ET23- Profits from a Passion for Teaching

Arman Left A Dream Job At Google For Entrepreneurship and Loves It

Arman Assadi worked his way into a dream job at Google but decided to jump into a life of serial entrepreneurship based around a passion for teaching- and has never looked back.

Despite not having a clear plan he decided that leaving was more important than staying. Since then, he’s created courses that provide passive income while he as traveled and pursued his passion for sharing knowledge and helping others discover their own core reason for being.

A very inspiring interview and another great CapForge client as well!
Show Links:

Website: http://www.armanassadi.com/
Email: mail@armanassadi.com
Twitter: @armanassadi
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/armanassadi

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Listen right here:

Transcript

Matt: Alright! Welcome to the podcast today. I have as my guest, Mr. Arman Assadi. You can find him at armanassadi.com. He’s got a real interesting story and interesting background which I’ll let him tell you. But, thanks so much for taking the time to come on the show.

Arman: Thank you, Matt! I appreciate it. Thank you.

Matt: So, how did you get to be an entrepreneur? What was the path you took? What was your background? Give us a little of you back story.

Arman: So, my back story is somebody that’s pretty much always worked throughout life. I was always kind of inspired to take care of myself from a very young age. So, I’m just one of those people like so many out there that just took up every odd job I possibly could. Before I knew it, I was looking around at everyone kind of my age and I was like “Whoa! I have a lot more experience. I’ve been working while everyone else has been kind of in school and just doing their thing.” Next thing I knew, I was kinda eighteen and I had already been a mortgage consultant. I had been working at Nordstrom selling suits. I sold cards. I’ve done all kinds of stuff. By the time I was ready to leave college, I had a pretty good resume under my belt and that led to getting a job at 3M in New York City. That was really cool. I got to move out, live in Manhattan, get the company car, and go through that whole process. I was a kick out manager so I basically run a territory throughout all of the Northeast United States. Just really sort of dove into that kind of New York City Living and took advantage of the fact that I was in Manhattan. I had an awesome time after college. I really enjoyed that. I was there in few years until I went to Google. I got a call, randomly, from a recruiter who I actually was in a class with at San Diego State. Years later, some opportunity opens up. I didn’t even know she was recruiting for Google, working at Google. She hits me up and said “There’s this role in Phoenix and I think you’d be awesome for it.” And I remember just going like “You’ve got to be kidding me! Me? At Google? Oh my God! Is this really happening?” I was freaking out. Just total freak out. Long story short, within 6 months, or should I say 6 months later, I finally have that job, but a different job at Google at the headquarters in Mt. View. I’m originally from California so that was really cool. It was really hard to leave New York because you know, at the beginning I hated it, like most people because I was just a lost soul in millions of people. I just felt completely invisible. Then, I loved it once I had my group, once I had my routine and once I really understood what this city was all about. It became very hard to leave but at the same time, I enjoyed coming back to California and zening out a little bit. I was getting a little aggressive in New York. I was Google for not very long, probably about a year and a half and 2 or 3 different roles. Eventually, I got to a point where I had always had an entrepreneurial itch but I am not what you would call a creative idea-generating type of person. So, this idea of traditional entrepreneurship really frightened me but I had this sort of itch that I could not get rid of it. I had this desire. My initial desire was freedom – the freedom to do what I want, to be what I want, just everything. I just felt a little confined. I felt restricted. In every job I had, they didn’t quite understand the impact I could have if I was released. These jobs often times were so, were just confined into a box. It becomes difficult. That always bothered me. I’ve always had a bit of a non-conformist attitude toward things but yet, I had been good enough with people to not be completely radical and still get what I want and be an out-of-the-box kind of thinker in terms of my actions and what I do. But, it wasn’t gonna work long-term for me in the corporate world or in the employment world. So, it’s 3 and a half years ago now. I left Google and began this journey of what I call “Sole Entrepreneurship” which is now evolving more into a traditional entrepreneur but more very focused on the online side of things. It’s been a wild ride but that’s kind of the back story.

