The Bossticks - Valeria Lipovetsky & Gary Lipovetsky - How To Have A Healthy Relationship Or Marriage, Successful Parenting, & Your Own Business

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

#733: Today we're sitting down with Valeria and Gary Lipovetsky, creative marketing experts, podcasters and influencers. We discuss working alongside your partner, hands-off parenting, entrepreneurship and career shifts, building a team, and the importance of a niche business concept to last the long haul.   To connect with Valeria Lipovetsky click HERE   To connect with Gary Lipovetsky click HERE   To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To Watch the Show click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential Head to the HIM & HER Show ShopMy page HERE to find all of Michael and Lauryn's favorite products mentioned on their latest episodes.   This episode is brought to you by Soaak.   Go to soaak.com/skinny and use code SKINNY at checkout to get your first month free.   This episode is brought to you by Equip Foods Go to equipfoods.com/skinny or use code SKINNY at checkout to receive 20% off your order.   This episode is brought to you by Nutrafol Nutrafol is the #1 dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement, clinically shown to improve your hair growth, thickness, and visible scalp coverage. Go to nutrafol.com and use code SKINNYHAIR to save $10 off your first month's subscription, plus free shipping.   This episode is brought to you by Sun Bum Visit sunbum.com and use code SKINNY at checkout for 15% off your first purchase.   This episode is brought to you by Caraway Ditch the chemicals with Caraway. Visit carawayhome.com/HIMANDHER to receive 10% off your next purchase.   This episode is brought to you by HERS.   Weight loss by HERS is realistic, not restrictive, and is focused on giving you access to the solution that's right for you. Visit ForHERS.com/tsc for your personalized weight loss treatment options.    Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

For me, content was always my thing. I love creating content. I love the media business. So for me doing the product, it just drained my soul. And at some point, we were looking at each other being like, what are we doing? That actually put us in an inferior cash flow position because although that was generating millions of dollars a year in product sales, it wasn't, it was taking away Valeria's attention. Welcome. Welcome in. Today we are sitting down with Valeria and Gary Lipovetsky.

Okay. I have been wanting to interview Valeria. for as long as I can remember. And when I came to her with the idea to do a podcast swap, she was so in and she's like, let's do it with my husband, Gary, because it's perfect for the him and her show. So her and her husband came on and we discussed everything in this episode. We talked about working alongside your partner, fatherhood, motherhood, hands-off parenting, hands-on parenting, entrepreneurship, career shifts, their background, building a team, the importance of niche small business and concepts that last. I found this episode very engaging.

And after this, I went and did Valeria's podcast, not alone. So you can go listen to sort of part two with her and I on her podcast. And we kind of have like a girl talk situation. Valeria is a famous content creator. She's a purpose driven entrepreneur, a creative director, and a podcast host. She's a mother of three and married to give. Gary. Gary is the co-founder of Valeria Inc. and the creative method. Him and his wife worked together just like me and Michael, so this dynamic was fun. On that note, Valeria and Gary, welcome to the show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. How did you guys meet? We've been married for almost 12 years, so there's going to be the 12-year dynamic here. How long have you guys been married? I don't know. We've been together since we were, we've met when we were 12 years old, but we've been together since we were 20. Like, call it. It's been a while.

How old are you guys now? I'm 37. Okay. So, oh. How many years is that? We got married in 2016. He didn't marry me for math. But it feels like we've been, you know, we've known each time.

So it just feels like. Okay, so just a long time. Okay. So you understand this dynamic. Yes, we understand. Okay. So we met, to answer your question, we met, the first time we met was at my best French Shabbat dinner in Toronto, Canada.

It's when I moved to Canada. And I actually had a boyfriend. So it's not like it was, oh my God, this is going to be my husband. We met, he left some kind of impression on me because he told me that he was, he went to the Playboy Mansion. I did go to the Playboy Mansion. So I was like, that's a random thing to share the Shabbat dinner. And then we haven't seen each other after that for a year. I broke up with a boyfriend, moved to New York, came back to visit my mom.

And that's kind of where we got reconnected. Yeah, that's kind of your version of it. What do you mean? What is your version? Let's get the him version. Well, I mean, the version of it is that, you know, Yes, we did meet at a French Shabbat dinner. And I didn't see her first.

She told me she had a boyfriend. And then I met up with her a year later. And the year later, I saw her and she didn't have this boyfriend. And I'm like, hey, what's up? What's going on? And then she told me that she had broken up with this boyfriend. And I politely, you know, suggested to her. I said, you know, there's this play and there's like some stupid shit that I

would never have seen on my own. But I thought, oh, she's like a young girl. She's into all this like artsy nonsense. So I said to her, hey, do you want to go to this play, right? And so she did the, she did something that. that it was amazing. She politely said to me, yeah, you know, we can all go with like our mutual friends because it turned out we had a lot of mutual friends. We can all go together. We can go to this play together. And that was her like really polite way of turning me down. Right. And I thought that

was really nice of her. So when I realized she wasn't interested in me and also her friend, her mutual, like our mutual friend Mary, I asked Mary, I said, hey, Mary, can you find out like, you know, what's her situation? And Mary never got back to me. And that was Mary's polite way of saying she's not interested in you, right? So I get it. So I thought that was really cool. So we became friends. So I dropped all the, I'm looking at you because you know what I'm talking about. Smooth. I dropped it all. And I said, okay, we're just going to be friends because I figured, you know what I'm going to network with her. She's a beautiful girl. She probably knows other, you know, amazing women. And, you know, it's already time for me to get married. I was in my late 30s. And we started hanging out. So everything was dropped. Just friends. We were communicating by BBM. You guys don't know what that is. You're too young for that. What are you talking about? The Blackberry messenger? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what that is. Yeah. Yeah.

I wasn't a Blackberry girl. Go ahead. So anyways, we were communicating by BBM and one day she came in. She had come in from out of town. It was a long weekend and I was the only person she knew that was still in town. So she contacted me and said, hey, you know, we should, you want to hang out? And I understood that she's had nothing about her to do. I said, yeah, you know, we can hang out and we just hung out.

And that night we went, we went for dinner. Again, it wasn't a date. There was another couple with, not another couple. there was her friend who was visiting from out of town and my buddy. And the four of us went out, not a date. Those two went home early. Her and I went for a drink. We got a bottle of champagne.

We drank probably half of it, which means we were both drunk because we don't drank. And then we kissed and that I knew she was mine. That's my story. Yeah. Wow. I like the detail of your story. And then I pursued her to the ends of the earth until she agreed to marry me two

and a half months. To New York. Yeah. Two and a half months later married. I proposed. No, proposed. Yeah. Yeah.

Don't you think the secret to getting the guy is to literally just do nothing and ignore them? Every story that I hear that's successful, the girl was like, I'm not interested. You're annoying. You're like a gnat. Leave me alone. And then the guy leans in. Well, we do like the chase. Yeah.

But you know what? I think the difference is there was a chase, but it was very respectful. Like I never made him feel like, oh, you're just, you're in my space. You know what I mean? That's why I think he keeps mentioning how I turned him down in a really nice way. because I was always very thoughtful with my response. So I think the secret is like that balance of being a human and kind. But yeah, to be like, it doesn't hurt that, you know, she was like beautiful and smart and, you know, all those things.

She was checking all your boxes. Correct. Was I kind? Well, I mean, we were so young. I don't know if I was kind. I'm going to say I was kind. Yeah. You can rewrite your own story then.

I can rewrite my own story. What do you guys think is the secret to a successful marriage? because the reason I wanted to have both of you guys on the podcast when the opportunity came up is you guys work together too. And Michael and I understand that dynamic. What is the secret? But typically we say if you're in a relationship, don't do that. I think that's harder to figure out than the other stuff. I don't know if you guys would agree with that or not.

Meaning like it's been easier for us to figure out how to co-parent and how to be in a relationship. But the harder thing was figuring out the work dynamic. I sometimes come to gear and I'm just like, you know what? I wonder what would be the situation if we didn't work together. Because again, to your point, we are involved in each other's, like, every aspect of our lives. And I'm a very individual person. Like, I need my space. So I sometimes when we go through it, I'm like, I wonder what it would be if we didn't work together.

