how do we, we always kind of build like, how do we want our life to be, right? Kind of, I think it’s really, was it Tim Ferriss? That’s that kind of lifestyle design, right? That was this whole thing, right? Yeah, and 4-Hour Workweek was a huge inspiration, right?

39:31 We started our business with the idea of doing the 4-Hour Workweek. That was our muse, that was our business. And we did the 4-Hour Workweek for like two years. And we were kind of miserable, that’s another story, but we did it. And kind of, but it was really about creating that lifestyle, and even now, it’s always kind of creating that life that we want to live that will give us some maximum kind of just experience overall.

39:56 Okay, so it’s a byproduct kind of everything you’ve created and and your own personal brands It just kind of flows along with everything you’re doing. Yeah, I think and I think it’s very seamless We never you know, we don’t have this grand strategy or theory and even from the beginning we never planned on, you know having a large business or Doing what we do now or having large following because we’re really just you know Our goal at the beginning to be honest was to make $1,500 each Like, if we make, if I make $1,500 and Mimi makes $1,000, we make $3,000, we’re happy. On top of your credit card repayments.

40:31 On top of the credit card repayments. After, because at that time, like I said, we’re kind of, you know, young. We are frugal in a way, that’s what, you know, that’s what I guess it teaches you after when you’re unemployed for two years, it teaches you to be frugal. And, you know, we don’t need much. So if you think back over the four years, what were some of the pitfalls and some of the great moments you had?

40:55 You said you didn’t enjoy the four hour work week for a while, why was that? I think this is very important just for anybody listening because I think a lot of people listen to your show, you listen to successful people, and we’re always kind of, even myself, we’re sold as dream, right, and like I said, once again, for me coming from a background where we weren’t rich financially, right? I was wealthy in other ways, right? I was wealthy with and being grateful, right?

41:22 I was wealthy for having an amazing mother and having so much love that she gave me and kind of that self belief that allows me to do everything that I do now. I was wealthy in that area, but I was a very poor financially. And I thought, you know what? Once I make money and have the American dream and have that freedom to travel, to have the time and have the time, right? not only money, but also have the time to enjoy myself and travel, you know, I’ll be the, I won’t have to be done, right?

41:50 Everything will be done. I won’t have problems, right? I’ll be the happiest camper around and I have my wife, it’s beautiful. We have a beautiful relationship. Like what else, what else do you need in life?

42:01 And- Obviously something else. Yes, cause Maslow’s right. You know, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and just overall how it happens. So even some of you, I guess people watching or listening cause even now it may be, it sounds strange, right? It’s like, you must be stupid.

42:17 If I was in your position, I’ll be the happiest guy, right? And what happened was really, it was just kind of, you know, I think three hours after, three months after we started the business, we planned to do the whole four-hour work week. We bought a trip and we said we’re gonna live in the South of France for like a month or something like that. So we went to live in South of France. Then we went to Paris and then we’d do these trips and we’d go to like Costa Rica and surf and be there for a couple of months, and do kind of these whole four-hour work week mini vacation things.

42:49 But, you know, we missed one little formula, one little chapter in the four-hour work week, where I believe it was chapter 15, it was called filling the void. Because once you actually get money, and once you get actually the time, there’s this void that starts creeping in if you don’t fill it with something. So you still have to be, as a human, as humans, I guess, we always have to be evolving and doing something and growing. The moment you just feel like, oh yeah, okay, I’m done, you’re never done.

43:18 Because then you’ll get unhappy and depressed. Because existential crisis will just hit you over the head and it will, especially when you have time and money, you’re not doing anything, you’re not keeping busy. It just, there’s this kind of this thing that we have as humans that keeps us pushing forward and driving forward, right? And one of your videos you said, If you don’t challenge yourself, something will challenge you. Life will challenge you.

43:44 Interesting. That’s what just happened. Kind of, we thought we got to this point of, this is it, but it wasn’t it. And life kind of started turning gray and very depressing and we were kind of depressed for a while, I’ll be honest. Like, I remember, you know, I bought my dream car and I had lots of money in the bank and I thought, this is it.

44:04 And literally, I was like, what’s the point of it all? Right? Because these kind of questions come like, what’s the point of it all? Am I doing this? I’m just a consumer.

44:12 I’m just like, okay, am I going to do this my whole life? That’s got to be fascinating for people to hear. It’s not like, you know, you had, like you said, you had time and money and a really healthy personal relationship. You know, you’re in Costa Rica surfing and you’re unhappy. So it’s, I mean, it’s hard for people to comprehend, but it makes sense when you tell me about it.

44:30 How do you explain it to people? Just the way you did with the, you needed a challenge or you needed to evolve? I think you need to. You needed a higher calling? to once again be a be observant or reevaluate kind of your life kind of look at yourself from a different way but see you know I asked myself a very important question at that time and I was like you know when was the last time I was genuinely happy right because I thought I was happy if I’m gonna be traveling and seeing the world and having adventures whatever but when I asked myself that question you know what I was generally happy when I was just broke and we’re starting the business and we’re having ideas and we’re working like 12, 10, 12, 14 hour days and just putting all of our hearts into making this business come happen.

45:15 Because even before the four hour work week, you have those crazy 12, 10, whatever hour days and weeks of go on and like numbers, hours were just working on stop. But I thought, you know, that challenge, that kind of, of making an idea real, really invigorated me. And also like just like kind of doing something, trying to create something. So I thought, you know, we need to do something that like that. And at the same time, we need to do something with, of course, once again, a value to give people value and a higher calling.

45:48 It’s kind of natural, I guess, in a way. It’s good you identified it though, because a lot of people don’t and a lot of people go the wrong way. Or they keep buying stuff. They’re like, okay, okay, this car I bought, but maybe it’s the wrong car, maybe I need a Bentley, so maybe I need a bigger house, or maybe I need a jet, or this guy has more than me, and you get an mattress, or a better cocaine dealer, or like, you know, and a lot of, yeah. So I didn’t go into that rabbit hole, because, and I was once again really grateful for that, because I think it is kind of that, because we were, I don’t know what happened, but I’m really grateful that we kind of realized quickly that kind of just physical things or monetary things really didn’t kind of do it.

46:31 It’s still, you know. It’s a big realization to have, you know, in your 20s. Yeah. A lot of people don’t know that, especially when you’ve been cashed in on that American dream, which it hits us in so many ways when you’re young. I mean, you moved to Canada when you were 10?

