Alex Ikonn: Creator of The 5-Minute Journal – Gratitude, Kindness, Entrepreneurship, & Designing A Life of Meaning

0:28Simplicity. buying watches, use, listen, go to the store, build a relationship. I would not have an amazing AP house. I'll introduce you. Please introduce me. I'll introduce you. Okay. I'll be AP guys. I mean, listen, stick to retail, stick to the store. Yeah. You don't get scammed. Yeah. You know, like, I'm really sorry this happened to you. It was a powerful lesson, you know, to be, it was like, to be yourself. Yeah. The crypto thing doesn't suit you. you've worked too hard for that course well alex yeah thank you so much for being on the podcast it's my pleasure we're rolling let's do it around the world with your host the start guy we welcome you back to the start guy podcast sharing stories of excellence with those in the know for those who just know i i'm really excited for this conversation i've mentioned you in at least two or three episodes so far.

1:30And I mention you at least on a weekly basis to friends and people I meet as a dear friend and brother who has been so incredibly impactful in my business, my personal growth, and in the way that I see the world in an optimistic way. Partially because of the things you tell me, but also partially because of who you are. You make me optimistic about humanity and entrepreneurship and family life in so many different ways. I had the pleasure of meeting you, I think, four years ago. Right? Most likely around that time. Four, three? Yeah, four, three. Time flies. Time flies. I've learned so many amazing things about the world and about you and about the way you perceive the world in that time.

2:14And I'm incredibly grateful for you as a friend and very excited about this conversation. Amazing. Thank you so much for having me again. Thank you for being here. So for those who don't know, Alex Icon, you are a serial entrepreneur started many businesses with your ex-wife many of your own as well originally russian canadian now living in london beautiful family beautiful daughter beautiful businesses a couple of crypto mistakes that we just talked about yes we just talked about for the most part you have built incredible things i'm excited to learn more about those things and how you managed to always stay true to who you are regardless today.

2:56Yeah, I'm happy to be in your jet. I'm so happy you're in my jet. This is not my jet. This is Steve Barsano's The Jet Business fuselage in Mayfair in London. So we are in London. I don't know if you realized that when you were walking here. You're not actually on a real plane. But I'm also very happy to see these lower piano summer walks on your feet. Of course, always. Very good. yeah very good i still remember our start trip with damien and that was incredible that was amazing mike i have a question for you where's the poubelle i'm i forgot it i before we started i apologize it's a honest mistake it's a shocking mistake the shocking mistake it's a really i'll not repeat it again i mean i actually would love to start by telling the audience about that because I'm sure most of the audience is aware of my jewelry business, Pubelle.

3:48Yes. Which actually the idea started flowing at Dinner With You. I don't know how well you remember this. We were at a sushi place in South Kensington. What's it called? Yashin? We're at Yashin. I was just there for lunch right now. There you go. We were at Yashin. It's called Yashin or Yashin? I don't know. I call it Yashin. Whatever. We were at Yashin. although as you know i own part of the partners of sumi so let's not name them the better establishment is sumi notting hill and endo yeah and endo make sure you go to endo and sumi notting um we were at yashin and you asked me how my rosé business is going i said that i'm not incredibly passionate about it as a consumer but i am as a business operator which is very common for a lot of business operators and you advised me to start a business that I could have incredible passion and love for as a consumer first.

4:46And you looked at my wrists, and I was wearing these one euro bracelets that I'd buy during my travels. You said, I think you should do something with bracelets. I don't know what it is, but do something with bracelets. And I came back to you with a deck for Pubelle, an idea to have this sort of members club feel and bring people together through these interests they share. And you invested blindly. you invest in the person I invested in you I appreciate that we asked for no further info you just wrote me a check invested in Pubelle and I think that is a small example of how incredibly trusting you are of people you believe in and I feel honored that I'm one of those people you believe in for sure without you Pubelle wouldn't be here today thank you for saying that and I wouldn't either and I'm excited what you're gonna keep creating with Pubelle because it's not just about the bracelet But I think it's really about the lifestyle that you're creating and around it.

