The Mello Millionaire with Tommy Mello - From Gas Station Cashier to $1,000,000 CEO with Shirin Behzadi

Episode Date: January 31, 2026

Shirin Behzadi is a transformational CEO, investor, board member, and bestselling author whose career is defined by resilience, disciplined leadership, and purpose-driven growth. After arriving in the United States alone at 17 and working as a gas station cashier, Shirin built a remarkable business career spanning finance, private equity, and franchising. She rose from CPA and CFO roles to become CEO of Home Franchise Concepts, where she led the company’s transformation into a billion-dollar platform of home services brands, overseeing hundreds of millions in systemwide sales and a successful private equity-backed exit.Today, Shirin serves as a trusted advisor, board director, and keynote speaker, helping leaders turn adversity into strategic advantage. She has raised more than $900 million in private equity, served on corporate and nonprofit boards, and is a passionate advocate for inclusive leadership and women’s empowerment. Her national bestselling memoir, The Unexpected CEO: My Journey from Gas Station Cashier to Billion-Dollar CEO, chronicles her journey from war-torn Iran to the C-suite and offers a powerful framework for leading with vision, empathy, and courage. Known for her ability to combine operational excellence with human-centered leadership, Shirin inspires executives and entrepreneurs to build enduring success — because they can.Check Out My Social Media:Tiktok ⟶ https://www.tiktok.com/@officialtommymelloInstagram ⟶ https://www.instagram.com/officialtommymello/Facebook ⟶https://www.facebook.com/thomasmello/My other podcast:Home Service Expert ⟶ https://open.spotify.com/show/4WHQ3ldGThHsP1cfzNF33GLive Q&A submission form: https://homeserviceexpert.com/questionsLearn more about David: ⟶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/shirin-behzadi/00:00 The Power of Empathy in Leadership01:24 Shereen's Journey: From Iran to CEO02:43 Overcoming Adversity: The Path to Resilience09:24 The Secret Sauce of Business Success14:03 The Superpower of Adversity19:33 Leadership Lessons: CFO vs. CEO Perspectives24:35 Life After a Life-Threatening Experience30:56 Balancing Life: Priorities Beyond Finance34:27 Navigating Burnout and Finding Growth35:15 The Unexpected CEO: A Roadmap for Success

Empathy may be misunderstood as weakness. It is not weak. Empathy is not about coddling people. It's about meeting them where they are. Think about it. If you're negotiating with someone, who does a better job of negotiating someone who can understand their opponent where they're coming from, what wind looks like for them, where their challenges may be and can work with them for somebody who doesn't.

Brave, resilient, unstoppable. Shireen Bassati is a billion-dollar CEO best-selling office. author and keynote speaker who defied impossible odds. All human beings have a clearly diagnosed condition that is terminal, and that is life. After fleeing Iran alone at 17 with no money and no family, she went on to raise over $900 million in private equity and lead home franchise concepts to nearly $1 billion in system-wide sales. Not only being opportunistic is important, but also understanding your weaknesses. After surviving a life-threatening brain tumor,

Shireen now helps leaders turn adversity into unstoppable momentum. And it's become my passion to give back, to do good, to give people an opportunity to own their own business and own their own lives. Get ready for a masterclass in resilience, leadership, and perseverance in the face of adversity. Welcome back to the Mellow Millionaire. Today I got Shireen Bezotti. She is the CEO of Home Franchise Concepts, the author of The Unexpected CEO, my journey from gas station cashier to billion dollar CEO.

Shereen is a billion dollar CEO and a best-selling author. At age of 17, she fled from Iran and arrives in the U.S. with no money and no family members. Today, she raised over 900 million of private equity and leads home service franchise concepts to nearly a billion dollar in system-wide sales. Along the way, she survived a life-threatening brain tumor, learned to walk again and emerge more empathetic and a resilient leader. Today, Shereen is a side after keynote speaker, board director, and author. And it's amazing to have you on today.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. That's exciting. So you're kicking butt and kickboxing today, a little worn out, huh? I am. I am. I shouldn't have done it.

