From Rock Bottom to Millions: The Mindset That Changes Everything #138

If you just wake up in the morning and you can get yourself to be your first thought to be. What am I grateful for? What can I appreciate in my life? It will change your life. Don't create a business just for the lifestyle or just to make money, because as I said before, making money without your purpose and alignment won't be enough.

Welcome to on the home front. I'm Jeff Duden, and today our guest is Alex Icahn, the visionary behind the five Minute Journal and co founder of Intelligent Change.

One of the most powerful things that I've learned this year is the importance of love in your life. And I want to wish you that next year is going to bring more light, more joy, more health, more ecstatic experiences in your life.

The five minute Journal is such a simple daily discipline, yet has sold over 2 million copies worldwide. I use this journal every day, and it is aligned perfectly and supports my personal goals that I have set for the new year. Using this tool, Alex has helped millions achieve clarity and pursue purpose through the disciplined act of journaling. Our world is full of distractions, which is exactly why sometimes simple solutions are best. Stick around. You're going to love it and maybe be motivated to start a new ritual that could change your life. Alex Icahn, welcome to the home front.

Thank you so much for having me, Jeff.

Yeah, I'm super excited to spend this time with you today. As I went through your books. First of all, the five Minute Journal, which is so popular globally, and then your new book, the Life Designer, what I realized is many of the basic tenets and the pillars that you have included in the book are very consistent with the way that I lead, the beliefs that I have, the inspiration that I have for people, the belief that I have in people. So I'm very excited to dig into this and understand how it got there and then just have a great conversation about your journey as an entrepreneur.

Me too. I'm excited to also learn more about you as well.

All right, well, so would you care, Alex, just to share a little bit about your journey growing up?

For sure. How far back do you want me to go?

You know, the earth cooled, a lot of things happened, and then you were in Russia somewhere.

How about that? Okay. Yeah, for sure. So as you were saying, I was born in, well, Soviet Union at the time, Right. Ussr, in a little city called Orenburg, which is on the border of Kazakhstan, where Borat is from, as some people may know. And I think I was blessed to be born to beautiful people who wanted a better life for US as children. You know, when Soviet Union fell and the new country, Russia was born, it was a fairly, I'll say chaotic, volatile, uncertain environment to be living in. But I never felt that as a child. I always was made to feel safe to the point until when the reason we immigrated to Canada was my mother's brother threatened to kill her and our whole family. So that's how, that's how we became immigrants. And she felt threatened, and it was real. And I remember as a child having this violent, drunk person trying to knock down our door and then, you know, being kind of taken away by police. And so my mom, and then he got into jail, so she just said, hey, I need to do whatever I can to get the hell out of this country. Because I think he means it. And I'm grateful that she did, because he did mean it, because after coming out of jail, he did murder somebody else and went into jail for murder. So the guy was.

Yeah, I mean, I hate to interrupt, but was he an organized crime? Was he just on state? What was behind that? Because, you know, there's a lot of uncles out there that get disinvited to Thanksgiving over here. But that's, that's extreme. What was it? Was it. What was behind the anger or the, the, the situation?

Yeah, yeah, I think you, you know, you might understand or not is that the. What was going behind his anger is that. And I think what sometimes people do feel, I think that's why I'm bringing up and supporting to speak about, is that he actually felt angry because his life didn't turn out the way he wanted. And he felt that she had her life together, meaning, you know, she was married, she had a beautiful family, beautiful children, and he was this kind of rejects of society. It was basically, it was envy of his own sister and, and his life not turning out and her life turning out. And he felt potentially, you know, it was unfair and he wanted to somehow get his way. Regardless. That's a whole can of worms we can kind of try to dig into. But for me, a difficult situation turned out to be a very bright one. Moving to a new country, however, very quickly, once again, this new beginning of being in Canada, which although I thought I was moving to the US because, you know, I didn't know a country like Canada existed. I just thought it's America and it's just one place. So then being north of the border in Canada and growing up there, my parents fairly quickly then divorced and because it was very difficult. So then all of a sudden I'm with a single mother, two children, she doesn't know the language and she just, she's never really worked before full time to support two children in a new country not knowing language. But she's trying to figure it out. And that's when I really became more of a street kid because I didn't see my mother a lot and we were very poor. And all of a sudden I find myself on the streets with the wrong people all of a sudden as well. Potentially dealing drugs in school, gambling when I was like 13, 14 years old and to eventually get into trouble, getting arrested and having a fairly not the most idyllic childhood or growing up. And the reason I kind of communicate that into the story is that now of course I'm known for, you know, creating the five Minute Journal and other products like the Life Designer that you're holding to help people on their self development journey and to create a life that they've always wanted. And so for me it stems from a lot of darkness. That period of my life from you know, age 10 to 17 was fairly dark and accumulated with you know, me kind of also becoming partially disabled because I got in a basketball accident and I broke my arm. I had nerve damage and the doctor said, hey, I wouldn't be able to move my arm. I had no movement in my left arm for up to a year. And it took me some time to recover and it just demonstrated the power of the mind and ability to recover. That was one. And at the same time, while I was recovering that low, my father passed away from cancer. And so, you know, when you life sometimes really throws wrenches your way and you keep hitting those lows. And that was kind of my experience. And out of that experience it shaped me and built a character and built me to who I am, to want, to think, to choose a different path. Because when challenges come your way, we do have choices. And for me I had. I was spiraling down into victimhood and feeling sorry for myself and how, why am I this poor kid and why is my life not working out for me to all of a sudden realizing that I can take ownership of my life and I'm actually so blessed to be in the position even if I do even have one arm at that time. And being 17 years old in Canada, even poor, is a pretty privileged place to be in the world. And that's when I slowly started kind of changing my whole life around the.