And Gary's completely against it. It's like if we didn't have this passion together, we would have grown apart. Because what I think you see with a lot of couples is that each of them kind of diving into their own career and doing their own thing. And that's when, you know, the roads are starting to split. Where for us here, when we share about our day or about a situation or about a challenge, we so understand each other because we're in it and we have the same goal. And there's no place for interpretation, I guess.

I think to answer your first question outside of the, you know, the business case is how to, like, the key to a successful marriage in general, because I think that was your first question. That was the first thing. I think it's about letting your partner develop as an individual, letting them evolve on their own, working on yourself to make sure you're evolving. So like your fitness, your mind, you know, spiritually, all of the things that you need to do as an individual to continue to improve, consume the right content and all of that. So if your partner is evolving and developing and improving and you let them do that and

you don't have this like jealousy and wanting to always be, you know, a part of every activity and knowing everything and then you're doing the same thing for yourself, you both, evolve simultaneously, you improve simultaneously, and then you come together to share in those kind of, in, in those learnings. And I find that that's been really good for Valery and I. Like I did something stupid lately, like recently in my, I just, I turned 51 not long ago and I decided I'm going to get a motorcycle, which I never did before. Uh-oh. So she didn't even say a word to me. Well, she didn't say a word to me. So yeah, I know, it's my midlife crisis. You were kind of my midlife crisis, but, but you know, I did that and she didn't question me. And now I go out, I spend so much time on my own,

the road and it's very therapeutic for me and I come back and I come back the improved version of myself and she does similar stuff like she'll go out with her friends and she'll do the things that she reads a lot of books I don't read as many books as her you don't know what I do which I think is nice it's great so it's it's it's the space yeah she has another job down the street at the strip club Gary yeah no whole other life happening I think that's really good advice if she worked at the strip club I think my degenerate friends would probably let me know who frequent you know those kind of places The ones that are going for the lunch special would say.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But on the business side, yeah, I mean, Valeria's, she's an entrepreneur. So, you know, and she's just like one of these naturally born like savant entrepreneurs. So if we weren't work, we would have worked together regardless because regardless of what she would have pursued, I'm not the type of person because I'm an entrepreneur too. I wouldn't have sat by the side and said, okay, go ahead and do that on your own. I would have found the synergies and we would have connected either way. Yeah, that's true.

So this was just inevitable. I would love to lay the foundation up for our audience about how each of you grew up before we get into now. I was able to listen to a podcast where you shared your childhood. You had a, I don't know if Wild's the right word. You had an interesting childhood the way you shared it. Can you talk a little bit about how you grew up? Yeah. So I was born in Russia and my mother had me when she was 19.

and then we moved to Israel just her and I when she was 21. So we grew up together. She was a single mother without the financial assistance. Never met my father, biological father. They didn't have kind of the financial assistance. And I just kind of went through life figuring it out with her. She was such a rock, very strong figure, not was-is, very strong figure in my life. But with that came also a lot of, you know, hyper independence and a lot of understanding of how to move in the world in a different way.

Because my surrounding was a lot of kind of normal. And I didn't come from normal. So it was just a lot of that. And then I started, I left home when I was 16 with modeling and I started traveling and working and making money. And that was just kind of my childhood. I feel like it was really short. lived. And it's kind of hitting me now that I'm hitting 34 soon in September, where I'm just like, I kind of feel like the little girl in me needs to, you know, get back a little bit of her childhood. It's kind of like you had to grow up pretty fast. Very fast, yes. So, sorry, may I add something? Yes. He is so detail-oriented. I'm just like... Well, no, but she's missing a lot of crucial points of this. So when she says she was born in Russia,

She was born in a place and she spent the first couple of years in a place and she was the product of a society that were just, I don't know how else to say it. They were just murderers. Like everybody was killing each other. There was no law. No, you're laughing, you're laughing, but you know, members of your family, your mother's family were murdered. Okay, they were. Okay, fine. That's true.

And it's kind of a detail. And this is, this is like. I think I've blocked so many memories. So in Russia, there's Moscow. Okay. And then there's the rest of Russia. And the further you get from Moscow, the more you're likely to get killed in the street. This was back in the 90s, right?

This was, she was born in 1990 when it was still communism right before 1992, when communism stopped, right? And it became a democracy over there, right? So she comes from a very rough place. So when people, you know, when let's say like, you know, musicians talk about coming from really rough places in America, those are all like, you know, very different. That's like, you know, I don't know, like that's like a Jersey suburb compared to where Valeria is from, like where she was born into. And then she moved to Israel.

And in Israel, she lived in a place where it was a lot of, you know, immigrants who had come from all over the world. There was like a whole exodus. It was a big, yeah, Russian immigration. Yeah. And if you don't mind me asking, why was your father not with you? Had he passed or was he? No, they just, I mean, they were babies. My mom was 19.

He was 20. So it was actually very common. I don't know how it is now. but a lot of my Russian friends in Israel grew up without fathers. So I didn't feel like it was something, you know, out of the ordinary, in that environment. Was this the mothers just wanted to get the kids out of the environment? Well, my mother at that point was like, yeah, we have to either leave or we, I don't know what's her future here. So she in Israel or in Russia?

In Russia, leave to Israel. And Israel opened their borders to like Russian Jews. So for us, we did the Aliyah, like coming to Israel. And yeah, she always tried to see how she can build a different kind of future. So when we moved to Israel, it was a very fast decision, but a survival mechanism for her that she still operates on. But yeah, that was just kind of the environment I grew up in. But I never, when you tell the story, it's so interesting. When you tell all these little details, to me, I don't, I can't explain it.

It doesn't feel like this dark, scary, traumatic. So here's the thing. Her mother and I were the same age. Her mother's a year older than me. So her mother and I were not like, it's like not like a normal relationship between like a son-in-law and a mother-in-law. Yeah. So she, like I know what was going on back there, right?

Because I'm also from that generation. Oh, that's. And I'm also from that part of the world. That's interesting. And I speak Russian. Well, that gave me chills. That's crazy. You see it from a totally different perspective.

I'm, I was born in Ukraine. Okay. You're born Ukraine. Okay. But I was, we'll get into my stuff in a. bit and but I speak Russian and I'll tell you why afterwards. But I know the stories. Like her mom will tell me the stories. As a child, of course, she wasn't really privy to this stuff. Her mom's a gangster. Like when I see she's like she's lived stuff that like you guys like none

of us can understand myself included. Right. So going to Israel, this like, you know, having her at 19 and then the dad kind of dropped off because he, you know, he went on his own way. And then, you know, moving to Israel, doing one immigration, then eventually moving to Canada. But like, That's like, it's tough. Like, this isn't like, I don't want to, I don't want to like trivialize like single moms and other parts of the world, but these are really extenuating and difficult circumstances. Like her mom's a survivor. And she shielded Valeria from a lot of that.

I know later in life, and then I want to get to Gary's childhood, but I know later in life you, you ended up finding your dad. Yeah. And the way you talked about it was really aware and a point. was amazing the way you talked about it when I heard you on a podcast. I think it was your own podcast. Maybe Melissa says, can you share why you decided to find him? I know you did a vlog on it. Give us a little bit of behind the scenes on that. Yeah. So I was 26 at a time and my mother called me and she said, I'm going to Russia to visit her mother, my grandmother's grave. She said, I think

she should come with me. We'll do a little root strip. I haven't been back to Russia since we left when I was two. So when the opportunity kind of showed up, I was a little hesitant because she did say, we're going to go back to the town where you grew up, where I grew up, and you'll be able to see your father if you're interested. And I came to Gary, I remember. And, you know, for me, moving, even though she shielded me from a lot of what was going on, I still operate as a, you know, survival mode. So when I came to Gary, my first reaction was like, I don't need it. I got moved down with my life. I don't need to explore this. Open Pandora's box. like I'm not going to go. We sat down and he said, you know what? You don't know if this opportunity

will ever come up again. You don't know if he's going to be alive next year. Just go. So I decided to go and I decided to vlog. I've never before shared very raw emotional vlogs on my channel. So that also was very scary for me. But I filmed it more for myself and honestly to show the kids in the future and later on decided to publish it. So when I went and I saw him and I met him for the first time, Yeah, it was a very disconnected type of encounter because I've already, I don't want to say healed because probably not, but I've already pushed it down so much that I didn't have anything else that I needed from him. How old were you when he left your life when you were two? Okay, you were two. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know. He left earlier than that. Two is when you left Russia. We left Russia, but they were going kind of back and forth. Not to minimize it, but I was wondering if he left it like seven or eight. No. I grew up always knowing that there is a father, but the only, I remember I saw one photo of their wedding.

