June 26, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of the SCORRCAST, Esther Howard, founder of Bezyl, shares how her personal journey, including escaping a cult inspired her mission to transform mental health support. Bezyl offers a validated toolbox of customizable resources that fill the gap between therapy and unmet needs. We discuss the challenges of building scalable mental health solutions, including the lack of payer models and the need to reduce stigma through education. Esther’s story is a compelling look at the power of peer support and human connection.
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(00:00):
Hello everyone, and welcome backto another episode of the SCORR
(00:13):
cast. I am so excited fortoday's episode. I am your host,
Alec McChesney, and we have aguest that I am really excited
about and a topic that I amreally excited about, where we
are going to dive into a reallyimportant and essential area
within not only the lifesciences, but just being a human
(00:36):
being. In 2025 we're going totalk a little bit about mental
health. We're going to talkabout how innovation is helping
bridge the gap in support from aclinical trial landscape. But
we're also going to talk about areally unique, individual and
unique company in Esther Howardand bezel and Esther. This is
something that I have beenreally excited about, because
(00:56):
you and I first connected maybetwo three years ago now, when
bezel was kind of getting itsits grounding and starting to
run. And I mentioned before wewe even started recording, that
it feels like there's somethingnew happening for for you in the
organization on a day to daybasis and a week to week basis.
And so before I even startrunning and asking you questions
(01:21):
and doing a full introduction.
I'd love for you to kind ofintroduce yourself and introduce
the organization for those whoare not familiar, because I
think everybody should befamiliar with the work that you
are doing, and by the end ofthis episode, I hope we have a
lot more awareness andrecognition of the impact that
you guys are creating. Tooamazing. Thanks. It's nice to be
(01:43):
here and see you again. It hasbeen, you've been part of my
journey, actually, from thestart. So this is, this is an
exciting moment for me as well.
Thank you. So yeah, my name isEsther Howard. I'm originally
from Canada. I now live in theUnited States, in Phoenix,
Arizona. My background. For thelast 20 plus years, I've worked
(02:03):
in the clinical researchindustry, so that's kind of how
I know SCORR Marketing is frompast relationships, and even
before that, I actually workedin in research too. I lived in
Beersheba, Israel for a coupleyears back in the late 90s, and
I did research in healtheconomics of developing
(02:25):
countries there. Worked for anincredible economist. He was a
doctor and professor in Beckerand university. And then my
career has just sort of takenoff from there. And then about
five years ago I had the ideafor bezel. It came from a very
personal story and relationshipthat I had, and it's funny
(02:48):
because I was literally justtelling someone two days ago
that, or maybe it was evenyesterday that had I predicted
where bezel would be today fiveyears ago, when I started,
there's no way I would have hadthat that prediction like it's
it's an amazing that the core ofwhat we started with five years
ago did not change, but the whathas evolved significantly, and
(03:14):
I'm excited to talk about it. Wereally have built an incredible
platform to help people, helpeach other, ultimately, and
improve their mental health. Andthat's, that's where we're
going.
I love it, and I love just thesimplification of help people
help each other. And, you know,I think that when when I first
heard about your organization,and you kind of shared the
(03:36):
personal story of it, I remembersitting in this office here in
Omaha, like ready to run througha brick wall, because you get to
see the impact that can be made,the stories that can be shared
and and just the importance, andthen, at the same time, kind of
the lack of a solution in themarketplace right now for for
(03:59):
what you're trying to solve. AndI do want to get into that
personal story, but at the sametime, before we get into some of
that background, I would love totalk a little bit about the
genesis and just the mission ofbezel. And I think, you know,
ahead of time, I went throughand I was going through your
LinkedIn, and you get to seesome of the stories on there at
(04:22):
the individual level. But Ithink hearing it directly from
you on the on what the missionis and what we're really trying
to solve will set the table forthe personal story and some of
the other impact that's going tobe made by the organization.
Too.
Amazing, yes. So starting withthe mission, mission first,
right? Yeah, so we'reultimately, there's a massive
(04:44):
gap in the world that we are allaware of where we have people
that are struggling with theirmental health and with their
mental wellness, with justeveryday day life stressors that
are coming at them and makinglife hard. You. And, and that's
not new in the world, but it isunique to this generation and to
(05:05):
this era that we are all livingin. And, and there's, there's
just like this massive gap inthe support that people can get
to be able to get the help theyneed to move on and have
productive and and thrivinglives, and that gap really sits
between the need and therapy,which is the standard of care
(05:27):
for for mental health. Andpeople generally seek therapy
when they're struggling withtheir mental health. But we
don't have enough therapists inthe world and and we aren't
going to the gap is widening.
This is, this is, like the dataon this is, is staggering, and
it's just just continues to getworse. But buzz bezel was really
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founded on the mission to beable to help people help each
other, so that we can fill thatgap. And what that means is that
I have needs, and I need tolearn how to ask for help and
let my friends and family knowwhat those needs are. And then,
on the flip side of the coin, myfriends and family and the
people that love me need to beempowered to help me in in
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return. Sometimes, you know theyou can ask for help from
someone, but if they don'treally know how to help, it's
it's almost kind of likecreating this. It's not a
tension, but it's a fear, andit's this like unproductive
moment in that in thattransaction of being able to
help each other. So bezelsmission is to empower people to
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help each other so that we canimprove the mental health and
wellness of the world and fillthat gap between the lack of
therapy that does exist, whichis really helpful, but not
there's not enough of it, andand all of the people that that
need help. Yeah,I love this so much. And I
promised right before we hitrecord that we had an outline.
(06:55):
And there's a chance that I'mgoing to go away from the
outline right out of the gate,and I think I'm going to do it
right here. I always joke thatas the as the podcast host, I
get to ask one bad question eachepisode. And I think that right
out of the gate, I'm going to dothis you mentioned, you know,
five years ago, if you wouldhave told yourself that this is
where bezel is. I mean, justthink about the five years that
(07:16):
we've had right and and theCOVID 19 pandemic, and the back
to work, and now, you knowwhatever is going on in 2025 and
very currently, I spent lastnight and this morning basically
glued to a TV or a phone lookingat what's happening in Los
Angeles and just The impact onthe day to day. I mean, how how
(07:42):
does, how does what's happeningin today's environment spark
some of these conversations?
Like you said, this isn't aproblem that's new, but it's a
problem that people are havingmore and more conversation about
the workforce is talking aboutit more. It feels more relevant
that, like every day there'salmost a new national or global
(08:04):
disaster that we are discussing.
And then you could take that atthe global level and bring it
all the way down at theindividual level too. And I love
on your website. You know,finding the right help is
finally easy as some of thatcommentary. So I don't even have
a good question here. I, youknow, I just that that the
importance of this work and andthe timing of it, how could you,
(08:28):
you know, how has, how has thethought process around the
organization and the missionevolved because of how chaotic
the last five years have been,if that, if that makes sense.
Esther at all, yeah,yeah. It makes complete sense.
Actually, it's something Iponder every day. Well, it was,
it was actually pre COVID Thatthat I launched the idea for
(08:49):
this company. I didn't know howto build a company yet, and so I
had a lot of learning to dobefore I could formally launch
it. But it was pre COVID that westarted and and the reason that
we started was because one ofmy, my really good friends, died
of of cancer and and I had beenworking in oncology for many
(09:10):
years, and when she told me herstory before she died, and it
gave me the idea of her bezel,and I really felt drawn to to
launch this, this, this solutionfor what she had described. It
was really to help cancerpatients and their families, and
then it evolved into firstresponders, and then it evolved
(09:32):
into like as the world went intolockdown and loneliness became
an issue. And well, lonelinesswas always an issue, but
loneliness became an issue thatwe talked about. And mental
health issues were always anissue. The things that children
suffer from were always anissue, but all of a sudden,
COVID was like the moment wherethe world said, Hey, we've got a
(09:56):
problem, and it got amplified inthose three. Years, but, but
they were always there before.
And then you put humans beingsinto isolation, and it amplified
a problem that was alreadythere. And so then all of a
sudden, everybody started totalk about it. And then we do
have, like, a changing shift inin the political structure.
(10:18):
We've got wars happening. We'vegot a lot of internal in the US.
We have a lot of internalantagonism to, you know, like
the the polarization betweenpolitics, in politics, and so
there is, there is this bigshift that is happening in the
world that has created a lotmore anxiety. And I've seen a
(10:39):
lot of friendships and familiesbroken up because of it, yeah,
just because of differences andbeliefs. And that's like, that's
really sad to me. But so as aswe've gone on this journey with
bezel, we've been going alongthe journey in this very fast
paced, changing world around us,with a lot of bad things
(11:01):
happening, but, but I like topoint out one thing, so I'll
tell you something about myself.
