Digital Social Hour - From 150K in Debt to Multi Millionaire I Bashar Katou DSH #445

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Bashar Katou comes to the show to talk about his journey from 150K in Debt to Multi Millionaire APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/D2cLkWfJx46pDK1MA BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

America. We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. At Grand Canyon University, we believe in equal opportunity, and the American dream starts with purpose. By honoring your career calling, you impact your family, your friends, and your community. The pursuit to serve others is yours. Find your purpose at grand canyon university private christian affordable visit gcu.edu someone else has done it before you figuring out who's done it teach me how to do it and then go do it or hiring someone to do it you know you've got your team you've got people around you right obviously you're not doing all the stuff you're

doing the interviewing and stuff like that but you ask yourself who can help me do the producing who can help me do this thing who can help me do that thing and you surrounded yourself with a players right so understanding that you're not in the how business but the who business wherever you guys are watching this show i would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe it helps a lot with the algorithm it helps us get bigger and better guests and it helps us grow the team truly means means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting, and here's the episode. All right, guys. Best mustache I've ever seen. Bashar Kato here today. Thanks for coming out, man. Thanks for inviting me, brother. Yeah. I can't deny it, dude. How long does it take to get that ready? Right now, after almost a decade of doing it uh probably about five minutes okay

but in the beginning it took probably about good 30 45 minutes yeah yeah yeah yeah did you always have facial hair growing up um yes and no this actually came out of depression um yeah after i lost my business in 2015 i went into depression for about six months and uh grew a big beard uh as i was coming out of depression and kind of feeling good and getting into business again, I shaved the beard and I saw there was something there. I'm like, all right,

let's keep this and see what happens. Yeah, I love it. So 2015, the fire happens, right? Yes. Walk me through that. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Admired my father because he owned the second largest factory of clothing in iraq in the uh 70s and 80s wow um and um in 2011 four years five years after

we migrated to america because i'm originally from iraq um we started our first business in america two years after i said hey i'm a 23old kid. I want to do things bigger. I got into my own business, which was a restaurant. About three, four months into that, I realized that I didn't know what the hell I was doing when it came to business. About two years after, two and a half years after, April 15th or April 28th, 2015, I got a phone call at 5 p.m. from my bartender saying the kitchen is on fire.

By the time I got back, the kitchen was torn up. The issue is that I did not have insurance. Lost everything I had invested in the business, came out of it with about $150,000 in debt. And three months after, I got a DUI, and that's kind of when I hit rock bottom after. Holy crap. Yeah. $150,000 in debt. So you took out loans to have that restaurant?

Well, loans, food purveyors that I had bought things from that I never paid, the IRS taxes, the back taxes, all that kind of stuff, you know, just didn't know what I was doing in business. So not paying the right things at the right time and so on. And that just kept on accumulating. So six months of depression, what got you out of that?

Realizing that I'm only 25 and that it's not the end of me, but it's that everything happens for a reason. Right. And understanding there's always the next thing in life. Regardless what it is you're doing, there is always more that you can do. And it's up to you what you want to do with the hardships that happen in your life. You either lean into them and take them as lessons and, you know, catapult your life to the next level. Or you can become a victim and cry about it and do nothing. Right. So that's technically what I use to life to the next level, or you can become a victim and cry about it and do nothing.

So that's technically what I use to go to the next level, get out of depression. Nice. So did you go to a conference or seminar, see someone on YouTube? Yes and no. It was honestly just kind of, YouTube was one, obviously, one great resource,

but it was more of a, here's this. this a couple months back i got asked on a podcast they said what is one skill that anyone needs to master for them to have a great life and they were expecting marketing sales this the other and i said the skill of mastering your mind. Because oftentimes, 80% of all the anxiety and everything that we feel is self-inflicted. And it is whatever, you know, thoughts in our minds are not controlled. They just come in our minds. It's not something that we, you know,

we kind of make happen. But it is our decision what we want to do with these thoughts. And if you can't or don't know how to maneuver through your thoughts, you will be in a rabbit hole that you can't get yourself out of. So honestly, it was just kind of the David Goggins in me that went to work and just really focused on my mind and all the positivity and so on that got me out of it. And then, you know, I had mentors and so on as well. Yeah. I love Goggins, man.

