← The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters Podcast
The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters Podcast
TEDM – Shaahin Cheyene – Uncompromising Excellence (Episode 212)
01:05:12
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- [00:00]
Shaheen Shahan
Foreign.
- [00:05]
Patrick Francie
Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire podcast. My name is Patrick Francie and I am your host. And I want to begin by saying thank you for listening. On this show I am having conversations with seemingly ordinary individuals who have achieved some amazing and extraordinary results in both their life and business. My intention is to inspire and help you learn and grow by having my guests share their journey of how they face and overcome their challenges, but also how they celebrate their their many wins. And now let's get on with this show and have a conversation with today's guest. My guest today, Shane Shen, is known as the Willy Wonka of Generation X. He is an author and entrepreneur and the mastermind behind Podcast Cola, which is America's top podcast booking agency. Shaheen's journey spans over three electrifying decades, racking up a mind blowing billion doll in revenue. He's the visionary who brought herbal ecstasy to the masses, setting the stage for a wild ride through uncharted territories. The rags to riches saga Kickstarter, the smart drug movement. And in the mid 2000s recent exited accelerated intelligence which was an eight figure Amazon seller. Basically this guy has a long history of eight figure hits and is working on the next nine figure exit as we speak. A documentary movie is in the works with an Academy Award winning studio in New York chronicling his incredible journey from sleeping on the beach to the heights of entrepreneurial success. Without any further delays, let's get this show started. You're going to love this conversation. Shaheen Shahan, welcome to the Everyday Millionaire podcast. Thanks so much for joining me.
- [02:02]
Shaheen Shahan
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I was just thinking like everyday millionaire and I'm like, man, well first off, a million dollars obviously doesn't mean as much as it used to. And secondly, I think if you've made a million dollars, you are far from the everyday normal person. And I know those are the kinds of people you have on your show, so it's a misleading title, but I like. Where you going with it.
- [02:22]
Patrick Francie
Well, you know something, when I first came up with the show, like this is into our eighth year of the show, I think somewhere in that neighborhood anyways, I was realizing that I knew so many people who had achieved that at one time. Unachievable, seemingly not unachievable, but one of those seemingly difficult goals which was to have a true net worth of a million dollars, not including principal residents. And I realized just how many people that I knew that actually had achieved that and had just been really quiet about it. So it was just like they're just everyday millionaires. People that have got great businesses or fantastic careers, who've done some really cool stuff, but really people that have gone on to do above the seemingly ordinary who have achieved extraordinary results. Hence, by the way, you're on the show. So the show is all about you. But to your point, million dollars doesn't seem like a lot these days, but it's still one of those goals that's really difficult for many to achieve.
- [03:25]
Shaheen Shahan
Yeah, I mean, look, if you're in Los Angeles, that's solid lower middle class and it's very hard to live the rest of your life in any of comfort for a million dollars.
- [03:35]
Patrick Francie
It is. But having said that, all of that aside, you know, your bio is extensive, but it always is never quite as comprehensive, if you will, or I can never articulate it nearly as well as my guests can. So, you know, given what you have going on and the shifts and changes that you have on a kind of an ongoing basis, when somebody asks you what do you do? What's your answer these days?
- [04:00]
Shaheen Shahan
I'm an entrepreneur. I start companies. I get them to the point where they're salable and then I sell them. I am an inventor, I've developed multiple products and currently I'm in the podcasting space where we get people booked on great podcasts. So I work a lot with coaches, speakers, authors, people that have high ticket products or services and I get them connected with great shows where they can get on and tell their story. In addition to that, I've been on the Amazon train since day one that Bezos opened it up and I teach an Amazon course as well as help brands accelerate on the Amazon platform. We're one of the top firms in the country for the last 10 plus years standing.
- [04:49]
Patrick Francie
I see so much around Amazon in the world that I'm sure that you see some version of it. Not that you're necessarily paying attention to it much anymore these days, but when you look at all of the TikTok and Instagram and all of the things that are saying to people get rich. Let me show you how because I've seen so much of it show up in my feeds and I don't know why it shows up in my feed. I don't know if I Google stuff the wrong way. Anyways, it's there. I would like a comment from you in terms of you being the expert that you are and a top performer in that space. Is any of that stuff real or what is your Comments on the TikTok get rich on Amazon conversation.
- [05:31]
Shaheen Shahan
A lot of great places to get Rich. My favorite way to get rich is fast. So so far you got me on all that stuff. Way beats slow. Rich, fast rich is the best way to go. Amazon's probably the best way to get rich fast. Now, what that means is not that you don't have to work. What that means is not that you don't have to take risk. What that means is not that you have to think intelligently. What we see now on this whole TikTok, Instagram, social media craze that we see everywhere on the Internet is aspirational entrepreneurship promises without delivery. And a lot of it goes to drop shipping where they tell people, hey, you gotta, you know, you gonna sell, I'm gonna tell you, you buy my course, I'm gonna tell you five products. You sell those, you're gonna get rich. I made this much money, you're gonna make this much money. Well, the fact is, if that was true, everybody would be getting rich. But they're not. Here's the fact that I tell people when they join my Amazon course, you're probably gonna fail. Most people fail. And in fact, even the people who succeed fail at some point. And the key from what we teach, which is private label, and we don't teach dropshipping because dropshipping is a short term play. I like people to build brands, to build value and to be able to become master storytellers and to sell through story and to bring true value to the marketplace, to the people who shop on Amazon. And there's very easy ways to do that. Doesn't mean you're not going to have to work. Doesn't mean you're not going to fail. But what I teach my students is that we learn from failure. It's not a roulette table where you put the, you know, your chips on, you know, black or red, you hope it wins. You know, maybe you win, maybe you don't. If you do, you continue. If you don't, you walk away. It's more a game of, hey, let's, let's develop a product, let's bring value. Okay, we're going to try it. We might succeed a little, we might fail a little. We might succeed or fail a lot. But where the key comes in is us learning from those mistakes, making shifts and tweaks to what we do and coming back and continuing to do it. So a lot of it has to do. What we teach is how you manage risk in your life, how you manage risk in your business, and how you can set up your business so when you do fail, it doesn't wipe you out so that, you know, hey, I am going to go out there to fail, and I'm willing to take that risk because it's an educated risk, and I'm willing to shift as needed to succeed. And it's the people who do that who win on the Amazon platform, not the people who buy the get rich quicks, you know, courses where it's like, man, I'm going to drop ship. All I got to do is buy, you know, 50 iPad cases and, you know, sell them on there, and that's going to be great. It doesn't work that way. You still have to build value. You still have to work. And there's certain pillars that you have to have in place in order for that to happen. I know you talk a lot about mindset. Mindset is essential. But the mindset has to come from a place where you're comfortable, you have to have enough capital where you're relaxed, where you can take those risks, and you don't have to worry about losing the bank on one decision. Now, with that said, this is what I'll tell you about Amazon, Pat. If you came to me and you said, man, I got some money. I want to. I want to start a business, I said, okay, what do you want? You say, I don't know, Laundry, a restaurant. I'm going to buy a franchise. How much you need? 100 grand, 200 grand, 500 grand? How quickly are you going to get rich? From a dry cleaners, from a coin laundry, from a car wash that you invest half a million. Are you going to get rich? No. You're going to need dozens and dozens of locations and management. And, you know, it could be 20 years, 30 years, 10 grand, 20 grand on Amazon, it's very possible. And I know multiple people and I can show you over and over again how they sold those Amazon companies that they started for next to nothing, under 10k, and now they're making 150 grand a month. Now they sell those companies for eight figures for close to nine figures. It happens all the time and continues to happen. So there's very few places where you can take a little bit of money and use that leverage and make a lot on the back end with minimal risk in comparison to other places. Like, you got crypto, you got all this other stuff that you could do, but the risk is very high in comparison to high reward. Amazon, you can have medium risk with very high reward.
