The Ikonns

In todays episode, Alex and Mimi discuss what it means to go deep both with yourself and others and how doing so can enrich your relationships.

When facing challenges and conflicts throughout our lives, we have a choice, do we stay in the comfort and familiarity of the shallows or do we go out and explore the depths and face the challenges that can help us evolve?

 “The true wealth and gifts lie in the depths of our soul and the souls of other people that we come across” – Mimi Ikonn

Admittedly an extrovert, Mimi discusses the challenges she faced at a silent meditation retreat and how facing her fear of listening to the heart led to an important lesson. Alex discusses the significance of maintaining the ability to self reflect in an age of social media and instant gratification.

“The moments of nothing are where you actually have that space to reflect and get to know yourself a little deeper” – Alex Ikonn

Placing honesty over the guarantee of happiness can lead to a healthier relationship, and whilst this honesty may be upsetting or challenging at first, transparency can be an important communicative tool that helps us avoid a build up of negative feelings towards each other over time.

We all have our different paths in life but one thing that we all have in common is having to face challenges along the way. Building healthy and fulfilling relationships can be difficult at times, but those that are built on core principles of honesty and vulnerability can help them stand the test of time!

Here’s what else we discuss today:

• Two steps to a meaningful relationship
• The fear of loss and how it can stop people from evolving
• How social media provides shots of dopamine comparative to gambling
• Not being afraid to ruffle some feathers
• Conflict can be a wake up call and gift in building your relationships
• You never stop learning
• Social media can be a helpful tool for discourse

We would love to hear from you! Head on over to our website at www.ikonns.com and submit a question. Ask anything from a wide variety of topics, business to relationships... so feel free to ask away!

Resources from today's episode here:

Lazo Freeman – Body, Mind, Soul Transformation podcast.

Insight timer – meditation app.

Tara Brach – Meditation Podcaster

The Case of Doing for Doing Nothing - New York Times article.

Full show notes: https://www.ikonns.com/podcast/episode32

In this episode Alex and Mimi chat with the good friend and regular visitor to the Ikonn household, but a first time guest on the show, Lazo Freeman. Lazo is so inspirational to us and a fantastic transformational healer that you need to listen to. He has infinite wisdom that we love.

Born in Iraq to a mix of both Kurdish and Arab parents, Lazo tells of his difficult and challenging first few years in life, having crossed mountain borders on the back of a donkey - to fleeing Saddam's soldiers on their uncles murder charges - to spending weeks in a romanian prison. Laza’s start to life was anything normal by our western standards.

Finally he ended up in the UK, where he was excelling in chemistry classes and studied Biomedical engineering at UCL in London. After a short time he realised there was more to life than lectures and decided to train in body transformation. Making a connection to his desire of helping others. Although quitting an engineering degree was a big deal for his family, small things like this no longer bothered him. After all, life could be a lot worse than living in London.

“Inherently i can be very lazy, but all of a sudden i just shift and I end up performing on higher level” - Lazo [9:30]

After witnessing only 50% of clients transforming he quickly realised that exercise wasn’t the key. That he needed to look deep into the psychology and mindset that makes for a deeper, more solid transformation. He hit upon a working formula, that the decisions we take are not intellectual and that most decisions, especially successful ones are rooted in emotion. Unfortunately, a lot of the negative things in life, especially things that hold us back are also rooted in emotion. So Lazo set about finding ways to clear out the soul, including shifting both current and past life traumas and toxins.

“Our highest quality vibrational thought is one that is conducive of our greater good” - Lazo [36:48]Lazo shares his 3 crying styles:

1. Positive tears - Crying because you’re happy.
2. Negative tears - Crying because you’re upset.
3. Neutral tears from the soul - These are the type he urges you to regularly find.

He combines this with meditation and the correct way of breathing using the Wim Hof technique from your diaphragm instead of shallow throat parasympathetic breathing. He even guides us through his own inspirational, truly amazing meditation. Practice this and we are sure you’ll be impressed.

