We were lucky to catch up with Szilvia Gogh recently and have shared our conversation below.
Szilvia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.
As a Hollywood stunt woman, professional scuba instructor and jewelry designer, I have an exciting life. I get to work on movie sets with actors like Drew Barrymore, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and directors James Cameron, swim with sharks in remote reefs around the world, and I create jewelry with natural stones and crystals that I collect from my many travels.
Yet the activity that pulls at my heart strings the most is working with at-risk youth in Los Angeles…
Did you know that gangs start recruiting kids as young as 7 years old? Statistics show that as many as fifteen million children worldwide have no place to go after school. These children are more likely to be victims of crime or to participate in bad behavior.
The statistics are simply too sad to ignore, so as a jewelry designer and company owner, I have now focused my energies to help those “at risk” youth of the inner-city neighborhoods. I am getting help through a fantastic non-profit called A Chance for Children Foundation. Together we have been able to help these children overcome their fears and insecurities. Doing something kind for them fills me with an inner joy that money cannot buy.
Our favorite projects include bringing beads to shelters and schools around Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Christmas. This provides an opportunity for the kids to craft presents for their loved ones for free!
As a scuba diver, my friends and I have also had the opportunity to introduce dozens of kids to the underwater world and share our love for oceans.
We also talk with them about our lives, telling them stories of our amazing adventures and reinforcing the philosophy evoked by Winston Churchill’s famous words “Never, never, never give up!” A while ago, inspired by this program, I created several necklaces around that inspiration.
If you are feeling a pulled to do something that helps the less fortunate, think of how your passion, talent or hobby could create a new experience for others. The mind is a powerful tool. Believe in something and it will happen.
My mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ptrJO-2sX8&t=7s
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi, I’m Szilvia Gogh, founder of Gogh Jewelry Design. I’m a SCUBA diver, stuntwoman, yogi, cancer survivor and mom. I started my jewelry design business 20 years ago because I love beautiful things, but as an active woman, I couldn’t find any silver jewelry that was both meaningful and functional – so I started creating jewelry myself. I wanted to wear jewelry that reflects my passion for the ocean, my love for travel and jewelry that inspires and keeps my positive outlook on life.
My source desire is to to be happy in my own skin and help others find long lasting happiness too.
My friends and family were always skeptical when I shared my visions and dreams about traveling the world and making a living of my passions: scuba diving and creating jewelry. I didn’t want to end up like most people around me. They also had amazing dreams and visions, but ended up living in “reality.”
I did not want my potentials and opportunities pass me by. My source desire is to be happy in my own skin. I believe that living out our dreams is the key to long lasting happiness. And at the end of the day, we all want to live happy – even during a pandemic 😉
Since I started creating jewelry, people have been drawn to my pieces for the same reason I created them. Beauty and functionality is important, especially when I’m diving, doing yoga or playing with my son Enzo. Having my jewelry be able to keep up with me and stay in one piece is so important to me, and I’ve learned that it’s important to so many other people out there as well. Check out my jewelry and see how it could keep up with you!
Recently inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame, I was the youngest female in the world to become a PADI Course Director ( scuba teacher’s trainer).
Empowerment through teaching people scuba diving and the jewelry I create – has always been important for me. It’s all about being confident in your own skin and not to yearn to be someone else, live somewhere else or look like somebody famous…
When I teach someone to breathe underwater and they experience the state of weightlessness, I open a door in their mind. After you scuba dive, you will never think the same way about Mother Nature and the possibilities in your life than before you swam underwater.
My individually crafted pieces are meant to reflect your journey through life and help you gain the confidence you deserve.
It’s a new world we live in, surrounded with uncertainty. It’s time to focus our intentions for the future. Many of my jewelry designs have mantras and words that have helped me focus my intentions. I use these mantras in my yoga practice or when I meditate. Setting intentions is not as easy as making resolutions. We all want to exercise more or eat healthily or save money more effectively. But setting intentions will help us achieve our goals and resolutions by focusing our energy on our innermost self. My goal is to stay positive.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Do you work to live or live to work?