Dots that I connect. Here are the dots that I've connected so many times in my life and in other people's lives. And it has to do with progress and it has to do with starting from a place where everything is progress. So for me, you know, my, my family similarly divorce situation, but probably 10 years of parents not being in the house and you know, kind of fending for ourselves, starting when we were 12 and 13 years old, or when I was 12 and 13 years old, getting into drugs at 13 and 14 years old, doing things, you know, being out when you're 13 or 14 years old. I worked in a restaurant Friday and Saturday nights till after midnight as a 12 and 13 year old. So I had a huge wad of cash under my mattress going into high school. I had no supervision. So, you know, from there, you know, it was, it was kind of a. It was. And I don't regret it. But. And then with me going through three different schools to get, to get out of school and then ultimately showing up at my last school with like 5T shirts to my name and really just, I mean, I couldn't have been, I couldn't have had less. I mean, it was very difficult to have had less. And had I not been able to get a football scholarship, then school would not have happened for me. There was no, it was not, it was not on the card. So from there, my view of life is everything's upside. And I started with nothing. And I found a way to build something. And one of my favorite definitions of leaders is somebody who can stand on nothing and create something. And now I know that if I lost it all today, I wouldn't even be fearful. I would not be fearful because I know how to build it from nothing. So people that start from nothing and then get to where you have, I hate to say it, as hard as it feels going through it at the time, we have this advantage of resilience and we have this advantage of perspective. So my kids, we've been successful, they work hard, we worked very hard to put obstacles in front of them. We put very hard to, you know, if you know the right thing to do, do it. To work them to a set of values. But progress for them is different because they're starting at a point of abundance. So like, how do they, you know, is progress in their life going to be just incremental because they're starting at a point of security and a relatively stable home environment and love and school and all of these things. So for me, the reason I'm so excited every day is because look what I've made from nothing. I mean, literally made, manifested a vision and was stupid Enough for long enough to be able to pursue it and just keep getting up and all of that. So when I hear your story, it's a common story of highly successful people that actually are change agents in other people's lives. Because you have perspective. You have the perspective and the authenticity where people should listen to you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And I'm excited for what's next.

Yeah. So you ended up getting a normal job, but you were also entrepreneurial and you had some side hustles and I think, did you. Were you going to school, having a job and side hustling all at the same time?