46:43 Yeah, I was 10, yeah, yeah. So, but I mean, like, it’s in the media, it’s in the movies, it’s everything, and it’s like telling you what’s gonna make you happy, subliminally, and even when you’re smart, and on your game and meditating, they’ll still get you. Oh, if you live in the cities, you know, if you live in London, New York, Toronto, whatever, San Francisco, you’re still in the consumer culture, you know, you’re part of it, you’re driven by it. And we, I’m not saying I’m not now, I’m like the smoke and whatever, but I’m, I just, I’m still aware of it. I still enjoy the better things in life, let’s say, but I just, I don’t take them seriously. Okay, how did, so how did you evolve from that point? What, what pushed you forward and what got you reinvigorated after that kind of period.

47:23 Well kind of when I realized I think what really got me reinvigorated, we realized we had this whole virtual lifestyle of working from home, our team was virtual, everything was outsourced and all that stuff. And I’m like, you know what? And I was so against like the 9 to 5 and corporate, anything like that. I’m like, you know what? We actually need to have an office.

47:41 We need to build a team together. We need to create a culture. We need to go to work Monday to Friday. We need to separate. Ah.

47:49 We need to separate. No, I’m sure you’ll agree. We need to separate work and kind of also different life. Yes, it’s all integrated and sold together and trust me, I enjoy all of it, but you need still to have a time to turn off or a time that you go in and you go out because we would have times where, yeah, we start working late, we’ll be staying up to like 3am. We would have just this messed up schedule. But I think as a species, as humans, we still need routines and there’s also like I think different healthy like more healthy biological needs of our bodies to be more of a set routine okay so what we did is that we because we were then on a search then okay how we re kind of get our happiness back so we started doing different things but we definitely and that’s how we actually separated with our partner who which was Mimi sister Because we said, we’re tired of this four-hour work week.

48:47 We had enough. We want to have an office in a city. We want to work. We want to build a team. We want to have regular working hours.

48:55 And she’s like, I want nothing to do with that. I kind of enjoy myself. Right? I’m like, cool. And it was kind of separate, it was buy you out, and we did that.

49:05 But then we kind of just began kind of building out the business, building out the team. But then we moved to London, and the year all changed. Okay, so was moving to London part of that whole mindset change and looking for a place to be home, and a new environment, and a new environment, and is an urban environment important for you? Do you like the density of population? Yes.

49:26 So for us, because what happened is that also we were living in the suburbs of Toronto and in Richmond Hill, and that’s where Mimi is from, and her parents were there. And we just realized, you need to be around people, because what will happen is, as entrepreneurs, And especially as these new breed of online entrepreneurs that exist, you know, you can be making money by yourself online, is oftentimes we’re very secluded and we’re very into our own thing. We interact a lot with computers, but as humans, we still come from tribes, we still come from kind of, that’s in our DNA still.

50:00 That’s our genetics. You can’t, just this kind of last hundreds or whatever, even a couple of decades. Yeah, Skype’s been around for 10 years. It doesn’t match up to our actual human physiology of millions of years of how we’ve evolved. So I realized we need kind of to be in a more urban center where we’re around more people, we’re around more events, where we go in and have a human interaction with people day-to-day and it gives you even a purpose to wake up in the morning and somewhere to go to.

50:30 So that by itself was a huge kind of difference in our lives. Yeah. It’s a corny and it’s funny how some of our heroes like Ferris and Ryan Holiday and even Robert Greene, I mean they sit in their places in Austin or L.A. or in Northern California and they create their books and then release them. But Tim will tell you it’s his most loneliest time when he’s writing a book and now he’s thinking about writing another one and he’s like, I don’t even know if I want to go back and be that guy because it’s so lonely and he’s got to do it all himself.

50:59 I know as humans I think great ideas and we’re in the middle of the tech round about here. on all the time and they tell me it’s getting three guys in a room, you know, in a pub and bouncing the ideas off, that’s where it gets created. It doesn’t happen over email, it doesn’t happen over Skype, it’s like, it’s literally population density that makes things grow, makes you grow as an entrepreneur, people questioning you, new ideas from left field and yeah, I mean, look at the Google workplace, they do it in a way to just maximize the density of people, you know.

51:27 Or like Steve Jobs, right, or Pixar, or how they created that. He had this kind of plan so that people kind of actually meet each other, they bump into each other, so that it creates these moments. And I highly believe in that. All right, so you kind of engineered yourself to do this. You moved to London.

51:46 Yeah, and we moved to London because, once again, we wanted to be… Good choice, by the way. Yeah, great choice. We’re really happy. But what happened, the move to London kind of came, because look, we already, we bought, we settled, because at that time, what we were missing is actually roots, right?

52:02 Because we were, once again, I’m kind of, I wouldn’t say fooled, but for some people at work, but for us, it didn’t work. The whole idea of being a vagabond and traveling and kind of not having a home and stuff like that. I still believe it’s important to have a base and having your roots somewhere and having your kind of people around you. So we kind of really, as we were traveling, we also think, okay, what’s a place where we’d want to have our roots, kind of in the way of, it’s kind of be our home base.

52:30 This means forever, but it needs to be somewhere that we kind of explore from. And from Toronto, we were always complaining about Toronto, and that’s not like a bad city, but it’s- Toronto 8. Yeah, no, but it’s just difficult to travel from, unless you want to be in the U.S. But in the U.S., everything’s very similar. So we were like, okay, we want to be, where’s a good place?

52:52 And London is a great place because it’s so sensual because the Brits, the way they colonize the world and everything like that, they put themselves in the middle, which they’re not, but they put themselves in the center. And the time is zero. It just makes it very convenient for business and just to be able to move around, especially we love Europe and just how close everything is. And plus these people speak English and it’s a very cosmopolitan city, it truly is.

53:19 Okay, have you been successful in setting down roots and kind of getting in an office space and doing that? Or is this still a work in progress? Yeah, no, no. So we were pretty quick. So we have an office space.

53:28 We have already people that work for us here. We have friends, you know? And it’s great. Are you getting that professional feedback that you wanted? Is that, are you finding what you were looking for?

53:38 I think it’s, we’re still constantly searching for it. Right? And plus, cause it’s still our first year. We’re like kids in a candy store. We’re just, that’s why we’re traveling so much.

53:47 And people think, oh, you guys are like, No, it’s so easy when you’re in London to hop on a train to Paris or on a flight to Barcelona because it’s two hours away and it’s like 150 pounds, maybe 100 pounds if you’re lucky or whatever. It’s really cheap and affordable so people think it’s super expensive but it’s not. It’s super convenient. If you’re going from Toronto, it’s going to be an eight-, nine-hour flight. It’s going to cost like $1,000.

