SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, risk, money, friends, luck, interesting, amazon, thinking, world, success, talking, side effect, books, jumping, Bart, movies, bankroll, business, feel, wealth.

All right, everybody, welcome to ¨Hack and Grow Rich¨. This is going to be our first episode in this specific format with my co-host, Bart Baggett. Bart has been on CNN, he's been on Larry King Live, The Today Show, CBS. You name it. He's been featured in The Wall Street Journal in 1500 radio shows. He's been on Howard Stern, and he's the author of over 10 books. From topics ranging from “Success” to “Relationships” “Self-Help.” He's written a book called ¨The Magic Question¨ that's hit Amazon's number one bestseller list and self-help and he's just, overall, a pretty generous and awesome dude. And one thing I think that'll be interesting for you guys to know about Bart is that he is one of the leading handwriting experts in the world. So Bart, why don't you tell us one thing that maybe our listeners and viewers might not know about you? 

Bart Baggett

Wow. Wow. After that intro, thank you. I feel so honored. I think most people don't know because I've been known as the world's number one handwriting expert, then on occasions see my face talking about internet marketing. Like I'm on stage in 2000 with internet marketing buddies, but most people don't know I've been in 14 movies and died by a shark, die by Moby Dick, died in a helicopter crash from a van, and I’m pretty sure he was a secret service agent for a fake president. 

Shaahin Cheyene

No way, I didn't even know that about you. 

Bart Baggett

I'm in the ¨Green Hornet¨ which is on Netflix this month. Now if you blink, you'll miss me. Everything I cut out on the floor, but I did spend an evening with the director. So I have a very pathetic acting career to brag about to my grandkids. 

Shaahin Cheyene

But you know, I always think that's pretty amazing, right? Because we're in LA, I mean, you used to be in LA. And in LA it's kind of a normal thing for you to be in the movies. Oh, yeah. You know, I was an expert on the new Robert De Niro film last week, and it's just a normal thing. In other places in the country, and more, so other places in the world, stuff like that does not happen.

Bart Baggett  02:54

When I go to India, I show my little three-minute video reel of me dying in a helicopter, and you know, they are dumb movies. I mean, they're from asylum or, you know, really silly movies and they would treat me like I'm a Hollywood movie star. It's hilarious because you and I know these low-budget movies, and I got there because of my friends. I auditioned and I did the acting thing, and I've earned my stripes. But still, I was never famous. But you're right, it holds a lot of weight outside of LA. Of course, in LA, it's hard to impress anybody. That's why you're impressive. Because people actually in LA that live in LA, are impressed by you. Not me, though. 

Shaahin Cheyene

Well, yeah, I mean, LA is a very interesting place. It's interesting, which kind of leads us into the topic that we're talking about. But, I feel like, in LA, there's been a lot of synchronicity. I feel like they're centers in the world that people are attracted to like LA, New York, Miami. And of course, internationally, there are those usual places where people just tend to gravitate and they've kind of become centers of business. And that's fascinating to me because I know people who've been unsuccessful in other places. And just by the sheer fact of proximity to success, like they want to start a tech company, they moved to Silicon Valley, and all of a sudden, they're in the flow of that. Have you ever noticed anything like that before?

Bart Baggett 

Well, I think the tech company is great. Like when I go visit San Francisco, you're always in a startup and that's your thing. And if you're not, you're just not even relevant. Like if you're like my single friends today, like Oh, another founder, another founder! And then in LA, you have entrepreneurs, you got actors, you have a movie director and musicians. To me, that was the capital of the world. Now the ¨COVID¨ may change things for a while, but anywhere you go, the community is going to be the key. And if you're trying to start a business in the middle of Kansas, and nobody understands you and everyone's got a job at the army base, you're going to struggle. I mean, you've got to be around like-minded people to inspire you and that's how you and I met. We were sort of in social groups, and we want to be inspired by entrepreneurs and it levels us up a little bit. It makes us reach a little higher.

Shaahin Cheyene  05:12

Yeah, I think that's true. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about today was the concept of luck. I think both you and I have been very fortunate in our lives, and we've had a lot of opportunities that we have either forged or that have come our way. That's been a part of synchronicities that we've been involved in. Just our meeting was part of pretty interesting synchronicity. And one of the things that I was thinking about the other day, Bart, is what is luck? Is luck just a roll of the dice? The cards we dealt when we were born? Is there some component that’s just in the air? Or is it something else? Is it something that we can go out there and affect, or something that we've been affecting from day one?

Bart Baggett  06:16

This is a pretty deep conversation. It is like this when we talk about luck in the fact that we're financially successful, or people get lucky with an idea or timing, or just lucky to be born in a free country. Because I visited a friend of mine recently and she reminded me that she and her family escaped from Cambodia 35 years ago on a boat, on a dinghy, and came to America and didn't speak English. She wakes up every day grateful just to be in America and not being shot at. So that kind of perspective is humbling for the rest of us that were born here and went to an average middle-class school, and a lot of my friends from high school had pretty struggling lives like second divorces, working at Chili's, like they're just doing that thing. I just thought, What's the most outlandish thing I can think of? And let me go do that and I wasn't afraid to fail. And I did it over and over and again, and I kept getting up and getting kicked over and getting up. I think there's a little bit of luck. I think the definition most people use, at least in the self-help community, is luck is preparedness meets opportunity. And as an example, when I had an opportunity, I screwed it up. When I was 21. I published my first book, and this is back in 1987 or 1991. And I got a guy sitting in my living room, my dad, he goes, Hey! we could do this thing called an infomercial. And this was at the same time at Tony Robbins running infomercials, and I turned it down. I was 21 and didn't know what it was, I was so young and I didn't understand it. What was I thinking? It was an opportunity, but was I ready? Maybe not, but I think I could have been ready. But you know what, those come and go, and if you don't jump on that train, you just don't know. I was kicking myself and I did Okay in the end, but it was interesting because sometimes opportunities knock on the door, and you don't even see it. And years later, you're like, oh man! I could have done that.

