This podcast episode revolves around the crucial distinction between one's identity and the business they operate, with a particular emphasis on the necessity of dissociating personal worth from business performance. I elucidate the pivotal realisation that many entrepreneurs conflate their self-esteem with their business success, leading to emotional turmoil during challenging times. By learning to view the business as an independent entity, we foster a healthier mindset that enables more rational decision-making and mitigates emotional distress. Throughout the discussion, I share personal anecdotes that illustrate the evolution of my entrepreneurial journey, highlighting the support of mentors and loved ones in navigating the complexities of business leadership. Ultimately, we explore how embracing uncertainty and prioritising personal well-being can lead to sustained growth and fulfillment in both business and life.

Links referenced in this episode:

• www.cjammarketing.com
• linkedin.com/in/bedadjamshidi

Want help creating your own podcast? Visit us at podjunction.com or reach out to Sadaf directly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sadafbeynon/

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: will actually are them and their business are one entity, right?

So if the business is not doing well, they're not doing

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: business is doing well, they're doing well, right? Like it's. So synergistic. , but when you learn to dissociate the two and

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: business is the business and it's operating as its own entity. And I'm myself and I'm doing my best to move this business up, down, forward, but just because the business is going a certain way shouldn't affect who I am as a person.

Sadaf Beynon: Welcome to Conversations That Grow the Show where we explore how the right conversations can shape our business leadership and even the way we see the world. I'm Sadaf Beynon, and today I'm joined by Behdad Jamshidi. He also goes by the nickname Bee. Bee. It's great to have you with us today. I would love for you to introduce yourself to our audience.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: with a ton of different customers doing that. Um, and so that's where a lot of my business consulting sales, leadership and technology experience comes from. But why we're chatting is I've actually moved into becoming a marketing connector.

Um, and so over the course of a few years, I started learning how to build websites, Google Ads, SEO. Um, and I really disliked doing a DR websites, uh, on the weekend for my customers. So I started looking for different marketing partners to work with. And as I did that, I noticed that most marketing agencies didn't really understand business, and most business people didn't really understand marketing. And so I thought I could bridge this gap,

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: put someone in the same meeting, they didn't speak the same language. And marketing agencies say they can do everything, but most of them actually can't. Uh, 85% of them aren't very good at anything. And last 15% are good at one to three things.

Sadaf Beynon: That's awesome. I love that. And that was a great introduction. Thank you so much.

B, we all have those con conversations, that just hit a little bit different, don't we?

So what's one that really changed the way you lead or think about business?

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah, I mean one of the conversations that I had very early on in c JM is I had a co-founder and that co-founder within the first three or four months of running the business decided, Hey,

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: a fit for me. He was older. Um, and so he really was trying to find like what made him happy. Um, and I found that when he was leaving that I took that very hard.

It.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: And when I thought about it was two things. It was one. Was I could actually talk to him about certain things and I had someone to just, you know, ideate with, think out loud with. But two, he was also extremely good on the sales side. Like he was an enterprise level sales guy, um, working on multi, multi-million dollar deals. Um, and I was at the point as a sales engineer also worked on, on big accounts, mid-size accounts, but not at his level. Um, and so those two gaps, I was like, this is why I don't think I can run the business by myself. And when I noticed that those two gaps were there, I thought, okay, well if I like talking to people and thinking about ideas and doing stuff, what if I just found mentors and people within my community I could talk to that solved that pain point? And then on the other side, on the sales side, I'm like, well, what level do I think I am compared to him?

If he's a 10, outta 10, what am

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Um, and so that's kind of just one of the conversations that really like stuck deep within me is like when we think we need to rely on other people for certain things,

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: when it's just something internally that we gotta deal with and then fill in the gaps in a different way.

Sadaf Beynon: What was it that made him want to step away?

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah, so he, he was about 20 to 25 years older than me. And so originally he, we both worked at Telus full-time. Um, and for him it was a whole thing of, I got into this marketing space. This is not what I

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: what he ultimately wanted to do. He actually ended up becoming a business coach, uh, in the

Sadaf Beynon: Okay.

Behdad Jamshidi: he wanted, that's where he found more alignment.

And so he was at, he said basically, I'm at a later stage in life where I'm looking for something that I really want to do and marketing wasn't it. And so

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: there's nothing to do with like the business model or anything like that. It's just where is interest alive.