Yeah. So as you said, similar to you, when I was also at a young age, I would have to. I remember one of my first hustles was selling flowers on the street when I was like 11 years old. So. And it was this guy who would pick up underage children. I'm not sure how this is legal, but I'm still grateful to him. He would pick these four kids on 711 parking lot and take us to random, give us a bucket of flowers and kids. This costs $30. You sell it at, you know, say kind of $20 a bunch, you make the arrest, this is your margin and you can make 50 bucks today. You know, like, and it was my first learning already, you know, that's why I'm saying I'm grateful to the guy, even though it's probably super illegal what he was doing of getting underage children to sell flowers on random parking lots in suburbs of Toronto. However, that taught me hustle from a very young age and understanding kind of buying and selling margins on things like that. And so, but at the same time, you know, back in the day, it was different era. It was not entrepreneurship that was sexy. It was more about getting a job in finance or at a bank, something more stable. So that's why I pursued, you know, having a business degree, going to school, university. That was able to kind of after turning my life around. And obviously even though I was able to potentially, you're talking about sports, to do really well in the sport. Sport or water polo. I was kind of like Toronto Star athlete of the week back in the day. But I couldn't pursue it because pursuing a sport would be at least a 20 hour commitment in university. And instead I knew I had to work because like I said, we didn't really have money. And so instead I got a full time job at a bank because that's where I want to be in finance. And I thought I'd be Smart to already start having kind of retail banking experience as I'm going through school. And as I say, hey, in four years when I get out of and get my degree, I would have already four years of bank experience and I'll move into corporate and do all that. That was my plan. But as they say, you make a plan and God lasts. So that's what happened. So about two years into my university, working full time at a bank and going to lectures full time, seven to ten, working nine to five, I got fired. And this is 2008, the banking crisis. And I think they were just really looking for people to like, okay, who can we easily kind of fire here? And they discovered that I had the side hustle of shipping cars to buyers internationally from us kind of brokering and shipping to mostly Russia. That was the place. But nothing illegal, no conflict of interest. But obviously I was doing it because I was fulfilling all my targets at work and had pretty smart in regards to be able to use my time wisely and be able to also do that while I'm working. And I got fired. I got fired. And to me, my world was destroyed because I really wanted to be in banking. I loved actually the world of finance. I was, you know, I had my Canadian securities course which is like, will help me then to, you know, work in investments and things like that. That's where I was going towards. But it taught me the reason I'm sharing the story of understanding that when you're in corporate, even though you may have a lot of potential, which I did. Right. Like, look, here's a kid who's going to school full time. He has a side hustle. He's exceeding targets that we set for him in terms of sales. We're obviously not utilizing his potential. Right, right. But to them it was just more like, hey, you breached the contract, get out of here. And I wanted to be either in organizations where I'm valued or most importantly, build or a company myself where I would have more agency and freedom and control of over my life and taking more responsibility. And that's why I said, okay, I have two more years of school left. Let me figure this out. Let me try to be an entrepreneur. And it was, you know, a few failures. I tried to do social media Consulting in 2008, and back then you'd be called a snake oil salesman because everyone's like the social media stuff and it's just a bunch of, you know, fake things that will never be able to sell anything kind of through that way, you know, of course More than a decade later, we now see that we're all part of this. And more and more the wealth that has been created through social media and through the agency like yourself or myself, able to take control of our brand and become media channels has been proven, has been amazing. But for me it didn't work out right away. And we then as we're going out of business. I was in my early 20s and running out of money now whatever I had and also living on employment insurance with the biggest thing that came out of the bank was meeting my future wife Mimi. And I got fired, she quit and I'm like okay, we're now we're both unemployed. And then I, and then I proposed to her to get married while we're both unemployed and she said yes. So we get married when I was 23 years old, she was 24 and having this pressure of living with my future wife in my mom's house thinking I'm this entrepreneur, but really just failing and not being able to really figure stuff out and once again being put against the wall, running out of money, about to get married as well. The kind of the idea struck which was our first business which was kind of utilizing still that social media strategy that I believed in of using YouTube or other social media platforms to drive business growth. We created our first business which was Luxy Hair, which is a direct to consumer hair extension business. But the way we led and drove business to that business was through YouTube. So we Mimi then created YouTube videos and from the year 2010 till 2016 when she kind of, you know, ended and retired, I would say from YouTube, we generated over a half a billion views on YouTube. Wow. And. And those views drove the business which became a multimillion dollar business and allowed us to live this four hour work week. Cause that's what we were really inspired by. But how the story kind of connects to what you're speaking about and what I do now in terms of the 5 Minute Journal is coming from that early childhood. As I said, growing up poor, being a street kid, I thought that once I achieved the American dream or in my reality the Canadian dream, since I was in Canada, that I'll achieve happiness. I can buy what I want, I can do what I want and I can travel and I'm with the love of my life, like what else could you want? And we quickly realized that life there was a big void in our lives and that void was came from we weren't aligned with our meaning and purpose and higher calling what we're meant to be here for. And my wife Mimi, got fairly depressed. I was also kind of down and trying to figure things out because the world wasn't as exciting, because for us, material things didn't really do it. You know, we got. I got my beautiful car, bought the house that we want in the best neighborhood, but the happiness didn't really come for us there. And that's why we kept searching for more. And that's when the five Minute Journal was born.

Luxy hair. You sold that business?

Yes, we sold that six years ago.

Okay. And the videos that you created around the hair extensions, was it tactical videos, technical videos about how to install the hair stuff, or was it more advertising?

No, not at all. Yeah, it wasn't even advertising. I think one of our biggest values in our company, even now or before, number one, is to deliver value. I think a lot of times people are coming or creating businesses or content with the idea of, how does it serve me? How can I get rich? How can I get value? And the biggest realization that I had an epiphany moment in my life is once I understand that, Alex, nobody cares about you and you wanting to get rich. The only way you can create wealth and abundance for yourself is if you start looking how you can create value for other people. And when you start thinking about other people and how you can enrich their lives, not your life, that's how you get rich, is by actually looking after other people. So for me, the videos were all about actually creating value. Meaning we understood that, you know, with YouTube, people are looking for education or solution or entertainment, but somehow looking to fill their lives somehow. And we understood that we need to connect the product that we have, which is hair extensions, with ways what will people be searching for that they will potentially end up with our product being a solution. But we felt that we've always wanted to sell without selling, because we believe people love to buy, but they don't like to be being sold to. They want to figure out that this is my idea to purchase this item, right? And this is really great. So the way the videos would be is just really creating, let's say, helping people how to learn different hairstyles. We'll say, whether it be, hey, I want to learn how to do a braid, or I want to learn certain hairstyle, it'll be just understanding and hacking what keyword search terms people were searching for, that will help them and understanding that they have interest in hair. And as they would watch videos, let's say of Mimi watching do a braid, all of a sudden they would realize, hey, I did the same steps as Mimi did in the video, and her braid looks different from mine. Her hair looks different from mine. What is she doing that I'm not doing? And then all she would say in the video is that, hey, for this video, I'm using Luxie hair extensions to give me more kind of volume and length for this hairstyle. And so then the person will automatically connect to themselves, be like, oh, okay. If I use that, I'll be able to complete or say, enhance that final look that I'm going for. So it's all very natural. Many times even I remember, people would be like, what is your business? What do you do? They didn't understand that there was a. They thought we were YouTubers. But we right away understood that YouTube is a powerful platform to be. And we didn't even have. Probably one of our biggest mistakes. We didn't have ads turned on, even on our videos many times, because we're like, we just want. We just want people to fully focus on our videos and be able to convert to kind of our customers. Because it was early days. It wasn't as much, I would say, ads. Ad revenue coming in from YouTube at that time.

