The Jordan Harbinger Show - 193: Mimi Ikonn | What the Life of an Influencer Is Really Like

Episode Date: May 2, 2019

Mimi Ikonn is a serial entrepreneur best known for Luxy Hair and Intelligent Change, a YouTube influencer with 2.8+ million subscribers, and the author of The Bingo Theory: A Revolutionary Guide to Love, Life, and Relationships. What We Discuss with Mimi Ikonn: How Mimi and her husband Alex keep themselves and their relationship real and grounded under the daily scrutiny of millions of people. Why authentic audience engagement will always count more than any number of likes. The process of building an online business brick by brick. Why dramatically scaling up income often leads to depression. Mimi's QVCA formula: Quality, Value, Consistency, and Attraction. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/193 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! One's a comedian, one's a radio/TV host. Together they bring you The SDR Show -- a no-apologies, not politically correct, not for the faint of heart show that somehow blends the classic energy of a morning radio show into the new era of digital entertainment. Listen to The SDR Show here or where your ears enjoy podcasts most! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFilippo. Influencers and the influencer economy have always been interesting to me. There seems to be a few sides to the whole thing. Influencers that are influencers are Instagram or YouTube personalities just for the sake of attention, and others that build influence as part of a real business, a window into their life that people really relate to instead of being simply aspirational. Today, I interviewed my good friend Mimi Icon. I've known her and her husband for years, and they're very unique in that what you see online is what you get in real life. They've built successful businesses off of their ability to connect with their audience in a way that I've never really seen before, at least not in a way that is actually, and I hate this

word, but I'm going to use it anyway, authentic and real without the pendulum swinging too far in one direction. This episode was an interesting look into the lives of people who have a piece of the public I, but managed to stay happy and fulfilled along the way. And I hope you'll take something out of our conversation here today. I've got a great network of friends. I've got a great network of business relationships, and I do blend the two. And I'm teaching you how to do that in very specific tactical ways that aren't icky in our six-minute networking course, which is, of course, free. Jordanharbinger.com slash course is where that is. And I would love it if you would try that,

see how it changes your life, and then hit me up.jordanharbinger.com slash course. All right, here's Mimi icon. Does this come naturally for you? Like, did you one day just go, I really like being on camera and talking to people? It seems like an unnatural thing for anyone to do. I think public speaking for me was something like I've always wanted to do. I just like get energized by people. Camera, I didn't know until I did it. And again, like my first video was on a laptop. You just use the, with the camera going like up this way. A hair tutorial. I was like, hey guys, you know. And the quality was crap, but like the video still got like quarter of a million of views over time, but then obviously we invested in DSLR cameras and that just like took out our channel to like a whole different

level. That's incredible. And I think the difference between that I see between you, Alex, your husband and other people being like influencers is that you guys, I know you guys in real life. I have for quite a few years. You guys, the positivity, the happiness, all that stuff is pretty real, right? Like, I'm sure you guys have stuff that happens like any normal humans do. But I remember my wife, Jen, showing me, she was scrolling through Instagram, I don't know, three plus years ago. And I said, wait a minute, who is that? And she goes, oh, that's Mimi I icon. And I thought, was that before we met. It was right after we met. And I was like, I think I know her from somewhere. And she's like, where? And then I was like, yeah, that's that guy from Mastermind Talks.

And that was the first time. And then I thought, oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's so you, you know, know them from something and she's like yeah i just follow them like their energy the happiness all that stuff and i said yeah that's that's really what are the odds of her following somebody that i just met and then you kept popping up you kept popping up in the feed but then i met other influencers on instagram and youtube and i thought oh these are not this there's this is not the same sauce yes that happens quite a lot all the time and all that energy more actually yeah like sometimes people are very like extroverted on camera you get the sense that they would really being two people.

Yeah. And they're like very excited and a bit and you meet them in person and they're like very calm and chill. So it's almost like they have to get themselves like hyped up for the camera. Yeah. And then they do that. But in reality, they're just a very different person, which is not, nothing wrong with that.

But I guess people use different strategies to do this thing called YouTube and Instagram and all these social. I think you're right. But I think also the part of it is people are playing to what they think other people want. see. And that's much harder. That's acting. I'm not good at that. I don't know about you guys. I'm not either. I'm not an actor. So it's easier to just be yourself. And everyone says that's the best advice, but not many of the people that I've met who have big channels or small channels or do any kind of video. Not many people actually have that. And so I thought that was really

interesting because you seem to be super happy. The couple we see on Instagram does closely match what I've seen in real life. And I found that to be the exception rather than the rule. And I was really disappointing because I thought, wow, if I like them, I'm going to love these other people and they're just the, they can either be really not interested in talking with their fans at all, which I think is unfortunate. They can be really quiet or they can think, I think, wow, it must take you like 400 takes to be this cool guy if in real life you're like a bag of rocks, you know, so. It's a bit of a disappointing experience to say it is. Yeah. But you don't, you don't seem to have that problem. And I think so kudos, first of all, for being real and also being

positive in real life. It's one of the biggest values we have. It seems to be. And it also seems to be kind of scary because you also do share some of the downside and some very personal things. Absolutely. How do you strike that balance? Because it seems a little bit like it would be risky to be like, hey, hair stuff. Also, here's this problem in my life. And people will be like, oh, I don't know if I want to be in the middle of that. I was just looking for hair extensions, right? Yeah. But that's not what happened with your business. It was the opposite. Exactly. I think what people really, like in other people, especially the people they follow on Instagram, YouTube, is their relatability. And I think what happens to a lot of the social media stars, whether they're on

YouTube, Instagram, is they get big, and then they forget what got them to that point. It is the fact that they have shared those struggles that they had or problems or just their journey, but the journey is what really attracts people to them. It's the fact that they're real people and not just somebody who travels the world and they drive this car and wear this designer clothes. So that's something I always think about and to me that's very important that at the end of the day, no matter what success I attain, no matter what books I write or things I create, it's not just about me. Actually, it's not about me ever. It's always about the connection I have with the audience. The reason I am here today is because people find me relatable. Otherwise, it's just I wouldn't be here.

And that's, I would believe everybody who is on social media, but I think at some point people forget that. And they just make it all about the stuff that they attained. And I think that's when they start going downhill. I'd love to believe that too because it is a little disappointing to see, especially in the men, the bro side of it. I follow, I see that. I shouldn't say I follow that.

I see that more than I'd see, let's say, beauty and hair videos. Of course. It's YouTube selecting what I see generally. or Instagram, but I find that a lot of the content generally is aspirational, right? So you see a guy in front of a plane, private jet that they flew once. I think I know who you're talking about. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of these guys, right? They all look the same. One has bigger muscles than the other. That's a primary difference. The other one wears glasses. Like, that's it. But like you see like seven cars. So you see aspirational. And you guys also do aspirational, but it's

different. It's like the thing that's aspirational about your content is, oh, they're happy. with each. Look, there's them and their kid. And, oh, they're in this place reading, not gambling or, like, in a pool with 17 models, right? That's like, that would be a little weird. That would be weird. There's an audience for that, but it would be weird. You managed to take the aspirational quality and just make it about the life that you actually created, which is harder. It's harder to create a life, I think, where you're actually happy and then showcase that rather than renting a bunch of cars and being like, I'm cool and happy. Take the picture. because I want to get out of here.