Everything else she cut in half, so I never really saw his face. So that one photo and I was like, oh, it kind of looks like me. But I just, I never cared. For me, my mom was always this like one person that my ride or die, no matter what, will go through anything. and I just didn't need or feel the urge to learn about that side of the family. But yeah, it was very cold. It was handled in a very Russian way.

So the Russian way is to sweep everything under the rug. Like nothing happened. And that's how, you know, watching the vlog even today, when I met him and my grandfather. Your biological grandfather. My biological grandfather, they were just like, hey, how are you? How's everything so happy you came here? There was no acknowledgement. No acknowledgement, you know, no.

These aren't sophisticated. Sorry, these aren't sophisticated. It's not even about sophistication. I just think it's a very cultural thing. It's a very cultural thing to just be like, okay, yeah, move on. We'll continue. Nothing happened. So for the record, I think this guy is a deadbeat. My personally, my husband would think the same. Yeah. If I, if I were to meet him, I would shake his hand out of respect and stuff, but I think he's a deadbeat. And the reason is, is because like he never took care of anything. It's like, you know you have a kid. I know he was like 19 or 20 years old when she was born. But still, once you become an adult, to not make a phone call to say to her mom, hey, listen, can I send you whatever I need to send?

That to me, that to me. Men weren't raised like that. Can I ask you a question? What is it like for you to see your husband now be such an amazing father? Is that weird? No. I'm sure it's amazing. But I mean, is it also like, like, is it weird to see him with your children being so hands-on?

First of all, when I- First of all, he's not handsome. Decided that he's going to be my husband. One of the things that I was looking for is the father, like a stable father figure. Because obviously I didn't have that. If we had a daughter and I would see him with a daughter, I think I would have gone through a big, like emotional thing. But because we have three boys, I think I look at it from a different way. obviously it's amazing. I knew he's going to be an amazing father. I had no doubts about it.

But I'm healing through watching him. But if we had a girl, it would have been, it would have crushed me. I know it. And by the way, I'm less hands on than you think, but that's, that's, that's, that's, I'm consciously less hands on. I know you guys talked about this. I heard something about this. I have this in my notes. I want to talk to you about that. I just don't think boys should be coddled. Okay. Okay. I'm, I'm into it. Michael's into it. I want to attach to the abilical cord. So my son, my son and my umbilical cord is attached. He's not cropping it. Yeah, you're not helping it. And I tell him he's living with his mom for the rest of his life.

And there's no one but his mom. My dad is turning 80. We're going to his birthday. Oh, wow. And so he's He had you late. He had you late. Yeah, he comes, yeah, he had me late. Like, 42 or whatever? Forty-42. Yeah, but he's, you know, and his parents, like we said are 20 years apart. Yeah, 18. But then he comes from a different generation. And then my mom is half Japanese. And so there was not, there was no coddling in the house. You know what I tell her all the time. I'm like, You don't want to, listen, people are going to disagree with this, but I agree.

I think with girls, it's maybe, but boys, it's tough out there in the world. And I think if you coddle too many people, here's what happens. I've seen a lot of my friends that I believe were coddled by their mothers. Yeah. And I think they struggle later in life with women who don't give them that same kind of coddling. And a lot of women, especially now, they're, if you want to date a strong purpose-driven woman, like you're not going to get the calling. And they don't know how to, they don't know how to, they don't know how to process.

us that if they've been coddled a lot. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, yeah. It makes sense, but I have to say you guys are looking it in a very simplistic way. It's not like, oh, you're coddling. And this is where we're a little bit apart. And that's fine. Listen, I think that for a child, a boy or a girl, they need to build a feeling of safety and like that connection to the parent. The first seven years are critical. That being said, I always felt loved and safe. I just don't think coddling was there. Coddling, 100%. Coddling is different, but it depends what you define as cuddling.

Hold on a second. This is why, in my opinion, okay, I'm no like biological expert, but in my opinion, this is why you need a man and a woman to raise a kid. Because you have from the man's perspective, you build resilience. They don't kind of overparent where they're coddling them. And you need that love and affection and that safety that only a mother can give. You need the combination of the two. You know, are you familiar with Scott Galloway?

I love him. He was just talking recently. about, and he's got boys, I believe, but he was saying that single mothers who raise a daughter, the daughters tend to typically be okay, no real issues. Single mothers that raise a son. And listen, I'm not, this is tough circumstances. But when the male leaves the house and there's a man, there's higher statistics for crime and poor behavior in the boys if the man is not in the house.

Because the boys aren't answering to anybody in real time. I may have butchered all that, but it's, if you guys listen to Scott Galloway talking, about this. And it was interesting because they're saying women somehow or little girls have the have more emotional capability to kind of like process things. But boys, if they're left to their own devices without a male figure, they tend to go off the rails a lot more. That I agree 100% honestly. I have a younger brother and my mother moved to Canada. He was 10 years old. And I mean, he can attest to it himself, not having a father figure, even if he had one until 10 years old, but from 10 to, you know, gone through teenage years and 18 and 20, it was hard.

You can tell that it was missing in his life. So I definitely agree. Gary's very bullish on it. He's always like single mother. Yes, women can do it, but it's just. A woman can never, a woman can't teach a boy to be a man. She can't make a man out of him. She just can't, in my opinion, because she's, she's not a man.

I don't know. How can she do it? You know, there was a defining moment for me when our 11-year-old first started walking. And there was a moment that made me really understand the difference and respect, the different perspectives that a man and a woman has when it comes to raising kids. We were at, we were at somewhere at a party or something. And our now 11 year old back then, he was just starting to walk. So he was like maybe one and a half, something like that. And he was like waddling beside me and he fell down.

And I looked at him and he looked at me and I said, get up. And he grabbed my pant legs and he pulled himself up. And there were two sets of people sitting. like within like a distance where they could see us. There was women sitting and there was men sitting. And they were all looking. The men were just looking at me normally and the women are like, why don't you help him up?

Right? And this is just like a natural response to something that they're seeing. It shows that, though, that story just shows the whole trajectory of it. Correct. Yeah. But you need both. You need both. Yeah.

I think that what men instill and boys is the idea of like you are able to figure out yourself, that feeling of autonomy and independence and resilience where for women, yeah, we're taking care of their emotional needs. But if we had girls, I would be like, go to you, like, I love the way she turned out. I'm so, like, go here. This is your guiding light. I'm so much softer. I'm so much softer.

You have one of each. Yeah, with my daughter. And I'm glad. Completely different. But, you know, I, when I think back on my life and again, like, I'm not commenting on anyone else's experience. I'm just calling me to my when I think about like what my father gave me most, they gave me a lot of things. But the number one thing my dad gave me was confidence. Confidence of myself. Yeah. Right. And like, and like, and when I, when I talk to him now, I'm like,

oh, a lot of the things that I've been able to do in my life are because of that confidence that he instilled in me. And you know how he did that. He, he did it in a way where it was like there there was always of like, one, you have to pick yourself up. There's no other alternative. But also when you You can pick yourself up. That's exactly going back to your story. Round it out. Okay, now we need to get into Gary's childhood. Yeah.

Let's, Gary, you're in the hot seat. What was your childhood like? So, okay, so I was born in, in Soviet era Ukraine. Wow. Yeah. And I'm a Jew. So Jews weren't liked in Soviet era Ukraine. Well, take us as someone who was not born yet to explain what that means.

