Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 98 - Israel "Iz" Alayon

Iz Alayon is the Founder and Owner of a multimillion-dollar online jewelry company Iz&Co. From an incredible successful career as one of the best gemologists in the world with GIA & Harry Winston to starting his own company the one message Iz has always carried is "going above and beyond for the customer". In addition to the running the business, Iz is part of the community to start constructive mental health conversations for leaders within all industries.

To connect with Iz please reach out directly to:

https://www.izandco.com/

https://www.instagram.com/izandco/

Duration:: 45m
Broadcast on:: 07 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

is one of the craziest things about me is there are these patterns with business owners that I keep running into and it is that they are just genuinely awesome human beings first and foremost and one of the biggest things that they want to do is just make other people better with the things that they do and the actions they take in their business. You are one of these, you inspire me and the thing that you built is absolutely incredible. So I'm going to let you introduce yourself and tell our audience what it is that you do. Thank you. It's a big introduction. I appreciate you. So my name is I am currently the owner of Izenko. It's an e-commerce jewelry brand that we operate out of New York City. And pretty much our business itself is we concentrate on engaging rings on anything custom jewelry for the most part. Diamonds, gold, anything else, we don't work on an inventory base. Everything is done to order as per request of our clients. So it's pretty cool to kind of just, you know, pretty much bring our clients vision to life and not have to be like trying to, you know, sell something specifically because I have it in inventory for the past, whatever, how many years. But besides all that, more importantly to me, I myself have dealt with very bad anxiety in the past, like crushing very bad anxiety in the past, which, thank God, I'm in a much, much better place now. And yeah, I just want to kind of just spread the message and help other people who honestly may be going through the same situations and let them know that, you know, hopefully this story kind of resonates with a lot of people, especially guys that may be going through similar situations and, you know, they may see a light at the end of the tunnel after our conversation. So thank you for having me. I appreciate you. Dude, what's amazing about you is just this fact that first and foremost, you are so open about some of the things that you've dealt with, you have this incredible story that should resonate with anyone who's going through some darkness. At the same time, on the surface, you are this super successful, incredibly good looking Brazilian Jiu Jitsu player who is working out and trying his hardest to just be the best human possible each and every day. And for today, we're just going to break it up into two pieces. Let's talk about the business side of the house because the story of an entrepreneur going from a nine to five job to building his own thing is so powerful on its own. And I think it's so, so important for people just to hear that story first. Tell me about this trajectory of when first and foremost, you were selling things for other people. And then you just went, I think I can do a better job with more care, with more love just by doing it by myself. So well, the companies I used to work for and before and doing I was building my business, they were actually, they were gemological companies. So one of them was GIA, which what they do is, I mean, they're pretty the biggest, pretty much the biggest company in the world when it comes to certifying diamonds. So I was a gemologist for them for eight and a half years. I helped them actually open up when they in 2008, which was the crash, the housing crash as well. So they started to expand to like all, like all over the world. So I actually helped, I was one of the people who actually helped them start out the company in India. So I lived there for like six, seven months in Johannesburg in South Africa, I lived there for a bunch of time as well, Tel Aviv as well. So I did that for eight and a half years, give or take, and after that, I actually worked for Harry Winston as a gemologist for them. So I got to literally, I was one of three, four people tops that was in charge of all the purchasing of millions of dollars, literally worth of gemstones and diamonds, like anything from like auction houses, you know, the worth literally one diamond, actually, I remember one blue diamond that they bought in an auction at for 25 million dollars, I believe. So I had to look at that diamond before the auction and after they won the auction, just to make sure that everything kind of was okay and pairing up properly with the certificate. So that was my, my nine to five jobs was between those two companies. But then in the middle of that, you know, I like we talked about offline, I was in a place where I'm like, you know what, I'm 30 at that time, I want to say like 35 ish years old. I'm like, okay, so let's do the math here. If I have to, if I want to retire, right, and enjoy my life, I have to wait another 35 years or whatever, 30 something years, hopefully I'm still alive by then. And then if I have some money left over from, you know, making not that much, I can then live my life till I die. So I'm like, you know what, that's just not going to cut it for me. I have like a different way of seeing things and seeing life. Or having to talk to your boss to