Fuel up — Before you connect with other people, make sure your heart and soul aren’t empty. Allow yourself to be filled with love, joy and peace as well so you can wholeheartedly share them with others. You can not share what you don’t have. Don’t just give without receiving affection from others, you’ll be dry and empty in no time. Bless and let others bless you too so you’ll be more inspired

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Daisy Jing. Daisy founded and bootstrapped a now multi-million beauty product line called Banish. She started her business from just her laptop! She had bad acne and tried everything to help clear it up. She tried hundreds of different beauty products and decided to review beauty products to help others suffering with the same problem. In turn, she developed a following of over 70M views on YouTube and became a trusted source of information in the realm of skin problems. Afterwards, she launched her natural skin care line focused on combating skin blemishes. Her business is now ranked #152nd fastest growing company in INC 500 and she was also included in Forbes 30 under 30. Now they are a team of men and women, inspiring confidence in others.

Thank you so much for doing this with us Daisy! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?

I realized that many current skincare ingredients, such as fragrances or fillers, break out my skin, so I created my own skincare products in my kitchen. I documented my struggle on my YouTube channel, which now garners over 70M views. Eventually, my followers saw great results on my skin and encouraged me to launch my own business. Now we are a diverse team focused on inspiring confidence in others. Together with the Banish Warriors and Soldiers, we are here to join you in your skin journey.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Up to now, I still can’t believe that people recognize the product and our brand. I am so happy that more people all over the world are now using our products and also inspired by our brand.

Can you share a story about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or take away you learned from that?

There was a fraudulent charge from my bank and the phone operator happened to know me and asked, “Are you Daisy who does the beauty videos and owns Banish?” This person sees my charges and stuff and that embarrassed me at some point. That’s why everyday, we have to be careful about everything we do because we have no idea how big our impact is on people

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

We recently launched the Banish Acne Diaries, they are actual customers who share their stories based on their skin status and how confident they are now. I am so happy and proud to use my brand and voice to represent our customers — they are people next door who are going through their own struggles and empower other people by sharing their inspiring story. We at Banish do our best to be the voice of those who are unheard and together we build each other’s confidence,

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

I had an opportunity to have a TedxTalk about “A TRAGEDY CALLED PERFECTION.” I suffered with my skin and I don’t like my appearance. I always thought I’m ugly and look less than the others. I was very depressed and lonely and since I never grew up with tons of friends or family around me, I came up with my YouTube channel and “accidentally” built a community of people who have skin issues and self-doubt. These people reached out to me because just like me, they are also lonely and need someone to make them feel that they’re not alone.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. According to this story in Forbes, loneliness is becoming an increasing health threat not just in the US , but across the world. Can you articulate for our readers 3 reasons why being lonely and isolated can harm one’s health?

• When you’re always alone, you tend to feel helpless and hopeless; but once you connect to other people, their help and glimpse of hope make you realize that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Hope gives you reasons to be healthy and live happier another day
• Self-isolation gives you a feeling of despair since you share your own negative vibe by yourself. To connect with others give you an opportunity to catch their happy vibe and aura, making you happier each day, changing your perspective and outlook in life
• Loneliness is the hardest and longest way to die. It takes so much time for you to die but it will definitely (slowly) take a toll on your health. Loneliness will bring you stress — stress may cause obesity, hyperacidity, cancer, diabetes, heart problems that will eventually lead to death. Stress can also lead to unhealthy habits that have a negative impact on our health. We tend to eat too much, smoke, cry often and even hurt ourselves because of too much loneliness. These unhealthy habits damage the body and create bigger problems in the long run. Bottom line, loneliness gives us less self-fulfillment and more reasons to give up on life.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

In other parts of Europe and Japan, there are older people in their population, dying without their community noticing and knowing because the elders are alone. Because of self-isolation, the elders usually die alone, people have looser family ties, people don’t want to have kids or create a family anymore which further makes the loneliness epidemic worse. In Japan, a lot of people normalize self-isolation and they call it hikikomori. These people spend most of their time watching TV, reading, playing video games, or surfing the internet. Many of them choose to stay up all night and sleep during the day and never interact with the outside world. All these trends are changing society and harming people’s mental and physical health. People use these reasons to be more alone and lonely without thinking that connecting with others is the first step to be free from that mentality.

