Produced By - Rocket Science Meets Business: How to Scale a $1M Business | #99: Adham Alkhaja

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

Adham Alkhaja is a business consultant and entrepreneur who helps experts turn their knowledge into $1M+ per year consulting businesses using his WorldBuilding™ system. With a background in aerospace engineering and experience launching multiple tech companies, including Seyola, Fadaa Space Services, and Ayn Astra, he combines deep industry expertise with a sharp business mindset. Having worked with over 250 coaching and consulting clients, Adham knows what it takes to scale businesses predictably while maintaining lifestyle freedom.In this episode, Adham shares his journey from launching rockets to launching million-dollar businesses. Get an insider’s look at the space industry, his growth mindset, and the lessons he’s learned from building and scaling successful ventures. Plus, he reveals powerful strategies to help you stand out in the digital world and leverage the latest trends to grow your brand and revenue.Connect with Adham:⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/adhamalkhaja/https://seyola.ai/Timestamps:00:00 – Self-image, strategy and mindset01:01 – Adham’s background and early influences02:45 – First business ventures04:03 – Passion for space and engineering06:05 – UAE’s space programme and satellite work09:51 – Purpose and missions of satellites12:45 – Thoughts on Elon Musk and business focus18:19 – Building space companies21:31 – Transition from space to business25:21 – His company and global reach27:52 – Why LinkedIn became his main platform30:42 – Using LinkedIn for career growth34:09 – Authenticity and writing content41:01 – Building a unique voice online44:00 – The value of long-form and newsletters47:00 – Future vision and company goals51:11 – Book recommendations and mindset53:16 – Hobbies and sci-fi favourites56:03 – Final advice and closing thoughts Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

To be successful, and this is a very nice question you asked, because I'm going to give you this formula that I have right now, which is to be really successful in whatever you want to do, whether you want to quit your job, you scale your business, there are three things. One is knowing the strategy of how to do it, which is a strategic logic part. Two, is the skills you have. So what skills do you have to date? And three is your self-image. So the books I gave you is for self-image. It solves that problem completely. The skills you already have because you're getting paid for your job, you're doing something with an entrepreneurship, you're getting clients or what.

whatever you're doing, you're getting paid for that. So you have the skills. Strategy is something you can figure out by trial and error. So these three things combined, it's going to get you the life you want. But 80% or even more fail because of self-image. The biggest advice I would give is go on LinkedIn. That's your strategy. You're showing your skills on LinkedIn.

But self-image is very important to charge the prices, to not feel imposter syndrome that every single post has, to not think about work, life balance, and consistency, authenticity, the showing up. Before we dive into today's episode, please hit that subscribe button. Your support helps us grow and inspire more people on their journeys. Thank you.

Hello, Adam. Thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show. Pleasure is mine. So Adam, for those who don't know you, can you please introduce yourself? Yeah, so I don't know how far you want me to go into my history, but I'm going to start with the events that led to what I'm doing today. Initially, I was around business-minded people, which was my father, grandfather, and so on, but I had no intention of starting a business in whatsoever way.

And I found myself very commonly within businesses, working in the business, but not on the business itself. And I had no passion at all to work on a business. But you know how Steve Jobs says, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You need to look backward and so on. So everything that I was doing at that time made no sense. But all those events led to where I am today right now with Seoul and what you do and so on. So just a quick fast forward to the major events that happened is I worked in many businesses, which was family-related relatives and so on.

Then I realized that every time I had a passion, for example, I like dogs or like guitar, whatever it is, I felt like I want to turn this into business. I want to sell this thing that I have or make money out of it, at least. least, not just learn it. So then slowly I realized that maybe I want to start the business. And that's where I started selling, like, I wish I could tell you, I had a lemonade stand. I was standing under, so I wish I could tell you that, but I'm not that person. I went fully a cadets, PhD level and so on. So, but I did have resistors and electronic pieces that I ordered from eBay at that time, which was cool. And I was trying to compete with other businesses.

But ideally, I was getting stuff trying to sell them to the marketplace. Then started an electronic business, which made me my first paycheck, which was around $3,000 something dollars. It was $11,200 dirhams, but I'm making it $2. That's where I first tasted how it felt like to have an idea, do something about it, get money for it, and get paid for it. And just from, like, you make money from thin air. Like, it's a different kind of feeling.

So once that happened, that triggered everything in a series of events where I started my own robotics business at some point, then I started teaching robotics, then I started my own space business, which when I was pursuing my PhD and so on, sending satellites into space, started another space business, then went into AI business and so on. And now where we're standing is we're standing at the consultancy, which is CIOLA, which we scale other businesses in the UAE and worldwide as well. And then coming back to when you are younger, what was it?

actually did you were interested in, such as what did you want to study and work on later on when you grow up? So when I was young, I wanted to become a pilot. And this is a funny story over here. When I used to go to interviews, when I was pursuing my PhD, I was doing it in space and so on. Everyone would have expected me to say, I wanted to become an astronaut. Because that's why I'm doing space now and so on. But I didn't have that story as well. Initially, I wanted to become a pilot.

No reason why. I really don't know why. and then slowly shifted to becoming a vet because I loved animals. I said, let me just get that. It's quite an interesting challenge. And sorry, when it comes to the pilot, would it be like a pilot of airlines or army pilot or what kind of pilot? So I was thinking of army pilot at that time.