And I think that's very admirable. And I think a lot of people watch you to escape their real lives. Or maybe to augment, but definitely also to escape. Do you feel pressure at all to conform to what those people are looking for? I would say there's definitely pressure. Sometimes I feel it. But for me, the most important thing is a creator is to stay true to myself. How do you do that when somebody just wants to see more

of one thing I just check in with myself to be honest on the regular especially where I catch myself thinking like if I just did this I know it would get more life or more views but then I just because I do a lot of inner work

like I meditate I journal once in a while but I say the meditation well it's a very easy simple journaling but like even sometimes deeper journaling like doing vision journaling and you know that's something Alex and do to just really reflect on your values and like why are you here wait what are you doing this for

so this is the point where I ground myself is like if I feel disappointed in myself or if I feel like like I could really cheat the system and I clearly know how to I've been in the game for way for long I just say what's the point like why are you really doing this is it to get fame because if that's why you're doing this then you should just stop now it's all for the ego yeah and for me it's just not, you know, I draw my joy and fulfillment from knowing that the information and the content that I put out can change people's life, can improve them, make them happier, make them see that there's a different world for them that's possible and available because Alex and I are the underdogs, you know, like we come from a very different world. Even now we're sitting here. We're getting

there for sure. In a beautiful space, this lovely flat in, you know, one of the best areas of London. How the hell did I get here? Like I got to pinch myself literally once in a while. Yeah. Girl, like, this is crazy. Like, you are living your dream life. But I always remind myself where I come from. And I come from a small town of Baku, Azerbaijan. Most people don't even know where that is. And my parents had very little. My dad was unemployed for years. Like, our grandfather used to support us. And it was a very difficult time. But we always had the love our parents and we always had the freedom to be ourselves.

So even though I had very little financially, I was free to dream. And it is that freedom that allow me and self-believe, always the self-believe that allow me, I believe, to get here. And like, if I can do it, I don't believe that I am more talented, definitely more beautiful, or I don't believe that I have anything special, maybe just the belief that I can do it. That's it. I really believe that's what sets people apart. The people who do it and become successful and the people who never try or fail and then stop trying is that they stop believing that it's possible. When you first started, you must have had another job to support yourself. Not really because

what happened is like we were, Alex and I were both sort of forced by life into this situation where we met working at a bank, so we had corporate jobs. And I always always, He's not something I want to do long term. It's just something I happen to be into because I did co-op in high school. It's a bank in Canada that you worked on? Yeah, CIBC, also one of the big four banks in Canada. So that's how I met Alex one day. He just walked into our branch.

And my bank manager was like, this guy also speaks Russian. I was like, great. He's going to steal all my customers. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but obviously that's now how it happened. We're really connected and we're connected on the vision of the dreams we both had. So having the freedom to travel, see the world, our own businesses, and that's how our friendship grew.

But you worked in the same branch? Yes, it would be working. Okay, because I was going to say, how did that come out of, like, one conversation where he walks in and, like, what are your dreams? He got the job that day, and he was just signing the contract. And I was like, oh, interesting guy. Okay. Interesting guy.

That was your first thought? Yes. You never know. Sorry, honest. I remember that moment, like, so vividly. It's really crazy because obviously now we've had this whole journey of, you know, starting a family, creating a business, selling the business,

you know, doing so many things and growing as two human beings, which I truly believe I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Mimi Icon. We'll be right back. Don't forget we have a worksheet for today's episode

so you can make sure you solidify your understanding of the key takeaways for Mimi Icon. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. And thanks for listening and supporting the show to learn more about our sponsor. and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

If you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to the show, just go to Jordanharbinger.com slash subscribe. Subscribing to the show is absolutely free. It just means that you get all the latest episodes in your podcast player as they're released, so you don't miss a single thing. Now, back to our show with Mimi Icon. So you had the job at the bank supporting yourself, and then what made you decide one day to go, hey, look, I'm going to make a video about hair or whatever, and up.

uploaded to Instagram. Dot, dot, dot, this is going to be my career. So this is quite a funny and interesting story because Alex always had this dream of becoming an investment banker. I didn't really care what he does as long as he's happy. And then one day, he gets fired. And he gets fired for having a side hustle. He was selling cars.

He was transporting cars from U.S. to Russia and, like, making commission on that. And he was using his work email. Ooh. when he was free at work, I guess, you know, there's always 15 minutes here and there to do the deals. And the circuit, the corporate security, I guess, followed him for a while. And then they had like a stack of emails and phone calls. Basically, that was it for his corporate job at CIABC. Of course, he could have applied somewhere else.

But it was a good point because it's almost that in that moment he realized that for a corporate world, he was just a number. Like a cog and a machine. Like nobody cared that, you know, he was. able to not only meet his targets at the bank, but exceed them and also have a side hustle. So obviously, promote this guy. Yeah, like, how can we like utilize you more if you can do these many things? And he was going to school full time. I forgot that. He was like 19, 20. I can't remember like 21, maybe at the most. So that's when he got fired. And when he got fired, I knew I'm not going to stay there because I already knew that banking is not something I want to do.

I just had fun working there because we had a good team and I had a good manager and we had fun working together, but I just didn't see this as a full-time career. And then Alex and I were just talking because he wanted to try becoming like a social media person. This is how many years ago, gosh, like 12 years ago? Like Twitter just launched. Who was even thinking about social media? Yeah, he was telling me to start. Actually, I already had started a blog like doing fashion stuff because I was always into beauty and fashion.

and then he kept saying, like, you should start making videos, but at that point, I wasn't ready. So I went to school to get certified an image consultant, and then I started practicing that. And my dream at the time was to be a fashion stylist. It sounds so glamorous. But in fact, unless you're living in New York or maybe Paris in Toronto, you're just going to be basically styling boring shoots for banks,

travel agencies, doctors, I don't know, like, cranky old dudes, corporate jobs. can't shop for clothes of fit. And it's boring stuff, you know. You're not styling fashion shoes. You're styling regular people for commercials. So I very quickly realized this is not going to work. And then also like returning like bags and bags of clothes after all these shoots.

Like I literally would walk into these retail stores and the people just not like me there. So I remember calling Alex one day. And at this time, Alex was listening to for our work week. And I was listening to it as well. And I was like, I don't see myself doing this. This doesn't feel like I own a business because I'm serving my customers and also, like, if I get sick or if I'm traveling, like, I realize that if you're in a service business, you're not really a business person. Like, if you want to have a real business, you have to have a product business, or maybe you're selling a course or something. But basically you want to make money when you're sleeping.

So that. Yeah, you want to make money while you're sleeping. I became aware of that. And I was like, especially for start of family, I want to have the freedom to be present with my children or child. and how am I going to be able to do that if I have a service business where I still have to serve my customers? So I just realized it wasn't for me. He agreed with me. But then we were reading the book, The 4-hour Workweek, and we didn't have the muse.

