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Zaya Younan: He Owns More Castles Than Kings And Says Nicotine Keeps Him Young | DSH #1584
01:10:12
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- [00:00]
Zaya Yonan
There's many other things that cigar does. It is anti aging because the nicotine is dialectic. When you smoke a cigar, it hits your face, it dilates your organ. This is why in the plantation where we make cigar, I have seen guys working at age of 90, 95. I have seen guys working our field 102. I ask him, do you smoke cigar? Of course I smoke cigar. I see one in his mouth. How long you been smoking cigar? 90 years before I die. If they say, do you have any last word? I says, yes, please put a cigar in my mouth.
- [00:27]
Sean Kelly
Foreign we got Ziya here today. Runs a seven billion dollar company called the Union Company. Came here with 25 at age 13. Thanks for your time today, man.
- [00:42]
Zaya Yonan
Pleasure to be here.
- [00:43]
Sean Kelly
Yeah, you've lived quite the life. You know a lot. You also own 2,000 patents.
- [00:47]
Zaya Yonan
Yeah. Worldwide. Yes. Yeah.
- [00:49]
Sean Kelly
Number three in the world.
- [00:50]
Zaya Yonan
Number three in the world for the most used patent in an actual application. Like for example, one of the patents I Invented back in 84 was an airbag crash sensor. So the concept of airbag and automotive, I developed it.
- [01:02]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [01:02]
Zaya Yonan
And today every automotive in the world has it. First was driver's side. Now you have driver passenger side. Now even you have airbags in the back seat.
- [01:10]
Sean Kelly
So you're a visionary, but you're also an operator too, because you run a lot of companies.
- [01:13]
Zaya Yonan
Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm an engineer by degree, but it was a field that I was very good at it. I knew I wanted to design and create things. But when you're successful in creating things, then you grow to the organization. You get involved in manufacturing, you get involved with operation, marketing. And then at age of 27, I was a president of Oldsmobile division, which to this day is the youngest president ever created in this hundred years old company.
- [01:39]
Sean Kelly
Wow. So you had success pretty quick when you came here.
- [01:41]
Zaya Yonan
Yeah, it took a lot of hard work. You know, for me it wasn't quick, you know, because you have to walk, walk the road. But time wise was very fast.
- [01:49]
Sean Kelly
Yes. Yeah. 13 with $25. Coming from Iran, right?
- [01:52]
Zaya Yonan
Y. Yes. I'm a Christian Assyrian. I was born in Tehran, Iran. And at age of 13, I decided to come to United States by myself. And I did, you know, I was a son of a truck driver, so I had to do everything myself. So I did it. I came to United States and I was blessed. I became educated and I started working for other people first. And then I started a couple of my own companies. I launched into the huge enterprises and Today we are $7 billion global. We have operation in 38 cities, seven countries with 27,000 employees.
- [02:28]
Sean Kelly
Wow. And you also own the most castles in the world.
- [02:31]
Zaya Yonan
Yeah, More than any other kings. Don't fight that. Too much headache, too much pain. Seriously.
- [02:36]
Sean Kelly
A lot of maintenance, Right?
- [02:37]
Zaya Yonan
Unbelievable. You know when your window breaks here, right. You call a window man to replace it. If your castle window, because it's a government historical monument, you have to call a couple engineering firms to replace your window.
- [02:50]
Sean Kelly
But you love the history of the buildings.
- [02:51]
Zaya Yonan
That's why I love it. I love history. And I think history played a big part in me staying balanced. Because as you are successful, you grow in life, you sometimes become complacent, you sometimes change the way that got you where you are. So I wanted to always be balanced. I want to make sure I never forgot where I come from because it was a terrible childhood. You know, as a child, there were days that I didn't have anything to eat.
- [03:18]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [03:19]
Zaya Yonan
And I wanted to stay humble. So history, I always reflect back and history is something that has always interest me.
- [03:25]
Sean Kelly
Yeah, we were talking out there. You got in a lot of fights as a kid too, right?
- [03:27]
Zaya Yonan
Yeah. You know, I was a Christian, a little bit lighter skinned than an average Iranian, so we were minorities. And I live in a very bad neighborhood. So obviously I kiss peck on you and sometimes you have to defend yourself. So you get into a lot of fight, to be honest, which is funny. Sean, I never said this to anybody. It's the first time I've seen it. Your podcast. That was the reason that I said I'm going to leave Iran to go to America.
- [03:55]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [03:55]
Zaya Yonan
Because I was sick and tired of fighting. Can you imagine a 12, 13 years old kid goes to school and he knows he's going to be forced to fight A couple times. I mean, talking about bullying, but not that I blame it on bullying, I don't care about it. But you just get tired of fighting all the time, right?
- [04:11]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [04:11]
Zaya Yonan
As a kid. So you say, you know, enough is enough. I want to go someplace that is more civilized.
- [04:16]
Sean Kelly
Yeah. And I love what you said out there. You brought your kid to the hood to play some basketball.
- [04:21]
Zaya Yonan
Yeah, I did. You know, my kids grew up different than I did, obviously, and I wanted to make sure they're balance. And my youngest kid, he's an accomplished Division 1 basketball player. And when he was a kid, he was trained many hours a day. Right. Because we knew he loved basketball and we knew he could be a great basketball player. He had the body, he had the mind, and he had the soul, the heart. So he had a coach that used to play for Clippers. He was retired. He was training this guy for 15 years. So one day he said, you know, there is one element about your son that we need to improve. We need to put him in karate or boxing class. I said, what is that? He said, it's not tough, right? When he plays in the court, other kids, other. They're tough. They grew up differently. And I noticed that he gets scared, he shy away from them. He gets intimidated by them. So I said, how are we going to fix this? He said, well, let's put him in karate or boxing or something like that. I said, no, let's do something different. Let's go pick a worst neighborhood in Los Angeles, Compton, and take him to Compton. And don't let him play with kid his age. At that time, he was 15. Let him played with grown man in Compton. And he said, oh, Mr. Yonen, I tell you, I can't guarantee safety. I said, yeah, you can. You're a big guy. Guarantee safety. He says, but they might hurt them. I said, don't worry about that. And the funny thing, the first time he did this, he was wearing a white uniform. When he got there, I wasn't there. It was with his coach. 30 minutes into the game, one of the players was 34 years old, breaks his nose.
- [05:53]
Sean Kelly
Geez.
- [05:53]
Zaya Yonan
And blood, of course, gushing all over his white uniform, you know. And the coach got really scared. He FaceTimed. He said, oh, something happened. I said, just relax. What happened? He said, look at your son. He's bleeding. I can't stop the blood in his nose. I think his nose is broken. Should I take him to the emergency? I said, no, let him finish the game. Let him finish the game if you know his blood's gonna stop. You know, I had my nose broken many times when I was a kid. His blood's gonna stop. Let him finish the game. He finished the game. And he said he exploded after that. He was all over the court. He wasn't intimidated by these big guys. He wasn't afraid of them, and. And he was actually challenging them. Wow. So it was a great lesson for my kids, and I'm glad I done it.
- [06:34]
Sean Kelly
I love that tough love, right?