5:42So there's so much more coming. I appreciate that. Well, Alex, I would love to share with the audience who you are and what your story is. I've had the pleasure of getting to know you really well over the past few years. And I know you have incredible stories to share. But I'd love to talk about your early life as an entrepreneur in Canada, working at a bank, meeting your ex-wife, and how you went from basically just sleeping in your car at one point to becoming a struggling entrepreneur and eventually a successful entrepreneur. For sure. I think, you know, I like to start with actually selling flowers when I was 11 years old because I moved to Canada when I was about nine years old and then my mother divorced my father when I was around 10.

6:33And here I am with a single mother, two kids, don't speak English. And I want to be like the rest of the kids, which is, you know, I want to go to the movies. I want to do something, but I can't. I would ask my mom, hey, can I have money? She's like, no money. I'm like, okay. So what do I do? So my sister is like, hey, there's this guy who picks up children. This is going to sound sorry. Who picks up children at a 7-Eleven near our house. It's like across the street in the gas station. There's a 7-Eleven. and so the guy from the gas station picks up kids no not even from the gas station the guy the guy's this older dude I know it sounds so wrong but I'm telling you so hey I'm still here to live to tell the story okay so I'm 11 years old my sister is like 15 she's like hey there's this guy on a Saturday and Sunday at 9am he'll pick you up in a van he'll pick up all these kids

7:40and he'll take you to a random strip mall plaza outside of toronto so like um he'll just drop you off he'll give you a bucket of flowers and that bucket of flowers say cost 30 dollars and you have like 10 bouquets in there so he's like okay this is your cost right this is your bucket and you have all day i'll pick you up i'll be here back in nine hours so here you are with a bucket of flowers in this random strip mall plaza uh as a kid with no english you have to pay him back the 13 you keep the upside yeah so whatever i sell and i keep the upside so for me the reason I tell this story is because I'm very grateful for this man that was doing very I'm sure illegal thing of it's literally child labor like it's like immigrant child labor it's horrific god bless this man because it taught me very early like the basics of business and as you know I think business is actually very simple it's not complicated you buy something you sell something you have a margin that's it that's your profit that's as how i see business of course it can be in various ways you can put some leverage on it you know get very fancy but at the core you solve a certain you know uh problem or a challenge and you help people with that in that case i think the reason he got these kids because people just probably felt sorry for this immigrant child and just wanted to buy flowers for me.

9:15And it taught me a lot about entrepreneurship. It taught me a lot about sales, being charismatic, and all sorts of other things. Fast forward, of course, selling flowers was not going to be my gateway into entrepreneurship right away. So I didn't quit school. And instead, I wanted to become a banker because back then, going to finance was the way that you're going to make money i'm very grateful for the bank because that's where i met my future wife however 2008 hits and i get fired so i get sacked and the reason i get fired is because i actually have a side business so even though i was working at the bank full-time i was going to university full-time i had another side business did mimi your ex-wife also got fired no she she quit fine were you already dating when you quit um yes yes we were dating and which is also not legal or bank doesn't want you to date other staff but anyways and so here i am 2008 no job and this is when social media is just opening up so facebook twitter instagram doesn't exist yet and then and i see how this is going to change everything this is going to change commerce and you're also very early on to a lot of you know as being as a creator but especially 2008 this is now almost like 20 years ago there was i started my first business was to be a social media consultant back then you were called a snake oil salesman because nobody believed in social media and that you can actually sell things through youtube however we had the idea of because at first how i got to this point as you refer me to the beginning of being aligned with the business to make money what you're passionate about?

11:12Because my first business, I wasn't passionate about the product at all. I just wanted to make money. The business was selling hair extensions. So I didn't care what product to sell. I was poor and I just wanted to make money. And that was my thing to get out of the situation that I was in. And your ex-wife was a content creator? Well, she wasn't a content creator at all because the way similar, what I thrive in, I love the zero to one, like similar to when we're in a restaurant, we're just talking life, business ideas. And I love being able to kind of spot opportunities and to align, hey, you're doing this, you should do this, kind of connecting people to their passion and purpose and what they do.