So I love riding motorcycles,and I like dirt bikes
specifically, and I like to goout into the woods and into the
mountains and ride. And when Ido, I ride, and I look for the
(11:23):
path, there's trees and there'srocks, and there's all kinds of
things that could could cause meto crash, and there's, you know,
come around a corner, andthere's something, a whole new
set of danger that I have tonavigate. And if I look at the
danger, and if I look at thosetrees and those rocks and those
roots and the things that arecoming at me, they feel like
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they're coming at me. They'reactually staying still. I'm
going towards them. I will hitthem, and I will crash and I
will get hurt. But if I lookthrough them, and I look for the
path and I look for what I knowis the next step or the next
mile, then I'm totally fine, andI get forward. And so when I
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talk about the landscape of theworld today and all of the
problems that are happening, thewars and the fighting and the
media and the lies that arebeing it, that are being told to
people just to instill fear andruin their lives. I say to
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people and to my team and tomyself, first and foremost is
like, if we focus on thosethings, that then we're going to
crash and we're going to burnand we're not going to get
anywhere. So so I like to beaware of everything that's
happening around me keenlyaware, actually, but, but I
don't focus on it, and I focuson the path, and the path is
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very simple to me. We see aworld where people are able to
help each other, and we have thetools to be able to do that, and
we can help each other. We canhelp ourselves, and then we can
help each other get throughwhatever it is that's coming at
us, because those bad things arealways going to be there.
They're just going to change.
I did not know where you weregoing when you started talking
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about the motorcycles and thedirt bike. And, you know, I had
to pause afterwards, and I'vegot to let Braden our video
lead, let him know that that'sgoing to have to be a snippet,
and we're going to have to pullthat one out, because that
story, you know, I really likethe concept of and even just the
the thought process aroundwriting and thinking about the
(13:35):
things on the path, but thataren't going to hit you unless
you, you know you hit them. AndI think you said you want to be
keenly aware of the things thatare happening in the world, but
you're not going to let it drownyou, for lack of a better terms,
because that's what I know.
That's you know when we talkabout it, and we've had a couple
of different episodes on theSCORR cast that talk about
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mental health within theclinical research space, and
just how it can feel exhaustingtime and time again. And then
you add in, you know, just beinga human being in 2025 and you
do, you feel like you aredrowning from thing after thing
after thing, but being able toreposition it and have it be,
hey, that's next to the path,but that's not on the path that
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we're headed, you know, on, Ithink it's just an incredible an
incredible analogy, and it'sjust such important work that
we're talking about here. And Ido want to take the segue of the
bikes and go a little bit intoyour personal story. So as I was
looking on your website, a big,you know, in almost in bold
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lettering, screamed out at methat said, personal experiences,
including escaping from a cult,is an incredibly you know, and
then it kind of went into yourbackground, and I stopped
reading, and I just read overand over again, including
escaping from a cult, along withthe other backgrounds. I'm just
curious, you know, share as muchas you want to share, share,
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share. You will. I also know thestory with the with basilette,
in turn, in terms of how wefound the name. Can you just
give us a little bit about that,that individual background
story, and how that has shapedwho you are, and then how that
shaped the foundation of bezel,the naming, and really just your
dedication to this space as awhole, for sure,
(15:21):
I actually really like tellingthe story, and I'm writing a
book about it, because there'sso much to impact from it. It's
the book, hopefully, well, Idon't know how to publish a book
very well, so it I'm hoping tohave it ready by the end of this
year, but, but it may be earlynext year. In the meantime, the
book is called the other side offear and and it is a is somewhat
(15:44):
of a documentary of the story ofwhat I went through, and mostly
though, the story of the journeyof recovery and then thriving
and being a very happy person inlife. And that's been a long a
lot of, excuse me, a lot ofwork. So the cult, yeah, so when
(16:05):
I was 13 years old, it actuallystarted before that, but 13 is
when the events kicked off,where my family became involved
in a cult that isolated us fromthe world completely, and it was
very controlling. It wasreligious motivation to it. And
the leader of that cult, he hadlots of families come together.
(16:30):
And basically he is a verycharismatic, very well spoken,
educated man and and he believedthat he had a direct line to God
and his victims really werepeople that were struggling in
life, like my dad and my dad waswas struggling as and to be a
husband and a father and a man,and like in a person in this
(16:53):
world and and he found some typeof hope through following the
this man that started this cult.
So then he brought our entirefamily into it and and it was
not until my late 20s that Iescaped so from some very
formative adult years where Iwas in this cult. There was
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times during those years that wewere functioning members of
society. So some of us had jobs,and we were like there was a
little bit of of contact withthe outside world, but, but what
people need to understand aboutcults is that they're very
controlling with thebrainwashing and the the set of
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beliefs that they instill in youand the fear that they instill
In you to to do what they say.
And so it doesn't matter if youhave contact with the outside
world. In fact, that's like verymuch moderated. It's you never
alone. You're always withsomeone else. And it's, you
know, it's very controlled in ofitself. So I was aware of the
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outside world, but, but I reallydidn't, you know, I was very
isolated for all those years,and it was awful. It was being a
young woman growing up and thenbeing oppressed and being taught
that women are less than like,not very important, and we were
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to submit to everything that theman said, and we had to dress a
certain way, and right down tothe point of like, if I wanted a
drink of water, I had to ask forpermission to have that drink of
water. So so it was veryoppressive and and the book on
like unpacks a lot of the detailof that. But it was in my 20s
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and when I had become strongerwithin myself somehow, and I
don't really, can't reallyexplain that very well, but that
internal strength that I haddeveloped probably taking the
fear over the many years that Iwas subjected to, and then
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turning it into strength justwithin myself. It wasn't from an
external influence. There wassomething within me that had
like rebelled and said, I wantto live, and I have two choices.
One is to kill myself, and theother one is to escape. Those
are the only two choices that Isaw. So I was too scared to kill
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myself, fortunately, and and Iescaped. And I'll never forget
the night that I escaped,because it took me a couple
weeks to plan it, and I had togo through like, all of the
planning steps, like right downto walking down the stairs and
finding the stairs that wouldn'tcreak when I would step on them,
so that nobody would wake up,because I had to do it in the
(19:46):
middle of the night, and had tobe, like, really, really quiet
so and where was I going to go,and who was going to help me?
Like, all of that had to be preplanned. So all of those details
I arranged. It took a long time.
There's a lot of them. So we're.
Go through them here. But justlike, suffice it to say, the
night that I made the like, themove to go, I went numb,
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completely numb. I had noemotion, I had no fear. I had
complete focus on the plan thatI had set for myself. And I got
out, and I got to where mydestination, and I got to the
person that was going to helpme, and she hid me, and the rest
is history. From that pointforward, then became a journey
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of my life that I would havenever been able to predict, and
the difficulty of it I couldn'thave predicted, but I knew that
I was ready for it because Ididn't want to kill
myself. I I am looking forwardto this book and and Esther,
thank you so much for forsharing that that portion of
your story. And I'm reallylooking forward to I love the
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other side of fear and and justthe concept. And it feels like
everything that bezel is todayis grounded in in some of those
decisions and thought processesfrom from from that time and as
you worked through your otherexperiences. So you know, you've
got the background. Andsometimes, you know, we talked a
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little bit about the oncologywork, and you talked about, I
mean, it feels like it was allleading up to to this, this
moment. And not that I havegoosebumps right now, just
hearing that story, and nowlooking at the impact that's
being made. The other aspect ofof the background that I wanted
to talk about is that the horsebezel it, and I think that, you
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know, just to have a little bitof a different perspective on on
the founding of theorganization, can you just talk
a little bit about thatconnection and and what led you
to bringing that forward, too?
Yeah, so bezelet is a littleArabian pony that I trained when
I lived in Israel, and she wasvery scared of everything, and
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so she was scared of water, shewas scared of the twig, she was
scared of people. And Ideveloped a very special bond
with her. And it was very it wasduring, like, part of my life
where I was, you know,struggling a lot, and I was
trying to heal. And I had thisrelationship with her, and she
was my therapist, and I washers. Like, we really, we bonded
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so closely that there were timeson Saturdays, on Shabbat, the,
you know, every everything shutsdown in Israel, like, not
completely, but like people,it's a family day. It's a really
special day. And there weretimes that I would be there at
the farm training her, andpeople would come and watch me
work with her, because she justfollowed me around like a puppy.
