March 15, 2025 • 27 mins
Alan Akira, MD is a board-certified psychiatrist and the founder of Mugen Psychiatry, a practice serving patients in the inpatient environments in and around Chicago, IL. His mission is to bridge the disparity in psychiatric care to community psychiatric settings with his passion and skills in clinical decision-making, continuing education, entrepreneurship in medicine, systems-based learning and practice, and healthcare management. Alan's website: https://www.mugenpsychiatry.com/ SuccessGrid Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/successgridofficial/ Show notes: https://successgrid.net/sg247/ If you love this show, please leave a review. Go to https://ratethispodcast.com/successgrid
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hallo, I welcome to the Success Great Podcast with also Santali.
I am excited to introduce you to a series of
conversations with some of the most successful and sparing individuals
from various industries. My aim is to dive into their
stories behind their success and explore the knowledge, strategiest habits,
mindsets and wisdom that have propelled their success. Each episode
(00:21):
of the Success Great Podcast will feature a different guest
who will share their unique journey, the challenges they faced,
and the ressons they have learned along the way. I
would also be covering topics from entrepreneurship and innovation to
leadership and personal development. Whether you are inspiring entrepreneur, a
seasoned business profession, or just someone looking to improve your life,
(00:41):
the Success Great Podcast is for you. My goal is
to bring you valuable insights and inspiration that will help
you achieve your own success in business and life. So
get ready to learn and be inspired. The Success Great
Podcast starts.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Now and in this episode, I am speaking with Allan
Akira talk about his life lessons and how to think
through problems in life and business. Alan is An MD,
is a bordered Fi psychiatric and the founder of Morgan psychiatricy,
a practice serving patients in the patient environment and in
(01:19):
around Chicago Noise. His mission is to bridge the disparity
in psychiatric care to community psychiatric setings with his passions
and skills in clinical decision making, continuing education, entrepreneurship in medicine,
system based learning and practices, and health care management. Alan,
(01:40):
Welcome to this episode of the Success Great podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Thank you Hussain. I'm very happy to be here. I
appreciate that introduction.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Awesome to have you. So I would say this, I
would say rare introduction. Not many of my guests have
this type of introduction. So first of all, because I
want to that you've been through a lot your business.
You are doing things that are multiple things at the
(02:07):
same time. So we're talking about can make condition making, education,
entrepreneurship in medicine, system based learning. These are a lot
of things that could integrate together and also separate, have separation,
I guess at the same time that could be the case.
So I want to know what is your definition of
success personally and what do you see people around you
(02:29):
that you agree or disagree with in this regards to
success and what does it mean to me?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Success means being useful because a lot of times when
people talk about success, it's framed as a certain end outcome,
or a certain particular goal. The problem with this kind
of thinking is it's all or nothing. You either reach
the goal or you do not. And what I've learned
(02:58):
through my life and speaking with over ten thousand people
in my clinical practice is that only a couple things
happen when you put everything on a particular goal. You
either reach it and hate the person you become while
you get there, or you reach it only to learn
(03:18):
that the goalpoop post moves again. That's why, for me,
being a successful person is not about an outcome, but
it's about being useful. Because I can control entirely how
useful I am to others, I cannot control that the
world will give me what I ask for, So to me,
(03:38):
it's about being useful, and to me, it's about being
happy with the person I'm becoming while I'm on the journey,
rather than the outcome itself.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, that's very interesting. Being useful is to be successful.
This is an interesting kind of perspective because it is
about when you say useful, you basically helping yourself and
helping other people and this is one of the things
that you are actually doing. You are providing a service
(04:07):
basically that is helping other people do certain things, which
is actually kind of impressive. But now it took us
through Like I want to know, and I'm sure of
the success greed nation that would like to know a
little bit about your story. How did you reach to
the point where you are right now?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, So I am a board certified physician psychiatrist in
the US. I went to four years in medical school,
four years of psychiatric residency training, and I am now
about a year and a half out of that training,
so practicing independently. I was first interested in medicine mostly
because I was not sure what to do, and in
(04:49):
college I had a great college counselor that said, Alan,
you like science, you like people, maybe you should consider medicine.
I said, well, I don't know any better, Okay, no problem.