ask for permission to go on vacation is crazy, to be honest. And yeah, just, I mean, you know what, I think I can do this, you know, I can, I can figure this out. So I started making jewelry and selling online. I actually started doing so back then on Etsy. Wow. So I didn't have, I didn't have like my own website, like I have today. I started off on Etsy just because at that time it was just so easy, like it was all integrated. They have their own people that come into their shop, right, to kind of look for stuff. So it was just a place where you can kind of like get easily seen by others. Yeah. Instead of having your own independent website and having to suck in people from outside to go to your website, that's kind of how I started my business. And from there on out, then of course, I eventually started my own website, which then ran parallel with Etsy and eventually Etsy just kind of, you know, fizzled out. And now I believe there's kind of almost like a Liba, like I sell anything and everything now on Etsy. I love this. So yeah. So I have my business and then and pretty much I was working full time while I was building my business. At the same time I had two options, which was to either completely quit my job and just focus 100% of my business. But I had a newborn son, I've married and I'm like, yeah, that's kind of way too risky for me. So I said, okay, the other option would be to start my own business, but then continue to work full time to then be able to get to a place where hopefully at some point I'm making the same or more than what I'm making on my full time job. And then I can kind of quit and then dedicate my life to my own business with time. God, that's that's what happened at the beginning. I'll start babbling so much, but at the beginning, just to give you a quick thing that people may like a one of those failures, I guess you want to call it while you're while you're starting the business actually. So when I quit my first job to go to Harry Winston, I actually I had like $14,000 or $15,000 in my 401k. I had no money. That's all I had. And I said to myself, you know what, I want to cash it out. I know I'm going to get a huge tax deduction because I'm taking it out at 30 something years old and whatever's left over, I'm going to put into my business. So I do that. I end up after taxes and everything from like $14,000 something. I end up with like maybe six or seven, which is horrible. And then on top of that, I was so focused on branding without not even having one sale yet. I spent out of that money. I spent like 3000 only on jewelry ring boxes with my logo and like a ribbon and everything. That's the horrible mistake, but you just didn't know it better. Anyways, yeah, and that's a cool part of being a business owner as well is that you have these series of missteps that are really learning opportunities at the end of the day, where you get to take a chance on something. It doesn't work out. You go, Hey, I'm never going to do that again. Take me just a step back. Now GIA, the biggest certifier in the world. I mean, one of the biggest jobs that people are dying for. And I mean, it's people's dream to get to that job. What was it like working with them knowing that, you know, you're traveling all over the world and living people's dream in just a nine to five job format was amazing. Um, just, you know, my background is also my dad is a jeweler, adventure, adventure jeweler. He's always since I was in diapers, I've always seen him like work for other companies and then in his spare time, he would make, you know, things for his own clients. So I was, so I was kind of brought up in that, in that world. But at GIA, like you said, they are the biggest certifiers of diamonds in the world. So any big important diamond has to go through them and the story. Yeah. So we would see these amazing diamonds, like even like Elizabeth Taylor, like a jewelry would come through because they had to be like, you know, inspected and whatnot in South Africa, when I lived in South Africa, I don't know where they're located now, but where they were before at least, I think they were not going to third or fourth floor on the first floor was a diamond cutting facility. That's not GIA's, but they gave us like a quick tour and we saw this huge big rough diamond rough, like like 200 something carrots, something crazy. I'm like, like, it's, you know, it's, it's really, it's an amazing world to say the least. And the amount of experience that you, that you get from that in terms of knowing your diamonds inside and out, it's amazing because then all that translated to me in business because there's very few things in life that I can tell you that I'm like 100% like I know what I'm talking about. Yeah. And diamonds are one of them without a without a doubt. And that's thanks to them for sure. And all those years of working for them and learning. Yeah. Um, again, I'm going to drag you down the path that a lot of people don't like talking about. And it's this one. There's a sort of diamond mafia out there of price controlling the price of diamonds that a lot of people just don't necessarily understand about what a lot of people in the business know is that diamonds are not as rare as we like to make them. They're now part of every big occasion. But part of the reason why they are so controlled and so expensive is because there is a group of people who make sure that they remain valuable working within the industry. Like how do you understand that, Hey, I don't have as much control over this as I would like and at the same time make sure that your kind gets the best deal possible on a diamond that they want