11:58So Mimi at that point, she's not a professional hairstylist. She's not a creator. She's never been on camera and I we're getting married and she's looking for hair extensions for the wedding and I'm like as a clueless male I'm like what are hair extensions I don't understand why do you need hair you have hair and she's like well I need it for the wedding I want to look like a mermaid and I'm like okay and how much is this and she's like it's gonna be like 400 bucks in a salon I'm like this is ridiculous so there I go I quickly check on Alibaba I'm like hey I can source these hair extensions for like 50 bucks sell them for once again like the flowers for 120 make my profit boom happy days and I and because of I knew about social media and we didn't have much like capital I said let's start a YouTube channel so in 2010 I said you're gonna be a content creator you're gonna create uh videos every week about hair and teach people how to do different hairstyles and that youtube channel from 2010 till 2016 became one of the largest channels on youtube about showing people how to take care of their hair how to do different hairstyles over half a billion views you can go on that channel now there's videos with tens of millions of views oh mimi but just mimi showing how to do different hairstyles her sister was involved with it at the beginning too because she was also unemployed but very quickly you know in our first year we kind of made our first million and we're like in our mid-20s not at all thinking we're going to make a lot of money and we realized then for us that this is not it like we're living a lifestyle we're traveling we're being whether it be in south of france or going to costa rica and surf for two months by all means we should be happy but we weren't because for us the The consumerism and just getting external stuff didn't really help validate us or our well-being.

13:57And that's where we went for a deeper search for a deeper purpose in our lives than just making money. Did you exit the business? We did sell the business eight years after. So unlike some of my entrepreneur friends, just because you have an existential entrepreneurial crisis doesn't mean you just dump the business and drop it. I still we still scaled it grew the business and and successfully exited in 2018. Can you talk about how much you exited the business for? All I can say because it was private but we were bought by Beauty Industry Group which was backed by Elle Catterton. Elle Catterton I believe gave them north of 500 million to round up the whole industry of hair extensions in the US because the that industry alone was around 5 billion a year industry in the US.

14:48So we sold I'll say fairly early in our business. Our business was doing low eight figures profitable. And it was, you know, for us, it was a life changing amount that allowed us to live in London. I actually still have made more money selling hair extensions than I have selling journals. That's what a lot of people... Yeah, because even though we've sold millions of units of journals as well, but when you have a certain exit and we had a really good multiple, it helps you out. So I'm still on that up trajectory with Intelligent Change. Love that. So you sold the hair extension business. You then moved to London.

15:30You had a beautiful daughter with your wife, Mimi. and you started a whole new business with a whole new mission and state of mind when starting the business it wasn't with a capital intention it was for a more with a more social purpose right well it wasn't because similar to you when we were chatting there was like a friend of a friend who was looking to create a business. And he read this book called The 4-Hour Workweek. And he's like, is this real? Like, can you actually have a business where you just work four hours a week and travel? And he started asking around, do you know anybody who's actually done this?

16:16And of a friend of a friend, his name was Guy. This guy's name was Guy. And Guy's like, hey, talk to Alex. He's actually done this 4-Hour Workweek thing. Because another difference between how we built the previous business, we built it as a lifestyle business so we would just barely work travel the world and make money that was our whole that was a whole day actually barely work yeah so we would be like in costa rica i'd work well not four hours a week maybe eight hours a week but two hours a day for two hours a day yeah like more or less yeah and so he we then get connected and then he's like teach me how to create a four-hour workweek business.

17:01And I told him, like, at first, I don't even know you. Let's just get to know each other as people. Because he was very just like, teach me the ways. And then we start chatting. We both learn that we're into self-development, wellness, well-being. And what I told him, similar to what I told you before, I said, don't create a business just for lifestyle or the money. Because there's two things. Number one, building anything is difficult. It's challenging. That's why there aren't that many millionaires. You know, let's be real. And so in order to build something of value, it's going to be difficult.