So it was actually by an accident, like a lot
of things are. Then I kind of moved into my
medical school journey. I found out I actually quite liked
psychiatry because it was the only field of medicine that
(05:14):
was so unique, because every person you talked to had
a different story, you know, whereas in some other fields
of medicine, chest pain can only be so many things,
headaches can be only so many things. In psychiatry, it's
about the person's life story, and everyone knows no two
life stories are exactly the same. So I thought that
(05:36):
was unique about medicine, and it was the only field
of medicine where my own personal experiences could translate to
medical practice and vice versa. I quite enjoyed that because
I quite enjoyed the stories that people had to share. Now,
as I finished my training, I worked as a physician first,
(05:57):
so clinical medicine was my first skill. But I believe
in stacking skills vertically, and every skill you stack gives
you a little bit higher place of leverage. So what
initially I started out as is as everyone in my
my peers as a clinician. Then I found a passion
for education and whosaining. I learned that education is the
(06:19):
one thing that can affect more people than my clinical
skills alone, because there's only so many people. I can see,
there's only twenty four hours in the day. I'm only
one man, But through education, I could spread my influence
and help others spread that influence. In a greater degree.
That's where I learned that education can be a place
(06:41):
for spreading my knowledge. And as I started to hire
some employees, hire some other clinicians to work with us,
we now work with many hospitals in Chicago and provide
psychiatric services and everyone that practices does an excellent job.
So I was able to find a niche here where
(07:02):
I took my clinical skills, took my passion and education,
and then use that as leverage to kind of increase
our net effect, at least here in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
That's important. Like you mentioned, it's about also building the
community around you and thing going from there, I guess.
But you also mentioned you're speaking, of course, based on
what you are doing. You are speaking and interacting with
a lot of people, different thoughts, different backgrounds, different different everything.
So so how does that, let's say, maybe help you
(07:38):
you personally in a way to improve yourself, okay, and
at the same time help your business itself. Do you
think there is some kind of a story there?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Absolutely? Who's saying you know? I think in life there
are two primary teachers. The first teacher is called the
pain of experience, and many of us feel that our
own lives in very different categories. But the second teacher
is pain or lessons through proxy. And when I say
(08:08):
through proxy, I mean by perhaps there are lessons that
we can learn not by going through it, but by
learning about it through others people in our community, by
learning about it through the interactions we have on an
individual basis, by reading about it, by consuming media about it,
and after talking to so many people in my clinical practice,
(08:31):
you get a better sense of what the human experience is.
You get a better sense at what drives people, what
motivates people, what hurts people, and what the challenges are
for a lot of people. So I've learned just as
much from my clinical practice and my patients than I've
ever learned teaching myself, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Now, because you had to go through that and the
same time you're going through I don't know, is it
the tough business. I'm not sure. I don't know this base,
but I'm sure every business in general, it's entrepreneur when
they go through things, they will hit some kind of
(09:12):
road blocks or blocks and literally, so what would you
say the worst one that you had going through your journey?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
So you know, at its core, who's saying we run
a service based business right, and like many service based businesses,
a lot of the bottlenecks are similar. So the bottlenecks
to my business as we've been growing, it was number one.
I am the own my own bottleneck to the business.
What I mean by that is, as an early business person,
(09:46):
I wanted to become a jack of all trades, learn
a little bit about everything. But once you begin this journey,
you learn that you can't learn everything. And in fact,
the more you learn, the more you understand how you
don't know anything at all, which which is very overwhelming.
I am now at the transitionary point where I have
(10:06):
to now find people who are more experts in these
categories than myself and learn to allow them to do
the job. So it's an interesting transition where in the
beginning I force myself to have to do everything, but
now I'm learning that there's such limited time, whosaying I
have to learn how to delegate better. And that's exactly
(10:27):
where I'm at now.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
That's very important, like sometimes yes there is time, but
also there is limited time. We kind of do everything
at an expert livel I guess at everything and like
things that you are doing, I guess it requires to
educate yourself a lot in the space itself, and we
were talking about there this is different ball game, I guess,
(10:53):
so two different things at two different speeds might be
to a different directions. So there's a lot to do here.
But I'm sure that maybe, like in this journey, you
discover something that is rewarding, maybe helping these people like right,
(11:14):
So do you think that from your experience working with
these people, I'm sure maybe you have seen some people
that want to be for example, business owners or entrepreneurs. Right, So,
what do you think one of the reasons that are
stopping people in general from jumping or making the leap.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
I think the thing that stops a lot of people
from taking action is a fear of failure. And I
think it's the fear, uncertainty and doubt of taking risk
that prevents someone from ever taking a risk at all.