Is that right?

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah, that, I mean, my wife's always been a big aspect of my, uh, my business and my, um, move forward, right? There's always that support there where it's like, Hey, even on the hardest months that I have or if have a lot of things going on, she's to be like, you got this. Like, you can

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: It's a hundred percent, there a support.

Even, even if she's, my wife will always just say like, even if you didn't wanna do the business, I just want you to be happy. Right? And

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: having that kind of support really makes, uh, running a business way easier.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: and her support has always been there. She, I mean, I ideate with her. I give her my thoughts.

Sadaf Beynon: That's awesome. So coupled with the, the words that your co-founder gave you and your wife's support, how did, how did that whole situation change your mindset?

Behdad Jamshidi: So my mindset always keeps shifting. It's not always like, um, there are certain times where your mindset can shift like all at once. Like you hear

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: just clicks and it moves, and that's very

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: that typically happens very often.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: but what I think that comes to mindset, it's just like creating these new patterns, right?

And so, um, being the engineer that I was and kind of like leaving the full-time gig and going into running a business which is fully going into uncertainty, you never know what's going to happen. Um, I think the mindset of just having a. Those people support my wife is support and constantly just thinking, okay, how do I get more comfortable with the process of becoming a stronger and stronger or entrepreneur leader, CEO of my

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: The same things that used to bother me two and a half, three years ago. Um, don't bother me anywhere near in the same way. Right? And one of the key things that I learned running a business was like separating yourself from the business, right? A lot of

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: will actually are them and their business are one entity, right?

So if the business is not doing well, they're not doing

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: business is doing well, they're doing well, right? Like it's. So synergistic. Um, but when you learn to dissociate the two and

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: business is the business and it's operating as its own entity. And I'm myself and I'm doing my best to move this business up, down, forward, but just because the business is going a certain way shouldn't affect who I am as a person.

Right?

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm. That's really insightful. Do you have any examples of that?

Behdad Jamshidi: I mean, just the business that I'm running now, like there's always a time where, for example, if I had a customer leave one of the agencies that they're working with, I would take that extremely personally. I'm like, I failed. I didn't do well enough. You know, I didn't do this thing. But then over time, starting to realize like, oh. That, that's not on me, right? Like a lot of the times, um, it could be the business and the agency don't have good communication with each other. The business

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: external factors going on. And, and so I kind of like learned to separate that where I'm like, I'm me as a human and I'm constantly growing and personally growing and the business is an external entity that affects how I grow, right?

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: so I, when I separate, I'm go, well, the business is gonna continue to move forward. I'm just gonna do my best as a person to allow this thing to grow in the best way possible and serve as many people. At the best ability that it can.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

And if the relationship with your business is constantly taking from you and not

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: you energy, then is that the type of relationship you want to be in?

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: that was like one of the key like moments where it's like, oh, this is a relationship between the business and me, right? Like if the business is asking me for my time and my energy and all my stuff.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: it is separate from me. And so now I'm actually have a much more healthier relationship with my business. Where, like for example, I was in Mexico, uh, a week ago, and I know every time that I go on a trip, on a mastermind or something, I'm gonna fall behind. And so the business is constantly asking me of my

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: to answer the emails, you need to get these videos done.

You get things done for your team. And I've learned to just kind of like almost. Quiet it down where I go, cool. I know that all these things need to be done, but they don't need to be done right now. Like, they can be done slowly over time and in, in, you know, a week and a half, two weeks, I'll catch up, but I

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: stress myself to do that.

In this versus

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: just like listening to what the business tells me I need to do.

Sadaf Beynon: I really like that. I think there's so much wisdom in it. 'cause I think when things are chaotic. Taking that moment to pause or whatever time you can afford to pause and to think through the tasks and prioritize and then execute makes so much more sense than just reacting.

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah. Yeah. It, it

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: it allows you to have more energy and not get burnt out because at the

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: burnt out, you're helping no one.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: not even helping yourself. And the longer that you, you all react for, you know, use coffee to get energy, you, you're reacting for years at some point it, it takes you a long time to recover and I never want to do that.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: what other business owners have gone through and it's not something I'm interested in.

What was, what happened there?

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah. So that was a, that was an interesting piece. So as I was working as a sales engineer, um, someone told me, Hey, there's a guy that's making passive income and he is doing SEO, and I didn't know what SEO was. Uh, 'cause the guy was doing $50,000 a month, so it, it kind of blew my mind. I'm like, he's doing SEO he is making monthly passing.