Didn't have the muse. Yeah, the news is basically that inspiration of what the business will be. And then at this time, when we're broke, like, he was fired and I decided to quit the bank. Good timing. Yeah, I was like, I'm just going to quit. And you quit? We'll figure it out. So great.

And getting married, right? Like, he proposed to me and we're broke. I'm like, well... He proposed while you guys were broke after he got fired and you quit? Yes. You guys got the timing nailed. In a lovely place, using our credit cards to get there. Of course.

But we were in Positano. This was like, gosh, like 11 and a half years ago probably. And he just went down on his knees and he's like, will you marry me? And I just knew he's a right person. And we were both broke and young and full of dreams. But it really didn't matter because I always felt like... at the end of the day, it's about being with the right person, not about having all these perfect things in life figured out. So I said yes. And I said, okay, but what did your parents think?

They were like, this guy doesn't have a job, is 22 or whatever. I never even thought about what they thought, to be honest. I just like, I mean, now as a parent, because I have a child, I feel a bit like, oh, that was very selfish of me, but they liked Alex. And my parents are very good people. So they supported that relationship. even though they did think we were crazy. When we told them we're going to start a hair extension business, they're like, what? Like, what are you talking about?

And also at the time, we were listening to Tony Robbins, that's another funny story where, you know, Tony, are you familiar with this stuff? So Tony talks about like gratefulness walks. So we would go on these gratefulness walks and basically talk about all these things we were grateful for that did exist in the present time, but also all these things we were grateful for that we wanted to manifest. So, for example, we would say things like we have our own, business and we travel the world and, you know, we do motivational speaking or like all these

things that we would want to do in reality, but obviously that was not our reality. And my dad would call me and say, like, what are you guys doing? And I'd be like, we're doing gratefulness walks. And there would be a long pause. I can hear his eyes rolling over the phone from. And I understand now. Like before, maybe I didn't as much as now as a parent, like, you guys really need to start looking for a job. Like, I'm a little worried. And I said, we'll figure it out. Don't worry. And, you know, we did. I'm so grateful.

We were young and broke and, in a way, desperate, because I do believe you have to be a little desperate to do something crazy. Yes. As basically put all your savings, annual and credit, and some kind of a crazy visa check that if you don't pay in six months, you're going to pay like 20% interest. Oh, the credit card bills. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Forgot about all that. You know, we put like 30,000 grand. That was like our initial investment to start this business, which, it was Loxie Hair and in our first year we made a million and that like almost never happened. No, it does not happen. To make a million dollars in your first year of the business. It's like 0.0.0.1%. So we always knew how special this thing that we did was. Did you tell your parents how much money you made and what happened? I mean, we never really focused on the money. Of course, but you never had to at some point.

No, we didn't actually. But they could tell we were doing well. My parents are very cool. So like they never really asked about the stuff and we're kind of like don't like showing off of course but at some point they must have been like Alex's shipping cars to Russia you guys made all this money like what's going on no yeah we're doing cars that was in the past after the bank you definitely stopped but no they knew what we were doing but like yeah they were shocked I think to this day they're still a bit shocked how we were able to create something like this again with no knowledge of how to do this like we're all self-taught and also I'm a college dropout so yeah I mean, expectations were probably really long.

So they were just happy that you weren't living in their basement or something at that point. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's really fun. It turned out pretty well. I'm surprised that you guys stopped shipping the cars after you got fired. I feel like that's the time where you double down on shipping cars. I don't know why it's going to ask Alex at some point.

That's a different interview. I know that you do answer some crazy, crazy questions. I mean, I was searching through your channel. And I was actually looking for the ones that, you spoke of hacking the process. I was kind of looking for that. I was looking for titles like, Alex throws a plate during a fight or something,

and there's nothing like that. Yeah, no drama title. I was surprised. Because any other YouTuber, it's always like, you'll never believe what this famous person said, and then the video is totally not about that. Yeah, it's garbage.

And your openness is really something that I think people do wrong a lot in videos. And who am I to say this? But really, I find that people who are really open tend to often be dramatic in a fake way. Like, it's not real openness. It's acting and fakery. It's over-exaggeration.

Yes. And ridiculous comedy and throwing food off your balcony and watching it explore or something. Yeah. I've heard about that stuff. I just don't watch that personally. But I know it exists out there. And there's many people addicted to it. I just, there's so much to do in life.

I just, who has the time? I agree. But it makes people like me go, I'm never doing Instagram. or YouTube, even though we are doing it right now. It really saddens me, actually. That's what gets the moment. It lowers the bar tremendously. But your openness is something different.

One of the videos I was talking about when I came over was someone had asked you, do you feel self, I'm going to paraphrase here, do you feel self-conscious about your nipples showing when you go out without a bra? I guess because of the baby at that point, or do you just not wear bras? I don't know. That may be for different. Maybe they noticed something in the vlog or video, yeah. But you'll answer a question like this.

And instead of it being kind of gratuit, it's like, okay, this is what people talk about with their friends. And you have that really dialed in. You told me before you're pretending that the person's in the room with you. Yeah. So is there a line? Or is it just whatever you talk about with your friends is fair game for your channel? I'd say I'd go as deep as I would go with a friend. Yeah. That's an easy bar, I think. Yes. Because if I were to meet any of my subscribers in person and they were to ask me that question, like I'm pretty much an open book. Like, I don't have anything to hide. I am not attached to some idea of Mimi, I can't. That could be broken and destroyed.

Like, I'm a human that's always evolving and changing. And the only thing I do know for sure is that I'm going to change. And I do always work on obviously changing towards the better. I feel like people will often meet me. And my fear would be that they build something up in their mind and that I'm different from that. but I can't control that at all. Absolutely can't. So I had to get over that over 12 years of doing videos.

Wow, you've been doing it for so long too. Yeah. But it's not easy. And I wonder, do you still feel the imposter syndrome of like, oh, one day, this could all come crashing down and this was a dream? I think more superficially, like, let's say if I'm out and I'm not wearing any makeup and I always want to, of course, present the best of myself. Or like, I'm sick.

I'm not wearing makeup and I'm sick on top of that. Anna likes this year and she's crying and this person's like, oh my God, I'm from Italy and it's so amazing to see you. And I'm like, gosh, like it's really not the best time, but I realized how special that moment is to them. And I also remember one time I met somebody famous, an author of mine, not of mine, but an author that I really liked before I met them because I had such a disappointing experience when I met them.

Like you said, some people you meet are a very different person. And I just stopped consuming his work after, because I was so disappointed in that experience. And of course, I don't want to judge him just by that moment. Sure. But it lingers. I still remember how I was treated. And it was very hostile.