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I would go and open up her stalldoor in the morning, and she
would follow me around as I tookcare of the other horses. And
then I would take her into theinto the corral and work with
her there, and she just, like,we just had this beautiful dance
of a relationship and and again,I'll never forget, like, there's
a lot of moments you just cannever forget in your life, and
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one of them is the day that Itook her out into the desert,
because Beersheba is in thedesert, and rode her bareback
and Just took her out there, andshe walked over her first
puddle. And like, I think I mayhave created the puddle from the
tears of like that moment, shejust, you know, she was very,
very special to me because ofthe healing that I got from her,
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that I was able to impart. And,you know, animals, horses,
there's something very specialabout the bond between a human
and an animal, and the therapy,therapeutic bond that happens
between them and the energy thathappens that can really be
healing. And there's a lot oforganizations now here in the US
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that have created horse therapyand dog therapy. And like, we
know about these, but like, thescience behind them is actually
very real. So when I started thecompany, there was a lot of
names that we, we thought of,and I had a small team. I'm
like, as we were, like, workingthrough, how do we start this
company? What do we call it? Weneed a name. And then we got to
(24:19):
the name. So then I was, like,always thinking about about her
and, like, other animals andpeople in my life and and she's
the one that just kept comingup. So I couldn't call the
company bezelet, because that'slike, first, really hard to
spell for, for English speaking,and also hard to pronounce, and
then, but bezel was very a niceword. It's a strong word, but B,
(24:43):
E, z, E L is too expensive ofa.com so the name of the company
became B, E, Z, Y, l, and nod tothe pony, and nice, simple word
that nobody else has. And so itwas like, it's really easy when
you do type it in the like.
Comes right up because there'snothing to compete with it
yet. Yeah, it's such anincredible story just from again
(25:08):
your past and bringing itforward. You know, SCORR does
naming all the time, and it'sone of those things where, if
you can have a name that is tiedinto the story of why you exist,
and the ethos of theorganization, and kind of
talking about the brand and allthose different pieces, and it's
just such a fantastic look back,but also showcasing where the
(25:32):
organization is headed and theimpact is headed as well. And I
think that's where you know,over the next next couple of
questions here, kind of want tofocus on looking forward and the
impact that's being made todayand where you see growth
tomorrow. So I think we talkedabout helping people help each
other, and finding the righthelp is finally easy. Can you
(25:53):
share some examples we talkedabout the it started with
cancer, then first respondersand then loneliness. Can you
just share some of the examplesof how you are creating that
impact, and how individuals ororganizations, or, you know,
somebody who is going throughcancer or is a first responder
could can actually utilize whatyou guys are bringing to the
table and some of that impactthat's being made.
(26:15):
Yeah, definitely love it. Sowhen you Oh, when you unpack the
foundation of people helpingeach other. There's two sides of
that coin. One is like me askingfor help and also helping
myself, and the other is likeoffering help. But how does that
even work? Like it's not just aphone call, right? There's,
(26:36):
there's a lot of tools that haveto be developed in order to
empower people to help eachother in our messy lives. So you
know, as you go through life andas you navigate life, there's
different things that are goingto come up, that you're going to
that are unexpected and that youhave to navigate and and you
need tools to be able to learnhow to navigate those things. So
(26:57):
if you're a new mom, you've gotlot of challenges that you
wouldn't have been able toexpect, but other new moms can
help you, help you with that. Ifyou are a veteran, and you come
back from deployment and you'vegot issue, things that you're
really working through from thatdeployment, then other you know,
there's, there's peer supportthat can come from that, but,
(27:19):
but also to right now, if youwere to without bezel, if you
were to go on to online and lookfor a tool to help you with
whatever it is that you're goingthrough, you might go to Google,
or you might go to chat GBT orwhatever it is, and you can ask,
and there's going to be justtons of them. There's 1000s and
(27:39):
1000s. There's 1000s of apps,there's 1000s of tools, there's
1000s of companies like they'repopping up all over the world.
It really, really, really fast,but there's nowhere to go that
says like, these are, these arevalidated. Here's, you know,
some recommendations from avalidated process that you know
(27:59):
the tools have gone through inorder to be able to, you know,
to be trusted and to be used.
And so because of my clinicalresearch background and having
to go through like that process,we developed our own proprietary
way of consistently validatingtools that we can support along
(28:21):
the way. So if people have anidea to help in the mental
health world, they don't have tohave it fully baked. We can
start helping them from thebeginning, just like when, when
I worked in the clinicalresearch industry, but now for
mental health, and then alongthe way, if they get to the
point where they pass all of ourvalidation, and there we will
put the, you know, we don't callit a bezel stamp yet, but maybe
(28:43):
we should, yeah, yeah. Then,then they will be put into our
toolbox, which is really brandnew. We only, like, it's taken
more than two years to build,but we just this year, launched
the actual toolbox. And I thinkthere's only, like, 1212, tools
publicly in there right now, butthere's a lot coming through and
(29:04):
and so as an individual, I candownload the bezel app and I can
go through that toolbox. Andright now, it's very, very small
and simple, but it will grow,and we were building that really
fast. But where we have thebiggest impact is with
organizations and communities,underserved communities, to be
specific, and because of myfirst nations roots. So my mom
(29:27):
is actually first nations fromfrom Canada, from the Dene
nation up in the NorthwestTerritories, I thought it would
be a really good idea to go backto them and go back to some of
the nations in Canada and talkto them and see if they want us
to help them. So there's FirstNations in Canada that we're
already helping, and we'vedeployed the bezel app to them,
(29:49):
and we're building thesetoolboxes of support for them
that are very culturallyresonant to them, so they get
tools that are representative ofthe demographics that they are
not. Hard for me to build,because it's a culture that I
know very well, right? And then,and then we also help employers,
and it's the same thing. Weactually have, like, a really
(30:10):
small law office that wesupport, and they have a very
small staff, but it's nice, likewe're able to, like, put
together something very simplefor them and so what happens is,
if you're a member of one ofthese communities or
organizations that we help, thenyou download the app, and then
you get an organizational code,and then you get access to the
(30:32):
the basically the experiencethat we've created for you. So
it's all validated, it'scurated. We have a platform
where it all sits on the I'm adata geek. So the whole platform
is stratified by by gender andby age, and by ethnicity and by
location. And like we wereglobal, we're translated in
(30:56):
English and Ukrainian. Now we'rehaving our entire development
team comes from Sigma softwarein a Ukrainian based company.
Yeah, so when their war started,we immediately translated into
Ukrainian and helped them. Andit's like this really
interesting way of taking a SASplatform from a technical
(31:17):
perspective. It's a very easy,not an easy thing to build, easy
thing to deliver, and then beable to curate it for whomever
we want to help.
Yeah, it's, I keep justthinking, there's, there's no
reason that everybody shouldn'tbe involved in this, right? We
talk about the culturalrelevance and the underserved
(31:39):
communities, but then you talkabout at the organizational
level, and I love this conceptof the toolbox, right? I think
you know when, when we've talkedabout mental health on on the
podcast in the past, it's, it'svery evident, right? There's not
a one size fits all solution, orwe would have, we would have
solved it. And there are peoplethat are going through one
issue, and another person'sgoing through a completely
(32:00):
different issue, but everybody'sgoing through something, and so
the different tools in thetoolbox are, are what's going to
make this problem seem more moreaccessible, in terms of the
impact that can be made? And I'mcurious, you know, one of the
things that I go back to is, Ithink one of the biggest
challenges is just the adoptionof Mental Health, and the
(32:24):
conversation around mentalhealth, and I think that
especially in like the corporateworld, and some of the, you
know, massive organizations, andthen you know, at the individual
family level, mental health isstill looked at in a lot of
different areas as a negative orin a in a negative light, is
(32:47):
that what you see as the biggesthurdle, not only just for for
for bezel, but similar toolslike what you are doing, is the
biggest hurdle, in your opinion,the landscape around mental
health? Or is there somethingelse you know in terms of
technology adoption. What do youlook at as as some of those
hurdles going forward here?
Well, there's, there's a coupleof things that are so at first
(33:10):
glance, you would think stigmais the biggest hurdle, but, but
I would say that that it's notbecause even where there isn't
stigma, there's still friction.
So the biggest hurdle to me isthe pair solution, like there's
there's no payer for mentalhealth right now, everyone
thinks of mental health astherapy. Still, like they think
(33:31):
that in order to improve yourmental health, you need therapy,
and therapy, I'm a huge fan ofit, although you can't finding
good therapy is really hard,yeah, and I don't want anyone to
go through what I went through20 plus years ago when I escaped
from that call I could not findgood therapy. It was I it was
more traumatic for me to go tryand find it was, yeah, yeah. So,
(33:58):
so therapy is really important,but it is not the solution to
the mental health problem. Andas a result, then the solutions
that do exist and that arecoming into this, this new world
that we're building with mentalhealth, there's no payer, and so
it can't continue to be onlyrich people get mental health
(34:18):
support. Yeah, that does. That'snot a scalable model for any
good solution. And so that'swhere Basil is now really
focused. Is how do we work withthe providers, like, whether it
be a behavioral health clinic ora hospital or community or an
organization or whatever it is,and creatively find a way that
(34:40):
we can provide a good toolbox ofsupport to their community and
have it paid for by someone, andthat's like almost a whole other
podcast that that we could wecould talk about because all of
the different ways of being ableto find you know breakthrough. A
payer model is, is reallyimportant, and we're very we're
(35:05):
systematically documenting each,each like idea that could be
possible. And so, so there's thepayer, and then the the the
other part of the problem iseducation, so people not
understanding what mental healthis at in relationship to
physical health, or inrelationship to relations,
(35:25):
relationships or social, youknow, and not really
understanding mental health,they immediately think it's like
depression and anxiety, and, youknow, all of these things which
are very real and very much partof it, but, but there's so much
education that's needed. So wewant to break the we want to fix
the pair model. Because, youknow, we're going to change the
world. So we're going to fix thepair model for the world, not
(35:48):
just the US. That's what bezelis going to do. But concurrent
to that, we're going to bring ineducation for people to learn.