Shaahin Cheyene  08:13

Yeah, it's not a straight line, right? It's not like, if you don't do that, then everything goes sideways. It's like a tree with branches. So, maybe the Tony Robbins thing would have kept you from a different opportunity, but it took you to a different one. I think it's much more complex, but I'll go one further. I think I liked your example, it’s kind of that whole self-help example. But what if luck was directly related to risk? So Nassim Taleb in his book, ¨Black Swan¨, talks about successful people and how their level of success is directly linked to the amount of risk that they take. So if you look at somebody who's employed at a lower-level position, his risk is minimal so he's guaranteed a paycheck. Whereas the guy that owns the company might not get a paycheck ever, so his risk is maximum. The amount of his reward in general in life can be traced back to risk, so I would almost ask or even argue, can luck be measured to what you said “preparedness,” but also to the ability to take risks and the interest in taking risks and the action that's involved in taking risks?

Bart Baggett  09:46

It’s like a home run. The number one batter ever has more strikeouts than home runs. So, as you think about going up to that, you're like, do I make a single? A double? Or do I risk going for the home run or strike out and let down my team? So the baseball mentality is very similar. There's just no way you're ever going to be in the final race of the Olympics unless you sacrifice 4 years, or 9 or 10 years to even get there. People don't get to the NBA Finals without 15 years of hard work. And they've given up relationships, especially CEOs. A lot of people get into college or they're in college and they get pregnant, or they start having kids. In one of the biggest movies I was in, the lead actor said, Dude, I can't do this anymore. My wife is having a baby and I've got to quit acting and work full time at the restaurant. I got to see the anguish on his face because he loved acting. I would say he was equal on the billing, but he had potential. He had that conversation in his head of security versus risk and he chose security. And I think that's a decision a lot of people make, and therefore, they never get the big break, or they never get the home run, because they're not there and call it luck. I guess it is a little bit of luck when you're sitting next to a director, or someone introduces you to the founder of something and they give you a $15 billion investment or the fact that you found yourself in the right place at the right time.

Shaahin Cheyene  11:15

That's true. So, two funny things, number one, I have been shot at on a boat in Cambodia, but we can share that story later on. The second part is that I came as an immigrant from Iran. I packed up overnight everything that we had and went through Germany, and eventually came to the states with nothing. Then, you look at some people and they can do no wrong, right? We both know these kinds of guys that everything they touch turns to gold. I think that's largely from the perspective of us looking out at somebody else and you never know the pain that somebody has or the struggle that somebody has internally. And people lie, particularly men keep that inside, so they won't let the world know at any cost the struggles that they have. So oftentimes, what you see is, hey, this guy did this or this guy did that. Look at all these great successes, but you'll never see their failure. So we just assumed that he must be the luckiest guy on earth without having any relationship to what he's gone through to achieve what he did. But on the same note, some people are on the flip side of that. People who just seem like everything they do mess up and go wrong. And I guess the real question, the core question is, are these the cards that they're dealt? Some people might argue, and I'll tell you what, I am not completely convinced that there is not some element of just cosmic Moon Dust, gravitational karma, whatever you want to call it, going against somebody. You and I talk about this often. We joke about the New Age movement and whatnot. I am not a fan of woo-woo, or manifestation, or any of that stuff. But sometimes it sure seems like the cards are stacked against some people and the other direction for others.

Bart Baggett  13:42

I've spent a lot of time in India. And one of the interesting things I've seen about that culture is that their caste system, their names, and all people in the color of the skin are the same, but they know their place in the world. And if you're in a certain caste, there's incredible cultural hypnosis that says you can never elevate. And even though it's a democracy, even though they can't judge you by the color of your skin, they know you’re working-class, I'm never gonna be a Brahmin or whatever. And I find that so fascinating that they kind of buy into the fact or the idea that they were reincarnated into this cast. Therefore, this is their only limitation. So it's like the elephant with the string. And growing up with the metaphor is like they feel the limitations are there. I have met people that seem to be a walking disaster. And almost always because of my special skill set, I'm doing handwriting analysis. Their handwriting shows this particular mental disorder. Whether it's an organizer, fear of success, or self-esteem, or exaggeration, or pathological lying. I mean, they're damaged from childhood or whatever happened, and yet they're still recreating this drama. So I don't see too many people that just are in a vortex of bad luck, Shaahin, I think it's self-created bad luck without spending the time going through their development journey to clean up their issues.