He's making $50,000. That's insane. I've never heard this before. Um, and so I actually, the guy had like a $500 course and a two hour YouTube video that I watched. So I took that

course and it just started this creating this like environment of curiosity. 'cause I'm always curious. And

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: loved doing is just learning. And so that's kind of got me into like the marketing world. But as I got into the marketing world, I, I realized, like I said, I didn't enjoy doing the a DR websites. I didn't enjoy running the ad campaigns. Like I, I knew how to do it, but it wasn't gonna be something I wanted to do for long term.

And

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: honestly loved being an engineer.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: than what I'm doing now.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: so throughout that journey, I just kinda was like learning. So I learned how to build the websites and I was doing it for customers.

I got paid a little bit and then I started, um, when I started not liking it, there was a marketing agency that said, Hey, if you send me the business, I'll give you a, a percentage of the business that we closed. And we'll do the work for you. And I was like, great, because you're way better at websites than I am.

Like it makes way more sense for you to do it.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: and I don't have to do the work. And so this kind of created this environment where I could, I could be a sales engineer and continue doing what I do. Like I got promoted every single year in Telus, um, as I was working there. So I wasn't like slacking off at work. Um, and so that was great. Like I got to learn a ton on that side and. While I was working for the company that I was working for, they were paying me for conflict resolution courses, mediation

Sadaf Beynon: Oh wow.

Behdad Jamshidi: courses. Like I probably have close to $150,000 just in training

Sadaf Beynon: Amazing.

Behdad Jamshidi: Right. Um, and so I took that learning and I was applying

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: sales engineer and running CJAM, and it took about three and a half years. For CJAM to get to a certain point where it was actually making more money for me than I was doing in engineering.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: And I thought, well, if I'm doing this like side by side, and I actually had a team installed in CJAM. So like I was actually using the money the business made to like input like a

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: designer and a web developer so that I wouldn't actually be doing the work. And that's what

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: do, um, my full-time job well.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: a point where I was like, okay, even with the team there and stuff, I'm. Profiting more than I'm making it as an engineer. And so at that point I thought, okay, well that's when I'm gonna jump off. Because for

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: never, I never really liked the fact of and then you'll figure it out.

That was

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: of interest to me as an engineer. Like, I want to be as risk averse as possible in life. so for me it was always like, okay, I wanna build something and if it builds to a certain point where it can support me and my wife and my family and what we need to

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm

Behdad Jamshidi: Then cool, I'll jump off and do it.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: did that, it's funny, the next year I doubled, uh, the business because all my time and attention was put into it. And this is even with interest rates going up there being a

Sadaf Beynon: Wow.

Behdad Jamshidi: over the last two and a half years, which was like very

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: mentally to get through, but financially the business was doing well.

And so that's kind of like how the journey worked. I basically worked a full-time gig, grew the business on the side, inputted people where I needed to, to just offload things. And then once it got to a certain point where I was like. It makes sense to go test this thing out and see how it goes. Um, that's kind of where it started kind of taking off, but it took a long time to get there.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm. Three years you were saying? Is that right?

Behdad Jamshidi: three and a half years.

Sadaf Beynon: Three and a half, yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: And now we've been running CJ for about six and a half.

Sadaf Beynon: That's a great story. I love it.

Um, Bee, what did it feel like moving from structured employment to building your own path? I know you kind of had it as you were saying, side by side,, but I guess when you, when you went all in to CJAM, what was that like for you?

Behdad Jamshidi: That was tough.

Behdad Jamshidi: I remember the first three months, uh, like, so lemme tell you what I mean by tough.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: um, in CJAM I had a year of runway. So that means like the day I left my full-time job.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: uh, if I made no money that day, uh, for the next year, I could still pay all my expenses. I could still pay myself as a business and all that different kind of stuff.

So,

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: risk level wasn't super high, but mentally it was very high for me.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: three months into the business, uh, that's when interest rates started going up. And so

Sadaf Beynon: Okay.

Behdad Jamshidi: my customers who had, um, you know, borrowed money from the banks to buy businesses. They're like, let's say that they had to pay $16,000 back a month on their loans. Now it's 32,000

Sadaf Beynon: Okay.

