From Snow Removal to the C-Suite: Stephen Sokoler’s Journey to Leadership

[00:00:00] Oh my goodness. Bad touching, harassment, sex, violence, fraud, threats, all things that could

[00:00:10] have been avoided if you had Fama. Stop hiring dangerous people. Fama.io

[00:00:20] Alright, I want to talk to you for a moment about retaining and developing your workforce.

[00:00:26] It's hard. Recruiting is hard. Retaining top employees is hard. Then you've got onboarding,

[00:00:32] payroll, benefits, time and labor management. You need to take care of your workforce and you

[00:00:37] can only do this successfully if you commit to transforming your employee experience.

[00:00:43] This is where ISoft comes in. They empower you to be successful. We've seen it with a number

[00:00:48] of companies that we've worked with and this is why we partner with them here at

[00:00:53] WRKdefined. We trust them and you should too. Check them out at isolvedhcm.com

[00:01:10] Hey, this is William Tin Cup and Ryan Leary and you are listening and hopefully watching

[00:01:14] Inside the C-Suite podcast. We've got Stephen on today. We're going to learn about his journey

[00:01:18] and let's just get started. First of all, Ryan, how are you doing?

[00:01:24] I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Except I'm Stephen before you jumped on. I was telling

[00:01:29] William how I've got to share a story, of course. I went on a trip and I can't find my

[00:01:37] razors. So I'm using a razor that I'm not used to it. I shaved it all the way down.

[00:01:43] Now I'm staring at myself feeling like a cue ball for the next 40 minutes.

[00:01:50] Yeah. So I had actually an experience where I messed up something on my buzzer

[00:01:54] and I took off all the hair. So then I had to take it all down and then I looked and I was like,

[00:02:00] oh my god, I look like my father and it's scared to shoot at me.

[00:02:07] Well that's where I'm at. I'm kind of feeling like, you know, it's a little, it's a different

[00:02:12] feel today but definitely nothing like William. When he shaves his, he goes straight to the skin,

[00:02:19] plazes his head. Well, I guess he comes and you look like me bald and no facial hair.

[00:02:23] I do. I do. But I don't, I have an old razor 15 years. So when I go to my barber, they'll take it

[00:02:33] down to a one or two or whatever. That's it. I literally don't own a razor.

[00:02:39] When I started Journey, we started, and we'll talk about obviously, I started as a

[00:02:44] meditation company and when we were fundraising, I had this big beard. I mean for those of

[00:02:48] you know, I feel it's probably eight inches below my face. Oh my goodness. It was very on brand, right?

[00:02:53] It was really selling the store. This guy had to be legit if he has a beard like that.

[00:02:57] 100%. Yeah, you're getting in position the whole bit. Like, yeah, like I can actually see that.

[00:03:04] Yeah. The funny thing is the truth is it actually was authentic. Like I actually

[00:03:09] just gave way less, I'm assuming I'm allowed to curse on this. Oh, 100%.

[00:03:17] How I looked and it was very liberating. So it was actually amazing. Then of course,

[00:03:21] I met my wife and now she wants me to look a certain way.

[00:03:26] Your wife said, shape up dude. Like, I don't care what company you have. I don't care what you're

[00:03:31] playing. Yeah, I need you to be over here like this. Yeah, exactly. Somewhere normalcy. Well,

[00:03:38] Steven, why don't we do introductions? Tell us a little bit about your current

[00:03:42] company and what you're doing. Sure. Yeah, so I'm the founder and CEO of Journey.

[00:03:46] We are a mental health company, specifically a proactive mental health company. So we help people

[00:03:52] to incorporate good habits on a day-to-day basis all around behavior change and habit

[00:03:57] formation so that they're able to live happier, healthier, less stressed lives. And we work

[00:04:02] with enterprise companies. So we support big organizations like Walgreens and L'Oreal

[00:04:06] and American Express to support their employees and their family members.

[00:04:10] So, Ryan, you got something? No, go for it. Go ahead.

[00:04:13] So we had a guest on yesterday and he was talking and he said, listen, it was a financial wellness.

[00:04:19] So different, different tangential to you but wellness. And he said, listen, think of wellness

[00:04:25] and the things that you can do both good and bad behaviorally. And then think of nutrition

[00:04:32] and the things that the decisions you make good and bad and run those parallel.

[00:04:38] Just think in your mind and run those parallel that there's things that you do that kick off

[00:04:44] those endorphins or the dopamine, et cetera. In finance like spending money, you go and

[00:04:49] you spend a bunch of money, endorphins are kicking. Well, he said for some people,

[00:04:54] eating is like that. They go and have and he talked about himself actually. He's just like,

[00:04:59] I'm going to have some bad food. That's terrible for me in about an hour from now.

[00:05:04] And I know it, but I'm going to make up for it by doing this, this, that. And so

[00:05:10] the question is, first of all, if you like those parallels, can we think of mental health in the

[00:05:16] same way? Absolutely. And I love it because one of the challenges is people societally still

[00:05:23] only think of mental health as mental illness. Right. They're not thinking of it as mental

[00:05:27] health. So you think about things like physical health, right? Like in the 70s,

[00:05:32] people weren't exercising the way they are now. Like I was running was a weird thing right now.