Matt: Wow! Working at Google, I think, is a lot of people’s dream and you achieved that, without even really being your original aim. You got a call that you weren’t expecting and ended up working there. What was it that let you make the jump from working at Google to being unemployed and going your own way? What pushed you over the edge?

Arman: Yeah, unemployable. That’s a great question. I’ll kinda Segway into this idea that is really my focus right now and it kinda ties everything together. So, like a lot of people, I am really driven by this idea of “Why we do what we do?” My specific focus in that question is this idea of “How do certain people identify a craft for themselves and end up being in that craft?” By craft I mean this ideal professional role that brings us a lot of joy and fulfillment in life. How do they identify this craft for themselves? And when they do, how is it that they create a fulfilling life for themselves? Because I think that a core part of who we are and what creates that overall fulfillment, we can define that in many ways too. But, what creates that kind of level of satisfaction that “I’m in the right ideal role. I’m doing the right thing with my life. I feel good about the impact I’m creating for myself and for the people around me. I’m contributing but I’m also growing.” What is that framework to success? And you’re right; because Google for me kind of came out of nowhere but oddly enough I had considered the idea. I just didn’t think I was worthy of it. I remember thinking like “Man, I’m getting every interview down. I’m getting every job I’ve ever wanted. I wonder what the ultimate job I could get is.” I remember, like at a younger age, thinking “Oh, Wow! Google. That’s the best company in the world.” But, we’ll see. Maybe, maybe not. Probably not. And it kinda showed up. Right? Oddly enough which I always think consequences are really fascinating. It showed up and at that point, in that point in my life, that was the sort of the pit in me. Like you said, it’s the same for a lot of people of what the best possible career could be. I had defined my craft or my role in life as just being a really good employee. I never really allowed myself to think beyond, anything beyond that because I was too afraid to really consider this idea, this notion of entrepreneurship for myself until I became educated and really – I mean, this question of why we do what we do, this question of what my craft is and how we define that and how we know we are really living in the right role, I’ve been thinking yet about it and researching and studying it over the decade. So, even while I was an employee, I was constantly thinking about this and constantly looking into this, reading books about it and trying to understand. I like to view it through a very practical lens. A lot of the books I’ve read, a lot of the different people I’ve spoken to, it is often a very elusive topic. Its like “You know, you got to define your passion. If you define your passion and something that you would do without any money, then that’s what you should be doing.” But then, the tough question come up and it’s like – You can take this kind of mystical approach towards it but I am driven by this idea of kinda providing in my work now too, providing a practical framework and a practical lens to look to, something that’s actionable, something that makes sense to skeptical people. We all have reassurance that were doing the right thing. Most of us want reassurance. “Am I in the right role? Am I doing the right thing in my life?” Then, you have another some set of people that simply just want to make a change. They already know what they’re doing is a waste of time. They know that they want to be, for example, an accountant. They want to be an entrepreneurial accountant, let’s say. They want to start some sort of business. They want to do something but they just don’t, for sure, really know “Once I make that decision, what’s the framework to follow?” Then, you have, I think, a large subset of people who are just completely disillusioned who are just living in a sort of “zombified” state. That can happen very quickly and often it feels like a roller coaster ride and it’s predicted by your environment. If you have a great boss, you’re happy in them. But in the next minute, you’re in an awful organization. You feel like the people around you don’t understand who you are and the value you bring. The next thing you know, you are very disillusioned. I’ve been there. I know what that feels like. So, that kind of – these combinations of ideas of knowing I needed to do something different but also then getting to a point where I did hit a crossroad. I’m feeling disillusioned and led me to making a big change. I really had no idea what I was gonna do in the beginning but I just knew I needed to make that leap.