And that's what I had in mind. And then the vet part, then what the relative told me was, you're never going to make money being a vet. Like, who wants a vet? either engineer or doctor or whatever so that's where I entered engineering and took off from there

so I asked me the question so I sequence it up based on like I don't want to go forward to it no of course it sounds interesting it's just a change or private that I wasn't expecting and I think that's a great point that even if it's a wet I understand that it was advised that it's not going to make you money but after I want to pursue what you were passionate about of what you're interested in.

100%. And this is where the business mind kept on kicking in, where I like the animals, how can I make money off of this? I like stuff, how can I make money off of this? So this is the trigger that told me internally that you maybe need to start the business.

And before, which is also something that I saw on your LinkedIn. I was impressed. I knew that that's something that I want to discuss. Is your experience with sending satellites or stuff to do universe? which obviously not going to lie, I don't know many people who have such experience. So can you tell us more specifically about this because I'm pretty sure it's very exciting

topic that not many people know about? 100%. So space is something awesome, I'm really passionate about and that's why the businesses came out of space. But ideally how everything started is I was into robotics. I wanted to build more robots and so on. So I saw UAE launching the space program and launching a satellite to Mars. And on March 2015, today is March 1, March 2015, 10 years exactly from today.

Oh my God. The one of the anniversary was. That's pretty cool. So 10 years exactly from today, you can also go on Instagram and see the post. I posted that I wish to contribute to the space industry in any way possible. And like I had no clue how I'm going to do it. I had no idea how to do space and so on. So that post led to a series of events where I became one.

of the top people in the space industry where I launched the second satellite, my SAT 1, and the third satellite and the fourth satellite and a couple of more satellites to outer space during that period. And I got really specialized in a technology within that satellite. So just to make it useful for the audience as well, I was narrowing down. I didn't get the position that I was in because I was doing space or universe or satellites and so on. It was me doing satellites, then liking spacecraft things, then liking universe things, then liking this certain small subsystem within the spacecraft and being a very specialized person or an expert in that and pursuing my PhD exactly on that point. And that's how the business came in. That small part

was the business. And you maybe make it sound like that it wasn't that difficult, but I can imagine it must be very competitive. So what was it like? And what would be like your advice to break into such industry? Because I can imagine it must be really hard. So it's a mindset. I would say if you take 10 years of what I went through, it's this space mindset that stuck with me forever till today and what built in me. So there was a saying that if you send anything to outer space, you can't go up there and fix it. Like it's impossible for you to go up and fix it like a garage or so on. So how do we build a product where once we launch it, we don't lose billions of dollars because we launched it to outer space and we can't fix it. So that systematic way of thinking or design thinking and also the way of accounting for all the possible failures and the mitigations or how to avoid those failures, that thinking is the most important thing you need.

It's like they say it's rocket science. It's hard. The science part is not hard. What's part is designing the thing so well that it does not fail once you don't have access to it. Yeah. And to give us a bit more information, if we imagine that we don't know anything when it comes to space and this stuff, how long has it been since it's been in the space and for how long is it going to be there? So there's this law.

It's an international kind of law that we can't keep something more than 25 years up in space. It should go to a graveyard kind of thing. There's their own thing, circle over there. So that's like the maximum. So the second part of your question. The first part, we had multiple launches. And all of them, like the first one is operational. Second one, they're still operational.

And I have a couple of pictures as well. If you want, I can send you to them so you can put it on podcasts and so on. But I have a couple of pictures where we took pictures from that in 2020, 2020, 2021, and 2022 as well. So they're operational right now. but their maximum limit is 25 years. Wow, that's impressive. And what's the primary purpose of the satellite they choose in there?

So there are many, like each satellite has its own mission. So the first one was more of testing a battery, which was, I don't want to get too technical here, but the battery is better than the normal battery, let's say. This was the lithium ion phosphate battery, but it's better than what it is right now. It's testing it in outer space and how it would perform in harsh environments, such as under heat and whatever it is. And the second one was targeting certain vegetarian or green areas within the UAE and seeing how the reefs are growing and so on.

The third one is looking at the waves and the outer ozone layers. There are many electromagnetic waves and so on. I can get very technical here, but ideally each mission had its own objective to test it, like an experiment, but outside. So it's really exciting. And what's the level of like a, a source? space engineering or space industry in UAE. For example, if you look at the US, obviously there is NASA or SpaceX, so they're on a high

level, but compared maybe to some other countries, it's not as developed. So to me, it sounds like that UAE is like doing well because of the stuff that we just discussed. So does it mean that it's well-developed industry? Actually, UAE is one of the top industries right now in the space industry. and this was by his highness, Sheikh Hamid bin Rashid, when he set the vision for the space industry and so on. And the Mars mission started all of this,

like the next generation or the new generation, which is our generation, the generation after us. And many projects has come out after this. So if you ask for the level, the level is global, and it's like very high right now. And I assume it's only going to grow. 100%. And I don't know if you're,

aware we had a couple of astronaut programs, a couple of more satellites launched into outer space. Many missions are going on right now and it's a heavy focus of the UAE as well. It's exciting. Then I know we mentioned it before and now you focus on business consulting, but is it still something that you plan to come back to in the future or are still somehow involved in this? Yeah, so for the space industry it's something I'm really, really passionate about. I'm always going to be involved in some way or another in the space industry, either from my own hobby things or as a professional level, which is businesses and so on. But I'm all on top of this space industry right now,

and I'm contributing as much as I can to it. And I don't know if you are comfortable saying this, but big company obviously is SpaceX when it comes to space. So if we don't look at like a political stuff, what do you think of Elon Musk? Because obviously he's a big name when it comes to space industry. I don't want to discuss like what is going with the politics, but when it comes to the space and SpaceX.