And there are some amazingexperts that need their voices
amplified to be able to helppeople learn. There's incredible
curriculum that's currentlybeing developed within the APA,
(36:10):
within American psychologicaland association and and there's
some really interestingliterature that has now been
published, that just needs to beshared. And so we've developed,
I can't tell you who it is yet,and I can't tell you exactly
what, but starting in August, wewere launching a new campaign
(36:35):
that we were, we've, we've got areally cool partner. She's,
she's joining to support thiseducation campaign that we're
going to be pushing out into theworld? And I think that if we
can solve the pair problem, andwe can educate people so that
they understand how to have youknow what to do in time of
(36:58):
crisis or when these situationshappen in their life, and just a
general understanding of, like,where they actually have
control, because a lot of peoplethink that what happened to them
is actually the problem, whenactually it's not, it's what
happened to them, but you havecontrol of, like, there's,
there's so much to learn. And sowe're going to tackle these two
(37:22):
things next. And, and then alongthe way, continue to bring these
companies that we've beensupporting and building into
this toolbox, into this payermodel and education model, so
that we can grow mental healthin a much faster, stronger way
in the world.
I love it and and, you know, theeducation model will help solve
(37:44):
the stigma as well. And I thinkit will. You know, what one of
the things that I wrote downduring that is, you mentioned,
you know that the problem withtherapy great angle for some
people and not for others. And Ihave, you know, a lot of people
in my life who have gone throughthe process of 789, therapists,
(38:05):
and none of them are the rightoption, and they might just not
be people who need therapy. Theyneed some version of support,
but therapy is not for them.
Whereas I can sit down somewhereand just start rambling and
talking, and I process that 1000times a minute. And so as long
as the therapist is there andnice, and, you know, gives me a
(38:29):
seed question once every 15minutes, I can leave that and
feel really confident, butsomebody else isn't. And so it
goes back to that toolboxconcept. And I do think it
sounds like there's someexciting steps along the way.
But I think that that payermodel is, is, you know, we talk
about it a lot of times withinthe life sciences in general, is
just like, who pays for theinnovation, who pays for the
(38:50):
change, right? And if that's atthe private level, then somebody
else is going to come in andpoach that idea. And, you know,
so where does that process comeso I'm it's really exciting that
you kind of have those prongedapproaches, and then are able to
bring those those organizationsand early stage partners as part
of that process too. Okay, Iasked for 45 minutes for an
(39:12):
episode. We are right at the 43minute marker, which is really
impressive, because I feel likewe could talk for another two
hours, and I'm gonna put apencil in on this new campaign
in August, and the payer modelthat I might be reaching out to
for an episode to start 2026 butI want to give you an
opportunity, you know, to justkind of summarize, you know, you
(39:34):
know, what is the most importantmessage that that you would want
people to take away about bezeland about mental health support
and the impact that that can bemade.
Yep, I think I'm going to bringit full circle back to our
mission, which is people canhelp each other and you can help
yourself. There's a lot of toolsnow being put out into the world
(39:57):
by incredible innovators comingfrom all. All the corners of the
earth where there is something.
And for some people, it'smeditation and mindfulness. For
some people, it's going for arun in the morning, which is
kind of similar. For somepeople, it's like joint like
finding purpose in life andhelping another person
volunteering. For some people, Ihad one psychologist tell me
(40:20):
that he had and his wifeschedule comedy every month they
go to a comedy show becauselaughter is therapy. So it's
about finding what works for youand and it doesn't have to be
like that for the rest of yourlife either. So we can bezel is
here to help find those ideasfor you. And if we don't have it
(40:40):
in our public toolbox, pleasejust reach out to us, and we
will probably have it coming in,so we'll probably be able to
accelerate that solution for youand and guide you in the right
way. So as an individual, youcan download the bezel app and
start to explore what we're nowproviding. And then as an
organization or a community orcompany, if you want to be able
(41:03):
to provide incredible, the bestmental health support for your
community, because it will reacheveryone. Then, then we want to
build a toolbox for you.
I love it, and I as part of thattakeaway, I wrote down, you
know, sometimes it's the littlethings, I think, you know, you
mentioned the comedy, youmentioned the walk, the
meditation, the mindfulness. Itdoesn't have to be packing up
(41:24):
and moving across the globe. Itcan. It can be those little
things that can make the biggestimpact. I think that's the story
that you're trying to share.
Okay, give us a reminder. Sowhat should we be on the
lookout? Where can we find you?
So I've got the book coming outthat once it does, you know,
we'll I'm going to re share thisthis episode when that happens,
we've got a little bit ofexcitement coming in the fall,
(41:47):
where can people find moreinformation about the work that
you're doing and you in general.
Esther, the bestplace is LinkedIn. And I'm
actually about to start aYouTube channel, because we
didn't even talk about themotorcycle ride I'm doing in
July, from the Mexico border tothe Arctic Ocean that is going
to be on a YouTube channel.
You're gonna be able to followthe journey as I go through it,
(42:09):
to highlight, you know, to raiseawareness for women and children
who have been victims of sextrafficking and so. So go to
LinkedIn. That's probably thebest place follow me, connect
with me there. Our website isunder construction right now,
but it is still a really goodplace to go. B, E, z, y, l.com,
(42:32):
I said Z correctly for theAmericans, and I still, even
after 20 years, struggle withthe Z and the Zed and and email
me, or most people can reach mevery easily, and I'm always
available for even, like, a twominute chat, if, if I need to
redirect people to others, I cando that. I
(42:53):
love it, and I am already filledwith regret that we didn't talk
more about this ride that youare going on. It's okay.
It's gonna be very loud. I amdefinitely gonna
be sharing that and watching andfollowing along. And, you know,
this episode will air rightaround the time when that's
beginning, and throughout July.
(43:14):
So I'm very excited. I just, youknow, just to say out loud, you
know, it's one of those thingswhere we've had a couple of
conversations in the past, andthen two years later, have the
same conversation. And again,I'm, I'm I'm ready to run
through a brick wall, the thework that you are doing, the the
emphasis that you have on it,the the mission. You can feel it
(43:35):
come through the the screen. Andto me, that's what makes any
organization special, butcertainly one that is so focused
on the core element of what itis to be a human being and what
it is to be a part of acommunity. So thank you so much,
just in terms of the work thatyou're doing and the impact that
you have, and then also fortaking 45 minutes to an hour out
(43:58):
of your day to share the storywith the listeners of the SCORR
cast. I know anybody thatlistens to this is going to be
really, really feeling the sameway, because I know those
individuals feel feel exactlylike that when they hear when
they'll hear this as well. Verygood. Yeah. Okay. Esther, well,
this is it. This was 45 minutes.
(44:20):
Thank you so much to everybodylistening. If you want to reach
out to Esther, certainly do. Sofollow along. Find the book when
it comes out. Go check out theapp, download it. Go to the
website. Sounds like there'sgoing to be updates made, and
you're going to want to get inat the ground floor here, even a
couple of years in, and see thetakeoff that's coming. As
always, if you're listening tothis, you can get, you can you
(44:43):
can get in contact with me, andI will get you in contact with
Esther. Or you can reach out toher on LinkedIn. If you are
listening, please subscribe.
Rate review. You might havelistened to this one and said
this is the best episode we'vehad yet. Leave it a five star
review. You can leave commentson the YouTube page, on the
SCORR website, Apple spot. Fivewherever you get your podcast,
we've got a great list of guestsupcoming here over the summer
(45:05):
and into the fall. So thank youso much for listening and
Esther, thank you so much onceagain for participating and
sharing your story today.
Thank you, Alec. Youyou as always. Thank you for
(45:25):
tuning in to this episode of thescore cast brought to you by
SCORR Marketing. We appreciateyour time and hope you found
this discussion insightful.
Don't forget to subscribe andjoin us for our next episode.
Until then, remember, marketingis supposed to be fun. You you.