So, like, I really always make sure that I do the eye contact and I just do my best in that moment, even if it's like 10 seconds of my interaction with them where I'm just sending, like, me, the me that they know, the me that I know, that might not be my momentary. experience. Like I might be upset or sick or whatever in the moment, but like I just beam that to them, that light that they know and recognize. And then I say, sorry, like, I really have to go right now. I would love to stay and talk with you, but I really can't right now. And they usually understand. Yeah. I feel, I feel like it's an honor to meet anybody who's consumed my work. And I'm sure you feel the same way. But I feel a little bit of pressure to be like the same person that

they want to see or here. And luckily, I met my wife and her, the reason she went to out with me and she'll tell you this, is that she wanted to see if I was the same guy on the podcast as I am in real life or the same person in real life as I am on the podcast. And that turned out to be true. But I also think, how many times have I not been that person because I'm buying noodles and I'm tired or whatever and someone sees you go, you just feel that like they're kind of, I feel the need not to perform, but to give them what they want. And it took me years and years to get over that. And your format is more intimate. Podcasts and videos for me are fine. But you are still, you are on, you are in front of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In their, they're in bed

watching. Yeah. Talk about brawless grocery shop. So you have, you have that all the time. And I wondered if did that, is that something that you had to get over or is that something where you always kind of open and it didn't really affect you? I, I think I just don't care that much. You know, I don't care that much about like what other people think, which makes me more real in all my interactions, whether on camera or in real life, I'm me. And if you don't like me, that's fine. You don't have to like me because like not everybody will like me. Let's just be real. It's just a reality. You can't just make everybody happy or you can be liked by everybody. So realizing that and not trying to impress, I think just makes you more real in the moment. And yeah, I don't

say I don't struggle with that to be, so it's hard for me. I can relate to it. You never struggled with that? I don't believe I've ever struggled. So the only moments I'd feel that way, if again, I'm caught off guard where, like, I have the makeup on, my hair's messy, I'm sick, you know, my nose is running. And I'm like, this is really not a great time. But nobody wants to be seen like that, to be fair. Exactly. Nobody wants to be spotted. Other than that, because I'm such an extrovert, like, when I meet people and, like, they're my subscribers, whether it's in Positano in London, like, I'll go out of my way to chat with them. Like, they were talking. we've had dinner with our subscribers

just because we're like, why not? We're here. It's like we're in some small town in California. Like, I think it was Ventura. You know, we just had dinner with this lovely family that we met there. And it happened to us in San Francisco as well. So like if it's like by chance or serendipity it happens, like we're even happy to bond and like have dinner and go even deeper with subscribers. Because like I genuinely care.

Like I truly like, that's the only reason I do this is because I genuinely feel like these are my beautiful friends. Sure. Because that's how I agree people, you know. I think it's a great way to live. It would be tough for me to do anything like this if I put myself above the people who I was working for. It would be much harder because I wouldn't want to do it.

Yeah. So I like to think that when I come into the relationship with whoever's listening or watching, that we're like you, we're in the same. My analogy is we're in a coffee shop and these people are kind of eavesdropping and we invite them into the conversation. And I prefer that. And I think that that will probably stick around forever because otherwise I would just quit doing what I'm doing. It wouldn't be fun for me at all to do it any other way.

I know that you grew up not affluent at all. And you touched on this earlier. When did you move to Canada from Azerbaijan? So I just turned 16 years old when we moved and I went to grade 10 in Canada. And then I did my grade 10, 11, 12. Grade 12, basically I was doing co-op most of the time. You were doing what? Co-op. So, like, you basically work and you get the credits because I just couldn't wait to get out of high school.

Going into high school from Azerbaijan to Canada as a teenage 16-year-old girl sounds like a nightmare. It's not how I viewed it at the time because from the age of maybe 11, 12, it was like our biggest dream. My sister and I would like visualize every day that we're living in America. Canada is good enough. Sorry, Canada. It's really hard to get in the States. My parents tried, but unless you win like a green but that, you know, what are the chances? So we did this whole immigration process and literally had, my parents had to wait like three years to get a response from the immigration office.

And I remember the day where we got on the plane, it was my first flight ever. I was tripping. I was like, oh my God, it's a, it's a dream. Imagine like you're visualizing this for years and years and then like, I'm there. And my brain is like, I can, no, this can be real. This must be a dream. So from the moment I went on that plane, I'm just, I'm going to be a dream. that plane, I feel like I'm still in a dream. Wow. And it's been a really lovely dream. I'm very,

very grateful. It seems like, though, you must have had a cold shower when you walked into 10th grade, and people are like not, what was your English like? I mean, you had to figure it out. Yeah. And I did get quite disappointed because I had this idea that, again, I'm very positive, right? So I'll come, I'll make friends. It's all going to be great. I'll have a boyfriend. And, like, everybody's going to like me. And then I kept hearing this word like fob. I don't know if you guys use this. Yeah, it's mean. It's very mean. And I had no clue on the boat. Fresh off the boat. And I was like, what does that mean fob? Like I keep hearing that. And then when I knew I was like, my heart like broke a little bit. But then like I knew that high school is not forever. So that's

kind of when I was like, I just can't wait to get out. Like I don't care about, I never went to prom. I was just like, I don't feel like I belong. But I still managed to make. some friends, actually. So did my best to make the best of the whole experience. But in general, traditional education is not something I ever felt like I fit in just because I have such a creative mind and I just have a very hard time of sitting still and kind of like following directions. I just always couldn't wait to get out. You're like we have that in common. Yeah. School. I did okay in school, but it was it was all I could do just to make it through

because of the same thing. Yeah. Just couldn't focus, didn't want to be there, didn't see the point. It's funny that one of the most popular people on YouTube didn't go to prom, was called names in high school. I mean, it seems like a complete shift. And so that sort of proves that the environment was not a fit. Absolutely.

Yeah. Interesting. And also you can come, like, you can come a long way from what you might even expect yourself if somebody is listening to this and they're in high school and they're not the popular kid and people are making fun of them. They don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend. Things will come around. Just keep believing. Have that vision for yourself and just stick to it. High school is not forever. Right. We had this campaign. Neither is college, you know. Oh, no, I know. Thank goodness. We had this campaign on TV in the United States a while ago. And it was something like, it gets better. And it was about bullying.

And it's like, it gets better. And it was all these famous actors being like, it gets better. And I see that. I saw that a few years ago and I thought, I could have used this in high school because you think that your whole world is this. And even when I got to college, I remember my parents going, man, college was those were the greatest days of my life. And I was like, oh my God, it's downhill from here? This is terrible. The greatest year. Yeah. Greatest years your life. I'm just to just, you know. But see how from generation to generation experience can also change so drastically. And I also think it probably is great if you're going to work at CIBC for the next 30 years. That's what you dream is. Yeah. Which is fine. Nothing wrong with that.

I don't know if people really dream it. I think they end up there and then they go, well, at least I'll become an investment banker and it won't be that bad. Unless I start shipping cars and get fired. But what are the odds of that, right? Yeah, well, when I met you guys, though, it's funny. The reason I ask you about your background is because when I met you guys, I was talking with you for a while. And I was like, oh, these are good people. And I can't remember who I spoke with, somebody else from the group we were with.

And I said, oh, yeah, they must be like old money, Russian people, something. I did. And it wasn't because of attitude or anything, especially Alex, though. I was like, poor, this guy's, like, wearing a white suit, you know. He's probably, like, learned how to ride a horses when he was eight. He doesn't get that a lot. Yeah. And he's like, no, I grew up poor.

And I was like, define poor. Right? Like, what does that mean? Because it could be different for a lot of people. And then I heard. Oh, like, really poor. Yeah. Like unemployed refugee-ish parents.