Yeah, so he's pushing the boundaries of space 100% by cutting the cost and doing everything. So funny story, my business card over here, my company initially, and it was not like officially to become a company. It was just me thinking about I'm going to start the business and space and so on. I have the business card. it says fadda x

fadda means space x means x you know so space x like i transform i remember when i was pitching to other people they were telling me this sounds like space x

so some people even told me that adham you are adham Elon is Elon is doing your thing you do your thing and so on so it's the name afterwards but that's just a funny story of that but yeah i was really inspired by him

and what he was doing and so on and yeah he's pushing the boundaries in every way possible and why I was fascinated about what he does and why I really was inspired in what he's doing because he's doing exactly with the rockets what I was specialized in which is how he makes the rocket land from outer space so that control part is my specialty so that's where I went deep into learning the papers the publication and so on about the studies behind how the thrusters work and so on I know we're getting technical here but you're tapping into very deep buttons that I'm passionate about.

No, but it's really interesting. Feel free to expand because it's rare to have access to someone like you who's got such experience. And it's very exciting topic. So I'm curious to find out more. So if there is something interesting that you would like to share or maybe I don't ask because I don't know as much about it, feel free to expand. Sure, sure, 100%. Ask me as what you want.

But, yeah, I'm going to get technical as much as you want as well. And now we spoke about Elon, but have you got any other inspirations such as the people who you were looking up to, either when it comes to this space stuff that we discussed, or I know that before you mentioned Stephen Jobs in the beginning with the quote? So when I was building in the UAE, and I'm talking when I was in the industry, like deep into the industry, I looked up to the people that are over here and the vision, the leaders that had for the UAE, and how they wanted the space industry to grow in the UAE. And that was my big look up to

and what I wanted to contribute on in terms of how can I transfer everything I know to the next generation? How can I transfer everything I know to the country itself and for the country and build for the country and contribute as much as I can as being part of the country? So that's my main, like how I was looking at everything. And right now, the same is with COLA, like with the consultancy. it's very much how can I contribute to this country and build for this country.

So it's the same trajectory, same mindset I'm going through in both ways, and I'm pushing in that direction. So of course I looked at Elon what he was doing. Of course, I read some papers. So I got really nerdy about this, to be honest with you. And I found professors and certain universities as well that I wanted to learn from. So those are some people as well I looked to learn from. But everything was being funneled to how.

How can I contribute to this country by learning from the great sand doing it here? I like it because it shows that if you've got a vision, you are willing to work for it, it's possible. Because then you can say I sent a satellite to the space, which is just impressive. And if we look at the same question, your inspirations, but when it comes to business? Right now, see, I was in a phase. I'm going to explain to you. I want this to be really available for the audience because I know the audience looks up to many people as well.

So you can be in education mode and you can be an implementation mode. Right now in my life, I'm an implementation mode. In educational mode before, when I was starting out, I was looking around, when I'm stuck, I want to scale, I don't know what to do next, who to hire, what to do and so on. I looked at what was Hormozzi saying, Alex Hormoz. These big names are, what are they doing within the industry and so on. But now, and this is very valuable and very important, you need to block everything that

you had and keep it in your mind and process it in implementation mode. Like right now, I'm not consuming anything. To be honest with you, I'm not consuming any knowledge, not listening. I'm not updated to what everyone is saying right now. I'm being honest here. This is because I'm an implementation mode. And once I get stuck, I know I'm lacking something. Then I'll go back and look at what Alex Formosi said in the past six months or so, what other people have been saying, what they have been doing, what's the trends and so on.

It reminds me of consumption, such as reading the books, listening to podcasts, or, I don't know, scoring social media, versus actually implementing and applying what you've been learned because sometimes I feel that I might be guilty of it as well. I'm trying to learn,

but then actually the question is, I've been productive, I're taking the action. So I like your answer and what you said. 100%. And before you mentioned, or I even read, that you started a few companies when it comes to space. Can you please introduce these companies a bit? You know, what type of companies those were?

Because I'm still intrigued by the space that we discussed. So in what ways were they different? What led you to start them? So the two companies, I'm going to tell you exactly what they did. So the first company was me being specialized in the small area that we talked about, which is the control of the satellite and saying, okay, how can we develop a software for this? And I teamed up with my professors at that time because I was pursuing my PhD. So my professor said, okay, come on, let's come on board.

Let's start working on this. You're passionate about this. You're doing your research and so on. So how can I build this product so well that we can use in every single satellite as a software and as a hardware. So I started with software, then I went to hardware. So that was the first company, which was a component within a satellite. And the second company was, there was another person who was doing his PhD as well.

And he was doing four years. For four years, he downloaded data from satellites up like every single day, downloading data for four years. And we analyzed that data. And we saw that there is deformation happening on land because people were sucking water from underground. So you see the cracks that you see on the wall. See the cracks you see on the road and so on. So we saw that to the millimeter from satellites and how it changed within four years.

And the reason was because people were extracting water from underground. So the next company became and came up from that, which is an AI-based company, which literally means eyes in the sky. And that company, what it did was using AI, we looked at land deformations and were able to spot how long or how long has this been happening and how bad it is right now for the housing authorities or whatever so they go and fix it right now instead of a building falling down or cracks happening and so on so those are like the two space companies that we have it's really interesting I'll never expect you know to find out such a stuff as you described

and before we move to a different topic from space stuff is there something interesting that you would like to share and maybe I'm missing to ask you or have you got any interesting experiences or something that is worth mentioning. I wouldn't want to miss it if there is something like that. Space is fun if you're really passionate about it. And like the only thing I'd say, so make it useful for the audience, if you do space stuff, if you think about space or any way, go in it for the mindset. Don't go in it for the space.