54:13 It makes it more difficult. So we were kind of like kissing the candy store for that, but we’re still, I’m still kind of really more interested in getting more of the tech community here, learning more about it, and I thought it was going to be more developed than it is, so it’s still developing. Yeah, no, this is a super exciting time in tech. It’s not like anything two years ago, and I still think it’s very rare right now for the next two years because we don’t have this hierarchy of the PayPal Mafia and these guys that have had exits with IPOs, and so everyone’s kind of at the same level.

54:42 Everyone really wants to help each other. wants to make London one of the big players globally and so like the networking effect is super slick frictionless and I think you know in five years from now they’ll be like I said the people that made the money and they’ll be like the people with the big cars and the big houses that you know Silicon Valley is now but I don’t think it’ll be like it is now so great time for you to be here so you talked about the evolution of you and Mimi what is that evolution what’s next for you guys well that’s why we’re here in London okay to find out yeah so we we kind of made a strategic choice to leave leave LuxiHair, the business, in Toronto. So we’re right now in the midst of even like finding CEO, even for that company.

55:20 So if someone’s listening or watching and kind of believes they can step in those shoes, go ahead, check it out, like our careers, you can apply to be our CEO. Awesome, man, it’s a great model. Yeah, so I’m kind of like, I’m firing myself, which is like, I think it’s needed. And we’re beginning kind of our new chapter here in London. So we’re gonna be starting a new business here, which like you said, Dreamers and Creators is part of it, it’s this agency that we’re starting, but also we’re starting a new business with Mimi that’s going to be also focused on her and what she wants to create, but also kind of to help us with that higher calling in a way that was spurred when it all created, kind of, you know, to help, I guess, in a way make the world a better place in some way.

56:08 Okay, so you’re not telling me, basically. You’re in stealth mode here. I can say, I guess, in a way, it’s more related to fashion. Europe is a big fashion hub, and I believe there are so many opportunities really right now in e-commerce and fashion, and the best place really to be is Europe. Going back to slow fashion, I’ll give you some tips there, slow fashion, Europe, bringing manufacturing back to Europe and artisans and all that stuff.

56:39 Interesting, okay, that’s a cool term. And you’re gonna buy, I guess you can leverage off the brand that Mimi’s built with all of her YouTube videos and social interests. Is that just a natural progression from there? Yeah, it is because, and that’s why I highly recommend anybody, you know? It’s truly anybody.

56:57 It’s like, if you have an interest of some sort, start, you don’t have to have the mindset like, how am I gonna make money off this once again? If you’re passionate about, let’s say, cooking, start making cooking videos, or cooking podcasts, or whatever you, or if you’re passionate about certain things, but it’s a really amazing time right now to create content that delivers value to people and that you build an audience. And then when time comes around that you’ll create a product around it, you can do it.

57:25 So for us right now with Mimi, it’s really effortless to start a different business that is still tied in with her interests. Because people that follow her, they’ll know her for what her interest is. And if we introduce a product that is aligned with that, it’s not like energy drink or something like that. It’s like, you know, Mimi doesn’t drink energy drinks. Right.

57:46 But if it’s actually aligned with what she is as a person, what she values, and I believe it really resonates. So we’re really excited kind of for that next chapter. Yeah, it seems ultimate possibility because they want the Super Mario, they don’t care if it’s the mushroom. No, yeah. No, no, and I agree.

57:59 And one thing I’ll say about both of you guys is that your personalities and your lifestyles when your brand is super genuine. And so I’ve met you both and you’re very cool people. But I mean, online, I’m sure if people hadn’t met you, they’d see some of your videos or her videos and be like, all right, who are these people? But I mean, you guys are, the word is congruent. You guys really are those people.

58:20 And like we were saying in the kitchen, you can’t fake this stuff over time. You just can’t fake it and you can’t fake it in an hour and a half podcast. People get to know who you are. And like you said, YouTube is the closest thing to reality. And when you put sound in there and even fancy editing, people still, they decide whether they like you or not in like about 10 seconds.

58:38 And if you’re providing value and not trying to extract all the time, then people come back for that. Yeah, and that’s what’s kind of like in a way just to kind of comment on that. Although YouTube is great, you know, I was just reading today that a study came out that YouTube out of, I think, most social media networks has the highest conversion rate for selling. And many brands are realizing this and right now there’s a huge, also, conversion of many brands going there and trying to sell and trying to get these even youtubers to push their products so in a way the medium is changing too but what’s starting to happen as well as this big brands are coming with money and they’re there they’re with the same agenda right sell this stuff say our name do whatever right and when that happens people feel it right away they see you they feel it when you’re you’re just selling them and you’re not being congruent with what you’re selling.

59:31 There’s nothing wrong with selling. If you’re selling something that’s congruent to you and you generally believe in it. So even ourselves, if we would send products to people, we’re like, we want you to like the product. Don’t even talk about it if you don’t like the product. There’s no point, right?

59:45 Don’t do it for the money. You have to actually be genuinely interested and excited about the product because we know that’s when it sells. Yeah, and especially, you know, people say the millennials, people like that. I mean, they’re on the look right away for the product placement and all that stuff. So yeah, no, I agree.

59:59 And the funny thing about YouTube videos, as I’ve discovered on London Real, is that they’re gonna be there forever until the global thermonuclear war. And so like even your videos you made four years ago where you’re talking to camera, they might not be as, you know, with the same DSLR, but there’s still value. And like the video we did on ayahuasca three years ago, people still watch it. And they’re probably gonna watch it for a long time. And so it’s kind of fascinating.

1:00:22 I think you’re right, if you provide value and put it out there, then it has real staying power. And I think the most important thing is the way to view kind of, you know, even say if you’re someone’s got to start podcasting and do YouTube videos or whatever, is that it’s really, you’re creating, this is the closest thing you can get to cloning yourself. So you know what I mean? So now we have, let’s say you have a database of more than 250 videos on our channel.

1:00:50 We’ve done the work. Mimi is working 24 seven online, wherever I’m right now speaking 24 seven on YouTube. There’s probably, like, or even people are listening to your podcast, you know, probably any time of the day. Yeah, there’s 85 years of my podcast, so one person can watch it their entire life and not run out. Exactly, but overall, like I’m just saying, there’s, as you create this content, you gotta just think it in a way of like, this content works for you.

1:01:19 You’re planting seeds that will reap benefits. That’s why you have to keep kind of doing it. Just doing, yeah. I want to ask a question about you, you know, it’s funny because like I said, everyone assumes that successful people don’t have problems. And we all know, especially when we meet all these successful people that, you know, they just have as many problems as we do and they just kind of maybe choose to deal with them differently, but they’re still living this life.