because at the end of the day, the difference between lab grown diamonds and real diamonds is that at least there is some way to control the rarity and the price of the diamond for to maintain well. We can go down that road to you want to later with with lab grown diamonds, I would love to talk about that because it's a taboo thing, but I love talking about it. Not from a selling point of view, but just from anyways, it's a big deal going on with that in the industry. Like you said, there's no thing I can do about it. Definitely like long story short, there are only a handful of people who are considered to be side holders, side holders are the groups or companies that are allowed to buy rough diamonds from the beers and all these, I think a real team toe is one of them, like all these different companies. And then they of course control what gets released to them to the companies that buy the rough to then cut it and then sell them outside. So it's definitely controlled, 100% I agree with you and it is true, regardless of whatever anybody else says, it is true. It's just like you said it is, it is kind of a, it's not a kind of, it is a mafia because it's controlled and it is what it is. In my case, the price is dedicated, it's dictated by rap or the rap sheet and that's nothing again that I have, I had zero control over whatsoever, that's just the part of the mafia, I guess you want to call it that I'm like, I'm sure the pricing. But in my case, I don't, I don't look to do like to make big, I'm not going to make my entire living or my entire life off of one dime, you know what I mean? So when it comes to like getting the best bang for your book, if you will for the client, it really does come down to like what their budget is and then maximizing that that budget. There's ways of doing so and you can kind of play around with like the clarity and the color and kind of make sure that you're maximizing that particular budget. Many times people see these very like inexpensive diamonds, I guess, when compared to other places, but then you have to see kind of like the minutiae of the details of the rap or the report, sorry, because something like like fluorescence on a diamond will make it cost a lot less than having no fluorescence because you kind of want no fluorescence. That's the best way to get the best, you know, make sure your diamond is getting the best light return, the best spark or the best brilliance is to have a diamond that's pretty much, you know, if it's a round diamond, it's triple excellent. So it's an excellent cut, excellent symmetry, excellent polish, but then you want also fluorescence. Yep. And these type of diamonds and also especially the diamonds who are that are like high color and the DEF, see, I'm going, I'm going segues, but when you go with a diamond that's like a very high color, DEF, VS or higher, those diamonds, in my personal opinion, will hold their value like in terms of like time, like time goes by more. But the majority of people who have a tight budget end up on the little bit lower spectrum of the diamond purchasing, which is fine too, it's not a problem at all. But then that's where the whole lab grown comes into into play because try not to ruffle some feathers here because I trust me, there's some people out there that are gun how on only selling natural, and if you sell lab, you're like the devil or vice versa. And to me, I'm like, you know, my, my job is to tell my client the pros and the cons and they give them the information, right? Yep. And they make their own decision. Yeah. And first and foremost, I just want to say that I have so much appreciation for the specific way that you talk about it. For whatever reason, it's, I would say that it's pretty common knowledge across the industry professionals that there is some type of a mafia that controls the price. And the fact that the general public just isn't aware of it. It's kind of like, Hey, here is what you're paying for dummy, like just accept it for exactly what it is. It's out of your control. And this is just how the market works. Now, before we get like into the full details of lab grown versus natural, let's first and foremost talk about the main components of a diamond because a lot of the public just isn't aware about the main characteristics. So if you could just give me a 90 second rundown on the, I think it's four, right? Four C's. Yeah. The four C's of diamonds and which ones are the most important ones. So the four C's, the last C is one that they introduced maybe like 20 years ago or 15 years ago, which is cut, that only applies to round diamonds. That's it. Like anything else that's not round, they don't get a cut, Greg got it. So let's say we are talking about a run diamond, which is the most, the most purchased diamond shape in the world is round. So that pretty much means that so the clarity goes from anywhere from flawless down to I three. I believe. Yeah. Yeah. We got clarity. We got cut. And we got polish. Those are the four, but then we have, sorry, I'm mixing up stuff now with the four C's, but it's carried weight, clarity, cut, what's the fourth one to notice? Yeah. I'm thinking, my mind's thinking on the gemological side of things, which is pretty much like the cut, the cut, you have the shape, you have the polish, the symmetry. Yep. And that pretty much all of that makes up the, the clarity grade and everything else that goes, that gets given to the diamond itself. So the retail part of it, which is the four C's, that's, I kind of get my foot, my brain gets fuzzy. I love it. Because there is this whole different part of diamonds, right, which is one is the marketing aspect