It's cool. Like people say, wow, you're in space. You're doing space. You're sent satellites and so on. but the big advantage you're going to have from that full experience is the mindset you're going to develop for your business, for your life, for everything else. So that's the only biggest 10 years, if I cram it into one sentence, just go in it for the mindset because that mindset is everything. And that's why I also attribute the success I've had right now with that mindset. I use that everywhere.

Yeah, mindset that you will benefit from forever since then. 100%. So then to transition from this chapter to where you are now, what was it like for you actually to leave the space and embark on a new journey? Yeah, so it was very, so I was working with, I had an advisor for my second company, which was a marketing expert. And he said, every time you're going to introduce yourself from now on after this transition, I was in space, now I'm on ground.

So that was my intro for every networking event and so on. It's like, who are you, Adam? Hi, hi. I met him. I was in space now on ground and this is my story. So, yeah, so the transition for me, I love space. I'm very passionate about it. I love everything to do about it.

My PhD that I pursued was, how can we send satellites to Jupiter, Saturn, and all the further planets, not just Earth itself. So I went deep into this. So the transition, of course, it's not a transition. I wouldn't call it until today I read stuff. I look at stuff. I'm up to date. I help if I can help in any area and so on.

But yeah, I'm really passionate about space. But business is now my next thing, my next 10 years, at least. At least 10 years, my next 10 years is how can I take all the experience I have, that mindset I've built and so on to build businesses here in the UAE and worldwide in terms of the coaching and consulting and education space because again quoting steve jobs steve jobs said you can't connect the dots looking backward so i was in space i was doing my pursuing my phd i was doing all these things but i had no clue why like why am i

doing all of this but today i know that all that was cramming me and preparing me for today which is the mindset for it pursuing my phd which i taught university courses education coaching consulting intellectual property and so on which is what i'm doing right now. So all of that was like preparing me for today. Like space was not that thing. Today is like my big thing. Yeah. I like it. It's like one of the

themes that I've also seen when speaking with other people on my podcast that like sometimes that you do some let's say career or activities or some just something and you wouldn't expect it might be helpful in the future but then later on in the career you never know when those experiences from before actually might be helpful.

you might benefit from that. 100%. Yeah. I think of it as skill stacking. So you keep on stacking skills. Like, first you're good at math. Then you become good at calculus. Then you get good at calculating the velocity of a satellite.

Then you get calculating how to send a satellite. It's stacking the skills on top of each other. So ideally, to make it also useful for the audience, is think of everything you've done in the past and work with what you have today. That's what I tell everyone. like anything you've done in the past, even if it's unrelated to what you're going to do today, there was a fundamental underlying skill that you got.

That's going to be very, very useful. Don't start from, like, don't reinvent the wheel, as they say. Don't start from zero. Just use what you have and push forward, and that's exactly what I've been doing until now. And never underestimate it. Don't say that it's a waste of time because I can see it from even something that I did before

and later on I found out, wow, I'm actually grateful that I learned it. 100%. Are you struggling to stay consistent on LinkedIn? Fanpost helps you create high quality posts in minutes, so you can write faster, show up more, and stress way less. Built by creators, for creators. It's the easiest way to grow your presents without burning out.

Try it free at fanpost.com. So can you then introduce us more to your company? What is it that you help businesses with? Maybe what is it that differentiates your business from the others and some kind of introduction? Sure, 100%. So that everything we talked about up to now was basically I took all that, crammed it into what we have right now, which is a business, which is CEO left, which is education part, the technology part, which is the tech we developed, space tech and so on. and how to interact with people in terms of psychology, which is the normal interactions between how to make the sale,

how to market people, how to persuade people, like the very fundamental Robert Chaldeini kind of stuff. Like, you know, so all the fundamental levels of everything. So we brought that into the coaching, consulting, and education space. And it did not start in this way.

It started as me saying, I'm going to scale businesses. That's very broad. That sounds so dumb if I look at it. me, then I started breaking down to, I'm going to help product-based and service-based businesses. Then I didn't like product-based businesses.

I did that for a full year. I started service-based businesses, which is where we are today. And ideally what we do now is we solve only for service-based businesses. We solve the problem of getting attention and demand on whatever you have more than you can ever handle it. That's like the ultimate problem we're solving for, so you can get the freedom that you want.

Because right now, I talk to many of the coaches, consultants, like I know their numbers, their metrics and so on. And I've been on many calls with them. Many struggle with three main things. The first one is getting leads, which is lead generation and so on. And second thing is getting attention on themselves. And the third thing is, which is a content part and so on. And the third thing is converting that attention and interest

and those leads into paying people, which were paid the bills at themselves. some point. So these are three main fundamental problems. And then all that experience that we talked about, the education tech and all that, the automations, AI, how can we use all that to solve these three fundamental problems? And when it comes to your target audience, are you focused on UAE or is it worldwide, anywhere? To be honest, I started with UAE because I was like really comfortable in this market. But surprisingly, I have clients right now who are worldwide. And And it's been like, I didn't start that way, but now it's kind of a global thing. We have clients from everywhere.

Yeah, yeah. And what role does LinkedIn play in this? Is it like one of your main channels or is it just one of the channels? So, yeah, I'm going to try to give you an answer that's very useful over here. And this is by a lot of pain. I started on Instagram initially. And I grew that account to 10,000 followers. And that was when I was doing e-commerce stuff.

and selling to physical-based businesses and not service-based, which is what I do. And then I saw LinkedIn and I saw the environment how LinkedIn is and how early we are on LinkedIn too,

compared to Instagram and so on. And three, the quality, like what you can do in terms of writing and so on. That's all pictures and videos. So I had to make a choice, which is Instagram or LinkedIn. Because I'm not a person that's going to do two things at once.