1:01:42 And I just wanted to ask you about your upbringing. I mean, you know, you see your videos and you’re jumping on screen and you’re very successful and you have your wife and your business and you’re wearing the pastel colors And they’re like, oh, Jesus, Alex, you know, you came with the silver spoon in your mouth, but that wasn’t really the case, right? You moved from Russia to Canada. Your mom was a single mom for a while, and she was working. She’s always been a single mom.

1:02:07 She was working tough jobs. Were you working in factories when you were a kid? Come on, give us the real story. I think that’s a lot of my friends, you know, they give me kind of slack in a way for like, and even a lot of my good friends, you know, sometimes like, come on, you’re like this perfect guy. this perfect life, you have this business, I just start like this with no work or whatever, and you never have to, like, you never struggled in your life, right?

1:02:30 And people look at our, let’s say, Instagram pictures, like, you’re saying the same thing, and it’s a constant thing, and we choose, of course, to show it like that. But I think, you know, with my life, really, how it can be, like I said, you know, coming from very humble beginnings from Russia, not having parents that are, you know, wealthy or even middle class, we’re like border trying to get to middle class in Russia. Which is why you left, I guess.

1:02:57 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Billie’s kind of scrapped. When my father kind of scrapped by, my mom kind of wanted to move out of the country because her brother really like threatened to like kill her and he was serious and then he went to jail and he’s like, I’m going to kill you when I get out. So she’s like, okay, I need to get out. So she just did whatever to get us out of the country because she was really threatened by her life because, you know, she didn’t have a good childhood either.

1:03:24 And so after she came out, we moved to Canada and… You didn’t speak any English when you got to Canada? No, because like… Where’s your accent? Where’s your accent?

1:03:33 Can you put on a Russian accent if you want? Probably duck. I’ll have to speak Russian. But I think anybody with any immigrants coming to any country, especially from countries where you don’t speak the language, whether you’re coming into the UK or you’re going somewhere else, it’s tough for any couple, especially when you’re in your late 30s or something like that. So I can understand how difficult it was for my parents.

1:03:59 So they divorced a year after they moved and from then on, I was 10, so I was 11 when they divorced. I began living with my mom, and my mom started working in these factories. Because we didn’t have money, I started selling, the job that I could have got was actually selling flowers on the street in parking lots. So you did that? Yeah, I did that.

1:04:22 So it was super awesome. You can talk to my mom now, and she’ll recall, she’s like, Alex was the richest kid in the family. I could always have cash. Because I would go there on the weekend, and it was like, there was this guy. You’d go to him, and he would have a whole set of flowers in the way.

1:04:38 He’ll give you a bucket, and he’ll drop you off in some suburban area that you have no clue where you are, and you have all day to sell this bucket of flowers. And you’re alone. And you’re alone. This is back in the day when the kids were left alone. These days, nobody would be that dumb.

1:04:51 I don’t know if they are, but it was one of the best experiences. I was like 10, 11, and I would do this on weekends. And you were making mad money. No, not mad money. I would make like $30 a day, maybe like $50 on a good day, and on Mother’s Day, it be like the cash cow and you make like tons of money like I remember my biggest day was like $300 and I was like then you’re 11 yeah and I was like my mom recalls like you know I’ll take the whole family to like to go to scene tower in Toronto I’ll pay for them and I’ll have like a basketball and t-shirt so I was like but in my way but my mom was still struggling right but she because I had to do that because she didn’t have money so she’s like okay I’m like, can I have money?

1:05:33 She’s like, no, we don’t have money, so you gotta go out and make money. But honestly, you know, some people might feel like, oh my God, your mother’s so cruel, and she should have been to report to child services and whatever, but I’m so grateful for that struggle of me having to go out and try to make money on my own. Probably if you would see some 10, 11 year old with a bucket of flowers in the parking lot, you’d probably, some raggedy clothing, like, you’d probably feel like this is the worst childhood ever.

1:06:01 But to me, I’m so grateful for that experience because I’m like, wow, that allowed me to become who I am now. So I had to do that throughout my thing and then kind of just struggled. My father passed away after when I was like 17, then my mother, because she remarried, her second husband passed away as well. So my mother had to go through two deaths. Wow, and you did too.

1:06:26 Yeah, so I did as well. And so it was really tough, especially being, I remember 17 was probably my toughest year. I also broke my arm, my arm didn’t move, and I was hanging around the wrong kids, and I was kind of like those, because I was also in the wrong neighborhood, kind of in a way, so I don’t play basketball. That gets you with the wrong kids, I guess. Like kind of, you know, the wrong kids, and used to do like drink and smoke and do all those kinds of things.

1:06:53 So even when people look at my image now, they’ll never be able to tell it. Alex is this nice guy who’s raised properly and whatever, but if you look at my childhood and me having my pants down my ass and wearing baggy clothing and like being with hanging out with like 40, 40 ounces, and like… You got the 40-0? Yeah, 40-0. Old English.

1:07:12 Old English. OE800. If you look at me now, you’re like, that’s no way. That’s you. That’s why I think to anybody, don’t underestimate the potential of people to change.

1:07:27 So even to myself, my wife reminds me all the time, sometimes I look down at homeless people and I’m like, I’ve done it. I kind of came from nothing and made something of myself. They could do it as well, but she’s like, still don’t give them a hard shot because you never know what the current stage that they’re at right now. So I kind of look at that as well. Like, you know, through ups and downs, and through kind of that, I remember being that one 17 year old, and being just really kind of, you know, you’re a teenager, you’re coming out of that, and you’re single, and broke, and just the worst kind of things happening to you.

1:08:04 Like, is my life ever going to get better? And you know, that’s when kind of this kind of inner voice kind of came in my head, I remember very clearly said, once again, no one gives a shit. You know what I mean? And if you want to make your life something, you have to work for it and you’re the only one that’s gonna make your life anything. And once again, that was a really powerful lesson to me to, you know, so many people complain about the government.

1:08:34 Some people complain about the opportunities or the job market, employment market, whatever. But the only person that you can really ever blame in a way is yourself. Because the power to create anything, There’s opportunities at any given moment. We started our business right after the financial crisis when everyone said, that’s the worst time to start a business. But if you look at most successful businesses start when?

1:08:58 It’s like the worst time. In recession. And I think for anybody, you know, you are shaped by your struggles, you are shaped by your worst times. And I think, once again, it’s, in a lot of ways, I’ve been fortunate to go through those and as they really became the platform kind of to help me do this. But now, of course, I focus on the positive and the good and that’s why I shape my life to be that way because I know what it’s like to be there.