But the thing is, there's a difference, who's saying, between
(11:59):
flipping a car in a casino and betting your house
versus taking a calculated, informed risk. And what I try
to convince others is we take risks every day. For example,
many of us drive cars. That is the by far
the most dangerous thing we do every single day with
(12:19):
the highest level of mortality associated, but we don't think
of it like that. I think if I think when
I understood that failure are just lessons that need to
be learned, and that I have a decision rather to
fail fast, fail now and learn now at a smaller scale,
(12:42):
or fail big later without having learned the lessons of failure,
I would much rather prefer to fail now because it's
less on the line now, and I know that if
I get good at failing, I will take all of
that evidence will help me make better decisions later when
I have bigger opportunities. So I think if fear is
(13:06):
the thing that prevents people from taking action, it's changing
the idea to fear and action is necessary no matter what,
and success being useful. It's a journey that starts with
leaning in rather than leaning away, And I think it's
embracing that because once we embrace it now we're closer
(13:30):
to reality and getting moving is always better than not
moving at all.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Definitely, I like your phase fear plus action is necessary
no matter what, because this is like we're here in life,
like basically living well life, so we have to do
something about anything at least whatever it is, So that's important.
And also you mentioned here the word opportunities, so people
(13:58):
in general that it's in business, in life in general
keep saying my luck, my luck, my luck is bad more.
The reason is, like you are basically sitting on the
sofa all the time. Maybe you're not thinking, you're not
meeting people who are maybe in the similar mindset that
you are, or that one of us want to do
(14:18):
certain things, we don't do the actions and always having
fears keeping us at the same place. So how would
we meet these opportunities if we are not doing some
kind of action. So that's very important, don't you think.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
You know there's a great story who's saying it's not mine?
I actually read it from Naval Raba Khan's book. He's
a very successful entrepreneur. He shares a story about luck,
and he shares a story about this famous scuba diver
who is the best in the world. This individual can
go to depths unimaginable and withstand all those pressures and
(14:58):
as an extreme professional. Well, one day on the other
side of the world, there's a ship wreckage and apparently
there's a lot of hidden treasure on the bottom of
the floor on the ship. Guess who they called to
help retrieve it. The best scuba diver.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
In the world.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Now we might say, hey, that guy is lucky, but
is he or did he put himself in a position
to be lucky? And that's where my belief of you
can always outwork and increase your surface area of luck.
You know, if your business decisions or life decisions are
wholly dependent on luck, you're asking for something from the
(15:40):
world that will likely never give it to you. And
it goes back to this idea of success, and that's
why I go back to my answer of it's about
giving and being useful, because again, if you give, if
you're useful, if you do, you're in complete control of that.
And perhaps with enough work and inputs you can increase
(16:02):
your service area of luck as well. So when opportunities
do come, you're the first one thought of.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I love that increase the surface area of luck. That's
very important. Like there could be many people that might
be doing the same thing, but it might come down
to like this one point zero zero zero one percent
that you are better than anyone else, so you have
the chosen one to do whatever it is. So that's
(16:31):
a self area of luck is I think I think
Brian traces it like luck is when opportunity meets action
or something like that. So you have to do something
and to improve the skills. And also you talked about
the skills because like it is very important to have
this combination of things at the same time. One skill
(16:53):
is like it's okay, two skills is good. Three skills
and if you can't combine them too is great for
skills excellent and you you know the rest, so you
can do unlimited things. Opportunities can come more to you
if you do certain things in a certain way. And
(17:13):
luck is not just luck or whomever, the grace or
God or whatever it is. It is like this, all
of these could be combined together. I guess I agree, yeah, definitely.
So what do you think or who ever give you
advice that you would think it was the best advice
(17:35):
that you ever heard or the worst advice that you
ever heard?
Speaker 3 (17:40):
I think I'll answer it backwards. Who's saying I think
the worst advice I was ever given are all the
pieces of advice given by people who don't understand my
context but had all the right intentions. Because I think
good advice there needs to be an alignment of several things,
(18:01):
husaying Number one, they have to have absolutely good intentions.
Number two, they to have absolute context of your situation.
And without those things, advice isn't really translatable. Right If
I were to go to a school teacher and ask
them how to fix my car, maybe this guy or
(18:23):
girl is not the best person to answer this question.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
The best piece of advice I've ever been given was
never underestimate how much input it takes to receive a
possible outcome. I think everyone has this idea in mind
that if they do X amount, they will get why return.
