Episode 103 Hacking Self Worth & Self Confidence.

And we are on! This is Hacking Grow Rich, Episode 103. We don't have 103 episodes yet, but we're calling them that I have with me today is my co-host, Bart Baggett, who in general is just an awesome dude. But I like Bart in particular because he is one of the few people I know who's really actually self-reflective. And that's one of the things that impressed me about Bart, most, you know, he coaches people at very high levels, you know, people that are already millionaires, and you know, a couple of billionaires, and he coaches them with his success tactics and kind of his different systems. But I've always been very impressed about how self-reflective Bart is. So welcome, Bart, good to see you. Shaahin. That's a nice compliment. Thank you so much, I feel the same way about you. When you talk to successful people. Sometimes there's a lot of bravado and ego. And, and that's annoying to me. And I've never found you that way at all, despite your tremendous success. I think when I finally got good at comedy is when I began to be a little more vulnerable, and more self-reflective on stage, including, you know, I've been doing seminars since I was 19. But I didn't do comedy for a while. So that's a very good comment. And today's topic I love, I love what you came up with today, hacking, self-confidence. And I love that so much. Because that is one of the reasons I do, what I do is somebody gave me a hack when I was 14, I'll get to it later. And it literally changed my self-esteem and changed my confidence. And so if you stick around the show, we're going to go through both of our favorite hacks that can help you and your kids and your family to have more self-confidence will help you hack and Grow Rich, I guess so.

Every mentor I ever had, as Don't say things as I guess or I think or I wish to say that you're gonna do it. So we're gonna do that today. I actually remember I was at a Tony Robbins event years ago, and the staff had a weird vocabulary. And I thought it was kind of silly at the time because I was only 18 or 17 or whatever. And now I don't find it silly. And I don't let my staff use the word try. And I don't let my friends say I'll try and stop by your party, I will literally stop and say no, just say you're not going to be there because the internal language makes a big difference. And so people think them in language Nazi now. But she and what I realized is my own internal dialogue takes my state, it dictates my success. it dictates my frame. And so if I can't control my internal dialogue, at least I can know, it helps my staff and my friends not lie to themselves and say they try and kind of like my party. Yeah, yeah, no, it's true. Right? It's what we learned from NLP. You know, the map is not the territory common saying in NLP, right. But you've got to create the map to the territory. And you can do that in part by your language. So I couldn't agree more with you there. You just don't want to get too frickin airy-fairy with it and be like one of these new agers. all they're doing is using language but no action.

It's funny because you know, people might think we're a little New Agey, because you, you know, thrill pill, Colt, and your background with all the herbal ecstasy. And, you know, I do handwriting analysis and other stuff, which is, you know, it's definitely not mainstream, but I just don't think it's in the new age category. I think it's more cognitive psychology, positive psychology. I think it's much more tangible. I see myself much more as a scientist or psychologist than any kind of New Age hippie for sure. But I don't know if you know, some guy in a three-piece suit would think that. Yeah, I mean, look, I think, you know, you have a dogma on both sides of the fence. So on one end, you know, I went from completely believing all that stuff, all that woohoo stop, to become, you know, very strict, scientifically based. And then I thought about it. And, you know, it's interesting, the thing that made me lose my faith, if you call it faith, in 100%, you know, pure scientific thought, is doctors, you know, I went to I suffered from eczema for most of my life. And I went to a doctor and you know, a couple of them and they all you know, they've got like three tools in their bag that they can give you right? Take this medicine, take these steroids take this shampoo, do this or that. And you know, my skin was getting really bad. And you know, the guy just hit me and he's like, Look, I'm like, well, so if I take all the stuff will it heal it? And he sits me down. He goes, No, buddy, that's a degenerative disease and you know, it's just going to get worse and worse. So why the hell am I taking this stuff that has all kinds of side effects? He's like, Well, you know, it'll we can manage the disease.

I said, Dude, I don't want you to manage the disease, I want that disease to go. And there was zero, I realized there was like, zero space for any possibility outside of that because I had a list. You know, I just one of the things that, you know, I teach my students in my Amazon course, and Amazon mastery, and through a lot of the business people that I coach and the businesses that I grow, is that when it comes to professionals, and I learned this from one of my mentors, is that we manage them, they don't manage us. So when you go to a lawyer, you go to a doctor, you go to an accountant, you have to be in the pilot's seat, they are not the pilot, they're your flight attendant at best, and you are directing them exactly what you want. So when I go to a doctor, I bring a list of things, a list of therapies, if they've never heard of the therapies, I already have it written down or previously emailed them scientific papers back on those, and I want them to comment on that. And if they don't, that is not the right doctor for me. So when I went to this guy, I realized that he had no, there was no room for anything other than what he, you know, had been taught through this very rigid scientific process. And he was a fine guy. But there was no room. And so I did research. And believe it or not, with a very simple solution of herbs and saltwater, I've 98% cured myself 100% from, you know, fairly debilitating eczema. You know, as far as just, you know, terrible for your confidence and that kind of thing, which is what we're talking about. And, you know, that experience of finding something natural that works, and works really frickin well better than any of the drugs that they gave. By the way, a very simple solution of salt, water, and herbs, which worked for me might not work for 100% of people. But finding something like that. It was like a WTF moment. I was like, dude, like, WTF, what? What the heck, why didn't you explain these options to me? Why did we go to that? So then I thought to myself, well, what else is that, and this is what I think about that by is that what I realized is that there may be things operating outside of our scientific principles, and even the greatest skeptic would say, it's possible, right. And I love reading the work of people like Richard Dawkins, and, you know, listening to Michael Shermer, who's like the king of all skeptics, and seeing how these guys think I love watching them be critical of that kind of Whoo. But if we are open to it, to some extent, saying, I don't know, I'm not going to name it, but I don't know, you, you may open up the possibility of something working just for you. And that's the problem with this rigid scientific dogma is that there's a very rigid series of rules and beliefs that have to come into place. And it doesn't leave a lot of air for new findings, discoveries that may work for an army of one just you or just me.