1:09:30 You said you had a moment where I think you were brought into court for a minor offense or something and you were at a low, maybe your father figures had died and you broke your arm and everything and you said that you saw some of the offenders around you and you saw apathy. Yeah, apathy, yeah. And that really hit home, why did that hit home? It hit home in a way, especially seeing somebody, I think that experience feels like anybody can end up in the wrong place, meaning you can end up being that criminal, right?

1:10:06 It’s not like I was raised by a loving mother by anybody else, I could have ended up hanging around people, taking the wrong path from life. Who knows how I would have ended up being if I didn’t get arrested and if I kept doing these little small crimes with these kind of people, right? So I was once again really grateful to be in that court and be really grateful to be still not numb by the experiences in life to look around and say, holy crap, like these people are numb, they don’t care, they in a way gave up on life and they think no one cares about them in a way.

1:10:42 Yeah, it’s true in a way no one cares about you, but if you start caring about yourself other people will start caring for you It’s kind of strange once it once again in a way as soon as you start showing love to yourself Others start showing you love but as soon as I think it’s like your world in a way is a reflection of your inner world so That’s really kind of you know deep in a way, but it’s nice deep. Yeah It’s like yeah, your inner world will reflect the kind of life that you will have Right? That’s why I think at that moment I kind of thought, you know, I need to work on myself and I need to work on myself as a person because I don’t want to end up numb like this guy in court not giving a crap and be like, yeah, whatever, I’m doing this.

1:11:26 That’s a powerful moment. And I’m glad you came out and told people that because everyone thought you were getting tennis lessons in my private school. Yeah. And I mean, some people would say that you’re putting out this image of this guy, but I just think you choose not to focus on that because by focusing on it you get this victim mentality and if you repeat in your Mind this narrative to yourself of I used to be this and now I’m this as opposed to just you’re like this is me now And this is the way I look at the world I think there’s something healthy about that. No, I think as my even my friends they tell me like show more of your struggles show more of your pain sure like is it yeah like you have you know good story and stuff like that by like I I tell them, you know, it’s not really what I want to focus on.

1:12:07 Even in my life, I think so many people, like you said, they get hung up on the struggle that they keep staying in their struggle. And yeah, the image that I create now is the image that I want to live. Like I said, me and my wife, we design our lifestyle. This is, yeah, this is where I want to live. This is how I want to dress.

1:12:26 This is how I want to be seen. So if I want to be, if I look, yeah, like the successful person, well, I created that. If I kept wearing my, I don’t know, baggy pants and doing whatever and not caring about how I look or whatever, that might have been still how my life turned out to be. But I’m very kind of in a way always thinking kind of the result, what I put in, what is it going to get me out? Yeah.

1:12:54 No, I can tell you, I tend to kind of tell all about your story. And funny, I am too and I’ve done this show now for three years and I don’t really break into my personal stories a lot and there was tons of struggle for me to get here and when 9-11 kicked off in New York, my life was just at a total black hole. I was right by the world trade. I was almost next to the world trade when it went off and my girlfriend had left me, my best friend had sacked me from my dot-com startup.

1:13:20 It was just like all going bad and so it’s just when I ever see a successful person, I know there’s something there, you know, there’s something that makes them strive and also Professionals make it look easy. That’s another thing that I see says and if you see someone doing a great job, you know They’re making it look easy because they’re good at it And it’s not because it is easy and I always recognize that too If you ever see if you ever see a well polished product or a business or anything it comes from much much struggle Oh, yeah, and and and so that’s what I sometimes one of my main motives is just try to make it look easy You know, you don’t have to dwell on the struggle You don’t have to tell people how many takes you did for that video, you know I know that’s just something you can have for yourself, but yeah, I think as men and maybe tough guys a little bit You try not to let people into the inside, but I think that video you made where you talked about your past is insightful for people You know yeah, I didn’t want to do it like you guys can check it out But a lot it may helped a lot of people connect with me Yeah, because I guess that’s because it was yeah in a way It was so many people commenting on Instagram and whatever and like yeah, come on like give me a break Like you’re telling all this stuff and like all this positive psychology.

1:14:27 Because you’re always upbeat, you’re always telling positive stuff, you’re always giving really helpful tips. Yeah, all this positive stuff and you add it on and smile and do whatever and surround yourself with positive people and read these books and think positive and do the five minute journal and whatever, but you know what, in a way, it works, right? And now, I remember also, kind of my friend also gave me trouble, but I said, you have this image of this person, he’s like, that I don’t like, right, of like, yeah, this polished person that I made, everything’s easy, but I’m like, but you know, at the same time, there’s many people that want to be, once again, aspirational, they want to have a lifestyle that I have, and that’s why I still have, you know, I live where I live, I have the trials that I travel, I enjoy my luxury and stuff like that, because people are still drawn to that. Yeah. But I’m still there to tell you that doesn’t matter and but and I’m still there to tell you that in order to get this you actually have to deliver value to this world and it’s not about just taking it’s actually about giving. Yeah yeah and I think ultimately you just got to be congruent with who you are and if they like it they don’t and if you got somebody that says oh you’re too perfect I mean they probably have some of their own issues. So everyone wants to know how do you how do you work with your wife 24-7? Yeah.

1:15:44 I don’t know if I could do that. I don’t know. A lot of people have been unsuccessful with that. How do you guys do it? Yeah, I think once again, in a way, it’s seamless.

1:15:54 But I think it’s seamless because when we met, and before that, like I said, before I met my wife, I was single for, you know, it’s not like I met her when I was older, but I was pretty young. But I was still, you know, I was a late bloomer. I didn’t have many girlfriends or I wasn’t like a playboy or anything like that. You’re too busy drinking OE. Yeah, OE and hanging out.

1:16:11 Smoking the blunt. Yeah, exactly. Exactly and then and kind of and Mimi was the same she was she didn’t have that many relationships And then we kind of knew what we wanted to have in a partner And we also had a vision of the kind of life that we wanted to live that’s rare right for younger people You know to have that vision in your early 20s. Yeah, but I think everyone has it. I think in a way we all know You know if we really listen to once again too because we’re so many times kind of sidetracked by overall mass media you know by overall especially if you’re really still watch TV news and stuff like that which I don’t yeah I don’t either yeah so you can be really sidetracked into or your parents to like what you like what you think where you should be and whatever all that stuff but we we were lucky enough that we didn’t and we were fortunate enough to kind of be really disciplined with ourselves not to just be in a relationship for the sake of a relationship and to really have a vision of this is the person I want to be with I want to be myself with this other person I want to be whatever but we kind of had this list in a way internally the person we want to meet and then we work together and we kind of somehow through conversation we kind of figured out hey we’re into kind of the same kind of things so when we became working together and something happened right away we tried doing our own things separately.