(18:48):
But in the beginning, when you're unskilled like I was,
you have to put so much more effort and time
on the front end before you ever see anything on
that back end. And I think just deciding that I
can't have this expectation of the world and that I
have to do as much as possible to get to
(19:10):
the point where I actually have the skills to result
in certain outcomes was It was an important lesson for
me to learn because it changed my expectations about business
and life in general, where now I see it as
rather than an output scenario, I think of how much
inputs is required. And now my usual number who's saying
(19:31):
we were joking about this earlier, is it always takes
a lot more than you think. You know, perhaps you
start out thinking it will only take two hundred episodes,
but then you say, well, it's probably going to take
two thousand until we get really good at something. And
I take that mindset into almost everything I do.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
So it we wasted a few good things like good intentions, context,
and also you mentioned in general nowadays we are people
in general whatever the underworld I want like everything yesterday,
and I think maybe you have seen that more than
me in like ten thousand times. So so this is
(20:11):
this is a big issue. Like we think that we
put one percent effort into something that we deserve one
hundred percent of something, But we should look at it
as we should put one hundred percent to something and
expect maybe one percent for something because good intention is
what you mentioned. The good intentions are are very important
(20:34):
to us as humans right in business and life. We
don't want to be this sleazy salesperson seeing something that
is not going to be useful, and you know it's
not useful. And maybe you're good at convincing people to
buy it, but it's not going to be useful for them.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I recently changed how I use the word deserve, Hussein,
and rather than saying I believe I deserve something should happen,
I change the question to what would have to happen
for this outcome to occur? Or is it a predictable
(21:12):
outcome based on the inputs? Because to say the word
deserve is almost to put it out into the universe
as if it should be a guarantee if I do X,
why should occur? I just don't believe there are many
guarantees that we can shout out to the universe. So
rather than saying deserve, I just now think of it
(21:32):
as what would have to What would I have to
do to make it unreasonable that the outcome wouldn't be
a positive consequence? That's how I frame it.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, that's good because like I don't know, maybe you'll
do it disagree with me, But generally the world does
not or us anything. So if we are if you
flme it as you deserve I deserve, maybe you don't deserve.
We don't know. Maybe it's this is from our own perspective,
it's not from the perspective of other people which don't
(22:05):
matter all the perspective of the world itself to us
giving us back that one hundred percent when we give
ten percent. This is how This is not how it works,
I guess. So this is complete reverse of things it.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Is who's saying It kind of goes to this idea
that even if I were to say there are reasons
I don't have the success that I want, and even
if those reasons were valid and true, it may not
be my fault, but it's still my problem. And I
think until I understand it's my problem no matter what,
(22:45):
I'm unable to make it my own and therefore I'm
unable to do anything about it. That's what i'd say
about that.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
So, and what would you say? Some tools, resources, or
maybe books that you would might recommend to people.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
And you know, I have a strong belief that having
some foundation of knowledge in some of the greatest philosophical
minds is probably a good idea for most people. It
helps with decision making, you know. I think books that
have to deal with mental models are very helpful in
terms of learning the fallacies of logic and how to
(23:21):
think or not to think. From the entrepreneurial space, I
personally like reading and listening to folks like Naval Ravakant
and Alex Hermosi, who have kind of, at least from
mid two thousands until now, kind of been a great
blend of philosophy, psychology, entrepreneurial spirit all in one. And
(23:46):
I think Ray Dalio, who's worth billions of dollars here
in the US, one said being successful is just about
seeing reality faster and clearer than everyone else. All this
other stuff that we put out into the universe the
deserve frame more it the should frame. It should be
like this or it shouldn't be like this. It prevents
(24:08):
us from seeing reality faster and clearly, I think if
we can teach us teach ourselves these things, we can
all learn success definitely.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
We have to clear our own path and stand our
own way and work through it. It does not just
a bear like a like a Genina bottle or something.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Like that, I guess.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
So so what also, I think that talking of the mind,
the problem is with us as a humans sometimes speaking
speaking from earlier points mates to go, we don't hugely
want to work our minds. Like one of the hardest
(24:51):
things to work as humans is our minds. So we
don't want to think. Generally, we are mostly on auto pilot.
So when we have this the problem or idea that
it's challenging us a little bit, you kind of t
want to do it, but you actually, this is the
thing or the problem that you should be at listing
and doing it and facing and finding solution and resolution
(25:14):
for it.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
I think the decision comes from answering a simple question,
is it more important to be right or is it
more important to grow? Because I think the thing that
has prevented me from accepting realities faster and more clearly
was plainly my own strong beliefs or ego, Because who's
(25:37):
saying to accept that I would be wrong could be detrimental.
Now as a human being, I think, well, what else
have I been wrong about? And your whole worldview can
be crumbling before you. And that's why to your point,
I think people in communities like yours in the success
grid are very beneficial because we can all talk to
(25:59):
each other these things, and we can all grow together
in some ways and be more comfortable admitting that it's
more important to grow than it is to be right
all the time.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I don't think there's any human being in this right
all the time. The problem with humans in general we
think that we have lied but we are not. There
is like almost you have to compromise in general, I
guess you have to look and listen to the other opinions,
whether that's business or life, because if we don't hear
(26:34):
the other at least you don't hear the other side,
there will be no solution for anything.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Well, going back to my point earlier, there's two teachers
in life, the pain of experience or the pain of proxy.
