In Episode 28 of the California Life Podcast, hosts Victor Migalchan and Sergey celebrate the podcast’s growth and promote the upcoming Best Business Awards Ceremony & Gala, which will also host the Miss California International Grand Finale on November 3, 2023. They outline the event’s format (VIP reception, evening program, awards, pageant), highlight the signature red‑and‑gold branding, and list a roster of high‑profile attendees—including inventor Jack McCauley, UFC star Michelle Waterson, celebrity chiropractor Dr. Morris Shahayat, local mayors, SBA director, and influential nonprofit leaders. The hosts thank volunteers, makeup artists, and organizers, especially the event’s president, for their behind‑the‑scenes work. They also announce a new documentary titled “Once in a Lifetime” about Dr. Timur Nasirov’s humanitarian cardiac surgeries worldwide, tying it to the awards program. Throughout the conversation they share personal reflections on faith, teamwork, handling criticism, and the ambition to expand the awards model to other states and create regional chapters. The episode ends with a call‑to‑action for listeners to attend, sponsor, or help organize future events.
Chapters
Okay, we're back on air, and today we are recording the 28th episode of our podcast. It's been 27 episodes since we recorded
people,
right? Leaders
of our communities,
and 27 episodes. ago we recorded our first episode. We sat down in the studio, which was a different studio, and that was our first brick in the wall.
Right.
Sergey, it's been a journey. How do you feel about it?
Great. California Life Podcast, it's a great product, and I like that we started recently. It's less than 6 months, right?
Right.
As we started this program and we have a lot of subscribers. How many right now? You just checked?
It was 3,240.
Nice. So first of all, I would like to say thank you to all viewers that support us by liking, watching, and sharing this program. And today's program, California Life Podcast, dedicated to another great event in our community.
Right. 2 events actually. It's 2 in 1.
It's actually 2 in 1. We can say even 3 in 1 because we have prior to event, 2 hours prior to event, VIP reception. that probably can say another program for our attendees. Exactly. So, the name of the event is the Best Business Awards Ceremony and Gala.
Right.
Featuring Miss California International Grand Finale.
Right, the beauty pageant, which is the 20th?
It's a 20-year-old event, yes.
Right.
And here we have already sashes for our winners of Miss California International 2024.
That looks pretty cool, and I like the colors. Did you pick the colors of the best?
Yeah.
Because you have the red and gold.
Red and gold, that's our signature colors for this event. It's a celebration of success, it's a celebration of nonprofit executives, it's celebration of great projects in our community all around the United States.
Right.
And on this event, we actually, with Victor, did great job. We actually did extra mile and we invest much more time, energy, efforts, and resources So people who will attend this event will see difference between previous events. Victor, do you want to say your part, your investment in this?
Well, I think that we went more than just 1 mile, and I think we're going a couple of miles per day. And we actually, I think we managed to extend hours of the day. Regular people have 24 hours, I think we have 50.
Yeah, somehow we manage it.
That's been fun. We met actually one year ago.
Exactly.
At the Best Awards ceremony when you invited me and then—
To be one of the judges at actually Miss Catania.
At the Miss, yes. And thank you for inviting me to be a larger part of the event in general, not just the beauty pageant. You knew that beauty pageants, that's not necessarily my thing. I'm more of a business person and a Obviously, I love film and I'm a filmmaker. And when you called me and invited me to get on board and make it something way, you know, bigger, better, I think that we're definitely managing to get it to the level of the Golden Globes. And now you see the prestige of the event, you see how many media articles we're getting, we see what kind of people are coming. I think it's great, it's gonna grow bigger. And not only Hollywood has to be the center of main public events. I love it that in Sacramento, in Northern California, we have it and we have so many great people coming.
Yeah, so the reason why I invite you, Victor, not only because you're making movies, but also because you have title showrunner, and this event is exactly show. It's a great show for our community. First of all, it's the best business award ceremony, and based on votes that people basically vote on our website rem.vote, we choose winners of this competition. Right. And we have business owners, we have executives of nonprofit organizations, and also we have very famous people who achieved the results in sport, foreign technology.