Well, what that means is that in, okay, so my mother, so for example, my mother who passed the way recently, she was a Holocaust survivor. Wow. And the Jews in that part of the world were blamed in general by society for World War II because Hitler and the Nazis were coming after the Jews, right? So, so, I mean, this isn't a political discussion, but so in an environment where Jews are just hated, they're just hated. And this, in the sense that my mom, when she would try to go to university or like college after high school, they just looked at her. And this is like, the administration, It'd be like, no, you're a Jew.

You can't come here. So it was like that, right? It was like that. And, you know, my dad would get beaten up. Like, one of my best friends, his dad literally became like an Olympic boxer because he was Jewish because he had to learn how to fight. So that's just the reality of the world that's not really, you know, talked about. So growing up in that environment, I didn't grow up in that environment. My parents grew up in that environment.

In addition to that, you know, like Ukraine in the 50s and 60s when they were coming up, It was just a very poor place. It was all iron curtain. It was like North Korea, you couldn't come and go. Like, you're stuck there. My parents never left Ukraine until they were in their mid-30s when we left Ukraine permanently. That's wild. They never traveled.

The most that they could do because it was all Soviet Union. They actually ended up going to, they ended up breaking through and going to college. They both went to college. And they went in Moscow, which I know you're thinking like, how is it possible that Ukraine? It was all one, right? There was no, like, it was, there was no separation. It was all Soviet Union. That's why I don't speak Ukrainian.

I actually speak Russian because my parents grew up only speaking Russian. They know how to speak Ukrainian, but they never actually practically spoke Ukrainian in like the, you know, in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s when they were when they were in that part of the world. So I grew up speaking only Russian. That's why my like culturally I'm Russian even though geographically I'm Ukrainian. So in 1976 we left. We were supposed to go to Israel because the only people that they were letting out of

like this with this North Korea style government at the time were Jewish people. So everything was closed. Nobody could leave except Jewish people. And Jewish people were all going to Israel because by that time, Israel was formed in 1948. And then by that time, Israel was saying, okay, like if you're Jewish come here, we're going to like help you out with social services, you know, get you guys on your feet and whatnot. And so we were supposed to go to Israel. We did all the paperwork to go there. There's like this buffer zone, which is Italy.

So we went to Rome. And so I was, whatever I was, two and a half years old. And in Rome for in that six month period, while we were waiting to get our paperwork cleared for Israel, my father heard of Canada. So my mom said, listen, we're leaving the Soviet Union. Part of the reason is so that our son doesn't have to serve in the army because it was mandatory army. And she said, we're just going to go to Israel where it's still mandatory army. And she goes, what's the point? Let's go somewhere where he doesn't have to serve in the army.

We don't want him serving in the army. because she didn't look at like the Israeli army as she looked at it as the same as the Ukrainian army. So she just didn't want it for me. And so my dad said, okay, let's bounce and we'll go to Canada. So we ended up going to Canada. So I arrived to Canada and I was three years old. One thing that I am so passionate about is frequencies. I know.

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Again, equipfoods.com slash skinny for 20% off. I recently put up a post on my Instagram. You can go see it. I'm wearing like a denim outfit. And I talked about my hair journey. and I feel really confident in talking about this because my hair went from not great to long, thick, full, no shedding and no extensions. And it's been an exploration.

Let me tell you. This has been something that I have become a practitioner at is hair. I have really tried it all. And there's a couple things that I do that I think have really helped. I obviously went from blonde to Burnett, which has been life changing. I microneedle, my scalp, I do scalp massage. I also am not a big fan of washing my hair a lot. I probably wash it. I don't know, like three times a month. Sue me. And then I supplement. And the supplement that I use for my hair that has helped with hair thinning, shedding, and hair issues is Nutraful.

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hair. Nutraful.com spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com promo code skinny hair. That's neutraful.com promo code skinny hair. This is really wild because there's a lot of similarities between your stories. Yeah. Yeah. So when he's speaking Russian, you guys, when you met, did you know he spoke Russian? Yeah. Yeah, of course.

I mean, I think one of the things that connected us so much is our cultural, you know, similarities. We grew up with the same culture. And I think we also feel very like I know him and he knows me because of our history, the family history, generational history. you know. Generational trauma, yeah, all that. Yeah, a lot of it. When you were 16 and you went off to model, what was that like?

It was, it was my form of escape. Back then, when I was 16, my mother and my stepdad, who is the father of my brother, they were getting a divorce. So I just wanted to escape that and find and build a new life for myself. So when I left home, I don't think I was really thinking about it. I mean, for me, I was already had a way. way to make money and I'm just like, let's go. What about like the catiness of other models? I've heard horror stories on this podcast. Did you experience that or was it pretty smooth sailing? Yeah,

I experienced it, but Lauren, I grew up in Israel. Like, I grew up where there is. You're like, I don't care about the catiness. Not only that. Like, there's real problems in the world. You know what I mean? Like people were blowing up. My mother, you know, got saved because she missed a bus that blew up by like, a suicide bomber. So to me, I mean, I look at life in a very different way. I have friends that lost their families. Like I, the catiness and all that stuff at the end of the day didn't really change much for me because it was my way out. I ask you this specifically because I don't sense any catiness in you. And so it would be interesting to observe what you've gone through in your life with you don't seem catty at all. It just would be interesting. Like I can't imagine people

being catty to you. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think people were catty, not because of me, but because of them. Like a lot of the catiness was coming from girls that, like when I lived in Paris, I lived with 13 girls in an apartment. Okay. That's like a recipe for disaster. Now all of us are just trying to survive, trying to lend the same jobs, you know, it's aggressive. And a lot of the girls, they come from cultures, Russian cultures. They're very catty. And it was, yeah, it wasn't the best environment to be in, but I was just like, okay, what's my North Star? What am I trying to achieve here? You know, for me, it wasn't the small things.

It was the bigger thing. How do I make more money? How do I kind of progress in my career? What's next for me? And how did you transition out of modeling? And then I would love to know how you guys came together to start working together. Whose idea that was how that happened? So I met Gary in Canada for the first time.

I was still modeling. When I moved to New York, I moved. modeling. I was already, I was 20, already starting to be like, okay, what's my next move? Like, I knew that I'm not going to be this like A-list supermodel, but I was making good money, but there's also an expiry date. So what's next? I honestly didn't have an answer. I had no idea what I'm good at and didn't have a lot of confidence in myself and my abilities. And that's when I met Gary. Like Gary mentioned, he proposed three months after. Two and a half months after we met.

Details. Right. Decisiveness. Yes. And then I moved back to Canada. A year later, we got married. And for me, I was like, okay, I'm going to be a housewife. I'm going to...

Really? You thought you were going to be a housewife? Yeah, for a little bit. Really? Because I didn't have a direction. I got married at 21. What the hell do you know at 21? Yeah.

That is young. I was like showing my tits on the bar. Right. I wasn't showing my tits to my husband. At the bar? Yeah. The strip club. Oh, yeah.

Oh, cool. You see, I skipped. that, but yeah, but for me, that's it. It was, I was like, okay, I'm married. I felt some kind of safety. I was with a man that, you know, was truly healed a lot of aspects that I've had from childhood. I always call them. This is the first time I'm hearing about this.

So this is, that's why it's going to get emotional. Yeah, it's really good. Well, we don't have opportunities. Do you know how many things I've heard for the first time on the podcast? This is like been a couple awesome. And you know what? I have a lot more up my ass. So you better watch out.

Go ahead. Yeah. So for me, I always tell them, I'm like, any of my my daddy issues were kind of resolved through Gary and our relationship. So I feel like I'm in a good stable place. But yeah. It makes sense. I mentioned my mother and father are 18 years apart. Yeah.

