In your childhood experience, do you have any good stories there where it might have given you a little insight into the entrepreneur you've become today?
I mean, it's interesting because before we started the podcast, you said, hey, what about your childhood? And actually like three or four businesses popped into my mind that I did probably before I was even 12 years old. But I think one of the most important lessons, I don't know that this was my favourite business. My favorite business was I did a haunted house in, like we lived in Baltimore, which is very city-oriented. Everybody would have little sheds in their little square yard. And whatever was leftover from dinner, I would go out and create a very interactive haunted house of which I would narrate. And maybe if there was spaghetti leftover, I'd make you put your hands in that or walk through it or something like that. Until I think one of the moms in the neighbourhood said that I was fleecing her daughter out of her allowance.
That was that. But the most important lesson I learned was, you know, just like every other kid, like I did a lemonade stand or, you know, Kool-Aid or whatever we were serving. And I remember coming in and saying to my mom that, I think I made $10. I was, I just thought it was so much money. And she's like, yes, okay, well, you know, the Kool-Aid I gave you is 50 cents. So I had to give her the 50 cents. And she goes, and you used the water and you in effect rented my container and the little dixie cups. So when it was all said and done, a $1.50 of my profit went to, so it went to my mom for the lemonade stand. So I always tell my CFO that that was my first EBITDA lesson. Yeah, she was, my mom was hard that way, but good. I mean, you learn that nothing's for free.
I so appreciate her approach there because so often kids will do exactly what you described and there is no expenses. They're taking mom's stuff, they're the family stuff and they're selling it off and it’s just not real world stuff. It's such a great lesson at such an early age and it obviously set you up because you, as a successful entrepreneur, you got those lessons in early.
Yeah, I mean, I'd say there's periods in life where you forget them, but you know what I mean, but they come rushing back. So yes, yes, I'm very grateful.
So tell us what was the next step in your entrepreneurial journey?
I think probably the most profound was my first job out of college. I was a police officer in the Washington DC area. And that taught me a lot of things. We could probably fill up a whole hour of those stories, but probably the most remarkable one was that I didn't love the paramilitary organization where you were rewarded for time in and not for actual contribution, not for actual success in your job. Your boss and then the boss above that and the boss above that in this very hierarchical way was, you look at people that would get promoted and it was just for however long they were on the job. And so for me, I was like, man, there has to be a way where we're actually rewarded for what we put in versus, versus just being there. so, yeah, it was. It was a very, very life formative experience. I did that for five years.
Wow, and those stories, I can't imagine how they would have shaped your view of the world at the time. You've had really some pretty significant, almost like lifetimes within lifetimes, Cindy.
Very. 100%. And you don't do it on purpose, but now that I'm, you know, looking back on it, it is so in my nature. It's like the challenge, you know, I'm innately a fixer. So like once something's fixed, it's not exciting anymore. You know, and that can be hard sometimes in personal relationships because the ones that don't need fixing are the best. So, you know, it took me a few years to get that one down. But I mean, but the point...
You finally found her.
Yes, yes, I did. finally did. But the point is, I know you talk a lot about resilience. And you know, there's a, I don't know if you guys have read the Harvard Business Review puts out these little short journals on topics and the topic on mental toughness talks a ton about the difference between resilience and strength.
And, you know we say them very synonymously all the time, right? But strength meaning that's something where you see the bad coming and you have to be strong and you have to just weather it, where resilience is like pivoting. It's moving around. It's getting to the next thing. It's not always being prepared. In fact, generally speaking, in business in particular, we think we prepare for everything, but you don't. And so it's the stuff you don't prepare for and how you react to. That I think is a sign of your resilience. But once it gets to the point where it's on autopilot and we're just talking about things like OpEx and COGS and EBITDA margin and pulling this lever and that lever, that's not fun anymore.