Right. So if we find out that scientifically, no evidence eating you know, curry three times a week cures your eczema, but you eat curry three times a week, and it cures your eczema. It doesn't do it for anybody else.

Maybe it's not scientifically valid, but I sure as heck effective for you, right.

So at the end of the day, I found that Chinese medicine and Western medicine just fundamentally disagree on principles. And yet I've had both great successes using different treatments, depending on what I was struggling through, but there's no agreement, the CI and the energy. And it just, it just it's literally like two different planets trying to coexist with these different philosophies. And I know they both work at certain times. But if I get my leg cut off, I want Western medicine. And if I want, you know, my skin fixed, I'll probably go to my Eastern medicine doctor. And I think that's what you're saying, I have a concept, Shaahin, that talks about there's always an option C. And so no matter what the problem is, I have a belief that there's an option C that I'm not seeing ABC, but I'm too blind to see it. And so I keep telling my staff like, hey, there's got to be another option. We're just not seeing it. And I think that's what you're talking about is keeping that door open. Take everything we know, but have an open mindedness for something extraordinary, that maybe we didn't see. I love that. Yeah, I tell you, I teach the same thing to my students. I say look, one thing that we do know is that the more options that you have, the higher the likelihood of you making a good decision. 

Now, you might not choose all of those options, right? And we might only be option one and option two, and we're probably going to go with option one. But if we've got 10 options in front of us, what we do know from the decision making matrix is that you have a much higher likelihood, much more probability of making a good decision. When you have more options. Look, look around us in the world, right? People who have more options end up doing better in life. If you have every university in the world to choose from, you might still choose the one closest to your house. But that possibility gives you much more leeway in the world. So I much like you, I love that option C. And I would add to that option D through f, d through Z, that we should have as many options as possible, right? Because that's, that's ultimately what life is about. Well, that's just ultimate freedom if you don't have options, and we talked about this in a previous podcast, the disease of poverty, you only have one doctor, you have no doctor, you can't even go to a doctor, like you are literally stuck with no freedom. So you have no options, we have no option to spiral downhill.

So how does that relate to self confidence? I want to talk about the hack. But I wanted to find something first. And we were just having a conversation with my sister, who's also a certified NLP practitioner, very, very intelligent woman. She said, Bart, what's the difference between self esteem and confidence? So I want to ask your take on that because I have a particular angle. And do you think that they're both required to to make financial breakthroughs and to hack your brain for money?

Yeah, we talked about Richard Khajiit, excuse me, Richard Koch, and Richard Koch his book, unreasonable success. And in his book, he also talks about one of the pillars of highly successful people, he looked at Jeff Bezos of Amazon, he looked at Steve Jobs of Apple, all these different people, one of the elements that he found was this unshakable, unreasonable, self confidence, this belief in self that, you know, you don't know why you have no good reason to have that belief, but you just know, and you act despite.

So I think, you know, and I'm really eager to hear what your hack is. And, you know, my, my hack is pretty straightforward. My hack is act like the person you want to become. That's it. So to build that confidence, you take on the persona, we used to talk about, you know, we talked about almost every episode here about stonewall. And the trick to money is having some, and how he would teach us, hey, just go into a cafe, the most expensive place most expensive hotel in town, and just get a coffee, and drink that coffee and smell the leather on the seats, or go go to the Ferrari dealership and look at the car, see what the buttons look like, hold the key, if they'll let you, you know really see feel like you're part of that. And that's really, for me the hack to self confidence. 