Yeah. Like, mom working in the bakery, like night shifts. Parents divorced. My gosh. Yeah. Almost going to jail one time. You? No, no, not me.

Oh, your mom? No, no, Alex. Alex? Oh, God. That's a story he has to tell on his channel. I definitely want to hear that story. That surprises me. Yeah.

He was just, you know, hanging out with the wrong crowd. Oh, my gosh. But, yeah, he's definitely come a long way too. Yeah, he's so pretty now. If you want to take a break, he can just do all the hair stuff. Just need some Lexi hair extensions. I know that you didn't aim for millions of subscribers. that was kind of an accident.

What was the plan? You know, you wanted to start doing videos or he wanted you to start doing videos. What was the plan? Because most people now, they want millions of subscribers because the whole point is, I'm going to be famous on YouTube

or Instagram. Yes, yes, yes. All right. What was the idea? The focus is the numbers now, whether make more numbers, like money-wise, or grow subscribers,

but what is the point? What are you going to do with those subscribers? So for us, the focus was the freedom. We wanted the freedom, and we knew that we enjoyed providing value to people. So if we can combine these two things and make, you know, three, four grand a month,

that was the goal. We could live from, because at the time we were leaving with Alex's mom, we could still live with her, she didn't mind, travel the world, we wouldn't be there. No, she's just living here. She's amazing.

I mean, I would love to still have her here all the time because she's so awesome, and I'm lucky to have a great relationship with her. but the goal was just to make enough not to have to go back to corporate work and have the freedom to travel. Like we just wanted to have freedom of space, freedom of financial freedom, obviously. And in general, just freedom of everything is kind of like our top value. And we reached so. Overshot the goal quite a bit.

Because again, like we went in our work ethic, providing value and doing the best, like paying attention to details. I'm very customer service-centric, so providing the best customer service ever, because, like I said, I had customer service experience at the bank, and I just didn't like the fact, like, at the bank, I had to say the script to people, where in reality, I would have dealt so differently with certain situations. They treated the people a little nicer, maybe. Yeah, and I know they would have come back to all their friends, to their family, the business would have even grown bigger and faster, and I was able to apply that when we started our own business. And obviously, now I can see there's evidence that it works. Yeah, it does work. It's hard to scale when you have a billion employees to train, which is why I think big companies do a crap job because they're just trying to like make everything vanilla. But if you're serving your customers in a way that's specific to you, you can do whatever you want. And it does work because it's better to lose a little bit and have them say, I really loved working with them or doing something with them. But it's very strange to see how the business grew because most people who try to follow business advice from a book, they decide to get into a product business, which was a good move in hindsight, right? It can be really tough.

You built this business with a brick-by-brick process. Absolutely. People want YouTube Instagram to be overnight. This is not really overnight. I look at other YouTube channels, and I'll talk with those creators sometimes. Yeah. And it's like, oh, well, I was doing this for a long time, and then I did a video about Donald Trump's hair,

and then that went viral, and then I got 10 million subscribers or 100,000. And then I did another one. And so you see their content take like a hard right turn or right left turn maybe. And then everything is, they say, oh, so two years to an overnight success. You didn't really do that. No, it did not. You had kind of a very unique path. It was consistency.

And some videos did get viral. But later, I'd say more like maybe after a year or so, starting our channel, there were some videos that reached like $15 million or $10 million plus. but it was just that putting out consistent work every single week. I think at the time we were doing like two videos a week, sometimes even three. And again, putting out the engaging content that's relatable to what your channel is about. And the quality has to be great and you have to be authentic. All those things, as you know, we've shared with you before.

It's tough. Yeah. It's tough, of course. It's quite a lot of work. But because we had so much fun, to this day, I never feel like I'm working. That's great. Since we started our own businesses, because we only choose to do what we're really into, I just always feel like I'm tricking the system because I just love what I do. It never, ever feels like work. I agree. I won't say it never feels like work. Well, I know what you mean. Certain things now as the business grows, you know, like having meetings with accountant or like, sorry, I know Jen is an accountant. She was.

She was. Yeah, Jen was an account. There's a reason she's not. But I mean, like, I'm really not into accounting. Like, that's why I dropped out of college, actually. Anyways, that's a different story. But, you know, like boring stuff that personally is not my strength in the business. That's when I kind of like feel like it's work. But I do my best to avoid doing that and getting somebody else who's better at it to do that at the business. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Mimi Icon. We'll be right back after this. Thank you for listening and supporting the show.

Your support of our advertisers keeps us on the air. So to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visitjordanharbinger.com slash deals. And don't forget that worksheet for today's episode. That link is in the show notes over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. And now for the conclusion of our episode with Mimi Icon. So you managed to listen to your, I hate the words inner voice, but I'm going to use it. But you did it in a way that didn't result in you doing things for vanity or ego, despite it being a beauty business, which is highly unusual, right?

Because if you see people who start things in that niche or in any niche, usually following the inner voice is whatever makes other people like them more because it makes them feel good. And you managed to follow what you wanted to do without getting sucked into this sort of like drain, like literally like a pool drain, sucking you in and making you do things that you feel good short term. And I find that that's fascinating. So when you started the business, how did you find the product? Were you just like, hey, I use hair extensions. We should sell these. The markup is insane. It was actually an interesting story because Alex and I were getting married at the time. As you know, we were broke. And I still

wanted really nice mermaid kind of hair for my wedding. I was like, I can, yeah, like mermaid long. Okay. Because my hair like stops at this point. It just doesn't grow any longer. And I went to a mall and I saw this kiosk selling hair. And I said, okay, I'll try it. And I should put in my hair. It looked really nice there. And I was like, like, okay, fine. Like, this is the only time I can justify this. This is my wedding. This is $200, whatever.

I'll spend it, but I'll wear it to my wedding because it's a big day, you know, it's a special day. So I come home, take this out of the package, put it in my hair. And at this time, my sister was in the room who was also unemployed and kind of like figuring her stuff out. Alex was just on his laptop trying to like do something or maybe just wasting time. Who knows? And I put this hair in and I'm like, oh my God, this is crappy.

This doesn't look real. I can't return this product because hair extensions is a hair hygienic product. I mean, not a few, maybe if you can take out just a sample, you can return it, but not the whole thing. So I just started complaining to my sister and saying, like, this sucks. Like, I have to, I basically wasted $200. I would cry. Yeah. Even now, I would cry.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's a lot of money, especially when you broke. And Alex was in the room and he said, what are you talking about? What's hair extensions? I've never heard of this. Tell me more. I'm just, like, really curious. And I just opened my laptop, started showing him some videos on YouTube of before and afters of girls, like wearing these kind of extensions. And Alex was just shocked.

Like he couldn't believe, like, you can have such a transformation with hair extensions. We already knew about this, obviously, being girls, you know, because that's, you know. At the time, though, it was still a very new product that Europeans used a lot, Australians used. but in the U.S. there was only like two, three companies doing it, which was shocking to us when we started doing the research. And crappy mall kiosks. Exactly. Selling like costuming hair. Like questionably whether it's real or not, although they said it was real.