17:39And you have to have a strong why to be able to get you through the times when most people quit. And two, what I've seen happen to many founders and entrepreneurs is even if they succeed and they build big businesses, but if they're not passionate about the business, and by all means, there's many people who are totally fine with that. And we kind of discussed it where you can be, you have a lifestyle, your business is totally separate, you don't care about it. But me personally, I need to have a business that I'm aligned with, that I'm excited about. And I believe many people are like that as well, where they share my views on this as well.

18:21So I told them, this is what I believe in and I think for you instead of just creating a lifestyle business just to make money create something that you're actually aligned with that you care about and love that you'll be excited about even if you maybe it doesn't go as well you'll be proud of what you have created and I said let's reverse engineer similar to how we were saying so let's reverse engineer to what what you do on a daily basis what you like what you purchase how you spend your time because ideally you want to run a business that doesn't feel like work it just feels like fun and so he's like hey i meditate for uh for an hour every morning i journal for an hour every morning and i work out for every hour every day for an hour i'm like dude like that's three hours it's crazy that you do on this wellness uh morning practice and you've seen this on social media now, these people have these crazy morning routines.

19:19I'm like, this is good for you. But you're at that time, like you're 25, single, unemployed, and you have this time. Most people don't have time like you do. However, they do want to do something in their life to help them have a better routine, have a better mindset. And for me, what I did to help me create the mindset and even my previous life is by just practicing gratitude. Is when my life was really low, I just forced myself to when I wake up to just say one thing that I'm grateful for. And that one simple habit changed my life. So I'm like, hey, your one hour journaling practice, although you love it, I think it's a bit too much.

20:02I think most people won't do an hour of journaling. I would like to start journaling myself personally, but I'm not a journaler. I'll give you five minutes. So let's just create something like the five-minute journal where it's just going to take five minutes a day and you do it every morning and every evening, like brushing your teeth, as we call it. It's a toothbrush for the mind. And let's do this as a test product. As Tim Ferriss calls it, the muse business. You need a muse to start. And I said, let's print a thousand of these. And the best way for you to learn is to actually do. so let's go into business together 50 50 big mistake and i was walking with my good friend john this morning he said 50 50 businesses should be illegal why because with 50 50 you're in a situation where you're in a stalemate no one has majority no one can really make decisions you need both of you to agree and there'll be moments in the business where you won't both agree and somebody has to take a lead in the business and so this is why john's like don't do 50 50 and i've learned as well i said from that situation i did have to buy out my business partner uh later on in the business uh but we went in 50 50 printed a thousand units and i took him through all these stages of how to source a product how to uh market the product how to set up fulfillment e-commerce all the things we just did for pubel uh we did back then in early 2013 when we launched that product so it was in a way intelligent change which is the main business that i focus on now started as as like a side business to which now is a business that i'm really passionate about and looking forward to creating even more things for humanity as a whole i love that so what products do you sell today so today our best seller is still the five minute journal that's our kind of flagship product that we're known for um and we also have the five minute journal app which is fairly popular as well available both on ios and android we all my actual my favorite products that we have beyond the five minute journal is called the productivity planner and a productivity planner is same thing it's my because a lot of these tools like even the five-minute journal.