[00:05:36] Societally, we know whether we do it or not is a different thing that we should to your point

[00:05:40] eat well. We should take care of our bodies. We should have some movement, but we don't think

[00:05:44] of mental health as like, okay, on a day-to-day basis, I should be meditating, journaling, prayer,

[00:05:51] what have you, something to be introspective, to look inward, to find that quiet and that

[00:05:56] peace and actually set yourself up for a good day, a good life, et cetera. So yeah, I love

[00:06:01] the parallel. When did you start to see the change from mental health being viewed as an illness

[00:06:08] versus taking care of yourself? Recently. So the pandemic obviously as terrible as it was for so

[00:06:15] many reasons, was something that, you know, expedited our understanding of the importance of

[00:06:21] mental health because people that didn't have like mental health issues in terms of illness

[00:06:25] were burning out and we're really struggling with loneliness and isolation. And so people

[00:06:31] and companies were saying, hey, we need, we need more of this. And I think generationally, there's

[00:06:37] also a big difference, you know, guys, I'll say in and around our age, right, may have some

[00:06:41] relationship to it. But if you look on either end, if you look, you know, much younger,

[00:06:45] teenagers, Gen Z, they're much more comfortable talking about their mental health.

[00:06:49] And then you go the opposite, like our parents generation, they're not talking about it,

[00:06:53] like therapy, that's not a thing, right? I'm going to talk about my feelings. So I think

[00:06:57] we're getting better over the last few years. But I would say the challenging part is

[00:07:03] we're facing an uphill battle because the stressors continue, whether it's social media or as we were

[00:07:09] talking about before we started, right, the election and mass shootings. And it's just

[00:07:14] like no shortage of hits on our brain. And so we need to have that in order to just kind

[00:07:20] of survive in the world we're living in. So the way that we've, from an HR perspective,

[00:07:25] the way that we've dealt with mental health historically is through EAPs and it's reactive

[00:07:34] in nature. So if somebody has some type of episode, and then we're going to throw some

[00:07:38] resources at it and help them get through that whatever episode that was, you're on the other

[00:07:45] end of that in proactive, tell us a little bit about what is proactive mental health.

[00:07:51] Yeah. Well, it's about building or in our case, we work through enterprise, right? So helping

[00:07:56] employees to incorporate mental health proactively on a day-to-day preventive basis, right? So the

[00:08:04] same way we're going to the gym and exercising so that we don't end up in physical therapy,

[00:08:09] right? We can have physical therapy when something goes really wrong. Same way,

[00:08:12] we offer therapy and that's available and we want to make sure people have that,

[00:08:16] but we want people to have healthy habits. So how do you incorporate meditation,

[00:08:21] journaling, breath work, insert practice of your choice, right? Being in community, being in nature

[00:08:28] so that you are keeping yourself balanced and centered and grounded and ready for whatever

[00:08:33] the world throws at you. I like that it's not one-dimensional in that it's about meditation

[00:08:39] or it's about calmness or one thing. You would approach and then journey would approach

[00:08:46] individuals and just say, let's figure out what works for you. It might not be meditation. Okay,

[00:08:53] cool. I like that you're coming up with people multi-dimensionally where, hey listen,

[00:08:59] the whole idea is to get you to a place where you're reflective and calm.

[00:09:03] I want to take a break real quick just to let you know about a new show we've just added

[00:09:08] to the network. Up Next at Work, hosted by Gene and Kate A'Keele of The Devon Group.

[00:09:16] Fantastic show. If you're looking for something that pushes the norm, pushes the boundaries,

[00:09:21] has some really spirited conversations, Google Up Next at Work, Gene and Kate A'Keele from

[00:09:29] The Devon Group. Yeah, exactly. So it's all about providing the right care at the right time

[00:09:36] and somebody might need a therapist, they might need a psychiatrist, they might need something more

[00:09:41] significant because there is a full spectrum and people are at one point for out their whole life.

[00:09:46] People will move back and forth and I think we didn't talk about this yet but when I started

[00:09:50] the company actually it was a little bit different. I started as Journey Meditation Inc,

[00:09:55] which is still the legal name of the company because meditation was the practice that changed

[00:09:59] my life. So we started with meditation and then I realized well I'm actually not like

[00:10:05] while meditation helped me I'm kind of agnostic as to what's going to help you the same way.

[00:10:10] If you do CrossFit and somebody else does yoga and somebody runs, I don't care as long as they're

[00:10:14] staying healthy. And so that's when we started adding all these other subclinical modalities

[00:10:21] and then in the middle of the pandemic we said you know what? We can do more

[00:10:24] and then we added all of these clinical support. So happy to share more about that of

[00:10:31] Yeah and Stephen I know this is going to be a story of your journey.

[00:10:35] No pun intended, well maybe pun intended. We're going to learn about your journey,

[00:10:38] your background. But before we go backwards maybe walk us through, I've always been fascinated

[00:10:45] in the last over the last couple of years the conversation that services or companies like

[00:10:51] Journey are having with HR leaders and leaders within companies because in my god

[00:11:00] I feel as if at least historically these conversations were getting into a company in this way

[00:11:07] was highly dependent on the person you're talking to. Is that leader a believer? Do they

[00:11:13] believe if they were, if they went, if they practice yoga, they practice meditation or

[00:11:18] practice prayer they'd be open to the conversation. What is that conversation like today versus

[00:11:23] pre-pandemic or prior to all of this being more open in conversation?

[00:11:28] Yeah it's a great question and it actually ties into some of the business decisions we've made.