Not for you, no. Isn't it interesting how we all have a role to play in the business? So you have your visionaries like yourself, then you have the architects, the people who love structure, they love to create plans, they want the final details before anybody makes the next move. And then you've got the doers, they just jump in and get stuff done and you have to hold them back until the plan's in place. And then you've got the collaborators like me and I think probably Laura, know who? I just want everybody to work in a team and bring that spirit together and you know, how can we do more together and it's just fascinating to me how we have so many different well those four specific kind of frames of how people operate and understanding that we each have a significant role to play in the business. So it's cool to be the visionary and sit in that seat only and not try to be something else. Have others in your team who complement you.
Yeah, I there's no doubt.This is the first company that I've run where I've taken private equity money. And so I've learned a lot, that's for sure. And the issues that come along are significantly different than they were in the early stages. But to your point, Vicki, now the focus is heavily on the team, the execution of the team. You know, you just can't be involved in every decision. Gosh, you can't even really be involved in any of the decisions anymore. And so it's the complete opposite. And fortunately for me, I think that I have like, and I'm sure a lot of folks say this, but the best team in the business, but it is a whole different, it's a different resilience to be where the the focus is really on the spreadsheet.
That has to be a little bit hard, I think, when your business is much more important than spreadsheets, if I may say it like that. Because how you help people is something we don't get to talk about enough in business, about the mental health side of things. But it's a subject I love to talk about. Can you bring us to the beginning of Pyx Health, why it was founded?
I know it's a difficult story, I think it's important for people to understand the depth of it so that they understand why you do what you do and the mission that you're on.
Yes. Well, I actually had a healthcare IT startup company that I sold. So after that, literally I was going to the movies like two or three times a week and just very much enjoying my life. But in 2008, my stepdaughter Riley, she had a really bad year with behavioral mental health. And she ended up in an inpatient facility. And so when she got out of the inpatient facility, as I've already said, cause I'm a fixer, I was like, hey, you know, how do we stop? Cause it really is like a snowball that turns into an avalanche. Like it just starts with something and then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger until it's so big that no one can control it. Not even Riley herself. And so I call that the spiral, which is what we saw throughout her life. And she started talking about being lonely. And this is obviously pre-pandemic. Sorry, 2018, I said eight, 2018. And so it was two years before the pandemic.
But I was like, that doesn't make any sense. You live with someone, you go to college, you have a roommate, you come home for family dinner, you're not alone. And she was like, the response was, it's because no one understands what's going on inside of my brain. And so the loneliness, which now we know post pandemic, because they put so much research into it, stems from the belief that no one understands your plight and no one can help you. And that's why it's impacting healthcare all over the globe is because if you truly believe that you're unhelpable or no one understands, the body starts to decline at a significant rate and or you don't access the appropriate care that you need.
There's studies all over the place, but one of the most profound is that loneliness is more deadly than alcoholism and obesity. So what ended up happening was, she talked about this, I became obsessed with it. I was studying, studying, looking at things, reading, reading, reading, and decided that there was a place in healthcare in the United States to address this because if you could find lonely people and you could help them, you could stave off them using the healthcare system and I'm gonna say inappropriately, like for example, going to the emergency room just because you're lonely, it really taxes the system from folks who are actually having real emergencies.
And so we started the company and I'll fast forward a little bit here because this is more Riley's story. So we were a couple years into the company and Riley ended up passing away. so it was very much, as you can imagine, here we are, we're doing this thing. We were doing it very, like she was involved, she helped us, she even did some work for us. It was very much a family effort. And then once COVID hit, her carefully constructed world began to fall apart, and she ended up dying actually of an overdose. And so then the business quickly turned and became a legacy thing. We're going to do this so that another family doesn't have to suffer through what we did.
The company has really grown since then. What you start to figure out is, and I believe this with all companies, it's like, while loneliness was a very maniacal focus of mine in the beginning, when I was sitting at the dining room table thinking about this, when you actually help folks with loneliness and it actually starts to work, then they need your help with other things. And we call that social health. Like maybe they don't have any food in the refrigerator. Maybe they don't have a way to get to the doctor. Maybe they don't take their medicine because they'd rather feed their cat and they only have X amount of dollars to do it in a month. And these are all real things. So I always say when you shake the tree of loneliness, all kinds of social health needs come out and the company ended up really growing to that kind of veracity where we will help you with all things social health, which are clearly, clearly and I know it's different in different countries, but I think I can make this statement - it is impacting health care all over the globe.