This was my second class. I was like, hmm, maybe just took a lot of energy out of me. Well, let's just dive into, you know, how it all got started. You know, I got a lot of friends from Iran. there's a lot going on over there right now. Some very close people to me. You immigrated here. Can you just talk us through the beginning, the challenges of where you're at today,

what you're looking forward to? Yes. This is definitely a very trying time for Iran and anybody who cares about human rights. So I want to acknowledge that. And I do want to say that I experienced this regime firsthand. And I was born and raised in a very nice family-loving family in Iran when things were smooth, normal until the revolution happened and chaos ensued. And as a result, we lost all sense of safety.

I witnessed atrocities, executions. For 40-some years, they've done the same thing. But I saw it firsthand. And personally, I was arrested twice. Once I was just walking down the street and I guess they just didn't like the way I looked. And the second time, they stopped us when we were traveling with my sister and friends and went through our bags and found a book in my suitcase. And that's all help broclus. And so that was something to deal with.

It's interesting because to your point, decades later, I actually wrote a book. So revenge is sweet. It was because of both of those. And of course, there was a war that ended up happening between Iran and Iraq that when I was 17 years old, my parents decided. In order for me to build a life that they thought I could, it was time for me to leave. It was a decision that to me felt very sudden. They probably had thought about it for some time. And so I had to very discreetly say goodbye to everything.

I had to say goodbye to my siblings. I'm the youngest of five. To my dad, to everything I knew, all the friends and family, and pack everything I own in this world in one suitcase at 17 years of age. They put me on my mom's passport and we left Iran. So we landed in Turkey because it was the one place we could go pretty quickly. And there, my mom found me a home that a woman had a room for three girls and left me there. So here I was at 17 with no parents, no friends.

I didn't speak the language. I had never been away from home. I came from a loving family, very little money and not even a passport. And so, and the situation at the home changed pretty rapidly where the woman turned really cold, food was scarce. We had to use buckets to shower. It was hard. I realized there was a fork in the road. Do I roll over and let the circumstances own me or do I reach for hope?

I reached for hope and I thought, I am going to go to the United States. I'm going to find my way to the United States. I landed at LAX. I was excited and then I'm like, well, now what am I going to do now? I took a job as the cashier at a gas station. And this was not the nicest area. It was a bulletproof gas station cashier's booth because it was not a nice area. Like you had to be very careful. I remember vividly the day where I was sitting there alone at 6 o'clock in the morning on a Christmas morning, feeling sorry for myself, demoralized, wondering, why I was so unfortunate as such a young age. And then something shifted. Maybe it was my perspective that was wrong. And with that, I started really dreaming into, I'm going to run a big company. Someday, I'm going to run a big company. Because if you think about it, a little girl in the corner of a gas station, you know, bulletproof, just with the name Shireen Bazati, why would you

think that way? But that was the essence. And that knowing was the reason I ended up. up being able to build what I ended up building. That knowing pulled me through. I ended up going to college full time, working full time. I ended up becoming a CPA. I wanted to always work for a big accounting firm. I ended up being able to. I worked with EY. And I was doing really well. And there I thought, okay, well, if I stayed a few more years, I may become a really good auditor, but I wanted to run a big company. So it was time for me to leave and learn about operations. That was a very difficult decision, like to the point that I would sit in my car and I'd be asking myself why I'm making those decisions, but I did because I knew I was going to run a big

company. So I ended up joining another organization. It was a bank. There I rose up to CFO of a pretty good size bank. You know, we were originating $100 million of loans a month. We had a billion dollar of loan servicing. And this is late 90s. So these numbers were substantial then.

There, I learned a lot about operations. Rather than taking another CFO position that I was going to opt in and really take a chance on myself. So I went out on my own and there I was doing what today people call like fractional CFO. The idea was let me understand what I can do on my own. In that process, I came across a company that at the time was growing but small and I joined them. And there, I stayed for 20 years. This is where we were enfranchising of home improvement products. Initially, of course, only one.