[00:11:33] So up until about two years ago we had, we still have but our main product was called Journey Live

[00:11:39] and it was a digital proactive mental health solution and it complemented EAPs and as you

[00:11:44] talked about before EAPs very traditional most people don't use them they're reactive etc

[00:11:50] and in that case we had to have as you said Ryan believers who would say we care about

[00:11:56] proactive mental health and we're going to buy this to complement our EAP and that happened a lot

[00:12:00] during the pandemic and then after the pandemic you know priority shifted companies were laying

[00:12:05] off people there was the Dobs case so a lot of companies were concerned about you know and right

[00:12:10] fully so providing more support there and so the idea of proactive mental health became

[00:12:15] yeah it's important of course but it's not number one. So then we said well why don't we

[00:12:19] go to where the budget already is so we took everything that we were doing and combined it

[00:12:23] with exceptional clinical care great crisis response etc and we launched this product this

[00:12:28] first of its kind product called Journey proactive EAP because if you're going to have an EAP

[00:12:33] you may as well have a green one right instead of this being a check the box benefit so then it

[00:12:38] went from I have to be a believer of this to well I have one and I have one that sucks

[00:12:45] why don't I have one that's actually awesome one's going to really help people and change

[00:12:48] the culture and support me as an HR leader etc but there is so that I think answers your question

[00:12:54] but there isn't another thread in there which is around the language that HR speaks versus the

[00:13:00] language that executives at their company speak and how to bridge the gap because HR they

[00:13:06] understand right they're they're they're chosen career path is in supporting people

[00:13:11] right and so they understand how important it is to provide mental health support and

[00:13:16] they're the ones that get the calls when something goes wrong so they know what that's like

[00:13:20] the executives the CFO that's not their world they're doing a million other things right so even if

[00:13:25] they're a really warm hearted person and intellectually they understand it they're just

[00:13:29] not close to it and so while HR might be talking about this is the right thing to do

[00:13:33] we need to make the case to the executives or help them make the case this is going to reduce

[00:13:37] your health care spend this is going to reduce turnover this is going to reduce you know

[00:13:41] etc right this is a different conversation exactly yeah so William this this this

[00:13:47] reminds me of a conversation we just had recently with a woman who they she does executive coaching

[00:13:52] Steven and it's almost as if she plays I mean she's probably she probably won't like the

[00:13:59] analogy here but executive coach slash therapist to the executive is kind of how

[00:14:05] Allie kind of took that and it's almost as if an executive who's going through that and

[00:14:11] the company supports that we're said a company sponsors or coaches for their executive team to

[00:14:15] help them along the path I feel as if that is in the company already the leadership's already

[00:14:22] experiencing that they'd be more open to something like this it's like they've signed off on that

[00:14:27] like your high potential is your high performers your executives it makes logical sense that

[00:14:34] you'd like to bounce ideas off of somebody else and maybe see around the corner or see

[00:14:39] things that you can't see and the way that you're talking Steven is this it's similar in the same

[00:14:47] vein at least as mental health having someone that guides you through and and if for no other

[00:14:54] reason than just increased morale and productivity and lost less lost days at work and things like

[00:15:01] that it makes financial sense exactly yeah I mean I don't need to convince most HR people

[00:15:08] yeah this is the right thing to do and nor do I want them to try to convince the CFO that it's

[00:15:12] the right thing to do there are certain cultures that obviously do that but most of those have

[00:15:17] already taken action on this this isn't a new problem right I wanted to say it actually affects

[00:15:22] our bottom line if the first line of defense is a reactive program where people have spent

[00:15:28] eight weeks spiraling and then they call and it takes them six more weeks to get care

[00:15:32] that's really bad for business in every way so that's the case

[00:15:38] well why don't we go back let's do a high school college wherever we want to go

[00:15:42] what did you want to be when you grew up what was the kind of the dream of sorts

[00:15:47] so if we go back a little further I wanted to be a baseball player but I I lack both the

[00:15:52] the talent and the dedication to get there but I was always entrepreneurial so like in summer

[00:15:59] camp I was selling sodas to the kids or I started a business called Steve snow removal

[00:16:05] where basically I passed out flyers in my community and I hired the other kids to

[00:16:11] go and shovel the snow and you know I was still shoveling snow also but my mom would

[00:16:15] answer the phone and we'd send people out so I was always like hustling I grew up in Queens

[00:16:19] in the 80s and 90s it was a very like hustle kind of culture

[00:16:23] um I see you took that to a different level oh yeah I mean I shoveled snow for money

[00:16:29] you had your mom answering phone calls I didn't have a crew dispatching your boys

[00:16:34] that's money yeah hey johnny time to go shovel yeah well they were happy to get make money anyhow

[00:16:41] he was just the the sales front that got the business so it makes sense and and the truth is if

[00:16:48] you consolidate uh the the supply right you're able to charge higher prices so um you know in in

[00:16:55] some ways I never thought of it this way but having all the kids working together meant we could

[00:16:59] charge people more than if we were trying to do it on our own so that's right um it's called

[00:17:03] collusion now but yeah don't worry about it yeah the f tc is going to try to break up the uh

[00:17:09] the you know exactly hopefully you pay taxes because they're coming back at you yeah yeah

[00:17:13] so so what after what after that yeah so it was always like doing random random things in in high

[00:17:19] school and college when I was in college I went to NYU started throwing parties with a couple buddies

[00:17:24] turned that into a company ended up producing hip hop concerts um worked in so did actually quite

[00:17:30] quite large ones um produced a bunch of concerts in Puerto Rico with uh M&M and 50 cent and

[00:17:36] ludicrous and the Bahamas and a bunch of other stuff and um that was not my path I was

[00:17:41] a good friend of mine he ended up you know going and building that it took quite a nice

[00:17:45] business part of uh fire what was that called firefest firefist was that you or did we have

[00:17:50] like this because I was long retired when firefest came there's actually a second one

[00:17:56] that there's a there's a guy behind it that's actually trying to get it done yeah same guy

[00:18:01] I think it is a lot of money yeah he will yeah all the attention of the first one

[00:18:07] now who have the enough eyeballs near balls and all that other stuff to get people to then go to it