- [06:35]
Zaya Yonan
I hope people don't come and call abuse cases for my kids. Right. But it was a tough love, but it. It made him. He plays Division 1 basketball. He's a great kid. He's fit. He's into basketball from morning to night, and I love to see my kids to be Passionate about something. You know, Sean, I always wonder, how could a person live in this world not be passionate about what, one thing or several things, Right?
- [06:58]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [06:59]
Zaya Yonan
So passion that I had when I was a kid, you know, I grew up hungry. I mean, there were times we didn't have food to eat in the day. Right. So hunger was my passion. I. I was, I was determined to change that. Right. But when we live in America, thank God, everything's provided to us. Right. And there aren't that many things that stimulate you to bring your extraordinary effort out.
- [07:23]
Sean Kelly
Mm. Yeah.
- [07:25]
Zaya Yonan
And the only thing that can keep that light on is a human self produced passion. From the mo. From the time you get up in the morning, you're passionate about something to the minute you go sleep at night. If you have that, you'll be successful and you can build a 10, 20, $30 billion company.
- [07:43]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [07:44]
Zaya Yonan
And it's something that I see some people have it and some don't. And it's very easy for every human being to develop that blessing, to develop that capability within themselves.
- [07:56]
Sean Kelly
As a parent, were you trying to instill passion into your kids?
- [07:59]
Zaya Yonan
As a parent, I was very concerned because I have five kids. They had everything in the world. Right. And that was my big concern. I said, these kids grew up totally different than me. So if they grew up totally different than me, they are going to be different than me. But to what degrees? I'm 63 years old. I still work 10, 12 hours a day. Would they want to work? Would they want to try? Would they have any desire? Would they have any passion? Right. So my 16 years old, when he became driver and he got his driver's license, you know, he wanted a car and we want him to have a car because we got sick and tired of taking him to school and back. So I could have bought him a nice car. I could have bought him any car he wants. And I asked him, I said, what kind of car you want? He says, anything you want, dad. And I had an engineer because one of our big business is commercial real estate. I had an engineer that everybody used to make fun of him for his old truck. This truck was so old and so ugly and so damaged that I always told him, I said, don't bring him in our building. It's a respectful building. People are gonna see this truck. Well, they going to think about it. So I said, okay, I'll pick you a car. So he says, okay, great. So I went back to office, I called the engineer, I said, I want to buy your car. How much you want for your car. He says, $100. I said, how about $600? He says, great, you can have it. I took the car. I took the car and I took it and I didn't fix it. I didn't do anything. I took it home and I said to my son, sit down. This is your car, right? So he said, dad, great, thank you for buying this car for me. Appreciate it. But how do you put the windows down? Because he had to crack the window down. And he really didn't know that. And at that time I knew I did the right thing.
- [09:55]
Sean Kelly
Wow. He didn't complain.
- [09:57]
Zaya Yonan
He did not complain at all. Matter of fact, he would get up, wash it. It was such an ugly truck that he had to wash it vaccine trying to make it look as pretty as he could. But I'm glad I did that because I wanted him to know that if you gonna have anything good in this life, the best way is to get it yourself. Not someone handed down to you. Nothing was ever handed down to me. Everything I have, I earned it, I had to work for it. But I want him to be the same. And you know, living in a big house and so forth. How would he develop that? So I enforce it inside of well done, well done.
- [10:34]
Sean Kelly
So no inheritance, it sounds like.
- [10:36]
Zaya Yonan
No. I actually told them 99.9% of our wealth when I die, when my wife dies, is going to be gone to somebody else. Nothing for you.
- [10:48]
Sean Kelly
Did that piss them off?
- [10:49]
Zaya Yonan
Not actually, you know, because it struck me one day, my third son at age of 10, he says, dad, can I ask you how much money you have? I said, first of all, it's none of your business. Second of all, I assure you one thing. When I'm gone, you will not see any of it.
- [11:09]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [11:10]
Zaya Yonan
Any of it. So start thinking. If you care about money, start thinking about it now. How you going to make it yourself just like I did? You are not better than I am. You're not better than any other kid. So go start learning to earn it yourself.
- [11:23]
Sean Kelly
Yeah, because it cycles every three generations, right?
- [11:25]
Zaya Yonan
Oh, sometimes the second generation, sometimes the second generation. Forget about that. You know who are the saddest people, most depressed people in the world? Rich people, right? I sometimes have a luxury, or lack of luxury, spending too much time with them. Right? You could be going to a great restaurant, you could be traveling in a private jet, you could be sitting in a best hotel in south of France. Right? They're the most miserable people on earth because they have no desire. They have everything that they want. And I think that's not a blessing, that's the curse.
- [12:03]
Sean Kelly
Yeah. Did you ever find yourself in that mindset when you reached a certain amount of wealth?
- [12:06]
Zaya Yonan
I did, I did. And give you a good example, I became very wealthy to not only to my patents, to running big companies. I started three startup myself and I sold them for over $2.2 billion.
- [12:22]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [12:23]
Zaya Yonan
And I was, at early age, I was 34 years old and I became complacent. I started buying many cars. I had 45 cars, I had 500 watches. I had houses in 32 different cities.
- [12:40]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [12:41]
Zaya Yonan
Right. And I thought I earned it, I could buy it. I'm going to go buy it. And I did. And part of it was, I think, to band aid my wounds when I was a kid, as a kid, I didn't have anything. I remember as a kid, sometimes you open a refrigerator. There was one apple in the refrigerator, but we didn't endure to eat it. We had to wait to dinner. My mother had to divide it by five pieces for every child to have a piece.
- [13:07]
Sean Kelly
My gosh.
- [13:07]
Zaya Yonan
So when I get to that stage, it's even painful thinking about it. I became complacent. I started not working hard. I start spending my time buying things. I bought a yacht, I bought four planes in one afternoon. Right. And then pretty soon all of those things that accumulated, that they were supposed to comfort my life, they became pain in the neck for me. Right. Houses where we. I bought a couple houses in Chicago, Dallas, Houston for six years. I never been into them, Right. But every day I would get a call from the keeper. This is broken. That is broken. We got to fix this, we got to fix that. It became so much headache that it stressed me out and I said, look how stupid I am. I was blessed by Lord to have what I have. I wasted it on buying things that now are paying for me issues for me that I have to deal with every day. And I sold them all at losses and I went back to my root and I got closer to the God and I started being humble. I started being humble. So if you have one body, one bot, why do you need to have two cars? One car should be enough for you.
- [14:30]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [14:30]
Zaya Yonan
And so I self corrected myself very fast. A human has an unbelievable diagnostic capability that you can diagnose yourself, right? It's funny how few people use it and how many people are not using it. Because if you use that self diagnostic blessing that you have, you can see what you do good, you do more of it and you can see what you do bad and do none of it or less of it. So again, you have to self diagnose yourself every day. Yeah.
- [15:03]
Sean Kelly
That self awareness, some people seem to lack it.
- [15:06]
Zaya Yonan
They do. And they lack it in the right way, not the wrong way. Right. Sometimes people say self awareness, you know, I'm not making enough money. Right. And that's it. They're not doing anything about it. They recognize the person, I'm not making enough money, but they're not thinking of doing anything about it. Or some people say, you know what, I'm overweight, I don't like it. Right. And all right, what are you going to do about it? Nothing. Right. That is what is difficult for me to understand. Every human being is blessed that he or she could bring the best version version of themselves out. It's up to them. Right. But often majority don't.