But you don't for me, there is nothing as important as self confidence when I'm building a business. And when I'm building an Amazon business when I'm building any new venture that I get involved with. And the reason is that I am not a detail oriented person, and we talk about this a lot, you could potentially be the best technician in the world at any of a series of specialized tasks. But unless you have that broad picture, and campaign in broad strokes, that's not going to matter because specialized knowledge that we talked about can be hired out the best graphic artists in the world I can pay an hourly salary to and get them to, you know, utilize 40 years of graphic design knowledge in an hour, two hours worth of worth of pay, what the world I believe, deems a value even greater value is the broad strokes, you want to be a thought leader and to be a thought leader. But you have to have this on shakable self confidence. Say I'm not a detail oriented person, which is one of the reasons why it's like in martial arts in particular, I struggle I've been years and years at different fighting arts and martial arts and I'm just like Yeah, yeah, I'm just gonna get in there. And you know, it all works right and punch, the punch kick is a kick, right? If I get to grapple I can do that. But those are it's the guys who excel at those arts are the guys that will break

How to Punch into 5000 different elements in Brazilian Jujitsu, which I've been practicing for several years now, the Brazilians that the really, really expert guys, the black belt, those guys will take a simple movement and break it down into 1000 micro-steps that they've perfected and micro perfected. And that's not me. I am a broad stroke guy. And that's, I think one of the reasons why myself, you and a lot of other people who I know who reached these super high levels of success in life are very broad strokes. Look at Jeff Bezos, look at Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is like making the frickin phone work with no buttons. Have a nice day, and he leaves the room and the engineers are standing there going. The technology for this is two years away, sir, he's like, great, you got until Tuesday, that's what I'm going to unveil. broad strokes, right. But that takes confidence. Being technically proficient at a task just takes hours, you don't have to have confidence to know how to be a great graphic designer, or great coder or programmer, or know how to rebuild the engine in a Ferrari. Maybe that needs a little bit of confidence, but not really right. You just need the technical skills. So for me, but I am very interested in hearing your opinion, like anything selling on Amazon, selling on eBay, having any kind of online e-commerce business. And learning how to do that at a mastery level requires one person to have those broad strokes and a lot of technicians, but the technicians you can hire.

I didn't hear the answer to self esteem versus self worth.

Let me restate that question here since we had a little camera malfunction.

Gotcha. Was that my camera? Your camera? Was it just gone? For some reason? I guess it got hot.

So that's a great answer, Shaahin.

I didn't, maybe you said it. And I missed it. The self esteem versus

The self worth, like self esteem versus confidence. Because everything you just said like confidence and leadership. And it explains exactly why people make millions of dollars when they're CEOs. Because they're bringing the vision and all the people that have political opinions are so upset about the you know, this is the wage gap. They're replaceable, like the people at the bottom are completely, you know, interchangeable. And that's why I don't make as much money. But we're not talking politically. What I want to know is like, is their self confidence and self worth the same? 

Are those words interchangeable in your vocabulary, like self esteem, because you've got a kid, right? You want that kid to have a great self esteem? And you know, the first time he swings the bat, he's not going to be very confident, right? Yeah. But he might have a great self esteem. So what's your difference? Before I tell you my distinction. We often say the competence brings about confidence. If you know if you've practiced that pitch a million times that competence brings about the confidence when you get out there, I'm going to beat this thing, you know, out the thing, similar martial arts, if I'm competent at doing my techniques, when I spar, I know that regardless of how good the person is on the other side, that I'm competent enough to deliver enough tactics to be able to hold my own in the ring with this other person. So at the end of the day, I think self worth, you know, is important. competence is more important. As far as self confidence goes, you have to be dude, how many incompetent people do we encounter every day? Just walking around? Like, how many of these guys that are just like, dude, you do one thing, it's just one thing. You do one thing, just do it right? You know, and this is funny, because this is one of the most incredible things we go to Mexico like, you know, I made a film in Mexico A while back. And we go there a lot. And you know, it's glorious, if you ever want to go to an amazing place very close to the states is Mexico City. And we go to Mexico City to the best of the best restaurants, I mean, really world class restaurants. And even the smaller restaurants that we go to just have little ¨taquerias¨ where they know, they serve the little homemade food and that kind of stuff. And every waiter, every single person in there, they are not an actor, they are not doing something else. They are not a slash this slasher, right, they are a waiter, and they will bring you the food with great pride. And if there's anything wrong with your food, they will take it personally not because they want to get a tip. Sure, you know, there's a little bit of a tipping culture.

Since you know Westerners have been, you know, frequenting a lot of these places, but that's not what they're about. They do it because they love what they do. And it's a it's a, and they are competent at what they do. You cannot get a job waiting at one of these restaurants even though they're paying a very low salary compared to what we get. Unless you're competent at what you do when I go to South and Central America. All I see is competent people everywhere I go. If you're a doctor you are a competent doctor,  if you're a nurse you are a competent nurse. But here in the States, dude, I cannot tell you how many times I've gone to a restaurant and ask the waiter or the waitress to have them just throw their hands up. I don't know. You think it's got gluten in it? And you're like you do one thing you're your waitress you work at this restaurant right now you're doing one thing? Like, if I was the waiter at that restaurant, I would know it. Did you get 20 menu items, I would know every single thing in there. And when you asked me I would tell you if I didn't know, I'd say sir, that's a great question. Let me go ask the chef and come back.