[00:18:13] so it's I think it's fryfest right firefire if I are yeah um so this was not that did you

[00:18:23] did you meet some of the uh did yeah yeah I um had a good conversation with M&M 50 cent and I

[00:18:28] played basketball together because basically it was it was part of this thing called mix show

[00:18:32] power summit which was a big weekend where all the radio DJs from around the US get flown in by

[00:18:38] record labels and then the record labels fly in their new artists to perform to do these like

[00:18:42] listening sessions but at night they do these big concerts so it's one big concert every night so

[00:18:48] one was like Wyclef and Alicia Keys and Busta Times and yeah so we we organized that and so

[00:18:54] yeah spent spent a lot of time there but this is keep in mind like I'm dating myself this is

[00:18:58] like 2002 2000 yeah yeah but M&M was is the hottest and 50 cent they're the hottest people on the planet

[00:19:07] so I mean at that time yeah this was before 50 cents album had dropped and we were talking about

[00:19:13] because he had like the hottest song in New York but in his his big big song hadn't come out

[00:19:17] he's just wait for the next one just wait and so yeah I want to answer a question about

[00:19:25] any any of those people that you met that you kind of they let you down like

[00:19:32] and I'll ask the opposite of somebody that you met like oh my god they were so awesome

[00:19:37] like I met uh coach K yeah and uh I didn't have a great experience and it's nothing

[00:19:45] no it's nothing about him but I met him at a national championship and Duke had already been

[00:19:50] eliminated and I went to Arizona for my master's degree and so I met him like in the hallway you

[00:19:57] know just kind of going from one to the next and I'm like and I was with my brother and we're like

[00:20:02] hey coach K he's like no autographs we're like I could have been looking at you and they're like oh

[00:20:09] I didn't want I didn't want an autograph I was just saying hello just wanted to shake your hand

[00:20:16] it's like from that time forward I'm like okay like I mean I'm sure it was just a moment in time

[00:20:22] and he's a great guy but I mean isn't it shattered my idea of who he was shattered well you know what

[00:20:30] they they say right never meet your heroes never meet sure yeah that's a thing yeah I'll be honest

[00:20:35] like most of these guys like the ones I remember were all like super nice quiet I met Kanye before

[00:20:40] he was Kanye like he was already he was in the car accident he was doing beats but he hadn't put out

[00:20:46] his own stuff yet and I got introduced to him one night and like took him around and he was like

[00:20:50] super polite and kind I mean before the whole probably didn't know I was Jewish you know but

[00:20:56] this is before that whole thing came about for him oh yeah no people people were actually quite

[00:21:02] like nice and normal and pretty down to earth surprisingly so far we've got

[00:21:09] hustling your friends out the shovel yes throwing parties turned it into a business which that's

[00:21:17] better than me because I threw the parties in college I thought the parties were going to lead

[00:21:20] to gambling setting up gambling facilities that's next okay that's where I thought when he first

[00:21:27] said that I'm like he's doing DJing and he's going down the path of setting up his own

[00:21:34] his own book so that people can go and gamble which you know I no judgment I would actually

[00:21:41] I'd like to do that he's thinking about it now he's not a bad idea you missed that opportunity

[00:21:47] I mean I threw the parties I never turned it into a business other than getting paid to DJ

[00:21:51] but I've never I mean you took it to the next level so what was next how do we how do we

[00:21:56] continue so I was when I graduated this is 2001 I ended up working for a company called

[00:22:01] the award group and basically we run by two older gentlemen and it was a company that helped

[00:22:06] organizations celebrate and inspire their employees and small company of 20 25 people and I joined to

[00:22:12] run their nonprofit division so basically to help nonprofits recognize their donors

[00:22:19] and hopefully raise more money so like very much aligned with like my heart like I wanted to do

[00:22:23] something that mattered and I love the business I graduated from Stern I went to the business

[00:22:27] school there undergrad and so I like the idea of like I'm going to build a business

[00:22:31] and I'm going to do something that matters so I was doing that simultaneously I was actually

[00:22:35] bartending with a buddy of mine at one of our friends bar so I was doing that every Saturday

[00:22:40] night and that was a lot of fun I was kind of you know just just grinding like I was

[00:22:45] doing building the business by day hanging out partying by night young and single and in New

[00:22:50] York and along the way I ended up starting a different department within that company

[00:22:57] so basically I don't know if either of you know this but there's these really random niche things

[00:23:01] called deal toys or tombstones or loosites what if I told you that there's a solution to streamline

[00:23:08] your hiring process by matching quality candidates to your jobs allows you to customize your messaging

[00:23:14] provide you with AI powered candidate summaries oh and wait a minute it's sitting on more than

[00:23:21] 300 million candidate profiles you welcome check out indeed smart sourcing at indeed.com

[00:23:28] or google indeed smart sourcing that investment banks give to their clients when they lose a deal

[00:23:35] yeah yeah so basically my friends all went into investment banking and they came to me and said

[00:23:41] hey you're doing like awards can you make like one of these things so I was like sure yeah why not

[00:23:46] these are the glass these are the glass things that that sit on the desk and it's it's got the

[00:23:52] acquisition or whatever the bid is the tombstone but it's a I would say paperweight it's actually an

[00:23:58] award it's it's an award and if you want to do that investment banking culture especially back then

[00:24:03] you know the bigger the better the more elaborate 100 percent 100 percent we did really well right

[00:24:09] like the market was right and that department took off much faster than the the non-profit one

[00:24:14] and so fast forward to 2006 I actually I'm kind of telling the stories in parallel so bear with me