And if someone doesn't learn through the pain of proxy,
that just means they will have to learn through the
pain of suffering and experience.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Definitely, definitely, and then thank you very much. This was
extremely insightful, a great conversation here really provid this with
an amazing overview of what you do and your wisdom
into things that you have done and your experience working
with tons of people. Thank you very much for joining
(27:14):
me for this episode of the Success Great podcast.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Thank you saying and thank you to the podcast
Hallo, I welcome to the Success Great Podcast with also Santali.
I am excited to introduce you to a series of
conversations with some of the most successful and sparing individuals
from various industries. My aim is to dive into their
stories behind their success and explore the knowledge, strategiest habits,
mindsets and wisdom that have propelled their success. Each episode
(00:21):
of the Success Great Podcast will feature a different guest
who will share their unique journey, the challenges they faced,
and the ressons they have learned along the way. I
would also be covering topics from entrepreneurship and innovation to
leadership and personal development. Whether you are inspiring entrepreneur, a
seasoned business profession, or just someone looking to improve your life,
(00:41):
the Success Great Podcast is for you. My goal is
to bring you valuable insights and inspiration that will help
you achieve your own success in business and life. So
get ready to learn and be inspired. The Success Great
Podcast starts.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Now and in this episode, I am speaking with Allan
Akira talk about his life lessons and how to think
through problems in life and business. Alan is An MD,
is a bordered Fi psychiatric and the founder of Morgan psychiatricy,
a practice serving patients in the patient environment and in
(01:19):
around Chicago Noise. His mission is to bridge the disparity
in psychiatric care to community psychiatric setings with his passions
and skills in clinical decision making, continuing education, entrepreneurship in medicine,
system based learning and practices, and health care management. Alan,
(01:40):
Welcome to this episode of the Success Great podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Thank you Hussain. I'm very happy to be here. I
appreciate that introduction.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Awesome to have you. So I would say this, I
would say rare introduction. Not many of my guests have
this type of introduction. So first of all, because I
want to that you've been through a lot your business.
You are doing things that are multiple things at the
(02:07):
same time. So we're talking about can make condition making, education,
entrepreneurship in medicine, system based learning. These are a lot
of things that could integrate together and also separate, have separation,
I guess at the same time that could be the case.
So I want to know what is your definition of
success personally and what do you see people around you
(02:29):
that you agree or disagree with in this regards to
success and what does it mean to me?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Success means being useful because a lot of times when
people talk about success, it's framed as a certain end outcome,
or a certain particular goal. The problem with this kind
of thinking is it's all or nothing. You either reach
the goal or you do not. And what I've learned
(02:58):
through my life and speaking with over ten thousand people
in my clinical practice is that only a couple things
happen when you put everything on a particular goal. You
either reach it and hate the person you become while
you get there, or you reach it only to learn
(03:18):
that the goalpoop post moves again. That's why, for me,
being a successful person is not about an outcome, but
it's about being useful. Because I can control entirely how
useful I am to others, I cannot control that the
world will give me what I ask for, So to me,
(03:38):
it's about being useful, and to me, it's about being
happy with the person I'm becoming while I'm on the journey,
rather than the outcome itself.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, that's very interesting. Being useful is to be successful.
This is an interesting kind of perspective because it is
about when you say useful, you basically helping yourself and
helping other people and this is one of the things
that you are actually doing. You are providing a service
(04:07):
basically that is helping other people do certain things, which
is actually kind of impressive. But now it took us
through Like I want to know, and I'm sure of
the success greed nation that would like to know a
little bit about your story. How did you reach to
the point where you are right now?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, So I am a board certified physician psychiatrist in
the US. I went to four years in medical school,
four years of psychiatric residency training, and I am now
about a year and a half out of that training,
so practicing independently. I was first interested in medicine mostly
because I was not sure what to do, and in
(04:49):
college I had a great college counselor that said, Alan,
you like science, you like people, maybe you should consider medicine.
I said, well, I don't know any better, Okay, no problem.
So it was actually by an accident, like a lot
of things are. Then I kind of moved into my
medical school journey. I found out I actually quite liked
psychiatry because it was the only field of medicine that
(05:14):
was so unique, because every person you talked to had
a different story, you know, whereas in some other fields
of medicine, chest pain can only be so many things,
headaches can be only so many things. In psychiatry, it's
about the person's life story, and everyone knows no two
life stories are exactly the same. So I thought that
(05:36):
was unique about medicine, and it was the only field
of medicine where my own personal experiences could translate to
medical practice and vice versa. I quite enjoyed that because
I quite enjoyed the stories that people had to share. Now,
as I finished my training, I worked as a physician first,
(05:57):
so clinical medicine was my first skill. But I believe
in stacking skills vertically, and every skill you stack gives
you a little bit higher place of leverage. So what
initially I started out as is as everyone in my
my peers as a clinician. Then I found a passion
for education and whosaining. I learned that education is the
(06:19):
one thing that can affect more people than my clinical
skills alone, because there's only so many people. I can see,
there's only twenty four hours in the day. I'm only
one man, But through education, I could spread my influence
and help others spread that influence. In a greater degree.