Shaahin Cheyene  14:56

Interesting. If you're born into a low caste and somewhere like India, then I get it. Some people raise out of that and there are all kinds of movies about those people, but let's move on. If you've had the basics of life sorted and now you're at a place where you want to improve your luck, is that possible? Can you take more risks? I've got friends who have started companies, and I've got friends that are entrepreneurs. And a lot of the time when I mentioned risk, they're like, Okay, let's do it all in. And I'm like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait for a second, the risk doesn't mean that you just foolishly go in and you do anything and take a risk. You don't just jump off a cliff and hope the parachute opens. It entails taking educated risks, having many options to choose from, and having a process of thinking clearly and discerning. And when you do that, then it's okay to take those risks. I teach that often to my Amazon students because the process of selling on Amazon is a little bit like Voodoo and this is what I mean by that. You cannot know if the product that you pick, the category that you pick, the time that you're choosing it, the supplier that you choose, all the stars are going to be in alignment. At any point, something could happen that could mess your whole flow up. So, what do you do? Well, you can say, this isn't for me, I can't handle the stress. And some people do that and they get a job like you're saying and go wait tables or whatever. Some of the rest of us are like, No, I want to take the risk, let's go. In that case, you need to have as much information as possible from the highest source that you can achieve that knowledge and then you move forward making the decisions based on your best guess, and a lot of times it is a guess, right? It's a little bit Voodoo. And I'll tell you about the difference between the students that succeed and the students that fail. The ones that make it, and the ones that go nowhere or don't go anywhere big is not that they pick the right things and roll the dice and hit the right number. They put the little spinning ball and hit it in the right color. It's the fact that regardless of what happens, they continually change and improve. They continually fix what's wrong and they tweak it until they get what they want out of it. I feel like that's a metaphor for life and how life operates. Because you'll go play the game and it's very unlike jumping out of an airplane because jumping out of an airplane, you either land or you die. But in business, particularly in Amazon and e-commerce or I would say in any business, it's a process of jumping and then adjusting and adjusting a little more and adjusting a little more and continue jumping until you perfect it.

Bart Baggett  18:36

When someone was asking me about parachuting recently, and having done that, would you ever do that? I said I did it. I did it once. And obviously, I'm here so I survived. But the risk-reward to that seemed high to me. since none of it was in my control. I didn't back the chute. I was jumping, I wouldn't even be the guy I was taught was on the back of somebody else. Yeah, but scuba dive every year is good. I've been for 20 years. So you know, I feel like and maybe I have an illusion. I feel like I'm in control. I feel like I have 6090 seconds to control an air problem. I feel like I got my partner. I feel like I did all my things myself. So I have over-prepared. I've trained well. I know all situations said don't get floated with a partner. So I'm extra prepared. And if something bad happens like luck, sharks show up, right? I hopefully prepared to not a lot less bad examples of bad luck, right. But if you're prepared, I wouldn't freak out. I wouldn't go bananas. I wouldn't be somebody if they're new. So I think you're talking about if they Oh, they over they constantly improve themselves. But isn't that the basis of a ¨championship mentality¨ of people that just get back up? I mean, yeah, sometimes people just get turned in the middle of Star Wars when they're 16. That's a little bit of luck. A little bit of timing, obviously, that career trip trajectory, amazing. But for the rest of us normal people, I think it's exactly talking about its consistency, its persistence, it's learning. It's not giving up and it's consistently taking feedback. I was thinking about some of the questions if somebody emailed us and said, Hey, man, what's the secret to marketing? Do you know the secret to marketing is testing? It's that's such a dumb answer. Because everybody wants a secret to success and just gives me the secret. But it's not, it's letting the market tell you what you want to do, and getting all these feedback loops so that when you do put $100,000 down, you know, it's gonna payback because you've already put 20 and then 40 and 80. And it always comes back, you know, in the slot machine of you know, Facebook ads or whatever it is. So no, I don't think when someone Gamble's a million dollars on an ad campaign, they're not gambling, they probably started at $10 a day, $20 a day. And I'll say, you know, people that are spending $700,000 a month on advertising, right? Yeah, sure. Yeah, they're only doing that, because they know they're gonna get a payoff because they had a lot of history to prove it.

Shaahin Cheyene  20:48

Yeah, I think we're saying the same thing. You know, at the end of the day, yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly what it's about. So, I operate this Amazon course. And it's all mastery, where we teach people how to succeed on Amazon. And we get people from all levels, like, I've got a 16-year-old in the course right now. And he's kicking ass. And I've got a 65-year-old retired guy who's like, interested in, selling products. And so we get people from all over the place. And I like to see what I could do to make each student maximum success, right to give them the maximum level of success possible. And I always think about it. And I'm like, what is the thing that differentiates? Right? And people are like, oh, shaking, you're the hot guy, like, come on. You're the hacker, give us the hack. What's the hack? Right shows the hack, too. And I'm like, Okay, well, there are hacks that you can do. Right? Those are just tactics, techniques. And you know, they range from white hats, gray hats, black hats, anything is possible in the world, and you have to measure the risks and benefits of all that stuff. But at the end of the day, the thing that's gonna make you successful isn't any hack. There's no hack to success. The hack is hard work and discipline. But not only that, it's being able to make those adjustments, which means you have to be capitalized enough to be able to make a mistake, fail, and get right up. If you're planning on having a hit. And you go all-in on that one thing. And maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't, but you need to adjust and you don't have enough bankroll, you're going to fail. It's not because your idea was wrong. It's not because you weren't resilient enough. It was because you just did not have enough capital, you didn't give yourself enough bandwidth, enough space. To make that happen. I remember back in the day back with our friend, Stuart Wilde, who wrote, The trick to money is having some use for a friend of mine, you know, we talked about him. Previously, we used to go out to casinos. And Stuart invented this thing called ¨Mongolian blackjack¨, where he developed this system, which was kind of like part mentalism, part weird spiritualism, and part just card counting. He was a brilliant guy, but he knew how to count cards, and we would go into these casinos and groups, everybody breaks off, so they wouldn't think we were a click, and we would use his systems and because we all knew how to count cards, but the important thing when you playing blackjack, and I'll tell you a funny story about that, too. He had some crazy techniques. But the important thing when you play blackjack, aside from knowing what you're doing, which is very simple to learn, his techniques, at least work, is having enough bankroll so that you can weather the storm and come out a winner. And that's, you know, that's one of the key things. So I'll tell you a funny story. So, one of his favorite things to do is when a table gets stagnant and you want it to change the dealer, you know, that kind of energy gets stagnant. I don't know what that means, per se. But, you could feel it when you get somewhere and like it just doesn't feel right anymore at the table. This is my and yet another esoteric thing. So one of the hallmarks of what we would do when we would go to these places is we would always order a VA.