Her father left her when she was three. And the reason I asked about the age, my aunt was 13 when the guy left. And then my middle aunt was seven. So that, he's a real deadbeat. And he emptied the bank accounts too, took everything. My grandma was an immigrant. But she would maybe never say this. But I think the reason the age gap has worked with them is,

maybe the same reason it works for you guys is like I think there's part of her looking for that security and replacing and finding a cover like I always find it interesting because it was normal to me growing up to see that age gap and my parents have been together for over 40 years now yeah yeah anniversary congratulations guys when you know the stories like this it doesn't sound strange to me how two people with an age gap like this I think society's so quick to jump into like how could these two people that are so much older and younger be together, but you have to listen to how this could come together. And I imagine he's provided a lot of security and comfort in your life. Yeah, a lot of just, you know, being grounded and I felt that. And I just felt like when I met him

and, you know, I often say it wasn't like love at first side. It was a different kind of deeper feeling, like a feeling of this man will have my back no matter what. And that is more important than anything for someone who comes from my, you know, experience from my childhood. That's why, yes, with the way you mentioned, you're much softer with your daughter, she will choose a partner based on how you loved her. Yeah. And that's kind of scary to think about. Well, when I think about that because she says the same thing a lot.

I think that as a parent you probably all think about it. You model what your kids are going to be looking for later, some good, some bad. I think sometimes kids will seek out the chaotic behaviors of their parents because it's comfortable. And sometimes, like, you know, the ideal is that they seek out the good. So we talk about that all the time. Like, you know, we just came up together. We were on a trip and we said, okay, we never want to fight in front of the kids. We have to have a word.

And we made an agreement. Like if we say that word in the middle of it, it's like, that stops. You don't do anything in front of the kids. Not that you want to shield him from it. Like they got to see some conflict and see us resolve. But they don't need to see every conflict. Absolutely. They don't need to see me strangling him with a belt.

You know, we can save that for later. That's a different kind of thing. Yeah. So, so when you guys decided to go into business together, what did that look like? How far into your marriage was that? So for context, when Valeria and I got married, when I proposed to Valeria, it never crossed my mind what she would do like at all, whether she would work or not work. It just never crossed my mind.

So, you know, I was working. I was in and out of kind of, you know, various online business. businesses since, since 99 as an entrepreneur. Before that, for three years, I worked for, you know, tech companies. You know, one day I saw $10,000 hit our bank account. And I didn't, I didn't know where it was from. And I didn't even know that Valeria knew where we banked. Right.

I really, I really didn't. And, you know, before that, she had gotten, she had, she had recently gotten like, Valeria came to me and she said, like, I want to go to college. I want to go to college. I want to, you know, get, get something. you get a diploma of some kind. And I said, well, if you're already going, why don't you try to get an MBA? Because I think that's probably the most practical thing you can do is learn about business.

Because I don't have any formal business. Like I have a degree in geology. And so, well, you always laugh when I say I have a degree in geology. Because I think it's hilarious. Who spends money to get a degree in geology? No, you know, if I could go back to school, oh, dude, I have a degree. Michael has a degree in pussy. Yeah, well.

That's he went to you of A. But that's, that is arguably more valuable than geology. Well, I know, but I studied regional development, whatever the hell about it. I don't even know what that means. I think that's like geology. Go ahead. We're talking about you guys this career. Go ahead.

No, no, that's okay. Sorry, where was I? Geology. Yeah, so I said to her, I said, if you're already going to go to school, go get an MBA because I felt I made the mistake of not getting a formal business education where I spent the four years in college. I may as well have gotten something a little more practical. I'm going to put my geology career on the sideline. Yeah. Right.

So I said there, you should get an MBA. She goes, I'm really not interested in that. I'm like, what are interested in? she's like holistic nutrition. I'm just like, sure, do whatever you want. No, I toyed with the idea of going to a university. But I, I mean, I finished high school, not going to high school. I did it while traveling in different countries. I would go to the Israeli embassy, do my exams and move. So I haven't been in a school environment for so long. I'm like, I don't think it's going to work for me. So I was like, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going

to learn nutrition because I was pregnant already, our eldest Jake. And I was like, this is going to be great for the family and for myself, right? So, valuable information. I went, got my degree. Throughout the program, I was like, I'm going to open, what do you call it, an office, and I'm going to see clients, and I'm going to give them nutrition advice, and they're going to pay me. And I did that once. And I fucking hated it. And then the woman contacted her like four days later. So listen, I paid you $200 for the hour and I'm still fat. That's what I was like later? Yeah. You got to give it a beat. I know. But back in the day, you know, because in Canada, it's, what's that? The social health.

care thingy. So holistic nutrition does not cover under it. So she had to pay cash. So she's like, listen, I gave you cash. Where's the magic pill? I'm like, I don't have magic pill. So that's when I decided that this is not going to be the business for me. But I already had all this knowledge and information and I wanted to find an outlet and where I can share it. So I started a blog, the Modern Fox. It was wonderful. I shared different recipes. That was 2014, 16. No, 16. So fairly early to blogging. I don't think so. 2010, I feel like, was when it was hitting. Yeah, it was hitting in 2010. I started 2016. Yeah, but that's not that late. I mean, so you're not crazy late. It wasn't crazy late. I got a

little bit of traction, like from my community, really, but I did feel like it was very not challenging. Okay. It felt very stale. So I was like, okay, what's another form of media that I can experiment with. That's how I discovered YouTube. And YouTube was the next platform. YouTube for me was the scariest place on earth. I'm just like, I need to put my face out there and speak and like people hear my, you know, me. It was very scary, but because I was so scared of the criticism, I was like, this is time to level up and, you know, solve my own issues through this. So I started experimenting with, uh, with YouTube and doing it. He didn't know anything about it. He was going. He was doing his, you know, job comes back.

I knew you were doing it. I just wasn't paying attention. I was doing something, but we already had two small kids. That's when that $10,000, he came back and he's like, where's this money from? It's like, I got a sponsorship. I'm like, somebody paid you $10,000 for what? What do you do? Yeah.

And she's like, oh, I did. What was it? Was it a cosmetics brand? No, it was like a probiotic or something. You're like at sexworker.com. Don't worry about it. Right. Yeah.

I'm calling the bank. I'm calling the bank. I'm calling the bank. Where did the wire come from? I want to know the name of the. He was bored. He's like, what are you doing? Stop. I was not worried. I didn't think you were doing anything like that. And so the money came in and I said, like, what are you doing?

Like I sat there, I said there, explain to me what your day looks like. And she says, well, I spend an hour a day in front of the camera filming myself, like doing, making content. I said, what do you do the rest of your day look like if you're not filming yourself? She goes, well, then I spend another like nine hours editing video. I said, how the hell do you know how to edit video? She goes, I went to YouTube and did a search for how to edit video. So I'm like, wow. She's a genius too, right?

So I said, okay. I said, let's do this. I said, let's hire a videographer who can do editing, who can do both shooting and editing. And that person will, you know, and then instead of you spending an hour a day in front of the camera, you know, maybe you should spend three to four hours a day in front of the camera and spend another four to five hours a day researching content ideas and making yourself like better in front of the camera. The entrepreneur and Gary. Yeah, learn how to be better in front of the camera and learn how to like, add. more value, put more value into the content, right? So she's like, this isn't a business.

This is stupid. I go, no, it's okay. Like, we should do this. And she said, but what if we don't get another sponsorship to pay for the salary of this person? No, we already had, I already had enough like income. It was making, it was more than the 10,000. The 10,000 was the only thing I saw.

The him and her show is so fun to have another him and her. So we can hear that we're, everyone's alike in their marriage. Not at all. Not at all. But yeah, so that was our first hire, the videographer. And, but sorry, hold on a second. I remember you said to me, what if we don't know, wait, you said to me, what if we don't make another big sponsorship check like that? Yeah.

That's going to pay for the videographer's salary. Yeah. My response to you is like, but what if we do? Yeah. Right. And then we, stop. Don't make fun of me because that's how it happened. No, yes.

And then Valeria put out, she started putting out, I don't know, 7X, the amount of content. And with volume come scale. As you guys know, right? So with volume comes scale, with quality volume come scale. And then from there, kind of fast forward, now we're like, I think 16 or 17% company. We have Rachel, who's our CEO who runs it. We have multiple layers of management, departments for monetization, you know, editing, pre-production, post-production, analytics. So yeah.