Wow, thank you for sharing your story and sorry, you know, I’m obviously sorry that you experienced that in your life and that your daughter did also. And you talk about purpose and I'm curious if you could just speak into how that experience has, is driving you because earlier you said once something's fixed you're not interested anymore. And now you're in this space where I'm not sure it will ever be fixed. Yeah, tell us about your purpose.
Yeah, I mean, this all ties back to even the fact that I told you I'm in a late stage company where we took private equity money. I just feel like what we're doing is so profound that if we can cross that chasm, which I think entrepreneurs have a hard time doing just because it's not because of entrepreneurs, it's because of the way the game, if you will, and I'm saying that in air quotes, is set up. But if you can do good for the world and have a for-profit business, that's where Nirvana comes in. And that is really the challenge of where we are now. Because if you can prove that out, more people will establish companies that are doing good. It's not that I think that nonprofits are bad by any stretch of the imagination and they have a purpose. But in the entrepreneurial space where the end goal is often of selling, I have no problem saying that I manifest wealth. I 100% do. And women don't do that enough. I really want that. But what if you can do both? And that is my mission at this point in time. And that's where it's evolved to.
Yeah, I love that mission. I think it is so important to make that distinction that charity and for-profit can both have strong impact. You don't have to give up profit to create impact. And sometimes the more profit you can think about building wealth, you can think about how you can then use that wealth to help others. not even directly help others, but like you said, encourage other entrepreneurs in this space so that they're creating their own solution for the problems that they see because that is how I always say entrepreneurs are, are the problem solvers, the fixers. They're the people that see the gap and see the thing and come up with a solution and then go forth with it. But if you do that without any profit, eventually you're going to have to throw your hands up and say, well, I still need to eat too, right? So I think it is important to talk about that and to talk about the money mindset part of helping others and creating impact with the social enterprise. I think it's brilliant. Thank you for bringing that point up because I think it can't be overstated. We need to talk about that more. I think often as women, we have some limiting beliefs around money and we struggle with that. What are your thoughts on that?
I mean, there's been tons of stuff written about this. I don't know where it started or why, but why we as a gender are, we're in effect indoctrinated into this idea that if I say I wanna be rich, that is unappealing. But if I'm a white man who says I wanna be rich, we applaud that. And so, yeah, I mean, look, I'm glad I'm doing it this way. I'm glad that my shot at wealth comes in the form of helping. At Pyx, we primarily serve, well, the largest healthcare insurance company in the world is the United States government funded program, which is Medicaid and Medicare, okay? And we serve those folks that live at or below the poverty line.
But what we did, and we did this right out of the gate, is that we tied it to money for health insurance payers, for insurance companies. So if they would rather pay Pyx to address social health needs and address loneliness and make sure they have food and their medicine and do all those things, than to have that member go to the emergency room or get admitted to the hospital in something that could have been preventable. So there's the money. That's the line. And that's good for everyone, all the way from the multi-billion dollar health insurance plan to the member and for Cindy, you know what I mean? Like, and the folks that work here. So I do think there are ways. I think women tend to gravitate toward that kind of, it's almost like, yeah, I'm doing it right now with you, Laura, even though you asked a question. I'm quantifying why it's okay to want to manifest wealth. You know what I mean? Is it like, because don't worry, I swear I'm still doing something good. You know, so it's, I don't know. I don't know why this is a part of our makeup. I don't.
Is it a fear of judgment? Is it a fear of that judgment that maybe you are doing this to make money, not to help people?
Yeah, I mean, yes, although not to be crass about it, think having lost a kid and having that such a part of this, that would be a hard connection to make. I think it's more about being labeled. You know what I mean? Labeled as maybe capitalizing on others' suffering.
I think that would be what I would be more scared of.