“We all have different perceptions, what else are we not seeing because humans don’t have the senses or aren’t tuned into it? The process is like cleaning a mirror and seeing a deeper picture” - Lazo [26:00]

Here’s what else we get into:

• Healing is all about unlearning
• Alpha and Beta consciousness - which is critical and which is trance like
• Intuition is your real tutor
• Journalling opens your heart
• Consciousness is like playing music that is in tune with the universe
• Opening your heart is a treasure chest
• Early experiences and cleaning out trauma.
• Finding the signs that your body is telling you, you’re off path

Hope you enjoyed this week’s episode with Lazo, you can find out more about him here:

Twitter

Instagram

YouTube

Full show notes: https://www.ikonns.com/podcast/episode31

In today’s episode Alex and Mimi chat Dr. Rhonda Lenton President and Vice-Chancellor of York University. As the global work environment shifts to new technologies with bigger demands, our education also needs a reboot. Hear Rhonda’s thoughts on the future of formal education.Rhonda was a first generation student of her family, even though her parents never went to university, they made it a priority for her and her twin, to get a great education. She studied sociology which gave her a great grounding in how people think. And during the time of the second wave of feminism, she found momentum in activism, which compelled her interest in equality and social justice. This has been a thread throughout her entire career in academia. Firmly believing that every student should have a right to a good education, leading to work possibilities at the top regardless of gender, race or wealth.

“Resilience from an early age is a character i’d encourage parents to pay close attention to” - Rhonda [21:42]

The demands on students leaving college with a degree and entering the workplace, isn’t the simple path it once was. She should know, given that York is the 5th leading University in Canada and ranked 26th in the world on educational impact. Yet still she finds students struggling with the transition. This challenge is now her challenge.

“You can’t change uncertainty, all you can do is figure out a way to function in a world full of it”

- Rhonda [20:50]

Rather than giving up, she’s yet again, battling for something she believes in. That formal education still has its place, it just needs to adapt like the world around it that is moving so quickly. She says that education needs to be more fluid, flexible and work with businesses and nonprofits to gear students and companies up for inevitable future change.

Few errors in life are things you can’t bounce back from” - Rhonda [23:20]

She’s working with giant companies like Shopify to create a new “flipped classroom” approach to learning. Giving students more vocational and work based learning opportunities, with tutors acting more like facilitators to overcome learning boundaries and resulting career difficulties. Less about boring lectures, It’s been her goal to find emerging needs in the job market and stay current when it comes to providing curriculum.

Come join Alex and Mimi’s university and learn these things in this episode:

• The difficulties of studying and working part or full time. Why the 2 don’t no longer need to be conflicting.
• Masculine and feminine energy in an high profile workplace, how should I behave at the top?
• Strength vs vulnerability, even academia needs to be authentic
• Overcome uncertainty by being agile
• Do our parents solve too many problems for us, can we cope with the modern world ourselves?
• Having a commitment for lifelong learning, education doesn’t finish at school
• Cultivate creativity and enquiry in your education and mostly make it enjoyable
• Stop trying to rush the process, study when you need to study, work when you need to work. It’s all learning in the end.
• Environmental concerns and sustainability is becoming the biggest concern for students

Hope you enjoyed this week’s episode with Dr. Rhonda Lenton , you can find out more about her here:

Blank.com

Twitter

Linked in

Produced by Jason Sanderson - Podcast Tech

Full show notes: https://www.ikonns.com/podcast/episode30

As parents, seeing Alexa grow and develop so quickly, like others Alex and Mimi have seen the true magnitude of change. But to some people, change isn’t always welcomed so easily, some people fear change. Change can be a huge deal. This is the topic of today’s episode.

For the most part we don’t remember our early lives, but it’s in those moments seeing a baby grow into a child and develop a character and soul of their own, that you can truly appreciate how change is happening. Much faster than you could ever imagine.

“A lot of people leave comments on our videos, saying please don’t change… like that’s a bad thing” - Mimi Ikonn [4:00]

In meeting with an old friend Mimi asked ‘so what’s new’? She was shocked at the reply she was given ‘oh, nothing new’. Maybe for some of us we aren’t mindful that change is happening all the time, whether we perceive it or not, But things change, ALL THE TIME.

Change can be a good thing, but a lot of us naturally fear it. When we know change is coming it’s like being confronted with the flip of a coin. Will it land on the good side or the bad? So many chose to not flip the coin, avoid it as much as possible, staying right where they are. Safe and sound. In their comfort bubble.

“Paint a picture of where you’re going and know your journey, give yourself a roadmap to your goals” - Alex Ikonn [16:35]

Again it’s about reframing. Change could be giving yourself a chance at a new career and finding a new passion. Others might say ‘I got fired and lost my job’. Which in Alex’s case, is true, this actually happened. Proof of the importance of embracing change. He was so happy to be working in banking and would have probably stayed there forever had he not been fired. Lucky that wasn’t to be and life forced his hand and he got to choose a better life.