Either I'm going to hire for the other one, or I'm just going to focus on one and make it work. So for me, I chose LinkedIn. It was not an easy decision because everyone and everything I built was on Instagram. So based on these three things, I chose LinkedIn and stayed on LinkedIn. And now I'm going to stop even looking at Instagram. Like the other day, I was thinking of deleting the app because I want to be super laser focused on one thing. and that's one of my primary channels of being LinkedIn for short form content and awareness and so on. The second channel is YouTube.

So those are my two channels only. And when it comes to LinkedIn, did you have it before maybe just as online CV like many people have just to update about your advancements or were you actually not using it at all before? So before I was just connecting with, why I had LinkedIn before? because every meeting I went to when I was in the space and that's really, they told me what's your LinkedIn? Yeah, yeah. So I made the account, okay, I need to have a LinkedIn. Here's my LinkedIn.

Let's connect. I never checked that. Like, to be honest with, I never checked the app even. I just had the connection there and I left it. Then at some point, I don't know how this happened, but I wanted, Metaverse was getting like it was booming. It was a, people were talking about Metaverse and so on. I don't know.

You can see the article on LinkedIn a couple of years back. I wrote an article. I said nobody defined Metaverse the way in a proper way. I'm looking for a definition. I can't find it. Let me define it for you. That exploded. I was like, what happened here?

Like, I didn't know that I have this much attention over on this town. So that's when I started paying attention. And slowly, gradually, throughout the year, I made that full shift of let me go all in on LinkedIn, which was last year. Like maybe this time last year as well on March, which is when I started. it like being serious about this. And I guess you can see the potential and the future. So we'll only continue growing there. It's a gold mine.

It's a gold mine. Like I'm with coaches. I'm with consultants. I'm with executives. I speak to people. Those people want to be on LinkedIn. They want to build a personal brand. They want to build everything on LinkedIn and they see the future of it.

Like they know that without LinkedIn, they're going to become obsolete at some point. if they don't build their brand. Like they know it. The point is there is awareness now. This was not there. And there are many trying and many don't know how to do it. And all of them choose LinkedIn. So I just look at that piece of data.

Why do they choose LinkedIn and so on? So I know if this is just a small segment that I'm speaking to that says this, what are the bigger segments say? Like people are shifting from Instagram to LinkedIn. And another thing is like this is my, what I'm telling my clients as well, what I think would happen is the algorithm will only get better. Ads will get better, how ads are going to be run and so on. People who are experts on Facebook and meta ads will at some point transition to become

LinkedIn experts because they're going to see the opportunity. They're going to use that skills as a stack there over here. And what I'm telling people, if you have any budget, play around with LinkedIn ads. even though it's not going to be a high ROI right now, but you're going to be prepared for the wave that's going to come. And that's exactly what we're doing as well. So this is a bit of insider insight that we've been thinking of and so on. Yeah, I like it.

I saw recently like a statistics of the number of users of LinkedIn and when compared to other channels. It was quite low. And then when you look at what number of those users actually post consistently, it was even lower. I don't know if it was maybe like 1%, so you see how untapped potential there is. So sometimes people think, oh, I should have started earlier. But you can see that it's still early. So don't underestimate it. Just go there, just try. And you'll see in the future how it pays off and where it goes. 100%. It's super, super early even. Like, people can't comprehend how early it is. And people are shifting to it and are waking up.

So better do something about it right now before it gets competitive and we go through. Like, it's like, you know, who's it called? I forgot his name. But he talks about change of market order. Ray Dalio. Ray Dalio. Ray Dalio, exactly. So, yeah, I've read this book that's reminding me of this graph.

So how markets change. So use that analogy for social media. How Instagram happened, how YouTube happened. Now how LinkedIn is happening at the very beginning. So that's how I see everything. I may be wrong, but as an entrepreneur, you need to take, you need to look at data that you have right now and adjust and move, and this is the current move that I'm making.

I mean, I like it and I agree. And when it comes to your posting, such as your strategy, have you got like a strategy behind your frequency, the type of posts, when you post and stuff like that? And if so, would you be willing to share with us? Sure, 100%. So in terms of strategy, strategy, many LinkedIn posts I've seen is, and LinkedIn is a platform like this, saying that

I got this job, I got this position, I got the certificate, I got awarded, I got invited to speak at the webinar. Just boasting about achievements. Exactly. So what I tested, and this was a test at that time, is that let me make it about you. And maybe you've seen someone at my post saying, you work in a 9 to 5, you do this, you do this, you do this, you do this, you do this. It's about you and you feel hurt.

So what I've seen work really well on LinkedIn is making it more about them than yourself by adding snippets of yourself if you want to add at the end or through a story. And that's my full strategy right now. It's more of not talking to the brain, but talking to the heart and emotions. And the more I meet people, I was talking to someone about this yesterday. So the more I meet people, I realize. that many people want to be heard and, like, they want to be heard. They want to be seen within.

They want to feel that they're important. Like, it's not a good thing and thing to realize, but I've seen this many, many times happen. And if you could be that person for that other person and genuinely care, like genuinely, they feel it if you're just going to fake it and say, I care about you and then give me five bucks behind the scenes. But if you genuinely care about the other side, they feel it and that's like the only thing that matters

it's not the number that you're going to get the followers and whatever it is but the only strategy that if you ask me about my strategy is how can I be at service of you make you feel seen and hurt and make your life better even by one micro step if I can to the

moving forward so that's like my word if you want me to go deep in anything tell me I'm going to more than happen I was just about to say that I feel like that people often I feel like it's a such as authenticity, but then the question is actually how many people are authentic on LinkedIn because sometimes you connect with someone and then it leads to sales pitches in DMs anyway.