Bart Baggett  24:23

I don't know. Do they still make a V8? Is that still a thing they do? The keratin cellar was not my favorite, but they got to me. Right?

Shaahin Cheyene  24:32

So, you will put the V8 on the table, and then you would start playing and if things didn't go your way, you would start to get very clumsy. And over the table and spill the V8 and this would devastate all the players on the table. Whatever the hand was, they could no longer play it. They couldn't because it was an honest mistake. And they would have to clean the table and change the dealer. And it was amazing this is a hack. This was an amazing total hack.

Bart Baggett  25:05

Yeah, it's a break in the action, you got the house rules, you got to start cleaning up, got to count all the money, you got to replay the camera. Yeah, it takes a while. It breaks the energy break.

Shaahin Cheyene  25:14

Yeah, in NLP, it's what we call a pattern interrupt. And so this was just, you know, one of the many things that, you know, that that we did in those days to kind of, you know, break things up, break the pattern, you know, and, you know, it was, it was fun, but at the end of the day, you know, just my point is this, that you have to make sure that you have enough space. So I have a lot of people now coming through wanting to join the course. And you know, we handpick all the people from the course right now. So if someone's going to be joining Amazon mastery, where they're, you know, interviewing each person, making sure it's right for them. And we do reject a lot of people, a lot of people don't get in. And some of the time, what I see is people have enough money for the course, they have enough money for the product. But if it doesn't work, that's it. And you,

Bart Baggett  26:08

But if it doesn't work, that's it. And since they have no endurance, they couldn't sustain it, and couldn't do a second product. Yeah, their bankroll is too small to make this a side hustle.

Shaahin Cheyene  26:17

That's right. And so you know, I tell them, to go back to foundational thinking, go do whatever you have to do to make the money so you can be comfortable and relax, sit back and let the business work for you. And when you do that, you're going to succeed even more. Why? Because you're not worried every day, like oh, my God, am I going to lose this money is what or it's going to be whatever it's going to be like, hey, I've got this money set aside to succeed on Amazon. It'll be there, I'm gonna keep trying it, I'm gonna make it succeed. And you're not worried about that being your last $1,000. And if it's gone, it's gone. And oh, my God, what's going to happen? And it's the people who don't worry, it's one of these great ironies that succeed more than the people who have less was more worried about it. You know, it's like that concept that you and I were talking about how money is attracted to money. You know, and it's funny, I think that principle is a universal principle. Like, back in the day when I was hanging out with movie stars and famous people, and you know, all those kinds of things. I don't do too much of that anymore. But, you know, back in the day, when I did, the funniest thing is, it's like, every single one of these things is a club, right? So you're hanging out with billionaires, like, if you're a billionaire, other billionaires want to be around you.

Bart Baggett  27:37

Why?

Shaahin Cheyene  27:38

Like, they could be around anybody. But no, you just join the club, if you're famous. And there are other famous people, they hang out with other famous people. That's why you see 10 or 20 famous people together? Because it's like, oh, you're famous, right? And then there's, there's that crossing, right? So rich people hang out with famous people, famous people hang out with rich people. It's like your part of you're, you're part of the club.

Bart Baggett  28:02

Where are your stores? You used to go down and hang out at a certain Hotel in Santa Monica and just be around affluent people. Was that Stewart? Well, and I feel like you told me that story because you live in Santa Monica. And it was just, you're just there and you just kept running into interesting people.

Shaahin Cheyene  28:16

Yeah, we talked about that a lot. And yeah, that's absolutely another one of the cool things about Stuart that, you know, he taught us is like, he's like, Look if you don't have any money, fake it till you make it. Why? Because you replicate in your mind, the feeling of being wealthy, and the mind sometimes can be tricked into not knowing the difference. So what's the cost of walking into a Ferrari dealership, and sitting in the cars if they let you and smelling the leather? In looking at the paint and visualizing yourself in that car? 

Shaahin Cheyene  28:51

Right doesn't cost anything? What's the cost of sitting pre COVID are now the COVID is almost over. I'm hoping in a fancy hotel in the fanciest hotel in town and ordering a coffee. Right? And five bucks 10 bucks. What is it 10 bucks, 11 bucks with a tip where you pay 11 bucks? You sit there all day, you get your journal yet you follow? They got Wifi. It's fantastic. The best $11 you'll ever spend. But now you're part of the club. And that's, you know what I did in the early days.

Bart Baggett  29:18

I hate the use of the word energy. Like to me, that's a little Fufu. But I don't know how else to say it. Except there's a comfort level. And since energy and light is vibration, so there's some science behind vibrations and using that. But if you get, for example, my father says, ever since I was a kid, I've had a $2 bill in my pocket because I never wanted to be broke ever, ever, ever since the late 1950s. Right? And so for a while, I kept the $100 bill in my pocket. It was very interesting because I never felt broke and feeling broke makes you make poor decisions, or I can't do that or I can't buy that or she would never go out with me or whatever. So having the feeling of the internal dialogue of wealthy people is one of the keys to shifting that interesting story this weekend. I spent some time with some, I'm from Los Angeles. And one of them was young, you know, not very wealthy, real job. One of them was doing well as an attorney making a lot of money as far as our concerns, but she still had the mentality of a street girl, because she grew up poor and grew up with like crackhead parents, and she'll tell you these stories. And she kept saying things Oh, that's such a privileged white thing to say, or that's such a rich person thing to say. And I was like, well, thank you. I'd like to think that you're a rich person, but instead of saying yes, I've coached myself out of the middle class, I've coached myself to say these things, like, yeah, we can afford that. Or we'll just ship hotels or, like, I want to say that because I want to think like the wealthy people, but the thoughts came way before the Shaahin money did a, I had to change my beliefs, change my thoughts, change my dialogue. And it's interesting because you can't coach your friends, right? I couldn't stop and like, Coach your language at lunch, because you know, your friends don't listen to you. It's kind of sad because you're like, you got you, you change your language. And maybe you will perceive that you already have, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars coming through your fingers. Now, how do you go to your friends, you don't have to kind of wait till they raise your hand and say, let me see. Okay, help me.