Matt: Yeah. I think you’ve hit it. There’s different styles of people who’ve become entrepreneurs. There are some who are sort of backed into it because they don’t have any other choice. They wouldn’t being an employee maybe but their boss won’t let them pursue the things they want to do or do things the way you want to do. They just don’t have any other option but doing it on their own if they really want to do what they want to do. Other people don’t have any idea what they want to do. They just know they don’t want to be where they’re at. They don’t want to be under the thumb of somebody that they don’t have a lot of faith in or they don’t have a lot of respect for. Then, still other people, they are not sure they want to be an entrepreneur or not but they are like the walking dead. They just kinda do the same thing over and over. They are not happy but they don’t have any imagination or inspiration for doing something else. After thinking about it and kinda doing the researching and identifying these different ways that people come to the entrepreneurship path, what was it that you decided to do and exit Google and pursue as your entrepreneurial activity?

Arman: Funny enough, one of the last things I did kind of in between was I took a trip to Cuba with a few friends
and that was kind of my last. I said goodbye to Google. I took a trip for a couple of weeks to Cuba and just really like decompress and have a period of time to just think. I had some very small ideas or clues about the direction I want to go. I actually read a book at that time called The One Hundred Dollar Startup by Chris Gillabone. I’ve read a lot of books similar to it. The thing I really enjoyed about this book was that it was a little bit more tangible and it provided case studies of people pursuing these different paths of self-employment. I really liked that because it opened my eyes to the possibilities. One of the first things I did was I kinda got into this online world and I decided that I wanted to write. I decided, at that time, if you ask me “What do you want to do for the rest of your life?” I would give you the same answer right now and that is “I want to read. I want to write and I want to teach through different mediums.” Ultimately, I know I’m a sort of teacher. If I could just sit around all day doing what I enjoy and the thing that I think provides the most impact, it would be literally input of information and output of tangible lessons and different ways of me sharing that information. So, I was like “I’m gonna open up. I’m gonna start a blog.” I started looking up “Can blogs make money?” all of the VS out there tells you that they can but the real truth is that the blog is a platform. It’s a media platform and it’s just a place to kind of identify yourself on the web. It takes a lot of time. It takes some understanding of content marketing. It takes some understanding of SCO and ultimately, it just takes time. It took a long time for my blog to start making money. So, I think it’s a mistake for people to go into creating a blog for the pursuit of money but what I did was I said “This is going to be like a long-term play for me.” This is going to be a property that I own for the rest of my life, maybe. As long as blog is around, I’ll continue to write whenever I feel inspired and over time I see the different ways that “Yes. I could monetize this.” That was one decision. The second way was, I created an information kind of product. I created what they call “digital course”. Some people might know. Like Utomy or like this Difference Now website that has sprung up where you can take an online course. I created my own and I sold it independently without going to Utomy or anything like that. That did really well in the beginning. The course was focused on e-mail management, managing your inbox. I related it to a story of different things that I learned during my time at Google. I learned, I mean this is very kind of like honest observation, that the people who were best at e-mail were actually the best employees and the most, also, productive entrepreneurs. I thought that was really funny because it’s such a kind of just a basic communication tool but I noticed that the people that were drowning and didn’t have a system to be organized were also pretty terrible employees. So, I created a course around different things that I’ve learned within Gmail and taught that to people. And yeah, I continued to selling that over time. That was one of my first kind of ventures, money making ventures, and that led to all kind of different things. It led to different relationships with people. First couple of years, I really just tried to do what I could do to make enough, to have my lifestyle but to view myself as a student of this arena, going to conferences, connecting with people, building relationships. I knew it was a long game and I didn’t want to try to rush it because I knew that rushing it would kind of hurt anything I was doing. It hurts the relationship building. It hurts the way you interact with your customers and clients and prospects. If they feel that you’re constantly trying to sell them something and you’re in a rush to make money, they’re gonna run away. It’s like trying to close on a first date. It just doesn’t work. She’s gonna run away or he’s gonna run away. It’s the same thing with relationships, I’ve noticed. I’ve noticed because I made mistakes. I tried to rush relationship building and kind of looking what was in it for me a few times. I noticed that I wasn’t getting a good response and I realize that I actually have a gift in helping other people with different things because of my experience. So, I started doing that. And so, that was my game the first – actually, that didn’t stop. That’s still what I do. I actually even dedicate a certain portion of my time to helping other entrepreneurs. I don’t make any money from it. I literally just hit them up and I find a way that I can help them and I offer that. I make it clear that I’m not looking for anything. Sometimes, it leads to a friendship. Sometimes, it leads to making a ton of money. Sometimes, it leads to nothing and just I help them with something and that’s it. So, that’s kind of been my approach through these years of kinda doing my own thing.