Hello everyone, and welcome backto another episode of the SCORR
(00:13):
cast. I am so excited fortoday's episode. I am your host,
Alec McChesney, and we have aguest that I am really excited
about and a topic that I amreally excited about, where we
are going to dive into a reallyimportant and essential area
within not only the lifesciences, but just being a human
(00:36):
being. In 2025 we're going totalk a little bit about mental
health. We're going to talkabout how innovation is helping
bridge the gap in support from aclinical trial landscape. But
we're also going to talk about areally unique, individual and
unique company in Esther Howardand bezel and Esther. This is
something that I have beenreally excited about, because
(00:56):
you and I first connected maybetwo three years ago now, when
bezel was kind of getting itsits grounding and starting to
run. And I mentioned before wewe even started recording, that
it feels like there's somethingnew happening for for you in the
organization on a day to daybasis and a week to week basis.
And so before I even startrunning and asking you questions
(01:21):
and doing a full introduction.
I'd love for you to kind ofintroduce yourself and introduce
the organization for those whoare not familiar, because I
think everybody should befamiliar with the work that you
are doing, and by the end ofthis episode, I hope we have a
lot more awareness andrecognition of the impact that
you guys are creating. Tooamazing. Thanks. It's nice to be
(01:43):
here and see you again. It hasbeen, you've been part of my
journey, actually, from thestart. So this is, this is an
exciting moment for me as well.
Thank you. So yeah, my name isEsther Howard. I'm originally
from Canada. I now live in theUnited States, in Phoenix,
Arizona. My background. For thelast 20 plus years, I've worked
(02:03):
in the clinical researchindustry, so that's kind of how
I know SCORR Marketing is frompast relationships, and even
before that, I actually workedin in research too. I lived in
Beersheba, Israel for a coupleyears back in the late 90s, and
I did research in healtheconomics of developing
(02:25):
countries there. Worked for anincredible economist. He was a
doctor and professor in Beckerand university. And then my
career has just sort of takenoff from there. And then about
five years ago I had the ideafor bezel. It came from a very
personal story and relationshipthat I had, and it's funny
(02:48):
because I was literally justtelling someone two days ago
that, or maybe it was evenyesterday that had I predicted
where bezel would be today fiveyears ago, when I started,
there's no way I would have hadthat that prediction like it's
it's an amazing that the core ofwhat we started with five years
ago did not change, but the whathas evolved significantly, and
(03:14):
I'm excited to talk about it. Wereally have built an incredible
platform to help people, helpeach other, ultimately, and
improve their mental health. Andthat's, that's where we're
going.
I love it, and I love just thesimplification of help people
help each other. And, you know,I think that when when I first
heard about your organization,and you kind of shared the
(03:36):
personal story of it, I remembersitting in this office here in
Omaha, like ready to run througha brick wall, because you get to
see the impact that can be made,the stories that can be shared
and and just the importance, andthen, at the same time, kind of
the lack of a solution in themarketplace right now for for
(03:59):
what you're trying to solve. AndI do want to get into that
personal story, but at the sametime, before we get into some of
that background, I would love totalk a little bit about the
genesis and just the mission ofbezel. And I think, you know,
ahead of time, I went throughand I was going through your
LinkedIn, and you get to seesome of the stories on there at
(04:22):
the individual level. But Ithink hearing it directly from
you on the on what the missionis and what we're really trying
to solve will set the table forthe personal story and some of
the other impact that's going tobe made by the organization.
Too.
Amazing, yes. So starting withthe mission, mission first,
right? Yeah, so we'reultimately, there's a massive
(04:44):
gap in the world that we are allaware of where we have people
that are struggling with theirmental health and with their
mental wellness, with justeveryday day life stressors that
are coming at them and makinglife hard. You. And, and that's
not new in the world, but it isunique to this generation and to
(05:05):
this era that we are all livingin. And, and there's, there's
just like this massive gap inthe support that people can get
to be able to get the help theyneed to move on and have
productive and and thrivinglives, and that gap really sits
between the need and therapy,which is the standard of care
(05:27):
for for mental health. Andpeople generally seek therapy
when they're struggling withtheir mental health. But we
don't have enough therapists inthe world and and we aren't
going to the gap is widening.
This is, this is, like the dataon this is, is staggering, and
it's just just continues to getworse. But buzz bezel was really
(05:49):
founded on the mission to beable to help people help each
other, so that we can fill thatgap. And what that means is that
I have needs, and I need tolearn how to ask for help and
let my friends and family knowwhat those needs are. And then,
on the flip side of the coin, myfriends and family and the
people that love me need to beempowered to help me in in
(06:12):
return. Sometimes, you know theyou can ask for help from
someone, but if they don'treally know how to help, it's
it's almost kind of likecreating this. It's not a
tension, but it's a fear, andit's this like unproductive
moment in that in thattransaction of being able to
help each other. So bezelsmission is to empower people to
(06:32):
help each other so that we canimprove the mental health and
wellness of the world and fillthat gap between the lack of
therapy that does exist, whichis really helpful, but not
there's not enough of it, andand all of the people that that
need help. Yeah,I love this so much. And I
promised right before we hitrecord that we had an outline.
(06:55):
And there's a chance that I'mgoing to go away from the
outline right out of the gate,and I think I'm going to do it
right here. I always joke thatas the as the podcast host, I
get to ask one bad question eachepisode. And I think that right
out of the gate, I'm going to dothis you mentioned, you know,
five years ago, if you wouldhave told yourself that this is
where bezel is. I mean, justthink about the five years that
(07:16):
we've had right and and theCOVID 19 pandemic, and the back
to work, and now, you knowwhatever is going on in 2025 and
very currently, I spent lastnight and this morning basically
glued to a TV or a phone lookingat what's happening in Los
Angeles and just The impact onthe day to day. I mean, how how
(07:42):
does, how does what's happeningin today's environment spark
some of these conversations?
Like you said, this isn't aproblem that's new, but it's a
problem that people are havingmore and more conversation about
the workforce is talking aboutit more. It feels more relevant
that, like every day there'salmost a new national or global
(08:04):
disaster that we are discussing.
And then you could take that atthe global level and bring it
all the way down at theindividual level too. And I love
on your website. You know,finding the right help is
finally easy as some of thatcommentary. So I don't even have
a good question here. I, youknow, I just that that the
importance of this work and andthe timing of it, how could you,
(08:28):
you know, how has, how has thethought process around the
organization and the missionevolved because of how chaotic
the last five years have been,if that, if that makes sense.
Esther at all, yeah,yeah. It makes complete sense.
Actually, it's something Iponder every day. Well, it was,
it was actually pre COVID Thatthat I launched the idea for
(08:49):
this company. I didn't know howto build a company yet, and so I
had a lot of learning to dobefore I could formally launch
it. But it was pre COVID that westarted and and the reason that
we started was because one ofmy, my really good friends, died
of of cancer and and I had beenworking in oncology for many
(09:10):
years, and when she told me herstory before she died, and it
gave me the idea of her bezel,and I really felt drawn to to
launch this, this, this solutionfor what she had described. It
was really to help cancerpatients and their families, and
then it evolved into firstresponders, and then it evolved
(09:32):
into like as the world went intolockdown and loneliness became
an issue. And well, lonelinesswas always an issue, but
loneliness became an issue thatwe talked about. And mental
health issues were always anissue. The things that children
suffer from were always anissue, but all of a sudden,
COVID was like the moment wherethe world said, Hey, we've got a
(09:56):
problem, and it got amplified inthose three. Years, but, but
they were always there before.
And then you put humans beingsinto isolation, and it amplified
a problem that was alreadythere. And so then all of a
sudden, everybody started totalk about it. And then we do
have, like, a changing shift inin the political structure.
(10:18):
We've got wars happening. We'vegot a lot of internal in the US.
We have a lot of internalantagonism to, you know, like
the the polarization betweenpolitics, in politics, and so
there is, there is this bigshift that is happening in the
world that has created a lotmore anxiety. And I've seen a
(10:39):
lot of friendships and familiesbroken up because of it, yeah,
just because of differences andbeliefs. And that's like, that's
really sad to me. But so as aswe've gone on this journey with
bezel, we've been going alongthe journey in this very fast
paced, changing world around us,with a lot of bad things
(11:01):
happening, but, but I like topoint out one thing, so I'll
tell you something about myself.