Competence brings about confidence, in my opinion. So again, I think I did a great job tonight of not answering your question.

So sorry, to tell you what I perceive it and, and perhaps is because I've done the psychology of handwriting, so long, there happen to be these distinctions within that, that science. And so it kind of I kind of thought about it this way. And one of the things that I found a lot of people get confused with is vanity and pride. And they confuse that with ego. And then I say with the word ego, he will go oh, I don't want to be egotistical, that's a bad word. Yet, ego is also the same thing as confidence, personal space, I'm going to come in the room, you know, I'm here, I'm gonna get on stage. You know, that's a wonderful thing, unless it becomes arrogance. And then people find that kind of annoying sometimes. And so for me, there are really three, four areas that are distinguishable different. And of course, unless you really understand some cognitive psychology, it's hard to spot those, you know, in yourself and your friends and stuff. 

So you got ego, which is the sense of how important I am and how much space I hold. And I think that relates really strongly to athletics, and sports, and then to confidence. Because of someone's ability to perform well on the football field of basketball, that is all ego. In fact, there was a research study about the NBA. And they found that despite hundreds of scouting reports, there's only one difference in the college kids that make it to the NBA. Do you know what that was? You're hearing of all the personality traits and all the skills and everything. But Originally, it was a little bit but it was narcissism. Oh, no way. It was excessive confidence. It was to the point that they wanted to be the only star. It was a star quality. And you think about it as a team player, but every one of those kids was not the team player. They were the most outstanding kid on their team their entire life. And that's why they're in the NBA. So I thought that that's fascinating. So obviously, narcissism has some value. I mean, look at all these people that do great things. There's this wonderful documentary right now called the dead lady in the Dale, if you've seen it, it's about this little yellow car. 

And I think her name Liz Carmichael is the lead character. And I just was fascinated by how she convinced everybody this car is going to be a big deal. And her employees even after she went to jail, were like, I'd work for her in a second. She's amazing. You know, and it definitely wasn't her physical appearance. It was this undeniable belief in herself, and the ability to sell a dream. And if you're watching it, you're like, well, maybe she's a con artist. Maybe she's not. So to me, that's the confidence, right? But what I found is the important distinction is that self esteem is worth it? Am I worthy of love? Am I worth money? Am I good enough? And I came across somebody? Yes. I want to analyze your handwriting. And she literally used to burn herself with cigarettes. And she would say things like, I hate myself. And I would just be like, of course, I've never said those words about myself ever. And I'm sure we never think of cutting myself right. But she hated herself so much so self loathing that she had bulimia and anorexia if you go back to your history, so that's a low self esteem, right? That same girl might have a lot of confidence in her job. Like she talked about her job and she sells retail. She says I'm the best retail salesman either. So it's interesting. She I know for a fact she had low self esteem. She burns herself, she says things like I hate myself. I'm not worthy. But I'd hire for in sales You know why? Cuz She's really good. So that's two different things. If you can get all those align in your brain, be confident, have enough ego to know, to hold your boundaries and to be great, not necessarily narcissistic. And if you can feel worthy, you know, feel worthy of making money in love. And you can have enough reps and competence to have the confidence. I mean, there's you're unstoppable. Like you're literally unstoppable if you can get all those things running at the same time. And so what I did you know, even when I was writing my first book at 23, is I'm like, how do I make this easy because unless you grow up in a happy household, you might have self esteem issues, you know, there's so many ways people can get their, their confidence eroded. And so one of the things I hacked was like, well, let's see if we can use NLP or hypnosis or handwriting or how can we kind of short circuit, this auto response? So that our brain goes, yes, I can do it. You know, boy, I've never done this before. It's okay. I can do it. Like, I can figure it out. You know, and so I feel like I can do anything. But Shaahin, I still have self doubt about something I'm not good at yet. So because I haven't had the reps, I am not really confident about that thing. But am I worth it? And I know I can do it. So I love what you said, you know, repetitions and competence breeds competence. That's totally true. Yeah, repetition. So was that your hack? Is that the hack? No, I'm telling you two hacks.

I'll give you my two hacks and you give me your check. Okay, my first hack is actually very similar to what you mentioned, I just named it and I call it the James Bond technique. And so it's basically this is for the male audience, but a female audience might pick another avatar. So remember, there's this phrase that some people have, what would Jesus do? You're heard that almost like almost like,

Yeah, but I say what would James Bond do? Because that guy, to me, is the most self confident avatar I can think of, like, He always gets the girl, he always, you know, avoids the bullets. He always gets the bad guy like he just he's just a total badass. So if I'm in a situation, and I'm like, Melissa, pretty girl, but maybe she wouldn't know me. Or maybe they don't talk to her. Maybe she already has a boyfriend, right? And this is back when I was, you know, dating a lot. And I would just Oh, James Bond do James Bond would just walk up and say Hi, I'm James Bond. Like, it's, it would be so simple. And so I would act like somebody else. And I would take his frame of the world, in his frame of the world is I can do anything I want. I'm James Bond. Hmm. So that's my first hack. What would James Bond do? So can I ask a question about that? Yeah. So when you say, what would James Bond do which James Bond comes to mind right away?