Matt: I think you hit the nail on the head with the idea that a blog in of itself is not a way to make money. I think a lot of people are sort of romanced by the idea that “I can quit my job. I can start writing. It’s so easy. I get a blue host account and a couple of others things then I’m good to go.” Somehow, there’s a black box and on the other hand, a whole bunch of money spurts out. But the reality, I think, is exactly that. A blog is just a tool for writing and there’s something like a billion blogs currently going. The chance of your little musings, catching the attention of anybody, unless you have a plan, unless you’ve figured it all out and there’s some value proposition for the people coming that’s gonna work for you and work for them. It is a very difficult prospect.

Arman: It is. But i would love to share an idea. The thing that I’ve found that makes a blog money is consistency. Most people find that that’s the reality. In the beginning, they’re like “What the hell? I thought this was going to make money right away.” So what do they do? They drop out. So the people that make money blogging are the ones that consistently keep blogging. That’s the difference. I mean, literally, it only took a little bit of time of just staying consistent and getting down on myself about it and saying “Okay. Let’s just take a long-term approach here.” And then finding out that people drop off when they see you’re not publishing. The people that stand out are the ones that do publish and those are the people that build the community. That’s really all it is. It just takes time to understand how to create good content, how to market that content to get it in front of people and then when you the audience, you think about “Alright. Now, what am I gonna do to monetize it?” Most people look at it completely reversed. How am I gonna monetize it? And then they just try to do that from the very beginning instead. Friends of mine have done it. I could give an example of a few people but friends of mine did a really good job. They don’t even think about anything other than “How can I create the most valuable content for people?” And then, they’ll think about how to monetize later or once they have their audience’s attention. That’s really the shift.

Matt: Well, I think persistence is one of the things that I always suggest as the key to being a successful entrepreneur. It’s not an overnight success game no matter pretty much what you’re doing. You’ve got to stick with it. you’ve got to learn and pivot and keep going and keep going and slowly over time you accumulate revenue, customer’s attention, brand or whatever your goals and your matrix are. At some point, it may snowball and take off but that’s a much longer process. Anybody who thinks they’re gonna be in it for a week or a month and suddenly everything’s gonna click and they are gonna suddenly start cashing these big checks is just in for surprise. All the people who drop out at that point are the ones that are gonna “Yo! That has never worked. Nobody can make money blogging. I’ve tried it for 3 weeks and I didn’t make any.” Well, you don’t really get it,

Arman: Right. That’s’ what makes it easier for the rest of anybody else who is doing it and doing it well knowing that “Okay. The space is going to be crowded but the people that are making money are doing something different.” Ultimately, they are viewing it as a property, as an online property. There are also blogs that aren’t corporate or personal and they are just focused on a niche. That’s a different approach. I view those not so much as blogs but as like authority sites. It’s like some brand of nutrition site, or fitness site or a site on anything that might be adventurous to somebody. That can be viewed as a business if it is viewed that way from the start. We’re gonna have a consistent publishing schedule. We’re gonna have someone that manages the editorial calendar. We’re gonna have high-end graphics and info graphics and things like that. I mean, yeah. If you have that approach from the very beginning, you can monetize a blog from the very beginning but you kinda have to know what you’re doing there. You really would’ve approach it that way from the very beginning. Most of us, we do what you said. We get the URL. We fantasize about making money from a blog and we think that if we just write
“Hello world! My name is Arman.” That’s not gonna work.

Matt: So, in terms of the product that you’ve created, your first e-mail product, was that something where you have already perceived that there is a demand for that or did you do some market research to figure out what might sell in terms of content or a digital course? How did you come up with that idea that that’s what you wanted to created and that would be something you’d be able to sell?