So I love riding motorcycles,and I like dirt bikes
specifically, and I like to goout into the woods and into the
mountains and ride. And when Ido, I ride, and I look for the
(11:23):
path, there's trees and there'srocks, and there's all kinds of
things that could could cause meto crash, and there's, you know,
come around a corner, andthere's something, a whole new
set of danger that I have tonavigate. And if I look at the
danger, and if I look at thosetrees and those rocks and those
roots and the things that arecoming at me, they feel like
(11:44):
they're coming at me. They'reactually staying still. I'm
going towards them. I will hitthem, and I will crash and I
will get hurt. But if I lookthrough them, and I look for the
path and I look for what I knowis the next step or the next
mile, then I'm totally fine, andI get forward. And so when I
(12:05):
talk about the landscape of theworld today and all of the
problems that are happening, thewars and the fighting and the
media and the lies that arebeing it, that are being told to
people just to instill fear andruin their lives. I say to
(12:26):
people and to my team and tomyself, first and foremost is
like, if we focus on thosethings, that then we're going to
crash and we're going to burnand we're not going to get
anywhere. So so I like to beaware of everything that's
happening around me keenlyaware, actually, but, but I
don't focus on it, and I focuson the path, and the path is
(12:49):
very simple to me. We see aworld where people are able to
help each other, and we have thetools to be able to do that, and
we can help each other. We canhelp ourselves, and then we can
help each other get throughwhatever it is that's coming at
us, because those bad things arealways going to be there.
They're just going to change.
I did not know where you weregoing when you started talking
(13:12):
about the motorcycles and thedirt bike. And, you know, I had
to pause afterwards, and I'vegot to let Braden our video
lead, let him know that that'sgoing to have to be a snippet,
and we're going to have to pullthat one out, because that
story, you know, I really likethe concept of and even just the
the thought process aroundwriting and thinking about the
(13:35):
things on the path, but thataren't going to hit you unless
you, you know you hit them. AndI think you said you want to be
keenly aware of the things thatare happening in the world, but
you're not going to let it drownyou, for lack of a better terms,
because that's what I know.
That's you know when we talkabout it, and we've had a couple
of different episodes on theSCORR cast that talk about
(13:56):
mental health within theclinical research space, and
just how it can feel exhaustingtime and time again. And then
you add in, you know, just beinga human being in 2025 and you
do, you feel like you aredrowning from thing after thing
after thing, but being able toreposition it and have it be,
hey, that's next to the path,but that's not on the path that
(14:18):
we're headed, you know, on, Ithink it's just an incredible an
incredible analogy, and it'sjust such important work that
we're talking about here. And Ido want to take the segue of the
bikes and go a little bit intoyour personal story. So as I was
looking on your website, a big,you know, in almost in bold
(14:39):
lettering, screamed out at methat said, personal experiences,
including escaping from a cult,is an incredibly you know, and
then it kind of went into yourbackground, and I stopped
reading, and I just read overand over again, including
escaping from a cult, along withthe other backgrounds. I'm just
curious, you know, share as muchas you want to share, share,
(14:59):
share. You will. I also know thestory with the with basilette,
in turn, in terms of how wefound the name. Can you just
give us a little bit about that,that individual background
story, and how that has shapedwho you are, and then how that
shaped the foundation of bezel,the naming, and really just your
dedication to this space as awhole, for sure,
(15:21):
I actually really like tellingthe story, and I'm writing a
book about it, because there'sso much to impact from it. It's
the book, hopefully, well, Idon't know how to publish a book
very well, so it I'm hoping tohave it ready by the end of this
year, but, but it may be earlynext year. In the meantime, the
book is called the other side offear and and it is a is somewhat
(15:44):
of a documentary of the story ofwhat I went through, and mostly
though, the story of the journeyof recovery and then thriving
and being a very happy person inlife. And that's been a long a
lot of, excuse me, a lot ofwork. So the cult, yeah, so when
(16:05):
I was 13 years old, it actuallystarted before that, but 13 is
when the events kicked off,where my family became involved
in a cult that isolated us fromthe world completely, and it was
very controlling. It wasreligious motivation to it. And
the leader of that cult, he hadlots of families come together.
(16:30):
And basically he is a verycharismatic, very well spoken,
educated man and and he believedthat he had a direct line to God
and his victims really werepeople that were struggling in
life, like my dad and my dad waswas struggling as and to be a
husband and a father and a man,and like in a person in this
(16:53):
world and and he found some typeof hope through following the
this man that started this cult.
So then he brought our entirefamily into it and and it was
not until my late 20s that Iescaped so from some very
formative adult years where Iwas in this cult. There was
(17:15):
times during those years that wewere functioning members of
society. So some of us had jobs,and we were like there was a
little bit of of contact withthe outside world, but, but what
people need to understand aboutcults is that they're very
controlling with thebrainwashing and the the set of
(17:35):
beliefs that they instill in youand the fear that they instill
In you to to do what they say.
And so it doesn't matter if youhave contact with the outside
world. In fact, that's like verymuch moderated. It's you never
alone. You're always withsomeone else. And it's, you
know, it's very controlled in ofitself. So I was aware of the
(17:55):
outside world, but, but I reallydidn't, you know, I was very
isolated for all those years,and it was awful. It was being a
young woman growing up and thenbeing oppressed and being taught
that women are less than like,not very important, and we were
(18:20):
to submit to everything that theman said, and we had to dress a
certain way, and right down tothe point of like, if I wanted a
drink of water, I had to ask forpermission to have that drink of
water. So so it was veryoppressive and and the book on
like unpacks a lot of the detailof that. But it was in my 20s
(18:42):
and when I had become strongerwithin myself somehow, and I
don't really, can't reallyexplain that very well, but that
internal strength that I haddeveloped probably taking the
fear over the many years that Iwas subjected to, and then
(19:02):
turning it into strength justwithin myself. It wasn't from an
external influence. There wassomething within me that had
like rebelled and said, I wantto live, and I have two choices.
One is to kill myself, and theother one is to escape. Those
are the only two choices that Isaw. So I was too scared to kill
(19:25):
myself, fortunately, and and Iescaped. And I'll never forget
the night that I escaped,because it took me a couple
weeks to plan it, and I had togo through like, all of the
planning steps, like right downto walking down the stairs and
finding the stairs that wouldn'tcreak when I would step on them,
so that nobody would wake up,because I had to do it in the
(19:46):
middle of the night, and had tobe, like, really, really quiet
so and where was I going to go,and who was going to help me?
Like, all of that had to be preplanned. So all of those details
I arranged. It took a long time.
There's a lot of them. So we're.
Go through them here. But justlike, suffice it to say, the
night that I made the like, themove to go, I went numb,
(20:09):
completely numb. I had noemotion, I had no fear. I had
complete focus on the plan thatI had set for myself. And I got
out, and I got to where mydestination, and I got to the
person that was going to helpme, and she hid me, and the rest
is history. From that pointforward, then became a journey
(20:33):
of my life that I would havenever been able to predict, and
the difficulty of it I couldn'thave predicted, but I knew that
I was ready for it because Ididn't want to kill
myself. I I am looking forwardto this book and and Esther,
thank you so much for forsharing that that portion of
your story. And I'm reallylooking forward to I love the
(20:56):
other side of fear and and justthe concept. And it feels like
everything that bezel is todayis grounded in in some of those
decisions and thought processesfrom from from that time and as
you worked through your otherexperiences. So you know, you've
got the background. Andsometimes, you know, we talked a
(21:17):
little bit about the oncologywork, and you talked about, I
mean, it feels like it was allleading up to to this, this
moment. And not that I havegoosebumps right now, just
hearing that story, and nowlooking at the impact that's
being made. The other aspect ofof the background that I wanted
to talk about is that the horsebezel it, and I think that, you
(21:41):
know, just to have a little bitof a different perspective on on
the founding of theorganization, can you just talk
a little bit about thatconnection and and what led you
to bringing that forward, too?
Yeah, so bezelet is a littleArabian pony that I trained when
I lived in Israel, and she wasvery scared of everything, and
(22:05):
so she was scared of water, shewas scared of the twig, she was
scared of people. And Ideveloped a very special bond
with her. And it was very it wasduring, like, part of my life
where I was, you know,struggling a lot, and I was
trying to heal. And I had thisrelationship with her, and she
was my therapist, and I washers. Like, we really, we bonded
(22:27):
so closely that there were timeson Saturdays, on Shabbat, the,
you know, every everything shutsdown in Israel, like, not
completely, but like people,it's a family day. It's a really
special day. And there weretimes that I would be there at
the farm training her, andpeople would come and watch me
work with her, because she justfollowed me around like a puppy.