Yeah. So anyways. Real dog hair. Because at the time Alex was listening and we were both listening to, you know, for our work weekend looking for the music, he said, well, why don't we do this? And we just looked at him like he was crazy. We're like, what do we know about hair extensions or like hair in general? It's like, you know, like all of us are broke, have nothing to lose. Why don't we just do it together?

And like, we'll figure it out. Like, we'll just learn how to do everything. And because we had nothing to lose, we're like, yeah, why not? How old were you at that point? Oh, gosh. I must have been, I think 22, 22, 23. So you had a ton of energy. Yeah.

To start something new. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think it's such a great time to do things like that, like a little crazy. Like, I mean, at any age, but especially I think I always stress. the importance of appreciating and valuing your 20s, because now a lot of people look at 20s, like, oh, this is the year you like screw around, the years,

I mean the decade of your life where you screw around. No, 20s is a very valuable time where you can actually build something. You can learn so much. You can get married and even start a family. That's what you want to do. But definitely don't waste your 20s. I definitely spent too much.

I mean, I did a lot. I went to law school, whatever, graduated, started my business, started my show, But I also spent a lot of time screwing around. And I look back at it and I remember, of course, everyone thinks they wasted that time. Even in the moment, I realized I was wasting it. I just thought you were supposed to because if you sort of waited long enough, something would happen. Do you think coming from a background of not having a lot of money, moving to another country,

or spurred you on and said, look, no one's handing you anything. Yeah. You've got to do this. So the desperation and also like, what's the alternative? The alternative is I'm going to have to go back to the bank. Yeah. And that to me was a death sentence because I literally had existential panic attacks there, like, thinking, what am I doing here? Like, I just don't belong.

I know it. I'm pretty aware as a human being. I always have been. So it's hard to deny the truth when you're that real with yourself. Yeah. And I just, we just went for it. And within, so the idea came to us maybe, I don't know, what was in March. From that, we launched pretty much in, was it June, I think end of June, something like that.

So like, it was just a few months from the inception of the idea to launching the business and, like, actually selling products like on the first, second, third, and then just growing from that. So how did you get it? You just, you don't want to buy the same crap from that kiosk. How did you, how do you find a supplier of air extent? So that's where Alex came and played. He did a lot of... So we did the creative stuff. We started basically making YouTube videos,

even before we had the product. We didn't even know if we're going to get this, like, amazing hair extensions. So you're just making videos with nothing in them, I mean... No, we knew it's going to be, obviously, hair extensions, but we just started making hair videos, just providing people value. Again, like, that was our biggest values,

always to provide value. So we just started making hair videos using our hair at the time because we didn't even have the hair extensions yet. And then Alex got busy emailing all these people on Alibaba. That was very, actually, that wasn't even popular yet. It was just like emerging as a website. And we got maybe 10 samples.

And the first one we tried, we were like blown away. Because the problem with that the hair extension that I bought at the kiosk was that it just didn't look real. It was like very thin. Like most girls would need more hair. But more hair costs more money. And most people wouldn't be able to afford that. So our goal was to make affordable hair extensions, but premium quality. How do you do that?

You cut the middleman and instead of selling it at kiosk at the mall or salons, you sell it online. When we told people what we're going to do, they were like, you're crazy. Like nobody's going to buy hair extensions online. So we stopped telling people what we're going to do. We're like, let's just do it. And then let's see what happens, you know? And then so, yeah, we got 10 samples.

The first one we got, we were blown away. But we're like, let's not get excited. We still have nine more samples. The rest were crap. Is this real hair? Yes, this is real hair donated by hair donors. So there's different type of hair. We donated.

Why would... Well, they sell it. Okay. It's that kind of... I don't need my hair. I guess I shouldn't be using the word donate because they do sell it. Or salons, cut the hair, and then they collect the hair and sell it. That's Asian hair.

We've always only used Asian Remy hair. Some people or companies, I should say, use Indian hair, which comes. from temples. So there's these temples where people go to donate their hair because that's what they do in their religion. And that's not the hair we use, for example. There's like a documentary. It seems unethical somehow to do that.

Yeah, I don't want to get into that. Yeah. Yeah, there's like documentary about that, but that's not the hair we use. So it was very important to us that, I mean, it's a tricky thing because you never know how much that person gets. Because, you know, the person who's selling the hair, then there's somebody collecting the hair, they resell the hair. Yeah.

It's a really tricky, complicated world. But at the time, we weren't even aware. Like, what, 22, 23? These are the questions we started answering after. And later down the line, we did change the factory and the supplier because we wanted to be more transparent with our audience. Fair trade hair. Yeah, yeah.

Well, there's no such thing yet. Sustainable there. But if we were to stay in the hair industry, that's what Alex and I would do. Because that's how we now live life. That's our philosophy. And we were taking the company in that direction. And there's so much transparency on the website if you go there now. This is very important to us.

How did you know that when you made a bigger order you were going to get what you paid for? We didn't know anything. But to be honest, like I never had, I never twice thought about sending this money to China to this person that we never ever met. To this day, we've never been to China, by the way, right? You never went. Not one once. So how you had a person who like we hired somebody later. who did this, like, you know, as a project, and they did an audit,

and then they found the other factory that was very legit and treated people nicely. And, you know, everybody had fair wages and, you know, just the factory itself was beautiful. And because those were very important things to us. But again, we outsourced that, like, this is not my strength. I could be doing way better things with my time. And that's just like our philosophy and business. Although I do wish kind of where we did go and we do want to go to China, of course. but it's just like we were doing other things, you know, that just seemed more important at the time.

I just imagine wiring like five grand to China and being like... So this is 30 grand when you broke. 30 grand with no... If you lose it, you're totally screwed. I just believed 100% this is going to work. Ooh, you must have been like, please don't. No, I wasn't even thinking. Alex later confessed that he was having some doubts where I didn't think...

I'm like very risk... What's the right word? Like, I'm very good at taking risk. Yeah, I'm very risk tolerant. I can take risk. I don't think twice, which is not always the greatest thing, you know? Yeah, but good quality in an entrepreneur to at least have the time. Yeah, I just like, if I feel for something, I just go for it.

I don't think twice. And, you know, if something, if I were to learn a lesson that you've got to do more research and you're going to lose 30 grand now, that would have been the lesson I would have learned, but that was not. You know, that was not in my cards. So lucky. Something to be grateful for. But it just felt right, you know.

obviously as Alex was talking to these people in China, it just felt like he could trust the person. And some people you could just see in the way they were conversing that, you know, they were a bit sketchy. So you have to use your intuition. And again, that's something we also value highly in business decisions and hiring and making any business decisions. Intuition is high on our list. Like we don't do any kind of marketing groups. And like if we know this is going to be what we're going to call the product, we just go with intuition. And so far, we've had the luck of being always successful with that.

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there must have been ups and downs, but you handle it by pivoting or changing the course. Yeah, it's part of like failing is part of succeeding. Like, you just, you can't always succeed. It wouldn't be natural. Like, that's just not how life is. So failure is just part of learning and growing as a human being as an entrepreneur. So the first year, you made like a million bucks. Yes. More probably. But let's not split hairs. No pun intended. That was weird. But how much of this, and I know, look, I know you work hard. You guys have really good ideas. You guys are very positive. You guys have great systems in place.

