Champion Story 12 | Russell Korus
Recorded on December 11, 2018
Biography: Russell Korus is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of EZ365, a revolutionary digital ecosystem comprising three distinctive platforms. He brings his vision of cryptocurrency to the masses in an easy and secure way. Russell is also an angel investor who focuses on investing in start-up incubations for new tech ventures.
While his career began in the financial services and insurance industries, Russell switched careers to begin building e-commerce platforms in a Java environment. After several years of development work, Russell moved into Sales Engineering, eventually running the Sales Engineering Departments at several prominent technology firms.
Russell holds a Bachelor of Laws - LLB Field Of Study Law from the University of Wolverhampton and a Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy from Queen's University.
I've studied psychology; that's my background. One of the things you realize is that you just can't cope with everything at the same time. When I was younger, struggling with mental health, I didn't have any tools around my emotions.
After that experience, I went and I started exploring meditation. It's been very powerful for me. I bring this up because I know you’re into mindfulness as well.
You have to try yoga then because that's all yoga is -- it is moving meditation and it's all about the breath. It's coordinating movement with your breath and the breath puts you in a relaxed meditative state. It is incredible. I'm going to take you to a class, it's nearby. We'll coordinate.
And then, the next thing is they have unheated, reduced heat and full heat. I love heated classes, but for some people the heat is a little overwhelming, especially at the beginning, so it's really nice because you can work your way up. You can have unheated, and then you can try reduced heat which is 28 degrees, and then the full heat is about 35/36 degrees. It will change your life. I'm sure you'll fall in love with it, I just have that feeling.
Yes. Connection with the body is so important. With yoga, many people mistakenly think that it’s just for stretching. As founders, we can be very in our heads, which causes us to burnout and disconnect from our emotions.
How has yoga impacted you as a founder and as a human being?
I've had experiences in yoga where sometimes we'll just work on our feet or shins or whatever. There’s certain areas where there's a lot of emotional stress that's usually trapped and it's released. I get a sensation that I want to smile and cry at the same time. It's literally a release of all that tension, all that stress. I mean, if I go three days without yoga I start becoming affected, physiologically. I have no energy, I lose my appetite, my mood goes down. It's a real dependency because of how amazing it makes me feel. The physical benefits are profound but the mental benefits are even more so.
Every class I leave with a feeling of appreciation, gratitude and a sense of perspective on what's important in life. Even when I’m getting ready. I'll be at home an hour before and I start packing up my stuff, my body already knows what's coming and notices. I get into this relaxed state. It's amazing. I will be folding my towel, rolling up my mat and already I'm effectively practicing yoga. I'm already in that meditative state. It's just incredible and for that alone, that feeling of peace and serenity... I would be in a really bad state without that, from a mental standpoint.
Honestly, I feel like my yoga practice, and the meditation that comes along with that, is what allowed me to stay off pharmaceuticals. Especially right after dad died. That happened in November. We started the project in January. By February we were already in full 18 hour a day work mode and everything was somewhat overwhelming. There were times where it was really really tough. There were days where I would wake up and I just could not get out of bed. I would make up excuses. We were in start-up mode, so we were all working from home. I would just say I had a migraine. I would say whatever. I couldn't even bring myself to get out of bed, it was like that. I considered going on pharmaceuticals. I mean, I have.
I'm very hesitant. I'm aware of the toxicity and the addictiveness but they do serve a purpose, at least for the short term. As a way to get to a place where you don't need them anymore. They are a legitimate alternative, but I personally didn't want to go that way and I think if it wasn't for yoga, for sure I would've needed them.
The best way I can describe it is that the zen ideal of living in the moment, which is virtually impossible for most people, because you're sitting here thinking about what you did yesterday and you're thinking about what you need to do tomorrow and you're never in the moment. You're never actually experiencing life. And that's what yoga does.
You go into that room and the door closes and for one hour you're listening to the instructor. You're going through this intense workout from a physical standpoint, especially in the hot yoga, so there's no room for outside thoughts. If you don't focus on some thought for one hour, you are in the moment. There are no thoughts of yesterday, no thoughts of tomorrow. It's that meditative state that you are in for an hour. You leave, and the effects stay with you for the rest of the day.
I love to practice in the morning, although these days I don't get much chance to do so, because the effects are lasting. When I practice in the evening, I go home and I have a nice sleep. That's also good. It's incredible.
When do you get the chance to just be with yourself and what you're feeling?
For sure. It also ties into the whole idea of being alone but also being content and feeling satisfied, which is weird. If you have the bare necessities -- if you can put food on your table and feed your children, if you have a roof over your head, if you can put clothes on -- you should be happy, you should be content. You should spend your free time with your family, with the people that you love doing things you enjoy, instead of spending every spare second trying to get ahead.