Arman: First, I really took a survey of everything that I thought I could author in terms of information and teaching. That was one of the ideas. So, I did a massive brain dump in the beginning like “This idea. This idea.” I remember I had an idea for like a stock tracking app that would take into account like social media metrics and to create an app out of that. I remember I had, I mean, just all kinds of ideas. I’m not even an idea guy. I was just trying to brain dump on everything that I could possibly think of “What’s my first gonna be as an entrepreneur?” that was just something where I realized I had some expertise here a little more than people. Expertise is very simple, right? It’s like I know a little bit more about something than the prospect, than the person I want to teach. That’s valuable. If they can learn something and there’s an exchange of money for that, that’s valuable to them. They’ll be happy as long as you deliver and over deliver more than what you promised. When I wanted to find out if I could actually sell, yeah, I did a lot of digging. I kinda went to all these different sites to see if there’s anything like this. I didn’t come across anything except one course by another guy that was like somewhat similar. It was like 10 Steps to Hacking Gmail. Something like that, mastering Gmail. It was on Utomy. I said “Alright! This course seems to be working and I think if I positioned the marketing properly as a campaign, I think this could work.” And so, I started off. Funny enough, I had a friend who gave me access to 8course on how to kinda create this digital product. I did that. I went through it. I shot the videos. I laid out the outline. I did the whole thing then I went to marketing it. In the beginning, it was rough. But once I found some partners, I really started to think like “Who are some strategic partners that this would make sense for them to also kind of be part of and promote?” I found ways to get traffic without having to have a massive budget for paid advertising. I kinda tried to get into other peoples markets and audience as where it made sense for the other person. That was my approach in the beginning but that was just – that kind of initial product that allowed me to breathe and go. Okay, now let me think about some of the other things I wanted to do. It wasn’t a passion of mine but I’m grateful for it because it taught me a lot.

Matt: Well, and I think that’s an important point too. A lot of people, I think, they are holding back or they are imagining that they are holding back because they are trying to find this amazing fit between their true passion and a way they can make money and a way they can support themselves. They’re looking for this brilliant something that nobody else has ever done, that’s gonna be amazing, million customers will flock to. I think the reality is for most business, it doesn’t necessarily have to be your burning passion. If it’s a way that can get started and that you can deliver in a unique and valuable way to customers who are interested in what you have to offer, as long as you can do a good job and provide value, I think that’s a reasonable requirement for getting started and you may develop something that you have more passion for down the road or you may never be fully in love with the products that you’re selling in terms of “Man, I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.” But nevertheless, if you can make a good business out of it and deliver value, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Very few people are truly so passionable about everything they do that they do it all for free regardless. It’s just so amazing. Waiting for that is probably not gonna happen.