For me, because I'm a kid of the 80s. It's probably like Pierce Bronson. Or Robert Roger Moore, you know, but Sean Connery, I think would probably be the one that comes to mind when I want to be the most seductive dude. I'm Sean Connery. There is one badass, and it is Sean Connery. The rest of those guys are pretty badass. Like you look at Daniel Craig's very good, you know, a buddy of mine was the first bad guy in Casino Royale, we can have him on the show Darwin shot. He's amazing. And he says Daniel Craig really is, you know, pretty badass guy. But really, like, when you look back in that era, of like, men that had that true masculinity, like real men, who just made no excuses. Right took full responsibility. That's what Sean Connery was, I think he is just an unbelievable actor. But moreover, he really personified that role and that era.

I'm pretty sure that I published this on my website, so you can Google it. You know, Sean Connery, handwriting analysis, like because he died recently. And I published his article of respect for him. And he had written a letter to Bill Gates. And and basically, or Steve Jobs, one of them and said, Look, I'm fucking James Bond, stop asking you to sell computers. Like he was just telling him to fuck off. But his signature is everything I teach is confident. It's optimism. It's got ego. It's got high self esteem. It's got all the pieces of the puzzle if you were kind of way down the rabbit hole and what we teach, but he has such swagger and he brought it to the screen. So well, so yeah, I think I think the answer is I think of Sean Connery if I want to go, you know, shake somebody's hand that I'm nervous about shaking or something. Yeah, you know, I think he's, he's a guy who I aspire to be. I mean, I don't know what he was like, personally, but right, as far as like the image that he portrayed. So I'll tell you, you know, a funny story, and I want to hear your second hack. So my grandfather, you know, was one of the few guys outside of myself that made a success in our family in Iran. And I remember, one of the markets for this was, you know, he was a must have been in his 40´s. He took care of nine brothers and sisters, none of which were successful. So he took care of everybody in the family, and basically just came out of doing his military service in Iran, in the Shah era, he came out and he just, you know, started going to the markets and figuring out how to trade steel and trade, you know, commodities. And I remember when I was a kid growing up at their house, in Iran, that dude would be taking a nap every day at noon, dude would be napping. And I would be like, Man, that's what I want to do. Like, all these other people are going to jobs hustling You know, like, you know, all this stuff. And Grandpa, he just, sleeps at noon when he wants and then he wakes up, he yells a little bit, people bring him tea and whatever. And so we moved to America. And my grandfather, you know, moved to America. And you know, he moved his whole life here. And I remember I was staying with him for a period of time in my very early teenage years. And my grandfather was obsessed with American television, he just couldn't believe how good it was. Because from where he was living, things were very limited. You know, you had one or two channels, and you know, we all moved to Europe, you know, it's not like here. And he would turn over, you know, he turned his head and looked at me all the time. And he would be like, Shaahen, What are you doing with your life? Why can you not be better? And I say, Grandpa, what do you mean, I'm trying real hard, you know, I'm studying whatever he's like, you need to have more character. Can you be more like this, Bob Barker, he's the man you should look at this. He has beautiful women, he understands money, all this Bob Barker. And that was his that was his idea for masculinity. In those ages, he just saw this man who was like, you know, always, you know, very sensibly dressed, but very, you know, fairly conservative, good disposition, and always had beautiful women around him, and was around money and things. So my grandfather thought that he was the pinnacle of masculinity by bar game is a game show host right? Game Show surprises, right? Yeah. For you guys who don't know, Bob Barker was the, you know, the original host of the show, right? Where I guess contestants would go on and they would spin a wheel and guess how much something is? And you remember his big thing was, and look what's behind door number three, a new car. Remember? I didn't know that was him. I mean, it's, it's so common these days to do that. I forgot where it all came from originally. That's so funny. So, be more like. Bob Barker. Yeah, according to my grandfather, that was, you know, that was it. That was confidence, masculinity. You know, all those things that he loved. He got into, you know, with Bob Barker, but I think the same, I think the same theory would apply with a woman. Because a woman can be confident. So think of Sofia Loren or whatever. famele If you want to expand into it, and then think what would she do like Marilyn Monroe, there was a number of those movie stars that just owned a room, you know, whether it was sex symbol or not, they own the room. And that's what we're talking about with this energy in self confidence. 