22:24All it is, they're frameworks. They're frameworks and templates that you can implement without having to create and think about of how to journal or how to be productive. We give you a template, easy template to follow, and you do it. So Productivity Planner follows a very simple method of, in order for you to be productive, it's not about doing 20 tasks a day. if you just focus on and just do one most important task of the day you're golden if you just do one thing that you actually have to do versus because many people's to-do list they have let's say 20 things that they want to do today and what usually people will pick out the things that they want to do versus the things that they actually have to do as they also say you have to eat the frog you have to do the thing that you don't want to do and get it done so that's what the productivity planner is based on we also have products like the best year journal which is a product to help you review your year and then plan the next year and the one that we just launched now which is doing really well is called the life designer and life designer is really helping you envision and create the future of your life because many of us just stumble through life and what i've noticed the people who actually succeed they have a vision for the future that they're creating and you don't just build you know roam overnight you have a big master plan and the vision for building something great i think a lot of these things i think about with no structure it also definitely helps to structure them i started making vision boards a few years ago really tell me about that what's on your vision board yes it's my vision board is four quadrants i think it's the oprah vision board my my boss at apple when i was working at apple asked me to make one her name was ashna her name is ashna why did she ask you to make one honestly she was the greatest boss of all time she cared more about my personal development than my development at work because she just knew that that would trickle down into growth in the office and she really wanted me to know what I work for and what I wake up for and to remind myself of what I want and she inspired me to start making a vision board she would make one every year I think in December or January and I made one for the first time when I was still at Apple one of my visions was to quit my job one of my visions was to start a business to scale Stadgei to get closer to people that inspire me and build friendships with them and nurture those relationships with mentors and with friends to get into better shape to eventually move out of my parents home and get my own place I'd say touch wood 30 or 40 % of what was on my vision board has happened within 18 months so maybe the time wasn't there but how did you do it did you do it in the visual i would open a powerpoint or a keynote and just make four quadrants it was health and wellness um material things yeah and business like things that actually inspire me like a beautiful home or you know things like that people that inspire me in relationships i need to nurture people i should speak more to on a daily basis who make me feel better and make me more inspired and then the bottom right i think was like exact day-to-day goals and business goals thanks so and what how would you represent the business goal would it be in writing numbers those numbers followers income and why do you think it's powerful to have that vision for what you want to create i think that when emotion kicks in it can shadow logic and shadow what the actual drivers are so if I'm sitting at my desk and I'm working and my emotion of let's say laziness or sadness or procrastination or low self-esteem or any of those things kick in naturally for any person I look up at the vision board and realize that's what I need to work towards and I can't let my emotions steer me off that path It's just like a visual daily reminder of the why.

26:54Let's keep pushing. It's super powerful. And it's the same reason why I've created, like I say, the five-minute journal. It's more of a written representation of that vision for the day. So you start off with like three things that you're grateful for. So you just, again, appreciate what you currently have. I think in order to create something, you can be coming from a needy place. You need to be coming from a place of fulfillment. it like what's already in your life you're appreciating you're not just asking for more and more you have to first appreciate before you get more and then second one is what would make today great or what will i do to make today great so say today i wrote you know i'm gonna go on the stock guy podcast and we'll have a great chat we'll have fun and so i'm already visualizing and envisioning how my day is gonna go and so as you said you can do the more of a macro things which is more of like the life designer or the the vision board and then you have to do the daily steps that you take in order to make that vision a reality because also recently dr tara swart actually communicated that the way she sees vision boards not even just vision boards they're action boards they're actually what are the things that you want to envision but also take action towards in your life versus it's like okay we're just gonna sit here and things will just manifest in my life 100 it doesn't work that way it's like it's more inspiring to move into action and to do it yeah when i first had that dinner with you discussing poubelle i still had my full-time job at apple i was still living at my parents house and was starting stadgai part-time the vision board really helped me remember don't forget that conversation with alex bring that idea to life.

28:39And we launched two years later. I don't know if you remember, but it took two years after the conversation to launch the product. And of course, like any other founder, a hundred times until that point, but oh, it's too much work. Let me just focus on the other things. But the vision board really did help me jump back into, let me try again, let me try again. So visually, I think it's kind of like a friend who just says, don't forget about this thing. you you care about yeah and so with intelligent change our company that's what we are we are that friend that helps guide you toward that intelligent change in your life because the way i see it there's no company like as big as apple who are helping people on their journey through life like even school no one ever taught us how to actually be fulfilled and reach our dreams and goals you said like for you was that boss at apple that was not even looking after after you in terms of your career development, but also who are you going to become as a person.

29:44And these people in our lives can do incredible things. And that's what I aspire to be for others, whether it be my friends or for strangers out there, because I genuinely believe in the good of the world, of people. there are eight billion plus of us humans running around yes things are not perfect but more or less it's it's a fairly peaceful society that we live in and that's what i try to focus on is the majority good versus the small bad i love that when you started intelligent change you did so with your ex-wife mimi well it was the the partner uj who because it was 50 50 mimi mimi was always there she's kind of like my muse you know she's always she's always been there she's always been supportive like a good wife is i think a good wife is your partner she's your life partner she's your business partner she's going to be there as your confidant somebody you can trust someone who knows you very well and so mimi has always been there as a partner but in terms of initially it was 50 50 with me and uj who's my best friend at the time and like i said the the partnership broke and we weren't friends for some time.