Behdad Jamshidi: loans. And so it put a lot of pressure on the businesses. A lot of businesses

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

And so

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: from then till now, I'm still constantly improving that resilient mindset, that abundant mindset, removing that scarcity, being more comfortable with uncertainty. If you looked at me two and a half years ago when I first left, to now I'm an entirely different human, but the

amount of uncertainty and risk that I can now take is.

A hundred times what I, what I could have taken at that time.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: which is really cool to see, uh, when you reflect on it and, and just kind of seeing like the growth that you've gone through.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm. You Were talking about the resilience and the resilience mindset and like being able to embrace uncertainty in a way that you couldn't before. Do you feel like that's something as an entrepreneur, as a leader that you will always be doing? Or is that something you arrive at eventually?

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: just meet these entrepreneurs that just love risk, love running multiple businesses, love testing things like it's just in their blood. Um, and then you have entrepreneurs like myself, which is not in my blood.

I come

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: family. We didn't have a lot of money growing up, all that different kind of stuff. So you come from a scarcity mindset.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: if you want to truly make it in business, you have to evolve out of that, right? Like, you have to be doing, and you have to be looking at how do you kind of shift from that scarcity to that more abundant mindset?

Being more comfortable with risk. It's the only way you really can grow your business to different levels that you want. And I think the different levels of entrepreneurship, like if you're wanting to make multimillions of dollars and you want to grow, you know, to a Fortune 100 company, like you have to get comfortable with uncertainty.

You have to get comfortable with risk.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: of it and just be able to take on more. And I think each level that you move up the chain or the ladder on the business side, um, that's one of the key factors that you have to get comfortable with.

Behdad Jamshidi: I think for me, uh, I just kind of learned that I'm, I'm very adaptable to the situations that I'm kind of getting into. Um, and at the same time, it builds this personal confidence of, Hey, I know that I'm gonna be okay no matter what kind of happens, right? Hmm. so that's kind of cool to, to learn that piece of it. And. Uh, funny enough, in two days I'm doing a presentation for my fortune, like for Telus, the, the company, the national team.

And it's 10 lessons that I learned while running business and just going through

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: process and like, just all the different things that I've learned about how businesses run, businesses do things, how, uh, CEOs think like, these are all things that I've just like learned. And it just builds this kind of confidence around you where like,

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: man, this is cool.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: the business.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. No, that's, you're so right and you know, the words that you've thrown out there, curious, adaptable, resilient, living with uncertainty, that's all. Um, they all mark an, an entrepreneur really, don't they?

Um, if you don't mind, I'd love to hear some of the 10 lessons or all of the 10 lessons, whatever you wanna share with us.

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah, I mean, the 10 lessons, it's like a whole hour talk. So,

Sadaf Beynon: Okay.

Behdad Jamshidi: uh, I'll give you, I'll give you one, one piece of it. Like the first

Sadaf Beynon: Okay.

Behdad Jamshidi: that entrepreneurship has multiple levels, right? Like, so most people when they go into corporations.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: you know, there's levels, right? You start as a junior employee, you move into senior, and then you move into a director, a manager role, where you manage a team, then director, vp, CEO.

We all know that that ladder, right?

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: realize is that there's a whole other ladder on the other side. Um, especially when you run a business, right? You start as a solopreneur. What's everyone's dream? They wanna make 10 to $15,000 a month. They wanna be a so entrepreneur. Um, and that's just what they wanna do.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: come, some clients go. So you're always basically just in this like flux of a wave of, uh, getting clients, not getting clients. then you might even be a solopreneur where you're like, okay, well I wanna offload some of the lower value tasks, right?

And I wanna bring a team in. So you start bringing a VA person, maybe you're bringing

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: media person or whatever it is, then all of a sudden you're like, oh. I'm working with like six to seven different people within my business. I'm actually now a manager. Um, right. And so you're now managing a team and you know, you can go on a little bit of vacation, some things will still keep running, but you're still running the business and being a manager of a team, so you still have to take care of your accounting and your financing, the strategy and the marketing and all that stuff.

So it's a lot of, a lot of work. And now you need to make more than the 10 or $15,000 a month because now you're paying a team and you don't realize this, and then you get to the certain next point. Where now you bring in like, let's say one or two levels of leadership, right? Like someone to manage your team for you, but they can't manage everything.

And so now you become a business owner and that's when I think you really become a business owner.