Arman: No. because it’s like you don’t find out that answer until you start moving. We don’t discover who we are and what we are passionate about by waiting for it. We discover it by taking action and moving and having experience enough to say “Ugh, I hated that.” Or “I really enjoyed this aspect of leadership of this project. Ha! For my next project, I’m going to incorporate that aspect of managing people.” That’s it. It takes time. It takes experience. And I think that that idea of what you just stated is actually extremely detrimental to the world. Its detrimental to the society. Its detrimental to people. It’s actually preventing people from creating impact for others, from actually doing the things they want to do with their lives. We all have different values, right? My value in the beginning was like “I just want some freedom.” Someone else’s value might be “I want security.” Someone else’s value might be “I want to feel inspired in my work.” Well, for different people, there’s different values. If my value is freedom, it didn’t really matter in the beginning what I did. It was a matter of doing something that gave me more freedom. Well, my value has changed now. And I think people’s values change over time. You have a family, you want security. Maybe you’re young, you want freedom. There’s just different things, right? There is an entire new, in my opinion, there’s a completely new era of work happening. This notion of traditional entrepreneurship or even this sort of more modern notion of online entrepreneurship is very small compared to what’s really happening. What we have happening right now is a world of people that are just simply self-directing their lives. These are people that are just defining what the role is that they should be playing and then deciding what to do with it. It’s more important that you’re doing the right thing in terms of the rule that you’re playing than it is what the actual end product you create is. If I’m teaching, that’s good because that’s my craft. That’s the role I should be playing. Whether I’m teaching an e-mail course or teaching any sort of kind of entrepreneurial thing, it doesn’t matter that I get satisfaction out of that. There’s fulfillment out the role, the professional role that I’m playing. I can always shift and iterate over time into different things by getting that experience and going “I didn’t like that. I like this.” That’s more important. This new era is much more. There’s so many different opportunities. You could be a remote worker for a company. You can be a side-preneur where you still have your job but you’re doing things on the side. You could be an entrepreneur that’s building a software business where you’re the chief and you got a bunch of people underneath you. You could be a completely remote working entrepreneur where you have a virtual business and everyone that is working with you isn’t even an employee. There’s just contractors and freelancers from sites like Upwork. That can literally be a lifestyle. You have just so many different ways of people doing things. You could be a complete a sole entrepreneur and never deal with anybody which is what I kinda did for the first year. I found out “Okay. No. I’m too much of a people person for that.” So, now, I’ve shifted into different partnerships. You could do what I’m doing right now which is going in on businesses with other people. I’m a good copywriter and I’m very good with content and media. I hate advertising and traffic and different things like that. I also don’t like the idea of coming up with the idea itself. If somebody has the idea and all I have to do is come up with a content, a copy and the writing and figuring out how to get it into the end customers hands and someone else is gonna handle the advertising, we just created a business. It doesn’t have to be the next startup. It can be something that makes a hundred grand a month. And we divide it between 3 to 4 people. These are the kinds of ventures that people are now pursuing. That’s my observation. That’s what I see. And that’s also the direction I’m moving towards.

Matt: Well, I think it makes a very good point that the first thing you probably should figure out is what are your values? What are the things that are important to you? I see on – I don’t know if you’ve been in Quora, the websites or not where people ask questions. All the time there’s questions about “How can I make a million dollars by the time I’m 30?” or “How can I make a hundred thousand dollars a month?”

Arman: What a stupid question.

Matt: Exactly! I was thinking that’s exactly the wrong question because first of all, unless your life goal is to sit in a room filled with money and just swim around in it, then who cares the exact amount or why would be the numerical value be a goal? Are you really saying that at $900,000, you’re not gonna be happy? Not of it makes any sense. Figure out what’s really important to you and then figure out what the best thing or things you can do with your life or to get to that point. It doesn’t have to be about starting a business for that particular passion. Its more about “What are you gonna do that allows you to enjoy the things that you want to enjoy?” For me, I really enjoy Scuba Diving. I have no interest in owning a Scuba Shop and sitting around with a bunch of inventory, waiting for people to come in. I also have no interest in running like dive trips company where all the joy of diving is sucked out of it if I got to worry about 10 or 12 people and their gear and their equipment and that they get in on the boat on time, all that stuff. I just want to go and enjoy diving. To me, the freedom to take time off and pursue my passion is what’s important. So, you have to recognize that about yourself and figure out where you really want to be, what you want to do and let that guide your decision as to how you then live your life and what decisions you make about business. I think you’re right. There’s never been more opportunity than there is now to do that kind of thing. You don’t have to fit yourself into the old school molds of you get an office and you hire employees. You pretty use your product or service. There’s a million other ways to get to that same end point now. There’s so many choices that is almost staggering. You have to start limiting them real fast or your head explodes.