[00:24:23] actually decided I wanted to buy a bar so a buddy a buddy of mine and I actually bought a bar on

[00:24:28] LaGuardia and Bleecker we redid everything the name the logo this that it's now it's now a

[00:24:34] bear burger by the way but we had a great run we took over the last two years of a 10-year lease

[00:24:41] NYU was the leaseholder they wanted like proper restaurant they didn't want like a college bar

[00:24:45] you know post college bar did that while simultaneously working at this company so I was at this

[00:24:51] company the award group I had this department that I was running technically I was running a few

[00:24:55] departments but this was like my baby I ended up purchasing it in a management buyout so that

[00:25:01] was October 2007 peak of the stock market now nobody knew it yeah well some people did but

[00:25:07] they were way smarter than really we've seen the movie yeah we had a bunch of good months and then

[00:25:14] the market gave out and of course if you remember the the financial crisis there were no deals

[00:25:19] happening every bank was going into business and we had this crazy non-compete with my my previous

[00:25:25] bosses because of the fact that like I didn't have the money to buy that department so they

[00:25:29] had to lend me all this money so they were like yeah you can you could take the company

[00:25:32] but you can't go outside of this very tight box of investment banking right so what did we do we cut

[00:25:38] costs really quickly I had to cut my salary to next to nothing like everything kind of came to a crash

[00:25:43] and halt however we read the market different than our competitors so a lot of folks in this space

[00:25:49] had been in it for a long time and they had thought they had seen things like this before

[00:25:54] oh it'll you know slow down about not holy shit you know the wheels are falling off the

[00:25:58] bus right well we ended up being positioned really well because we cut costs so quickly

[00:26:04] and then we ended up consolidating the industry so we rolled up the second third and fourth largest

[00:26:08] companies in the space small companies you know five ten million in revenue right along with a few

[00:26:13] independence and then when the market came back a few years later we ended up opening offices in

[00:26:18] London Sydney Hong Kong Montreal and Taiwan capturing the financial markets the different

[00:26:24] financial markets around the world exactly exactly a working with you know UBS and Goldman

[00:26:28] and Bank of America in Hong Kong in Singapore entering high etc oh that's cool yeah so I can

[00:26:35] pause there I can I can keep rolling yeah well you just kind of glossed over that you uh you

[00:26:41] graduated from Stern for the audience Stern's business school at NYU is like one of the best

[00:26:46] business schools in the country so he just kind of ran through it really quickly I just want to

[00:26:52] make sure the audience has the edification of like it's a humble humble not it is a humble thing

[00:26:58] he kind of just went through it really quickly um how was how was owning a bar uh really fun

[00:27:06] and um we had a partner who was the sort of operator who was not the most honest um and

[00:27:14] that's hard in a cash business when people are young and they're drinking yours young men

[00:27:19] women around and so financially it didn't work the way we wanted to like we were we were massively

[00:27:25] successful in terms of bringing in people because we had been doing that at our friends bars we're

[00:27:28] like right which is bringing them all over here um so we didn't make TLDR we didn't make any money

[00:27:32] but we had a hell of a lot of fun yeah yeah I can see that so this was like almost a bar rescue

[00:27:38] episode yeah exactly yeah yeah I've always it always and I know it's scripted I I know it's

[00:27:45] TV but the amount of people that get into bars at scale with zero experience just blows my mind

[00:27:54] blows my mind same thing with restaurants I'm in a restaurant yeah I was gonna say the same thing

[00:27:59] you see restaurants popping up I mean where I am in the west village all the time they pop up

[00:28:03] another one closes I mean it's a dream right you want to cook for people you want to create

[00:28:07] an impairment you want people to drink and break bread it's very human but the business part of

[00:28:11] it is is really challenging yeah it's yeah you've got to have somebody a partner like y'all did

[00:28:17] unfortunately that person wasn't a great partner in that way but you got to have a partner that just

[00:28:22] isn't the partier he's not here she is not doing that they're they're managing the peas and

[00:28:29] queues and scheduling and making orders come in and keeping costs down they you almost need

[00:28:35] a dork if you will that runs the business so that the other part of the business can be great

[00:28:42] yeah so Stephen up until this point let's take a pause here up until this point you've seemed to

[00:28:51] vingle up up up up all success how is your mental health yeah no we ever gotten there yet where

[00:29:00] so you came out of school on fire where where does that drive come from where's that motivation

[00:29:06] where do you find in that drive well I actually came out of school and didn't get a job immediately

[00:29:12] I had like a random finance job or I was I had actually moved home and was living in Queens

[00:29:18] I was very heavy so I lost 85 pounds back then people always asked if it's tied to my mental

[00:29:26] health practice yeah you know I was I was very very heavy and just wasn't in a great place back then

[00:29:33] but growing up I grew up in a town called Douglas then which for those people that know Queens are

[00:29:39] like oh that's Long Island well no it's not it's it's Queens right it's on the border

[00:29:43] when I went to school I went to school in Queens like my high school had 4,500 kids when I

[00:29:49] went to camp I went the other way to a fancy rich camp because my mom worked there my mom

[00:29:53] like literally drove the school but the camp bus and I was like the bus counselor and so I grew up

[00:29:59] close to but not having money right like everyone in my family was very wealthy except my actual

[00:30:06] family like my love that yeah yeah no yeah it's like we go to my uncle's house for the holidays

[00:30:13] and would be amazing because it would be beautiful and then we go back to my house and like

[00:30:16] my dad was always in and out of work my mom was a school teacher like yeah sometimes the

[00:30:20] electricity would go out because we hadn't paid the bills like it was like you know not ideal right

[00:30:26] right um and so I just kind of wanted to have a better life like I saw that and again part of it