Second hack this head, this is really interesting. And this is probably what put me on the map years ago, I had, when I was 14 years, I met a doctor a hypnotist and, and he said, Bart, he is I'm going to give you a couple of ways you know, to make you to be happier. He goes, I'm going to make a hypnosis audio for you literally on cassette, Shaahin and in and it just told me that I was good enough, I'm gonna kind of do typical affirmation stuff. I'm like, Sure, I'll do it. And what I got to lose a low self-esteem, great, I lose that, you know, what, what's the possible worst could happen? And he goes saying, the second thing I want you to do is I want you to make a couple of changes to your handwriting. And I said, Well, why would I do that? Like, what does that have to do with where he goes, I don't care how your handwriting looks. I just want the repetitions over and over and over of this thing I'm going to teach you. So the neural pathway of this particular thing somehow affected my brain. And within about a year of Shaahin, I was literally like, so much more confident. Because what I did was I took my T bar, which is on the letter T is Ebrt, from the middle of the stem to the top of the stem. And I know it sounds silly, but I said I'll be my first guinea pig. I've given that advice, you know, to probably 3 million people if you include all the radio shows that have been on and 1000s have written back and said it actually works. Like this little hack of changing and repetition. You can't do it once. But if you can do this every day, and write, that'll boost your self-esteem. And I don't know why it works here. I don't know how this little thing and the letter T go into your brain. I wish I could scan it and figure it out. And then I thought okay, what else can I change? And what I found was when people start underlining their names, that gives them a little bit more of that leadership quality that you're talking about. So I started picking out individual traits such as what if I could actually just sort of meld together like this perfect person, for me or perfect job and so you could change several trades. So I began to reduce fears and increase the positive traits. So my second hack is to underline your name and raise your T bar.

Anytime you write your name, put an underline to it. When you're sick when you're signing your name, your signature when you're signing your name, okay? Only when you're signing your name, underline it? So, anywhere where you're writing your name, you're signing your name, underline it, and then the line on the team, move that up, move that up. And that'll increase your ability to dream to overcome your fear of failure. 

And you'll start thinking bigger, which may be what you call broad strokes. It just and I can tell you the moment I knew it worked and I'm 14 or 15 years old, right? I remember walking up to this cheerleader and asking her out someone that had never really talked to right. And she said, No, by the way, and I walked up and I went, Hmm, well, it never hurts to try. And I just blew it just went right off my shoulders. Very funny. I was that girl, I ran into my class reunion. And she's still very pretty. And she goes, Bart, I don't remember that story at all. And I'm so sorry. I didn't go out with you. You know, like, I figure I was like, Oh, my God, people just put so much pressure on themselves. She had no recollection, no memory of it. But I knew at that moment something switched because I wouldn't have done it. Six months ago, I was afraid of rejection, she's too pretty. Or she's, you know, a cheerleader. And now I'm like, Hey, man, what's what I got to lose? Dude, just walk up to the pretty girl. And that was my you know, as an adult, of course, has other stories. But as a kid, I was like, Hey, this is obviously working. This is cool.

Yeah, a friend of mine, what does he say he's got a really good saying that. If you don't talk to any new people, you'll end up marrying your cousin.

And I love that. I love that quote, because, you know, I think it looks like if you're a single guy, I'm a family guy, married with a kid happily married with a kid and you know, like, my life is good. You know, but you know, there was a time where I was dating. But outside of that, I think, you know, and outside of COVID, assuming COVID is gonna end. You know, it's one of the great things in life. And you're fantastic at it. Because you're fantastic at talking to people because you have a natural curiosity, which I think is one of the keys to your success. You are truly genuinely no bullshit, fascinated by humans. And you have this like, curiosity. And I wonder, have you had that since you were a kid?

No, I think I started when I began to study handwriting analysis, I think what happened is my dad and I went to this class. He gave us something to do together. So he would analyze waitresses, handwriting. Well, what I noticed was, everywhere he went, he was the most popular person in the restaurant, right? Everybody would come over and say hello, and my God, this is to say this handwriting. And so what I realized was when you did that thing, which was kind of like a little mind-reading thing, right? Oh, my God, as you're working with your foot, they would just open up and spill their guts to you. And I began to see that people are fascinating. And people are in pain. And people are sometimes not what they seem to be. Like, remember summer camp. I remember the next year after I started learning this I had so much empathy for the bully the previous year because I didn't realize he was insecure, I thought he was mean, it makes sense. Like those little distinctions for a kid gave me empathy, which then made me even more interested to see how I can help them or how they got to where they are, or how they get so damaged. And I wouldn't consider myself really empathetic personally, definitely not in my comedy. A little judgy, actually. But I have learned that I think the natural curiosity of how did this person get there? Why did this person show up this way? And even the fact that I wrote a book called The Success Secrets of the rich and happy like, I wanted to hack wealth, I wanted to make sure that there's a path if you didn't, and you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth, which you weren't By the way, they know that you've been successful, so long, you may forget what it's like to be poor, but it's not good plastic spoon in my mouth. But you know, interestingly enough, do you know where that term comes from the silver spoon in the mouth when they say people will be someone's born with a silver spoon.