Yeah. When I know that I've been sold to well and professionally, I feel like, I can't believe I found this product. It's. And even though they did something to make me find the product based on what I was looking for, I can't believe I found this product. I can't. I feel a sense of urgency to get it because, you know, I just. I feel like, just compelled to get the product just as soon as I see it, because, oh, that's exactly what I'm looking for. And that solves the problem that I have. And I am. So. We're all susceptible to that. I mean, you can't believe that, you know, the right. That. That the exact thing showed up that was responsive to not only the search that you put, but what you were thinking in your head. And that's why I know. And as a seller, you know, there's things that we sell in our business. I mean, we award franchises, and if we do our job correctly and if we have the right candidate that's got the right kind of problems that we have a good solution for, you can tell that they feel like, I can't believe I found this. I can't believe my territory is available. I want to come in there as quickly as possible and vet this opportunity and make sure that I like the people. And, you know, it's like the people that aren't right, you know, you can't drag them to the closing table, and you don't want to, but the people that it's a great fit for, they just. They just come right in, kind of on their own path, on their own glide path, and they just land right, right there and the deal's done. So I definitely get what you're saying about that. Are you now. What. What luxie hair extensions you have in right now?

What?

Sorry, do you have. What luxy hair extensions do you have in right now?

No, none. Nothing. It's my own hair.

I put some in this morning. I'm bald now.

I know. You have great. You have great hair.

So, okay, now and then you've got this company, Intelligent Change. And what I would like to do is, is really talk about this five Minute Journal because it really is. It's so simple. I had Bradley on the podcast last week, and he was talking about his million dollar morning. And so much of success is starting your day with the right habits, thinking about the right things. Our will is an exhaustible resource. So when we wake up in the morning, we start burning our battery. So if we do two hours of TikTok before we do five minutes of gratitude, then we've burned a certain percentage of the energy that we have. And our brain will. Will be resistant to change or to new ideas because it's protecting your energy. You know, your. Your brain would be great if you had no new ideas and you just went down the path of feeding yourself and clothing yourself and going through your day, because those are habits that are ingrained mentally as opposed to stretching ourselves. You know, when we go to learn something new, it's hard. So, you know, whatever your somatic rhythm is, whenever you're best, whenever you're your most fresh start, that's when you need to do the things that matter the most. So walk me through how people use the 5 Minute Journal and kind of the success, you know, why do you think it was so wildly successful?

Yeah, for sure. No, thank you so much. And thank you for introducing it and knowing about it. The whole idea for the five Minute Journal came exactly what you were saying. That what I understood myself being a junkie of self development and reading lots of books is it's not the knowledge or the wisdom that will change your life. It is the daily habits that you actually do and practice and embody that will get you to where you want to go. And I felt what was missing in many of the books that I would read. And there was one book in particular that inspired the Five Minute Journal. It was called the Happiness Advantage by Sean Acre. And he was a Harvard researcher. And what he did in that book was really summarize a lot of the positive psychology research about gratitude and how things like journaling and positivity and especially practicing gratitude on a daily basis is scientifically proven to bring kind of joy into your life and appreciation. That's something that you practice. And the realization was most people don't even read books on self development. Like if we look at the mass population, most people don't read books just in general. Let's be real, we're growth minded individuals here who are curious and learning and we love books and learning, right? So even those individuals like us who may pick up a book like Happiness Advantage and you know, learn how to be happier, many of those people won't even go past the first chapter. Even those that are curious and interested in learning because it's great, they pick it up, they read it, then they kind of drop it off. There'll be a very small percentage of people who will finish that book fully, take notes and be like, ah, this is really great. These are great ideas. I should journal, I should practice gratitude. I should practice affirmations and telling to myself the person I am becoming and embodying. Even those individuals sometimes will close the book and won't be able to actually implement the habits and practices in their lives. So the tool, the Five Minute Journal was created for myself because I wanted to practice and embody this attitude of gratitude. Because before even the Five Minute Journal was born, the way I was able to change my life from where we started this podcast of being this kid that's being a victim and is being down and out on himself and potentially can go very south to the person who then built a very successful multimillion dollar business is literally I just started practicing gratitude. I created a new habit for myself. Even before the Five Minute Journal where I was inspired by Tony Robbins, he had this program called the personal power 2. It was in cassette tapes. My manager, when I used to work also at a retail store before the bank gave me, and that's when I first heard about this whole idea of gratitude and goal setting and things like that. And so I implemented that. When I wake up and this is what I recommend to anybody right now is without even doing things like the Five Minute Journal, if you just wake up in the morning and you can get yourself to be your first thought to be, what am I grateful for? What can I appreciate in my life, it will change your life. And sometimes I would forget. And even now, when I step into the shower, I have an anchor that gets me to say, I'm, you know, in the morning, naked in the shower, and this is my moment, my anchor to appreciate my life, to appreciate my body, to appreciate that I'm alive, healthy, that I get another day to live. And just that basic thing sets me up for the day. And so I just wanted to. When the five Minute Journal was born, I was approached by somebody asked me like, hey, Alex, you've created this lifestyle business before. Help me create a lifestyle business. And what I told him then is that don't create a business just for the lifestyle or just to make money. Because as I said before, making money without your purpose and alignment won't be enough. You have to align yourself with your higher calling and purpose to be able to, number one, be able to persevere when the going gets tough. Because to be an entrepreneur, there will be challenges. You have to have a strong why to keep you going. So I told him, hey, let's create something that will be aligned with that. Because he was really into also self development and learning. And we created this whole idea of the five Minute Journal, which, all right, the intention was create the simplest, most effective thing that you can do to be happier. That was kind of our intention before even creating, which goes to know, like before you create any idea, create an intention around what is the end result that you want that product or service to deliver. And for us, like I said, it was the create the most simplest, most effective thing that you can do every day to be happier. That's the five Minute Journal. And we also said we wanted to act like the toothbrush for your mind. You know, you brush your teeth every morning and night. You have this habit, this anchor. We believe that, you know, why do you brush your teeth? It's not like, you know, you've been brushing your teeth for 50 years. It's not like, you know what Jeff is like, I'm going to quit brushing my teeth tomorrow. You know, like, you can't do that. Why can't Jeff? Why can't you just quit brushing your teeth even though you've been doing it for like 50 years?