(22:50):
I would go and open up her stalldoor in the morning, and she
would follow me around as I tookcare of the other horses. And
then I would take her into theinto the corral and work with
her there, and she just, like,we just had this beautiful dance
of a relationship and and again,I'll never forget, like, there's
a lot of moments you just cannever forget in your life, and
(23:12):
one of them is the day that Itook her out into the desert,
because Beersheba is in thedesert, and rode her bareback
and Just took her out there, andshe walked over her first
puddle. And like, I think I mayhave created the puddle from the
tears of like that moment, shejust, you know, she was very,
very special to me because ofthe healing that I got from her,
(23:36):
that I was able to impart. And,you know, animals, horses,
there's something very specialabout the bond between a human
and an animal, and the therapy,therapeutic bond that happens
between them and the energy thathappens that can really be
healing. And there's a lot oforganizations now here in the US
(23:57):
that have created horse therapyand dog therapy. And like, we
know about these, but like, thescience behind them is actually
very real. So when I started thecompany, there was a lot of
names that we, we thought of,and I had a small team. I'm
like, as we were, like, workingthrough, how do we start this
company? What do we call it? Weneed a name. And then we got to
(24:19):
the name. So then I was, like,always thinking about about her
and, like, other animals andpeople in my life and and she's
the one that just kept comingup. So I couldn't call the
company bezelet, because that'slike, first, really hard to
spell for, for English speaking,and also hard to pronounce, and
then, but bezel was very a niceword. It's a strong word, but B,
(24:43):
E, z, E L is too expensive ofa.com so the name of the company
became B, E, Z, Y, l, and nod tothe pony, and nice, simple word
that nobody else has. And so itwas like, it's really easy when
you do type it in the like.
Comes right up because there'snothing to compete with it
yet. Yeah, it's such anincredible story just from again
(25:08):
your past and bringing itforward. You know, SCORR does
naming all the time, and it'sone of those things where, if
you can have a name that is tiedinto the story of why you exist,
and the ethos of theorganization, and kind of
talking about the brand and allthose different pieces, and it's
just such a fantastic look back,but also showcasing where the
(25:32):
organization is headed and theimpact is headed as well. And I
think that's where you know,over the next next couple of
questions here, kind of want tofocus on looking forward and the
impact that's being made todayand where you see growth
tomorrow. So I think we talkedabout helping people help each
other, and finding the righthelp is finally easy. Can you
(25:53):
share some examples we talkedabout the it started with
cancer, then first respondersand then loneliness. Can you
just share some of the examplesof how you are creating that
impact, and how individuals ororganizations, or, you know,
somebody who is going throughcancer or is a first responder
could can actually utilize whatyou guys are bringing to the
table and some of that impactthat's being made.
(26:15):
Yeah, definitely love it. Sowhen you Oh, when you unpack the
foundation of people helpingeach other. There's two sides of
that coin. One is like me askingfor help and also helping
myself, and the other is likeoffering help. But how does that
even work? Like it's not just aphone call, right? There's,
(26:36):
there's a lot of tools that haveto be developed in order to
empower people to help eachother in our messy lives. So you
know, as you go through life andas you navigate life, there's
different things that are goingto come up, that you're going to
that are unexpected and that youhave to navigate and and you
need tools to be able to learnhow to navigate those things. So
(26:57):
if you're a new mom, you've gotlot of challenges that you
wouldn't have been able toexpect, but other new moms can
help you, help you with that. Ifyou are a veteran, and you come
back from deployment and you'vegot issue, things that you're
really working through from thatdeployment, then other you know,
there's, there's peer supportthat can come from that, but,
(27:19):
but also to right now, if youwere to without bezel, if you
were to go on to online and lookfor a tool to help you with
whatever it is that you're goingthrough, you might go to Google,
or you might go to chat GBT orwhatever it is, and you can ask,
and there's going to be justtons of them. There's 1000s and
(27:39):
1000s. There's 1000s of apps,there's 1000s of tools, there's
1000s of companies like they'repopping up all over the world.
It really, really, really fast,but there's nowhere to go that
says like, these are, these arevalidated. Here's, you know,
some recommendations from avalidated process that you know
(27:59):
the tools have gone through inorder to be able to, you know,
to be trusted and to be used.
And so because of my clinicalresearch background and having
to go through like that process,we developed our own proprietary
way of consistently validatingtools that we can support along
(28:21):
the way. So if people have anidea to help in the mental
health world, they don't have tohave it fully baked. We can
start helping them from thebeginning, just like when, when
I worked in the clinicalresearch industry, but now for
mental health, and then alongthe way, if they get to the
point where they pass all of ourvalidation, and there we will
put the, you know, we don't callit a bezel stamp yet, but maybe
(28:43):
we should, yeah, yeah. Then,then they will be put into our
toolbox, which is really brandnew. We only, like, it's taken
more than two years to build,but we just this year, launched
the actual toolbox. And I thinkthere's only, like, 1212, tools
publicly in there right now, butthere's a lot coming through and
(29:04):
and so as an individual, I candownload the bezel app and I can
go through that toolbox. Andright now, it's very, very small
and simple, but it will grow,and we were building that really
fast. But where we have thebiggest impact is with
organizations and communities,underserved communities, to be
specific, and because of myfirst nations roots. So my mom
(29:27):
is actually first nations fromfrom Canada, from the Dene
nation up in the NorthwestTerritories, I thought it would
be a really good idea to go backto them and go back to some of
the nations in Canada and talkto them and see if they want us
to help them. So there's FirstNations in Canada that we're
already helping, and we'vedeployed the bezel app to them,
(29:49):
and we're building thesetoolboxes of support for them
that are very culturallyresonant to them, so they get
tools that are representative ofthe demographics that they are
not. Hard for me to build,because it's a culture that I
know very well, right? And then,and then we also help employers,
and it's the same thing. Weactually have, like, a really
(30:10):
small law office that wesupport, and they have a very
small staff, but it's nice, likewe're able to, like, put
together something very simplefor them and so what happens is,
if you're a member of one ofthese communities or
organizations that we help, thenyou download the app, and then
you get an organizational code,and then you get access to the
(30:32):
the basically the experiencethat we've created for you. So
it's all validated, it'scurated. We have a platform
where it all sits on the I'm adata geek. So the whole platform
is stratified by by gender andby age, and by ethnicity and by
location. And like we wereglobal, we're translated in
(30:56):
English and Ukrainian. Now we'rehaving our entire development
team comes from Sigma softwarein a Ukrainian based company.
Yeah, so when their war started,we immediately translated into
Ukrainian and helped them. Andit's like this really
interesting way of taking a SASplatform from a technical
(31:17):
perspective. It's a very easy,not an easy thing to build, easy
thing to deliver, and then beable to curate it for whomever
we want to help.
Yeah, it's, I keep justthinking, there's, there's no
reason that everybody shouldn'tbe involved in this, right? We
talk about the culturalrelevance and the underserved
(31:39):
communities, but then you talkabout at the organizational
level, and I love this conceptof the toolbox, right? I think
you know when, when we've talkedabout mental health on on the
podcast in the past, it's, it'svery evident, right? There's not
a one size fits all solution, orwe would have, we would have
solved it. And there are peoplethat are going through one
issue, and another person'sgoing through a completely
(32:00):
different issue, but everybody'sgoing through something, and so
the different tools in thetoolbox are, are what's going to
make this problem seem more moreaccessible, in terms of the
impact that can be made? And I'mcurious, you know, one of the
things that I go back to is, Ithink one of the biggest
challenges is just the adoptionof Mental Health, and the
(32:24):
conversation around mentalhealth, and I think that
especially in like the corporateworld, and some of the, you
know, massive organizations, andthen you know, at the individual
family level, mental health isstill looked at in a lot of
different areas as a negative orin a in a negative light, is
(32:47):
that what you see as the biggesthurdle, not only just for for
for bezel, but similar toolslike what you are doing, is the
biggest hurdle, in your opinion,the landscape around mental
health? Or is there somethingelse you know in terms of
technology adoption. What do youlook at as as some of those
hurdles going forward here?
Well, there's, there's a coupleof things that are so at first
(33:10):
glance, you would think stigmais the biggest hurdle, but, but
I would say that that it's notbecause even where there isn't
stigma, there's still friction.
So the biggest hurdle to me isthe pair solution, like there's
there's no payer for mentalhealth right now, everyone
thinks of mental health astherapy. Still, like they think
(33:31):
that in order to improve yourmental health, you need therapy,
and therapy, I'm a huge fan ofit, although you can't finding
good therapy is really hard,yeah, and I don't want anyone to
go through what I went through20 plus years ago when I escaped
from that call I could not findgood therapy. It was I it was
more traumatic for me to go tryand find it was, yeah, yeah. So,
(33:58):
so therapy is really important,but it is not the solution to
the mental health problem. Andas a result, then the solutions
that do exist and that arecoming into this, this new world
that we're building with mentalhealth, there's no payer, and so
it can't continue to be onlyrich people get mental health
(34:18):
support. Yeah, that does. That'snot a scalable model for any
good solution. And so that'swhere Basil is now really
focused. Is how do we work withthe providers, like, whether it
be a behavioral health clinic ora hospital or community or an
organization or whatever it is,and creatively find a way that
(34:40):
we can provide a good toolbox ofsupport to their community and
have it paid for by someone, andthat's like almost a whole other
podcast that that we could wecould talk about because all of
the different ways of being ableto find you know breakthrough. A
payer model is, is reallyimportant, and we're very we're
(35:05):
systematically documenting each,each like idea that could be
possible. And so, so there's thepayer, and then the the the
other part of the problem iseducation, so people not
understanding what mental healthis at in relationship to
physical health, or inrelationship to relations,
(35:25):
relationships or social, youknow, and not really
understanding mental health,they immediately think it's like
depression and anxiety, and, youknow, all of these things which
are very real and very much partof it, but, but there's so much
education that's needed. So wewant to break the we want to fix
the pair model. Because, youknow, we're going to change the
world. So we're going to fix thepair model for the world, not
(35:48):
just the US. That's what bezelis going to do. But concurrent
to that, we're going to bring ineducation for people to learn.