I mean, except for the idea that silver is used by Rich people, like a ladle or a soup spoon, but I don't know the source of it. So very close. So the time of the play. Silver, you've heard of colloidal silver, and all these types of things, which by the way, is on the periphery of woo-woo. But silver on its own has antibacterial antimicrobial properties, that's scientifically proven. So bacteria have a very difficult time sticking to silver. So during the time of disease and time of the plagues, and all these types of things. The wealthy people when a child was born, would always put a little tiny spoon silver in his mouth to prevent disease and bacteria from getting in. So when they say born with a silver spoon in his mouth is to that? The fact that story, I never knew that I'm so glad I listened to this podcast. And I'm co-hosting it. Oh, gosh, it's so much fun. I love it. Yeah, I mean, we were very middle class, Mike, my dad was just laughing about how poor he was. He was talking about how his house was so, so poor.

Once they built it, the wood shrank. And then it had space between the wood so he had put up cardboard so that in the winter, the wind wouldn't come through his bedroom. Again, he was literally like a one-bedroom out in the middle of East Texas. So yeah, he overcame quite a lot. And I feel like I have a silver spoon in my mouth compared to him. Do you mean? Like, like, we're middle class. And he was literally pouring, like bleach sleeping on a dirt board poor. So I mean, in one generation or two, all of a sudden, we've made it to a whole different location in life. What would happen to you if you guys hadn't moved? Would you be dead? If your family didn't pick up and come to America? Like, where would your life end? ended up now? No, I don't think we would have been dead. You know, my family were Iranian Jews. We left Iran in the late 70s, around 1979, during the follow the shot, and came here, mainly because my parents were, you know, the generation before them, had been through World War Two. And they were afraid that the Holocaust would repeat itself. So those wounds were still open for them. And they were afraid that what they saw coming in a lot of people argued that that wasn't the issue of the regime. But you know that there started to be some talk, antisemitic talk. And a lot of Jews folk in Iran, like my grandfather included, were doing things like lending money. And in that particular society and culture, lending money is illegal. It's against Islamic laws. So my grandfather started to fear for his life. And when the regime changed all the people that owed him money were like, what money dude. And I remember that time. So, you know, a lot of people stayed, and they're just fine. You know, the country definitely is undergoing and has been going through a lot of difficult economic times, and the people are not the government. Right, the Iranian people are our, you know, some of the sweetest people you'll ever meet. And anybody who's been to Iran knows that the government is a very different thing, the especially theocratic government is a completely different thing than the people who they govern like, like any country, but I think, you know, if we, if we were to have stayed there, I think worse than being poor, we would have been solidly middle class, and I would have led a very predictable life, which I just don't feel was in the cards for me. But you know, it's those things, right? It's like, you know, remember, like, we talked about this, like, what's the one thing that could have happened that shifted your whole life, we talked about transformational experiences, you know, anyone event could change the entire trajectory of our life. So who knows?

I'm so surprised that sometimes what that is, I was driving through Tennessee a few months ago, and I, somebody came across my Facebook, and I'm like, Oh, you live near here. Yeah, I recognized him for like 20 years ago. You know, he was one of our students. And he used to, he sent me an email. I said, By the way, I read your book 20 years ago. And it took me 15 years, but I'm finally rich and happy. And I wanted to thank you for that. He goes, What I didn't expect is that it will take so many years. But apparently, my book, whether it was a great book or not, turned his brain and he went, you know what I can get there. And so you start reading, start reading, thinking Grow Rich, you start reading Tony Robbins or reading other books, you start thinking outside the box. And so he gives me credit for that one decision that shifted his lens. And literally, he's retired at 55 right now, but I didn't do the work. But that one decision to pick up that book was and that was just, it really made me feel good Shaahin because you know, for me, you do all that work. And occasionally you get a letter or an email, but it's not like you get 1000s of emails or letters every day. Because you know, you do this and you've written a book, in fact, you've got one coming out really soon. It's a lot of work and it's really thankless and unless it becomes a bestseller you know, it's great. By the way, I love your first episode of billion. Yeah, hired these amazing actors. I mean, it's so it's an interesting podcast. I think it's gonna be great when the whole thing rolls out. Is your book out yet? Can we pick up a copy yet? So we will get to Billions.

Do you have an audio version of your book?