Yeah, it wouldn't work out.

It wouldn't work out because all the bacteria and plaque will start building up. And for some reason, we don't think of our mindset in the same way, but our mind is the same if we don't clean that stuff daily. Meaning anchor and Create intention, awareness of our mindset, of what do we want to focus on when we begin our day and how we clean close our day as we go to sleep. The world and the media and everything around us just feeds you negativity, just feeds you worry problems just to grab your attention. Because evolutionary we've been designed to be more aware of the negativity in order to survive. However, for most of us on this planet, we're past kind of survival. And this is why it's important to take control of your life and your ability. And this is what the five Minute Journal was designed and created to do to help, most importantly myself to do that because I wanted a daily practice to help me thrive and have that better mindset. And we said, hey, let's print a thousand of these units and see what happens. Even if nobody buys it, I'll have journals to use for myself. But luckily enough for us, it has spread organically and we sold millions of units of the five Minute Journal. It is pretty much the journal that set off the whole category. Now there's so many guided journals, gratitude journals, productivity journals, all that stuff. But intelligent change. We were, in a way, first comers and innovators in this field of creating a new category in publishing, which is in a way, it's like we have this intro in our products that will explain the concepts and give you kind of some of that knowledge and wisdom. The reasoning, the why, you do certain prompts. But most of the journal is actual implementation of you being able to reframe, recreate your mindset and you create your own reality. That's, I think the most important thing about the five Minute Journal is that it's simple. However, it gives the power to the person who's interacting with it. So you're not just a passive consumer of information, but you become a creator of your future destiny.

I did notice the simplicity at the beginning of the book in how you describe the reason and the rationale why this worked. And it was only a few pages. You didn't go into a deep psychological explanation of it. You know, you made it very simple, which makes it very actionable. You're not going to get exhausted understanding the why and how to use this. I have an interesting question for you. Well, you determine if it's interesting. So years ago I wrote something called the 90 day plan, and it was a planner and it's basically a binder and it's a sales planner, for lack of a better term. But there's a lot of journaling in it. And so for each, for the business I was in, there was these nine different communities that they needed to sell into and be known by. So I created the, okay, I created basically a daily thing. Okay, at 7:30 in the morning you're gonna do this. At 8:30 you're gonna, you know, at 7:45, this kind of the check, the LinkedIn, do this, do that. The other thing, the mechanics of what they want to do. And then it gave them the outline to go out and have 16 connections a week. And then, you know, Friday was follow up Friday, the fourth week of the month was recovery week. So they basically sold for three weeks. And then that fourth week they could, they could set appointments, go golfing or whatever it was, or follow up with the people that they had met. But inside of that, every week there was time for reflection. What did you learn? What did you, you know, what did you see, what worked, what didn't work, and all of these reflection things. And people kept asking me, why can't you give this to us electronically? And we certainly could, but I felt a written journal that they were actually using their hands to write down in would be more powerful. It would connect more deeply between their hands and their brain and it would be a better learning tool for them to be sitting in their car, wherever it was and actually reflecting upon the appointment that they just had. So basically it was a big journal that had all the sales points. What's in it for them? What do you say? How do our solutions help these people and anybody that did it? And it was so funny because I literally, I wrote the thing in like an hour on a whiteboard. And then I had our marketing team build it into the journal. But for 10 years they said it's one of the most powerful tools that they had ever had. And I do believe that it was because it was an actual written journal. Have you been asked or do you have this in electronic form? Or do you just tell people that it only works or it works best when they have it in its physical form.