- [15:50]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [15:50]
Zaya Yonan
And that's very sad.
- [15:51]
Sean Kelly
Agreed. Now, being 63, you got amazing energy. Your health looks phenomenal. What's the secret, man? Cigars.
- [15:57]
Zaya Yonan
Well, I tell you something, I, I, I, I've been smoking cigars for 40 years and premium cigars, it has to be a good. Premium cigars, not just any cigars is made of natural plant, right. Nicotina plant. Right. And natural nicotina plant has a nicotine in it. CHN, C4H12 and N2. Right. Is the same compound that you find in a popular vegetables, tomato, potato, eggplant, cauliflower, green pepper. So don't freak out guys, just google it. If you google tomato, potato, you find out that every tomato and potato in the world has has actually same nicotine compound, molecular compound as cigar has.
- [16:46]
Sean Kelly
Wow, that is fascinating. And there's a lot of beneficial studies on nicotine these days.
- [16:51]
Zaya Yonan
Absolutely. The first study we produced three years ago that using nicotine, natural nicotine, again, natural premium cigar, not any cigar has to be good premium cigar, that we don't put any additive on it, we don't put any pesticides on it, we don't put any chemicals on. Reduce the progression of dementia, Alzheimer's, reduce Parkinson's shakes by as much as 50 to 52%. Wow. Increase body metabolism. Right. Improves your memory. A natural nicotine is dialectic. So when you consume it, when you smoke a cigar, because it's dialectic, Right. It dilates all your organ. When inequotine mixed with your blood, it just dilates all your organ. When all your organ is dilated, when your veins are dilated, oxygen and blood flows easier. Reduce tension, reduce body inflammation, both muscular inflammation and bone structural inflammation. And a lot of famous athletes for Years have used natural nicotine to enhance their performance. Michael Jordan was one of them.
- [18:04]
Sean Kelly
Really?
- [18:04]
Zaya Yonan
Absolutely. Oh yeah.
- [18:05]
Sean Kelly
He loves cigars.
- [18:06]
Zaya Yonan
He loves cigars. He was smoking it right after he joined the NBA. He used to smoke cigar before practice, after practice. That's good. He used to smoke a cigar before game and after game. And he's not the only one. A lot of athletes have used it. Steph Curry Today smoke cigars. LeBron James smoke a lot of cigars because they have learned, right? They have become sophisticated enough to learn what enhanced their longevity, what enhanced the body performance. And I smoke six to eight cigars a day. Wow.
- [18:40]
Sean Kelly
No lung issues.
- [18:41]
Zaya Yonan
No lung issues. It's dialectic. It flushes the lung.
- [18:45]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [18:45]
Zaya Yonan
It flushes. The lung is dialectic. So when you smoke it, it actually dilates everything. It washes everything. My mindset on cigars, I. I'm 63, I've been smoking for 41 years. My lungs are fine. Actually as age of 63, I take no medication at all, right. But I use natural product. I smoke cigars eight a day on Saturday, Sunday. Sometimes I smoke 10 to 12 a day. Right. And I love it. It relaxes me, it makes my body feel good. I don't eat a lot because it kind of suppress appetite, increase your body metabolism. So you don't maintain body water weight or body food weight, right. So you can eat normally and it's all good. And I also in my level, I spend a lot of time and money researching the today's and tomorrow science to find out what is out there. Because you know, the world has become so smart, it progressed so much. There's so much knowledge, right. That often we don't use it to years and years, years after that passed, right? We were talking about one just before we start this, right. Where you said you have a pacific issue with your body. And we said, oh my God, there is a product sitting right behind you, right behind you that somebody obviously gave that to you.
- [20:12]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [20:13]
Zaya Yonan
And had you used that product, that body issue and concern you have would have gone away. And for those of you that don't know what we're talking about, we're talking about blue scorpion, right? There is about thousand different species of scorpion. One of those thousand scorpion is not toxic. The venom is not toxic. And that's the blue scorpion. And look, literally it is blue, right? And, and I've noticed you have some back there too, right? And it is a unbelievable product, right? Is homeopathic product today that reduce body inflammation and improves reduce arthritis in your body. It increase Your metabolism, it improves man libido significantly. It does wonders for people. I mean, this is a product that when it, when it existed year ago exactly year ago, I was the first to use it.
- [21:13]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [21:14]
Zaya Yonan
Because I was searching for the product and couple scientists said, there's a product being developed. I said, go find out where is it being developed and bring that product to me. I want it. And it took him months. I kept saying, what is that product? What do I need to do? How much do I have to pay you? Give, give me that product. I want to try it. Right. Because for me it's very important to stay healthy. Right. I want to enjoy my life. Right. And when they brought it, the actual scientist who developed it came all the way from Dominican Republic and he gave it to me.
- [21:44]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [21:44]
Zaya Yonan
He said, this is the first bottle, you'll be the one to have it. And I've been taking it for a year. And the changes in my body, in the way I function, in the way I think I actually sleep less, I feel more alert. It's amazing, you know, so human has to use these things. You know, when the new vapes comes out, everybody buys one and it's terrible for you, it's harmful for you because it's full of chemical. But the same human, when something good is available, we don't pursue it. And you should pursue it again. Self diagnostics. Figure out what you need, how you can be better and think about action item that gets you there. And that's something that if every human being does, no matter where they are, no matter what class of society they are, lower class, medium class, they could be exactly who they want to be. I really believe in it because it happened to me. Right. A son of a truck driver. My father didn't go beyond second grade. My mother had no education. How did I become different? And I'm totally different than all my siblings, my cousins. You know, you would presume in 80, 90 members family, if it's in your gene, it would be more than one person. Right? Wrong. Right. Wrong. I'm the only one different.
- [23:06]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [23:07]
Zaya Yonan
And the only reason I'm the only one different because I had a different thought process. I searched within my soul determine what my passion is. And I was committed to do what I need to do to change my life and improve my life.
- [23:27]
Sean Kelly
So you think it really comes down to an individual basis?
- [23:29]
Zaya Yonan
I think it's got come down to individual basis and comes up in the way they think. Right. Like often I get involved in a podcast, people ask me, I was several podcasts recently you saw them. People ask me, what's the secret for success? I said, there is no secret. It's something that you already know. But the question is, how determined are you to make it happen or not? Are you willing to go to that difficult journey? Are you committed to that difficult journey? Because hard times makes hard individual.
- [24:06]
Sean Kelly
Right?
- [24:08]
Zaya Yonan
Strong individual. Well, if you're not willing to go through it, you're willing to sit down all day, watch tv, play Nintendo, then obviously you're not going to get there, right?
- [24:20]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [24:22]
Zaya Yonan
But if you spend your time improving yourself, we go to gym to improve our body. What do you do to improve your mind? What do you do to improve the execution of your daily activity? So they tell me, okay, what should I do? I said, good, change all your habits, all of your bad habits. That's the first thing to do for all those people that you go pay for all those people to listen to their promotional speeches or tours or you have to constantly listen to someone to be passionate about something momentarily or wanting something momentarily. Let me give you a secret and save your money so you don't have to spend money to go to all those Tony Robbins and all those guys that they make money by telling you something that you should know.
