We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Niko Mungcal. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Niko below.

Niko, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

The story of the biggest risk I’ve taken starts at the peak of the pandemic, when I finally learned to trust myself. I was working as a Behavioral Therapist at the time and my hours were drastically cut in half due to the in person nature of my work. With more time spent in the comfort of my home, I had more opportunities to dive introspectively. At this point in my life I had been interested in Web Development and was familiar with a handful of success stories of other self taught programmers. I felt the opportunity to test if I was capable of pursuing this path just presented itself to me. I just had to trust myself.

With all this new time I had available, I created a daily plan where I set time aside for both learning to program as well as pursuing a hobby passion of mine, jewelry making. I adopted a mindset of pursuing daily growth, even if it was only 1% better than yesterday. My goal was to find balance in my life, a skill that I can challenge my problem solving skills and a skill that will challenge my creativity. From the summer of 2020 to the summer of 2021, my life consisted of coding, making jewelry, and sleep. Rinse and repeat.

Back to the risk part. Now I wasn’t making ANY money during this time and my parents were growing worried. And their worry made me worry. But I had to trust myself that these two passions of mine were eventually going to pay off.

Fast forward to the present and to find myself with continued work in web development and opportunities such as this interview that are brought to me via my passion for jewelry. Since making this shift, I’ve cofounded my software company JukePicks and have started building out my website for my jewelry so that I can operate fully online. I can’t help but to be grateful for the person I chose to be during the time of the pandemic. When the world paused, he showed up for me.

Niko, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

So as this interview came through my jewelry channel, I’ll focus on that here.

I am a jewelry artist and make handmade rings and pendants from wire, also known as wire wrapping. I use semi precious stones as my centerpieces and wrap them in silver and gold wire.

I originally got into the craft from seeing other wire wrappers on Instagram, though it was rare for me to come across pieces that weren’t statement pieces. I wanted to bring something minimal and masculine as my goal was to be able to wear these pieces daily.

Two pieces I am most proud of are a golden moon/sun pendant and a silver engagement ring. A client had a moon pendant that held their grandmother’s ashes and had me wrap a gold sun into it. The engagement ring was a replacement ring that the client had requested to look like their original ring, using my style of wrapping.

I feel I have found my voice in wire wrapping by the minimal details and will continue to develop this style as I dive deeper into this passion!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I think the story about my journey through the pandemic is a good representation of my resilience. I felt I was up against my family, society, and even myself at times for choosing this path but intuitively, I knew I had to keep going if I wanted to bring results.

Sometimes you need to be your biggest fan and believe in yourself before anyone else shows that same level of support.

Have you ever had to pivot?

This turning point during the pandemic seems to be a common theme for all my responses but in my most recent years, it truly was a defining point in my life.

I had gone to school at UC Davis and graduated with a BS in Biopsychology. Initially, my plans were to get into Med School (cliche) and study to be a Clinical Psychologist. However, the thought of the financial burden of Med School was growing intimidating and the voice for pursuing web development was shouting louder.

Eventually, as you have read by now, I caved. But I told myself to only pursue it on one condition: I treat it was if I had gotten into school and take equally as seriously.

Contact Info:

• Website: bentmade.co
• Instagram: instagram.com/bentmadejewelry
• Other: jukepicks.com