of it. Here is the product that you're actually being sold. But you as a professional inside the field don't think about it the exact same way that the marketing people do. And this is the cool part that people need to know about because as a specialist who has seen a lot of rocks and a lot of valuable possessions in his life, it's really your opinion that matters at the end of the day for what something is worth, not as much as it is the marketing side of the group who are just trying to sell it to the consumer. Yeah. 100%. I would say like 90 seconds quick. I would say the higher you can go in clarity and in color, the better, the better off you are in terms of having a diamond that will quote, unquote, hold its value over time. Meaning that if you have to sell it for whatever reason may be, it would be easier to get rid of for lack of a better sentence, I guess, or a quote than a diamond that is of lower clarity and very low color, which is why to me, lab rooms are making this big dent in the industry is just because of that, personally. Yeah. Before we go down the route and the rabbit hole of lab grown, let's just for a moment talk about what makes diamonds so special. What is it about pressure gemstones and specifically diamonds for why this was, you know, chosen as the main stone in the industry of weddings and what makes them so valuable long term. So diamonds actually did a little bit of research like a few months ago, and I can tell you exact names, but I believe the max, I think it was in France. Maybe it's Maximilian or somebody like that. They actually gave their, their better half the diamond ring. Of course, the diamond was not as polished or as perfect as it is today. It was like a chunk of diamond pretty much like a crushed ice thing that they just put on the ring. The road of course, the beers, just, you know, their marketing was like amazing, you know, it pretty much, I think that's, I think that's what pretty much sparked the fire on having everybody have a diamond ring as an engagement ring, you know, that's my, that's what I think. But the cool part of it as well is that you also see how down the road, you see people who don't want a diamond, they want a sapphire, they want an emerald, they want a ruby. Some people don't even want diamonds, they just want like a nice band, a very simple band or very intricate band, like a bunch of details that's in great as an example. So it's cool to see some people kind of like deviating also from wanting a diamond as well, you know, because it's, because I would say that their marketing is definitely not what it was before. And people and with, you know, the internet and everything else, we have so much information out there. And people are a lot more, I guess they have a lot more knowledge, you know, they're like, you know, diamonds are not for me. And they kind of go other routes as well. So in terms of maintaining value, again, it's such a, I kind of don't like that question too much. I'll tell you why, because when you buy an engagement ring, right, you're not buying an investment. You're buying an engagement ring because you love X and Y person and you want to commit to them for your entire life, and that's what's that, that's what it's representing. People like to, some people like to act as if they're buying a stock in the stock market and they wanted to cost a lot more down the road. Diamond. Yeah. I'm just, you know, I'm just being clear and transparent. My personal opinion, you want that by gold coins by, you know, that's not a diamond. Now there's some, by a stock, by a stock, exactly. Now there's some caveats to that. And that is that there are some diamonds, for example, blue diamonds, pink diamonds, yellow diamonds. Diamonds are extremely high color, extremely high clarity. Those diamonds, definitely, especially the color diamonds definitely will actually get more value over time, but those are stones that are worth tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. And actually people who do have a lot of money that want to invest, they does happen that it's a bunch of them get together and buy, as an example, a blue diamond, right? And they have it as part of the portfolio. And it will acquire more worth over time because it is extremely rare, for sure. That I can tell you that, that for all the mafia that exists in the world, blue diamonds, for example, were, or pink diamonds were that easy, there will be a lot more out there. It's not, you know, it's not. You don't see them, especially as perfect as possible, it doesn't really happen. So those type of diamonds, 100% will get more value over time. Yeah. Anything else? It's, you know, you're getting what you pay for and you shouldn't see it as an investment in my personal opinion. Yeah. I 100% echo and agree with that approach. And I think it's really, really important for people to have this transparency as well. What makes diamonds so valuable isn't necessarily the rarity as much as it is a societal view of diamonds. And at the end of the day, it's one of those things where you can't really control if something's going to be valuable in the long term. Hey, if your spouse or your significant other values, there's so much that it's important to them. It's up to you to make the choice of whether or not you go down that route. Now, having dealt with quite a few diamonds, salesmen in my life, especially as I was dealing with no getting an engagement ring for my wife, getting earrings for my wife. Some of the negative viewpoints on lab-grown diamonds have always kind of rubbed me the wrong way of like, hey, you're being just a little bit too much of a salesperson for