That's where I learned that education can be a place
(06:41):
for spreading my knowledge. And as I started to hire
some employees, hire some other clinicians to work with us,
we now work with many hospitals in Chicago and provide
psychiatric services and everyone that practices does an excellent job.
So I was able to find a niche here where
(07:02):
I took my clinical skills, took my passion and education,
and then use that as leverage to kind of increase
our net effect, at least here in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
That's important. Like you mentioned, it's about also building the
community around you and thing going from there, I guess.
But you also mentioned you're speaking, of course, based on
what you are doing. You are speaking and interacting with
a lot of people, different thoughts, different backgrounds, different different everything.
So so how does that, let's say, maybe help you
(07:38):
you personally in a way to improve yourself, okay, and
at the same time help your business itself. Do you
think there is some kind of a story there?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Absolutely? Who's saying you know? I think in life there
are two primary teachers. The first teacher is called the
pain of experience, and many of us feel that our
own lives in very different categories. But the second teacher
is pain or lessons through proxy. And when I say
(08:08):
through proxy, I mean by perhaps there are lessons that
we can learn not by going through it, but by
learning about it through others people in our community, by
learning about it through the interactions we have on an
individual basis, by reading about it, by consuming media about it,
and after talking to so many people in my clinical practice,
(08:31):
you get a better sense of what the human experience is.
You get a better sense at what drives people, what
motivates people, what hurts people, and what the challenges are
for a lot of people. So I've learned just as
much from my clinical practice and my patients than I've
ever learned teaching myself, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Now, because you had to go through that and the
same time you're going through I don't know, is it
the tough business. I'm not sure. I don't know this base,
but I'm sure every business in general, it's entrepreneur when
they go through things, they will hit some kind of
(09:12):
road blocks or blocks and literally, so what would you
say the worst one that you had going through your journey?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
So you know, at its core, who's saying we run
a service based business right, and like many service based businesses,
a lot of the bottlenecks are similar. So the bottlenecks
to my business as we've been growing, it was number one.
I am the own my own bottleneck to the business.
What I mean by that is, as an early business person,
(09:46):
I wanted to become a jack of all trades, learn
a little bit about everything. But once you begin this journey,
you learn that you can't learn everything. And in fact,
the more you learn, the more you understand how you
don't know anything at all, which which is very overwhelming.
I am now at the transitionary point where I have
(10:06):
to now find people who are more experts in these
categories than myself and learn to allow them to do
the job. So it's an interesting transition where in the
beginning I force myself to have to do everything, but
now I'm learning that there's such limited time, whosaying I
have to learn how to delegate better. And that's exactly
(10:27):
where I'm at now.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
That's very important, like sometimes yes there is time, but
also there is limited time. We kind of do everything
at an expert livel I guess at everything and like
things that you are doing, I guess it requires to
educate yourself a lot in the space itself, and we
were talking about there this is different ball game, I guess,
(10:53):
so two different things at two different speeds might be
to a different directions. So there's a lot to do here.
But I'm sure that maybe, like in this journey, you
discover something that is rewarding, maybe helping these people like right,
(11:14):
So do you think that from your experience working with
these people, I'm sure maybe you have seen some people
that want to be for example, business owners or entrepreneurs. Right, So,
what do you think one of the reasons that are
stopping people in general from jumping or making the leap.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
I think the thing that stops a lot of people
from taking action is a fear of failure. And I
think it's the fear, uncertainty and doubt of taking risk
that prevents someone from ever taking a risk at all.
But the thing is, there's a difference, who's saying, between
(11:59):
flipping a car in a casino and betting your house
versus taking a calculated, informed risk. And what I try
to convince others is we take risks every day. For example,
many of us drive cars. That is the by far
the most dangerous thing we do every single day with
(12:19):
the highest level of mortality associated, but we don't think
of it like that. I think if I think when
I understood that failure are just lessons that need to
be learned, and that I have a decision rather to
fail fast, fail now and learn now at a smaller scale,
(12:42):
or fail big later without having learned the lessons of failure,
I would much rather prefer to fail now because it's
less on the line now, and I know that if
I get good at failing, I will take all of
that evidence will help me make better decisions later when
I have bigger opportunities. So I think if fear is
(13:06):
the thing that prevents people from taking action, it's changing
the idea to fear and action is necessary no matter what,
and success being useful. It's a journey that starts with
leaning in rather than leaning away, And I think it's
embracing that because once we embrace it now we're closer
(13:30):
to reality and getting moving is always better than not
moving at all.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Definitely, I like your phase fear plus action is necessary
no matter what, because this is like we're here in life,
like basically living well life, so we have to do
something about anything at least whatever it is, So that's important.