Yeah, I get that though I don't know why, but yeah, it would take a different mindset of a person to think that, assume that knowing your full story, but maybe that's part of it. And maybe that's why it is important to share our stories because I think when people understand the fullness of you and this is going into personal branding now, but like knowing who you are and connecting with you as a human being, other than just a company that does this thing, I think can help people to understand the why that that the company is doing what it's doing because they understand you and your mission, your personal mission. And I think it's really important and I'm glad you're coming on a podcast to have this discussion because then people can see what mission you're on. And that's good advice for any entrepreneurs out there listening. Raise your personal profiles so that people can connect with you and the mission that you're on and it helps to build your brand in the process and build your business.
I totally agree.We still try to do business this way, even though we've got over a hundred clients. But if someone will let us get on an airplane and come out and have a meeting rather than a Zoom, we'll do it because what's missing, I think from business in general and particularly healthcare and the sector that we play in is that personal connection. Cause in the end, we're all still consumers. We're consumers of things, we're consumers of love, we're consumers of life. We're consumers of all of it. And there is no more powerful influence in our consuming decisions than other people. Their stories, where they come from, what they're about. Back in the day they would call them word of mouth campaigns. And now there's Instagram. So, you totally see that you can build a bazillion dollar business off of it. But when someone I know and love and trust recommends something, it means so much more to me and that's because of the personal. So we still really try to do business as friends. I know that sounds like, maybe a little Pollyanna, but it's true. I mean, I want to know who the buyers are on the other side and what makes them tick and why they personally decided to work with Pyx.
Cindy, you as Pyx have been awarded or you are a finalist in the Fast Company World Changing Ideas Awards. Can you tell us about this? I mean, it is a world changing idea. Let's talk into that aspect of your business. This is a new concept and you're doing it and you're succeeding and you're finding interesting ways to pull the finance thread out where it works for everybody.
That was was kind of an honor. You think about a lot of the things that people are doing in the world.
I do think we're one of the first companies that said, I can treat loneliness, literally. We studied it scientifically, we've measured it, we continue, we use evidence-based screenings, which by the way, if you are gonna be diagnosed with depression or anxiety, you know how they diagnose you, they give you an evidence-based screening. And so then a clinician will likely prescribe a pharmaceutical for you or some kind of therapeutic intervention.
What was missing, the only thing missing with loneliness and the reason it didn't get a lot of attention, but is starting to get more is, there's no drug. There's no pharmaceutical that you can write. There is an evidence-based screening to identify it. You can use the same one to improve it. They have done research to prove that it actually rewires the frontal lobe of the brain, the way that serotonin levels get out of whack for depression. So there's, there's real life brain things happening. But the fact that it doesn't have a pharmaceutical, means it's sort of the ugly stepchild of all of these mental behavioural health issues. So I think that the fact Vicki, that we sort of started tackling it from the therapeutics perspective and candidly, I would believe that the therapeutic perspective is probably always gonna be the more successful. I think that that really put us at the forefront for things like the world changing ideas.
Like we weren't just gonna wait until someone came up with a drug to treat loneliness. And we were not naive enough to believe that you can just keep somebody company and that's gonna make them better. That is not gonna make them better. When someone is chronically lonely, they are in what's called stuck, I call it stuck in mud. Like you cannot, you cannot move. You cannot do for yourself. And you can't just keep someone company or take them to the movies or go out to dinner and treat a true, someone who is suffering from true chronic loneliness.
Don't you do?
Yeah, I wanted to ask the same question. How do we get out of the mud? Whether we're in it or someone we love maybe is there too.
It really does take a therapist or what we use, a peer model. So peers are, they're licensed, they're credentialed, but they're not clinical. And peers are folks that, there's been a lot of research on peers who have shared experience with the person that they're working with. So we employ almost 300 of these folks across the country. And when we're treating members, we try to match them with people who have had some kind of a shared experience. And really what it comes down to, all of this is a fancy way of saying, hey, let's put somebody connected with you. I don't have to be a doctor to reach you and help you move through. We have a whole therapeutic program that we do that involves lots of on the phone. is an app where you can do exercises, etcetera. It's a whole thing. But let's, it's all about trust and healthcare, particularly in the United States, lacks trust from, you know, from the top to the bottom and the bottom to the top. It's gone. And I do think that a peer workforce, because they are just inherently empathetic, helps to rebuild that trust.