Shaahin Cheyene  31:08

You can? Yeah, you, somebody has to want to change. And they have to take action to do that, I've read probably 1000s of books by now. Right? I love books. I read 1000s of books. And when you think about it, I used to give people books, I don't do that anymore. Why? Well, what's the investment in a book these days? 20 bucks, 30 bucks, maybe right? Most books are even less than 10 bucks. If that person isn't willing to invest in buying that book, they're probably not going to read it. Right, then you're just sending them a paperweight. So the other person is going to want to and needs to take some initiative. And I will go further to say that that initiative needs to cost them there has to be an effort expended, for them to find the full benefit from that. You get more benefits when you pay for something.

Bart Baggett  32:17

Well, it's skin in the game. But we're talking about a scholarship from one of our programs. And there's a lot of people that sincerely can't afford our programs in India, like we're high priced, like the Mercedes of psychology and Henry houses. And I said, you know, we just don't give things away, because they'll never appreciate it just like a topic. Like a lot of sense. I was like, here's what we do. Why don't we create a program where we can create a partial scholarship, but they've got to go 40 hours of community service, like put in the time and bring your certificates and say, here's my 40 hours of customer service. And we haven't done it yet. But I thought as away because I have a strong opinion that if people don't invest in the program, they don't perceive the value. And so in fact, at least a couple of questions, we can go to email anytime we got a lot of questions for us today. But that is interesting, people need to put skin in the game, then that's why some parents don't just give their kids money. They make them work and make them mow lawns and they make them do the hard work because the parents know the value of money. And then some kids were super smooth, they ended up, overdosing on drugs when they're 25. So, it's a hard thing. I don't have kids that you do, but it's got to be a similar conversation about how much do you give and love? And how much do you hold back at the fact that you need to create your muscle?

Shaahin Cheyene  33:25

Yeah, that's interesting. You know, with my kid I do you know, my wife and I, we do what both of our parents did, which I think works marvelously. Right. Okay, so the whole allowance thing is a Western American thing. We don't have that in Eastern culture, particularly Middle Eastern culture, where I come from. So the going line for us is how we were raised, and what I do with my son also is whatever you need in life, you know, Mom and Dad buy for you. No question, you need money, I'll give you money. What do you want to buy? Right? But I know that you are smart enough. And you have the discernment to know what is necessary, what you need, and what you want, and what you need right now you know, that you don't get everything that you want, just because you want it and it works marvelously. You know, whereas other kids get an allowance as our kid, you need money, you want to buy something, I'll buy it for it's not just that we're wealthy, we have money. It's the fact that it sets up a different mindset. It doesn't set up a mindset of lack, but rather one of fostering trust and intelligence. And that he's smart enough to be on the team. Mike, it doesn't just go like you know, hey, let's go buy a toy wherever it is my kids on Craigslist finding deals. And then if you want something he wanted a foosball table. He found it on Amazon. He's seven years old. He found it on Amazon himself. He's got a laptop, he found out how much they go for new, he went on Craigslist, he found one for I don't know, it was 100 bucks on Amazon, he found one for 25 bucks. We drove him there with money that he had earned from his business, which we could talk about later. And he negotiated with the guy in an unbelievable man to get this foosball table for $10 when the guy was asking 25, and the bored guy, that a seven-year-old was negotiating with him, he just didn't know, he didn't know what to say, and he wasn't, letting up. But, I think that's the way that you can teach kids how to understand not only the value of money but that there's another intrinsic value and other things in human communication in being able to work for what you're doing. He's, he's just a baby, I mean, to us he is. So you know, we can't go out there and work. But what he can do is if he wants something he can negotiate. So that whole experience of getting that toy wasn't just, you know, us, giving him money to buy the toy, it was a lesson in negotiation, it was a lesson, in discovery. I mean, there were so many different elements to that, but it was like, okay, and he loves that. So he, you know, he plays with every day, and whenever his friends come over, he tells him the whole story of how he got it. And he almost doesn't want to get things any other way.

Bart Baggett  36:35

 Now, someone told me that the value of art is not in the painting. It's the story behind the painting, that the person tells his friends, let me tell you how I got that. Like, it's all this whole ritual of how people love to tell the journey because they love to do that. So working forward is just as much fun as getting it unless perhaps you're getting a gold medal. And that's pretty fun. Probably.

Shaahin Cheyene  36:57

No, that's very much so true. I think one of us can get to the questions. I think one of the other points that I wanted to get through on this specific podcast, and we can go through this on a separate podcast, too, is kind of, I think, people who have not experienced big financial success. Wonder why often? And the question that they ask is always really interesting to me, is, you know, how do I get there? In my answer, you know, one of the young people who I'm mentoring right now is constantly asking me that, and I kind of feel like Yoda, Bart, where I'm like, it's not the destination. And, you know, I, think I narrowed it down to trying to explain to him that being wealthy is the side effect.