And also you mentioned here the word opportunities, so people
(13:58):
in general that it's in business, in life in general
keep saying my luck, my luck, my luck is bad more.
The reason is, like you are basically sitting on the
sofa all the time. Maybe you're not thinking, you're not
meeting people who are maybe in the similar mindset that
you are, or that one of us want to do
(14:18):
certain things, we don't do the actions and always having
fears keeping us at the same place. So how would
we meet these opportunities if we are not doing some
kind of action. So that's very important, don't you think.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
You know there's a great story who's saying it's not mine?
I actually read it from Naval Raba Khan's book. He's
a very successful entrepreneur. He shares a story about luck,
and he shares a story about this famous scuba diver
who is the best in the world. This individual can
go to depths unimaginable and withstand all those pressures and
(14:58):
as an extreme professional. Well, one day on the other
side of the world, there's a ship wreckage and apparently
there's a lot of hidden treasure on the bottom of
the floor on the ship. Guess who they called to
help retrieve it. The best scuba diver.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
In the world.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Now we might say, hey, that guy is lucky, but
is he or did he put himself in a position
to be lucky? And that's where my belief of you
can always outwork and increase your surface area of luck.
You know, if your business decisions or life decisions are
wholly dependent on luck, you're asking for something from the
(15:40):
world that will likely never give it to you. And
it goes back to this idea of success, and that's
why I go back to my answer of it's about
giving and being useful, because again, if you give, if
you're useful, if you do, you're in complete control of that.
And perhaps with enough work and inputs you can increase
(16:02):
your service area of luck as well. So when opportunities
do come, you're the first one thought of.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I love that increase the surface area of luck. That's
very important. Like there could be many people that might
be doing the same thing, but it might come down
to like this one point zero zero zero one percent
that you are better than anyone else, so you have
the chosen one to do whatever it is. So that's
(16:31):
a self area of luck is I think I think
Brian traces it like luck is when opportunity meets action
or something like that. So you have to do something
and to improve the skills. And also you talked about
the skills because like it is very important to have
this combination of things at the same time. One skill
(16:53):
is like it's okay, two skills is good. Three skills
and if you can't combine them too is great for
skills excellent and you you know the rest, so you
can do unlimited things. Opportunities can come more to you
if you do certain things in a certain way. And
(17:13):
luck is not just luck or whomever, the grace or
God or whatever it is. It is like this, all
of these could be combined together. I guess I agree, yeah, definitely.
So what do you think or who ever give you
advice that you would think it was the best advice
(17:35):
that you ever heard or the worst advice that you
ever heard?
Speaker 3 (17:40):
I think I'll answer it backwards. Who's saying I think
the worst advice I was ever given are all the
pieces of advice given by people who don't understand my
context but had all the right intentions. Because I think
good advice there needs to be an alignment of several things,
(18:01):
husaying Number one, they have to have absolutely good intentions.
Number two, they to have absolute context of your situation.
And without those things, advice isn't really translatable. Right If
I were to go to a school teacher and ask
them how to fix my car, maybe this guy or
(18:23):
girl is not the best person to answer this question.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
The best piece of advice I've ever been given was
never underestimate how much input it takes to receive a
possible outcome. I think everyone has this idea in mind
that if they do X amount, they will get why return.
(18:48):
But in the beginning, when you're unskilled like I was,
you have to put so much more effort and time
on the front end before you ever see anything on
that back end. And I think just deciding that I
can't have this expectation of the world and that I
have to do as much as possible to get to
(19:10):
the point where I actually have the skills to result
in certain outcomes was It was an important lesson for
me to learn because it changed my expectations about business
and life in general, where now I see it as
rather than an output scenario, I think of how much
inputs is required. And now my usual number who's saying
(19:31):
we were joking about this earlier, is it always takes
a lot more than you think. You know, perhaps you
start out thinking it will only take two hundred episodes,
but then you say, well, it's probably going to take
two thousand until we get really good at something. And
I take that mindset into almost everything I do.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
So it we wasted a few good things like good intentions, context,
and also you mentioned in general nowadays we are people
in general whatever the underworld I want like everything yesterday,
and I think maybe you have seen that more than
me in like ten thousand times. So so this is
(20:11):
this is a big issue. Like we think that we
put one percent effort into something that we deserve one
hundred percent of something, But we should look at it
as we should put one hundred percent to something and
expect maybe one percent for something because good intention is
what you mentioned. The good intentions are are very important
(20:34):
to us as humans right in business and life. We
don't want to be this sleazy salesperson seeing something that
is not going to be useful, and you know it's
not useful. And maybe you're good at convincing people to
buy it, but it's not going to be useful for them.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I recently changed how I use the word deserve, Hussein,
and rather than saying I believe I deserve something should happen,
I change the question to what would have to happen
for this outcome to occur? Or is it a predictable
(21:12):
outcome based on the inputs? Because to say the word
deserve is almost to put it out into the universe
as if it should be a guarantee if I do X,
why should occur? I just don't believe there are many
guarantees that we can shout out to the universe. So
rather than saying deserve, I just now think of it
(21:32):
as what would have to What would I have to
do to make it unreasonable that the outcome wouldn't be
a positive consequence? That's how I frame it.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, that's good because like I don't know, maybe you'll
do it disagree with me, But generally the world does
not or us anything. So if we are if you
flme it as you deserve I deserve, maybe you don't deserve.