Yeah. That's a goat right there. He's awesome. How did you get that first mentor? First mentor, believe it or not, was a movie actor. Okay. So it was a character, everyone probably knows, Rocky Balboa. Ooh.

Yeah. I grew up watching Rocky Balboa oh yeah I grew up watching Rocky Balboa although I'm you know I was born in 1990 my my favorite movie of all time is Rocky 1 and you know in Rocky 4 Rocky 5 he's got a quote a famous quote where he says it's not about how hard you hit but it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward, that's how winning is done. So it was really that kind of the underdog feel that I loved about it. And then from there, when I went online, you know, it was people like Grant Cardone, Gary Vee,

and others that I started listening to and getting, you know, inspired by. And then when I got into the specific thing that I did, which was Amazon, it was my Amazon coaches and mentors that I learned from. So when did you stumble across Amazon and the potential there? 2015, right after my restaurant burnt down. Wow. So pretty quick after.

Yes. Okay. By six to eight months after. Yeah. And that's FBA? Yes. FBA private label. Got it. So you didn't have enough to buy inventory. So how did that work? I had a girlfriend at the time and who helped me with some inventory in the concept of her credit card. So my first course was actually used or I bought it with her credit card.

I was watching a video by Robert Kiyosaki. Yep. And he said, don't say I can't afford it. Instead, ask how can I afford it. And as I started asking how can I afford it, I started learning about the concept of OPM. And that's when I realized that all of our lives, we've been leveraging other people's money just in the wrong way. We, you know, credit cards, most people watching this probably have a credit card or know someone have a credit card. What do we use with it?

What do we do with it? We go shopping. We go to the movies. We go to restaurants. What we don't realize is this is other people's money. And instead of using it and leveraging it to buy consumables, we can buy assets. We can start a business. We can buy a course and invest in ourselves and further our education and knowledge. So it was honestly OPM that helped me out of that. I borrowed money from family and friends. My girlfriend helped me out as well. Buy my first couple of courses and from there invested in there invested in, uh, products and that's history.

Nice. You could do a lot with OPM man. And now there's 0% OPM. There's all kinds of OPM that, um, that honestly anyone can get ahold of. Um, I,

regardless how old you are, regardless where you live, there are many things that you can do. Yeah. You just need a solid plan on how you're going to use it. Cause some people can get OPM and then lose it. So you don't want that. 100%.

Yeah, because then you're double loss, right? Yes. You owe two people money. Yes. But there's really good ways to use it, man. Absolutely. And especially with the power of the internet, there are many things that you can research literally at your fingertips in minutes.

Absolutely. Yes. So you got through that tough time and now you're killing it with Amazon, right? Doing millions? Yes. That's impressive. How long did that take to scale? End of 2015 is when I got into Amazon.

So 2018 was my first seven-figure year. And then now we do a few million dollars a year with Amazon. 80% of my time, however, is spent on teaching people this skill rather than doing the skill i'm still an amazon investor i'm invested in three different amazon businesses but what i realized in 2019 2020 is that i wasn't the only one in that situation i had a group of friends who were taught that in order for you to live a good life you need need to go to school, get a degree, get a job, which is great. But then I realized that there are other opportunities. There are a lot of missed opportunities because there is no awareness,

which was things like selling on Amazon. And since then, I've been very passionate about sharing the missed opportunities with people and showing them that, yes, you can go to school. Yes, you can spend $50,000, $60,000, $80,000 to get a degree. Or you can also acquire another skill in months instead of years

and turn it into income. And you can do it from anywhere in the world. So that's what I'm passionate about right now. Nice. I used to watch a course a week growing up when I was broke in college. That's awesome. My favorite course ever was Sam Ovens. That was my first mentor when I went online to do consulting. I love it. Yeah, I saw you got to interview him. So I want to ask what you learned from him, what some of your

takeaways were. So in 2019 is when I got into with Sam Ovens and started learning from him up until 2022 when he had his quantum mastermind. I became the largest investor in school up until Harmozy kind of took away that title from me a few months ago. Well, that's good for you, though. 100%. He tripled my investments. That's great. Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest?

Well, click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life. Click the application link below and here's the episode, guys. The biggest thing that I learned from him is this. There is never a lack of ideas.