Bart Baggett  37:55

Interesting

Shaahin Cheyene  37:56

Right? riches are the side effect. They're not the destination, there's nobody I know. And I and, you know, we both know a lot of these guys, but millionaires, I know, few billionaires, hugely successful people, that thing that dollar, the wealth is never the point of what they're doing. It's never the point. I don't know anybody whose whole thing is, I want to make $50 million, and they go out there and do it. I know, one guy who just sold a company for nearly a billion dollars to one of these big companies, one of the biggest companies in the world. And, you know, if you ask that guy, you know, five years ago, when he started his company, you know, like, what are you gonna do, you're gonna make, you know, a billion dollars, he, he wouldn't know what you're talking about. He would be like, No, I'm gonna do this great thing. And he's focused on doing that great thing. The money is a side effect.

Bart Baggett  38:55

And I think like, for example, if you're physically building your body, and you spend two hours a day in the gym like I follow Rockford and everyone is ¨I love that guy for some reason, but I don't have the discipline to do what he does¨. So the muscles are a side effect of a discipline and a habit lifestyle, and eating or saying yes and no to different food options, then you could look while like him, but you could look good. It's a side effect. So the goal for him may be looking great, right? But it's a side effect of all the small decisions you make in a day. Are you saying that the business itself or the discipline of working and achieving and sort of doing business, right, the money is a side effect?

Shaahin Cheyene  39:37

Yeah, you know, it's, it's the doing, it's the thing that you're doing like with Herbal Ecstasy when I started Herbal Ecstasy, I knew I wanted to be rich, because I've seen what poor is like, and that sucks, I don't want to be poor. I say this often now,  the greatest injustice you can do to yourself in America is being poor. It is the worst way to do it. I can't afford to be poor, it is way too expensive to be poor, the poor pay more for everything. They're treated worse, they get lower quality things, right? So if you can prevent it you guys do not be poor in America and I can explain that further. I know that's a very inciting comment. 

Bart Baggett  40:18

I don't mean it to the long conversation, but I love it because it is longer and simpler. Okay, two guys that are wealthy telling me not to be poor. It's literally like it's a disease like you need to think about it, how do I trade my kids and my family? Like, I need to avoid that. That's a problem. And that's an interesting point because it's almost like a disease. And it's hard to get out of it once you got sucked into the vortex. 

Shaahin Cheyene  40:52

When there, they go, and you know, it kind of comes back down to you know, I think the last topic that I wanted to talk about, which is, you know, the things that the world rewards us for monetary. So if you can think about it like this, I think, making money, what does the world give you money for? Like, what are the things? So the most common rookie mistake is to think that the world rewards you for your time? Not true. We talk about graphic artists, for example, we hire a lot of graphic artists. And you know, we had one guy in the course who went to school, got degrees, or whatever. And he's doing his Amazon product, and he's gonna do super well. But he starts doing his graphics. And it takes him four days to do one logo. And it didn't look that great. And I told him, why are you doing this? He's like, Well, you know, I thought I would do it. I don't want to pay anybody else. I'm like, you know, that's a $10 an hour skill set. Like there are people in India and Pakistan that are masters of Photoshop and Adobe and this and they'll do better than then you can do. You don't get rewarded for your time. So a better example is this that the other day, we have these mastermind calls, and the students get to ask me anything they want to about Amazon, how to win on Amazon, you know, we've got several multimillion-dollar brands that are selling, so it's a good opportunity for them to kind of feed into how do we do it? How do we sell a million dollars worth of tea in a month? How do we sell a million dollars worth of kitchen knives? And how can they do that? So one of the students asked me something very technical. So it was like a very technical thing about how do you list a product on a page using this HTML? Whatever thing right? for the second, Bart, I was like, dude, I don't know, right? I've got people who know, and usually what we do in the courses, I'm like, Okay, great. You know, I'm gonna put you on with Steve or Alan or one of my top guys, or the top Amazon guys in the world, and they love doing that technical stuff, and they'll deal with it. And I thought to myself, I'm like, I'm the Amazon guy, right? I'm, you know, widely considered one of the top Amazon gurus in the country. And you know, I'm doing like interviews and stuff. And I don't know how to do the simple thing, because that's bad. And then it occurred to me that no, the world doesn't pay you for that. That's a $10 an hour skill set. I pay people in India, Pakistan, you know, all these great countries, not Cambodia, because they shoot at you on boats. I will tell that story before we're done. But, you know, I pay people for that. So why do I need to know that? Well, what's the What does the world reward you for that? No, the world gives you $10 an hour for that. What's the world Ward me for? Why am I making millions and these guys making 10 bucks an hour? And the difference is that I'm a thought leader. And it occurred to me that the world pays you. It rewards you for being a thought leader in your space, the technical components of it, the real like detailed specifics sometimes you need to know something about them. I could learn how to do that, if I had to, on I'm not that dumb. But you know, I'm not great at that kind of stuff. It's not my expertise. What I'm great at is the broad strokes, the big picture, how do we get you there, and all that other stuff is like Napoleon Hill says and Think and Grow Rich, really specialized knowledge that at the end of the day, is very easy, you can buy it, you can rent it, you can borrow it, some people steal it, you know, but that kind of information you can get. So what you want to be in your field in your area and whatever it is that you're doing is you want to be a thought leader. Not only that, you want to be broad strokes. You want to be the broad stroke guy.