Understandably there are evolutionary reasons and our trible nature at play here, that we need to be aware of. Also the story we tell ourselves keeps us firmly rooted to the spot. Think about how many times you’ve said out loud ‘oh, i just don’t do that’ or ‘oh that is not me’? While often having never tried.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us” - Marianne Williamson.

The process of transformation and trying something new is DIFFICULT, unfortunately it’s a challenge that a lot of people aren’t willing to work through by choice. After returning from their first trip to france, Mimi realised this. She set about completely renovating their home. Days and weeks of living in the mess reflected her own internal struggles at the time with mental health issues she was going through. renovating wasn’t going to be easily fixed in 1 day. Fortunately hard work and persistence paid off and the apartment looked as beautiful as she’d imagined. Eventually all the internal mentality hard work also paid off too. Remember not all change happens quickly and is usually a work in progress.

Here’s what we talk about today:

• From getting your heart broken to losing your job, there’s always a brighter side.
• Embrace change, use it to your advantage
• The only way to enjoy life is to not fear the change that is always happening
• Change at the speed of light, like Moores law, everything is getting quicker
• Be perceptive and mindful of what changes are happening around you
• People’s capacity to grow and adapt is one of life’s remarkable wonders
• Getting to the good is often through a VERY MESSY journey
• How to stop creating comfortable habits of staying the same
• Journalling, creating your goals and a road map to them
• Change leads to a better stronger you

Full show notes: https://www.ikonns.com/podcast/episode29

In today’s episode Alex and Mimi explore what many would say is the most important thing in life... MONEY!! But does having more of it make you happy or do we just need to create an abundance mindset? What’s your relationship with money, we’ll find out in this episode.

Both Alex and Mimi have come from very poor upbringings. Even though Mimi would describe her family growing up as middle class, the middle class Azerbaijan is way below the lower class in the US or Europe. Alex’s family life was very similar growing up in the Soviet Union, they both lived in 1 bedroom apartments where their parents would sleep on the sofa, while all the kids would share a bedroom. Bargain hunting and penny counting was the only way to simply put a meal on the table. This is a very deep episode that explores the mindset shift that you have to undertake if you want to go from not having any money to what to do when you finally get some. And every step in between. Foodbank’s to Kensington.

“Money wants to go to people who have a need to do something with it, people who put their money to work rather than consuming” - Alex Ikonn [37:30]

The main lesson Alex and Mimi want you to take away from this, is moving your mindset from one of scarcity to one of abundance. We all know of situations where people have lost friends or even family member from a dispute over a relatively small amount of cash. Clinging onto every penny won’t get you anywhere in life. Similarly, we know that when we feel full and our basic needs are met, our mental energy and focus is available to be put to work and attract more money and opportunities into our lives.

Now this doesn’t mean you should go out and max your credit cards, if you even have a credit card, nor should even contemplate a payday loan. Negative compound interest is your worst enemy and will hold you in debt for a long time. Remember that spending future money is still money you will have to earn at some point. If you can’t pay it back today, there’s a good chance you’ll find it difficult to pay it back tomorrow. The good thing is compound interest works the other way too. So paying off your debt and then saving can gain you some great interest over time.

“You affirm and reaffirm to yourself everyday what you manifest” - Mimi Ikonn [20:50]

Back to the abundance part… this really is a game of reframing the conversation you tell yourself. Are you regularly saying:

A - ‘I couldn’t ever do that, I can’t afford it’

Or are you saying

B - ‘I choose to invest my money elsewhere, spending to fulfill a specific purpose’.

Are you saying you are ‘broke’? This genuinely means you feel you are broken. Let’s be clear, we don’t believe you are broken! You should be saying ‘You are working on fixing your financial future by actionally taking steps in the right direction’.

Do you see and feel the difference in these two ways of talking to yourself? If so this is only the start.What we also cover in this episode:

• How do your parents talk about money? This shapes your own financial values
• Don’t believe you’re saving if at the same time you’re in debt
• Valuing your own worth and developing the idea of feeling full
• How to not lose relationships over money
• When is it a good time to rent or buy, why it’s better to rent in a big city
• How the richest people are less consumers than you think
• Become an investor in yourself and reap the rewards
• Visualisation and putting in the hard work
• Being wealthy is living in your means and not spending more than you earn
• Money and energy, it’s all about a transfer from one form to the other.