And for years, as you know well about entrepreneurial journey, it is very hard. The first few years, you couldn't pay the bills sometimes. Until we landed on what I call the secret sauce, we started growing. And from there, we decided to maybe try another franchise concept and created the home franchise concepts as the umbrella company. About 2013, it became obvious that it was time for us to consider exit because the company was of size and not everybody had the same desires to stay on. So that's where I looked for private equity.

It took me a couple of years, and I can get into all of that experience, lots of experience there. We finally partnered with a really good private equity firm in 2015. and as was planned, everybody else was bought up but me. So here I was CEO of a good-sized company, but I was also filling the positions of CIO, CMO, CFO, and CFO all in one person. And we had grown over 70% in an industry that was growing 6 to 9% a year. So now today my life is all about board and service and helping. others grow and accomplish what they want to accomplish.

You did it. Yeah, that's quite the story. That's the best come-up story I've ever heard. So private equity usually gives 10 to 15% profit units. Is that where you made the bulk of your money was in the equity? Or how did that work? Because you stayed out of there, I guess, 24 years? 20 years.

Oh, 20 years. So 16 years, but you stayed through the next trade. So you got when you got to the second transaction? Yes, definitely. The second transaction, a lot of that responsibility was on me, right? Those expectations that you set out when you recruit private equity, you have to live up to those expectations. And that's what we did. When you do a deal, they, you know, a lot of people like, I'm going to get a lot of money.

I'm going to be able to kind of live my life a little better. If I'm in private equity and I recruit you or pay a lot of money for you, I'm expecting you to work harder. Yeah. I mean, yeah, they have their own investors, right? They have to show a return. You have to be very mindful of who you partner with because it is a marriage. You've got to make sure that you get along really well. You know, Tommy, since I've stepped down, I've been on boards of private equity, held companies.

I've consulted with private equity, but I've also consulted with CEOs of companies going through the same thing. I love that. I'm very curious about the secret sauce because you were like, then we figured out the secret sauce. Do you have any details on that or what does that look like? You know, one of the reasons why I wrote my book was I was speaking at the, I was fortunate enough to be invited to really,

really good conferences at the events. I'm a winner of entrepreneur of the year with EY, so I spoke at EY Strategic Forum a couple of times, a lot of places. And every time I was invited, I thought that what they are looking for are more of what the topic was. Private equity had to raise enterprise value. That's what I thought it was.

But every time anybody who was organizing it would ask me, make sure to weave in your story and how you landed here, right? So, of course, I hesitated to write. And when I finally wrote, and I sat in the corner of the family room for two years, and I literally wrote this by myself, The idea was, what were the lessons that I learned along the way that I used later on, right? So I wanted to really reflect and arrive at those lessons.

I'm giving you a longer background because the idea of a secret sauce is explained in the book because it talks about how many mistakes we made along the way and how we learned from those mistakes, that the idea that the adversities that we had along the way made us really, really good at what we did because we had so much adversity. The secret sauce was a combination and accumulation of the lessons learned in those years where we were just trying to grow and it wasn't happening. We changed our systems. We changed our offerings. We changed our pricing. And we changed our leap generation plans. All of those things combined finally worked. It took years to get there, but it finally worked. So it wasn't one one thing. It was

an accumulation of trial and errors and landing on the right solution. What scared you the most when you got to the United States and what gave you the most hope? There was so much fear, Tommy, that I was frozen. And thank God in a lot of ways. I know it's not healthy to be frozen, but sometimes when situation is so severe, you are better off numbing yourself for a minute to get through it. Of course, then I processed those fears later on in life. It's not like I stayed in that state. And that was it. It started, of course, little by little family came out. My sisters came out, like little by little things looked up. But when I first started here, that those were the fears. But what gave me more, the most hope was the notion that I explained

earlier that I am free to build a life in my career as a franchisor, that's essentially what I did. You know, help others build their own businesses, find employment, create college funds for their kids. So it was in a way, that was my dream come true. Not only would I do something good for myself, but also by others. What does it mean to you to be in this country? Because it seems like you're living your best life. I share the story of my life, and this is exactly why I wrote the book, it opens the doors for others to share theirs. I can't tell you how many times I've given his speech or gotten off stage.