You have a great team. All that comes with work. But how much of it do you think, like, oh, my gosh, that was lucky that this didn't happen. Or this is lucky that we were able to do this. You know, people often say, oh, you just got lucky. Partially true, but only partially true. So I like to answer that kind of comment with luck is when preparation, it's opportunity. So, of course, if you have an idea and it's a brilliant idea and you do something with it, there's luck.

There's luck attached to it because there's the timing of doing something really special. We started hair extension company at the time where almost nobody was doing it in the United States and Canada. And that was when the trend for clipping hair extensions became like growing. and started growing. You can even see it in the Google Analytics. Like 2010 was the year of when it just started growing and then up, up, up it went. And then it sort of plateaued and now, you know, other things are becoming more popular. Whereas the timing, that's the luck.

But at the end of the day, you would have had to do some research. You would have had to build sort of muscles to go for it. So those are the things we were doing before. We had the idea. And like, in a way, I failed in my fashion stuff. styling business and Alex Fade failed, you can say in his social media. His Russian car shipping business. Or the car shipping, you know, I mean, he made some money, but, you know, it did fail as a

business. So it's just part of learning and it's part of growing, but it's also nobody just gets lucky, you know. I think people who say things like, well, you got lucky, I understand the desire to do that. I would love to walk in here and go, nice place. They're so lucky. I can never get that because luck. Yeah.

But if you zoom out, enough on the timeline, you guys worked hard. You learned English as kids, not even that young, teenagers, came from families that didn't float you guys, your first 30K hair loan. You didn't have a bunch of connections to, like, look, if we buy this hair, we'll sell it in my mom's 18 salon. Like, none of these things were the case. We didn't even have a single entrepreneur friend. It felt so lonely. Sure. First few years of working together, thank God we had each other.

literally we had nobody nobody to ask any question or get feedback on now we do but I mean it's been like almost 10 years sure yeah and I think it's important to note that when you're almost 9 years not bad though you zoom out far enough on the timeline

you find a lot of unlucky things that you're not necessarily focused on yeah I mean look it's lucky you didn't wire $30,000 to China and they never see anything that's lucky that you got the hair that that person wasn't a artist, right? But the rest of it comes with work diligence. It's not like you made one video and you sold a million dollars worth of hair extensions. You made, how many videos did you make during the year? Oh my God, like 300 plus. 300 plus, which is like maybe a thousand or more hours of work, 2,000 hours of work for the videos alone. And then there's the videos that fail that never see,

you know, the world. So there's definitely a lot of work. But like I said, it just never felt like it. That's the blessing in doing something you love. That's why I always tell people, young people that I meet, older people that I meet were lost. Like, you really have to go for something you enjoy doing, or at least you feel like you have interest in. And that way, you're just going to really be into it. And when you're really into something,

you're present, you're really doing your best. And that's how you become successful in life. When you were broke, poor, X dollars in debt, probably after buying hair extensions and having a wedding, Did you think we're making all this money, it's going to make us happier? Yes. And then how did your perception of money change? Because you're happy people, so obviously something went right, but it probably wasn't the money that did it.

Definitely not. Oh, that's a very sensitive topic. But I'm definitely happy to talk about it because I feel like it can help so many people who also like me come from very humble beginnings. And it is marketed to us that when you get the money and you get the husband, you know, Because I had at the time the relationship, you know, I'm in good health, which is incredible, like the best thing to ever ask for. And then you have a business that's like making lots of money and you just started it,

like literally, like a year ago. And that was the time when I got the most depressed ever. I mean, I've never been depressed before. That was the time when I got depressed, period, but I realized what depression is. And now that I've done a lot of inner self-work, I mean, this was years ago, I realized why it happened at that time. Because when you believe in something so strongly, like when I have the money,

that's when life is going to be perfect. I can travel the world. I can buy anything I want. And then I got there personally. I can talk for other people who become financially successful because every experience is different. But I'm sure there's lots of people like me out there.

You get there and you're like, okay, well, we've traveled to South of France and we went to Costa Rica and we went here. And now what? Like this really, this actually was more or felt more valuable or exciting when I had some other purpose in my life. So like that that's when I realized, okay, like, let's, okay, we're making money and like we never really realized like we're going to get this successful with this. So we never looked at it as this is the business where we will bring value. I guess when we started it, we just wanted the freedom, like I said.

And then I had to almost re-evaluate everything I was doing in life, which was so great because I just looked at my whole value system and had to rearrange it in my own mind. And I realized that purpose is one of the most important things because it's what gets you out of bed in the morning. And that's when we started in looking at what we're doing differently. Okay, these are hair extensions. Like, what's the purpose? But there was so much purpose. We're making people happy. We're teaching them how to love themselves.

because not everybody had to buy extensions. So many girls watched our videos never ever bought the product. They told their friends to buy it, but they didn't need it because they already had nice hair or just didn't want the product. It was the energy we were putting out. And like the comments I would get sometimes, like I would just bowl there had nothing to do with clip and extensions.

So I just switched my mindset, like, okay, but this is still my purpose because I am reaching an audience and it's the energy I put out there. And I remember some of those videos, Like, I was super depressed. Like, really wouldn't even get out of the house sometimes because, like, I just started developing the social anxiety, which was so weird because, like, I'm super extroverted. You never had that before?

Never. You make a million dollars now you feel like you can't get out of bed. Because your identity. You're having an identity crisis. You're like, whoa. Like, your dream comes true, but it's not what your mind thinks it would be. So you have to, your mind has to rearrange completely. You have to, like, create new brain connections and, like, there's lots happening inside while

this is going on. at least that was my experience. And I, you know, I went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat, did a lot of inner work that just made me realize that at the end of the day, it's the purpose. Like, what do you wake up for every day? And that's what keeps me grounded now. You know, you ask, like, how do you not get swayed away by all these trends on, like,

getting big? Like, of course, I can do these bikini things. You know, I don't want to say anything because I don't want to label things because I still take pictures in bikini. And again, like, there's nothing wrong with doing whatever you're doing. As long as in the moment, it feels very. real. But like at the end of the day, what are you doing on consistently? Like, what do you feel like you're bringing to the world? What is the value? And that has to feel authentic to you. And again,

nothing wrong with doing anything as long as it feels authentic to you. So that's my philosophy. I like it. And I agree. I think the reason I'm asking you about this is because I think it's easy for people to go, boo-hoo, you made a million dollars your first year and you got sad. Like, go fly, kind. How dare you? No, but this was really scary. Yeah. Like I really, like, I was really worried for my life. I honestly, like, not I always love my life, but like I really, like, I was just, I didn't realize how heavy depression can feel until I had that experience. Literally some days, like, I couldn't just get up to do a simple task.

But it also would draw me to do that inner work to realize that at the end of the day, it's not about the money. It's not about the success. Like, this is why you hear. to really also teach through your challenging experiences. And I truly believe that's why probably I had to go through that. I always try to see the positive and the negative. And I really don't see my depression as negative

because I think people get depressed a lot of times when they're out of alignment. And it was my body's way of telling me you're just not aligned. Just you need to stop, like you need to, in that moment, just stop whatever you're doing and become aware instead of, of course, you know, sometimes you have to take the drugs. I didn't choose to go that route because I just wanted to face that experience. And it's so freaking hard because like when I went to the doctor, they just say,

here's a prescription. But I'm like, but what's the root cause? Well, we can't really help you with the root cause. That's not what we trained that. Yeah, we don't have that kind of time. Right? And I'm like, that sucks. Like, are you kidding me?