And we built it out. And that was eight years ago. And you guys played with doing product. And it seems like you were like, what I like about the way you approached that is you did it. But you were like, I don't want to do it. I want to focus on what I love. from what I heard, but you can speak more eloquently. Absolutely. I think that I'm sure you guys know,

when you are in this new developing industry, there's so many opportunities coming your way. And your attention is every, like, we can do this and we do this and let's do this. And the product line was just, you know, everyone was doing it. We, you think about it very logically. We have the audience. We just need a product to sell. No problem.

A lot of people come to me for fashion. Let's do fashion. It started with accessories, very small, with sunglasses and some, jewelry and then we saw like people were really into it. So we started doubling down on it and building it out. And I didn't even had a chance to stop and ask myself, is this something that I really want to do? Or we're just jumping on another business opportunity, which is fine too. But it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of dedication. And for me, content was always my thing. I love creating content. I love the media business. So for me doing the product,

It just drained my soul. And at some point, we were looking at each other being like, what are we doing? I was literally flying to Portugal, to go to the factories, to try to find the right manufacture. And while thinking, if I spend that time right now creating and doing what I love, oh my God, we're like 10x, everything, you know, then with this clothing line. So at some point we made a decision and we truly tried everything. We brought in staff, we changed them, we changed different manufacturers, did everything in-house external. And at some point, we're like, okay, this is not working. We're not, that's not our strength.

And it's time to just let go and go back to what we're really good at. Yeah, it's hard when you start to build a platform and have success. I'm sure you've exuded this. And you get all sorts of opportunities and they sound great on the surface, but then you weigh them against what it takes you away from. Even if you look at this infrastructure, it's really like it's stemmed. from content. Yeah, absolutely. We're on a mic still

after all this time three times a week every week and like that's kind of the stuff around it is servicing this and then the other services other things as well. But like it's a, it's hard because people start to bring

oh maybe you should do this and this. I'm like if it takes you away from the main thing. That's the problem. Yeah. Then the other stuff just all gets sloppy. It's like that book the slight edge. You have to go back to what you're,

you have to as you go on, you have to go back to what made you big in the first place. Are you familiar with running? Ryan Holiday, the writer. Yeah. He writes a lot of stoicism, like, obstacles the way, ego's enemy. Yeah, yeah.

He was on your show recently. Yeah, I love him. He's amazing. And he was on here and he was saying, like, you work so hard to do the thing you love, which in his case was become a writer. Yeah. And then after the like, hey, do you want to be a speaker or do you want to go on a TV show? Or do you want to go to dinner with this celebrity?

Not even the dinners. Do you want to be an investor? And he's like, no, the thing that you work so hard is there. But people don't realize is like, once you get to the thing, you have to work even harder to stay there. So true. Right. And so he was saying like his big thing is like he's still every day. He's just a writer. He sits, sits down, writes all this stuff. And he has to be really disciplined with what he says no to. So I just want to touch on the clothing line or the product line in general and understand and like explain the strategy behind it.

So what this industry as a whole is missing, I think collectively for all of us is enterprise value. And so although cash flow is great in this business, especially as you scale audience and as you do your brand deals and me, you know, whatever it is that you do. But the way I saw it was that what we're missing is we're missing enterprise value. We're missing the creation of a company that we can then sell for multiple nine figures, hopefully, hopefully more. And that was the premise behind it because that actually put us in an inferior cash flow position because although that was generating millions of dollars a year in product sales, it wasn't, it was taking away Valeria's attention and our attention as a whole. She would start spending 40% of her time figuring out how to design, you know,

work with the designers to make dresses that she liked or whatever the product was instead of doubling down on the content. So we, creators in general and entertainers are at the vulnerability of being basically replaced by other creators and also not being able to, to your point, sell or transact on a business that's reliant on them being part of that business all the time. Yeah. Absolutely. There's always, there's, look, I mean, yes, I agree with you, but there's also a lot of positives. Sure. Pros that come with being, you know, being a creator. We figured out how to, to generate that enterprise value.

We've almost farmed it out by essentially doing, you know, equity deals with various companies. Smart. Yeah. How did you guys keep the focus? Well, I have a product line. Yeah, you do. But there's been lots of iterations to get here. And I think the product that I'm doing is like there's such a story behind it that, like, it's, it's very niche to me.

What is it? What's the product? It's, I mean, it started with an ice roller. Basically, a lot of the line is based around routine. I'm really passionate about routines. And I was just really, I was perpetually swollen. But her thing is like she loves the content, but she's always wanted to create her own versions of these products. I will tell you if I had to go to Portugal and pick, like, when you're telling me that, I'm like, you know, I weigh everything is what is worth being away from my kids.

Yeah. Even like this, like let's take this podcast right now. even like the guests we have on the podcast, it has to be to me like so worth it. And if it's not worth it, then to be blunt, I don't want to do it. I mean, when it comes to this, like when it comes to dear media in general, if you look, it's like it's actually much simpler than maybe it seems on the surface or maybe it seems simple on the surface. But we started this show.

We ended up partnering with platforms that we felt did not have an understanding of a lot of the things that we're talking about. We wanted it for ourselves. So we created an infrastructure for ourselves. the beginning. Just similar to how, like, it was a service our business. And then from an enterprise perspective, I realized that there was a lot of people in our same situation that wasn't being serviced well that couldn't stand, like, you know, we'll invest in product lines or we'll help you create a TV show or we'll help you do, like, whatever it is. And what I realize is there's a lot of

amazing creators, and this is not to throw shade, but many of them don't come from an operational background. So it's like, if you can give that to people that have a shitload of talent that want to do more that aren't being given those opportunities, like that was the, you know, But it's, it all stems from like the thing that's the passion, which is like, again, we're still sitting on a mic every single week. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's not like one day. We've been approached for all sorts of weird opportunities. Like it doesn't, that's not what we do. All right. My kids are in swim lessons right now. It is hot in Austin. And I need something that is like SPF 50. I need something clear and water resistant. But I also need something that's efficient. And that is why I like sun bum. kids, okay? First of all, they have a spray that is so easy to apply that I can literally apply it while they're running to get in the pool, which is amazing. And it hits all my points.

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option plan purchase. I think why you guys are so interesting to me to interview together is you guys remind me of Michael and I in a lot of ways. It seems, and again, you can speak more eloquently. It seems like you're more operational and you're more front facing. Is that, is that right? I wish I was operational. Gary's not operational at all, actually. Gary is what he's good at. He's a visionary. So he sees what and who needs to be placed where in order to a great quality. Create the right infrastructure. That's operational in a way.

Yeah. It's creative. But what you're saying is you're not management. I don't know how you want to define it, but I try not to actually speak with more than four people, meaning the CEO of our company, like I'll speak with her. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'll say hello to everybody else.

I'm saying operationally, like from an work chart perspective, I only want to talk to our CEO when it comes to that. And she's incredibly talented. You don't want to be in the day-to-day running the guts. I can't be because it's, It's too much because it distracts me too much from like the actual execution. Yeah. And I'm very focused on the creative direction and the content and the content opportunities.

And when I tried to be the, you know, girl boss and have my hand everywhere, I got burnt out. I got depleted from inspiration. Like I couldn't really bring what I was supposed to bring to the business. So I really had to define my role and step back and do what I do best. So we kind of have now, we figured out the right place for everybody again. Yeah, exactly. And it's, it's been amazing. I would say that for me, it's, you know, you know, Valeria calls it visionary.

But for me, a lot of it is data analysis. And I'm so in the weeds on the data. Like I'll look at every piece of content. Like I'll be analyzing this thing afterwards. That's amazing. You know what I mean? No, seriously. Well, you'd let me know.

You want to see what's working. What's not? Like, like, for example, like when you guys post the reels from this. and you guys will tag us as collaborators. I'm assuming that's what you guys will do and we'll accept that. You know, I'm going to take... It's not that you'll accept it. Some people listen to all the other guests.