You have public officials.
Public officials, that's correct. So this event is growing very much from parking lot party that we did 20 years ago as a customer appreciation event to huge event that basically very famous in United States because we have people from Florida, Oregon, Washington this year, North Carolina who's coming to this event as performers As a participant, as volunteers, and as attendees.
Right. We also have New Mexico, we have Nevada,
we
have Colorado, we have quite a bit of places.
And continue your conversation about famous people, I think it's a great idea to name several of them because their name actually very big.
Yeah, well, this year we're having the one and only Jack McCauley. Mr. McCauley who invented so many things. He has so many patents and he's mostly known for Oculus VR. We have Michelle Waterson, the star of UFC and a great action actress, action star of Hollywood. We have celebrity chiropractor Dr. Morris Shahayat from Hollywood. I mean, you name them.
We have mayors of our cities, Sacramento and Citrus Heights.
Right. We have the SBA director coming. We have distinguished lawyers. We have directors of very influential nonprofit organizations.
Correct, yes.
And we have top businesses coming and joining us. We have great MCs this year. I think that this team of Mark Allen
and
Rosalyn Guevara will be a really nice combination of—
She's coming from Nevada, right?
She's from Las Vegas, Nevada.
Las Vegas.
And she's bringing that—
Energy.
Energy, yes, which the audience needs. And Mark is bringing his TV experience, and that's It's gonna be great. I think it's growing, and after we run it, I do believe that a lot of Hollywood folks will feel jealous. So we need to be also ready for some backlash that the people who would feel threatened would do, but it's fun. It's always fun to make other people more insecure. I love it.
Yeah, it's gonna be great event, and we would like— I think we sold out, but We have one last table, right, for this event. So if you're still not registered for this event, please call us, text us, email us, and we would try to find for you a seat for this great event. It's once per year, and it's going to be on November 3rd, Friday, from 6 PM to 9 PM, and we would like to see you there.
Definitely make sure to let us know. I'll leave the contact information in in the in the section behind this video, and also what I wanted to mention, we'll be announcing a documentary which we're filming for Dr. Nasirov.
Doctor Timur Nasirov, yes.
A really great guy.
Yes, it's a very good close friend, great guy, great doctor. And his story is just unbelievable. We recently supported his fundraiser, right, when he got probably about 100 doctors from all around our area,
right?
And everybody telling great stories and testimonials about job he's doing not only locally but around the globe,
right? Yeah.
And part of this BEST program will be dedicated to Timur, his inauguration. He's basically presentation, special award, and special recognition from Congresswoman Doris Matsui and from our community, obviously.
That'll be fun.
We would love to support this project. And like Victor say, we're working right now on new project. It's a documentary. What's the name of this documentary?
Once in a Lifetime.
That's a great name. Once in a Lifetime.
I got this clicked away. Yep. Yeah, because what is he doing? He's going to travel around the world. He's going to the third world countries to provide free cardiac surgeries,
right?
And people in those countries, they might have maybe one, maybe one surgeon per country, so they have no chance basically. And he is bringing the chance. So that's what's once in a lifetime opportunity to live.
And when we hosted Timur Nasirov in our program, he mentioned he did more than 2,500 surgeries.
Who's counting? I mean,
for kids.
Yeah. And imagine if he did more than 2,500 and he had more than 100 doctors in that venue,
right?
How many lives did they all save? We had the venue packed with 100-ish people. If each one of them saved more than 2,000—
Yeah, it's a great impact.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
So be ready for this new project.
Exactly. And we are back. We had a little pause for laughing. So Sergey, we have we have a lot of distinguished people coming, but I know you wanted to mention a few of them. Let's keep their names. To us for now.
Like a hidden treasure for event.
Exactly. But let's do a little bit of, you know, sneak peek. What is it going to be?
So, one of the person has dedicated his life to investing his resources, knowledge, his money, his name, you know, to our community. And he created a lot of projects. He's a philanthropist, he's a business owner. He's an executive, actually founder of one of the largest United States nonprofits for Asian community. And we created special program. We don't want to spoil it, but—
It's going to be fun.