I spent the first twenty years of my life in Europe , then backpacked the World for five and now I lived in America another twenty years.
I get asked so many times to compare life in Europe versus in America. In my experience the biggest difference is the quality of life. While in Europe we work to live in America I find so many people who live to work.
Growing up in Hungary I’ve got used to working (or going to school the early years) five days a week and enjoying the weekend. Our summer holidays were 2 1/2 months every year filled with programs.
The weekends and vacations were all about re-charging the batteries. I remember spending quality time with friends and family, visiting museums, theaters and soaking in one of our numerous natural hot baths.
I can honestly say that most people in America seem to me as they are workaholics.
Perhaps… it is just that life is so much more expensive in America?
My friends here (in the USA) tend to work 6-7 days a week and perhaps take two weeks of a year (if they even take their vacation time).
I have a friend in particular, who accumulated 100 vacation days (10 each year for the past ten years) and he is maxed out. So, even if he gets another 10 days this year, it can not be added to the max allowed (100) and he will never use them.
To me this seems crazy.
When I negotiate for jobs, my priority has been to include the option of time off. Even though I do not get paid when I do not work, living without a vacation to look forward to seems unbearably plain and like a rat race.
I know that we all need to make money in order to live in the civilized world. We have mortgages to pay, groceries, clothes, and gadgets to buy.
But, do we really need all that much stuff that we have accumulated?
My short answer is no. At least I don’t.
Living out of a backpack for many years thought me that investing in memories is way more precious treasure than knickknacks that just collect dust eventually.
A cheesy saying comes to my mind: Live your dreams, don’t dream your life!
Create the famous bucket list of that 50 things you want to do before you die!
Distill it down to a vision board and pick 5 realistic goals for the year!
Don’t overthink and overcomplicate it! Otherwise, you will never get started on it.
Let me give you five questions just to make it easy to create your own vision board for this year and get you off on the pursuit of your own happiness ;-)
What is a local place that you would like to go to this year? It can be a farmers market, a tea ceremony, a theater play or a museum visit…
What is one thing that you have never done before and you would like to try? Something that you are fascinated with… Maybe learn to play Backgammon, horseback archery, learn about energy healing crystals.
Pick one book that everybody’s talking about it and looks interesting to you. Get it in a paper version, so you can enjoy it with coffee, or in a hot bath or maybe even read it on the beach.
What far-away place is calling your name? A place where you really want to go and experience in person, not just through articles and documentaries that others captured. Go there, take your own photos and write your own story!
What it is that you would like to do for the true joy of it? It can not be a chore, nor a job, not doing it for others but really for yourself. Something that feels good doing!?
Now, don’t just dream about these things but make them your reality.
We are our worst enemy when it comes to prioritizing our happiness. We find excuses such as I don’t have money, I don’t have time… Or simply we just think that we are the only ones who can do our jobs perfect, maybe even being afraid that we are replaced by the time we come back from vacation…
I have a theory ;-) unless you are a brain surgent, your job and chores can wait.
Take a break from your reality and responsibilities to recharge your batteries!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I did not choose to have breast cancer. But then again, nobody does.
I eat organic. I exercise every day. I teach scuba diving for a living and have a relatively stress free life. Why me?
However, I am choosing how I go through the journey.
2016 was a horrible year. My grandmother died of old age. My mother died of breast cancer. My first cousin died of breast cancer at age 39. Then my diagnosis.
I was 39.
Maybe it comes from spending most of my life underwater, but I choose to look at the bright side of things. My grandma was 97. She had a beautiful life. My mom was 67. She saw my sister and I grow up. She was with me when my son was born four years ago. And she was gifted with a granddaughter from my sister just before she passed away.
Fortunately the doctors detected my cancer early.
I didn’t feel any signs, like a lump. The only reason went for a mammogram was because when my mother was diagnosed the previous year, I was told to get checked. That year it was all good. The following, after my routine check-up, they called me back for an ultrasound.