Sometimes they don't accept it. Thanks for accepting. Oh, we know. But so we'll accept that and then I'll look at that data. But then we're going to do our own cut. So then we have access to insights. So we can look at, you know, the insights data that's not just the public facing stuff. So we'll take a look at that and we'll get just a deeper understanding.

So I'm really looking at that. And then what I'll do is I'll then talk to, you know, to Rachel and to Valeria and then based on kind of what I believe is going on, based on the data, then we make moves from that. So it's a lot of his data analysis.

No, but I think that's so important. And we talk about it a lot. Lauren is not the most excited about data. I've never looked at data in my life. And I'm maybe not the best of it either. But we've brought on people over the years. And listen,

but you need that. You need that. You need both. You need that. And I think that's why. Play this clip back to her. You need that. No, you do need that.

You need both. But I don't want to do it. Yeah. I get it. Good. And you're in a position where you don't have to. But you are, but you're doing it anyways. You are doing it.

With the intuition, maybe. No, no, but you are doing it. I'll tell you how you're doing it. Because when something happens and a piece of content goes out, whether it's something that you're creating for your personal brand, like your, like your Instagram or whether it's something from the show, you're looking at the view count. It comes across your desk where, holy shit, that particular piece of content got, you know, 10 times more views than usual.

And now it's in the back of your mind. So you're still applying that data point to the fact that maybe like, you know, that certain thing happened that at work, I might do, you're conscious of it, you might do it again. You're right. Yeah. Like it is, I do. I'll look at that. I'll give you that. I'll look at that.

The word data gives me hives. Yeah. No, he goes so deep. You're so lucky. Yeah. Accounting gives me hipes. Every time, like, our, you know, our director of finance contacts, I'm like, oh, God. I just like, you know, just give me the high level.

Like, how's the money going? Am I he's going good? Okay, good. What is you guys' day to day working together? Like, how is it intertwining? Tell us the day to day from what time you wake up to what time you go to bed. And then we have to do what's in my bag and I get to go do your podcast. But tell us like your day. Our day.

Honestly, we don't really see each other throughout the day because I, we have a studio. Yeah, I leave in the morning. I go to the studio. I shoot there. I have my meetings there. I do my podcast there. And then I come home. And then we have dinner as a family.

And that's it. He works from home. He has an office at home. But you said on a podcast that this reminded me of me so much that you have very strict boundaries around your phone. Yes, I do. Can you tell our audience about that? Yeah. I mean, I'm going through phases obviously. I'm very specific with, I go on airplane mode at 7 p.m. I'm still trying to model by example to do the same because I think nagging doesn't work anymore. I tried.

I just get on my motorcycle. I make breaths. I go, ha. It's hard. It's hard, but you know what? Again, because we work together, I understand his passion and the fact that it's hard for him to let go because he's working and there's so many exciting things. But it's not good in front of the kids all the time.

It's not good. It's not good. But also Gary's big into like he tells the kids we're not equal. The fact that I'm on social media. I'm on the phone. Not you and me not equal. Me and the kids aren't people. He told the kids because sometimes the kids are like, we want more time on TV or PlayStation.

And he's like, no. I said, but you're on the phone. We're not equal. We're not the same. We're not operating. I say we're not equal, probably multiple, like multiple times of data. You said that you're, and you said that you're a little bit hands-off parenting. But for on a podcast that I listened to to research this, I heard that you said until they were seven, maybe, what did you say? Yeah, what do you mean your hands off? So until they were seven, I was like really hands-off because

Like all the like the boogers and the diapers and stuff. It's not for you. I can't add value. He was there. He was there in spirit. I just can't add value. I can't. No, but I like kiss them and hug them.

They're super cute. Like so I was there for that. But when I say I'm when I say, when I say I'm hands off like if let's say for example, every morning I'm the one who drives them to school. Because that's kind of my time to hang out. We play hip hop. We get them. You know, it's good.

Like that's our time. But let's say for example, if we get a phone call from the school and your kid's sick and he needs to get picked up. I'll be like, yeah, I'm in meetings. I'll tell the nanny, go pick up the kid. Right? So when I say I'm hands off, it's like it's not necessary. I love how I love the honesty because a lot of people trying to pretend like their, their perfect parents, it's exhausting. I appreciate the honesty so much. I think it takes the guilt out of it because I feel guilty that I'm working all the time. And when I hear you say that, I'm like, you know what, I get it. Like I'll give you, yeah, thank you. But I'll give me an example. I'll get a call from the school and like

your kid, your kid puke. Right? So I'm like, why are you calling me? And they said, well, he wants to talk to you. So I get on the phone.

I go, what happened? He goes, oh, I, you know, I vomited? I wasn't feeling well. I go, okay,

you feeling better now? He goes, yeah. I go, okay, go back to class. Then the teacher, the principal or whatever, comes back on the phone.

And she said, do you want me to send him home? I'm like, for what? Why would you send him home? That is Gary Bostick. You need to meet Gary Bostick. That's my dad.

My dad. my nose was literally on the other side of my face one time. It got smashed. Like literally it was smashed. And I went to him. I'm like, hey man, like this thing is broken. Like it's fucked up. And he's like, look to me.

He's like, nah, that's just swollen. Yeah. He did that to me for two weeks, dad. And eventually I went on this trip with my buddy and his dad and his dad was a doctor. He took one living. He's like, holy shit. Your nose is broken. I had to go and have the whole thing smashed.

And like, that was my dad. Yeah, but you're handsome dude. So obviously everything worked out. It worked out. He was trying to get a blow drop from me when I was 12 years old. I got caught in the closet by my dad. He called his dad and his dad. He's like,

Dad, I'm going, God, I'm in real trouble. The first thing I hear is just laughter. That's all I just laughed at. He goes, first thing he said to me, he goes,

why didn't you jump up the balcony, moron? You remind me of his dad a lot. The same is the same energy. I can feel it. And I'm so lucky that we have boys because when they turned, I would say 7,

eight, I was like, okay, babe, your turn in joy. How old are you when you had your son? 40? 1. 40, 40.

Similar to my dad's age. You know, like from a, maybe this is, I don't know if it's a nice fear to hear or not, but from a perspective, I was, you know, I saw kids, they have their younger dads. And I'm obviously, I had my son younger. But I think I got such a benefit of an older man who had already kind of worked out as demons. He talks about this all the time. And he was so, like, consistent and stable. And I never saw him lose his temper and he was patient on all these things.

And I don't think, when you're young, you know, you don't have as many tools as you age. And I'm sure, like, you're right. I've only gotten better as you've grown. You're making a case for me to go for a 42. So thank you. But I'm saying like from a father to like when I was thinking about my, my dad relationship, like I'm super close with them. But I got so much from him because he was here to experience so much of life,

if that makes sense. So I, yeah, it does. And I appreciate that. And thank you. And the reason I'm thanking is because I'm often self-conscious about the fact that I'm an older dad. I am. And it makes me feel like a little bit of like not guilt, but like I just I'll tell you

where it comes in. It comes in when I started doing the math about when I'm going to die. And when I'm going to die, they're still going to be relatively young. And I feel guilt because of that. Well, think about it. But you made me feel better. Yeah, my dad's turning 80. I'm almost 40 and have two kids.

So he's seen all that. I get it. Now he's into good. We work together for a long time. But I say that to you because I know what it's like to have an older or what, not so older, but older than what's normal father. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I appreciate that.

Thank you. Yeah. And I think your kids will get the benefit of your seasoned years. And sometimes, you know, like, I know kids who's parent. I mean, your mom was young, which you had you. Sometimes it's funny, we do this show. And, you know, a lot of people have trauma from their parents. We all do.

There's always stuff. But like, if your parent has you at 19 or 2021 and you're seeing they're blaming them for the rest of your life, they're kids. They don't know shit. But even there was a study where it showed that women that have kids later in life live longer. Women that have kids later in life live longer. The woman lives longer. The woman loves. If you're, yeah, an older mother, you live longer.

I'm never going to die. But I think it's the same to the same point of. The motivation of stay around longer to see. kids through. I have a question for you. Also the levels of stress and everything. I have a question for you. So your dad's 80 that puts your mom at 62.