this specific product you're trying to sell. Let me ask you, rather than going down the rabbit hole, which one is better and why? Let's instead talk about the attitude that people have. Why is it so, so important for people to sell a product rather than make a customer happy with whatever choice that they choose to go? So, I think it's selfishness and I think it's ego from part of the salesperson and thinking only about the short-term, the micro of thing, which is just getting money, right? Getting as much return as possible out of the client than actually trying to give the best service for each individual client. That's really what it comes. In my opinion, that's what it comes down to and that's like how I told you in the beginning, I don't have a dog in the fight. I really don't. I don't say care less because I do care for all my clients, but what do you choose is what do you choose? I will sell you a lab room, I will sell you a natural diamond, I will sell you a sapphire, whatever you want. It's not my decision, it's my client's decision, right? But from a salesperson point of view, you're trying to maximize, if you're a salesperson for example, which is done in my case, it's a lot of e-commerce, but like say a regular retail store, they get commission. Yep. So, of course, you're trying to see what has a better return, right? In terms of like what has a better ROI, you're trying to push that to your client and pretty much try to make up the client's mind, like you're trying to make up the client's mind instead of allowing them to do that for you. Now in sales, sometimes you do have to kind of like nudge a little bit because a lot of people are very like indecisive and buy just things, a lot of selfishness, I guess, in any retail industry, I assume, or sales industry, it's a lot of selfishness and there's not a lot of empathy or a lot of thinking of the client and their situation in my opinion. Yeah. And this is one of the biggest things that I just admire so much about you and the value that I see you bringing to your clients is just by letting them make decisions and then walking through the process with them to make sure that you are a good partner rather than somebody who just is forcing decisions on your clients and your customers. Where did this idea come from, of caring so much and going above and beyond for customers, knowing that you were already successful and you had this great job that you really, really liked? I think it's just, it's just, you know, since I was a kid, I was just very empathetic, very, I think a lot about other people and, you know, like I said, offline poverty or I don't know if we were recording now, but I'm very like, you know, I like to make people happy. I like to make sure everybody's okay and that kind of bleeds into my business, per se. You know, I have clients that come to me and they're in, you know, X or Y situation and I give them my two cents sometimes, like, hey, I know you're going through this and that, you know, maybe this will be a better option maybe for you and I kind of, I don't see it as a sale itself. I see it more as a relationship to be honest with you. That's just kind of how my head thinks, it's just a DNA thing, honestly, it's just who I am. I love that. And definitely what I went, when I went through, of course, with my anxiety and everything else, definitely highlighted it even more so, for sure, because I wouldn't say that it started from there. I always, always was that kind of person you could talk to my wife and people that know me like, oh, he's always Mr. Positive all the time and this and that. But I just think it's the right thing to do. Yeah. It's just showing empathy. Now, we talked about a couple of these things off air, but obviously you get a lot of incredibly positive feedback for the extra things that you do for people. Talk to me about some of the things, such as those postcards, that you do for clients to show them that they are special, show them that you really care and show them that it's not a one transaction type of business partnership long. Yes. So back when I started the company in 2012, ever since we had our first sale, we always have sent out postcards like written, actually, we have a postcard. It's all handwritten, a note to our client, very, very specific with their name saying, thank you for whether it's a ring or very specific, right? And just giving them thank you for allowing us and trusting us to purchase a ring or a jewel for them, you know, and then on the back of the postcard, we always put on like a positive goal. It's a little off screen. Show me the line. There it is. Every day is a second chance. So we always write to every single one of the clients, whether it's a $50 purchase or it's like a $10,000 purchase that we don't, doesn't matter to us. We always write a thank you card. We write a positive quote and that changes every week. And I just feel that it's a way to just spread the love, spread the positivity out there to our clients. And again, we've been doing this since 2012. It's nothing to do with like, oh yeah, this is going to give me more favor with clients or whatever. It's just what comes out of my heart to be honest with you. And what's even more amazing, especially that, you know, I like to make people happy. What's even more amazing is that when I get clients that DM me or email us saying like, you have no idea how much I needed to read this quote today. You know, sometimes we're like in social media stuff, how the way you are, I'm sure you follow a bunch of like positives, quote accounts, everything else. So so we're bombarded with this every day, but not every, not everybody