- [25:13]
Sean Kelly
Right?
- [25:15]
Zaya Yonan
Something that is common sense.
- [25:17]
Sean Kelly
Yeah. Motivational speakers actual.
- [25:19]
Zaya Yonan
Exactly. You cannot be a rich person. I'm richer than Tony Robbins. I've never been to any of his motivational speech. Right? So why? Because I find the secret. Secret and it's not a big deal, right? Write down on piece of paper all of your bad habits. You know, you sleep too late, you eat too much, you don't exercise, you don't feel like working, you spend too much time watching tv. You spend too much time on your iPhone, on your game consoles, right? Write them down and take the top two. Say from tomorrow, I'm not going to do these top two at all. So for example, you sleep too late. Say starting tomorrow, I'm going to wake up one hour earlier, I'm going to sleep one hour less, right? I'm going to sleep. That discipline, that change inside of you is going to completely change your character, your ability. Where you're gonna spend that one hour instead of sleeping looking for better job or looking for double job, right? I mean, when I was 14 years old, I used to go high school, right? From morning to 3:30. After that I used to come home, eat, do my homework, and at five o' clock I used to go to work at Denny's as a dishwasher to midnight.
- [26:46]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [26:48]
Zaya Yonan
And I used to come home, sleep, get up, go to school, right? Do the same thing day after day. Did I like it? No, I didn't. But did I know that that would help me in the journey to be who I want to be? It did. So every day, start changing and reversing and giving up your bad habit if you're overweight, right? Right. Say, I'm going to do two things. I'm going to eat half of the plate that I normally eat. So if you eat two cheeseburger, eat one. One is more than enough. Sometimes I see these athletes, they're 6, 8, 6 9, 250 pounds, and we go out if they eat. If you eat hamburger, they pick one, they don't eat two, they don't eat three. Just one, one is enough. Eat it slowly and train your body to think it's enough, right?
- [27:40]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [27:41]
Zaya Yonan
If you're not making enough money, go find a better job. Go find a better job. If you like your job, you just need extra money, go find a second job, right? Motivate yourself, psych yourself up to be successful. This is a formula. You don't need to go read a magazine, read a book, listen to a lot of podcasts, right? This is a formula. Every day you give up one of your bad habits, you're going to pick a right habit. And every day that you go living to that changes in your habit. You become a different person. You become smarter, more powerful and better executor in designing a life that you really want to live in.
- [28:28]
Sean Kelly
I love that. Would you say, with all the success you have now, did you have to sacrifice a lot to get there?
- [28:34]
Zaya Yonan
A lot. A lot, a lot. I remember long ago, my kids were all in sports. They all played football, basketball. And my wife says to me, you could, I would go, get up, go to work, seven o', clock, I come home, nine o' clock at night, right? And my wife said to me, you know, you should get off earlier, come to some of the games. And I said to her, look, if it's a weekend, I come weekdays. I can't have to work, right? I have to do what I have to do, right? Even working 12 hours a day is not enough for me these days. So. Well, one day I asked my kids, I said, let me ask you a question. Do you prefer me to come to your games or do you prefer me to work and create a better life for you? Every one of the five says, no, dad, don't come to our game. You can watch it whenever you want on tv, Continue to working Hard. So I said to myself, if these kids realize the importance of self improvement, working hard, achieving the things that you never thought you can achieve in life, why I as a father, grown man, would not believe in that.
- [29:37]
Sean Kelly
Wow, that's so interesting. Yeah. I grew up in a divorced household and at my games, my only. My mom would come, you know, and everyone else had both their parents there.
- [29:50]
Zaya Yonan
Now, two things you can do. One thing which was unfair for you to live through that is unfortunate, but it happens. Should that make you a trouble man because you didn't live through a normal childhood as most other kids do? That's one way of looking at it. You could be sad about it, you could have psychological problem about it, or that could make you stronger person.
- [30:18]
Sean Kelly
Yeah, I choose a ladder.
- [30:19]
Zaya Yonan
Exactly. And you are who you are. The world knows who you are. And you know, when they said to me, you should go to Sean Kelly, you know, I said, absolutely. Yeah.
- [30:32]
Sean Kelly
It made me want to become a better father, a better husband.
- [30:35]
Zaya Yonan
Exactly. So you see, so you took an unfortunate situation and you turn it to a positive reinforcement. Right. A lot of people are capable of doing it. Everybody's capable of doing it. But few people do it and few don't. They use it as a psychological problem. Well, you know, I'm messed up because. Because this happened to me. I'm messed up because this happened to me. Well, it's unfortunate that happens. It happens to all of us. We just don't talk about it. Right. How can you turn it to a positive force to change your life and to change you as a better person?
- [31:08]
Sean Kelly
Yeah. A lot of people get these labels, right? These mental health labels. Ptsd, anxiety, depression. And then they use that as like an excuse.
- [31:16]
Zaya Yonan
One day I saw a good friend of mine, he's a actually very famous guy, developer, and he called me, he said, I want to see you. And I went to his house, I figured something's wrong. And he says, I am depressed. I said, you are depressed. He said, I'm depressed. And everybody in the world knows this guy. He's very famous in America. And I said, you know what your problem is? Why you think you're depressed? He says, no. I said, you don't have enough problem. That's your problem.
- [31:48]
Sean Kelly
Wow. I turned it around on him.
- [31:49]
Zaya Yonan
I said, that's your problem. If you had a lot of problems, it won't give you time for self pity. Pity. Self pity. Oh, I'm depressed. You know, I was with this woman and you know, she cheated on me. It happens. Is a free country. She cheated on you, fine, let her go find someone better, right? But I said, that's your problem. Your problem is you don't have enough problem. He said, well, how can I create a problem? I says, good, I'm going to give you a couple right now. I said, I want you to get out of here right now. I want you to go to this other company we own in Hollywood and I want you to do this thing right now. Look at all the famous movie stars. Look at all the famous entertainer. Not all of them, but some of them end up screwing up, drinking too much, using too much drugs, going to jails. God blessed them with the talent and everything and they misused it. And that is something that they were aware of it, they didn't think about it and they didn't stop it, right? So I think everybody should do that. Everybody should diagnose themselves daily basis. You know, like I weight myself every day. When I get up in the morning, I weigh myself. When I come home from work late at night, I weight myself. If I find out I'm half a pound more than what I should be for whatever reason, I'm gonna skip dinner. Wow. I don't care how hungry I am, I'm going to skip dinner. I'm going to skip dinner. But to be honest with you, one thing, I don't skip smoking cigar, which is okay, which is true. I said to my wife, you know, why don't you have a dinner and let me smoke a cigar? I'm not hungry. So I diagnose myself when, you know, I get sometimes thousands of emails and I have a policy. I never go home at night until I respond to every one of my emails. Wow.
- [33:51]
Sean Kelly
I might take a while these days.