That is on my to-do list my book called The Magic Question, which is a very short book on Audible and it's literally one of my best sellers. And so I keep seeing the royalties and thinking, why don't I have my other book on Audible? Like, I'm kidding worlds here. So it is literally on the list of things to do this month, but it'll probably be a few months before the rich and happy book is on Audible. So could we possibly give our listeners some kind of advance notice maybe? And also, if they get the audible book that you might throw in some other things for them, some special thing for hacking glorious listeners, I would love that. In fact, I will tell you this, because I'm halfway finished with the audio version of it. If they get the PDF version, from my website, they actually get half the audio-book because I already finished half of it. So it's already up and running there. But if you've made it through like Amazon, I can't do it. So stop by bartbaggett.com or Handwriting University, and in the rich and happy is a great book. It's a 400-page book. I mean, it's not an easy read. But it's in fact, we had an email and I want to ask you this question as we wrap up the program. What books have made the biggest difference in your life is like a recommendation? Obviously, I'd recommend my own book, but the truth is, that book was not Bart's opinion. That was Bart's research of everybody else's book. So you know, the Kawasaki stuff on you know, the Rich Dad, Poor Dad that philosophies there, you get the systems analysis, you know, from like Michael Gerber, you have the leadership you've been versus cognitive psychology. So I blended that all into what I call kind of a tome, or big book saying this is the best, this is the best Bart and came up with about being wealthy. But it's really a result of other interviews because even when I wrote that book, I wasn't so rich and happy. But I felt like I had a really good grasp on the research of other people that have gone before me. What would your, your top book be? If some Yeah, I mean, look, Weaver, we talked about this last time. And so I'll throw a little, I was gonna say, a monkey into the wrench. But maybe I'll throw a wrench in there, throw a better metaphor into the podcast, I'll throw a better metaphor. And I think that's what we'll do today. I'm gonna say that the most impactful books that you read aren't necessarily about the book, but about the time. And the fact that you're here right now, guys, everyone, you should know this. Us as writers, and I've published several books, Bart has published several books, here's a big secret, we don't make money from books, books are not a pathway to riches, as you would think. I've got friends that are New York Times bestsellers, have big book deals, and all that stuff, the amount of money they make from that is minuscule compared to what they make in other areas of their life. So if you are able, and you're at the right place at the right time, and you hear somebody and that person inspires you, in some way, shape, or form, spending that $10 or $20, or $30, on that book that this person has spent years, and countless effort producing is a good move. Now the book might not be the most spectacular thing you've ever read. But it might be the right thing for you right now. So keep that in mind, guys, as you and gals as we kind of go through this. So for me, the books that I read were right for me at that time. So it's another element. You know, I play chess, oftentimes, right? So I did, you know, love martial arts, and I love chess, I see them as all parts of the same thing. And chess is really like this four-dimensional way of thinking. And when you play speed chess, which is a completely different game, any chess master, I will tell you that standard chess and speed chess where you only have two minutes for a whole game or five minutes for a whole game adds a whole other dimension to the game, which that added dimension is time. Now the move that you make, and this goes back to strategy, is not as important as if you make an okay move quickly. If you just make okay moves throughout the two minutes, and the other guy makes amazing moves but takes too much time, you can still win, you can still outplay him. It's all part of the strategy when you add that dimension to the game. So when it comes to absorbing content, absorbing information that empowers you, you have to take into consideration the time and place in your life right now, at this moment, because the books that you read then are going to be that you read now are going to be very different, they're going to have a different impact on you later on in life. And this was always the case for me. I mean, for me, it was the standards thinking Grow Rich, which by the way now is not one of my favorite books at all. But back then it was very impactful mainly because of the repetition that you talked about. And the greatest salesman Og Mandino, Stuart Wilde, the trick to money is having some love that I still love reading but it doesn't have the same impact for me. And most recently Richard's conscious book unreasonable success and how to achieve it, I almost feel like he is writing that with me in his head. I love every aspect of that book, which is a great new book. And so guys, as we wrap up, I want you to make sure to go to Bart baggett.com. And check out all the cool stuff he has on there. My book is not released yet, but I do have the first galley copies. Here's a preview. All right, I'm excited. I'm super excited about it. I just have to tell us that photography is so cool. And you are 19 and need to get a picture right? Like you look like you own the world. And I know that you made a lot of money, but how did you get that kind of crazy self-confidence to sit on that throne? Like you have just been expelled from heaven.

One of the most famous photographers in the world at that time, this guy David LaChapelle, if you ever want to check out his work, he's got a book called hotel “La Chapelle” and amazing work. And he did this very, very 90s stereotypical kind of like color photos and before me, he had shot Leo DiCaprio and all these different celebrities Madonna had come to a studio so all these people were there and then we went and we went to this castle and I write about in my book, the whole story of that's kind of a cool story, but the books coming out if you guys want to listen to the podcast, just go to shaahincheyenne.com we'll include it in the notes or on Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon anywhere podcasts are found you can look up billions the first episode from the book is on there it's billion. Without the S excuse me, ¨Billion how I became king of thrill Kill Kult¨ always share this podcast if you're watching the video on YouTube Make sure to subscribe and like to our channel and you can get a hold of me or learn more about selling on Amazon, Amazon mastery. Amazon FBA at FBA seller course calm or just go to Shaahin Cheyene command-click on the link for Amazon course. I answer every single email personally. So I will get back to you. It might take me some time. But if you want to reach out to me, please do so. And if I can help empower you to make your first billion I'd be delighted to do that. And Bart, thank you so much for being on the show. I'll let you wrap it up. Great. I hope that if you guys have any questions, we're going to start doing a mail segment. So send us an email to either Shaahin or I ended up on Instagram. And we would like to get you on the show. Answering your questions helps us direct this so that you're getting the most value about hacking your own brain, hack your business and really become richer and happier. Shaahin has been a great show. Thank you much so much. I look forward to next week. Yeah, it's been a blast. We'll see you soon. Goodbye.