is following these type of accounts. And sometimes them receiving this piece of jewelry that they are so excited to get. And then on top of that, get a thank you, you know, and oh wait, there's more, you kind of flip it and you have a positive quote, the amount of people that have told me that they really needed to hear that has been just amazing. Like even one guy like two weeks ago, he's like, how do you know that I need, I really needed this particular quote because I'm going through such and such thing in life right now and X, Y and Z. And I'm like, honestly, I'm not a, I'm not a, I call this a sidekick. I don't know what's going on in your life, but we just kind of read different like positive quotes and we choose which one we want to go out with that particular week and that's it is what it is. You know what I mean? And sometimes I think it's meant to be sometimes honestly. Yeah. Tell me, so a lot of people don't understand this, but if, and I talk about this as changing your mind and it's kind of like working out, it's kind of like going to jujitsu where every single day that you have a positive thought, every single time that you feed your brain with good ideas and you feed your brain with positivity, what ends up happening inside your brain as you just become this person, just like is who cares, who wants to spread love and who just has more to give. Tell me about some of the positive impacts on your life overall that you've seen since embracing this positivity mindset and trying to share it with every single one of your customers and everyone you do business with. So like what I do personally, pretty much to be in this state, I guess, or give us that as well as the impact that it has had on your life, because your life has continuously gotten better since having a dream job, which sounds insane. To me personally, even though I feel that I'm definitely giving, I'm going out of my way to do the best I can for my clients, it's also wish we don't move on my end, because I feed off of that, like seeing my clients happy, seeing people literally send us, like I said, DMs or emails, pictures of their weddings, pictures of their engagement rings, I'll be having other engagement proposals, pictures of even when sometimes they give birth and they have an advocate, they send me an email with a picture of the kid. So all that just feeds my soul. That's really what it is. It makes me happy. Like I can be having a very shitty day and I just, you know, I can open up an email and all of a sudden I have this client that sent me this picture in this thank you and it makes my entire day because I'm like, you know what, I'm putting my brain in the world to make it a better place. Regardless of the whole jewelry part of it, like I said, that's separate. I feel like I'm adding on, like adding value as a person in this world, that's just the way I see it. So just honestly, it just, it just feeds my soul. That's all I can really tell you, it just brings me joy and makes me happy. Yeah. And what's amazing about you and what's awesome about talking to you and what's awesome about seeing the type of business that you do is it's just a fountain of love where every single person who's touched by it gets a little bit better and wants to make the world just a little bit better of a place. And what's incredible is this impact that you've been able to have specifically on starting positive conversations around mental health, dealing with problems and becoming the best version of yourself possible through just honesty and sharing. Tell me about the process of going through the darkness, going through the bad parts and coming out on the other side of it. Yeah. So if I go on too long, just let me know coming out because I like to, I like to sometimes go too much on a tangent, but I'll try to keep it kind of like concise. I've been dealing with anxiety issues for a very long time. In my 20s, I've been to the ER, I'm going to say like three or four times thinking that I was having a heart attack and after being stuck there for a few hours, they're like, yeah, everything is fine. You just had a panic attack, that's all it really is, you can go home. So that was in my 20s and my 30s. Like I said, when I was trying to build my business, I definitely had added stress for sure. And that kind of started making it worse until I got to a point in 2019, in December, I was traveling to my office to get Christmas orders ready. And halfway through, I thought I was having a heart attack, I called my wife. I saw her, hey, you know, I think I'm dying, I'm going to pull over, I'm going to call 911. You know, that's it. You know, that's all I can tell her at that point. An ambulance came and picked me up. Oh, wow. First time I'm an ambulance, I had to the ER and again, same thing, they ran, they ran like a whole body of tests. I was literally, this sounds very bad, but I was literally praying that they found something because I wanted an explicate, an explanation. And that's what led me to, well, after that, we got home, of course, and the whole, we were all locked in our homes for a long time, but I was still trying to find like a psychologist, a psychiatrist, something to help with this situation, which I thankfully did, which then, of course, taking medicines and whatnot. And then I started to take to do therapy therapy. Personally, I wasn't liking it too much because we were like digging so much in the past. And I'm like, you know what, I feel like crap right now, I feel like I'm going to jump out of a window right now, I really don't, I'm not in a space where I want to be revisiting my test. It's not doing me any help. Me