Full show notes: https://www.ikonns.com/podcast/episode28

Hey guys and girls, we’re back with another ‘Ask Me Anything’ episode. We are going to be answering your questions again. Keep them coming because this is one of our favourite ways to interact with you!

Here are the 5 questions that were asked this week:

1. How to overcome my fears of everyday life, what happens if I’m in an earthquake? [1:03]
2. How to stick to a decision, when your head says one thing and your heart wants something else? [13:23]
3. What have been the most important life changing books Alex and Mimi have read? [20:37]
4. How do you know if you’re lowering your standards? [27:24]
5. Enough with the hard questions, which is best - Positano vs Mallorca? [34:29]

These are some super exciting questions that really got us thinking. Alex and Mimi discuss their thoughts and experiences around the questions you sent in. Let’s start!

Full show notes: https://www.ikonns.com/podcast/episode27

Alex and Mimi are joined today by an important guest and great friend, Vanessa Branson.

Vanessa is the founder of Marrakech Biennale, a cutting-edge contemporary Visual Art, Literature, and Film festival in Morocco. She is the owner of Eilean Shona, a tidal island near Loch Moidart, in Scotland, She is also the owner of El Fenn a luxurious hotel in the heart of Marrakech, a trustee of the British Moroccan Society and a trustee for the Virgin Unite, a charitable arm of Virgin. If you’ve not guessed it yet, she is also the sister of the Infamous Richard Branson.

Show notes: https://www.ikonns.com/podcast/episode26

In this episode Alex and Mimi have a long overdue talk about Mimi’s book The  Bingo Theory. In this in depth conversation you’ll learn everything you ever wanted to know about the amazing and life changing power that is masculine and feminine polarity.

There is a common misconception when we talk about men and women. Growing up, girls play with dolls and boys play with cars, boys wear blue and girls wear pink. Then we get to our teenage years and feel confronted with an identification crisis.

As a guy, am I masculine enough?

As girl, am I feminine enough?

As we get into our teens and find sexuality this confusion goes into overdrive, Girls start playing hard to get, hoping that the guys persistence might show real character. Guys go to the gym and pump muscles in hopes they can out matcho the next guy and get the girl. Games, back and forth the courtship goes, like a scene from a David Attenborough wildlife documentary.

By the time you’ve hit your mid 20’s, you’re still stuck with the same kind of partner that you’ve always found yourself with. You’re stuck in the wrong type of relationship that always makes you unhappy. This is because you need to learn about Bingo Theory!

Mimi first got the idea while chatting to friends who all thought Alex was a great partner and wanted their very own Alex of their own. Mimi instinctively knew this wouldn’t be a perfect match for them either, and decided to look into why and what makes the 2 Ikonns such a great fit. The answer is they both compliment each other and fill areas, character traits and behaviours that one or the other might be lacking. Like a Ying Yang.

Men are often thought of as having masculine energy and women more feminine. What Bingo theory explores is a revolutionary idea that this old myth doesn’t have to be true. In truth both sexs have both; men carry some female energy and women carry some masculine energy. The trick is firstly finding your own balance that works for you and then finding a counterpart energy in a partner. Someone that carries the exact opposite.

Masculine energy being; logic driven, math orientated, grounded, sceptical, decisive.

Feminine energy; emotionally driven, caring, creative, artistic, intuitive, stress free.

You’ve heard it on the show countless times, Authenticity is the key. You have to find your place on this polarity scale if you ever expect the world to see your true authenticity. Finding the RIGHT partner should be easy once you have found consciousness in this area of yourself.  

Here’s what we get into on today’s show:

• There are 4 types of polarity & energy types, not only 2
• Everyone, both male and female have both masculine and feminine behaviours.
• Stop thinking why am i not enough, start realising it’s fine to be who you truly are
• Finding balancing, and knowing when to push more into the opposite polarity
• When you surround yourself with people of the same energy, the more it is amplified.
• Too much of the same energy makes you not empathetic and none understanding of others.
• How this works in friendships and workplaces
• How to tell which polarity is someone’s dominant energy
• Beware that too much relying on your dominant energy is not a good thing.

Show notes: https://www.ikonns.com/podcast/episode25

Have you wondered on how we plan and book our travel? Find amazing places to stay around the world? In this episode, we reveal our secrets on how we do this.