It's just which idea are you going to actually focus on? Because the whole notion of seven streams of income to become a millionaire is a myth, and it's just a buzz thing that people talk about. My phone is filled with seven, eight, and nine figure entrepreneurs. I want to say probably about 99.9% of them did it with focusing on one thing. Just one company, one product, one whatever, right? And got them to that level. And so his advice was, there is many things you can do. You just got to pick one and you got to go all in. And that's technically what I've done over the last decade.

I love that. Yeah, because you see those articles about the seven things of income and you feel pressure to diversify. But then that distracts time from your main focus. Yeah, because there's a famous drawing that he did when I first joined his program. He drew two circles.

And then one of them had one line going all the way up, and the other one had six, seven lines, and they were all like one inch long. And in the middle, he put energy. And in the middle of that, he put you, right? And technically, what he was trying to explain is that, look, you only have so much bandwidth, you only have so much time, you only have so much energy. If you put it all in one thing you can take this one thing very far if you put it on seven different things you're gonna probably half-ass all seven right so it's like which is the one thing that drives you the most which is the one thing that gets you out of bed every single morning focus on that absolutely yeah yeah for me that's podcasting

right now that's amazing man but in the past it was crypto and that's where i made my money because i focused all in on crypto 100 and a lot of its timing too that's awesome yeah because if you did amazon now it's probably a lot harder um yes and no yes and no um there is a lot more sellers 100 today but there are a lot more buyers when i first got started on amazon in 2015 there was uh 275 million shoppers on Amazon. Today, there's over 500 million. Damn. So it doubled almost. Yeah.

And Amazon accounts for over 56% of all online sales. Wow. That's crazy. It's changed. It's not the same. But there is a lot more potential today than there was ever with Amazon. Yeah, that's cool. And how much would you say people need on average to start right now?

At least 10 to 20,000. cool. And how much would you say people need on average to start right now? At least 10 to 20,000. Okay. Yeah. To do what I do, which is private label, which is building our own brand, our own asset. You could do things like arbitrage. You can do things like wholesaling and you'll need a lot less money, maybe $5,000 or so. But to build a real asset, a real business, a business you can leverage to raise money, a business you can exit, which is what we've done with a lot of our brands, a business that is your own, at least $10,000 to $20,000. Nice. Yeah. Did you get to talk to Hormozy during the school stuff? I did. I did actually. He has a monthly workshops here

in Vegas that he does. And I attended actually last month. Oh, nice. And was there. It was a good time. Cool. What do you take away from that? A lot of things. Let's see. As a CEO, as an entrepreneur, we are understanding that we are in the who business and not the how business.

Meaning, normally when we want to do something, immediately what we do is, let me figure out how to do it. Instead, ask, who do I know that can teach me how to do it or do it for me? And that is one cycle that I've gotten stuck in for a long period of time. Now and even before I started my businesses, I've launched nine businesses. The first seven failed. And when I look back at the first seven, the biggest common denominator was the fact that I wanted to figure it out by myself.

Instead of asking who's done it before, because regardless what it is you're trying to do, someone else has done it before you. Figuring out who's done it, teach me how to do it, and then go do it. Or hiring someone to do it. You've got your team. You've got people around you, right? Obviously, you're not doing all the stuff. You're

doing the interviewing and stuff like that. But you ask yourself, who can help me do the producing? Who can help me do this thing? Who can help me do that thing? And you surrounded yourself with A players. So understanding that you're not in the how business, but the who business, that's the biggest takeaway. And then number two, understanding that there are always a lot of quote unquote problems that we can focus on or we can move along at any given time, but asking ourselves, which is the biggest problem in our business

or in our life or whatever it is we're doing right now that we need to focus on right now, and then keeping the focus to only three to five things at any given time. It goes back kind of to the Sam Oven's concept of focus, right? You've only got limited energy, limited time, limited effort. The more you focus it on one, two, three things, the better you're going to be able to generate a better result yep

yeah i love what he did with school because he did not he had a podcast at the time which he totally trashed and then he was doing other stuff but he totally put it to the side for school and now it's a nine-figure company right it is yes crazy and there's people on there making a full-time living now 100 i think he's really revolutionized the community aspect of learning he definitely has and and he was um ahead of time ahead of time when it came to seeing what's out there and being able to kind of predict the market and predict the future. Yeah. Yeah. Consulting.com.