And when I sat down after an award presentation, there was a gentleman sitting next to me. He was a banker. He was an executive at a bank, you know, a very run-of-the-mill, bank executive classic look, right? And he was crying. And he told me his life story. The point of it is, we have as human beings, so much more in common than we don't. Everything we've built in this world, from the clothes I wear, from the furniture I sit on, from this computer that I'm using, people have done together through collaboration. This is what's made humanity, humanity. That's one scary thing about raising kids is although I want them to go through adversity,

and I think that's what made me and you is the adversity. It's like, I don't want to spoil them. I want them to work for stuff, but where is that line drawn of like you're going to, like you got to get a job early, of course, and you're not going to get, I'm not buying you your first car and you're going to pay your way and you're going to learn responsibility. But what's the fine line because I don't have kids yet. I'm engaged.

I'm just curious. I think that would be my next book or the book after. that because I think I did a really good job with them. My son just got Forbes 30 under 30 last year. Oh, nice. There you do. I know. And my daughter is fantastic. That's really, really well. But in the music industry, she's done amazing. So, and I've been asked this question, how do you have your children experience adversity? I always talk about, and this is the subject, of a lot of the keynotes I deliver is the superpower of adversity. Because I think adversity is a superpower.

There's three questions I always ask every single guest. I got a lot more questions after this, but I ask it right now. What's one piece of game-changing advice you wish you knew in your 20s? Own your successes. Own what you're doing. I think oftentimes, especially, you know, when maybe people come, from poverty or a background that's a little bit less embraced by society or if you're a minority or if you're a woman, sometimes you shy away from owning your successes.

Why that's important is that one, you declare it to the world, but else you declare it to yourself. And I didn't do a lot of that. So it would be an example that you wish you owned in your 20s and how would you, how would you own it in your words? So I worked my butt off and I would do great work on projects. Let's say when I was working at an accounting firm, I would do great things on projects, but I would never make it clear that it was my doing. So even if in conversations, if somebody else would talk about a specific project and how well it was done,

I would just let it be. If you had to start over, let's just say today, you got your relationships, you got $10 million. where are you putting the money? Oh, I would put the money in as a fund to help invest in entrepreneurs that are up on coming. So like venture capitalists type of things? Basically, but not quite a venture capitalist because I wouldn't be a venture capitalist, but yes. What's your biggest professional dream at the moment? It sounds like you're working on a couple more books.

You're loving the public stage. But what's the next 10 years old for you? What are you looking forward to? I am passionate about getting the message out. And the message out is this. One, I mentioned it earlier, the superpower of adversity, encouraging people to understand because, you know, the world is filled with challenges, adversities,

especially today, lots going on. That it is not only possible, it's useful to use those adversities to grow through and from, and that you can accomplish, build, live your vision because you can. So I'm passionate about delivering these messages with practical ways and strategies that can get you there and just getting the word out, giving people hope and the ability to build what they want in life. You know as well as I do, it takes a lot of failure. I mean, you're living check to check.

You're working 24-7. You might take out an equity loan. You're borrowing money. I mean, what do you tell to people? And by the way, I'm not trying to kill the dream. I just want to say it's tougher than people think, and you should plan for five or ten years instead of plan to be rich this year.

Exactly. So first of all, not absolutely. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. And entrepreneurship is not the only path to success. Part of what I do with my speaking, and a lot of it is actually speaking at organizations and companies. You can build a career and a life working with an organization of any size. So the idea of adversity is a superpower,

applies to all of those things. The idea that you can at the same time, working at a company, find places where you can find your joy and be able to grow and accomplish. Of course, there are some people that it just can't help but be entrepreneurs. And of course, that's another interesting path to take.

I love it. What's interesting, so you started out as a CPA, you moved to CFO, and then you chose to become a CEO. what do CFOs typically misunderstand about leadership and what do CEOs often misunderstand about finance? I want to start with CEOs. I'm shocked and amazed at CEOs that so many of them don't really understand finance that well. It's fascinating to watch. Whereas I feel like with my upbringing, because I came from a finance background, I was so well-versed on the numbers.