We have the 5 Minute Journal app available on iOS and Android. Okay. And for anybody listening, you can download it and it's actually free. The basic format that you find and actually pay for in the physical format is completely free. So the only thing you pay for is if you want to add like photos and those kind of more data heavy or videos to your entries that you can do digitally. I agree with you. Where we still sell more physical journals than digital. They're, they're very well liked because also they're a Very thoughtful, beautiful gift to give. I do, I think it may be changing. I'm also more I guess maybe romantic in regards to pen and paper and journaling. And I do think there's certain power that is translated by actually engaging in writing and also in the current digital world having this time to be offline and reflect and be more intention oriented in regards to engaging with your brain and offloading those things or also downloading in regards to the things that you want to kind of create and do in the world. So I believe in both however and I use both. I go back and forth between. When I travel, for example, I'll use the just the app to be able to because it's easy and it's less weight. I'm very minimalist. When I travel I just travel for carry on. So for me that's what I do. I don't carry my five minute journal with me everywhere I go and. But there is something I think to paper but I understand that especially I think younger generations more and more we do need to evolve and adapt and, and deliver our methods in whatever ways possible to people. So I'm open to it. But I think end of the day even for us with intelligent change at our core, our mission is how do we help behavior change be simple, beautiful and accessible. So however that you can access it and we can make it simple and beautiful for you to help you change your life, we'll make it happen.

So here is my pitch to people listening to buy the physical 5 minute journal. I spent two days in the room with Steven Kotler who was the author of Stealing Fire and of course he was the flow state expert. Interesting, brilliant guy by the way. Just again grew, grew up. You know, just same way you know, he just, you know, people that, that, that are on the fringe of society growing up tend to find the really the pockets of, of brilliance in my opinion. And he's certainly a brilliant guy. Your flow state, your brain waves during flow state are closest to your brain waves when you're sleeping. So when he writes, he wakes up in the morning and he gets a cup of coffee and probably a cigarette but the room is dark, it's four in the morning and the only thing he can see is a screen. And he just before looking at his phone or anything else, he goes in there to maintain the brainwaves that are closest to flow state, to get into flow, to write. The moment that you pick up your phone and you do your first scroll, you are, you are changing to a completely different brainwave. You're becoming woken up and you are moving farther and farther away from flow state. If you really want to access the things that are most important to you and you want to deeply connect with the things that you're grateful for, you should be as close to flow state as possible, because you're really connecting, then the universe has a way of getting very complicated during the day. And one of our jobs as leaders is to calm the swirl. And if you really want to access your brilliance, if you really want to think about things that are going to make meaningful change for you, you have to let the universe organize itself and you have to be open to it. So you have to be in a state where. And that's when Verne Harnish one of his greatest recommendations to business owners is two to four hours a week, go to a studio. Don't bring your phone, no computer, maybe a whiteboard, maybe some paper, and just get yourself to a place where the universe can organize itself within your brain. Because you've got all of these disparate things that you've picked up. But if you don't stop the madness and you don't calm the swirl, you won't see the connections as clearly between these things and what the path forward could be for you. And I can't. Like, why in the shower, do your best ideas come to you? Why on a long car ride, do some of your best ideas? It's because you've put yourself in a place where the distract. Where you're. I mean, think about driving a long way down a highway, and you're just driving. And maybe you're listening to a podcast, but when your mind runs away and you start thinking about all the things going on in your life, you get these. You get these connections that you wouldn't have otherwise had. So this is a beautiful book. It could sit right on the bedstand table with a pen. And when you wake up in the morning, whenever it is, if you stay close to that state, you'll probably get the better outcome. So that's my pitch to people, to actually use the book and not go flipping for it on your phone, because I think your result could be less optimal.

Jeff, thank you so much. You communicated a very important point, actually, many important points there in terms of having a physical journal, especially on your bedside table, because as you said, so many of us now start and end our day by scrolling. And this is why it's so people who have been using it feel the difference in regards to their state, their anxiety, their feelings, because they're Able to tap into and disconnect and wind down before they go to sleep. Because those states of when you wake up and when you go to sleep, as you articulated, are very important for your well being. And so that is why for sure, I highly recommend with you and agree with you the importance of not being reactive when you wake up and being more having and waking up with more intention. And I know even for myself personally when I engage in that way because I'm also not perfect. And sometimes I'll go and scroll. That's why I think sometimes what I do is I leave my phone like in the kitchen, not even my bedroom. So it's way further out. And that you're not gonna. Because we're so addicted. And that's the first kind of reaction. And instead having, you know, a more healthier snack to grab on your bedside will be a lot more helpful and as well just communicating the importance of placing a journal, let's say on your bedside with a pen. Because many people say the way you want to create when you buy a product like the five minute journal, it's you're going to be building a new habit. And any habit that you build, you want to be able to anchor that habit with something that is easily accessible. So if it's on your bedside table and you have a pen already ready and you remind yourself, you know, when you wake up, you grab it a stair, you make it easier to do. And that is why part of, you know, your earlier question about, you know, what's the behind the success of it as we covered the simplicity of it is very important also. It's beautiful, you know, it's something that you want to put on your bedside that elevates your room and your, you know, maybe for your wife, the decor and the way it looks. Because we were able to kind of be on that trend of that neutral, a beautiful aesthetic and linen fairly early or like one of the first to kind of create it. And a lot of people, other people followed. And for sure it'll be a beautiful addition to your life, but most importantly your mind but just importance. I want to remind everybody of anchoring and having something that you'll be reminded. Some people what they do is for example, they'll put it in their bathroom and they'll put their toothbrush on top of it. So like before they brush their teeth, because you're going to do that anyways, you're kind of guaranteed that's your anchor. Okay. You're going to before you brush your teeth or after brush Your teeth, you're going to fill out your 5 minute journal and at the same time be reminded not only brush your teeth, but to also brush your mind.