31:05We are rekindling our friendship now. He actually came to the Intelligent Change Summit last year. He's going to be coming back next week as well when we're hosting. But it was just us that were starting out. However, Mimi was incredible towards helping that initial business growth because Mimi, outside of the main business channel, which was Luxia Hair, which had over 3 million subscribers. She had her own personal channel as well, which had close to a million followers. And this was more than 10 years ago. And so she would make these videos when we launched about like, hey, here's my morning routine and here's my night routine.

31:46And those videos got millions of views. And especially back then, social media was way stronger than it is now because now there's so many creators and has been so commercialized that many people don't trust. They don't just buy just because you're selling some product. But back then, it was fairly new. Like, ooh, what's this? You know, it's this creator who created something and she uses this every day and her life is so beautiful and I want my life to be like that too. So I'd say Mimi was a huge driver of the business initially. I also actually have my own YouTube channel, which I'm relaunching right now.

32:20I had about a quarter million subs. Wow. Yeah, yeah. And then YouTube shut it down one day. so I'm relaunching everything now but we were creators you know a long time ago and so we're restarting and relaunching a lot of things but those initial pushes really helped and that's why I said to you about you know Puvel and the business that you're starting I believe we're in the age of you know founders who are creators it's not just about these faceless nameless brands people want to follow actual individuals and that's why i believe in you right now doing you know showing a different side of yourself outside of just your characters and letting people see the businessman you know somebody who's building something the the type of people that you surround yourself with because i know a lot of the people that you're interviewing are actually people that that you interact with on a daily.

33:17It's not just random people. That gives people that deeper insight of your world and who you are and what you're building. And once people, they choose, do I want to be part of this world that you're creating? And this is the way I see with, let's say what we're building with intelligent change. This is why I'm stepping back in. I think even with Pubell, what you're doing, even I would love to see more behind the scenes of what you will create into the future I saw some of that merch in Dubai I don't know where I would love that t-shirt or wherever it is but I want to get deeper into the world that whoever is building I love that thank you I'll try to work on that this podcast is brought to you by Pubell by The Stard Guy bringing you charms hand-painted with enamel on 925 sterling silver, allowing you to express all the things you love and all the things you might question.

34:21From reaver bateaus to baggammon board and caviar tins to paddle rackets, there is a poubelle charm or completed set for everyone in The Know. Thank you so much for watching and enjoy the podcast. I'd like to play devil's advocate for a moment. Of course, yeah, let's do it. and say things that people have said around growing up about running businesses, starting businesses, and being a certain type of entrepreneur. And it's always about this, like, be a shark, like the big dog will eat the small dog, and like everyone's out to get you. And there's all these warnings for entrepreneurs and people just doing business in general.

35:04Some of them warranted, some of them exaggerated, I find. and from the moment I met you through our mutual friend Sammy who introduced me to you yeah I realize you have been kindness first love first and deep connection first and everything else second and not in some act in a way to project or virtue signal in any way it is truly you you're such a kind great man great to your to your wife at the time great to your daughter great to your friends great to your business partners and society growing up taught me to believe that those kumbaya tree huggers will never survive in these capitalist markets because they'll get eaten alive for being too kind you know nice guys finish last but the nice guy finished first and you've done incredible things and it's paid off incredibly and i'd love for you to elaborate on that mindset that you are so true to because I find it incredibly powerful.

36:04Thank you so much. It all stems from my mother. And I think our mothers teach us a lot. For me, she's a true kind of angel and she truly has that naive view of people are good. And that's what I've been instilled even in the hard times and the challenging times. And it's something that I see that I want to carry into this world and reality of that by creating from heart and that you can be rewarded. Because the most important lesson that I've learned about making money is before when I was in scarcity, when I was poor, I was always thinking about myself. How can I get rich? How can I get money?