How are they doing? Great. Amazing. It's interesting because it's like do you want, I think my, like I think in their case, like they're going to, they got a,

she got a front load a lot of amazing things and live a lot of early. Yeah. I think they're going to have to contend with aging later. Sure. But they've had 40 years of marriage and three kids and now four grandkids. Like, I mean, on all accounts,

I feel like that's a, like I always tell them both. Like, that's a win. You guys will be great. You guys will be great. Oh yeah. I'm not worried about us. I was going to ask you what's in your bag, but first I've just asked one more question. You're a big reader.

Yeah. And I, when I first started following you, I'm obsessed with reading. I went and I like screenshoting all these books that you are reading. And it's funny because you said on another podcast, you said that you're like one of your ways to like take a break from him is to read. Yeah. A lot of similarities. I totally understand.

What are you reading? right now, what do we need to read? I'm going to send you books that I think that you have. We have to do like a book club. That's my love language. So send me a lot, everything that you have. What am I reading right now? Right now I'm reading, how do you say that words? Sovereign Love by Denei Logan. She's amazing. She's a couple's therapist. And I have to say this is probably the best relationship book I've read in a long time. Is it nonfiction? It's nonfiction. It's a relationship book. Yeah, she talks a lot about, she's bringing examples from therapy she had with other couples, but just like the understanding of masculine and feminine,

but not in the way that we all talk about it now, like deeper. There are things where I was just like, oh my God, I'm learning so much. So that's book. I'm about to finish. It's amazing. And then what are the book that I've read in the past that everyone needs to read that you just love? I mean, a classic is a man's search for meaning. I think I always go back to it to just be. bring it like back to essentials and you know. If you read that book, you will have a very hard time feeling sorry for yourself. Well, that's what I'm saying. It gives you that media perspective.

Absolutely. And I think we all need it, especially these days. Another book that I love is nothing else that comes up for me right now. Well, your whole highlight has so many books. I have a lot. Yeah, you have a lot of books. I write a lot of great books. But those two are like always.

Do you mostly read nonfiction or do you? I do a combination because I get to a point where sometimes I get burnt out and I just just need to escape to a different place. So I do fiction, but I love doing both. Can I do a shameless pitch? Yeah, of course. So one of the things that we did is we recently launched and we're really proud of it is a community slash academy for creators. It's called creator method. That's cool. Yeah, it's at creator method.com. And it's essentially taking the last eight years and the sum of the knowledge of our, I forget the number always like 16 or 17 full-time team members and we created like 42 full-length videos from beginning to end on all aspects

of content creation. It's so smart because you guys are practitioners. We are. We are. That's the difference, right? That's the difference. When we looked into this market, first of all, online education is soon to become a $40 billion a year industry, but in it's, it's huge. And in addition to that, when we looked at people who were teaching creators, just like the main, not like the main, but like the simple metric of follower count, like these are people, like 50, 100,000 not to knock. I mean, that's an achievement. But Valeria's numbers are they're much higher. So, so we have like live weekly calls, Valeria's on the calls. They have video series from us and they're, they have a private WhatsApp group. And the one thing that I'm

so surprised that is the amount of interaction between themselves. We have our first 60 members. They pay an annual fee that we have our first 60 members that we led into the cohort. And they're just constantly. Like if you go to the WhatsApp group, they're constantly in it all day. You guys have built a community, truly. Absolutely. I think that's what we were looking for when he came up. Because first we started talking about the whole creating, how do you call it? That's a master class.

We were just going to do a course. Just like a university type of thing. But then I kept repeating that if I had a community, because being a creator is very lonely, right? No one talks to each other. No one knows what to charge. You're being taking advantage of by all these brands and companies. Getting burnt out. Getting burnt out.

Yeah. And no one really understands what you're doing. So for me, I said, I think the most important aspect of this platform is to have the community so they can talk and support each other and we can support them. So on their weekly calls, it's so fun. It's like one hour once a week. And all these people are asking questions. They talk with each other.

They collaborate together. It feels like what I needed when I started. Yeah. No, we're over the moon about this first group of people. Well, maybe we can do a giveaway for our audience. With pleasure. Okay. We'll do one.

I just have to ask you what's in your back. and then we'll do a giveaway. Let's do it. Okay. What is in your bag? Okay, what's in my bag? I have a shirt because we're doing another podcast after, so I brought a change of clothes. Fuck, I forgot my other shirt.

I brought two option bras, so they're perfect because I'm a Virgo and it has to be very specific. She's so modest. She put them away right away. Yeah, you got to show, like dangle the bra like pirates of the Caribbean, the woman, like dangle it. Yeah. Hang them from the flagpole. Here's a bra. There's two of them.

There's a shirt. You have an Octobody on your phone. I have an octobody on my phone. It sticks to the mirror. I wish I invented this. I know. I have my wallet. I have a battery charger and all the things that get stuck to it.

What is that? It's a hair tie. Yeah, but it can also help with any wardrobe malfunctions. We have a hand cream. We have lip gloss. Hold on. You got to show us which lip. Yeah, you got to tell the audience.

Sorry. Okay. I have the Dior lip oil. Thank you. Essential. I have the Dior hand cream. They make a hand, oh, wow, that's... I have a light.

It's gorgeous. Omnibiotics. Love it. And I have my electrolytes element. I have a lot of stuff, actually. That bag can... No, it's like Mary Poppins. No, you guys don't understand.

Yeah, there's a whole lot of... No, keep going. We want to know every detail. Make up. Okay, I have a lip liner from Freck. I have a little powder. I have Westman Atelier, a new one. one, you don't know, another lip liner because you don't know what, you know,

direction. That's looking like pillow talk to me. This is iconic nude, but you were close. Okay. I have a little powder thingy. And that's it, sunglasses. I love it. Oh, and I actually use a cup, but I always carry one because you never know.

Like, you know, there's always a girl. It's like, oh my God, you have a tampon and I always want to be the girl to be like, I have one. You have a tampon. Yeah. You have the room key? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's a good hotel.

That's fun there. You know what? It's really nice. It's a great hotel. It's amazing. Jim there this morning. Jim there's nice. Hey, you got to try the restaurant. Do you guys eat meat?

Yes. Okay, go get the lamb and the hummus downstairs with a skinny margarita. And then go upstairs and go get the pineapple's fajitas. Oh, Mexican. But they have one of the best lunch ribbyes, I think, in Texas in that restaurant in the Greek restaurant. Okay. So we don't have to leave our hotel.

We went yesterday to an incredibly tasty but filthy place. I don't mean the place itself was dirty. I mean, the, the food was so unhealthy. What was it called? Saline. Oh, yeah. It was a staple.

It was good, but I mean, that food. You got to go to bed after. No, no, no. You got to go to. Yeah. If you eat that every day. You don't want to have sex after that. No.

But that is, like, if you're here, you've got to hit Terry blocks. No, no, we went. We went. And I'm endorsing them. They're great. No, Terry Black's amazing. You can't eat that shit. Every time we bring somebody into town that's like the first time they're coming in,

I'm like, you know, and it's, it's a, you know, some of the barbecue places get so crazy right here, but that one's always consistent and good. Can we do a code? I didn't even ask you guys this. Do you want to do a code for your courses? Like a 20, 15% percent. Yeah, yeah, no problem. Yeah, absolutely. You want to do 15% off code skinny? Yes, you go. Okay. You, you, you pimp out 15% off code skinny. What's the site where people can learn everything about content creation? It's creator method.com. Okay. Just hit the apply now button, fill out a very short form, put in the code.

and then we review each form submittal, and then we get back to you with an approval. And let's do a giveaway. Let's give someone the course. Absolutely. Okay, tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram at Lauren Bostic and then follow. At Valeria Lipovetsky.

And Gary Lipovetsky. I love it. Thank you both. That's where we can find you guys too if they want to DM you and say hi. I will be on your podcast. Yes. Not alone. Yes.

So go listen. I'm in the hot seat. We're switching seats. Yes. I don't have a switch shirt. I'll be in the same shirt, but you do. I can give you mine. Thank you guys.

Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you.