- [10:15]
Patrick Francie
So when you look at what you. I mean, you're a coach in that space. You've supported people in building business. You yourself are successful business developer, incubator, whatever language you might want to use, you've done it a lot. Now the question I would have for you because in my own space that I play in and around coaching in the real estate space, teaching people how to invest in real estate the right way. And I often am curious because many years later, Rain, the real estate investment network that I own, has been teaching real estate investing for 30 years. And when I look at the thousands of people that have been through our programs, I see so many who have crushed it. Do a great job, go out, take action, follow the system, follow the process, all of the things. And then I see so many with the same education, the same support, the same, I don't know, I guess access to insights, to the education, to the support that do nothing. So my question for you is that your observation is that what is it that really do you think gets in people's way? I mean the fear of failure because they're always thinking catastrophic, which is, I mean, how many times in a month do you put an initiative together that maybe doesn't unfold the way you want it to or over a period of time? It's not catastrophic. Yeah, there's small failures along the way that you learn. I always relate it to athleticism. How often does somebody playing a sport fall down, miss a pass, screw up? You know, there's micro failures all the time that you're putting in the correction and developing. So with that background, from your perspective, what gets in the way because you've got clients who crush it and then others who do nothing. What's the difference?
- [12:00]
Shaheen Shahan
Yeah, super easy. And by the way, I invest in real estate all the time from day one. And I think it's one of the most important things, particularly if you're living in the Americas. If you're not involved in real estate on some level, you are missing out. It's one of the the best places to grow your wealth. And I tell people this all the time. You got. It's like a table, right? Three legged table, not so good, two legged table, really bad one legged table, you're gonna get toppled over, right? So you got to have a four legged table, right? Have predictable recurring revenue streams. Number one, I tell everybody E commerce, Amazon, ebay, Etsy, Walmart. Recurring revenue, low stakes, low risks, high profit real estate. Number two, get rental income going. And I do that with my own homes for since the early 2000s. In late 90s. I never buy a house that I just live in. I buy a house with another house attached to it, a duplex, a triplex. I live in one. And the person who lives next door is paying my mortgage and rent. And I live in crazy luxury homes. The current house I'm in now is over 4,000 square feet. Black bottom pool. We got a theater. I mean, it's insane. And my net cost is zero. In fact, I make money from this home because of the way that I set it up. And I teach people in my Amazon course that they should be doing that too. You get your money from E Commerce, you put it into that. And the fourth pillar is stocks in the market. You gotta have something in there to be diversified. And there's some great long term, short term, medium term plays in there. Now to your question about why people fail. So this is crazy. So you know Tony Robbins, one of my favorite, he's like the coach, the guru to end all gurus, right? And I've been listening to Tony since like the 80s or early 90s. Really inspirational guy. And I like what he says and, and the way that he talks. I, I find him really one of the best inspirational speakers out there. But I remember my parents used to love going to garage sales. You know you got those in Canada. What do you call them, boot sales over there?
- [14:07]
Patrick Francie
Yeah, they're garage sales. Yep, same thing. Yep, garage sales.
- [14:10]
Shaheen Shahan
Okay, so they love going to garage sales and we go to garage sales. We grew up, my folks bought a house in an area in LA that was a poor middle class area that up and came very fast and became one of the premier areas in la. We would go to these garage sales and I would notice all these. Remember back when self help stuff came in cassettes? It would be like sets of cassettes and then sets of CDs, right? And there'd be these like shrink wrap packages with like 50 CDs and 50 cassettes. And people will get those all the time. I remember going to them and the thing that I noticed is all these houses, all these people would be selling these and the plastic wouldn't be open. The tapes would have never been listened to.
- [14:57]
Patrick Francie
It's true.
- [14:58]
Shaheen Shahan
And I remember my dad would collect these and he also, he'd buy them secondhand because we were poor, remember? And he would never listen to them. And I'd grab them and, and I'd always be listening to them and I'd be amazed. And then I heard a statistic, I think it was from Tony himself, was that over 70% of people who buy these programs never open them up. So I went through and took a look at that statistic, and I realized one thing that's very important. People pay for the sales process. And I don't know if you know this about your business or other businesses, us as creators, as coaches, as instructors, as people who are helping people get up. What they're paying for doesn't start when they receive the logins. What they're paying for starts day one when you engage with them in any way. So when you are on that sales call with them, they're paying for that. That is 100% paid for by what they're doing. Now, this is what happens to most people that they will get on the sales call. All their fears will come up. What if I fail? What if this is the wrong decision? I know I'm paying thousands of dollars for this. Man, man, man, man. You know? Objection, objection, objection. And what happens is, is that at the end of that process, if the person is a good salesperson is thinking about the person that they're selling to, making sure that this is a right fit for them, it's something they can succeed in at, you know, and alleviate all their objections, at the end of the call, the person will say, all right, well, I guess let's. Let's do it right. Let's make it happen. Or the salesperson will ask them, all right, let's get that credit card out. Let's make this happen. And they say, okay, what happens in that moment?
- [16:50]
Patrick Francie
What happens in the moment? Somebody questions whether they should be doing it or not. That's often the case.
- [16:56]
Shaheen Shahan
No, the pressure is released. This entire time. That person was pressurized under this pressure, but they made the decision and they gave their card.
- [17:06]
Patrick Francie
Oh, I see. After the gift card. Got it. Yeah, okay, sure, yeah.