Those were the days, man. Yeah, man. Those courses were legendary. Yes. Really reshaped my mindset. Absolutely. Yeah. Shout out to Sam.

He's probably not even watching this, but he's so focused on school. Absolutely. What else are you working on right now? to sam he's probably not even watching this but he's so focused on school absolutely what else are you working on right now um so the next five years is to take our university bjk university and make it into a um a platform that provides people different skills that they can turn into income within months and not years anyone Anyone around the planet, 8 billion people, every single human,

in their mind, they're thinking at some point in their life, how can I live a better life? And up until now, in my opinion, the traditional school system has had a monopoly

at providing a better life. Over the last 10, 15 years, there has been a completely different shift away from that, and that is in things like consulting.com, where you can take your skill and turn it into income in literally less than a year, right? And maybe a couple months. And so our mission here at BJK University is to impact a million lives by disrupting the education system. And we want to provide our clients with skills they can turn into income within months and not years. And so starting 2025 and beyond,

we're going to be providing them different skills, preferably online, preferably they can do from anywhere in the world, and preferably with very low investment, right? Because again, you go to providing them different skills, preferably online, preferably they can do from anywhere in the world, and preferably with very low investment, right? Because again, you go to school, you're expected to study for two, three, four, five years, spend $10,000 to $50,000 per year, get a degree that hopefully can get you a job that can hopefully, you won't get fired from one day, right? Where here, we'll technically be giving you the power. You'll be taking power back, and you'll be taking control back of your fate because these skills that you acquire,

even if you're hired by a company that lets you go, you can take that same skill and apply it somewhere else and somewhere else and somewhere else, especially with this digital age. Yeah. Did you mix family and business? Do you believe in keeping those separate or did you integrate your family? The first business that I had in America or that I ever had or got involved with was a family business. The dynamic of my family did not work out. I have seen other dynamics where it has worked out that unfortunately did not work out for me.

I intentionally make it a point to not hire family. My wife worked with us when we were five people and then I fired her and put her on a salary for some... Yeah. I fired her but put her on a salary with some prerequisites that she receives the salary. Okay. She's a, you know, she's retired. I call her my CCO, my chief cheerleading officer. But this was something else that I learned from Sam as well. He said, you've got two lives. Only one of them can be chaotic at any given time. You're a professional and you're a personal. If you want to become a high level entrepreneur and accomplish great things, your home life needs to be settled, cannot have drama. And that's what my wife provides for me. Outside of that, my brother,

my cousins, many people have applied and tried to work with me and I've just said no. Yeah. The position that I don't want to be in is an executive or a manager in my company keeping a family member longer than they should have or not um you know not holding them accountable to the level that i expect them to because they're related to me nepotism right and even if you tell them not to they'll still do it subconsciously right yeah it's tough mixing the two even friendships do you hire friends at all not at all wow yeah no one in my company is my they'll still do it subconsciously. Right. Yeah, it's tough mixing the two. Even friendships. Do you hire friends at all? Not at all.

Wow. Yeah, no one in my company is my friend or my family. Obviously, my team has become my friends and my family, my chosen family, but they're not people that I grew up with. They're not people that I'm blood related to or any of that. Yeah, this is a good conversation for me because I'm on my fifth assistant now, and I used to or any of that, you know? Yeah, this is a good conversation for me because I'm on my fifth assistant now and I used to think it was them, right?

But the thing is, I get a personal relationship with people. So I start being lenient. So I realized it was actually me. I was giving my assistants too much freedom and that was affecting the relationship. Have you read How to Be a Great Boss? No, I need to.

I would highly recommend it. Short book, about 150, 180 pages by Gina Wickman, the founder of EOS. Okay. Up until about seven months ago, I thought I'm not a manager. I don't hold people accountable. They're just not me. I'm a visionary. I'm the nice guy.

