You're now listening to Hack and Grow Rich with Shaahin Cheyene and his co-host Bart Baggett. I know that there's, you know, there's a lot of people probably listening to the story with besides the fact that it's completely entertaining and they're going okay, George like what's the point here? And here's the point and the reason. I want you guys to start listening more is that success leaves clues. Look, I could go on and on about Shaahin, how like you had nothing, you know you hustled, you did whatever you had to do. I mean we're obviously, we're not promoting drugs and things. But that's not the point here. You guys got to listen to the fact that he was determined. He was recognizing certain things. He was persistent. But one of the questions I was going to ask you is what gave you this sense of, you know, from moving to the United States, right? And everything this constant sense of what looking for success and why that didn't appeal to you being a doctor, but why doing this did or being on your own, like, what were you when you grew up? Were your parents instilling in you this idea that you wanted to be successful or do you think you just because I mean, I'm not a big believer that people are just born wanting to be successful? It's usually a product of their environment. What is it that gave you that drive? What do you think?

You're now listening to Hack and Grow Rich with Shahin Cheyene and his co-host Bart Baggett. Is it true that you cut the cards in your living room for the first thousand games? Is that a true story? Yes close. So we did a thousand games was our test market and we had some assembled them by hand. Well, the one problem we had was just before our launch, the printer screwed up and sent us the wrong cards. And they were 500 cards per game at a thousand games. With 500000 cards when they were supposed to come sorted game a game of 500 cards, they came completely wrong. So we had to hand sort.... you're laughing man. It was like oh! I thought it was I have admitted. It's the only tantrum I ever threw. I mean, the printer calls me up. Can't get it done. I launched the phone but we had to figure it out and it would be like and the math is 9580 playing card decks of playing cards.

You're now listening to Hack & Grow Rich with Shaahin Cheyene and his co-host Bart Baggett. Cash flow positive real estate. I know you're in Canada. Canada is in a boom right now with real estate. Yeah, but you need to learn about real estate and get some involvement, some exposure. To real estate, that's producing cash flow. People will always need shelter, always need shelters like food and water. People will always need shelter and you in the long term will create wealth doing that.

You're now listening to Hack & Grow Rich with Shaahin Cheyene and his co-host Bart Baggett. People are afraid of success. People are afraid of failure and sometimes with good reason. It doesn't mean that you are tied to that fate. I know you're in the business of coaching and success coaching and hypnosis. It doesn't mean that anybody's tied to that faith but until they realize how bad they suck, they're never going to get better.

You're now listening to Hack & Grow Rich with Shaahin Cheyene and his co-host Bart Baggett. So by the time I was 15, I was like, man, I got to get out of here. I can't. If I stay here, you know, What's the path for me? And my folks would say, hey, you know, go to school five years ten years to get a degree. Become a doctor. You become a doctor young man, and I'd be like all right. Well, let me look at the doctor. I'd be like, look at Mr. so-and-so out the street and I'd look at the guy and he was bald and fat and the whole family was bald and fat. And you just look at the guy and I'd be like, wow. Yeah, he's got a Benz, but that's not him, the bank owns it, right? And that could be you, right? Yeah, you look at his car and you're like, man, you know, like his house. You're like the bank owns that and the guy leaves at 5 a.m. He comes back at like 8 or 9 p.m. and now he looks miserable. I don't want to be that.

You're now listening to Hack & Grow Rich with Shaahin Cheyene and his co-host Bart Baggett. My dad worked at a pizza shop and then he worked at a dry cleaner for nearly 30 years. And we never bought new clothes. I hadn't been to a restaurant until I was 15. And you know, then one of the rich kids at school invited me over and I remember going, wait for a second, explain to me how this works again. This guy is going to come and give me a piece of paper and I can pick a hamburger and he will bring it to me. Like, I was like, yeah, get whatever you want. I got my dad's card. I said what? What do you mean? Did you get your dad's? I go, wait. He's like just get anything you want. I'm like, "so I can get a hamburger and the pasta. I can get both of those and he's going to bring them to me." I was like you must be bullshitting. I don't believe you. And you know, that was my level of sophistication. At that time. I had no, we didn't buy new clothes. It was when customers would come and somebody would look cool, we would just cross our fingers and hope they would skip out on their bill. So my dad would keep their clothes and somehow it would trickle down to us. All our clothes were like two-three sizes too big for us.

You're now listening to Hack & Grow Rich with Shaahin Cheyene and his co-host Bart Baggett. Yeah, yeah and sometimes you've got to take people's energy and use it as fuel for your fire. And that's worked well for me. I think I see people in mixed martial arts doing that. Yes. Where they use the energy of their opponents to their advantage and business is much the same I think as martial arts where you can take that negativity, that distortion that people throw at you and utilize that as fuel.

You look at somebody one of my all-time heroes of all time. Is this guy Alan Watts? Alan Watts was a philosopher. Are you familiar with Alan Watts at all? Yeah, Alan Watts was a philosopher in the 1950s and 1960s up until I think the 70s when he passed away in I think close to 73 who was responsible for bringing the wisdom of the east Zen philosophy to the west and he did it in such a digestible way that even today, people are remixing his words, his spoken word along with electronic dance music. But Watts was one of the most self-realized people of his time because he took that opportunity to self-reflect not only on his strengths but also on his weaknesses. And similarly, I learned early on that it's not as important to learn what you're good at. Because like we said you can hire people that are good at the things that you are not good at. But it is important to know what things you suck at, what things you are horrible at, what things you will never be great at. Not because you put yourself down, not because you are down on yourself, but because then you have a true knowledge of yourself and you can act closer to the truth.