- [17:10]
Shaheen Shahan
That pressure is gone. They're relieved. It's. The dopamine is released. We've proven this multiple times in lab settings. The pressure is released. The incentive now is lowered for them to do the thing. In fact, a lot of people forget what they were doing the thing for, so they never show up and wonder why they're not succeeding. I actually had a guy, and we had huge success with our Amazon course. Has so many people create amazing companies, create thousands of dollars a month in predictable recurring revenue for themselves, for their families, you know, be able to travel and work from abroad, from all over the world and make money on Amazon. Had this guy who called me and he's like, man, it's just not working. And I said, well, how far did you get in the course? He goes, well, you remember I had my girlfriend do it and you know, it's just not working for us. And I said, okay, well, let's look at her. So let's get the girlfriend on. We got the girlfriend on. And she goes, well, yeah, it's not working. We never, we never actually looked at the course materials. But I said, wait a second. So you guys, you never looked at it, you gave it to a girlfriend, she never looked at it, and you're both concerned about why it's not working. I've got a pretty good clue, ladies and gentlemen. Showing up is 80% of the game. The other 20% is not being afraid to fail, going out there and trying it. So I tell people this all the time. By the way, anybody who's watching this, if you want the course for free, I will give you my direct email email. It is D, A R K Z S gmail dot com. Let's give that for free to everybody who's on your show, who's listening to your show. Pat. And just put Patrick Francais or Ted M T D M in the subject line. I'm going to give you guys the course for free. No obligation, no credit card, nothing. I just want to see you succeed. So I realize. And we'll include that email D A R K Z S in the show notes. Just ask for the free Amazon course, use Ted M in the subject heading and we'll give that to you. So, so look, I realized that showing up is 80% of the game. If you show up, if you glue your, your butt to the seat and show up to the program, show up to the coaching sessions, you're ahead of all the people. We don't think that's important. Why? Because you don't see the people who didn't show up. I trained Brazilian Jiu jitsu and we just had this big event here in Los Angeles and a bunch of the guys from my studio, when they competed, and one of the guys texted me, he's like, man, you know, I didn't do so well. I got the bronze. You know, it wasn't, you know, what I was expecting. And I said, nobody. You won because, well, how, how could that be? This guy's got golds or whatever. I said, because you don't see the dude who had the same fears, who had the same objections, who had all those doubts in his head, who is now staying home watching narcos on Netflix while eating something that's not good for him on the couch. You showed up, buddy. You win. You win, and you eventually will win. The guy that keeps showing up is the guy that's going to win. It's an affirmation to yourself that you can. Because here's what we know, right? If you try, you might fail 100%. But I can guarantee you this. I can't guarantee you that you're going to succeed, but what I can guarantee you is if you don't try, you 100% are not going to succeed.
- [20:47]
Patrick Francie
That's for sure. Guaranteed. So when you look at what's going on in the world today, given geomacro issues, economic issues, all of the things that are happening in the world, when we look at, I think, different ways of driving income and considering that, you know, in this context of Amazon, and I'm just using it as an example, is this would be considered what a side hustle, something for somebody to kind of build off of while they're building their career, or do they go all in? What's your kind of guidance around that? And the reason I'm asking the question is again, is that what we're seeing and hearing a lot is the uncertainty economically of what's going on, the rising cost of living, whether that's Canada or the U.S. while North America, well, global, let's just call it what it is, global. But as it affects somebody in North America, for example, is this a way to supplement income in a powerful way?
- [21:44]
Shaheen Shahan
Yeah, totally. Look, I don't subscribe to that. In times of greatest economic turmoil, the most millionaires are made. And at some point we have to decide each of us if we are going to be on the sidelines being a victim to our circumstances or if we're going to go out there and profit and capitalize on whatever is going on in the world. There's war, sell war things. There's peace, sell peace things, it doesn't matter. You can sit there and turn on the news and listen to all the noise and watch Tick tock and watch all the people complain about that stuff and allow that into your sphere of influence and it's very real, it will get into your sphere of influence and your whole world will become that. You can wake up in the morning and watch that and oh my God, what are they doing to these people? And these people are killing the, these people.
- [22:42]
Patrick Francie
Dr. Seuss.
- [22:42]
Shaheen Shahan
You ever read Dr. Seuss when you were a kid? You guys do that in Canada?
- [22:45]
Patrick Francie
Of course.
- [22:46]
Shaheen Shahan
There's a spectacular book about these two people, right? And they're exactly the same. One of them is like gold and blue. The other ones are blue and gold and they're identical and they live on opposite sides of the fence. And the only thing that's different about these people is how they have their toast. So one side eats it with the butter side up and the other side eats it with the butter side down. And they have all these stories they tell each other and they basically fight in this war like they're slinging things over. I hate those people. They're so different from us. But the world is like that. The world is like that and crazy things happen, Unfortunate things happen in the world. I'm not discounting that. But what I'm saying is, is that I believe, and I've always operated this way, that you can opt out of that and instead opt into a different mindset. Go. Huh. Okay. Economic turmoil. What's going on? Ah, okay. There's war in the world. Okay, well that's, I'm not going to judge that. Right. We don't like violence. I, I, I subscribe to non violence in the world. I'm all for love and, and peace and harmony everywhere. But you can create peace in your own ecosystem and you can create a bubble and live in that bubble the rest of your life. And in three generations we're all freaking going to be dead and forgotten anyway. Everybody you know is going to be gone in three generations, so none of it's going to matter anyway. All that matters is in this moment, how you live in. And I truly believe that you can't live well unless you have money and can be abundant and help the people around you. And you gotta do that, you gotta build stability in your life. And the way that you do it is by having multiple pillars. You know, I started my first company when I was in my teens and very quickly we grew to about a billion dollars in revenue. I was a teenager, I knew nothing. Dropped out of school, slept on the beach. And I literally discovered this magic pill, put it out on the market. It became a global movement. One of the largest supplements ever to hit. I wrote a book on it. The book's called Billion How He Became King of the Thrill Pill Cult. Paris Hilton's company is producing the film, it comes out in the next year or two about the whole story of that. And I remember it was similar stories, right? The world works in cycles and people were like, oh my God, the economy's so bad and there's Desert Storm and there's this and there's that and then this is happening. They're bombing the these people and those people are killing those people. And how are you going to survive. And I say, you know what? That's not in my sphere of influence. And I tell this story. I think it's really interesting. I've been researching Irish folk tales lately. I'm fascinated by, by these folk tales. So you've heard of leprechauns before, right? We've all heard of leprechauns, yeah. This is very interesting. To your point, about, about mindset. So I studied kind of the story of the leprechaun, right? And what's the leprechaun got that everybody wants?
- [25:47]
Patrick Francie
Gold.