The problem is, as we see here, chasing material wealth is a never ending cycle. Because there's always somebody who's got more money. There's always a bigger house. There's always a nicer car. So, if that's your mentality, you'll never reach the finish line.
In fact, if you think of somebody like, “I'm happy with where I am, I don't need to get ahead,” it's like a negative here. It's like, “What's the matter, you are lazy, you have no ambition, you have no drive.” It’s seen as a negative. That's a fundamental shift. I don't know how it can ever come about here. It would take a cultural paradigm shift.
But a big part of this whole problem with burnout is that no one is ever satisfied here. No one ever reaches a point where they're saying “You know what, I'm really happy with my life. I have enough and I don't need more. As long as I maintain this level, I'm going to be perfectly satisfied and content and happy.” It's a completely foreign way of thinking here and that's a big problem.
What creates that perspective in your life? I know we spoke to yoga, but I have also found you to be very grounded.
I think yoga has really helped me keep that perspective in the forefront of my mind. I would say my family, my kids primarily. My older one is 17, so he's now off to university. My younger one is 14 and he's right at that level where he's a teenager and independent and in high school, but he still has some semblance of being a little kid. In the morning, I'll go into his room and I'll still snuggle him to wake him up.
It's those moments that are absolutely precious. That's really every day that I'm consciously aware of the incredible gifts that I have. My family, my health, and that's the thing.
I kind of came up with this theory. If you could look into somebody's mind, the average person, and what they stress about, from a day-to-day perspective: 50% are things they have no control over, like the weather; another 49% are probably things that are, in the grand scheme of things, irrelevant and really minor; and 1%, your family, your health. There are things that you genuinely need to be thinking about and focused on. You can't just live in the clouds and sail through life. There are important things. But, if you're only worried about that 1% and forget about the other 99, it frees up a lot of time to enjoy life, to be happy and to appreciate the things that you have.
People get overwhelmed, especially in this society, and that's the thing… that's what was so profound about traveling to India and seeing the trials. All the negatives that we have here, they have even more so, and yet people understand. They are able to keep that perspective, even in personal situations that people here would find pretty difficult to deal with.
That is very touching. Thank you for sharing. Wow, my god. Being consciously aware, sharing the moments that you have with your family... The first thing that came up for me was gratitude.
When I'm there, and I go in, and he's sleeping, and I crawl in, and I gently wake him up, and I lie there for two to three minutes, and there are no outside thoughts. I am just there besides him. Just sharing energy and just being so grateful for every second that I'm there with him.
I'm not thinking about what's going to happen today, what's happening. It's just I'm so present in those moments and it's profound the effects that it has.
In those times when you're feeling otherwise, like stressed rather than present, what's your one thing in terms of getting you back up?
It's really tough. There are times where it is just about taking a little bit of time. Sometimes unconscious meditation. And again, trying to consciously think about the things in your life that you're grateful for.
We live in a society, our quality of life, we're in a tiny minority of the world's population. The way most of the people of the world live… people here aren't aware of that. And if you understand that the day-to-day problems that we're dealing with, the majority of the world would do anything to have our problems. Sometimes the negative emotions do get overwhelming and it's difficult to keep that perspective.
But for me, it's really my kids and my family. That's really what grounds me.When I find myself falling down into a hole, then that's typically what will help me climb out. Sometimes it takes time, and it sometimes takes a couple of yoga classes or some meditation to do it. But that's what I felt is my lifeline.
Amazing. There's something we don't speak about enough in the tech industry. There's something really healing, especially for people who don't have kids, about connection. Just in general, really authentic or deep connection with...
With just any other human being. Because that's the thing, people.
That's the problem with social media. We've never been more connected and we've never been more isolated and lonely. And that's the thing, there's not that genuine human connection. So, we start to feel isolated. Even connecting with one other person, and all of a sudden now you are not alone.
You are part of the community. That sense of community is the popularity of religion throughout our human history, I think. It is just having that sense of community, more than anything else. It's very important. And people just… they go through life and they have work relationships, personal relationships... they're all superficial, none of them have any deep meaning.
A hope that I have for the tech industry is how we can build that connection within our own industry. I've been so blessed as well. My family is really incredible, and they've been there for me through the hardest of times.
I hope we can bring this kind of connection to the tech industry. For example, I absolutely loved the conversations that we've had, and for the text messages you've sent to me. I've told this to you before, but they were so heartfelt and it meant a lot.
That first message, I really hesitated for a while. I finally decided, you never know. We'd never spoken before and it was like some stranger reaching out to you. It's very personal, so it's a little weird and uncomfortable. I wasn't sure about that. I'm glad I went with my instincts and ended up sending it though.
This was really great. I'm really happy we connected.
Thank you so much!
Thank you. It was so great to meet you.