It's going to be fun, yeah. I hope we can record it on video and after event broadcast it for our viewership.
Yeah, and also he was an Uber driver for us. That was fun. That was one of the drives.
Actually, I have recording. We can include it in our program. Maybe in the next one.
Yeah, and we also have a very distinguished gentleman who impacted the athletic world.
Not only athletic but also spiritual world.
Spiritual, yes.
And great warrior for faith. Unfortunately, he couldn't join our event, but I think we have his greeting that we will broadcast at event.
Yeah, definitely.
Yes, so no names.
No names, but make sure to check it out. We'll be sharing pieces. Obviously, it's a private event, it's not broadcasted. We keep it very personal, as our podcast is. It's up close and personal. And Sergey, it's been, it's been 20 years. What gave you power, strength to keep going? I know not every year was—
It
was like a candy.
Yes, I mean, each big project like this one is tough to create and to produce. And so basically 2 secrets. First, faith. If you don't have faith, it's very difficult to achieve anything, right? That's very true. And second, great people, best people around me. It's a team because one person cannot create any great projects. So great team. That support you, that understand you, that believe in you, and they're trying to invest their resources, money, time, life in this project. That's what moves this project to next level.
Right. Also, I think that people who intimidate, it's also important. I figured out that I intimidate people.
And, you know, if people criticize, I like it. Sometimes it's just jealous critics, so this doesn't bring anything to the table. But when it's constructive, negative critics. I like it because it's actually helped me to, to make it, to go, yeah, to grow up, to grow, to make it better. So thank you very much for— I don't want to say haters, but lovers, for lovers, for lovers, yeah, who support us in this way, unusual way,
right? And when I mentioned the intimidation, that I intimidate people, I just recently found out that I intimidate people. So I want to say a special thank you now to our maestro Dina. She found out that I'm Very intimidating person, and
she's great.
Yeah, yeah.
She actually part of this event,
right? And she delivered a really nice program. We recorded the first piece of it, which will be releasing soon last Sunday.
Yes,
and that was really
Gina. Thank you very much.
Yeah,
and I want to say to all people, we have about hundred people. We don't want to name whole list. for this event, who actually invest in this event. But Dina did great job with Genia, with her team doing makeup and all beauty stuff for ladies. It's unbelievable. Every year, right, we have fashion designers, Nadezhda, Marlene, we have Yolanda. It's this big list, it's going on and on. But I just want to say to all volunteers, to our contributors, huge thanks from my, from my heart. Thank you. From Victor, I know he's on the same page. And without you, we cannot make magic that will be— people will be enjoying this event. So thank you very much.
Right. Also, let's share a thank you note to your significant other. She was very supportive.
Last but not least, well, yeah, she's a president of Council for Cross-Cultural Affairs, nonprofit that actually organized this event. And without her, without her long hours that she invests in this event, obviously nothing will happen. So thank you very much. Love you.
Right. Also, I think that it will be really nice to extend our gratitude to the parents of all the contestants, all the ladies who submitted their applications, and then when the team chose the finalists, their parents were supportive and You know, they came with open hearts and very positive. So
yeah, we're working directly with ladies, but obviously parents who motivate, who support, who understand them and let them participate in this great contest,
right?
And we already hear every day, we hear some testimonials from these ladies, how they like it, how they improved in their life, in their speech, in their presence. to community and all of them talking about charity projects they would like to support in future. So I think it's a great project and it really brings a lot of benefits not only for these ladies but to all our community that we're living in.
Yeah, absolutely. We begin with California, want to make it better, and then we'll obviously extend to the next states and maybe we'll have chapters in each state as well as our guest Like I said,
we need always people. If somebody would like to do something like this, we're glad to teach and explain and be part of this project in the region.
Well, if you're one of them, make sure to reach out to us and we'll make a great team together.
I think that's it for now. So, we would love to see you on November 3rd as our guest, as our sponsor, as our participant. Just enjoy show.
Exactly. And join us and we can make this all magic happen.
And see you in next segment of California Live podcast.