The biopsy was the day before I flew to my hometown of Budapest, to see my mother one last time. She was loosing her battle with cancer. In one year it had spread to her lymph nodes, her liver and pretty much her entire body, despite all the treatments the doctors tried.
I called my doctor for my biopsy results as soon as we landed. She had promised to give them to me on the phone, despite the fact that this is not how they normally do things. But given my circumstances she made an exception.
On that phone call, thousands of miles away from the American home, family and community that I had built over the past 10 years, I learned that I had breast cancer.
After the initial shock, I needed to come up with a game plan. First, I had to fly back to Los Angeles and meet my doctors. My experience with my mother and cousin had taught me that time is of the essence.
As soon as I was back in L.A., I headed to meet my oncologist. He had bad news and good news. “I already know I have cancer, so give me the good news,” I said. Luckily, my cancer would respond to hormone therapy, unlike my mother’s. And it was stage one.
I decided on a double mastectomy.
Chemotherapy was not fun at all. One of the things that hit me hardest during this whole journey was the losing of my hair. I decided to be bold and be bald because you can’t really scuba dive in a wig. Most importantly however, I did not want to pretend that everything was “normal.”
Over the next few months I had good days and bad days. At first, when I was quite weak, the closest I could get to the ocean was short walks at the beach. Just listening to the sounds of the waves was healing. When I felt better, between treatments, I went swimming.
As I got stronger, I yearned for scuba diving. I just wanted to breathe underwater and hover weightless, watching the simple life of sea creatures. Scuba diving is my Shangri-La, my happy place, my passion.
I was 13 years old when I started competing in a sport called “orienteering diving,” which takes place in lakes with almost no visibility. The sport was sponsored by the Hungarian military, and the object is to find pre-determined destinations using a compass, map and a distance accounting device. I trained five times a week and spent every weekend and summer camping by the lakes and rivers of Hungary. I logged more than 500 dives before I ever saw the sea.
Hungary was a communist country, and we were not allowed to travel anywhere except to Mother Russia, so I never saw the ocean as a child. After the Berlin Wall fell, our dive club went to Corfu, in Greece. That was the first time I touched salt water.
We dropped down into a breathtaking crystal-clear bay and swam with sharks, turtles and octopus. When I surfaced, I knew that I wanted to be a dive instructor. I decided then that I would live in a place where there are palm trees, sunshine and an ocean to dive in – and no winter.
Most people considered scuba diving as a hobby. My friends and family were skeptical when I told them I was going to make a living doing what I loved. Every time they told me that I couldn’t do it, I just looked into their eyes and said, “You just watch me.”
Having cancer only reinforced my belief that life is too short to listen to people telling you what you cannot or should not do.
A week after my last chemo I organized a trip to Catalina island to celebrate PADI Women’s Dive Day with 20 other female divers. After spending the day in the kelp forest, we talked about our favorite experiences underwater, and how the sport empowered us. They had so many questions about my experience. It was my first step in leading by example – reminding other women that if I can survive and thrive, they can, too.
I feel like a phoenix, that mythical sacred firebird who regenerates when hurt. After two years of treatments and surgeries I am my old self.
While I do have to take pills my doctor prescribes for another couple of years to minimize the chance of cancer reoccurring, the medicine that worked best for me was the ocean.
Living in a technology driven fast paced world, I find the quiet moments in the ocean healing my soul one breath at a time. As time passes and my breath slows down, my muscles relax, slowing my body and my thoughts. Underwater I always seem to achieve that meditative state of mind where I can clear my brain from disruptive thoughts and just be in that very moment.
Underwater is the only place in the world outside of space, where I can experience weightlessness and the freedom to move in any direction I choose. This feeling is empowering and reinforces that we are all in charge of our lives and can choose from many course to follow.
Emerging, I am recharged and reborn.
I could feel sorry for myself, and my family, for what we had to go through.
But I choose to feel grateful for this gift of healing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://goghjewelrydesign.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goghjewelrydesign/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoghJewelryDesign
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/szilvia-gogh-a9767b5/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEYAydIfejg8wSfsLWqsnw
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/goghjewelry/