Yeah, understanding is such a big part of that too, because someone who has a shared experience will have a level of understanding that maybe a parent, a partner, a friend, you know, might not be able to have because they don't have that shared experience and they're living their own life and issues and situations. So I see how that model really makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, plus there's a ton of stigma around social health, not just loneliness. Like when someone can't afford their medicine or their car broke down a month ago and they can't get to the, there's stigma associated with that. And so there's some safety in having it not be your neighbour or your sister. There's a lot of stigma attached with struggling. Like I said, we treat folks who are living at or below the poverty line, which that means inherently they're having a hard time getting by.
Yeah, such a difficult space, such a difficult space to be in. And it's a difficult space to, like you said, get out of the mud when you're in there, because everything feels hard and every part of life feels hard. So what's the first step if someone is, you know, ready to make a change in their life? What's the first step? What's the first action they need to take?
Well, firstly, we do Pyx has a platform and there is a free version on all the stores and they can easily download that and that could be a first step. A first step could be talking to your provider about it. A first step could be talking to someone in your family about it or a friend, but really talking about it and giving it the importance that it's due, which is if you're feeling really, if you're feeling the kind of despair that I feel like Riley was feeling, it's even, I'm a huge proponent of therapy, of having a mental health professional intervene. so there, you know, it all just is a, I'm not answering this very succinctly, Laura, because it really is just, it comes down to doing something. Like if you would just take that one step, that one reach out, that will likely lead to another, which will lead to another, which will lead to another. Even if the person you choose to reach out to says, hey, I'm not equipped, but I hear you, but I know something and I know someone, or how about making this phone call? This is usually how it works, right? And so I think that the short answer would be to do something. Reach out to someone, throw a lifeline. I'm sure someone will pick it up.
Yeah. Great advice.
Hmm. And we talked earlier about resilience being about being able to navigate the things we don't expect, the things that come out of the blue. And I think this whole conversation has really fed into that description, that definition. And I think, you know, I'd just love to acknowledge your resilience, Cindy, personally, and in building this incredible business in such a game changing way, the innovation behind it and the determination it must have taken to just, I'm certain you were intrinsically motivated, internally motivated to just do it because you were being led to do it. Yet I'm certain also that there were things on the path that would have felt like,
There's always those things.
So yeah, it's a beautiful, I almost go to call it a social enterprise, but it's not. It's a for-profit business that's really doing good in the world. It's really a model I would love to see more of. And you've really got me thinking about how we can help our entrepreneur community to think this way, because there's as much money out there as we want to access. Money is limitless. And we don't see it that way. And you know this transactional thinking holds us back. So I love your example. I love that you're succeeding, you're thriving in that very model.
Someone once said that adversity crystallizes the truth. Like, I do think that is what, that's been Pyx’s journey. There was a moment in the early days where we're selling into health insurance plans and we're new and it's, believe me, getting even just one to jump on is hard. And before you know it, they want you to be everything that they want you to be. Okay, well, if you can do this, can you do this? Can you do this? Can you do this? And I'll never forget it. It was a really early days. It was within the first two years where I'm in a room with my most trusted folks. There's like four of us in there and we're arguing over, do we follow the money? Do we follow the need? And I remember just saying at the end of the day, we are gonna be a loneliness company, whether we fail or we don't. Because to me, all that adversity, all that like coming at us, because you know, obviously we deal with members that are often very hard to reach. And so when you have them, the health plan, they want you to do as many things as you can.
But the truth became very crystallized at that moment. Like if we had done that, we probably wouldn't be in business anymore. We would have diluted our offering. We wouldn't have stood out in the crowd. We wouldn't have survived through COVID. We would have just been like every other. So that adversity was where the truth like in that room came and said, know, we're gonna, you know, this is the stake we're gonna put in the ground. And at least if it fails, we can look ourselves in the face and say, OK, we did the right thing. We tried. We stood true.