[00:30:33] was the culture right it was like the the 90s and you know biggie and puffy and this and that

[00:30:38] and like oh yeah around entrepreneurs and the business part being around the societal part in

[00:30:43] Queens and also seeing that but one interesting thing that I learned really early on and this is

[00:30:50] like fascinating given what I do now is that the rich people weren't any happier than the

[00:30:56] my middle class friends in Queens in Middle Village right like so that was kind of like a

[00:31:00] that's kind of weird money doesn't buy happiness yeah yeah it's a it's a it's ironic it gives you

[00:31:07] a piece of mind but it doesn't buy the happiness I think you know like I've thought about this

[00:31:13] with like people that come into a lot of money fast whatever that whatever that may be

[00:31:17] and uh they don't know what to do with it let's say you've just never had money and all of a sudden

[00:31:24] someone dies and all of a sudden now you've got 10 million dollars I've seen so many people with

[00:31:29] this in my life that they just blow it because they never had money so they didn't know what to

[00:31:36] do with the money and so like going to a financial manager or like the wealth management or anything

[00:31:42] I'm gonna go buy a truck like like people doing and it's because that was what they grew up with

[00:31:49] they didn't they didn't have money and they got they got money and then they just went through it

[00:31:53] burned through it to take it to another another extreme there's a there's a story um I think

[00:31:59] it's in a Sebastian Younger book but I'm forgetting but it's basically about a person

[00:32:03] goes and lives with an indigenous tribe and the the tribe has you know really high

[00:32:07] bouts of you know awful disease and things like that and you know a life that we would look at

[00:32:13] and say oh that's really challenging these people are extremely happy and he asks and like how are

[00:32:18] you with in spite all these things and he's like well we belong we belong to the land belong

[00:32:22] to each other we belong you know and in our lives we tend to be living these separate lives and

[00:32:28] we make a lot of money I mean some people right hopefully um if that's if that's your

[00:32:33] aspiration and then you end up like is this it like I did all this and that's it no yeah so there's

[00:32:40] there's story about red cloud that uh in the late 1800s there was a back east there was a bunch of

[00:32:46] people that mostly women that wanted to raise money for the Indians so they would raise money

[00:32:52] and they would buy all this stuff you know lamps and paintings and just all those beds and all

[00:32:59] this stuff and it took train ride out met red cloud and he's with the tribe super humble

[00:33:05] and they give them all this stuff and so then they leave because you know they thought they

[00:33:11] had done something really really cool for red cloud and uh in the tribe and then they come back in a

[00:33:16] year and red clouds like in a you know a shanty of a of a hut and all he doesn't have any of

[00:33:23] the stuff that they gave him and they're like uh you know what's up like we gave you all the stuff

[00:33:30] because you're you're you're a chief because i'm a chief because I don't have stuff that's the

[00:33:36] the reason i'm a chief is I give other people things not because I have things the peace

[00:33:41] comes from not having those things and helping others and it's like they didn't get it so they

[00:33:46] didn't come back next year they didn't get it but it's just a kind of to your point it's just

[00:33:52] a kind of a different way of looking at happiness right and fulfillment which I think is along the

[00:33:59] way somewhere in the mix on mental health so what did you do what did you do next what was your next

[00:34:04] step so took that company built it for a number of years and when I say a number of years

[00:34:10] I spent five years working at the award group that I purchased the division then I you know

[00:34:16] like put every all the different companies together had to figure out the culture how to

[00:34:20] make it you know these were competitors right how to make it sing and gel and then we did the

[00:34:25] international expansion so here's where the mental health part comes in we'd open these

[00:34:29] offices and there wasn't a logical person to go to Sydney and I kind of said it like

[00:34:33] just kind of saying it not really thinking man I was like fuck it I'll go and then I was like

[00:34:38] actually maybe that does make sense so coincidentally it was the winter here in the summer there

[00:34:45] but it was yeah bond I bond I beach here I come lived in Bondi but it allowed like the managers

[00:34:53] who had been there for a long time to kind of step up even more because I was I was gone right I

[00:34:58] was you know 12 13 14 hours away but I didn't realize how good it would be for my mental

[00:35:04] health I wasn't thinking about that at all I was thinking is let's go open an office in Sydney

[00:35:08] and it's sunny there and I'll go for a month and I'll come back and then month became two and then

[00:35:12] three and then after six months I was like okay this is a bit it was like actually have a full

[00:35:16] company and this is being working in an office I'm surfing every day plus oh by the way the

[00:35:23] women in that part of Australia are gorgeous so it was really nice for a lot of reasons yeah

[00:35:30] and then coincidentally serendipitously I stumbled upon a book on Buddhism so I found this

[00:35:38] book and it really spoke to me and if you ask me the title of it I'll tell you because it's funny

[00:35:44] what's the title yeah yeah well this is the thing right like I feel like that was a cue to ask

[00:35:50] it was it was a cue to ask because 100 when I when I tell the story people are always expecting

[00:35:54] it to be like this ancient text like I don't like Indiana Jones it's Buddhism for dummies

[00:36:00] Buddhism for busy people there you go

[00:36:05] yeah actually I can see that I mean I haven't read the book or but I can see that because

[00:36:11] breaking things down and making it bite-sized so that people can come in and get a chapter

[00:36:17] learn instead of trying to read the whole text and understand everything I can see that yeah it

[00:36:22] it was about a guy married guy who like sound Buddhism and it really changed his life and so for me the

[00:36:27] meditation part was really help and one thing that I'll tell people is like the difference

[00:36:33] for me in my life between being heavy like 85 pounds overweight and now is not as significant