So I like what you said and I feel like I got the same impression when I subscribed to your newsletter and I was reading the welcome message. So I felt like it was honest, authentic and got the same impression that what you are talking about. So I like the approach and I would just say that I wish there were more people like that because after all, you know, it's good to cultivate like a nice real environment on LinkedIn. And I also don't like to see, you know, today I got promotion or this and that leads and just boasting. But keep it real and be more authentic. 100%.

And just two points on this. One is that when I start seeing all that, you realize in my profile right now, there's no PhD thing. There's no experience things. There is no education things. I removed everything and capsiole. And it's the reason because I want to make it more about you than me. It's because everyone is doing that. I'm just going to, I'm not going to list all my achievements and so on. I'm just going to make it more about you and so on. That's point number one. Point number two about authenticity is that there are two things that should happen for you to be authentic. It's one to actually understand yourself, self awareness. And that's

many people lack. And two is to have the courage to actually talk about yourself. Like say stories that you failed, you didn't like this, this happened, you change, you quit, whatever it is.

It's not awards and so on. So those two things combine, I think is what brings authenticity out. But those two fundamental things are what people actually don't want to do. They don't have clarity on themselves. Or they're just too scared to tell this because their boss is watching them. their colleague from the past entities watching them, whatever it is.

I like it. And I think that when there is someone like you, it inspires others to do the same. It reminds me of vulnerability. There is this author Brennan Brown who wrote a few books about it. And I think that actually people might be underestimated it because sometimes you might see the posts on LinkedIn. And actually when there is someone who's willing to speak like this, it actually stands out from the content.

I would say that it may be competitive advantage, such as something that resonates and stands out. 100%. I would highly recommend everyone to actually have the courage and just tell their stories more. Because at the end of the day, people don't buy from your logo or business or your award or your certification and so on. I personally have not bought from someone who told me I have this certificate, this degree, this XYZ. Because if we talk about a PhD, I've pursued my PhD, I've seen that life. Talk about certifications, we've gotten that certifications. And I deeply understand how all this works together.

So it's more about understanding the human. And if I really resonate with your personality, how you speak, what you tell me, how much you care about me, and so on. And what about when it comes to writing the posts? Because as I read a few, I like the way did you write. We just discussed, for example, storytelling. Did you study? Did you learn? Did you do it by practice?

I write. Like, I used to write a lot, not as that I wake up and write and so on, but during my PhD times and master signs, we need to publish papers, scientific journal papers. And those papers, there is a limit, like how much you can write in and how compactful and insightful that paper should be. So many times I used to send drafts to my advisors and so on. They would send it back. to me and tell me what is the soup? Like, what did you just cram into each other and send it to me? Like, it was that bad. But doing that for more than eight years, you get good at it.

So if you ask me how I write this is more of how am I thinking right now, and I just put it on paper. Like, even I have it in my welcome sequence, as you mentioned, is that I write as I speak. And that's on purpose I do that. I even don't delete, like, look, wait. I'm going to do this. I keep it there just as if I'm having a conversation with you. And that's just a style that I came upon by just trying out everything, testing and so on.

It's not like anything. I don't have like a framework right now. If you tell me what's the framework, I don't know. It's just testing, testing, reviewing and so on. At some point, maybe I come up with the framework, but right now, I have nothing great other than just doing it. No, but it seems to work. And as I said, it reminds me what I read in a newsletter. So just keeping it real. Do you remember even before or now? Are there any creators on LinkedIn that you follow and that are your inspiration or that you learn from?

So I used to follow when I started. There are many, all the top names, I followed them when I started. But again, it came up to the phase of education and implementation. Yeah, what we discussed before. When I came to implement, my mind was blocked. And the reason it was blocked, I had so many styles. that worked from different creators. So many techniques commenting or editing your post after one hour and so on.

To some point that I felt like for a full week, I was blocked. I couldn't write anything. So what I did was I said no more information coming in my head. I'm just going to process what they have and let it out. And those were my best posts. Like if you see, there was a week. There's this app called Clio. I don't know if you use it or not.

Yeah. I use it. So I checked my top posts. There's this one week that has my three top posts or two to three are top posts. And what happened during that week was I blocked everyone out, just sat with myself and just right. Like, what do you feel? And that's what I would answer to this is that yes, I follow, but it's more of I'm blocked right now about this. Now you are the one that is being followed and inspiration for others.

hopefully yes and before you mentioned that you also do YouTube so is that the platform where you see the potential as well or that you just want to focus on in the future because for example I'm biased probably because of the podcast and the video but what's your opinion about the YouTube it's not more of the platform myself but the ability to put up long-form content that's on a search engine of a video kind of based thing And long-form content in general, I'm sure you've heard about the 7-11-4 rule is you need someone to spend seven hours with you to remember you to know who you are. And if they walk up to you somewhere in a mall or something, you want that person to say, hey, I know you. If you want that effect to be, that's seven hours.

Otherwise, they have no clue who you are. And that's impossible with short-form content. Like if it's 30 seconds videos, 50 seconds videos and so on, that's impossible. So for our industry, which is a coaching, consulting, education industry, I think YouTube is the most potent and effective one to building a connection and relationship with other people. Like what you're doing right now in the podcast is if someone comes on your channel and binge watches you a bunch of podcasts in one day, they know you. Like they feel they know you very well that I know who this guy is. I want to go out with him. I want to go have for dinner and so on.