But I'm just curious from your perspective, what do CFOs? not know about what the CEO has to deal with and what it's like to be a CEO? Sure, sure. As a CFO, I think you have to understand that leadership is about understanding people, even in the age of AI. We still run the show, right? So in order to lead an organization, you have to understand how to work with people. And that requires a lot of communication across different functional areas. I wrote a piece and it is something that I'm really passionate about in that a good leader is like an orchestra conductor. Our job is to making sure that every musician is in the right seat. So you don't have somebody who knows how to write, you know,

played a flute playing the violin. Like that's not how it works. It's the same with the organizations. Sometimes we put people in the right, wrong places and we think they're the wrong people, but it could be there just in the wrong roles or the wrong responsibilities. The job of a leader at the end of it all is to harmonize it all, which means communication. which means staying on top of things, which means connecting with the different parts of the organization. You know, it's pretty interesting. I read a book by 50 companies, CEOs or private equity companies that did five times MOIC money invested. They did a lot of studies. And they came up with this concept of rowing the boat in the same direction and having five to ten things that's going to

keep a strong internal net promoter score. Why also grow revenue and profitability? and just a great culture. How did you kind of deal with that as a CEO? Yes. One of the best things we did is what I explained earlier about a listening tour. So I took the time to go through different parts of the organization and had more or less similar questions

with an open-ended discussion we would have with teams. So what we made sure we did was not just talk to the executive team, but go into the various parts of the organization started within the organization, then we spread out and expanded to our franchise owners, to our consumers, and our suppliers. Basic few questions that we asked were these. Who are we? Like, who are we?

Not about just their department, but who are we as a company, as a brand? The second question is, why are customers and clients buy from us? And the last one is, where is it that we want to go? Who do we want to be? in addition to all the other discussions. And what we found was exactly to your point, there were discrepancies and gaps, which was probably where most opportunities lived. What we found is that people that had come on board later on as the company had grown had

a different notion that people that had been on earlier on. And the connections had been lost over the years as the company had grown. So there were gaps, but then there were also commonalities. The good news is that there were. we had enough in common to build on. And so with that, we knew our mission was to clarify and make sure that we are all clear as to who we are, why our customers and clients are buying our products or service and where we want to go.

What qualities do you prioritize when you're hiring leaders, especially in the high growth that you guys were in? I want to say they want to first fit the core values of the company, for sure. but I generally am very keen on bringing people that truly genuinely believe in doing good work. So please, no financial engineering, no finding quick, acute ways around window dressing to making the company look good because I think you have to build something that's foundationally sound and that will give you ultimately the best return on your investment. But also people that are interested and eager. and be at elevating other people, because that is your job as a leader, especially if you're coming in as an executive.

You've got to have a real genuine keen interest than at elevating others. I want to jump into something that I'm really curious about is in 2009, you went through this brain tumor. And obviously, you realize tomorrow is not promised in the process there. and you had a brutal recovery. What changed in the way you look at life and work and family and what changed the way you look through the lens after something like that happens?

So in my family, we talk about life before and life after. And life after is so much better, so much more authentic, so much more me. So it was a gift that I didn't ask for, but it was a gift nevertheless. I had a brain tumor that was lodged between my optic nerves, and it only responded to surgery that was eventually done endosally through my nose, and it was a 10-hour surgery. It was a very difficult surgery, but they successfully removed the tumor, which was threatening

my vision and, of course, my life. What happened after that, though, was they take a part of your septum to cover the skull, to the hole that they drill. Apparently that was leaking, and we didn't know that. So 10 days later, I was rushed back into the emergency room with having lost all of my spinal fluid in my skull, which to my physicians afterwards taught me that that sudden death, you're not supposed to lose your spinal fluid in your skull. So that would be spontaneously, you would spontaneously stop breathing or your heart would

until they stopped eating. The only thing they could do was to rush me in and fill that hole and hope that I would make enough spinal fluid to live through it. And every day, of course, I was in ICU for a long time, and every day would have a casket in the morning, casket in the afternoon because it was very much touch and go. All of the bodily systems were going awry. I had a fever for a few months. And so after all of the ordeal and having survived through it,

because it was very much life and death, because of the ordeal that I had been through, I really was having a hard time finding literally my balance. So my recovery when I finally came home was about how do I, how do I start walking again? And talk about one step at a time, that was it. or one step forward, two step back, that was it. You know, I had all these grand visions in life.