[00:36:40] as it was before I meditated and once I was meditating like that change was even more significant

[00:36:45] than losing almost 100 pounds so that's how profound it was for me were you were you

[00:36:51] practicing as you grew up were you practicing like did you all did y'all go to temple and things

[00:36:55] like that because we were questions more about prayer we were traditional jewish new yorker

[00:37:04] i'm traditional catholic ish so i'm familiar with this concept i like yeah you go like you know

[00:37:09] two three times a year yeah a holiday is because it's a family but yeah i think i think at that

[00:37:17] point i'm in a different place now actually but i think at that point i just not like really

[00:37:21] believing in god or anything like that right um nor nor am i buddhist like that's not my jam

[00:37:26] but what i found was there was actually like really practical lessons in there around suffering and

[00:37:32] peace of mind and there's a path and there's a way and so because it was it was intellectual it

[00:37:38] wasn't like the stuff i learned growing up which was like you can't eat cheeseburgers by the way

[00:37:42] i had cheeseburgers last night you can't you like can't we didn't follow any of it so it was

[00:37:46] like well this is not helpful so it was not religious at all for me it was really just

[00:37:51] this is a guide to live life but the meditation was the like interactive part right the part

[00:37:57] where it came to life for me i love who are your mentors as you're coming up uh not not

[00:38:02] necessarily personal or it could be personal your choice yeah who are your mentors as you're

[00:38:07] going through this journey and building and now i'm assuming about to get into journey itself

[00:38:12] uh there's another step or two along the way but yeah go ahead yeah so it's a wide range you know

[00:38:18] when you first started the question i immediately thought of my uncle who i mentioned before that's

[00:38:22] my mom's brother who um in many ways was was like a father figure to me um and what he had built as

[00:38:29] a as a business owner um was really um impressive to me so growing up you know being able to

[00:38:34] i don't want to say see that but but see his success was was was nice um as i got older

[00:38:39] it became all the kind of traditional CEOs that you would you would look towards you know like the

[00:38:44] jack welches right now obviously i'm dating myself um of of the time but then when i started to get

[00:38:51] into meditation it was people like jack cornfield who like i went in a retreat and was like more

[00:38:56] of a fanboy there than when i met you know all those rappers that we talked about before

[00:38:59] um because of the way he like moves through the world is like very aspirational for me like

[00:39:05] i want to be really equanimous like where i'm not getting upset about work things or things with my

[00:39:10] wife i want to be really patient i want like those qualities that like i didn't grow up with i mean we

[00:39:16] all have them right but like that wasn't what i nurtured i nurtured my my hustle or my ability

[00:39:21] to communicate or my but like some of those things those i don't know if they're deeper qualities

[00:39:26] but like different qualities let's call them um those are the people who really inspired me

[00:39:31] who are you going through while you're going through this process how did you change as a leader

[00:39:37] and as a manager of talent of people i had to really good question i think everything just slowed down

[00:39:44] a little bit right um you know there was a line that i had read in seven habits of highly

[00:39:49] effective people probably a decade before that which was you want to be efficient with things

[00:39:55] and effective with people right so if it's a thing i want to move through quickly it's a person

[00:39:59] i want to be effective but i never really like got it right but then i started to just like

[00:40:06] slow down i don't want to say calm down because that's like that's has the role

[00:40:10] feeling to it but just like where i could be with you and be more present

[00:40:13] and not have to like rush on to the next thing um but it's still i mean here we are you know

[00:40:19] i started journey February 10 years i was meditating for a bunch of years before that

[00:40:24] it's still a challenge like it's still very ingrained in the you know go go go let's do things

[00:40:29] but it it helped as a leader a lot and i will say one other thing when i started the company

[00:40:35] i was very concerned that if i started a company around this thing that was like

[00:40:38] deeply personal to me it would kind of ruin it like if i was like a long suffering Mets fan

[00:40:44] like if i went to read a you would take away the joy of pills yeah yeah well it's better

[00:40:52] as i say is this a Mets jets Nets thing like are you all all in on all of them or did you just

[00:40:58] met and Mets giants nicks and rangers i don't know if that's better

[00:41:04] go birds so but long suffering Mets fan i totally understand so i get it i mentioned this because

[00:41:12] i thought that starting a meditation company obviously now mental health company would take

[00:41:16] away some of my joy but what it actually did going back to your leadership question

[00:41:20] is it made me raise the bar for how i showed up in the world because if you're running a mental

[00:41:26] health company you probably want to or if a meditation company want to show up and have

[00:41:32] a culture that's different than if you're working in finance or working in energy trading or working

[00:41:37] in you know and the people who gravitate to that also have a higher bar for what they're

[00:41:42] looking for so that was a big step of like okay i actually have to elevate in how i'm showing

[00:41:48] is that difficult to do uh

[00:41:52] now it wasn't then um it's difficult to be consistent with it yeah you know it's like

[00:41:58] intentionality the intentionality is for me sorry is that's the hard part is being intentional

[00:42:06] not letting my natural reactions take over and like said calming uh slowing myself down because

[00:42:14] i make decisions really fast and that's great and not great simultaneously so i find that focusing

[00:42:23] on intentionality is actually helped me slow down yeah i think i agree with that completely i think

[00:42:29] the part that's hard for me is uh and i don't know if either of you guys are married but um yeah

[00:42:36] it's like one of those things where it's like you you react to something in real time

[00:42:40] and then you're like oh i didn't really handle that well and maybe maybe you remember maybe you

[00:42:45] don't maybe you clear it maybe it wasn't even a thing for you but if you're married out you'll

[00:42:49] appreciate this right four years later you're like remember that tuesday when you said that thing