The irony of having a loneliness epidemic is glaring. We are living in a time where more people are connected to each other than ever before in history. Our technology has the power to connect billions of people in one network, in a way that was never possible. Yet despite this, so many people are lonely. Why is this? Can you share 3 of the main reasons why we are facing a loneliness epidemic today? Please give a story or an example for each.

• We lack a deep connection with others due to lack of the ability to be vulnerable. We tend to spend more time having superficial talks, avoiding conversations that matter because we all think that we are all too busy to mind other people’s business or be someone’s mental baggage of the day. Our busyness caused us to be mentally unavailable to share or listen to a real conversation. We are lonely because our busyness caused us to stop having meaningful conversations to spend more time thinking how we can survive on our own
• We act (and pretend) that we are strong and that is why we never share our weaknesses and problems anymore. Instead, we carry them on our own and think that we’re all alone — leaving us more sad and depressed. Despite the long talks we have over coffee or social media, we rarely share our true side. We all act so happy and perfect because we don’t want to be a burden to others who are most likely sad as well. We don’t want to make others feel bad or awkward because everyone seems to be okay. We all think that life is just about sharing happy moments and we missed out on helping one another during their worst days. Stop highlighting what’s reel; share the most vulnerable side of your life instead
• Distractions are amongst us. The world offers us too many nice things that we can have though we are all alone (Netflix, shopping in all forms, adventure, nice career, travel, sex in many ways, games, food, technology, entertainment, etc). How easy is it to connect with someone FULLY? If those things are all in front of you, you are definitely happy; but once those are gone, immediate loneliness can be felt and then you feel empty again. It is so easy to stuff ourselves with temporary things then in a snap, we feel lonely ASAP. We can not buy or achieve happiness without love, peace, joy, and contentment — these things are usually shared with other people, not on your own.

Ok. it is not enough to talk about problems without offering possible solutions. In your experience, what are the 5 things each of us can do to help solve the Loneliness Epidemic? Please give a story or an example for each.

• Be sensitive and spend time listening. For 10 minutes, you can already have a big impact on someone by being sensitive enough to listen intently to what the person is trying to say. Have the discernment to know what to say, when to say it and how to say it. Not everyone is busy and not willing to share their story, there are some who are actually willing to communicate well but the real question is, “Are you ready to listen and do your part?” Don’t fail that test.
• If you are in social media, share vulnerable and relatable things, not perfect and unattainable stuff. People will easily connect with you and you will easily connect with others because they find strength and hope from your posts, making it more valuable.
• Call or visit a friend/family and have a good long conversation. Instead of texting or chatting, surprise someone by calling or visiting them. Spend a long time asking how they really are. Ask engaging questions, share your own story as well and make this person feel that this time is really dedicated for him.
• Block your time solely for your friends, family and loved ones. Block and schedule a specific date, time and place where you can be with them without any distractions and to be fully present with them. Divide them into a category to make sure that everyone’s getting the attention they need. For example, don’t meet with both your parents and in-laws if they’re not yet close. Spend time with them separately.
• Fuel up. Before you connect with other people, make sure your heart and soul aren’t empty. Allow yourself to be filled with love, joy and peace as well so you can wholeheartedly share them with others. You can not share what you don’t have. Don’t just give without receiving affection from others, you’ll be dry and empty in no time. Bless and let others bless you too so you’ll be more inspired

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

The Underdogs Movement — I support the underdogs because I consider myself as one as well. I root for other people and inspire others to be the best version of themselves. People don’t have to fit into what society tells them to do. Banish is doing that already and we empower others by sharing their real stories. Acne is something people don’t want to have because they see it as an imperfection. Through our own movement, we normalize acne and change people’s mindset about it — people don’t have to hide just because they’re not “flawless” as defined by the world. It’s not the way you look, it’s the way you feel about yourself that matters.

We are blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Oprah — she is real and empowering. She cuts to the chase and answers deadly questions bravely without batting an eyelash. The questions that people are usually avoiding are just easy for her to answer and that makes her relatable and leaves everyone more inspired through her story

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Website : https://www.banish.com

Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/user/daiserz89

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/banishbeauty

Instagram : https://instagram.com/daiserz89

Linkedin : https://il.linkedin.com/in/daisyjing

Twitter : https://twitter.com/banishacnescars

Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!

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Daisy Jing of Banish: “5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.