Arman: Correct. And that’s why you have to understand who you are. You have to know who you are and you have to know what the role you should be playing is. I’ve been working on this for quite a while and I’m finding that I’m kinda divided into approximately 20 so odd, different crafts. There’s one craft I’m calling the Polymath. This polymath type is someone that is extreme. It’s actually a very common type in this beta testing that I did for an assessment that I’ve created. I found that 11% of people – I had it over 15,000 take this assessment – 11% of them were Polymaths. I think a lot of people, in general, are kind of stuck with this. These are the people that feel overwhelmed by the amount of things they want to do. They are easily bored and they don’t generally finish things. And so, it’s difficult for them to stack one thing on top of the next. But a Polymath is actually a very powerful type of individual because knowing this is very powerful. Knowing this means that this person just wants to build different ideas, different businesses and if they are gonna take an entrepreneurial path, this means that they probably should pursue building different streams of passive income. That can happen pretty quickly. If you identify what you’re good at and you’ve gone in different opportunities and ventures with people and set it off that way from the beginning like “Hey guys! I’m not here for the long term to be part of this business as a partner. I’m here to kind of bring my value and create those strings of income for myself. I know I’m gonna get bored.” Then, that’s it. Then you have people that like to teach or like to coach people one-on-one. This is a really big kind of group of people, the mentor types, the coaches, and the people that like to speak to large kind of groups. They want to affect and make impact across a large audience or maybe you’re the type of person who is a chief. You’re really good at kind of leading people and you’re very good at using your leadership skills. These people are great for building more traditional types of business and being the CEO type. Again, it comes down to “Who are you?” personality wise and “What are you actually – the role that you play – what makes you feel most alive? What is it that makes you feel good, makes you feel most alive that you’re also really good at and brings you some fulfillment?” if you can identify that for yourself, you’re 90% further ahead than most of people at life because then it’s just some the matter of choosing something, doing it, learning from it and like you said, it’s a long game. You pivot. You make mistakes. You grow. That’s actually part of the fun. That’s really fun. If you approach that with a growth mindset as Dr. Kerald Weck likes to say in her book on mindset. It’s actually very fascinating. I highly recommend it to anybody. If you approach your life with a growth mindset and you are open and flexible and understand that there is no failure. There’s only learning from these failures. It’s all part of the same journey. Nothing can stop you. You will be fulfilled just simply because of your perspective. It’s not lying to yourself. It’s not saying “This is gray.” When it’s actually purple. It’s a really different mindset and it can totally radically change a person’s life because they view everything as an opportunity instead of an obstacle.

Matt: Well, right. And you stop trying to fit your square self into a round hole. If that’s the case, you’ll never gonna be really happy. You’ll never be gonna be fulfilled if you don’t accept who you are and what you should be doing and pursue that. Interesting and powerful stuff here. I’m very impressed with the ideas that you brought to the table and shared with me. I think that’s really cool and all of the people listening, obviously, they are gonna hopefully take heart and if they’re not in the right place, then use this as empathies to figure out what the right place is. For people who are looking for some of that help or maybe a chance to go through the assessment process or learn from some of the other things that you’ve figured out for yourself, where should they get a hold of you? What resources should they look for and how can they learn more?

Arman: Yeah. Sure. The best place is my website armanassadi.com. Honestly, I mean, there’s a ton of cool articles, videos, resources and different things like that but what I would invite people to do if they want to learn more about what I’m kinda doing behind the scenes is to get on my VIP email list and I just send like maybe 1 email a week. Maybe 2 emails a month. And I share some insights. Within that, anytime something is ready for beta testing or anything I work on, I always share that. That’s kind of like my inner circle of people where I have a conversation with them and email back and forth. I’m very accessible that way. So, I just love people. I love talking to people. So, email is the best way for me. Yeah, if you want you can check out the site. That’s it.

Matt: Awesome! Well, thank you so much for taking the time to share all that today. It’s very inspiring stuff. I feel like I’m lucky to have figured it out who I was at an early age. Although it took me a while to finally get on the path where I should’ve been all along, it’s always on the back on my mind. I knew who I wanted to be, where I wanted to be. I think, just sooner people find that in their own lives, the happier they’re gonna be and the more they’ll accomplish in the time they have.

Arman: Yeah. I agree, Matt. That’s powerful stuff. It really is. Thank you! I really enjoyed this conversation too. I appreciate everything.