[00:42:54] you're like wait what like yesterday yesterday no no no four years ago tuesday he said i spent

[00:42:59] too much money on scotch right so it's like people remember on a serious note people

[00:43:05] remember things right they yeah so it's the consistency part like it's not when you when

[00:43:11] the three of us are sitting and talking about it it's on the field you know in the arena those

[00:43:17] times to actually still show up the way i want to that's where it's hard where did you uh where

[00:43:22] did you meet your wife or what at what point in the journey did you meet your wife uh not that

[00:43:27] long though we we got introduced when i was 40 i'm 45 now or five or 46 um so yeah we got

[00:43:35] introduced and we just hit it off right away i think both of us were at the right stage and

[00:43:39] right yeah it was it was it was kind of perfect that's cool okay okay so you were set up like

[00:43:46] there was some i was some family members involved or thank god no i was at the gym not that not

[00:43:54] that they didn't try i was at the gym in my we still live in and i got a text from a woman

[00:43:58] i had gone on a date with legit like six years ago and she's like hey steven it's uh rachel

[00:44:04] i'm like oh hey michelle how are you she's like are you still single i was like uh yeah why

[00:44:09] depends on zasci i asked you didn't you didn't keep the baby didn't you

[00:44:14] have somebody i want to set you up with and then i got a long explanation of who she was

[00:44:22] she's german and she's an actor and she's smart and i was like okay that's fine okay last text

[00:44:29] and she's very pretty i'm like now we're talking okay yeah you buried the lead you buried the lead

[00:44:35] yeah well the truth the truth is the truth is at this point in my life i was 40 i was getting set up a

[00:44:40] lot and i was in this business and i was like okay and then we met and literally from the second

[00:44:47] we met it was just just perfect chemistry and we just had a baby was you know she obviously

[00:44:53] was the most heavy lifting on that um but we have a 10-year-old son now so yeah i feel very very

[00:45:01] grateful and that's also like honestly that's that's part of where the mental health stuff helps me

[00:45:05] so much is like to be really present for her to be really grateful to really be able to like

[00:45:10] appreciate not like oh i have to dot dot dot like i have to change the diaper i have it's

[00:45:16] like i get to do this like how many people have that joy so yeah helps me there a lot

[00:45:21] i don't understand parents especially men that have to be changed that don't change diapers like

[00:45:27] like my brother uh god love him he didn't change any of diapers for both his kids

[00:45:33] just like that was his bit like yeah not gonna do that and i was part of this is part of the uh

[00:45:38] yeah you signed up for that yeah it's not even a thing like they're like waking up in the middle

[00:45:44] of the night which thankfully my wife covers because i i have to you know work during the day um she

[00:45:50] covers that part that's much worse than like cleaning the diapers it's fine yeah yeah yeah it's

[00:45:55] always gotten me it is maybe off top definitely off topic where when i hear a lot of fathers that i

[00:46:02] know those things i have to babysit or have to watch the kid have to like well you're not babysitting

[00:46:07] you're kind of just being a father right like i'm sure i've said that along the way but it's

[00:46:14] really like it's just one of those things that's always kind of gotten to me like you signed up

[00:46:19] for this bit you know you remember the thing that you did and so yeah this is this is a part of it

[00:46:25] steven if you could give uh last question for me if you could give any advice to your younger self

[00:46:33] back it's back it started let's go let's go there it would probably be be kinder um so be kinder

[00:46:41] to myself be kinder to others um just i think that that's something that i look back on and like

[00:46:48] the idea of regret is a like i don't love that because that has like a weird feeling

[00:46:52] but there's definitely things that like i could do differently business decisions you know how

[00:46:56] it was invested in apple or i don't know media or something so like yeah i don't regret it but

[00:47:02] like i would change it if i could and like i just wish i was like a little bit nicer to myself

[00:47:07] and probably nicer to other people that's what i'd go with yeah i love it let's let's uh

[00:47:13] one more question for me and a similar question but i want to reverse that i like to ask

[00:47:19] what does younger steven tell ten-year-old steven tell 46 year old steven to remember or to

[00:47:29] think about as he's doing what he's doing he'd probably say i'm proud of you

[00:47:35] he'd probably he'd probably say you know hey you did you did pretty good yeah um

[00:47:41] you know i think one of my favorite pieces of advice is know thyself um and i think that like

[00:47:46] that's that's a real that's a real challenge that's where the the meditation really helps me today

[00:47:51] like it's my daily practice did it before this um to just like calm the mind calm my mind so i

[00:47:56] can actually like see what's important to me make sure i'm acting in alignment with what i want

[00:48:01] in the world because i found i was doing all this dumb shit that didn't actually serve anything

[00:48:04] i wanted to do but it was like that's what i do like and that's pretty normal i think a lot

[00:48:08] of us yeah so yeah i think i think my my ten-year-old self i don't know if he'd have advice per se

[00:48:16] um we do we do this thing in my in my actual therapy um with my therapist where he's like

[00:48:22] what would you now tell your ten-year-old self right like could my parents got divorced that

[00:48:27] was pretty tumultuous when i was 18 father disowned my brother and i like there's a whole

[00:48:31] bunch of stuff that we just didn't cover today um but yeah i think my older self would

[00:48:37] tell my younger self like it'll be okay you'll be all right you'll be all right you just gotta get

[00:48:42] through it you'll be all right steve this is absolutely fantastic thank you so much for carving

[00:48:47] out time for us and our audience it's just been a great show so thank you this was a lot of fun

[00:48:52] i appreciate you guys no worries no worries thanks everyone for listening watching and we'll see you

[00:48:57] next time