In this episode we share 10+ years of their travel lifestyle and give you insights from their very best curated experiences.

We all know that feeling of getting off a plane for the first time, arriving at our destination, being so hungry and tired, we literally blow a bunch of our trips budget in a tourist trap restaurant in the cities main square, just to fuel our desperation.

The No.1 tip any traveller should hold to, is prior planning. Alex researches the heck out of every detail before he even book the flights. Infact, the flights aren’t the first thing he looks for.

It’s essential to find the right place in the right location, that is at the heart of your interests.

Are you looking for a beach holiday, a city break or something in nature. All of these options come with their own unique requirements, and planning is the only way to maximise your experience whatever your interests are.

“Travel is the way to self discovery, each time you do it, you know more about what you like, what suits you and what your tastes are” - Alex Ikonn [11:00]

Alex and Mimi share all the tools and secrets they use to make every trip like a dream experience. And you can do it too.

You’ll hear this and much more:

• How exploring your own city for new experiences that you didn’t know were there, can be just as fun, rewarding and cheaper than travel
• Why you should set your expectations before you go? Be realistic.
• Budget Vs Luxury, when is it time to drop the lower quality option?
• From maps to flights, hotels and restaurants, Google should be your first choice tool for travel.
• Get a clear idea of the location before you choose by pinning your findings to Maps and Pinterest
• Visualise your surroundings in advance with street view.
• Prepackaged vacations are fine if you want a lazy, no pressure vacation, but they don’t maximise your possibilities.
• How staying with a host can be much more rewarding than getting your own place
• It can be cheaper than an hotel if you split the cost and rent a villa
• Find the worst reviews, don’t only read the good ones. Check if there is going to be issues you don’t want to deal with
• Never trust Trip Advisor, find your own curated referrals. Blogs are your friend.
• Use a business account to collect fly points
• Price matching and cross check every option
• Check airlines directly, some of the cheapest flights aren’t on comparison sites, same with hotels
• The last minute myth.

Where to stay tools:

Airbnb.com

Onefinestay.com

Plumguide.com

Homeaway.com

Booking.com

Vrbo.com/

Homestay.com

Couchsurfing.com

Our top 3 Luxury curated stays:

Tablethotels.com

Mrandmrssmith.com

Designhotels.com

Flight finder tools:

Google.com/flights

Kayak.com

Expedia.com

Flightfox.com

Hipmunk.com

Skyscanner.net

Azair.com

After 8 years of receiving employment applications throughout all of Alex and Mimi’s businesses, by far the most common unattractive trait that fails most applicants is ENTITLEMENT.

“The fact of having a right to something. The amount to which a person has a right. The belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.” - Dictionary

It seems like it’s becoming more and more common these days, it’s certainly known as being a millennial thing...and even more known as a generation Z thing. Maybe it’s the glitz and glamour portrayed so easily and available on social media, maybe we’ve been told too many times in the self-help community that we DESERVE it and maybe our parents fostered that ideal from an early age a little too much.

Well, we explore what entitlement means to us and why it turns us off when we see it in people.

“Instead of talking about how amazing you are - nobody cares about that, talk about what you’re going to bring to the table, how are you going to take the position to the next level and be specific” - Mimi Ikonn [14:05]

So why do some people deserve special treatment? We certainly see it a lot living in London. We are on the doorstep of royalty, people with born privilege and born into wealth. There is certainly a lot of aristocracy with quite important titles that can be highly demanding and ooze entitlement, it can be sad to see especially when they value themselves higher without putting in the real work to really deserve it.

Actions speak louder than words, if you want to known for something, first you have to do the work. - Mimi Ikonn [33:40]

Alex shares about working in a company, where at the time he felt he deserved an equity share. His over entitlement led to him losing that opportunity, had he just played the long game and continued giving instead of asking, he may have very well earned it eventually. But faith and trust was displaced through that entitlement issue.

We also get into:

• How social media acts like a portal to someone else’s reality
• Believing anything is possible comes with very strict guidelines
• Realising the hard work instead discussing the vacation time
• Being humbled by your beliefs rather than being demanding
• How being mindful and hard working and having gratitude, are the cure
• Avoiding bragging and learn from others

“Dreamers who don’t work hard and hard workers who don’t dream don’t get anything in life, but dreamers who have both, with faith can do anything they set their minds to” - Unknown

Show notes: https://www.ikonns.com/podcast/episode23