- [33:52]
Zaya Yonan
Yeah. And some of the email are complicated. It's the operation of the hotel, losing money. I mean, you have to look at the P and L, the balance sheet, right. It takes time. But I said, if this guy wrote me an email, I'm going to respond to him today. So when he comes to office tomorrow, he sees my response to him. I cannot ask the guy to be responsive to me if I'm not responsive to him. So you have to build a discipline. When you build that discipline in your life, in your character, in your personality, then you will see how easy it is for you to achieve your goals that you want to achieve. Wow, I love that.
- [34:35]
Sean Kelly
So you must deal with a lot of stress then.
- [34:37]
Zaya Yonan
Tremendous amount of stress. Tremendous amount of stress. Sometimes, to be honest with you, I'm shocked. My body count, I was 63 years old, right? I was born in 1962. Right. I should be senior citizen. What do they call it? Aaa?
- [34:50]
Sean Kelly
Yeah. You should be retiring.
- [34:51]
Zaya Yonan
Yeah, I should be taking a boss free. Right. You know, I should. I should be sitting watching tv, but I don't do it. But that's okay. I'm happy. I'm happy I can create things. If I was an important person or if I didn't have enough accomplishment in my life, you wouldn't ask me to come here to talk to me, would you?
- [35:09]
Sean Kelly
I wouldn't.
- [35:10]
Zaya Yonan
See. So I'm being rewarded for it and I'm happy about it.
- [35:14]
Sean Kelly
You ever get burnt out to the point where you can't handle it?
- [35:16]
Zaya Yonan
I do more now than before. When I was 27 years old, I was one of the highest ranked executive in General Motors and one of the most accomplished executive in history of General Motors at that time. They used to take all of the young kids, they used to put them on rotation program. They used to call it EFS program. They used to put them in rotation program, send them to Japan to run operation, then after one week send them to Germany, then send them to Belgium, then send them to France. One week they let them worry about operation. One week, they let them worry about design of the new vehicle and on and on and on. And a lot of the men my age who were part of this program would get burned out and would be stressed out and they. I used to say, what happened to this guy? I don't see him anymore. They say, oh, he quit. Why did he quit? He was stressed out, he was burned out. And I used to say 27. What the hell does stress mean? Seriously, what does it mean? I don't know what it is. I never tasted it, I never felt it. What is it? But that was a younger age. When you are very young and powerful and you are very determined. As I get older now, I get stressed out and sometimes I notice at night when I come home, I just want to sit down, smoke a cigar, have a glass of wine and chill out. So there are times now at night I don't look at my iPhone to answer emails, which that never existed before. Before I would constantly look at my iPhone, constantly look at my iPhone. If somebody sent me an email, it was my policy. I got to respond to him within a minute because he's my worker. If he has a question and I take my time getting back to him, he's on standstill, he's not doing anything, waiting for the answer. Imagine 27,000 employees if you slow him down it will be like a 3 miles long train that it comes to complete halt, you know. But I get tired now. But again, I improve the quality of life. I exercise, I take Blue Scorpion, which Broadway helps me a lot with managing stress. And I smoke cigar, which relaxes me completely because natural nicotine compound, the molecular compound actually reduce inflammation. Inflammation causes stress, right?
- [37:41]
Sean Kelly
Causes disease, most disease.
- [37:43]
Zaya Yonan
Inflammation is the biggest killer in the world. For more than cancer, more than cardiac arrest and everything else. But the nicotine again, the national nicotine guys now don't go in write bad comments. So before you do that, I want you google it. The tomato that you eat in your salad, in your pizza, in your pasta, the potato, the french fries, the cauliflower, they all have the same nicotine compound cho that it is in the actual premium cigar. Remember, there is a difference between a good cigar and any other cigar. So always pick the premium cigar. But because we take tremendous amount of care in making it, there is a scientific process we use that we took all the impurities out to create a most perfect cigar. Wow.
- [38:29]
Sean Kelly
I can't wait to try one of those.
- [38:30]
Zaya Yonan
Yeah, absolutely. I got you some outside.
- [38:32]
Sean Kelly
Oh, I love it.
- [38:32]
Zaya Yonan
Yeah.
- [38:32]
Sean Kelly
You've changed my opinion on cigars.
- [38:34]
Zaya Yonan
Oh, absolutely. I, I, I. There's many other things that cigar does. It is anti aging. Why? Because the nicotine is dialectic, right. When you smoke a cigar, it hits your face, right. It dilates your organs, right. Blood and oxygen flows better, faster.
- [38:51]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [38:52]
Zaya Yonan
Imagine you have a car that it oil just doesn't move fast enough to the engine and to the car, to the carburetor and to the entire pistons and so forth. Right. And this is why in the plantation where we make cigars, I have seen guys working at age of 90, 95.
- [39:09]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [39:10]
Zaya Yonan
I have seen guys working our field 102. And I asked him, I said, how old are you? 102. Do you smoke cigar? Of course I smoke cigar. I see one in his mouth. How long you been smoking cigar? 90 years. So it's all of these stupid politicians, incompetent politicians we have in this country and the rest of the world, right? That they say, oh, smoking marijuana is good, it's legal, right? But smoking a pure tobacco leaf that comes from the plant, there is no additive in it, no pesticides, no, nothing is harmful for you, which is wrong. I'm 63 years old. I've been smoking for 40 some years. And before I die, if they say, do you have any last word? I says, yes, please put a cigar in my mouth. Let Me take a few draw before I leave this beautiful world with the beautiful cigars in it. Absolutely, yeah.
- [40:03]
Sean Kelly
I think because the cigarette industry has.
- [40:06]
Zaya Yonan
A negative connotation now. I've never tried cigarette, I've never tried cigarettes. And we do from time to time we've been approached by big cigarette makers for us to buy their company. So I visited one Dominic Republic recently where is the largest cigarette maker in Dominic Republic And I choose not to buy it because I notice in this cigarette company and any other cigarette company There is over 600 chemicals, holy crap added to tobacco, including benzene, which is petrol. You put it in your car. This is why when you turn a cigarette on, it never goes off. It's always on, you know, because you, it's, it's got full of petroleum in it, right. So I said I'm not going to buy this business. It makes sense to buy it but I'm not going to buy it because I can't put in people's mouth something that I know is dangerous for them.
- [40:57]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [40:57]
Zaya Yonan
So I never smoke cigarette, I will never smoke cigar cigarette. I never did waves. I don't do hookah because all of those tobaccos are artificial tobacco. But the pure natural tobacco from a premium cigar, that I will do it all day long. I smoke it, my wife smoke it, my children smoke it and we smoke it every day. When I sit with my kids, I love sitting, talking to them, eating with them and smoking a cigar with them because I get their attention, otherwise they eat and they leave. But if they have a cigar in their hand that lasts an hour, hour and a half, for an hour, hour and a half, you're having a natural conversation, natural conversation. And that is unbelievable for me. But absolutely. Look, the best athletes in the world smoke cigars. You think they're stupid, they don't know what they're doing. They make money with their body. You think they're going to harm their body. Arnold Schwarzenegger, I met him several times. He has picture when he was weightlifting in, in California. He was doing curls with SA in his mouth.
- [42:06]
Sean Kelly
I love it. I love that. Yeah, it's powerful man. I love what you said earlier. So you put, you put morals before prophets.