And there are some amazingexperts that need their voices
amplified to be able to helppeople learn. There's incredible
curriculum that's currentlybeing developed within the APA,
(36:10):
within American psychologicaland association and and there's
some really interestingliterature that has now been
published, that just needs to beshared. And so we've developed,
I can't tell you who it is yet,and I can't tell you exactly
what, but starting in August, wewere launching a new campaign
(36:35):
that we were, we've, we've got areally cool partner. She's,
she's joining to support thiseducation campaign that we're
going to be pushing out into theworld? And I think that if we
can solve the pair problem, andwe can educate people so that
they understand how to have youknow what to do in time of
(36:58):
crisis or when these situationshappen in their life, and just a
general understanding of, like,where they actually have
control, because a lot of peoplethink that what happened to them
is actually the problem, whenactually it's not, it's what
happened to them, but you havecontrol of, like, there's,
there's so much to learn. And sowe're going to tackle these two
(37:22):
things next. And, and then alongthe way, continue to bring these
companies that we've beensupporting and building into
this toolbox, into this payermodel and education model, so
that we can grow mental healthin a much faster, stronger way
in the world.
I love it and and, you know, theeducation model will help solve
(37:44):
the stigma as well. And I thinkit will. You know, what one of
the things that I wrote downduring that is, you mentioned,
you know that the problem withtherapy great angle for some
people and not for others. And Ihave, you know, a lot of people
in my life who have gone throughthe process of 789, therapists,
(38:05):
and none of them are the rightoption, and they might just not
be people who need therapy. Theyneed some version of support,
but therapy is not for them.
Whereas I can sit down somewhereand just start rambling and
talking, and I process that 1000times a minute. And so as long
as the therapist is there andnice, and, you know, gives me a
(38:29):
seed question once every 15minutes, I can leave that and
feel really confident, butsomebody else isn't. And so it
goes back to that toolboxconcept. And I do think it
sounds like there's someexciting steps along the way.
But I think that that payermodel is, is, you know, we talk
about it a lot of times withinthe life sciences in general, is
just like, who pays for theinnovation, who pays for the
(38:50):
change, right? And if that's atthe private level, then somebody
else is going to come in andpoach that idea. And, you know,
so where does that process comeso I'm it's really exciting that
you kind of have those prongedapproaches, and then are able to
bring those those organizationsand early stage partners as part
of that process too. Okay, Iasked for 45 minutes for an
(39:12):
episode. We are right at the 43minute marker, which is really
impressive, because I feel likewe could talk for another two
hours, and I'm gonna put apencil in on this new campaign
in August, and the payer modelthat I might be reaching out to
for an episode to start 2026 butI want to give you an
opportunity, you know, to justkind of summarize, you know, you
(39:34):
know, what is the most importantmessage that that you would want
people to take away about bezeland about mental health support
and the impact that that can bemade.
Yep, I think I'm going to bringit full circle back to our
mission, which is people canhelp each other and you can help
yourself. There's a lot of toolsnow being put out into the world
(39:57):
by incredible innovators comingfrom all. All the corners of the
earth where there is something.
And for some people, it'smeditation and mindfulness. For
some people, it's going for arun in the morning, which is
kind of similar. For somepeople, it's like joint like
finding purpose in life andhelping another person
volunteering. For some people, Ihad one psychologist tell me
(40:20):
that he had and his wifeschedule comedy every month they
go to a comedy show becauselaughter is therapy. So it's
about finding what works for youand and it doesn't have to be
like that for the rest of yourlife either. So we can bezel is
here to help find those ideasfor you. And if we don't have it
(40:40):
in our public toolbox, pleasejust reach out to us, and we
will probably have it coming in,so we'll probably be able to
accelerate that solution for youand and guide you in the right
way. So as an individual, youcan download the bezel app and
start to explore what we're nowproviding. And then as an
organization or a community orcompany, if you want to be able
(41:03):
to provide incredible, the bestmental health support for your
community, because it will reacheveryone. Then, then we want to
build a toolbox for you.
I love it, and I as part of thattakeaway, I wrote down, you
know, sometimes it's the littlethings, I think, you know, you
mentioned the comedy, youmentioned the walk, the
meditation, the mindfulness. Itdoesn't have to be packing up
(41:24):
and moving across the globe. Itcan. It can be those little
things that can make the biggestimpact. I think that's the story
that you're trying to share.
Okay, give us a reminder. Sowhat should we be on the
lookout? Where can we find you?
So I've got the book coming outthat once it does, you know,
we'll I'm going to re share thisthis episode when that happens,
we've got a little bit ofexcitement coming in the fall,
(41:47):
where can people find moreinformation about the work that
you're doing and you in general.
Esther, the bestplace is LinkedIn. And I'm
actually about to start aYouTube channel, because we
didn't even talk about themotorcycle ride I'm doing in
July, from the Mexico border tothe Arctic Ocean that is going
to be on a YouTube channel.
You're gonna be able to followthe journey as I go through it,
(42:09):
to highlight, you know, to raiseawareness for women and children
who have been victims of sextrafficking and so. So go to
LinkedIn. That's probably thebest place follow me, connect
with me there. Our website isunder construction right now,
but it is still a really goodplace to go. B, E, z, y, l.com,
(42:32):
I said Z correctly for theAmericans, and I still, even
after 20 years, struggle withthe Z and the Zed and and email
me, or most people can reach mevery easily, and I'm always
available for even, like, a twominute chat, if, if I need to
redirect people to others, I cando that. I
(42:53):
love it, and I am already filledwith regret that we didn't talk
more about this ride that youare going on. It's okay.
It's gonna be very loud. I amdefinitely gonna
be sharing that and watching andfollowing along. And, you know,
this episode will air rightaround the time when that's
beginning, and throughout July.
(43:14):
So I'm very excited. I just, youknow, just to say out loud, you
know, it's one of those thingswhere we've had a couple of
conversations in the past, andthen two years later, have the
same conversation. And again,I'm, I'm I'm ready to run
through a brick wall, the thework that you are doing, the the
emphasis that you have on it,the the mission. You can feel it
(43:35):
come through the the screen. Andto me, that's what makes any
organization special, butcertainly one that is so focused
on the core element of what itis to be a human being and what
it is to be a part of acommunity. So thank you so much,
just in terms of the work thatyou're doing and the impact that
you have, and then also fortaking 45 minutes to an hour out
(43:58):
of your day to share the storywith the listeners of the SCORR
cast. I know anybody thatlistens to this is going to be
really, really feeling the sameway, because I know those
individuals feel feel exactlylike that when they hear when
they'll hear this as well. Verygood. Yeah. Okay. Esther, well,
this is it. This was 45 minutes.
(44:20):
Thank you so much to everybodylistening. If you want to reach
out to Esther, certainly do. Sofollow along. Find the book when
it comes out. Go check out theapp, download it. Go to the
website. Sounds like there'sgoing to be updates made, and
you're going to want to get inat the ground floor here, even a
couple of years in, and see thetakeoff that's coming. As
always, if you're listening tothis, you can get, you can you
(44:43):
can get in contact with me, andI will get you in contact with
Esther. Or you can reach out toher on LinkedIn. If you are
listening, please subscribe.
Rate review. You might havelistened to this one and said
this is the best episode we'vehad yet. Leave it a five star
review. You can leave commentson the YouTube page, on the
SCORR website, Apple spot. Fivewherever you get your podcast,
we've got a great list of guestsupcoming here over the summer
(45:05):
and into the fall. So thank youso much for listening and
Esther, thank you so much onceagain for participating and
sharing your story today.
Thank you, Alec. Youyou as always. Thank you for
(45:25):
tuning in to this episode of thescore cast brought to you by
SCORR Marketing. We appreciateyour time and hope you found
this discussion insightful.
Don't forget to subscribe andjoin us for our next episode.
Until then, remember, marketingis supposed to be fun. You you.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.