36:56But the moment I switched the narrative from how do I deliver value to other people? How do I give something to other people versus trying to take for myself? That's actually when I started making money. So even in regards to, say, creating content, when we created content, if you and we've created, like I said, hundreds of videos, and this is something like the formula that I spoke to you about, one of our kind of top values is to deliver value to people. And what I believe in is when you come from that place of giving first, somehow you'll get things back, but you don't have that expectation of even getting anything in return.

37:41And that's where I believe to leading first with kindness, leading first with abundance, leading with getting value to others, you're actually then able to create that value in business or for other people. Think about Apple. Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world. Why? Because they help other people to create a lot of value. We use those devices to connect with family. We use those devices to run our businesses, to create content. And that's why they make so much money. So in some ways it's not actually just a kumbaya principle of delivering value. It's also a great business principle by seeing how you can create value for other people.

38:28I love that. I've spoken to you before about the holistic kindness first, love first archetype that I found unappealing. The people that are always talking about kindness first gratitude first and they're wearing their really big hats i told you they drive me crazy in what way oh yeah the hats okay the tulum crowd you know those guys the spiritual people yeah they're like like i have nothing against spiritual people i think it's a beautiful thing what i don't like is people who are performative in general signaling i like people who are authentic yeah generally and what i love about you is you truly embody the most important things people who do those things talk about without the whole mumbo jumbo and the whole virtue signaling of okay now i'm dressing like i work at scorpios everywhere and i'm wearing these humongous hats all the time the hats really get to me the hats and the beads and the whole thing it's i really love that you start from within and you apply it in all elements of your life.

39:42I know a lot of people who are really kind on the bus. They're really kind at a restaurant. They're really kind on a night out. But then they get home and that's where their anger comes out. And they're actually unpleasant to their partner. And they're maybe unpleasant in the office. They pick and choose the environments. Maybe it's not a conscious choice and it's actually that's where their their angers and insecurities lie. But they wear these different masks, whereas I feel like you've committed to a path of authenticity and it's worked out very well for you. I'm curious, has that been a conscious decision to always be the version of yourself that you love most or if that's a natural thing that happened to you by consequence of the things you practiced?

40:34yeah i think it's a thank you an excellent question and we didn't get too deep into kind of my childhood or any of those kind of things but especially from ages of like when i moved to canada 10 to 17 those were like my dark ages which um were kicked off and kind of culminated with my father dying when i just turned 18 and he died of cancer he got diagnosis and in three months he passed away. And for me, that was my first kind of my meeting with death of somebody close to me passes away. And because he died over a few months, I got to visit him in hospice care and see him pass away slowly and wither away as a human.

41:34This man - Quite quickly. Yeah, quite quickly. But this man who was full of energy, life of the party, till all of a sudden, dying. And the reason I bring up this story, this is where a lot of my attitude of gratitude, of living life to the fullest comes from, was actually confronting death. Because when you confront death, and that, hey, we're all on a death sentence here, and we're going to die. Every day that we wake up and we get to live is incredible. Like my baseline for life is waking up and moving. Everything else is a bonus. Even if you have a problem, it's a bonus. Like it's all extras.

42:17Like it's all just a plus. And that is the attitude that I live for. So in some ways, one of my biggest challenges and dark moments in life has allowed me to actually see life from a positive perspective. And this is why I choose gratitude. This is why I choose to see the good because especially growing up in, you know, pretty much post-Soviet Union Russia, it's not the United Kingdom or Canada where I grew up or the US. And that's why even for myself when I realized that instead of complaining, because usually what happens to us, the greatest formula is the simplest formula, which is expectations minus reality equals happiness.

43:05That is it. And most of society that we live in now, the expectations are out of whack because what we see on social media and everywhere else, however, we have to ground ourselves with the reality of where we come from. And we all come from different places. We all have different challenges. And for myself, I never forget my challenges. A lot of times, even like yourself, a lot of people think Alex is this, you know, super grateful, always happy dude. I wasn't like that all the time. And some people say Alex never embraces his shadow. I lived in the shadow for a big part of my life in the darkness.