It's solid advice. So many things come up for me as you're talking about that. It's about the importance of niching, not before you go to market, while you're in the market. Understanding your purpose, staying true to your purpose, and not being tempted by the shiny objects, the other possible paths to wealth. This is all such a strong example that you share about, how when we do stay the course and we do follow our purpose, we achieve what we intended to. We need to know our own path. We can't let others determine our path.
I agree with you, Vicki. It's one thing to pivot, meaning like for us, for my business in particular, elections very much impact the business because depending on who's at the top of the ticket, like that's how the money flows down, right? So it's one thing to say, okay, if the path takes me this way, I'll pivot and make sure that I'm staying pertinent here. But it's another thing to do what you said, which is to chase shiny objects, which is - I have found that, that in all of the, you guys know the entrepreneur code, you get on the phone with someone, even if they asked for a meeting, because people did this for me when I was starting out. And, but I found that in a lot of these calls, you know, someone will say, well, this client wants me to do one, two, three, four. And I think that that's chasing the shiny object. Like, that's not why you started. That isn't your purpose to your point. That isn't what your mission is and it does take some steel resolve to stick with that because it's hard not to take the revenue.
It's so true. It's so true. think, especially in the early stages of a business, I think it is hard to know if it's you pivoting towards what the market wants versus you staying on what you believe is true and maybe it's true and maybe it's not. So it's a really, really difficult thing to, I think, discern when you're starting up, which way is the right way to go? Are you making the right decisions? And if you have venture capitalists and you're dealing with their opinions, if you have a board of directors, you're dealing with their opinions, you're dealing with all the outside influences. And for you, you're dealing with healthcare system, which is, could there be a more challenging space to be in? So massive kudos to you for being able to stay the course on your path, as Vicki mentioned, it's so hard to do.
How do you stay so focused? Like, what is it that gives you that resolve? And what do other entrepreneurs need to do? Is it just resilience or is there something even deeper?
The loss amplifies the path, if that makes sense. I think people are afraid to look at loss. They're afraid to look at what didn't work. They're afraid to take that head on. When we did that, when, you know, we call it, you know, who has the D in the room, who has the decision in the room? For me, we got together as a leadership team and we sat in a room together for, you know, we all met in Denver. People fly from all over the country. And we said, okay, our loss last year is the D. So let's stay maniacally focused. Let's look at it. Let's analyze it. Let's ask, let's figure it out. And so I think that the loss amplifies the path. And so for me that it made it again, there's no significant pivot, but there are changes, there are things, there are stuff that we can do. There were lessons learned.
I don't know if either of you in your journeys have sold, but I would imagine you have and the one thing salespeople have a tendency to do is sit in a room and hear what you want to hear. And that to me is like the kiss of death. You have to hear the subtext. You know, what are they saying without saying?
So how does one read subtext? Give us some tips on that.
We do client calls and record them. I listened to phone calls. People were saying that they loved us, but there was a ‘but’ that was being missed. But my CFO is making me cut this much money, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and I have to do this. And what that should have been is a flag to say, hey, I need to get in front of the CFO and figure out what is motivating he or she to buy, not necessarily. And so again, my folks didn't mean to do this, but they were hearing what they wanted to hear instead of the ever so… - it's like that thing that starts in the back of your throat that you just can't get rid of and next thing you know, you have strep throat. If you had listened to the tickle. And so that's what I'm saying. It's like, you have to pay attention to the subtle buts in the room. And so what we did is we took a lot of those phone calls and did, you know, a big training on subtle listening. Don't listen for what you want to hear, listen to what they're saying.
Listening is such a powerful tool. It's such a powerful connector.
The more we truly tune into the other person, it can be expansive in so many ways.