Someday I'm going to run a big company, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, my vision at the time became, can I go around the coffee table someday? Can I go upstairs someday? And I couldn't really speak that well because everything was broken. My entire face was broken. I was just really sick. All of that made me slow down. I had been working so fast to survive and grow and all of those things where I hadn't really

taken a break, taken a time to observe. So when you can talk really well, and if you can't move too fast, you become an observer. And what that did was that it heightened every sense in me. From that point on, I could see people better. It's kind of strange to explain. But when I would see people, I could just feel. them more, understand them more. Everything was, every taste was more felt after as I was recovering.

I could hear, but it was just all of the senses were heightened. But just as importantly, that pause made me take stock of what's working and what's not working and how I truly do want to live my life. Somebody, an older woman, back in the day, said, Shereen, sometimes people get a nudge. to make changes and sometimes people have to be hit over the head by a two by four. And I got tibro over the head by a two by four to wake up. Every change that I made from that point on as I recovered was for the better in my personal life, in my family life, in my business life, growing and being really excited about

creating a platform of brands, global, all of that happened after that brain tumor. What would you say, I mean, that was 17 years ago? I mean, your senses were obviously went off the charts. You slow down, you're where your feet are. You got to be happy. I mean, you made it through life-threatening surgery. I mean, it must be like this new life that you were able to kind of birth. Yes.

So, you know, then when other challenges show up in life, including business challenges or could be personal, you have a point of reference that goes, well, is it going to kill me? But if it doesn't and you survive through them, it puts things in perspective. So when we were, for instance, knee deep in growing the company really fast, we created the platform, we did technology platforms, we did micro-marketing platforms. one of my board members were saying, Shereen, you're trying to change the engine as you're driving 80 miles an hour, you have the stamina or the wherewithal to do those things because you have perspective.

Because you always can tie it back to, we're trying to do something better. It's not life and death. When you think about success, obviously there's finance, but there's also fitness, faith, friends and family, developing your future self.

Do you switch perspective? was because I found myself off balance on purpose chasing the finance goals, just because we didn't have it in my life. And I made a promise when I was four. I was never going to let money tear up my family like it did when I was a kid. But what changes? Like obviously health becomes a huge priority and probably you're looking more like I want quality time with family. A quality time means turning off your phone and spending time. So what, where are you at today with that? So even back in the day when I was a young, say, CPA work at EY, I would have had a very clear understanding of what was the most important to me. And that was relationships on my personal life.

I always used to say, if I have children, I want to be an engaged mother. Those are the core values that were non-negotiable to me. I'm not sure exactly why I landed on it. It could be that I came from it, Post-knit family, but it could also be that I lost them. So I understood how significant relationships are in life. Therefore, luckily, a lot of decisions that I may talk about saying no.

I did say no to opportunities often that didn't fit my ability to be present for my family. Luckily, that's always been the underlying factor. Today, I'm reaping the rewards. I do have good relationships, which I'm grateful for. And that experience helps me hopefully help others do the same. We're talking in today's world a lot more about work-life balance, which was not even a thing, you know, decades ago when I had children. So it's good to hear. But it's not just a work-life balance.

It's really being clear as to your core values. staying close to them. Much like core values that you define for a company, there are personal core values that you can hold dear. Money and finance are great. They're great. Nothing wrong with them. But much like when you build a company, Tommy, you've built it because you're building a good company and you reap the reports. You're not going to show up every day and say, I'm doing this for the money. It's showing up every day because I'm going to build this and grow it. It's the same in your personal life. I do believe that money is the reward of doing things well.

Yeah, you know, for me, time blocking for the whole year has probably become one of the most important things. I try to set up the whole year with the non-negotiables, and a lot of that has to do with family. I love that. You're making it the priority. Yeah, you got to do it because life gets in the way. So if it's planned on and it's in the calendar, it's like you block that time.