I'm this, I'm that. And I hired a COO.o yeah and i pretty much handed the company over to her and i said i'm gonna be here and like build a company blah blah blah four months later i realized that she's building a different company than the one that i handed over and it wasn't because she was a bad person it's just because i said go lead the company she started leading it her way and it wasn't the way that helped recruit the great people that i recruited they got sold because i sold them into our vision and she's a she has different personality and i started seeing people get upset and people leave and then when i

took back the reins i realized that there are three things that the book talks about leadership management accountability doesn't matter who you are you You need to know how to lead, how to manage, how to hold people accountable. And the book gives you a very simple system to follow regardless if you're a nice guy, regardless if you're a tyrant, regardless of your leadership style. It actually says your leadership style does not need to change for you to hold people accountable and to set the right expectation, right? So I'm glad that you realize it's not them, it's me, because it all starts with us. It's true, yeah. It took me a while to realize, though. I think a lot of people are like that as bosses, though. They think it's their employees, but it's partially their own fault, too. I think it's 99.9% ourselves. Wow.

Yeah. The thing is, here's the thing. Yes, you can hire a B player and you can hire an A player and the A player can produce tons more than the B player. But the A player also will leave your organization if you don't set the right standards in your company. And if you don't hold everyone else accountable to a certain level that they expect to be in an environment to work in, right? And so if you don't set the right conditions, because there is a quote by, I think it's Winston Churchill. I might be misquoting it. It said a great—no, actually, it was Roosevelt. He says that a great leader is one who creates the right environment, and I'm rephrasing here, creates the right environment, finds the right people, put them in the right seats, and then is self-constrained enough to get the f*** out of their way and kind of let them do their thing. Right?

And so it all starts with you as a leader. And I do believe it's 99.9% dependent on us as leaders. That's cool. I'm going to check that book out on Audible when I get home. Thank you. Do you incorporate any spirituality into your business? I do. In fact, almost two years ago now, I had a seizure out of nowhere.

Whoa. And I woke up in the hospital not realizing what's going on. It was my best year financially. My marriage was at the best place. I had more money in the bank that I could think what to year financially. My marriage was at the best place. I had more money in the bank that I could think what to do with. My company was growing. Everything was great. And I thought I was eating very healthy. And for the event to happen when it did, it just knocked me off my feet. And for about three months, well, the first three weeks,

I would only sleep two hours per day. I would be having anxiety and panic attack like I've never had in the past. In fact, this morning, I was sitting in the office here. I was kind of having a little bit of anxiety that I've never felt before. Wow. And I went into kind of a spiritual journey. Tony Robbins was a big component of that. I got very involved with

his teachings. And so, you know, previous to that, my number one definition of success was financial success. And right now I've got three pillars, and that's, you know, obviously wealth, but also relationships and health and wellness. And so we integrate a lot of that inside of our programs. So not only do we teach people about how to become an entrepreneur and sell on Amazon and stuff like that, we have a mindset trainer that works with our coaches, with our students on a quarterly basis to help them relieve unlimiting beliefs and so on. Also, in our future, we want to create retreats that are based on spirituality and focus on spirituality

and health and wellness and so far because I do believe that you could have millions and billions of dollars in the bank and you could be absolutely miserable and for me, that's not successful. You know, whether if you get offended for what I'm going to say or not, that's to you. And for me, that's not successful. Whether if you get offended for what I'm going to say or not, that's to you, not for me. But if you're overweight and you've got a

bunch of money in the bank, I don't consider you successful. If you have a bunch of money in the bank, but you don't have a good relationship with your husband or wife or your children, I don't consider you successful. Success is having you know all areas of life figured out yep right at a certain level that make you feel fulfilled not what society deems successful you don't need to be a millionaire to be successful you could be a you know making good money and living good life and have a great relationship with your kids and your family and everybody else. And if for you, you're financially stable, that's great. For you, in my eyes, you are successful, right?

I would rather have that than a multimillionaire or billionaire that's got seven marriages and five kids that he doesn't talk to. And so far, for me, that's not successful. I agree. I used to think it was just financial too, but after a few million, you realize there's a lot more to success yes than just money absolutely dude it's been fun anything you want to close off with or promote um you know promote

i would just say you know if uh if you're interested in um in uh again changing your life without needing to go to school and and spend years check us out. Go to, you know, go to my Instagram page, BasharJK2 on Instagram. Follow me there. Check out our stuff. And yeah, that's really it. Link below, man. Thanks for coming on. Yeah. Thanks for watching, guys. See you tomorrow.