1:17:42 It’s only in one to two years that we figure out, hey, why don’t we join forces and do this together as a business, try it out. But it’s still seamless to this day because we have our own kind of specialties. What I’m kind of the behind the scenes operations business guy, I make things happen and she’s good at what she’s good at is, you know, creating kind of tutorials, beauty. The face of the brand. Yeah, she’s the face of the brand and kind of also she’s a genius in marketing and kind of just ideas and also how to deliver just content to people, you know.

1:18:21 And just being genuine that she is. So but at the same time, like day in and day out, I think it’s really about with me and her, it’s just having your specialty. Not getting in each other’s ways in a way and also having your breaks, you know, it’s very important to still go out with your boys or go out, have your activities, you know, play basketball or whatever it is or even once a year at least we’ll have like separate getaways. So I’ll go out and travel by myself for like a week, 10 days, she’ll go out and do her own thing as well.

1:18:58 So it’s actually having importance of actually having separate time and having time away from each other. Right. But at the same time, but most importantly, I would say going back to the original one, it’s having common vision of working together. So you have to be both into the same stuff and it has to excite you and interest you. And you both took this turn together as far as getting away from the Luxie brand and moving to London and having new ideas.

1:19:20 That was something you guys did together. Yeah, because we’re very spontaneous and we’re very flexible in a way. And I think we communicate a lot. And I think that’s another thing in any relationships. Be willing, I think we have this rule, if there’s anything that bothers you about something in a relationship, you point that out and you talk about it right away.

1:19:42 Don’t let things linger. Even if your partner puts socks after he’s done a work day and puts them on the couch and doesn’t care about it, and you keep putting it away but you’re frustrated about it never communicate that to him and until you get that moment until you blow up, right, you don’t let that happen because the first moment something happens and you have that feeling like, ah, like why is he doing this? You have to communicate that right away. That’s kind of the rule we have and then we have a rule of we don’t go to sleep until we solve kind of the argument and people think like we’re this most perfect couple, we don’t argue, we don’t do anything, we just smile and cuddle all the time, right, and we do a lot but at At the same time of course we still have our disagreements and we still have our own opinions and most importantly we’re very honest so we’re not afraid to speak each other’s opinion but at the same time be respectful and kind of hear each other out and see that we know that if someone’s communicating, if she’s communicating something to me or I’m communicating something to her that means I’m being honest and I’m saying something not to just give her a shit But I’m actually communicating to her to actually help her grow as a person as It’s just a human being not only in a relationship, but by herself Well said all right a few questions to finish off You must have a lot of guys that come up to you maybe at the mastermind conference or other places and they say Alex

1:21:09 How can I be successful as probably a really general question? But what’s the first thing you tell people to do and you tell them to look at their lives or I mean I know that’s a really general question, but what do you tell them to do? Well, like I said throughout, kind of just this conversation, I think it’s really to be successful, you really have to figure out how you can deliver value to this world. That simple, isn’t it? It seems like it’s almost too easy, but we started out this conversation, it’s like how can you figure out a way to give value to people?

1:21:40 Like I said, stop thinking about yourself, start thinking about how you can deliver value to people. That’s it. And once again, anybody who’s making money, they’re delivering value to people, anybody. Right, actually any successful person. Yeah.

1:21:52 Author, actor, anything, they’re delivering value. And you see it extremely in the startup community. Because these are people that are fighting these age-old businesses like banks and all these other things. And you have to come up with a highly-innovated idea that gives one of the VC guys said, your idea has to be 10 or 100 times better than the current way in order to get people to switch over to your idea in a timeframe that’s enough for you to make a company of it.

1:22:16 So yeah, I mean, you really have to add value in a way that’s no one thought about. So that’s a good metaphor for life. You know, I ask a few questions at the end for everybody that’s here. I’m gonna hit you with them. If you can make a phone call to the 20 year old Alex Icon and give that young man a bit of advice, what would you tell him?

1:22:31 After all the things you’ve learned and the things you told me today, what would you tell him? Yeah, well, it’s not that far away. I know. What’s that, eight years ago? Yeah, seven, it’s only 27 right now.

1:22:41 What do I tell him at the 20-year-old Alex? Ah, it’s an interesting question even now. But I’ll tell him probably the same thing I just told you, like focus on how can you give people more value. Because probably the 20-year-old Alex is still thinking about how he can make money. Right.

1:22:59 What he can get. What he can get and how he can consume. Yeah, but the reality of the truth is, you give. That’s how you get. Wow, it’s that simple, isn’t it?

1:23:11 The second part of the question, best advice you’ve ever received, business or personal? Let’s go with business. Have you had some good mentors or anyone that’s kind of given you some good direction along the way? I have a lot of what I would say what I call virtual mentors. So I don’t have a lot of personal mentors, something I’m developing and I want to grow of course.

1:23:30 I have personal mentors in my life, but a lot of my mentors do come from, I read. Ferris. Yeah, Ferris and the biggest inspiration to me actually to our business as well is Seth Godin. So a lot of this giving value and deliver art and do your kind of best comes from Seth Godin kind of having that mentality. So I can’t really pinpoint anything but I would say reading Lynchpin by Seth Godin was a game changer in a way, just kind of introducing it. So I highly recommend reading Lynchpin and how you can become indispensable as kind of like the book. And that book taught me everything I needed to know for business.

1:24:09 What’s your top one or two entrepreneurs that you look up to that you want to be like some day? Are there names out there? Oh, definitely Richard Branson still. Like, you know, I had the pleasure of meeting the guy and stuff like that. And I would still say Branson is kind of like the iconic.

1:24:24 Why him? Why him? I think he doesn’t, you know, like I said, you never know with people, right? And a lot of business people, we take ourselves too seriously, even myself, right? can sometimes be serious and you’re taking yourself seriously, but this guy really does everything with a smile.

1:24:44 And you know, when I had the pleasure of meeting him for the first time on Necker Island, you know, it’s like, and I saw him in the way he interacts with his employees, the way he interacts with people, the way he interacts with friends, the way you, you know, just observing him, you know, making phone calls and stuff like that, yeah, maybe I was a little creepy. But to think that you see him, you know, not, I’m sure he’s stressing in some way, we all do in some way, but he still carries it with just ease and it’s all about still family and culture and relationships and it’s just, it’s something that I think is really important and just the ability to, you know, I like to have my hand with so many businesses and be able to be so trusting to create these partnerships and relationships and to create Successful businesses you you do these 30-day challenges to yourself. You’ve also said you should do something scary every day I know you just yeah, we all say that but you seem to kind of do it You just did this, you know, 600 kilometer bike ride from like France to Switzerland. Yeah, it looks like look pretty hardcore at the end What did you learn from doing that and are you still trying to challenge yourself and do something scary?