Bart Baggett  44:58

I think the broad stroke is confusing because a lot of times people say the riches are in the niches, you need to have expertise. So yes, you should not get sucked down the rabbit hole of tactics. And I think you're from Erica’s store. But I believe it's Henry Ford, who was known for running at the time, the largest company in the world, the Ford Motor Company. And he had seven phones on his desk. And he said I don't know, the answers to half your questions. But on the other end of each of these phones is the guy that does, yeah. And he was known for delegation. So you're talking about the concept of being an executive at a company, and perceiving yourself as Listen, I'm getting paid to make high-level decisions with all the data, and then these evil execute the plans? And what if you're not at that level, where you've got systems and 100 employees shaking, you just have to learn to say no to $10 items and say yes to all the things that make you the decision-maker. But he moved from six figures, seven figures,

Shaahin Cheyene  46:00

Well, it does not look, it's not black and white. It's not, either one thing or another foundational thinking, but you got to build up. So you build the foundations, right? You start with one property like when we're talking about real estate, you gotta start somewhere. I'll give you an I think maybe to your credit, and to mine, I'll give you an example. So, you know, I know this guy who is a world-famous chef. Well, so let's say he's one of the top 10 chefs in the world. And so I take my wife to a beautiful birthday dinner, one of his restaurants in Las Vegas, one of the top restaurants in the world. And it's everything that you would want the restaurant to be, right. I mean, it's, it's spectacular. You walk in, everybody knows us, we come in, there's a bottle of wine compliments of the chef. And then dish after dish is coming out. Here's the appetizer, here's the thing, here's the thing, especially for you, whatever. And then the chef comes and sits with us halfway through the meal, right? My buddy, you know, when everybody's staring at us at a table, like Who are these people, right? Or whatever.

Shaahin Cheyene  47:10

And I look at him. And I say, you know, I knew him from back in the horrible XC days. And he was just starting to come up in the chef's world. I looked at him and I go, how much of the stuff do you make? He's like, Are you kidding me? He's like, I don't know, the last time I looked here, he's like, Jose cooks food. And he points over to this guy, you know, really nice guy, you know, but the guy's probably earning, you know, I don't know, little more than whatever the minimum is for that position. And that guy's preparing all the food. And so I go, you don't cook the food.

Shaahin Cheyene  47:48

You're loudly here. I'm pointing to the billboard outside the window, looking outside the window at this big hotel, like, there's a billboard of a dude outside with a frying pan. And he's like, No, we just did that for the picture. He's like, I've never cooked in here. I'm like, What do you do? He's like, Well, you know, it's my idea. It's my name behind the whole thing, right? And I said, Well, you do the recipes. He's like, yeah, yeah, you know, Jose helps me, Jose helps me right, you know, his name is Jose Pettaway. But he said, Juan, helps me and Julie helps, with kind of the coordination, but I put it together, he's a thought leader, that's what he is, he comes out and says, This is what the food is going to be like, this is what the experience is going to be like, this is what are the restaurants going to be like, and he lets other people execute, he doesn't need to flip the frying pan, or, you know, a lot of famous photographers, right? They come out with the concept, and somebody else is clicking the little thing on the camera, you know, clicking the shutter on the camera, and setting up the lights, and doing all the work. But they're a thought leader. So ultimately, this is what I would say, right? You can't come out and be a thought leader from day one because you have to build up to that. But you can make that the ultimate goal of where you want to be in whatever category you're in, in whatever business you're in, you could say I am going to be the leader in that category. And ultimately, that's what you build to or towards.

Bart Baggett  49:23

I think in any industry if you had an employee that you got at 21, like the gateleg casino business in blackjack, they would love you to learn all the rules in the casino before they promote you to executive like they ideally they would love that or if you're in you know the gaming division, they want you to play blackjack and poker because you need to kind of understand where your employer is. But if you're going to run the Mirage, for example, you don't necessarily have to have dealt cards. You know, you just need to understand on a broad level, all these different puzzles of it, but you're not going to jump in and day one and own a billion-dollar casino. You're gonna start a restaurant or website or you're going to start You know, whatever podcasts you're doing, you're gonna learn all the little rules, like I know every role on a movie set. But they won't let me touch the lights, because that guy's bs on the union. And I probably shouldn't be because I don't know what kind of size light bulb that is, right. But you know, the director doesn't need to know the size level either, because the art director has a handle on the DP, the director of photography. So I think that delegation is the best. I mean, it is our audience leaders and CEOs, because I'm thinking that that's, that's so important. Because really, you're getting paid to make smart strategic decisions, and decide who's going to execute them. And of course, if you have the charisma to get the team to follow you, with stuff beyond money, you'll keep them around forever. I know, you've, we've had long conversations on different shows about your ability to maintain your employees all around the world, the real estate business, and you're so good to them, that they come back to your factories in China, they get you on the phone and say thank you for the gift back. And you didn't have to do that. So it's not just the money. It's the ability to hold those relationships over time. But Shahid? No, you did not give us credit. But you built a team of people to help you achieve this dream. Not everybody takes the time to send gift baskets and keep their team happy.

Shaahin Cheyene  51:13

Yeah, that's true. That's true, you know, and at the end of the day, you know, you want to be at a place where you're doing what I'm doing. And most days, the work that I do is making decisions, making tricky decisions, making important decisions that can impact the business. So thinking through difficult problems is work. But that's what the universe, the world, whatever you want to call it rewards you for. So me sitting in a quiet place and writing in a journal or going for a walk, I feel like what are you doing? I'm like I'm working. Why am I working? Well, because I am working through a difficult problem. Or maybe I'm just allowing myself time. So I can have the bandwidth to solve that problem. And there are days where I just make one decision. And that one decision is more impactful than anything else, I do the rest of the week, the rest of the month, the rest of the year. And that's work. That's the work that the world rewards you for.

Bart Baggett  52:17

But that's the decision that only you could make. Most of your employees couldn't have made that decision correctly. And nor would they have the guts to try it. And those are some of the decisions even like coaches versus head football coaches versus owners. Like they have to make decisions that are challenging. And they get rewarded for it handsomely. If they get it right. And they get it wrong. The Jacksonville Jaguars.