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Shaheen Shahan
Pot of gold, right? It's got a pot of gold. But every time you try to get to the pot of gold, the little guy deceives you. He's a hard working guy. He shows you that he's hard working. He's a shoe cobbler, constantly making the most perfect, the most pristine shoes. He's a hard worker. That's what's important, right? And how do you get to the pot of gold?
- [26:10]
Patrick Francie
What is the pot? I can't even remember. Don't you have to answer a trick question or something? I don't know. I don't remember.
- [26:15]
Shaheen Shahan
What do you follow to get to the pot of gold?
- [26:18]
Patrick Francie
You follow the rainbow.
- [26:19]
Shaheen Shahan
You follow the rainbow, right? What's the rainbow? It's colorful, it's beautiful, but it's ethereal, right? So you go in looking for the rainbow. Can you grab a rainbow?
- [26:28]
Patrick Francie
No.
- [26:29]
Shaheen Shahan
And you touch a rain. Can you hold. But it's just at the end of this rainbow. So you follow, follow the rainbow. This represents this story. The illusion of what they tell you. It's all a lie. They tell you, you got to follow this rainbow. But you get tricked following the rainbow. The rainbow is the way they tell you you have to do it. You got to go to school, you got to have eight years of education. You got to follow the rules. If you do it by the rules, then you know, so what did I do? I walked around the rainbow. Guess what I found? Pot of gold sitting there. Teenage kid, billion dollars in revenue sitting right there. I just took it. It took what you want, but the world's looking at you going, no, no, no, you've got to follow the rules. You did school and, you know, you got to do this and this. And I remember to the point of mindset, sitting with a bunch of attorneys, all that worked for me from the biggest firms. And this was in the 90s. And I said, all right, you guys all worked for me. And they had the trappings of wealth. They had the Rolex Watch and the, you know, fancy Porsches and whatever. And I said, how much do you make? And the guy was like, well, 150,000, which I guess in today's equivalent would be like 300,000. I just looked at him and he's looking at me, and I said, you know, I made that before lunch, right? Like, I just made that before lunch, walked around the fucking rainbow and got the pot of gold. And I really believe you can do this. There's multiple ways where you can do this. Would you ignore the rainbow? The rainbow is the distraction. It's the lie that we've been fed that we have to play by the rules. And now I represent multiple big corporations, Fortune 50, Fortune 500 companies on the Amazon platform and showing them how to sell on Amazon and how to position their products on Amazon. And you would be amazed. You think these companies all play by the rules? They don't. In the corporate world, they get to where they are because they walk around their rainbow. And so this is what I teach with Amazon, right? We. We follow all the laws. We do everything the right way. But you don't have to believe the story that you've been told. Just like all those lawyers sitting there with all their trappings of wealth thinking they're successful. The guy's making the amount in a year that I make before lunch as a kid because I did not have those limitations. He had those limitations in his mindset. He believed that he had to go through the eight years of school and pass the bar and do all this and kiss butt and do all that. But I didn't. I went around and I think everybody can.
- [29:06]
Patrick Francie
Okay, but let's unpack. You've said a lot, so I want to unpack a little bit of what you've said here. And I've got a couple questions that come up right away, which is, you started as a young man to get that. So let's start with that question. I've got a couple others that I want to lead into. But when you think about what you were doing as a young man, I think you said 16. Somewhere in that age range, you know, how do you get there? Most people aren't wired that way. So in other words, do you look at. I always ask the question, is it nature? Is it nurture? Were your parents background that way? What inspired you or what drove you to take that path of entrepreneurship, to see the world through a different set of eyes? Literally? Was it nature or was it nurture? Was it because you were put in a precarious position and you had to come out of it, and it was either survive or die, you know. What was your kind of inspirational or motivational drive that got you going to where you went?
- [30:04]
Shaheen Shahan
Good question. I'll answer it in one word. Hunger. I was hungry, and people could see it, people could smell it. And as I went through, I realized that the path that was laid out for me was bullshit. That I didn't want to do that I didn't want to play that game.
- [30:24]
Patrick Francie
Was that a realization that you had, or was it. Did you have a mentor along the way? Did you have, like you say, did you have a father or mother? Said, listen, we don't play by the rules. You don't need to play by the rules. You don't have to necessarily break them, but you don't have to play by those rules. What was it that kind of. Or did you just come out of the chute with that attitude?
- [30:42]
Shaheen Shahan
No, I didn't come out with the shoot. I was always a aspirational person. I was always a reflective person. I studied Eastern mysticism, martial arts, all those kinds of things. As a kid, I did. But growing up, I grew up in a fairly conservative family, and there was really not many paths. We were poor. There weren't many paths for me to achieve wealth. And I looked around me, and as the neighborhood shot up and I saw people in fancy cars and. And living the good life, so to speak, there was no path for me to achieve that. So speaking to my parents, they're like, well, you know, you got to become a doctor, lawyer, and that's. That's the way you do it.
- [31:24]
Patrick Francie
Go to school.
- [31:25]
Shaheen Shahan
And I said, yeah. And I was like, you know what, man? That's. I don't want to play by those rules. I don't want to play that game. So I left. I left home. I burned all my bridges, you know, I burned my ships like Napoleon did and decided, hey, I'm going to sink or swim. Let's go. And I was hungry. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, in all ways, I was hungry. And I used that hunger as propellant. I used it as a way to propel myself forward. I literally wouldn't eat until I sold things. And I would sell. I would go out there and I would find things to do. And I got involved in the electronic music scene at the time. From there, I got involved in the supplement that I was selling that became a billion dollar product. From there, I went on to creating all the technology for digital vaporization. I patented that. That company went public. I exited it and Then later I got involved in the Amazon game and the podcast game. So those are the two things that I'm doing now. But it all arrives out of hunger. People are too fucking comfortable, man. I look at kids now and they're just comfortable. And the worst thing that could happen to you is not failure. People think the worst thing that could happen to me is that I go broke, that I lo. That is not the worst thing that could happen to you. The worst thing that could happen to you is that you become comfortable enough where you no longer have the hunger to succeed. And it happens all the time, every day. As long as you can go out there, walk up to the Starbucks and get your $7 latte, and it's not going to impact your life that much. You're pretty much comfortable. So you better find discipline. That's going to get you going. I tell people this all the time. You got to seek discomfort. If that is you. If you are the kind of person where, you know, you're like, you know what? I'm not happy with where I am. But it's all right. If you're not shooting for the stars, then you're too comfortable. And you. If you're okay staying where you are and waking up every day and having to be Groundhog's Day, then cool, then that's good. There's nothing wrong with that. That's fine. You're living a good life. But if you are aspirational and you get comfortable, that's the case of death. I was never comfortable. Still to this day, I'm rich. I've got all stuff that I want. Multiple houses, real estate, car, the whole thing. I make sure that I have some kind of discipline that keeps me uncomfortable every day because I'm still aspirational even though I'm almost 50 now.