personally, I know it does help a lot of people, so I'm not, you know, I'm not judging it whatsoever. It's just whatever was right for me. So I stopped that. And that's when I actually reached out to like a life coach, which was amazing, which pretty much the focus of it is like, okay, where are you now? What can you do for yourself now? How can you be your best self now? And how can you move forward from that? And then from doing that, I'm now in a place where I can go back and revisit my past and it doesn't cause me any PTSD, it doesn't cause me any like, yeah, of course, some sadness and stuff that happens to everywhere, we've all been through stuff, but I'm in a better place in a much stronger place where I can actually visit that now that I'm in a much place in a much stronger place mentally than when I was back then. So and that led me to, of course, a bunch of stuff. I journal every morning and without, you know, without missing it whatsoever. Every single morning, I journal, workout and do these little things that kind of like make my life a lot better and make my mental health a lot better. Yeah. And I think that it's such an important, important story to tell because specifically as men, there is all this pressure for you to provide for you to be 17 different things for you to take care of your health, for you to just be the rock. And at the same time as you're doing all of this to be starting your own business and all the pressures that come with it. And a lot of people specifically have a hard time of having a constructive conversation about mental health that comes with all of these pressures. What is it about you that makes you capable of going, hey, I am not, I am not a hundred percent. Okay. Sometimes I deal with this, these issues, but I have specific things that help me in my life, whether it's working out, whether it's journaling, whether it's jujitsu, that get me on a good path and you, even though you're going through something, can figure it out as well. So the awareness, honestly, I think more than anything, and that comes with, I would say with journaling a lot, like when I started to journal three years ago, at the beginning, I was like, this is just way too woo-woo for me, like, okay, yeah, how am I feeling? What are my, you know, what I want to happen? I'm like, this is not going anywhere, this makes zero sense. And my coach is like, just trust me, stick with it, just do it on a daily basis, like you said, like, it's like, it's like working out. You can't just do it once every, every week. You have to, you know, do it on a consistent basis to see the results and by me journaling and being very honest with yourself, in this case with myself, you can, you can bullshit yourself pretty much. That's what it comes down to. Yeah. Like, if you feel, so if you feel depressed, if you feel sad, if you feel whatever you may feel, you can, you can lie to other people if you want to, but you cannot lie to yourself. So having this outlet where you can actually write down your feelings, write down what your intentions for the day are, it just primes you to be the best self you can be for that particular day, even though you're not at 100%, nothing none of us are 100% every day whatsoever. And like this quote that goes around that I see a lot that I love it said, if you only had 50% that particular day and you gave 50%, you gave 100% and the story, like, you don't have to be the perfect father, the perfect husband, the perfect business person, the perfect, whatever, each and every single day. And that's a huge thing too, because a lot of us, especially guys, like you said, set out to be like you said, like the head of the house and the rock and the provider and everything else, a lot of men out there think that you cannot feel anxious. You cannot feel depressed. You can not feel sad. And that just makes it worse, because you're kind of like holding on to these feelings inside of you and you're not letting it out. And that's what journaling, bringing everything back together. That's what journaling does for me, like I'm just being dead honest with myself and reflection in the mirror of yourself and you're like, okay, this is what I have to do to change this right now, today. Like today, I'll tell you an example, like I'm having some personal stuff, but I'm having some hard issues, right? I've been losing weight like crazy, eating a lot healthier and one not. And yesterday, I went to a cardiologist and I got, you know, these are not great, but I'm doing something about it. I'm definitely working out. I'm eating properly. So I'm doing what I can, but yesterday afternoon after I went to a cardiologist, I was just, my mind was going a thousand miles an hour. I'm like, shit, like I don't want to die. Like, you know, I want to see my son grow up, I want to enjoy my time more of my wife. But I said, this morning I went to the gym, I'm like, you know what? And I had the journaling. I'm like, you know what? I'm doing everything I can do. Everything that's in my control to have the best outcome possible. Anything other than that is not within my control. So I shouldn't really be worrying about it. Now if I wasn't working out, if I wasn't eating healthy, then that's on me because that's something that I can control and that's something that that work to be the case, I would have to then start working on, right? But in my particular case, I'm doing everything I can. So I said, you know what, this is, I'm worrying for no reason at all. There's nothing I can really do other than what I'm doing. So I'm good. Yeah. But if I'm not journaling and I'm not having that awareness with myself, that rabbit