Shaahin Cheyene  52:44

Right, which brings us back to where the full circle is to risk, right, and building your luck. So you take calculated risks, you build your luck. And you find yourself in a place where you can spend your day making tricky decisions.

Bart Baggett  53:03

You want to get some email or you want to get some questions. I mean, we've got 45 minutes 

to a couple of things a couple here ever once.

Bart Baggett  53:12

This is from Danny Zell in Sydney, Australia. He says,  what's the fastest way to grow and hack an online guitar teaching business? He said my entire touring music career sideline got side by during COVID. Most of us zoom, but it's a bunch of long days in front of the camera. So a teacher like us, he's a key to a teacher. Like us. Yeah, but I don't teach one on one Do you

Shaahin Cheyene  53:40

know, but I mentor people one on one. It just depends on the times.

Bart Baggett  53:42

Okay, so how do you do? How do you get a guitar teacher to scale up into like six figures is waiting for that Tory income? 

Shaahin Cheyene  53:51

Yeah, I think he's got the right idea. As far as wanting to start a business. You know, we talk about diversifying and diversity as far as you know what your businesses are. So you have your job. That's one pillar of the foundation. Right. And so now he's thinking of starting a business that can be a pillar to diversifying, maybe putting some of that money into real estate and then some into the market. And you can have nice four pillars of diversity, where you can be in a good place financially. So as far as you know, the musical instrument business, that's fantastic. And I would look at what other channels you could sell that in. And then like we talked about riches are in the niches go as niche as you can. So if you're going guitar, think about guitar strings. If you're thinking about guitar strings, I don't know what guitar picks. If you're thinking about guitar picks, think about picks for you know, I don't know disabled guitar players, whatever that niche is you want to narrow it down as much as possible and find the area and we teach this in our Amazon course. So my students know you know, I teach this often how you do that, but your funnel down, and you purify until you get to that one product, that golden nugget that you find. And there's a ton of resources that we teach with. And if people want to reach out, I'm happy to share those resources with you. But you know, you do the research, you narrow down the niche. And you find that one product that's got vulnerabilities in the market, that the competition is weak, we call a low hanging fruit. And you go after that.

Bart Baggett  55:32

Let me digest Well, I think you just said because I would have answered that differently. And I think you're brilliant at this. And I'll tell you why. It says he said, Hey, you have this teaching business, go sell a product on Amazon to people that play guitar, and then use those contacts to now sell more teaching. Did you put that together? Is that what I heard you do? Yeah, yeah. He's gonna create a list of people that buy guitar picks, at certain levels, like beginner guitar, right? This is a good topic for beginners, even the same guitar pick. But then you get a list of beginner guitars you can work into. That's brilliant.

Shaahin Cheyene  56:05

Yeah, we do a lot of that on Amazon. And as far as reverse fondling, bringing people from Amazon onto another platform, bringing your people from your other platform onto Amazon. So the world has changed. And you got to be creative because there's probably a guy who teaches guitar who's not as good as you, who's got a lot more business than you. So you have. Yeah, go ahead.

Bart Baggett  56:32

I love the story. And I think you probably know Perry Belcher, he's such a funny marketer, but he's one of the favorite stories is he kept getting the candle business. And so he bought up wicks because you can't make candles that wicks. Yeah. And he bankrupted this poor old lady that had this candle-making shop forever. And he felt guilty about it because he went and got all the customers about wicks. And all of a sudden, like, boom, he was able to out buy from China, all these things, and it was such an injury of the wicks equal the candle business, but no one thinks about the wick is just a piece of it. How I would have answered that question. And maybe it's because I've also been doing the coaching and the training so long, that I would want to scale away from one on one as much as possible and get into some kind of group coaching program or pre-recorded content. So when you do meet your students, it's either very nailed down questions are a very special technique, or it's a group class where everyone's practicing at the same time. And then maybe for a different level of price, you get one on one access, but you're not just competing, it's Fender like, it's not just a video course, because that's not what you're looking for. They do want the personal attention as some kind of hybrid between an online course, a group coaching program, and then some videos because what I noticed, being a guitar player there are some real fundamentals that you have to nail down. And then there's a lot of special cool hawks and stuff. Well, that will be the fundamentals which I'm sure he's teaching to the new students all the time. I would pre-record those and see if I can even hire some people to help them nail that. But you're right, we go to the thought leader, create the content in the curriculum, and then limit it to accessing groups. That's why I would have answered that.

Shaahin Cheyene  58:08

Yeah, good answer. And it looks like unfortunately, we're gonna have to do the other questions on the next call because we are exactly at an hour bar. If people want to get a hold of you, how do they reach you?

Bart Baggett  58:20

And then I'm always on Instagram at Bart Baggett, of course, BRT Ba, double G, E double T, if you want to learn about my programs, go to Bart Baggett.com. Our latest program is our life designed by a prism. And of course, you can catch any of my books at Amazon and audible. Thank you for the shout-out shaking and how do they get ahold of you? I'm a big fan of your Amazon program. I was asking him to beg you to start that year before you did. So. What's the domain and how do they get a hold of you?

Shaahin Cheyene  58:46

Yeah, so you can always go to Shaheen Shan comm if you're interested in my book or my other podcast, it's thrill pill cult.com. And we'll share all of this including Bart's info in the show notes. Additionally, you can go to the FBA seller course comm which is another one there, and you can always reach out to me, and my email will be there in the show notes. I respond to every single email and make sure that everybody gets a response. It might take me a little while to get back to you, but I will get back to you. And thank you for joining us. Make sure to like and comment if you are on Youtube. And click the subscribe button, subscribe to the channel. And if there's anything else, keep us posted. Reach out. Alright, thank you so much for Thanks, everybody. Have a great night.