And here's one thing I found about great leaders. great family people, is they time block so well, like non-negotiables. This is like my date night. This is the day we're going to go to church and pray. Like, they do a great job of that. When I was given decisions to make about my time, I would bounce it off of, is this the best thing for my relationships? So I would make decisions even when it came to travel and doing business meetings.

I would make sure that it didn't interfere too much. I'm just going to ask some last questions here. So there's a lot of people that I've found lately in this new day and age. And I never felt this, but this burnout and they feel overwhelmed. They feel stuck. I know you mentioned you felt stuck and it was like a good thing for you because you got to almost be paralyzed in this moment to kind of refine yourself. But what's the best way when just things aren't going right and you feel like you're unlucky

and why he's God doing this or whatever's going on. What's the best way to come out of that? Oh, live with it. Like, you've got to give it time. You've got to marinate in it and understand where it's coming from. Oftentimes we feel something and we're just going to move fast. Like, let's fix it this minute. Let's fix it.

Let's fix it. But ignoring it is not going to help. I think you've got to give yourself some time, sit with it, really understand where it's coming from because that's where a lot of growth exists. It doesn't mean you're not, you're going to be in that state forever. It just means you have to go through it. It's like any other adversity. It doesn't feel good, but you've got to go through it.

What are your, so you've got your book. Tell us a little bit. You mentioned it throughout this interview, but tell us a little bit about your book. It's called the Unexpected CEO, my journey from gas station cashier to a billion-dollar CEO. I wrote it again exactly for the reason. I mentioned earlier, which is to help others. It's a roadmap. I wish I had where I was growing up.

It is inspirational ties in personal stories, so it's easy to read, but it's also instructional. It's national bestseller. It's what a bunch of book awards, reviews are great. People say that it's a unique business book because it does have a lot of personal. It's very human. Is there any books that change your life? that like literally like this book maybe see through a different lens, a whole different perspective. It could be a fiction book.

It could be the Bible. It could be the E-Mith Revisit. I don't know. Any book that really affected you? There are a few. So the art of joyful living autobiography of Yogananda is definitely one. So these are not, you would think there would be business books, but it's personal because I feel like mindset is significant even when you're building a business.

For sure, when you're building a business. So these are, to me, mindset books. And then if someone wants to reach out to you, what's the best way to do that? Right. So obviously, if they search the unexpected CEO, they can also find me because it also takes them to my website. I have a website with my name, good like spelling it, shorine bezotti.com. And I'm on social.

I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, everywhere. Finally, Shireen, we talked about a lot of stuff. I just want to give you a quick opportunity. Anything you want to close us out with for the audience. Well, first of all, I want to thank you. This was great. I'm very lively. I do want to encourage everybody to think that no matter what it looks like with life,

with geopolitics, with economy, with every headwind that we're experiencing now, it is still possible to live the life of your vision. It is still possible to build, to grow, to accomplish. It is. It takes a lot of attention and hope, but it's possible. Adversity is your superpower. I love it. And next time, hopefully we get to meet in person,

you're going to be like a badass kickboxer. Oh, yes. Yes, I'm working on second class. I love it. Shereen, I had a blast today. Thank you so much for the opportunity. And I'm going to read your book and get to know you. more, I hope. Thank you. It was nice talking to you. All right. Listen, have a great week and I appreciate

everything. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. Like always, we're going to close it out with the Tommy Truth, which is a little slice of wisdom from me to you that can help guide you in whatever you're striving towards right now. As your business grows, you've got to focus on that bottom line. You've got to focus on profit. The reason you went into business is profit. When you start a business, you're really focused on revenue. And profit is kind of like what's in the bank right now. And So many business owners, they spend more than they make. If you got a great CPA but you don't have a CFO or a controller, they'll say spend all your money at the end of the year because you're going to owe too much in taxes.

But now you've got no money in the bank to grow next year. You need to know your known financial position and have enough money to handle the growth, marketing, capital expenditures, hiring. Once you get serious about profit, all the things start going into the right direction and you create true wealth. And that's it, guys. We'll talk to you next week.