This is the only help I'm going to get. So then you go and do a lot of inner work elsewhere. And it is so freaking scary. And if it wasn't for that inner work and going inside and hours of meditation that I had to do alone by myself, I just wouldn't be here now completely free of all these things. I'm still human. I experience fears and certain anxieties once in a while. But again, that's what makes you human.

That's what makes you relatable. And then you can share your experience and help other people who are going through similar things. So I believe the reason for my depression was just to realign my beliefs, my values, and just myself. from inside out. You just sold Luxie hair. Yes. Congratulations, by the way. So that must have been something that you could only do if you made the purpose

about something other than the hair. And of course, other than about the money, because then you would just have to start another business from scratch. Yes. Or from the foundation that you have. But it's scary. It's not something that you necessarily want to do. What do you mean starting another business?

Starting over. Oh, for sure. We'll start other businesses. Oh, yeah? 100%. We have so many ideas every day. But for us, what we're realizing, it's not about doing more. It's about doing maybe one or two things, but going deeper with it.

Because part of also why I was so Lexi here, I just, we both felt like we're just not giving our best to this business because it's just no longer aligned with our core purpose as much as it was, you know, when we're starting. And also, there's just so many other things we want to do. This is your life and it's a journey, but you realize it's not infinite. it and there's just so many other things we want to do and time is of an essence and those were some of the reasons why we made the decision. It's like if you really want to do something and we clearly know we have the vision, that's really big, that's something we do as a couple is just we define our vision. It's an exercise we do together and I think it's so important for everybody to do that, especially us, we're also business partners, it's not just a couple, but I think even if

you're not business partners, it's just like what is your common vision as a couple and we just knew that this is a decision we have to make to move forward and create other things that we truly believe in. Do you sit down periodically and go, hey, are you happy with selling the hair stuff? I kind of want to do something else. I mean, do you have a process for sitting down and reevaluating what you want to do? I'd say we do that regularly, just chatting. It's not like a process. We're not very process-oriented people, but we're always talking about what we do in bed, on the couch in the restaurant. We just can't help it because, again,

for us, it's hard to draw the line between work and life because our life is sort of our work. Really, I just don't mind that because I truly love what I do. So if I get too stressed, of course, I know I need to draw the line just to be and chill out and meditate, which is a bit of a challenge sometimes. But at the end of the day, yeah,

we talk about the stuff all the time. It's not a process. It's just an ongoing thing. I guess maybe that is the process. That can be the process. Do that on the regular. For me, for a long time, I just did lots of work. And then kind of one day, I don't think it was that sudden.

But I started to also be depressed. This was years ago. And I thought, well, I'm depressed because I'm working so much. I'm depressed because I'd work a lot and I'd neglect my friendships. When was this for you? Maybe like six, seven years ago before I met Jen. And I was working. And I thought, well, if I work harder and achieve more goals, then it'll be better.

And I would do that. and I would achieve goals, and I would go, oh, it must be because I'm not going out with enough friends. So I would start to be more social. And it helped a little. But then it was like this disjointed life that I had where I was enjoying life sometimes and then really not. And I thought, if that never ends, I might as well just work at the post office because at least

then I have certainty of getting a paycheck. Whereas right now, I have all the uncertainty of being an entrepreneur and I hate it. So what am I going to do? And it turned out that it was alignment. It was I don't want to run around teaching guys how to meet girls or whatever I was doing at age like 33. It was getting a little sad by that point. And so I wanted to do the show. I wanted to do the Jordan Harbinger show and interview people and get great information out there and help people and help them learn things.

So you knew it in time. I knew it, but it wasn't listening. I wasn't listening. Yeah. I wasn't listening. It was back there, but I thought, well, I can't do that. I got to do this other thing. That's not going to make me money.

Right. And then then I, you know. you know, flushed my happiness down the toilet, essentially. So I think it's great. You don't have to have that process, but you do give, it seems like you get space for that and you and Alex make space for that in your life. It's extremely important on our list, if not the most important thing, really, because what else is there? Right. Yeah, sure. Will you have a kid now, a child? Yes. And Alexa. In quite a journey. I assume you don't have an Amazon Echo or your life would be chaos. We do. We just treat it as another person. She actually goes up to it and says,

I like some play ballet music for kids. Oh. It's so good. And so if you're yelling at her down the hall to come in. Yeah, that happens sometimes. Yeah. I don't understand what you were saying. I'm like, oh, just turn that thing off.

Plug it. Yeah. I think, I wondered if you just had Google Home instead, just to say. No, but I hope they're going to have the future where you can rename it. I think that would. I think they do have that. Do they have that? Alex told me that it doesn't.

I'm almost certain that they have that. I got to look into that. Problem solved. Things are just getting easier. you. What is next for you now that you sold Luxie Hair? We're starting a podcast, as I mentioned to you today. Happy to help. So excited about that. Just creating more content, really, on my channel as well, becoming more consistent because obviously being full-time parent and spending all my time with Alexa the last

couple of years, didn't leave me a lot of time to do other things, especially with the business, growing, and then now I'm deciding to sell it in the past few months. But now that has come to an end, so it's almost like a new chapter. And Alex and I, I do have a lot of goals and big vision. And I, you know, there's some uncertainty at the time, at the moment that I cannot publicly share yet. Sure. You know, obviously, I think, you know, we'll just continue doing more of what we are doing

at the moment. And I want to go into more public speaking and just helping people with self-growth because I believe that's what I can share the most of because I feel like I've gone through such a big journey myself. And I realize there's so many people struggling with, like, the small stuff. Like, again, just believing in yourself. And not stopping so many people in the world from doing anything going out for the bright girl or the boy, going, applying for that job, just starting on that hobby or starting a

business or applying for the school that they want to go. Like, there's so many people who just plainly don't believe in themselves. And to me, again, now that comes supernatural. And if I can just share more of that stuff that got me to where I am today, I feel like I'll be so happy. So even happier. I'm already happy, but it'll just make me even happier. Mimi, thank you so much. It's my pleasure. It's been a great time. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks to Mimi and Alex icon for today's episode. And if you want to know how I managed to book, well, not even just book, but have myself surrounded by amazing people, such as Mimi and Alex and everybody else you've heard on the show, check out six-minute networking. It's a course that I've developed. It is very. free. It's designed to show you how to create and reach out to connections and maintain those relationships over time. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. It takes just a few minutes a day. I know you're busy. It won't interrupt your life. This is the stuff I wish I knew two decades ago.

Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Speaking of building relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from Mimi Icon. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram and there's a video of this interview on our YouTube at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. This show is produced in association with Podcast One, and this episode was co-produced by Jason the influencer DeFilippo and Jen Harbinger. Show notes and worksheets are by Robert Fogarty, and I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful,

which should be in every episode. So please share the show with those you love, and even those you don't. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here,

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