1:25:55 Yeah Well, we’re talking earlier sometimes I just do these things not knowing what I’m gonna get myself into right which can be a beautiful thing Right. Yeah, it seems like a business like it’s called the beginner’s mind. Yeah beginner’s mind and it’s very important from the 600 kilometer bike ride into the verbier from like Elevations of like almost 2,000 meters a day. You have to climb which I didn’t expect but what I learned was really Was it like like I said in my video recently?

1:26:23 It’s like I want to give up all like on the first day almost most, especially on the second day, after my knees are really feeling it. But I think I learned is to keep going, right, and to not create excuses of how you’re going to quit. Because what happened to me, I observed myself, and almost again, observation is really important. I was observing myself how, in my mind, I was already setting myself up for failure. I was already creating, okay, how am I going to quit, what am I going to say, what’s That’s going to be my excuse for saying, oh, I’m too tired or my knees hurt or this is too much.

1:27:00 My mind is already creating all the things how I’m going to fail and how I’m not going to finish, right? And I was lucky enough that I was listening to Magic of Thinking Big, the book that was recommended by Tim Ferriss in one of those things. And I just started listening to it and the book is super cheesy if you listen to it or if you read it. But what it said is like, you know, we all have excusitis, right? We have so many excuses why we are not going to do something or why we’re not going to achieve it, why we’re not going to be in this relationship, why we’re going to keep being fat, whatever your excuse is in your mind is.

1:27:35 But with that mindset, of course you’re going to fail. Of course I was going to quit that bike ride, even almost to the last day, an hour, two hours before I finished, I wanted to quit, right? But I still kept reminding myself of the finish line of succeeding, of being like today’s a great day and smiling and nobody wants to be around a loser and nobody wants to be around a person who’s complaining and no one wants to be around a person who’s complaining about their health because all of that goes into your mind and that’s how your life really becomes.

1:28:11 Because I can see even myself, even though I’m successful now and I saw even how frugal we can all be, we can always get weak and that’s why we also always have to still keep challenging ourselves, day in, day out, or if we don’t, whatever life will challenge you but even then, even when life will bring us challenges, we have to see, okay, this is a challenge, how am I going to kind of challenge myself and not kind of give up and fail? Powerful stuff. The beginner’s mind, how do people keep that beginner’s mind?

1:28:40 Is it not overthinking things before you jump in? I think it’s, you know, once again, it’s always difficult, especially with age, like I’m really grateful and I’m not, I’ll be honest, you know, that’s what happens, you know, with age, and I see it in myself, we start kind of creating these kind of excuses for ourselves, it will be more difficult for people who might be a little older, because you have a little more kind of papes in your head telling you kind of little voices, why you can have a beginner’s mind. So, to say something like, oh, just don’t think about it and go into it, it’s easy to say but it’s not practical because your mind is still going to stop you in that moment.

1:29:19 You’re still going to have crazy voices in your head telling you whatever. So that’s why I do recommend having a daily routine of some kind to help you reprogram your mind. That’s why we created the Five-Minute Journal. It’s not to pitch or anything. I created it because I did a little technique once again from Tony Robbins.

1:29:39 I did the gratitude walk, but on days when Canada is really cold, you don’t want to do the gratitude walk. So instead, I trained my mind and took this over months, but I trained myself. As soon as I wake up, I’m going to think of the things that I’m grateful for. It’s the same thing. And I kind of just train myself.

1:29:56 So as soon as I wake up, I think, oh, I’m grateful, I’m healthy, and it’s another day. Sweet. But it’s kind of to have that training for your mind. I call it the 500 journal, the toothbrush for your mind. You need some sort of a toothbrush for your mind that you do every morning, every night, some sort of a kind of a daily routine that will help you.

1:30:17 Maybe it’s watching one inspirational video a day, right? Maybe it’s whatever. Maybe it is, yeah, not watching the news and reading the newspaper, all that stuff. But in order to hone that, you need to kind of create these things that you need to do on your daily life. Like you’re not gonna be a strong person all of a sudden to jump in if you’re not working out.

1:30:36 You need to be prepared in some way, and the same way we train our body, the same way we need to train our mind, and we have to be careful what we put into our minds. Now, well said, and so that’s an app on your phone, and you type in like your journal, what you wanna do in the morning, and how does it work, how do you get it? The Five Minute Journal, we have an app. It sells bugs, so I’ll be honest. We’re working out on it.

1:30:56 Five Minute Journal, spell it out. Yeah, the Five Minute Journal, just search for it. But I actually recommend, we have a physical journal, and I actually recommend doing that. And once again, you can go on our website, you can see the whole questions and you can do it in your own journal if you want, you can buy it, it doesn’t matter. But the most important thing is having the ability to, I think writing actually, physically, something that we might be losing soon, but still I think writing something out is very powerful.

1:31:27 Yeah, Ferris says that. And so you would rather write it out. And the five minutes is what? You write down the things you’re grateful for? That simple?

1:31:34 Well, I’ll just say this quickly. So there’s that morning part, right? Like you brush your teeth in the morning, you brush your teeth at night. You keep this thing by your bedside table. So right when you wake up, you have this thing on your bedside, right?

1:31:46 The first question is, I’m grateful for, list three things. Second question is, what would make today great? So that question, once again, it frames your minds. What’s great gonna happen about the day, right? Once again, it’s just framing your mind onto what’s gonna be good about today, right?

1:32:04 And it gets you using your mental muscle of thinking what’s going to be good about today. And it challenges you. What can be a goal that will make myself feel great? Yeah. And you’re already in that mindset.

1:32:15 And then the third thing is like your affirmation. So you’ll write, you know, whatever your affirmation is. Okay. Right? I am the greatest speaker.

1:32:23 Okay. The greatest podcaster ever. Exactly. And then there’s a kind of evening portion. So the thing you do before you go to sleep.

1:32:33 And that question is, you know, three amazing things that happened today. And once again, you get to recall your day and list the things that went great about today. So even if you think nothing great happened, something great happened. Okay. You know what I mean?

1:32:47 You have to, in a way, think about it and realize it and get to you once again to exercise that muscle of thinking, okay, what are some great things that happened today? And it just helps you recall those things. And then the last one is, how could I make today better? And it may seem like a negative question, like how could I make today better, I’m just going to like crap on myself here and say I did this wrong. But we put in an instruction, we say you have to state that in a positive tense.