- [33:51]
Patrick Francie
So you make a couple of interesting comments that I want to again, unpack a little bit. First off, I've got a question for you around. You build a billion dollar company, you exit it, is what I think I heard you say. You decide to exit that business. My question for you is more along the lines of why? Why didn't you take it to 2 billion? Or why did you exit at a billion? Like, what was it that. And then go on to do more? Because many would not. Many would. Back to your point around comfort, going, okay, this is what I need. I can just go live my life. So what was it for you that kept it going after you sold? And why did you sell?
- [34:34]
Shaheen Shahan
Most people don't understand this fact about Business. You start your company, you start your business and you think to yourself, man, this is good, I'm starting to make some money. This is good, I'm making some money. And then you meet somebody else who's making more money than you and you go, yeah, I'm doing good, but I'm going to do better, I'm going to make more money. People don't understand that the most equity that the majority of people have is not in their home, it's in their business. If you're a business owner and that business has value and equity, usually a multiple of your earnings when you sell it and that, that should really be your biggest exit. So when you're building a company, even if you've got zero income for yourself and that company is making several millions of dollars a year in ebitda, you can sell that company for a multiple of that. And that's really where the real money comes in. That's us as entrepreneurs. That's where the big, big money comes from. Are, are these ex and exiting them? And I've done that since the 90s. So you start a company, you grow it, you get that EBITDA number up, someone's going to pay you a multiple of that and you sell it. And so that's why I've been selling companies since the early days, since the 1990s.
- [35:46]
Patrick Francie
So when is enough enough? I'm in terms of money. So let me just kind of, again, kind of get the view of your world and how you see it in terms of your perspective. Do you do it because you just love doing what you're doing? You do it because you're being a contribution to others. What kind of drives? I mean, at some point, dollars and cents. And this isn't a pushback, by the way. I'm curious as to your view of the world. You've made multi, multi millions. You're still young. So do you continue to build business to make money, to drive things? What's behind that?
- [36:24]
Shaheen Shahan
Yeah, F you money. I want to be able to do what I want, when I want, with who. I want to say F you to everybody else.
- [36:31]
Patrick Francie
Seemingly you've achieved that.
- [36:33]
Shaheen Shahan
Yeah. So somebody calls me and I don't want to do what they're asking me to do. I just say F you and I move on. It's fantastic. How much do you need for that? Let's talk about real numbers. I think nowadays a million is woefully low. I think with $5 million cash liquid in the bank, like you're saying, you could Be solid middle class. Are you not going to be able to buy a crazy house? You're not going to be able to, but you'd be able to live humbly if you invest well and don't, don't go crazy. 10 million, I would say you're approaching kind of like a good number of wealth. And I would say at about 20 million, you can be comfortably wealthy. Meaning take vacations wherever you want to invite your friends to things, take care of your family. And then true wealth starts at about 100 million. So it's 50 to 100 million bucks. So if you got 50 to 100 million liquid in the bank, that's, you know, that's good. Anything over that is, is aspirational, and you have to have a really, really good plan for it. And I know people, so many people at that level, and like, you know, what do you want? Do you want to have a jet so that you can, you can just go whenever you want, wherever you want? Do you want to take all your friends? You want to buy houses for your close friends and family? What is it that does it for you? Do you want to do philanthropy? Do you want to impact the world? Right? How do you want to operate in the world? So what's enough is relative to, you know, who you are. And look, I've spent years traveling, studying with indigenous people, people who have literally less than nothing, people who live off the jungle, people who live off the land. And I think depending on your lifestyle, you can just be okay with less. That's one way to do it. I'm not a materialist type person where I'm constantly striving for bigger, better things. But I like having bigger, better impact and being able to influence people in a way that improves lives. And that's been my path since the 90s. If before I knew it, that's been my path. And so that's what I'm doing now. And the more money you have, the easier that gets. So is there like a cap or a limit? I'd say no, but I think I gave you some good guidelines of, like, where people want to be. And I don't think getting a million in the bank is, is, is highly aspirational. That's highly, highly like lower middle class. Nowadays, in where I live, you can, you can travel, you can go to places, some parts of Europe, Asia, different parts of the Middle east, and you can live very well on that.
- [39:06]
Patrick Francie
So.
- [39:06]
Shaheen Shahan
But in the Americas, that's starting to get very difficult.
- [39:11]
Patrick Francie
So I don't, I rarely ask this Question of any guests. But I. I do feel compelled to ask you the question, given what you've laid out so far. How do you define success for you?
- [39:23]
Shaheen Shahan
So are you asking me personally how I define success?
- [39:27]
Patrick Francie
For me personally, Yep.
- [39:28]
Shaheen Shahan
For you, I think it was this one in the same that I just described being able to do what I want, when I want, with who I want. Having freedom of time and resources is success. I got. I got buddies that are successful by some measures, and then I look at their calendar, and I'm like, holy shit. Like, it's 50 different colors of the rainbow, and every minute is, like, accounted for. Like, me. And you had a call earlier this morning, like, four hours before, and I looked at it, and, you know, there was a little mix up. And I was like, oh, it's four hours later. And I was like, you know what? I really want to talk to Pat. He's an interesting dude. I like the work that he's doing. No problem. So I talk to you in four hours. My schedule's open. I'm free when I want to be and when I don't want to be, and I'm focused on a task, on a project, I'm in the flow, what Csikszentmihalyi calls the flow flow state. I turn everything off, and nobody messes with me. It's absolute freedom. And when I want to, I go out with my kitten. We go to the park, and we shoot baskets in the middle of the day. We make lunch together. We made a big fat steak today, and he helped me. He's 10 years old. And we sit together and we do that, and it's the greatest thing in the world. That's success. But if you're an entrepreneur and you're somebody who has built yourself up from nothing, I think a lot of times we get lost in what people have. And it's crazy, Pat, because I know how it is in Canada, but here in. In la, it doesn't matter how wealthy you are, there's always going to be somebody wealthier than you. I remember I just closed the deal some time ago, made, you know, tens of millions of dollars, you know, in the bank. Feeling pretty good. Had my house on the beach. Beautiful house on Celebrity Row in Malibu. Wonderful. I bought it from some Hollywood celebrity. I was feeling pretty good, Pat. You know, I was feeling pretty freaking good about myself. I mean, this house was great. It was right on the beach, and the ceiling was engineered so it opened up and you could look at the stars while you were in the bathtub. And Then the whole bedroom window opened up, and it was the Pacific Ocean. Beautiful, beautiful. Best stretches of beach in Malibu. And I felt fucking like a rock star. It was great. We had some great parties there. It was really fun. And someone calls me, goes, hey, you got to come to this guy's house. He's a finance guy. I said, cool, yeah, let's go. Said, dinner. I go to this guy's house, Pat, I'll tell you, we got in a golf cart to get in a golf cart to get to dude's front door. It felt like 15 minutes before we hit the front door. The freaking driveway was so long. And then we get to the guy's house, and he's got four levels of waterfalls that you go into before you reach his front door. And he had parked there Lamborghinis for like, it was all. It was like every Italian car had a. Had a space in this guy's garage, and he didn't care. He had artwork from all the. Every named person on the planet. And you walked in, and I walked in. I was like. Immediately I felt small. I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I am poor. I have nothing. And then I'm sure there's. There's somebody who's, who's. Who's looking at me all as, like thinking, one day they're gonna have the house. So the point is, you can't measure yourself by other people. And no matter how wealthy you are, no matter how successful you are, there's always going to be somebody at levels of success above and beyond you.