So that's the big advantage of YouTube, which is the deep connection and that level of the personal connection that you can have with other people. Yep, that is actually true. I was thinking of some podcasts that I listen to. And although, of course, the guest doesn't know me because I've been listening to someone, it feels like that we've been friends for a long time.

So that connection that makes sense. 100%. And I'd only say this for the audience if they're thinking about LinkedIn, YouTube and so on, is ask yourself one question, which is if someone today was interested in me, saw and post on LinkedIn, got interested, how deep can they go to get to know me within that day? Like if they spend a full day attached to my content, how deep can they go? If it's not seven hours of useful content that they get to know your soul, what you do and so on, then there's something missing there. Like you're missing a big chunk of a business ROI over there. Yeah, it's a good question to think about. Then I saw that you do newsletter. So can you promote it a bit or to introduce it? What you write about was the purpose behind the newsletter and tell us more about it?

Yeah, so the purpose of the newsletter is even a deeper level. So you have social media and then you have what's behind the scenes of me speaking and so on. I've tested a couple of things on this theory as well. So publicly, social media, you put the content out and so on. My newsletter is more of you want to more details that I can talk about on social media. Like what happened today? Like nobody would put a post on what happened today at night. Like if you posted in the morning, you can't put that at night that I went here,

I talked to a friend, this happened, and then this happened and this happened. So if you want those moments behind the scenes of failures, lessons, and so on, that's where I say we have the newsletter where I'm going to go into details about everything. And this is where it gets interesting, where I tested, okay, how personal can I make this? Yesterday I sent a video in the newsletter, like a loom video recording. Two weeks back, I sent a voice note. Like I embedded voice notes within the newsletter and so on. So these are all nice touch points that people really, really appreciate.

And it just proves that they really came here for the next level of intimacy in the relationship. And they just want to get you know you more and get value and so on. So that's how I position it within the full thing. I think that's also something that makes you stand out because as someone who's been subscribing to a few newsletters, I cannot remember that many that would send a video or even voice note. So that's smart. 100%. Yeah, it's all about connection.

Like I think how can we connect more at an intimate level? And that's all I aim for within what I do within like at levels. And this comes to the full model within COLO rebuilding as well, which is the world building model. What I just described to you is the world building model, which is what happens on LinkedIn, what happens on YouTube, what's the psychology. behind it, how do you get people from complete strangers to actually wanting to work to you and get the results they're here for and so on. So that's ultimately the full wordbuilding model that I discussed. And the newsletter where it lies in is within access to you as individual.

Because if you're a coach, consultant, educator, expert, professional, people want you for your brains and you essentially are the product. The more books you read, the more webinars, seminars, and all these courses or whatever you go through, the programs you go through, you know more things. You have more experience and expertise and people want access to that. So they save the time, they'd have to put into this for the money. Like if I tell you, like the 10 year thing about space, I tell you in 10 years, I sense out there's space and this. And in 10 years, I tell you, this is one sentence you need to focus on. You need to go through 10 years, sends at a space to get that one thing. I just gave it.

So the more things you do, the more valuable you can give or value can give to the outside world and you cut that into access to you. So LinkedIn you have long form written access of me, maybe it's two minute read and that's it. YouTube you have 60 minutes. On a newsletter, you get more intimacy with me. If you work with me, you get more access to me 24-7. I work on yourself and so if we go on a partnership, you just stack and segmented into access. Yeah, it makes sense. And just to be aware of time, We will be finishing. Soon, what are your plans for the future, such as, of course, to grow your business, grow on social media, but have you got any specific or any exciting plans that we haven't discussed?

So my plan, and I'm going to tell you, this came about a lot of thinking. Like, I went into a mode of, like, what should I do for the next 10 years? I don't want to think in one year, two, year, three years. I don't want to think about 2025 alone as well. Like, what should I do in the next 10 years? And ultimately, it comes down to what I'm going to? really passionate about what value can I provide to this world and how can I contribute to my country. And this all together, if we combine it, came with Siola. And Siola is just a vehicle

to get to the vision that I want. It's not the end thing, but it's just a vehicle that's going to get me there. And ultimately, I want business to be really, really easy for everyone. like business itself. I don't want getting clients, content creation on all these sales and so on to be how it is today where you have the expertise, you have knowledge stuck in your head

that you can make a positive impact on this world, but you can't get clients, you can't live off of it, you can't do anything because you're tied to a job or something you're not passionate about. So ultimately, if you go down, down to this, it's economics 101, supply and demand, I want you to have as much as demand as possible, and you being the supply,

that's the ultimate fundamental, but overall is how can we get there through a proven framework in many different industries and markets? I like the thinking behind it and mission as well, so I hope it works out. We'll see 2035 first March next episode and we'll revisit. 100%. behind the name Siola of your company? Xionla means liquidity in Arabic, which is having liquidity, which is kind of a combination between fluid,

because you need to be fluid in this day and age, and adapt to the environment and so on, and liquidity has cash, like how liquid is. So it's like two and one, so I really enjoyed. It took me a while to get to this name. That's a good one, I like it. And has a nice meaning. Yeah. And what would be some books that you read even before that were impactful to you and that you would recommend to the audience?