How do I get that? They laughed and they said, well, you know son, what all immigrant families want for their kids is the pinnacle height of success than we could ever reach. To be a doctor. Dad thought for a minute. And he said the only way is to become a doctor. You have to go become a doctor. Look at Mr. Rafsanjani down the street. He is a doctor. He has beans, he has a house, be like him. All right, cool. Let's do that. I want to be a doctor. How do you be a doctor? It's nice. You have to cut people up. You get money, you get all that. And then I looked at the dude, and I was like, man, that dude is bald, that dude is fat. He is a bundle of nerves.

That's why most CEOs that are where they're at. We tend to think that people that are CEOs are these people that have gone to school and done you know the things by the book and they come out like this no and I teach this all the time to my students, my students in my amazon course is that those guys are the smartest in the room for a reason and that reason is not that they've played by the rules. The reason is they didn't think outside the box. They crushed the box. These are real next-level thinkers.

Life is about luck but it's not what you think. Luck can be created and it's about being in the flow. Uh, a great author uh Chikset Mihai who recently passed away just a few days ago wrote the great book Flow and he talks about the amazing synchronicities that could potentially happen when you're in the flow. I've been lucky my whole life, but I believe that I have created my luck.

But if you go to a restaurant and you're not happy, ask for the manager. You will be amazed at how far they will go out of their way to help you out. Smile. Always smile. Don't be aggressive. People are uncomfortable with tension. So it's not going to be to your advantage in these situations to create tension most of the time. So don't have tension. Just smile. Maybe start with a compliment. You know what, I know that the waiter is working their butt off tonight, I can see how busy you guys are and I just got to tell you those bread rolls that you brought us were spectacular, but we've been waiting 45 minutes for our food and I just wanted to know if there's anything you might be able to do for us.

You can't cultivate that in a very safe comfy thing. If somebody calls you something and your word for yourself is something different and all of a sudden you melt because you thought you were special like a snowflake. The world doesn't work that way. You can create bubbles that work that way but it's not going to make you stronger. It's not going to make you more resilient and we're not going to change the world, change the planet, impact people around us, create great stuff and great stories by falling into that narrative. What you do is you pick yourself up you say good shot let's go again or you pick yourself up and you say is that all you have? Really?

Buddy look, you can take your shots, call yourself a victim and fall into that victim mentality or you can reach down, grab your balls, get up and fight. You can do that. You can do that. You have a set of balls for a reason, so you can get up and you can fight. You can swing. You might get knocked down again and I did over and over again until one day I didn't anymore but you learn. You become tougher. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger and it's that grit, that resilience, that ability to create this thick skin that makes you invincible. It's what made our ancestors invincible.

The problem is a lot of the stuff has become highly marketed by a lot of the self-help gurus that are out now. So they want you to think that having a passion drive and mindset is what you need. No, that's not what you need. You need to do the work, you need to roll up your sleeves, and do the work. That's what you do. That's what works, what works is doing the work getting out there. And you know, if you're a real estate agent, knocking on doors, and you know, meeting people in your neighborhood, and building your network, and calling the banks and doing whatever those things are that agents and brokers do, but it's just doing the work. There's nothing more effective than doing that.

What are some of the mistakes that people make? What's the biggest mistake that people make on Amazon? And I think this goes kind of to what you and I talk about often is one of the biggest mistakes that people make in life. Also, I think it's just going into something with some knowledge, thinking that you don't need to learn the fundamentals. Because it's like that adage, you know, one of the students who go to the master, and the Masters pouring tea, and he goes all Master, will you teach me in the master has the tea kettle, and he pours the tea into his cup and the tea pours over and fills the table and he goes, Hey, what are you doing? What are you doing? And he says, I can't teach you. And he says Why? Why can't you teach me? He says because your cups are already full. Come back when your cup is empty.

It's always So much easier when you sit with friends and laugh about them. Yeah, you know, it all seems so serious when you're alone, and it's just you, but when you with people who you love people who you trust, it's different, it's different, it's a different feeling. So, you know, I know, you know, as being a man, it's great to be around other men that are doing great things.

So whatever service business you're in or product business those reviews show up and they're probably not on your platform. I have hundreds of reviews on Shaheen, on my computer but they're not necessarily on amazon, on google maps, or each website because I don't own all those platforms. I have to go dig them up, put them in a graphic, put a photograph on them, put them in an email like we're talking about 20 years worth of reviews.

So learning the subtleties and nuances and the cultural differences wherever you're at is super important. Similarly, you know if you're going to be negotiating with gangbangers there's a culture there. If you're going to be negotiating with corporate business people, there's a culture there.

Like there is a risk. There's risk involved in each person has a different scale of the risk that they're willing to take and whether it's fighting, whether it's Covid, whether it's business, life, whatever risk is inherent and as a former fighter I went into it knowing I'm risking my health. Okay, I could have brain damage, I could get knocked out, could break a limb, could get stitches, could fracture my eye socket.