An Inspired Chat with Elley Ringo

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Elley Ringo. Check out our conversation below.

Elley, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What is a normal day like for you right now?
My normal days right now have been quite busy. But describing a day from morning to night looks like this;
I got up I have to play with my cat in the morning because he brings me his toy before I step foot out of bed he’s making sure that he’s played with.
Then I exercise for a little bit, turn on my computer make coffee and then sit at my computer for the majority of the day. I am checking orders from my website, I’m editing long format YouTube videos and short content reels. All to promote my brand And elevate my business. . I normally forget to eat lunch, i’ll take meetings and phone calls, try to research my next project. Sometime near the end of the day I’ll go out to my rock shed and check my rock tumblers because those are pretty much spinning all year round. If I have time, I take photographs of inventory and put new minerals on my website. By the end of the day I am ready to sit down and put my feet up, but that won’t work because my cat once again wants to be played with. Toys are a big part of his life and I want to give my pets the best life they can have because they are like family. I usually wind down my day with watching a little bit of TV, and making myself Mexican food, before answering some last-minute emails. Then I go to bed. Anybody that has ever said that working for yourself is easy has clearly never done it.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
my name is Elley Ringo, of Elley Knows Rocks. I’m an economic geologist and an avid rockhound. I enjoy teaching people about Earth science and geology. I’m an expert in mineral identification, and I am constantly studying to learn new things. I’m an independent geologic consultant for hard rock, placer, and artisan mining. I’ve just recently celebrated five years on my growing YouTube channel. I have a collective following of half a million over all of my platforms. If I’m not doing that I am in front of the camera either Filming, giving a talk, or acting in a movie , yep I’m a full-time Actress as well. I have two full-time jobs which makes life interesting, both of them working for myself. In my downtime I am the vice president of my local gem and mineral Club.
I started my own business in 2020 right at the height of Covid, because I was honestly tired of being ridiculed and bullied at my full-time corporate job. It was a place where they didn’t respect women with strong voices and with the help of some friends I created Elley Knows Rocks. In 2021 I stepped out on my own and left my corporate job completely. I traveled around the world to create a reality TV show frozen gold, a Weather Channel original series, which you can now watch the episodes on my YouTube channel. It was an experience of a lifetime, and it really showed me that I could be happy not working for a large corporation. I had a chance to stretch my legs and figure out what I wanted to do moving forward.
I was very interested in geology from a young age although I didn’t know what geology was. I just knew that rocks were pretty crystals were shiny and I wanted to know why. It wasn’t until years later that I actually figured out what earth science and geology was. It was like a spark lit and I had to pursue that degree. Fast-forward to today and I have a thriving YouTube channel and I work for myself.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What relationship most shaped how you see yourself?
I would say that every person in a creative outlet has imposter syndrome at one point time. It’s very easy to fall into that category, and not believing in yourself or feeling like you deserve what you’ve worked so hard for is real. The relationships around me help me see Things more clearly when I’m in a slump Or when imposter syndrome takes over. These are my closest friends.Danni, Asisa, Candice, Dave, Steve, Dan. So many others see me in a very different light than I see myself. They see me as strong, that I’ve overcome a lot. they see how tenacious I am, they tell me how hard-working I am. And they remind me of these things. They tell me that they’re proud of what I’ve done and what I’ve accomplished. And sometimes even hearing it you don’t believe it. But because of good friends it gives you strength, you don’t feel alone. I’m grateful that I have people that care enough about me to tell me when I’m doing something wrong, and to encourage me and build me up when I when I feel like I’m all alone or struggling and who stand by me and are proud to see me thrive when I’m doing something right. I would say nothing is done completely alone. Every great thing has a support system be at smaller large, and sometimes all you need are a few close friends to feel like you have the world building you up.

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
I don’t believe in giving up, it’s not in my nature I was raised differently. I was raised to be strong and resilient. If I didn’t have it I made it, if I couldn’t afford it I would repurpose something into what I needed to the best of my abilities. And learned to fight for what I want, not in a physical sense I’m not gonna go beat somebody up lol. But I mean to be mentally strong. Struggling and suffering is a part of life. It teaches you how strong you can be, it tests your willpower and it shows you who you really are and what you are willing to fight for. I’ve seen what people that are handed success or handed what they have. And when shit hits the fan they don’t know how to react they don’t know what to do they sit there and crumble. But someone who suffered someone who struggled for what they have know exactly how to proceed. Thwy might fumble around a little bit but they’re not gonna sit there and stumble over themselves in the dark. They’ll figure out how to hit two rocks together and make a spark to create a fire They’ll do whatever it takes. And you can’t learn that by being handed everything if everything was easy everyone would do it and it’s not

So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
This is a funny question there’s a lot of that going on right now I would say but the biggest thing is that green energy is green, and doesn’t involve fossil fuels and mining … I know this is a controversial topic but it needs to be addressed a little more. I’ve talked about this a lot on my channel. People believe that they can walk into a store buy a battery and that the battery came from the store. They don’t think twice that their EV vehicle took more energy due to the mining processes than most vehicles do. Everybody is so concerned about using fossil fuels. And yes those will run out one day. But nothing is green. Over an amount of time Through using an EV vehicle your footprint might appear small, but the footprint it took to create the vehicle and the battery is huge. The amount of mining, electricity, processes and waste that went into making that battery and the vehicle that carries the battery people rarely look at. They love to negate it. I have had so many people Unfollow me for speaking out about this. But it’s the truth everything that we do involves mining and mining is not green by any means. But mining is the backbone of this country. In geology and mining communities they say if you can’t grow it it must be mined. And it is the truth but even after you grow it there is still the process of mining that requires further refining in the process. I’ve given an entire talk on this subject. It is actually my favorite debate cause I can debate with any person and prove that in someway or another each that every day they participate and support mining.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. Could you give everything your best, even if no one ever praised you for it?
Always, it’s wonderful to have people praise you for what you do. I think that everybody enjoys that. And when everything is said and done I do hope that people remember that I gave it my all no matter what. But half of what I do makes me happy and no one ever sees. And even if they did see it if they don’t care about it, it doesn’t matter. Because it makes me happy that I know that I put everything into Doing something correctly or doing it better. Especially when I complete a project. It’s that self gratification. It’s like organizing the rocks around your tree in your front yard. You do it because you’re pulling all of the leaves out of the rocks, you’re cleaning everything up to make it look beautiful for your own self gratification. I feel like if you need to do something correct i’ve given you all just to be praised for it that you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. I feel like everything in your life should be done to the best of your abilities, you need to be able to do that for yourself.
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Contact Info:

• Website: https://Elleyknowsrocks.com
• Instagram: @Elleyknowsrocks
• Linkedin: Elley knows rocks
• Twitter: @Elleyknowsrocks
• Facebook: @Elleyknowsrocks
• Youtube: @Elleyknowsrocks

Image Credits
Candice O, Elley Ringo, Danni M