The first book is Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Waltz. Highly, highly recommend. It changed my life. At the beginning, you won't get it. I didn't get it. I read it three times and I said, what is this? It doesn't even work. It was what changed my life. That's the first book. second book is dollars flow to me easily and i wouldn't read that and let me let me give context about each i think this is going to be even better so these three books change my life one dollars flow to me it's not about the money that he's going to talk about what you take away from that is just let go like just calm down everything is fine like calm down and this if you're in a nine to five you're struggling you feel that the world doesn't have enough clients you're not

getting enough referrals, just read that book. It's just going to tell you to, just count them. Psycho-Sybernetics, the person was a cosmetic surgeon. He was making face implants and so on, and said, why are some people happy after this? And why are some people still sad and don't have the confidence? So what's the psychological part between changing the appearance, physical and internal?

This is the science behind it. It's a very, very nice book to go through. And the third one is three magic words. After you read the first two, with the third one, just read it with an open mind. Like, I'm telling you, some things won't click,

but read it with open mind. And with these three combos, I can tell you, because I've seen it with other people as well, it's going to change your life completely. And I don't think books alone, each one alone works and is a life changer, but combos of books is what works.

And that's what I've experienced myself. Because I read a lot. I don't know if you see here, that's it's full of books. Like more than 1,000 books I have over here. I'm not going to lie. I think I haven't read any of those. So it will be something to add on my reading list. So thank you for that. I will make sure to check it up. And then to end up on a lighter note, what is it that you do in your free time? What are your hobbies? What you enjoy doing? I like wildlife a lot. So going to the mountains, desert and so on. That's something I do with my

family all the time on my free time and animals was also something that I love I wanted to be a vet did not be good yeah so I've got the animals now so horses and so on so on so I own a farm and I have wow it's pretty cool yeah so that's in the desert as well so that's that's another hobby I have motor biking what you're like going in the desert and so on with motor crossing and so on that's that's another thing as well and yeah it's wild it's wildlife I guess there isn't that much free time left. Yes, yes, that's like, it's the wildlife. Essentially, like, we do hikings in Iceland.

I love Iceland, by the way, and Scandinavian country in general. Yeah. In Germany, we've done hiking. Like, we go to certain places and we just hike for like two days, three days. So that's also something. That sounds great. And it made me curious, what will be your favorite sci-fi movie? Our favorite sci-fi movies.

That's a stellar. Oh, wow. No doubt. It's not going to change in 20 years. It's the only movie that's the only movie that's... I mean, I cannot agree. I loved it as well. I'm going to tell you one thing.

It's, you know, the soundtrack of Monster Seller is I listen to it every day. Every single day. I listen to that soundtrack. I have my reasons why, but that's every single day. I don't remember, but is it by Hans Zimmer or not? Yes, exactly. Oh my God. Okay, that it makes sense.

100%. And out of Christy, what do you think of 2001 by Kubrick? Are you fan or not? 2012 or 2001? 2001, Space Odyssey, if you've seen that. No, I haven't seen it, to be honest. Give it a try. It's a very big film, I would say.

I don't want to spoil it. Yeah, but... Maybe you like it, maybe you don't like. You will see. The space films that I have not watched is because I saw the trailer and the physics did not make sense. I was like, this is not right.

So maybe I'm going to watch this. I'm going to tell you. Yeah, yeah. So then last question. Is there something that I should have asked you and did not or some kind of final piece of wisdom that you would like to share? If so, feel free to do so.

Yeah, this is, I need to think about this. So give me a genre, like, who's the audience that you want me to talk to exactly? So the audience are primarily people on LinkedIn, such as creators that are building their brands. They are using LinkedIn to get clients, to build personal brands, or even to connect with people. Okay, 100%.

So, first of all, we talked about this, go all in on LinkedIn. We talked about already. It's going to be the best thing you're going to do. And be more human. That's also the best thing you can do. And genuinely care for other people. Those three things I combined, plus reading the books that we just mentioned, because to be successful, and this is a very nice question you asked, because I'm going to give you this formula that I have right now, which is to be really successful in whatever you want to do, whether you want to quit your job, be, scale your business, whatever it is, there are three things. One is knowing the strategy of how to do it, which is a strategic logic part.

Two is the skills you have. So what skills do you have today? and three is your self-image. So the books I gave you is for self-image. It solves that problem completely. The skills you already have because you're getting paid for your job and you're doing something within entrepreneurship, you're getting clients or whatever you're doing,

you're getting paid for that. So you have the skills. Strategy is something you can figure out by trial and error. So these three things combined is going to get you the life you want. But 80% or even more fail because of self-image. and the biggest advice I would give is go on LinkedIn, that's your strategy. You're showing your skills on LinkedIn, yes, but self-image is very important to charge the prices, to not feel imposter syndrome that every single post has, to not think about work, life balance,

and consistency, authenticity, showing up. I know these are all buzzwords, but it's all coming down to one thing, which is self-image. I like it. And then I would almost forget, but. Please feel free to promote yourself, your services, and say where people can find you and follow you. Sure, 100%. If anything, any questions and so on,

you can find me on LinkedIn. That's my primary platform. You can reach out. You can connect. More than happy to discuss anything you have. So I think we can finish then. Thank you so much, Adam. I really appreciate to join in.

I was very excited to discuss some space stuff, but also more about yourself. So I really enjoyed it. I appreciate you joining because as people probably don't know it was kind of last minute. It was a great chat. I will keep following and supporting. I like your mindset. I've got definitely many valuable takeaways as well.

And yeah, keep doing the great work and I'll be looking forward to sequel in 10 years. So thank you. Pleasure is mine 100%. Thank you for your time. Thanks for listening to Produce by with the moment. Check the show notes for all the links. And don't forget to subscribe, like and share your feed. speak soon