Lovely. Yeah. So in the morning, the best time I like to read is wake up, it's early, it's dark, I'm early, I just wake up early, get a cup of coffee. It does, that doesn't interrupt my state. That, that satiates me in a way. And then just sit down with my dog, look out the window. Maybe the water is glimmering a little bit and just, and I can, if I read for 30 minutes, I, I just, it gets into me. I mean it, it's so. It's such a great time to access your mind in a healthy way. And so at home front brands, we build world class franchise brands and the people that we meet are all at an inflection point. They've got a problem to solve that they want to solve with a business. And so many of them are, they're vulnerable and they're searching and they might not have been an entrepreneur before, so they're looking for guidance. So as I, as I move towards the Life designer, which is again, these are linen books. Like, these are, these are. When Michaela put these on my desk maybe a week or two ago and I just kept looking at these books, I'm like, what are these? You know, they're not, they're, they're like, you know, they're like family heirloom type feel to them. Talk to me about the life Designer. Who did you write it for and how can people best use this to create a brighter, better future for themselves?

Well, similar. I think it's your also's inspiration. We've created the Light Designer mostly for myself and I just want to communicate. I think many great products are created with solutions that you need for your own life. For me, I've been blessed to use already some of these processes as I started my journey. One of the exercises in the Life designer is designing your perfect day. You know, how does that day look like from morning till evening? If it's Groundhog Day and you're gonna repeat it, you know, doesn't mean that you're gonna be in Hawaii all the time because it might become super boring. But like, what does your perfect day look like if you, your everyday kind of routine, what city do you live in? Who do you wake up next to? Who are your friends that you interact with? What type of work do you do that you derive meaning from? That's just kind of like one of the exercises for me, those type of exercises that I did in the past allowed me to achieve and create the life that I have now. However, on that journey of actually achieving and let's say after a decade and living my dream life, I got actually personally being vulnerable to a state where with and you know, with my former partner now where. And I think it's one of the reasons of kind of also the downfall. We got too comfortable. We got because you get to the state of like, oh my God, I'm living my dream. But then you're like, I don't want to screw this up because it's so good. And like should I, should I. Like should I should be grateful and I shouldn't be too greedy to want more. So let's just like stay here, you know, just like try to maintain this. But what I've learned in life is that you either grow or you die. Like it's hard to stand still. And you there's the beautiful thing about life is that once you become and understand that you are part of the co creation process and that you can also start creating whether that is a business or even life, you know, and things like that, that you have a certain power that is given to you. However, you don't just end up in your dream life by accident. You have to look into the future. And that's where the gift that we've been given as humans is that ability to look into the future and to see what has not been created before, whether that is a business, a relationship that you want to build, the type of environment that you want to be in. It all starts with that process of your thoughts becoming a reality. So the life designer was created, like I said, mostly for us to be able to go through this process after we've, you know, in a way achieved many things are in life. But knowing the inner calling that there's more, that there's more that you can experience, create, bring to the world because we're all come at different points in our lives. There will potentially maybe you're in a season where it's your you want to take, but there'll be potentially a season when you already took enough where you're like this is my season to give. And like how. And they'll say in the next chapter your, your life that you want to give back more to the world and how do you want to, you know, bless the people in your life or other people in life in general to be able to share your gift and do that. And so the light designer Is there just to be created to help you, as many of our products are guides and tools and prompts to help you think about those questions that we sometimes may be asking ourselves, but not fully going in there. Because I believe your body and your thoughts are a great tool. Like they will give feedback to you if you're not feeling joyous, if you're feeling depressed, potentially, that is your body telling you you need to change something or maybe you're experiencing pain. And I often feel that it's because you're disconnected from what you should be doing in life in terms of like potentially your higher calling or connection. And it can be maybe in the wrong relationship, maybe you're wrong the wrong friends, or you're not doing the business that aligns with what you should be doing. And so that's why we created the Light Designer to really help people come closer and ask those important questions of, you know, one of the exercises as you if you may seen in the Life Designer is visualizing your life. And you know, there's a. We got inspired by this blog called Wait by why, where he had this plot post about your life in weeks. And what we did is like your life in years. And we represent, you know, circles for each year of your life. And what you do at the beginning of the Life Designer is, you know, put how many years you've lived so far and say, okay, if you're lucky and you're longevity person and you're eating super healthy, okay, let's say you live even to a hundred years, but how much of your life have you lived so far and how much do you have potentially left? And being faced with mortality and the reality that life is finite, I believe it gives you a better perspective on what do you want to do with it. And because as we know, you know, even yourself, Jeff, like life just passes on by whether you like it or not. And I believe you can take control of that to a certain degree by still putting certain intention and awareness into the reality that you want to create.