We don't know. Maybe it's this is from our own perspective,
it's not from the perspective of other people which don't
(22:05):
matter all the perspective of the world itself to us
giving us back that one hundred percent when we give
ten percent. This is how This is not how it works,
I guess. So this is complete reverse of things it.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Is who's saying It kind of goes to this idea
that even if I were to say there are reasons
I don't have the success that I want, and even
if those reasons were valid and true, it may not
be my fault, but it's still my problem. And I
think until I understand it's my problem no matter what,
(22:45):
I'm unable to make it my own and therefore I'm
unable to do anything about it. That's what i'd say
about that.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
So, and what would you say? Some tools, resources, or
maybe books that you would might recommend to people.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
And you know, I have a strong belief that having
some foundation of knowledge in some of the greatest philosophical
minds is probably a good idea for most people. It
helps with decision making, you know. I think books that
have to deal with mental models are very helpful in
terms of learning the fallacies of logic and how to
(23:21):
think or not to think. From the entrepreneurial space, I
personally like reading and listening to folks like Naval Ravakant
and Alex Hermosi, who have kind of, at least from
mid two thousands until now, kind of been a great
blend of philosophy, psychology, entrepreneurial spirit all in one. And
(23:46):
I think Ray Dalio, who's worth billions of dollars here
in the US, one said being successful is just about
seeing reality faster and clearer than everyone else. All this
other stuff that we put out into the universe the
deserve frame more it the should frame. It should be
like this or it shouldn't be like this. It prevents
(24:08):
us from seeing reality faster and clearly, I think if
we can teach us teach ourselves these things, we can
all learn success definitely.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
We have to clear our own path and stand our
own way and work through it. It does not just
a bear like a like a Genina bottle or something.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Like that, I guess.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
So so what also, I think that talking of the mind,
the problem is with us as a humans sometimes speaking
speaking from earlier points mates to go, we don't hugely
want to work our minds. Like one of the hardest
(24:51):
things to work as humans is our minds. So we
don't want to think. Generally, we are mostly on auto pilot.
So when we have this the problem or idea that
it's challenging us a little bit, you kind of t
want to do it, but you actually, this is the
thing or the problem that you should be at listing
and doing it and facing and finding solution and resolution
(25:14):
for it.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
I think the decision comes from answering a simple question,
is it more important to be right or is it
more important to grow? Because I think the thing that
has prevented me from accepting realities faster and more clearly
was plainly my own strong beliefs or ego, Because who's
(25:37):
saying to accept that I would be wrong could be detrimental.
Now as a human being, I think, well, what else
have I been wrong about? And your whole worldview can
be crumbling before you. And that's why to your point,
I think people in communities like yours in the success
grid are very beneficial because we can all talk to
(25:59):
each other these things, and we can all grow together
in some ways and be more comfortable admitting that it's
more important to grow than it is to be right
all the time.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I don't think there's any human being in this right
all the time. The problem with humans in general we
think that we have lied but we are not. There
is like almost you have to compromise in general, I
guess you have to look and listen to the other opinions,
whether that's business or life, because if we don't hear
(26:34):
the other at least you don't hear the other side,
there will be no solution for anything.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Well, going back to my point earlier, there's two teachers
in life, the pain of experience or the pain of proxy.
And if someone doesn't learn through the pain of proxy,
that just means they will have to learn through the
pain of suffering and experience.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Definitely, definitely, and then thank you very much. This was
extremely insightful, a great conversation here really provid this with
an amazing overview of what you do and your wisdom
into things that you have done and your experience working
with tons of people. Thank you very much for joining
(27:14):
me for this episode of the Success Great podcast.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Thank you saying and thank you to the podcast
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