1:33:13 So let’s say you’re like I should have went to sleep at 11, but I went to sleep at 1 again. You don’t write I’m a loser, I went to sleep at 1, I could have made it today better by going to sleep at 11. Now you say I go to sleep at 11 p.m. or whatever it is. You kind of say a more affirming statement.

1:33:32 And the reason we say to do it right in the morning or right before you go to sleep is because from some things that we read and from research, I believe you’re the closest to your subconscious. Because even when you wake up, you’re still a little daisy. But anything you do, I just recommend people to somehow feed their mind with their mindset. That’s why I talk about my channel, most of the videos that I talk about. It’s pure mindset.

1:33:57 Because the same thing in that 600 kilometer bike ride, you know, Marion Bartoli was there, you know, a couple of years ago, champion, Wimbledon champion, you know, and of course so many other successful people, but I was just asking her, I’m like, so what is it? Like, you’re not a cyclist either, like, how are you dealing with this? And you’re just like, just mind, just think it’s all mind, and I just see it’s like, and I was just around these people, and you won’t see it hanging out with these successful people, and you see them use these things daily, and that’s the difference, really, It’s like, when I see, yeah, people I know that are not successful and people that I see that are successful, they just use their mind differently.

1:34:35 They have trained their mind to think differently and that’s what we all as people can use on a daily basis, really. Are you going to have more guests on your video? I know you had Jerome Jarr, the Vine guy, you had Amir Rosic, the diet and exercise guy. I really like him. I’d love to get him on the show.

1:34:53 He seems really smart. You’re trying to take over our territory here. I have to send the thugs over yeah no but we’ll see I’ll see if I’ll have some people with the funny story like Jerome jar just quickly I side note so Jerome jar if you guys know he’s like the biggest fine snapchat like just a huge social media guy didn’t realize but he’s got like 20 million followers he’s massive but the funny story about him is I did that interview before he became big that’s my most viewed video now right and it’s because there’s no videos of him, when people would be searching for him, my video would come up and that’s why I have like 300,000 views almost.

1:35:30 Okay, so you discovered him. Yeah, no, but I discovered him. We’re just hanging out in Toronto and he was doing a startup, he’s an entrepreneur as well and I’m like, this guy is going to either end up in like jail or he’s going to be super successful. Right? Because he’s crazy.

1:35:45 Because his persona and his character and once again, his willingness to challenge status quo and to be outrageous and to not care what other people think. So you know the things that Tim would talk about like lying in the public, he does it like for fun. Right. I could see that. I could see that.

1:36:04 Yeah. Yeah. He took your trousers off on the camera. Exactly. Yeah.

1:36:09 So he made me take off my pants on camera. Yeah. You turned around. I appreciate that. I noticed that.

1:36:14 He didn’t. He doesn’t care. But in a way, like once again, these people like, and that’s why I knew once again, I felt that he’s going to become successful is that, you know, you have to be that in some way. And it’s, it’s kind of, you know, our schooling kind of trained us to be like everybody else, but in a way that’s not the right formula, especially for disruptors and entrepreneurs and anything. I mean, you really have to, and you can’t just say that you think different.

1:36:38 You have to really not care to a certain. It’s hard. I’ll be honest. It’s hard. Yeah.

1:36:45 Cause it’s what ostracizations about when we were monkeys and stuff. Um, Alex, thanks so much for coming. Maybe this will be the video before you get your own island and your billion views and stuff like that. You’re already pretty famous. How do people get a hold of you?

1:36:55 Is it your website, your YouTube channel? What’s the best way for them to do it? How can I get my own hair extensions? Everything. Yeah, sure.

1:37:01 Well, yeah, you can, my website, you can go to alexicon.com, although I don’t update that at all. I’m really bad at that. And you can find my YouTube channel also just by searching my name, alexicon. You can find me on Instagram, I’m pretty active there. You can find me on Facebook, but yeah, I’m not super active actually on a lot of things, but you can still find me, and you can email me at helloalexicon.com, and even if you’ll email me, you might get an autoresponder saying I’m not going to respond to you, but I might respond to you someday, because I believe at the same time, as entrepreneurs, it’s really important to focus and do your work.

1:37:45 Yeah, no, I agree. I mean if anyone tells you they answer every email then they’re lying because you know You really have to task and you really if you don’t focus on what you do Then no one will ever want to email you so sometimes you have to ignore some yeah, right and you on Twitter. No Not on Twitter, but I don’t really use it. Okay, and so tech stuff ideas creative ideas people should get in touch with you for that Stuff. Yeah. Yeah, you can get if there’s something interesting get ahold of me. Okay, I will if it’s interesting I’ll reply for sure. Okay, fantastic. Um, definitely check out his channel. He’s got great videos on YouTube You have a lot of them. I mean in route Yeah, you do and then they’re all really good and it’s like straight to camera six minutes to 10 minutes I found him really useful. Okay, I gotta do another one. Skip this week. Yeah. Yeah Keep them coming man. You got to keep cranking the videos Yeah, so it’s all good. Thanks for being here if you’re listening to us on iTunes you can watch our well lit and extremely good-looking faces on YouTube and Yeah, like I said link to his videos and all that Great story, wish you guys the best in London.

1:38:45 I think you guys chose like the greatest city, you know, it’s just, I don’t know. For me it feels like kind of an urban suburb, you know, everyone’s cool, everyone’s nice, you can network really easy. It’s foreigner friendly, like I don’t know, I mean, I don’t even think of myself as a foreigner anymore. I’m here and so, it’s funny though, most of my friends are foreigners, you know, there’s so many entrepreneurs and people from different countries here, you know, it’s a great place to be.

1:39:07 Yeah, if I can just add one thing about London, Our friend really said pretty well and she said what I learned about London is that it’s not a place where you become Something it doesn’t shape you to become something so a lot of cities like Paris New York You’ll become Parisian, you know, you feel this kind of thing. But in London, you know, you can be you You know, you can really become your own person. It’s not gonna shape you in that way You’ll become who you are if you choose to be who you are. It’s well said Yeah, I noticed that I went back to New York after being here for some time and it was a cab driver and he had just Come from Nigeria like two weeks earlier and he’s like, but I’m American. I’m American He’s like everyone in New York wants to be American, you know, but like in London people speak their own languages, you know A woman aware she’ll wear a you know, a hijab down in a nice bridge. She doesn’t give a fuck I’m like, everyone’s talking their own language. You hear it everywhere So yeah, it’s a great place just to kind of be yourself somewhere where or be an American like me So there you go. As we say on London Real it’s about the journey best of luck on yours Alex Thanks so much for being here.