hole, that loop of anxiety just goes on for a full week, for a full two weeks. And then you get no work done, you're not enjoying your family, you're not being present with your loved ones. Yeah. And thank you so much for sharing that because it's such an important thing to hear of, okay, first and foremost, do everything possible that is within your control. Because that way you know that you're at least turning over every stone. Now as a final question for today, this one is going to be a really meaningful one. Can you share some of the insight on some of the positive messages that you receive having shared a lot of the deep, dark thoughts that you have from other men? Because a lot of this feedback and a lot of this positivity is often overshadowed by the negativity of people talking smack about it, rather than a lot of the good discussions and good conversations that actually kind of happen in the shadows. Yeah. 100%. Like we said in the beginning, like guys, not everybody, but a lot of them think that it's a taboo to feel bad or to have these feelings or these thoughts. And some people think that it makes you less manly to feel that way, right? And I think that the more it's talked about, the better is for society as a whole. Like I don't feel less of a man for having these issues when I know that I'm doing everything possible to be the best person I can for my family. So that doesn't make me less of a man compared to somebody that let's say thankfully they're not going through the situation, they don't have mental issues, right? So you cannot be comparing yourself to others. So I get a bunch of guys and people that reach out to me, like, Hey, thank you for sharing that with me, the Jiu Jitsu gym as well, like people that come up to me, like, like just like very, very, very quietly that one. Thank you so much for that post actually that, you know, it helped me a lot or, Oh, I'm going through the same thing as well. Thank you for posting that. I think that men are a lot more prone to wanting to silence their problems, which I think causes even more problems in society, in my opinion, and having these people come out to me and tell me that they're motivated, that they're inspired that, or that, you know, that helped them through that day. It just helps me kind of solidify me like, you know what, I'm doing the right thing. I should keep putting this measures out and helping out as much people as possible because I think we're all put in this earth for a reason, in my opinion, that's just my personal belief. We're, we're here for a reason. And, and I think that reason is to help as many people as possible in the story. There's no other way around it, like people think, some people think that it's, it's just to be selfish and just be me, me, me, me, and that's not the correct way of seeing things. I think that the more we help others, the best we can, that's the best, the best we can do to contribute to society. When you see other people reaching out to you, it just confirms that. And it says, you know what, there's, there's so much like sickness in this world when it comes to mental health, especially with guys, that they're afraid of telling their wives, of telling their family, telling their friends, because it's taboo, and having more people, like us talking about these things, it just makes it, I think, because it definitely helped me. It makes the weight of carrying it a lot lighter, in my opinion, because you can relate to other people like, Hey, this guy, he has a business, he has family, he does jiu jitsu, he does this and that. But guess what? He also has anxiety and, and, and all these different things that he's been dealing with, like you don't have to be either or you can be everything together. Yeah. I think so, honestly, this is one of the most amazing things about you is that our community of business owners, our community of successful men, our community of people who just want to make the world better is so grateful that people like you are out there starting conversations, because you matter, we are so, so happy that you're here, and you're spreading the message of love and doing the right thing and making other people better. And there are just not enough people in the world today doing that. And, yeah, and it's incredible because the honesty that you approach it with, the ability to go, Hey, I'm going through something, but I will come on on the other side of this way better than I am going in is an amazing superpower that a lot of people just need to condition themselves and train themselves to have. I am so, so happy for you. I'm so, so proud of you. And I'm so, so inspired by who you are as both a business owner, as well as a man, as well as a human being is thank you so much for sharing your time with us. And thank you so much for making the time to be on the platform. Thank you, eager for allowing me this is actually my very first podcast. I'm never going to podcast before. So I'm actually, I do appreciate the opportunity as well, just because, you know, I just really want to share as much positive information and positive lives out there with the world because I was doing this Google research and supposedly, like every time you have one bad experience or one bad situation happen, you need like eight or nine positive ones to kind of bang things out, which is crazy. So I think the more people like you as well are out there spreading the love and spreading the knowledge, the better the world will be. So thank you again for giving a platform to be able to speak out and spread some love today. We cannot wait to see you next time and thank you guys for listening. Thank you.