- [42:14]
Zaya Yonan
Of course it's very important for me. Look at this stage of my life, I give a lot of money to a lot of organization globally. I don't need to make more money, Right. Because it doesn't serve any purpose for me. What would more money will do for me now? Right? Nothing. I want to do good deeds. So my legacy is Remembered. Right. And a story of my life was never told. And because I was too busy working. But now, through a lot of famous digital media people like George Anko, Steve Harvey, you, they're telling a story of my life, which is important for me. Not for me, because I have enough scars on my face. I don't need to remember my scars, but it would tell my children who I am, but not by me, but by someone else.
- [43:18]
Sean Kelly
Yeah, because they won't listen to you.
- [43:21]
Zaya Yonan
And if they hear something about their father from someone else, they'll never forget that.
- [43:26]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [43:27]
Zaya Yonan
They'll never forget that.
- [43:28]
Sean Kelly
That's powerful.
- [43:29]
Zaya Yonan
I think legacy is what is more important for me and helping people. I'm glad to do this podcast. I noticed you have a lot of young audience that listen to you. And I promise each and every one of you, you can be exactly who you want to be. All you have to do is create a new frame of mind and start executing on it from now to the rest of your life. Pick a habit or something that you do that you know is bad and say, I just want to do it again. Simple as that. I just won't do it again. Not only that will improve you immediately because you're not doing something that you shouldn't be doing that is bad for you. But it will teach your mind that it's easy to change yourself. It's easy to do the right things and turn your back on the wrong things.
- [44:29]
Sean Kelly
Powerful.
- [44:30]
Zaya Yonan
Like I saw, one of my family members is a young boy. He's overweight. He's overweight. So he always is very sad. He's sad because he's overweight and he doesn't know that control is in his hand. I mean, this is a guy that if you put three triple by triple in front of him, he will eat it.
- [44:58]
Sean Kelly
Geez.
- [44:59]
Zaya Yonan
And he's five five. Wow. So I said, so I took his picture and I had somebody in our staff to use AI to change, to change it. That if he was half the weight he is right now. Right. Because he's 260 pounds. Ridiculous.
- [45:19]
Sean Kelly
Wow. Five. Five.
- [45:20]
Zaya Yonan
Right. When I show him that picture, he said, oh, that's a good looking guy. Who's that? I said, that's you. He said, what do you mean? I said, that's you. We use AI to create this image. So you see what you would look like if you were 155 pounds now. You like that? You like that guy?
- [45:40]
Sean Kelly
Oh, yeah.
- [45:41]
Zaya Yonan
You want to be like that? Yeah. Eat one hamburger. Don't eat fries. Eat it slowly. That's all you have to do. You beat that guy and he's doing it nice and he's dropping weight like there is no tomorrow. And don't wait to transform yourself to better version of yourself because every day that you wait is a one day less. You have to enjoy the result of it. So determine what's the best version of yourself and convert yourself to it slowly but surely.
- [46:19]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [46:19]
Zaya Yonan
But have a discipline that if I stop eating french fries or fried food, I'm just not going to eat it. Simple as that. There are so many other healthy things to eat.
- [46:31]
Sean Kelly
Yeah. Do you think being fat is a choice?
- [46:34]
Zaya Yonan
In some cases it is. In some cases isn't, to be honest with you. Right. It's. And it could, it could. Sometimes it could also come from medical problem. Right. But if you feel, if you feel that you don't want to be overweight, do something about it. It's 21st century. There is always a solution for something. Science has improved so much, so much.
- [46:58]
Sean Kelly
Information these days, especially with AI, you can look up anything.
- [47:01]
Zaya Yonan
Exactly, exactly. So do something about it. Don't sit down, feel bad about yourself that you are slightly over. First of all, everybody in this world are beautiful. No matter who you are, what color you are, what you look like, you all beautiful because you all created by Lord, great Lord himself. Right. So I look at everybody as a beautiful people. Everybody are beautiful. Right. You can never judge human being because you don't know what they go through. You don't know how they live their daily life. Right. And you don't know how they have been impacted by negative things in their life that cause them to be that way. So none of that matters. What matters is what you think about yourself. If you think, you know what, I'm a little bit overweight, maybe not bad idea for me to lose few pounds. Lose it. If you're overweight, you feel good about it. Don't do anything. Do what you want to do. But make sure when you're doing what you want to do that the end result has actually benefit for you. You see what I'm saying? Has a benefit for you. That's why do it.
- [48:13]
Sean Kelly
Yeah. Sounds like God's played a really big role in your life.
- [48:15]
Zaya Yonan
Oh, huge. I'm a big believer of faith. I always been. And for sometimes for selfish reason, really, because faith has brought a balance in my life. Faith has brought a balance in my life. Faith is a boundary that I try to restrain myself to be within. Do you believe conscious is a good thing?
- [48:48]
Sean Kelly
Conscious is a good thing? Yeah.
- [48:50]
Zaya Yonan
Right? Yeah. You think conscious is a good thing, Right? So if you get mad at someone and you break their heart, pretty soon later you feel bad. Look, I should have done that. Maybe I should go apologize and never do it again, right? You know, for me, what conscience is? Voice of God, when I do something wrong, when I do something wrong, that my conscience bothering me is the Lord talking to me, that, hey, Zaya, you just did something wrong. You broke that guy's heart, you need to go fix it. The day you feel you have no conscience is the time that God has forgotten you.
- [49:28]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [49:29]
Zaya Yonan
That God doesn't talk to you anymore. So every human being should have a conscience, because that's the only communication line we have with Lord himself. Without conscience, sometimes we are like animal. Redo the things that we shouldn't do.
- [49:48]
Sean Kelly
Right? Psychopaths.
- [49:49]
Zaya Yonan
Exactly. With the conscious to maintain that communication with Lord himself. He keeps us balanced. Isaiah, don't get into cigarette business. You will make millions and billions. But you can also create a lot of diseases for young kids. That's the consciousness. God is telling me that. Otherwise, what is conscious? How can you explain what conscious is? That's the only way I have learned to understand a significance of conscious and a true meaning of a conscious.
- [50:25]
Sean Kelly
I love that explanation. Yeah, we all have that inner voice, right?
- [50:28]
Zaya Yonan
You'd be surprised. Some people don't. Sometimes I tell you in my office, I walk to somebody's office. They all work for me. Everything's paid by me. The tables, the chairs, the pens. And I'm signing something, and I walk to my office, I realize I took her pen. It's not her pen. Technically, it's my pen. You know, I pay for it. But also, if she loses it, she gets another pen that I will pay for it. But I make it to turn around, go back. I said, I'm sorry, Jennifer, I took your pen. Here's your pen. She said, Mr. Yonan, this is your pen. I said, no, but it was in your hand in your office, and I felt bad taking it to mine. I want to give it back to you because I don't want consciously that every time I look at that pen, I say, oh, my God. This is Jennifer pen. What does it do in my office? Right. So conscious, Sean, has brought balance in my life. I think human without conscious could behave terribly and become animal. Hmm. Sometimes on M and A, Mergers and acquisition, I could take over the company. I could take over a $500 million company for nothing. And then I go say, do I really need this money? I go back to owner, I say, you know what? I was going to buy your company from bankruptcy, but I'm not going to. I tell you what you've been doing wrong. You've been doing all these things wrong. Fix that right now, and I'm going to fund you, pull you out of the bankruptcy so you can turn this profitable and pay me back, and you can leave the company for your family. Wow. And somebody says to me, my attorney, why did you do that? Do you know that guy? Why did you do that? I said, I didn't do it for him. I did it for myself to make myself feel good by doing a good deed.