Alex, I know we're up against it here. I want to make one point that's beautifully said. You shared that you got too comfortable. And what I have learned about myself and other people is that if you grew up in chaos, we became very accustomed and comfortable in chaos. And when things are going well, we have all the money we need, our relationship is in the right place. We get unreasonably unsettled and we can't figure out why we're not happy. We can't figure out why we're dissatisfied. We have no reason to be dissatisfied other than we have everything that we want. We have people that love us and care about us. And I have found myself self sabotaging a business putting like, even in business, if you want to see me at my best, give me a business challenge that's hard to solve that other people have failed at and I come out swinging. Like, I don't come. You know, it's funny, we've had a really good run here at Homefront Brands. But when we've had problems, you know, I've had other executives that we've hired say, okay, I didn't see, I didn't see. I have never seen that side of you. I said, well, you just, you just wait until my back's against the wall because that's, you know, that's where I'm at my best. That's where I'm most comfortable. And what you've done with the Life Designer is you've said okay. And the solution to that problem is to reexamine your sense of purpose and your sense of focus and your sense of meaning. And when you. Because at the end of the day, look, we just have to create the, we just have to identify the next mountain to climb. Because if we're not climbing a mountain and we don't have risk of, risk of death, risk of financial, you know, struggles or whatever it is, we're probably not going to be happy because that's just the way we're wired. You know, when you're, when you're an overcomer and you become an overachiever, it's a, it is something that hangs on you the rest of your life. And that's why so many people that achieve become so miserable because they, they. Once you have everything that you need, you've, you've lost the ability to, to make progress. And it affects your fulfillment because negative progress is the greatest dissatisfactor in life. And if you're, you know, if you're not climbing, then you're, you're, like you said, if you're not, if you're not living, you're dying. Or if, you know, if you're, if.

You'Re not growing, you're dying.

If you're not growing, you're dying. And, and it's a, it's a struggle, man. And so like the Life Designer is an intervention for this, for the people that are at an inflection point that, that may result to self destruction just to put themselves back in a place that's comfortable for them so that they can win.

Yeah, yeah, no, no, I think it's. It's super powerful.

And that's for the nuts of us out there. But, you know, anyway.

Well, yeah, I think just to chime in on that quickly is that it's. It's something for people to think about. When do you potentially sabotage? And one of my favorite books of all time is Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. And he speaks about this so much. So for anybody who's also curious about. Because so many of us will tend to fall to that state where you feel comfortable. And it's the whole reason why so many lotto winners lose everything, because they haven't. You know, you all of a sudden go to space and you're not adjusted to the environment or climate there. You know, same thing with a mountain, I think, you know, if you're gonna climb Everest, you can't just be helicoptered to Everest and think you're gonna be okay. You're gonna be very sick being there. That's why you have to acclimatize and climb that mountain. And I know many people, including myself, when I was poor, I'm like, I just want to win the lottery. But I'm very happy that I didn't. And I built my way to. To where I'm at now in the world. However, it's important to still, even when you are acclimatizing and building yourself, there can still be a time when you're like, oh, I'm not used to this. So I want to go down a level to feel more comfortable. But that discomfort that we may feel is. Is also a sign that you're in the right place where you're growing. And so I just want to kind of remind that kind of to everybody. A beautiful reminder to not self sabotage, to be aware of these feelings of discomfort, that this is your opportunity to grow to the next level.

Awesome. Alex, where can. Where would you point people to connect with you and your products for sure?

Well, you can find all our products on IntelligentChange.com you can find it on that website or you can buy it on Amazon. You know, if it's easier for you, just make sure to don't buy the fakes. When you get successful, people try to imitate your style and your things. Our thing is called the five minute journal, not the gratitude journal or anything like that because people will be replicating things. So please buy that original and where the website is probably the best place, especially for the life designer. And of course, if you want to find more of me you can find me on Alex Icon A L e X I K O double n on Instagram. You kind of, Jeff, are catching me at a time where, you know, I'm just coming out of my kind of also shell to bring more of my gifts to the world. So I will. If you kind of subscribe to me on Instagram, I'll be creating more content in the future and helping more people because that's what I'm here to do, is to serve and to really help people realize their potential and self actualize themselves on their journey of life.

Well, I know it's late in London where you're sitting today and do you get back? Do you come to the States at all?

Yeah, I was just there. I was just in everywhere. I was just in New York. San Francisco. Yeah. So all over the place. Yosemite, Tahoe.

Nice. Well, I do New York a lot, all those places. So look me up next time you're. And I live in North Carolina. If you're coming through, let me know. Last question for you. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?

The thing that comes to mind is you are enough and you have everything that you need within yourself.

Perfectly said. We'll end on that. Thank you so much for being on.

Thank you, Jeff. Really appreciate you and your time.

Yeah, this has been a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. This has been Alex Icon with Jeff Duden. We have been on the home front. Thank you everybody for listening.