- [42:46]
Patrick Francie
I learned that lesson. I share a quick story. I was in the Caribbean on. My wife and I were in the Caribbean with a friend of ours, very, very wealthy on his sailboat. And it was not really sailing. We had a crew, blah, blah, blah. And he said one day, he says, hey, I think we were Saint Barts. I'm not sure. I don't remember exactly which port we were at. Anyways, he goes, hey, listen, the King of Spain's sailboat is in port. Do you want to go check it out with me? And I'm not a sailor, and I was just enjoying the experience. Experience of this whole thing. And I go, sure. So we jump in the skiff and we cruise across the port, and we pull up alongside this huge. I don't know how many foot sailboat it was. And we go around it, and it's really stunning. And he looks at it and he looks over at me and he goes, he's got seven of these, some version of these. He Says, how much money do you have to have to have seven boats? And in that moment I went, oh, now he's very wealthy. Brian is a very wealthy dude. And in that moment I said, you know something, I wake up some days and I go, Patrick, you've done okay. Like you're doing okay. And then I come hang out with you on your sailboat with your crew and I go, fuck, I've accomplished nothing. And then I get together with you and you're comparing yourself to the king of Spain and you're still, now you make yourself smaller because you're comparing yourself to the king of Spain. I go, okay, that's interesting, right? So it was a little bit of an epiphany in that moment. To your point, there's always one other level up, right. And that's just an interesting kind of fact of life if you're driven by that. Right. If that's what gets you going. And that's why it's, I guess it's really important to understand what it is that lights you up and just to riff off a little bit of what your definition of success. The one time I asked another guest that question, like you had accomplished many, many things and was really doing, and I said, how do you, how do you define success? And he says, when I wake up on any given day and I'm living my vision for my life, it's success. And I went, there, that's a pretty articulate definition of success. I liked it. Assuming of course, that you've got a vision for your life, which you obviously do, so good job, and I thought I'd share that with you. So when you look into the future of what you've kind of got going on, you're still a young man. Do you set goals and create vision for five years down the road, 10 years down the road, or are you just kind of doing what you do and I don't want to say reading and reacting. You have a, some kind of a vision that you're playing off of. You're surrounding yourself with a team. Give me a little bit of insights into how you look into the future.
- [45:29]
Shaheen Shahan
Yeah, I think goals are bullshit. I don't have goals. I think, you know people, you can have all kinds of goals. My goal is to make $800 billion by next Tuesday. It's not going to happen. We believe in systems, we build systems to get us towards our targets. And I usually break it down into a three part strategy. For people who take my course already know this. It's objectives, strategy, tactics, Objectives, what is it that we want to achieve? Clearly defined it. What are the strategies we're going to use to reach that objective? And then that breaks down into tactics. What are the tactics that we're going to deploy to execute on that strategy? So it's a three part plan and we do that every step of the way. So rather than saying, man, I want to make $8 billion by Tuesday, and you go, all right, dude, how you going to do that? Oh, well, you know, what are you going to do? My lottery ticket, I'm worth that way. What we going to do is say, okay, this is our target is to get from 1 million in revenue to 10 million in revenue or from 0 to 1 million in revenue. And the way we're going to do it is we've tested out three types of social media marketing, we've got the Amazon store set up, we've tested three products, we've gotten to this much in sales and we know if we tried this, this and this, that there's a chance we can increase it by 20% week after week. If we continue to do that, we will reach a million dollars by the end of the, the whatever, the period, the quarter, whatever. So we're going to execute that and then if that goes wrong or changes, here's our backup plans. And then you go, go, go. There's no goal. We're working towards a strategy that we're executing that's based on an objective that we've clearly defined. That's how you win.
- [47:14]
Patrick Francie
Beautiful. Well, in again, I'm just curious as to. Given who you are and what you've achieved, what is the kind of thought process behind it all? That's why I get into that kind of question, to unpack it. It leads me to a question around. You are who you are, you've been that entrepreneurial spirit. You are driven for all the reasons that you've been driven. When you look at all the people that you've worked with over the years and in your own coaching, is everybody cut out to be an entrepreneur in your world? I see it that people just aren't. They're just some of them are not wired to be entrepreneurial. Is that your experience?
- [47:57]
Shaheen Shahan
Yeah. One of my biggest mentors always told me, you need people to drive the buses, you need people to captain the trains and the boats, and those people aren't going to be entrepreneurs. And that's okay. Not everybody has to be an entrepreneur. And there's lots of amazing life paths where you can contribute to the world and live a really good life without being an entrepreneur. And it goes back to what I tell people all the time. The most important thing, know yourself. Know what you're made up of. What's the fabric of who you are? Are you the kind of person that's aspirational? Are you the kind of person that's okay with managing risk? Are you the kind of person that's willing to fail a thousand times before you succeed? Or are you okay living mid level life, taking a paycheck, working for someone else and being relatively low stress? There's no right or wrong answers to how to live life. And I'm hardly qualified to tell anybody how to live life. I can tell you the way I've lived my life is the path of the entrepreneur, the path of achievement, the path of getting out there and building excellence and helping other people achieve that same excellence. But it's not right for everybody. And perhaps you're right, Patrick. Perhaps the first step, I think for everybody listening to this is to really have a come to Jesus moment, have a, have a sit down and go, you know what? Like, am I an entrepreneur? Very good question to ask. I'm sure most people don't ask because it's not the easiest path.