- [52:27]
Sean Kelly
Wow. So you're willing to walk away from hundreds of millions, billions of dollars.
- [52:32]
Zaya Yonan
How would that. How would that impact my life differently? Would I wear a better suit? Would I eat a better dinner? Would I fly a better aircraft? No. No. And I tell you something, if you leave too much money for your kids, it will become a burden, a headache, a disease, and it will ruin your family after you're gone.
- [52:52]
Sean Kelly
I'm sure you've seen it many times with your friends.
- [52:54]
Zaya Yonan
All the time, Sean. Not many times. All the time, Sean. You'll be surprised. Every time, Sean.
- [53:01]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [53:01]
Zaya Yonan
Every time, Sean.
- [53:05]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [53:06]
Zaya Yonan
It's amazing. So if you're sitting home, you say, I wish I was a rich person. Don't wish for that. It's a curse. You want to have a better life. You want to get rich, get up and do it yourself. How many people that win the lotto tickets, they end up being bankrupt shortly after that?
- [53:25]
Sean Kelly
Most of them.
- [53:26]
Zaya Yonan
Wife, husband, divorcing each other, fighting, family, coming, creating a huge problem. So when they win that lotto, they think what a gift they just got. And they realize that it became a huge, huge curse and a huge negative point in their life. Yeah. So God has created this world perfectly for us to live a perfect life that we want to live. Somebody wants to live in a nice house, somebody wants to live in a small apartment, it's okay, whatever make you feel good. But if you have desire to pass through that boundary, the only person that can do it is you. By yourself only. Yeah.
- [54:09]
Sean Kelly
The universe is very fascinating. When you make or earn something very quickly, you seem to lose it.
- [54:14]
Zaya Yonan
Absolutely.
- [54:15]
Sean Kelly
I got lucky with some crypto and made millions, but I lost it very fast.
- [54:18]
Zaya Yonan
You see that?
- [54:19]
Sean Kelly
I didn't earn it.
- [54:19]
Zaya Yonan
You see that? You see that? So we must learn from our life, Right. Also, how often do you sit down and to think about your life, self assess yourself, right? I do it all the time. And I strongly recommend you should take a cigar. Good cigar. Put it in your mouth, light it up, sit outside, think about the life. What do you like about the life that you are experiencing? Do more of it. What makes you happy. Do more of it. What doesn't make you happy? Change it. Hour later, by the time you finish the cigar, you could be totally different person. A kind of person you wanted to be. So sometimes I see people saying, oh, I listen to soul podcasts to. To self encouragement, self development, self improvement. I said, yeah, good for you. I said, how many times you've been watching that? He said, oh, every time that is on. I said, oh, for how long you've been watching that? Oh, I've been watching enough. A good two years.
- [55:23]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [55:24]
Zaya Yonan
I said, oh, my God. So two years, you haven't changed.
- [55:27]
Sean Kelly
Yeah. It's like going to therapy for five.
- [55:30]
Zaya Yonan
Years and gaining nothing from it. Gaining nothing from it. But you are no different than any rich guy, any smart guy in the world. You are not different. So if you say, then why? I'm not living the life of that person? Because that person choose to take the hardest journey in his life and live by it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, where you choose the easier way. Remember, hard life makes a hard person. When you are a hard man or woman, you don't break easily. You are like stone. You're always together and you can conquer anything and everything.
- [56:17]
Sean Kelly
Mm, I love it. You mentioned happiness earlier. Would you say you're really happy right now overall?
- [56:22]
Zaya Yonan
You know, I don't think about it, to be honest with you. And because I'm a kind of a person that don't think about what I have, I think about what I don't have. Right. I always wanted to do something to make this world a better place. Not mainly for everybody that live in this world, but for my own selfish reason, so the world will remember me. Interesting. Like, we always remember people that impact us in our life significantly. Right. Have I accomplished that? No. Today I see the world is not better. America is not better than America. That I lived in it 40 years, 50 years ago. I see we have progressed in technology, science, but there are more cancer cases every year. 5.8% increase year over year cancer rate. Wow. Right?
- [57:29]
Sean Kelly
People in their 20s are getting it now.
- [57:31]
Zaya Yonan
People at age of 2 and 3 are getting.
- [57:33]
Sean Kelly
Jeez.
- [57:35]
Zaya Yonan
Right. I sometimes go to the children's hospital. I see a one year, two years, three years on chemotherapy, lost all their hair. She barely can talk, she barely can breathe. So how Can I be happy? Right. I wish I would have been a medical doctor. I would have gotten research and I could have tried to solve some of these problems. But I don't think these problems are solved by natural occurrence. I think is all the imperfection in our food system, imperfection in a system we have that is driven by profit. Profit. Today we make meat in laboratory with chemicals, the use of dye. They encourage people to drink water. Water is good for you, and I know that you keep drinking it, but good thing you drink it in the glass. All the water sent to us with plastic bottles has a high level of pfas. PFAS is number one causing cancer. That's why there are more women in America getting breast cancers now than ever before. Because the level of PFAS in the body is significant. Because now you drive, you see a person sitting in a car and jugging a gallon of water in two minutes, and they think it's healthy for them. It's not. It's poisonous. Stop drinking. Only drink when you're thirsty. I 63 years old, I maybe have glass or two a day.
- [59:07]
Sean Kelly
What?
- [59:07]
Zaya Yonan
Yeah, exactly. One or two glasses a day. Only if I'm thirsty. Look, your parents grew up, your grandparents grew up. They only drank water unless they were thirsty, right? Today you see everybody walking in the mall, in a shop, in the street with a bottle of water in their hand because they think it's healthy.
- [59:25]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [59:26]
Zaya Yonan
It's not.
- [59:26]
Sean Kelly
They tell you to drink a gallon a day.
- [59:28]
Zaya Yonan
Oh, I haven't been. I'm 63 years old and I can beat you in arm wrestling. And you're taller than I am now, joking aside. So I'm not. Because I'm not happy. Because I see a lot of things wrong with, with. With. With the systems, with the culture, with government. You know, politicians have become stupid. They all care about themselves. They don't care about the people that they represent. Right? Everybody's for themselves. And if somebody says to you, well, Zaya, what's your business worrying about that? You know what my business is when I'm gone, which probably gonna be few years from now? I worry about my kids and their kids living in this country, living in this system, how would that impact them negatively? That's what I worry about. So the guy like me is never happy, Right? But that's okay. I'm not fragile. I don't break apart easily. I told you I had a tough life. I'm a tough guy. I get up, I don't think about food, I don't think about vacation. I don't think about sitting in a nice car, driving around. I get up like a machine. I work harder than most people do. Half my age. I saw a problem to the last minute of my life. I will do all the things to be remembered as a good person. Right after that. I did my best. My conscience is clear.