Yeah. I think it's something we've stopped doing. You know, I also have a 16 year old son, Laura, and I just let him get on social media this year and was super selective about it. And when he was asking me why I said, Look, you know, what social media has done aside from I think fuel the loneliness pandemic in a way that will net we won't understand for generations to come. It's made it so that we don't actually have these human interactions like listening and even fighting or struggling and then finding forgiveness and making up. Everything is so, like you said, transactional. Thumbs up, thumbs down. I don't like you, I do like you. You are my friend, you aren't my friend. Like when I was growing up, I had four friends and we learned all of those things together about how to interact as humans, how to listen, you know, how to offer empathy, how to forgive, all of which has been taken away from at least my son's generation. And so I do think that there is something to be said for going, and we talked about this in sales and everything, going back to that human connection. That's one of our, we have not a culture, we have what we call beliefs. And then we assign, we have three of them, then we assign behaviours with those beliefs, and then we have outcomes that we want from them. So our culture, have BBOs, Beliefs, Behaviours, and Outcomes. And one of them is human connection comes first. So even if we're on a Zoom call, every single person on my staff will be on camera. You cannot be a loneliness company and hiding behind that little yellow circle that has your initials in it. I don't know where that even encourages human connection or listening or all of the things that we're talking about here. And so, yeah, it's, I went off on a little tangent there, but I'm worried. I'm worried about my kid. I'm worried about your kid. Like, I just am worried that they're not learning what we learned.
Yeah, they are learning in a very different way because they're growing up in a very different age than we did. I mean, we kind of straddle the pre-technology age and now are, you know, launched into the technology age. There's a before and after. We knew the before. And I think that is going to be different for them because they have it, you know, they've always had technology in their lives. So, yeah, what does that mean for them? I'm fascinated by this topic too, because I think we need to talk about it more. You know, as a marketer, I view social media from that aspect. I'm like, oh, there's so much good you can do and there's so much you can share and connections you can make. But also it's the consumer side that's more worrying because what are they consuming? What algorithm are you creating for yourself? I like to teach my kids, you create your own algorithm, what you like, what you share, what you comment on, what you send to your friends. You're going to see much more of that. Be very careful what you're curating and helping them understand it through that lens. But it's going to be an ongoing challenge. And it's just such an important conversation to have so that we understand connection and we grow connections because business is about relationships. You mentioned that in the beginning about, doing in-person meetings instead of on Zoom as much as possible is a good thing. We are now in a different world where we can connect across the globe. I mean, here we are sitting in three very different parts of the world having this amazing conversation, which the pandemic brought us this gift of being able to do this because we wouldn't have dealt with life this way had we not gone through it and made it normal. And now it is kind of normal and that's a great thing. We're able to connect in a bigger way but yet, we can't forget the importance of the in-person, the real connection, that closeness. And we don't want to grow up in a world that is only virtual.
I totally agree with everything you just said. And it's interesting how you say the algorithm, that literally has become like your digital thumbprint, right? Is the algorithm that you've created by the searching you're doing, the reading you're doing, etcetera, it's very interesting.
Yeah. I mean, if anybody wants to do the experiment, like just start a new channel and then just search up what like a topic, any topic that you're interested in, only search that, right? And then just start liking, sharing, whatever those things. And then like leave it alone and then come back to it and then just scroll on your feed. You will be shocked. That's like all you're going to see. And that's the worry because then you don't see any opposing viewpoint.
And talking about loneliness, I mean, I will forever talk about that on this channel. So please, you know, let's have these conversations. It's so important. And I just want to really thank you from the bottom of my heart for being so open, so vulnerable, so honest and giving such incredible solid advice for you entrepreneurs out there who are starting up. You can create a business with impact and make profit. And it's important to know that and it's important to just have that inspiration because then you're not choosing feeding your family or helping others. You can do both and you can do both in big ways. And the more you can raise, I think the more you can help and the bigger impact you can have. So I just want to thank you so much for this incredible conversation, Cindy. And I wish you and your business all the best to just keep growing, keep helping, keep creating impact and letting people know the mission that you're on because it's a really, really important one.
Thank you so much. really honestly, it was a pleasure being here.