- [49:30]
Patrick Francie
So you said something in an earlier statement that you made that I just so aligned with. As a matter of fact, I'm really kind of in the middle of unpacking it in our Mindset Matters portion of the Everyday Millionaire podcast and that my wife Stephanie and I talk about. And we just released another episode and that is around habits versus discipline. And there's a lot of to me noise out there that say you have to develop habits. And I'm not making any of that wrong. But what I'm discovering in my own journey as I reinvent myself at 65 years old is, and not reinvent myself, I'm just into a phase of life where I'm doing things differently and looking at life a little bit differently and what I want to do and what Stephanie and I want to do. But the point is, is that my observation is, number one, a lot of self reflection, really looking at who I am, who do I see myself at? 70, for example, is one of my things right now. But do I have the discipline? Do I have the discipline to follow through on my commitments to achieve that outcome? And I'm not talking about goals, because it's not that specific. But you use the word discipline, which is really not a common word in many podcasts that I've had with guests, and that's Why I shine a light on it. So do you have an actual thought process around that term of discipline? You need to be disciplined as opposed to create a bunch of habits?
- [50:58]
Shaheen Shahan
Yeah, I think you got to be disciplined, but you got to have periods of discipline and periods of malleability, periods where you're okay letting your hair down a little bit and understanding that the experience is about that. But in general, as somebody who is aspirational, somebody who is self reflective, it all comes back to keeping yourself in check, staying humble, but at the same time keeping a discipline where you're seeking discomfort. And that discomfort is so important. You know, you go on vacation, people do this all the time. By day two, they're freaking exhausted from laying on the beach because they're bored. Right. We go on vacation and we work out, we go on adventures. By the time we come back to the hotel, that dinner is the greatest thing in front of us. Even if it's not that great of a meal, it's amazing because we've earned it.
- [51:47]
Patrick Francie
Yeah.
- [51:48]
Shaheen Shahan
And I think life, the appreciation of life comes from doing difficult things and winning in the end. And most things that are worthwhile come through this discipline. It's the most important thing, I feel, that makes up my character. Being able to defer gratification, being able to be okay being cold, be okay being hot, be okay being wherever you are. Because that brings calm and the closest you will ever get to certainty in an uncertain world.
- [52:28]
Patrick Francie
So when you look at what you just talked about is the discomfort of things that happen. You look at discomfort and you're just comfortable with the discomfort that is part of what you've done. In terms of your own development, perhaps, or maybe again, this goes back to are you wired that way? The question I would have for you, given who you are and how you occur, is when you look at your own development, has it been really intentional? Do you do and do you look at that self reflection? Do you study leadership? Do you look at your own personal development? Do you look at and say, okay, what are my blind spots? How can I be better? Who am I as the leader of my team? Do you contemplate those kinds of things? Or. Or for you, it just is. I am who I am, this is the way it is and this is how I do it. Is there something there that you would share?
- [53:19]
Shaheen Shahan
I think it all comes back to self reflection and self reflection comes back to knowing yourself and knowing who you are. There's some great books. There's one by this guy. What is that? I think, oh, there it is Rolf Debelli called the Art of Thinking clearly, where he talks about logical fallacies. And I was thinking, why am I so fascinated by this book, the Art of Thinking Clearly? And I'm like, oh, it's because when we know that we don't know and we know that we do the things we don't know, we become closer to knowing the things that we do know. And self knowledge is probably the single most important aspect of discipline. And the easiest example of this would be if you know you're gonna, you, you're trying to lose weight or trying to get fit and the freaking cookies, you know that if they're in front of you, you're gonna eat those chocolate chip cookies because they're good, they're tates, they're made with butter and the batch of sugar. And you get those things in front, you're gonna eat them, you're not gonna say no. So keep the cookies outside your house. Totally don't keep the cookies right in front of you. You know yourself, it's that self knowledge. There's somebody else living their life who doesn't know that and they're eating the fricking cookies. So it all comes down to self reflection, self knowledge and discipline.
- [54:40]
Patrick Francie
Know thyself, be true to thyself. You know, really is all about integrity and learning. And knowing yourself is the key. Creating the environment for yourself to succeed. I love it now when you kind of reflect and maybe you've been asked this question before, but do you recognize what your superpowers are?
- [55:02]
Shaheen Shahan
Yeah, I am a phenomenal storyteller. I'm great at influence. To get more specific, I'm very good at digital marketing and digital storytelling, particularly on the Amazon platform and through this medium that we're on now with podcasts, which is how I started my company, Podcast Cola, where we get people booked on shows just like this so that we can get them selling their high ticket products and services. Because a lot of times people will be like, man, I've got this great thing and then it's Tumbleweed city crickets, you know, they don't know how to get it out there and sell it. So this medium of podcasting, that's been empowered. So I think that's definitely a superpower, getting people like yourself, like me, getting them on great shows with large audiences so they can borrow those audiences and bring it back, back to their own audience and create a list, create a funnel, be able to sell what they're selling and also developing products that change and improve lives.
- [56:05]
Patrick Francie
What about your Kryptonite.
- [56:07]
Shaheen Shahan
So what would be some examples of what kryptonite would be? Would it be thing Kryptonite was? Obviously, it was a rare rock from Krypton that made Superman weak.
- [56:18]
Patrick Francie
Yeah.
- [56:19]
Shaheen Shahan
So is what you're referring to what.
- [56:23]
Patrick Francie
Like, what shuts you down? So, for example, weaknesses?
- [56:26]
Shaheen Shahan
What I have a proclivity for?
- [56:27]
Patrick Francie
No, what. What shuts you down? So in other words, if we apply it to business, you know, one of the things that shuts me down is anything to do with administration minutia details. I'm not a fan. Like, bureaucracy is like. That is one of my big kryptonites right now. Given what's going on with our government. It's like, fuck, are you kidding me? And I only go off on a really short rant about bureaucracy, which is, bureaucracy is supposed to create efficiencies, but if bureaucracy actually created efficiencies, they would in fact, be putting themselves out of a job. Yet bureaucracy begets more bureaucracy because nobody wants to take responsibility or be held accountable for results. So they can offshoot it by bringing more people in. So that's a whole rant about bureaucracy. Drives me crazy. There is a space for it. That's my kryptonite. The point is, is around. It is I. I'm an. When it comes to bureaucratic things, like, I'm just an ass. I don't have time for it. It annoys me, and I think it's a waste of time. So I have to really breathe through it. That's my kryptonite. That's an example.