- [60:59]
Sean Kelly
You gave it all.
- [61:00]
Zaya Yonan
I gave it all. I give it all. And I enjoy giving it all. Because the fact that you invite me to come talk to you makes me happy. Because you recognize me as someone that can add value to your show.
- [61:14]
Sean Kelly
Yep.
- [61:15]
Zaya Yonan
Someone that can say something that your listeners will say, oh my God, I learned something. I'm motivated by it. I'm going to be a different person. I'm going to go work now, go school after, get another job. And always surround yourself with successful people. Always. There was interesting. I was in Egypt in the museum. In the museum. Just four months ago, I went to the museum and they had the. Back then there was no books, but they used to write their lessons in the stone. So there was a stone for the school. Teaching in school. And back then the only people could go school were the people that were in military or very wealthy people. So they find one of those stones that basically is a daily teaching. And it says, find a friend that is stronger than you, smarter than you, in every aspect is better than you, because the only impact that person will have on you is positive.
- [62:19]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [62:20]
Zaya Yonan
Where you can create your own standard to be equivalent to him. So if you have a friend that drinks too much, stay away from him. If you have a friend that wants to sit down, plays Nintendo all day, stay away from him. Because they are not a good example. You should be so close to.
- [62:42]
Sean Kelly
I love that. So even back then they were teaching your network as.
- [62:46]
Zaya Yonan
Absolutely. It's very important. It's very important. I mean, networking, learning from people. Right. When I was working at big companies like a General Motors, General Motors also had electronic. General Motors also used to make a jet aircraft. General Motors back then also used to make military tanks. Right. They don't do anymore, but they used to back down. And I used to always go to different division trying to learn the turbine technology for the aircraft. Right. Ballistic missile deployment off of the tanks. I always mix with people that they knew something that I didn't know. So I could learn from them. I could learn from them.
- [63:38]
Sean Kelly
Yeah, you were hungry for knowledge.
- [63:40]
Zaya Yonan
And it's funny, if I go someplace, I'm giving a speech or something, you find a few gap people, men or woman, will approach me, will ask me 50 question, you know, in a row. Good question. And you find also people approach me and ask me question that I question, why you asking is that important? You know, what's my favorite movie? Who cares? What's my favorite movie? Who cares? You know, where I go? Vacation, which I haven't had a vacation in many, many, many years. But that's beside the point. So you have to, you know, you say you play basketball. Part of the playing basketball, you go to this unbelievable process of running, jumping, exercising, Right? And every day you measure yourself versus the last practice you had day before or two days before. Did I shoot better? Did I run better? Did I score better? Right? You do that, right? Why don't we do that with other aspect of our life? Why only we pick and choose what we like, like sport, Right? What do we do it with? The way we live, with the way we make money, with the way we spend it, with the way we feel about ourselves, Right?
- [64:57]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [64:57]
Zaya Yonan
So I think if you get in that thought frame, there will be many Zaya Yonas in this world. There'll be many successful people in this world, and they will be the one who. They will find a defect in our culture, in our society, in our country, and they will be the one that fixing it.
- [65:14]
Sean Kelly
I love it. Yeah. You got to improve every day, right. 1%.
- [65:17]
Zaya Yonan
You got to prove minute by minute. Every day I go home, when I'm on the way going home, I'm thinking, did I work today better than yesterday? And sometimes because maybe I'm tired or whatever, I actually feel bad that I didn't perform as well as I should.
- [65:35]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [65:36]
Zaya Yonan
But a lot of people in my position say, who gives a fuck, right? I won the world. I didn't work. I didn't work. Right. I'm second largest golf course owner in Europe.
- [65:47]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [65:48]
Zaya Yonan
And I always wanted to play golf, and I never did. Sometimes I stop on the second hole.
- [65:55]
Sean Kelly
Too long for you?
- [65:56]
Zaya Yonan
Too long for me. Don't have a patient. I get phone calls all the time. And every time I get phone calls, do you think, is it good news or bad news?
- [66:05]
Sean Kelly
Bad news.
- [66:06]
Zaya Yonan
Exactly. So if I hear a bad news, how can I relax? Spend 4 hours, 5 hours finishing a game? You have to be responsible in life. You have to be responsible in life. You know, sometimes as a human, we expect others to be more responsible toward us than us being more responsible for ourselves. And that's the third lesson of today that you should always remember. Wow.
- [66:36]
Sean Kelly
Accountability.
- [66:37]
Zaya Yonan
Huge.
- [66:38]
Sean Kelly
Yeah. That's deep. A lot of people lack that too.
- [66:41]
Zaya Yonan
Huge.
- [66:42]
Sean Kelly
They don't want to admit it to themselves.
- [66:43]
Zaya Yonan
Right. Always admit it's okay to make mistakes. Right. I make mistakes. Right. I make mistakes. God knows I make mistakes. A lot of them. I'm thinking about them. But we make mistakes. But it's not the process of making a mistake because we all do it. It's a process of self correcting it immediately and moving forward. And moving forward.
- [67:10]
Sean Kelly
Yeah. Z, last question. Man, you've accomplished a lot in life. What is your proudest accomplishment at your age?
- [67:15]
Zaya Yonan
Right now, the proudest accomplishment is my family. Right. I've been married for 34 years. I have five kids. And every day I see them and I look at their eyes and I feel their soul. I know I did something right. When I look at my child and I can't feel their soul, I know there is disconnect, and I know there is a flaw and a weakness in our way of communicating or working with each other. So my goal has always been, Sean, number one priority, to be the best father I could be and put my children and their livelihood and their joy ahead of myself.
- [68:01]
Sean Kelly
Wow.
- [68:04]
Zaya Yonan
Ahead of myself. I always thought that I never eat before they eat. Never. You know, I always wait for them to take their first spoon in their mouth, and then after that, I pick up the spoon when we have dinner together. And humanity. I love humans. I love. I feel for humans. I feel bad when children are hungry, when children are getting sick. And I know there are things that could be done to impact it positively, reduce it positively. And when they're not done, I get upset of myself. And my wife always said, it's not your problem. I said, you're right. It's not my problem. But it's a system problem, and I'm a member of that system. So if I cannot do anything about it, that's the limitation I had. Not in life, but in my character.
- [69:06]
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
- [69:07]
Zaya Yonan
And that's one thing I don't want to have because it was character who guided me at age of 13, by myself. You know, work, paint bicycles, buy my ticket, get my passport, get my visa, come to America, educate myself and work as hard as I did that I never questioned it because I knew it was going to result in something very well. And it has. And I want to thank God for it. I want to thank America for it because it is the greatest nation in the world, and I hope that never changes.
- [69:49]
Sean Kelly
Thanks for your time. Today's eye, I learned a lot.
- [69:51]
Zaya Yonan
My pleasure.
- [69:52]
Sean Kelly
Yeah, check them out, guys. We'll also link the cigar company below if you want to buy a cigar and we'll link your Instagram and your social media handles.
- [69:59]
Zaya Yonan
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
- [70:00]
Sean Kelly
Check them out, guys. I'll see you next time. I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm.
- [70:12]
Zaya Yonan
Thank you.