- [57:33]
Shaheen Shahan
Yeah. I think disharmony is what you're relating to. And I think none of us feel good in an environment where we are not thriving. And I tell this to people who work for me all the time. Like, employees should be doing the thing that they're best at. Otherwise they're not going to thrive and they're not gonna last long. And the same for us. Which is why I tell people always, you know, you should have something you do to make money and something that doesn't make you money, but you're just fascinated in. Right? He talks about. In that book the Art of the Impossible, he talks about this theory of following your fascination regardless of money, and then do what you do for money separately. I think disharmony is the thing that probably gets me the most. And inefficiency. There's a. Which basically is bureaucracy, right? Is when I. When I see things that can easily be improved, but they're not, and they're inefficient it's very difficult for me. And my wife and I have a joke about this. Like, we drive around sometimes and we see businesses and things that are failing, and we're like, is there a phone number we can call? We gotta call them, right? She's always looking at me because I'm staring at something. She's like, do you want to call them? Do you want to call them and talk to them about why they shouldn't have their sign there, why they shouldn't have the tables outside? Like, I'm like, yeah, but it's so easy. It's so easy for them to improve their business. Yeah, but the fact is, everybody is doing their best as far as what they know. It's just people are stubborn. Not everybody's self reflective. Not everybody knows, you know what I suck at branding. I suck at this. And I should really go to somebody who's great at that and pay them. It's the easiest thing in the world. Once you learn to let go and you're like, you know what? I want to do this. Let me find somebody who's done it and I'll pay you and you give me your knowledge. It's fantastic. It's an absolutely fantastic way to do it. Like, if I was in Canada and want to do real estate, I'd just call you and I'd be like, what do you need? You're like, oh, well, you know, I charge ten grand. Fantastic. How do I get ten grand to pay you? And I'll pay you, and then, you know, I'll learn from you. I'll learn how to do it. But most people, like we said in the beginning, and we come full circle as we're approaching the end of our thing, because most people don't do the thing right. And it comes, it comes down to that. It works. If you work at any of these programs. Work. They work. If you work it. If you're willing to go in with the idea that, hey, I'm going to try to fail, and when I fail, I'm willing to pivot. That's how you win.
- [59:53]
Patrick Francie
Yeah. I can't even tell you how many times I've used that same phrase. You know, anything works when you work it, and you have to be willing to work it or let it go. You know, if working it isn't working, then let it go. But that's a decision that you have to make ultimately. And that's.
- [60:08]
Shaheen Shahan
Right.
- [60:08]
Patrick Francie
A couple other things just operationally that I'm curious about. When you're building your teams when you've built your companies, how much is culture? You know, like how much do you intentionally create culture? Do you drive culture yourself? Is it intentionally saying, okay, this is the culture, this is the environment. Back to what you said earlier, which is, or we talk about is creating an environment for your team to succeed, creating a culture that aligns so that you're actually attracting people that align with that culture so that you get the results that you're looking for. Do you think in those, in those terms as well?
- [60:44]
Shaheen Shahan
Great question. So my companies now are all abroad and remote, so I haven't been hiring people in the States for many years for a number of reasons. So as far as like corporate culture, office culture, we don't have that. As far as like company culture, my wife handles that and she's very good at that. I'm not very good at the touchy feely employee, all that stuff. I, I'm about getting the job done and getting it done most efficiently, which doesn't go well with human resources. So I know where my weaknesses are and I let people who have their strengths in those areas take care of those so that I'm not involved because I know it'll be, it'll be a botch. I'll mess stuff up if I do stuff that's outside of my core competency.
- [61:32]
Patrick Francie
Well, know your strength, right? Know your superpowers and the not so superpowers. That's awesome. So you've been really generous with your time. So many great takeaways in all this. As we start to wind down, I just do a few rapid fire question, have a little bit of fun. They're often not as rapid fire as we think they should be, but are you ready for some. Just some quick questions.
- [61:52]
Shaheen Shahan
I was born ready, man. Let's go.
- [61:54]
Patrick Francie
You're born ready. Okay, simple one. Apple or Android?
- [61:59]
Shaheen Shahan
I'm Android guy.
- [62:00]
Patrick Francie
You're an Android guy? Geez. You know something, you're one of the rare ones, but okay. Most people drink the Apple Kool Aid and that seems to be. No, they shouldn't say that. Most, I think statistically most the data would support it. Now, did you make a conscious choice around Android over Apple? Is there a reason that you didn't?
- [62:18]
Shaheen Shahan
Oh, I have both. I just like having the openness of the operating system and the flexibility. I mean, we're, we operate a lot of different systems and I love the ability to have more openness of the infrastructure that you don't have with Apple, unfortunately. But they make beautiful products.
- [62:35]
Patrick Francie
They do. Fantastic. Now, was there A book that you read that was pivotal, or is there a book that you recommend or that you gift aside from your own? Is there a book there that stands out for you?
- [62:49]
Shaheen Shahan
Yeah, I like Richard Koch, 80 20. His book Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve. It's pretty good. I think it's pretty appropriate for your show and the guests, so I would recommend that. And then thinking clearly is another one that I think is good. By Rolf Do Belli.
- [63:10]
Patrick Francie
Did you ever read the E. Myth or the E. Myth Revisited?
- [63:13]
Shaheen Shahan
A long time ago. Yeah. You have to remind me about it.
- [63:17]
Patrick Francie
He really just talked about the difference between a technician and a business owner. Technician and an entrepreneur. What happens is many entrepreneurs think that they're entrepreneurs, but they're really technicians and they're in their business, and they're always working in their business. So all they've done is really develop themselves a job as opposed to growing a business, which is kind of along the lines. That's why I was asking the question, because that's basically philosophically right in line with what you talk about.
- [63:44]
Shaheen Shahan
I agree. Yeah. Cool.
- [63:45]
Patrick Francie
Favorite movie?
- [63:47]
Shaheen Shahan
Godfather.
- [63:48]
Patrick Francie
Godfather. That's an oldie. Good one. Your desk, your room, or your car? What do you clean first?
- [63:57]
Shaheen Shahan
Car.
- [63:58]
Patrick Francie
Okay. Oh, okay. Now, are you a car guy? I am, yeah. And do you have a favorite Porsche? You're a Porsche guy. Okay. Love it. What are you grateful for today?
- [64:14]
Shaheen Shahan
My family.
- [64:16]
Patrick Francie
I'm always grateful to have the opportunities to talk to some amazing guests, some interesting guests like yourself. I appreciate your time. I am grateful, like you, for my family and for being as healthy as I am and the life that we live. And so thank you very much for joining me on the show.
- [64:33]
Shaheen Shahan
Thank you, Patrick. Francie. I really appreciate him.
- [64:36]
Patrick Francie
Beautiful. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. Listening. If you found value in the podcast, please take the time to rate and review and share with others. Share with your friends as it is my goal to always improve and to provide the highest value for you, the listener. If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions you'd like answered, please email me@ceoraincanada.com that's ceor. I look forward to hearing from you. And until next time. Patrick. Oh.