Behdad Jamshidi: at least some people that are gonna be able to move parts of your business forward even without you there.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: and now you're like three ladders in. The next one is becoming that visionary or the, what I, you can call it a visionary, where it's like you just focus on the strategy aspect of the business, moving things forward, the areas of the business that you really enjoy doing, and to become that visionary. You actually need to build an entire leadership under team underneath you that's gonna run the business without you. And so you have like a COO, a CMO, a CFO like that's

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: getting into those like eight figure ranges where the business is now growing and you're just guiding the ship

as the

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: Right? And then the final piece is people don't realize, it's like, okay, cool, you figured that out. Now they go, do you either just like, um, step off the brakes or, and put someone in and then remove yourself from the business? But most people then start going into things like M&A, investing companies.

Because

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

ownership.

And each time you go up a level, you have to become an entirely new human being because you have to actually function fully differently.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: and you have to be ready to take on more uncertainty and more risk at each level. And so. Most people who, like, I don't like the corporate ladder. There's a whole business ladder on the other side, and it's hard, it's not

Sadaf Beynon: There's always a ladder.

Behdad Jamshidi: there's always a ladder is what I learned.

Sadaf Beynon: How far up do you see your ladder going in your in CJAM?

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah. So I've been in a lot of different groups, so I love being just like a connector.

Um, that's just what I do as a, as a human. I like to connect with humans. I like to connect ideas together. I like to connect humans together.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: me where CJAM is right I'm kind of like in that like level two, level three stage where I have a team of about nine that I, that I run within my, my company.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: for me now it's just like, how do I do what I do better, more efficiently and do it better for

people? Um, I don't think I want to build to, uh, being that like visionary status or that like

Sadaf Beynon: hmm

Behdad Jamshidi: I might not interested. Money doesn't really drive me.

Sadaf Beynon: hmm.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: growing, that's gonna be cool. Um, but I, I also want to start speaking more. I wanna go talk about how to connect with humans and, and the idea around

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: or even just sharing more knowledge that I know around the marketing agency world and landscape. 'cause a lot of people don't know how to outsource to people properly, and that's actually a big

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: If you can't do that well, you're not gonna be able to grow your business well. And so I wanna start talking about a lot more of those topics. And so for me it might be just like this blend of just having a business that runs itself, it's cash generating, but then also becoming a lot more of a thought leader, which is what I already kind of do on my LinkedIn and Instagram and

all the podcasts I go on, is to really embrace that like thought leadership and get my my thoughts and ideas out to the world.

Sadaf Beynon: How has being a connector, a super connector influenced how you approach growth for yourself and for your clients?

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah, that's a great question. So a lot of what I've done and how I've grown my business is through building relationships. Um, and a

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Like you get to a certain scale. But super connectors. these guys know thousands on thousands of people. And then

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: on like who you're talking to, certain things will come up and go, oh, you need to meet this person, this person, this person, this person. And we built systems for this, right? Um, like every time I meet someone, I have a whole system on how I organize where they go so that I know when I need to find them, I can find them for the, the cus the customers or the people I need to connect them with. And also being a connector in a way like. relationships where you can do in that, in like 30 minutes where you're now open to sharing information with them in the future, right? Like a lot of people will network, which I think is very different than connecting. 'cause when you connect with someone,

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: Hey, hey Paul.

Um, you know, we haven't talked in six months, um, but I have someone that I want to introduce you to. Are you open to that? And typically the answer you're gonna get is yes because

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Um. And that's why I go to all these masterminds and conferences and do podcasts. 'cause I ultimately just wanna connect with humans. And when you

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: with humans, brain just works on how do I bring people together And that that's how I ran a, uh, that's how I run my business and that's how I make money, which is kind of cool.

Um, to do.

Sadaf Beynon: That is very cool. How, how do you learn to do something like that? Is that just something inherent that connector in you?

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah,

Sadaf Beynon: you know what I mean?

Behdad Jamshidi: It's a, it is a great question. I think this is a, is something I've actually thought about quite a bit. Um, and I think it really comes down to, you know, how there's business owners that are really good at just like running businesses, taking risks, and that's just what they thrive in.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: the same thing aligns on the connector side.

There's certain people that have the, like this, the foundational elements and like in your, in your biology where it's like you're just good at talking to people and connecting with people and bringing people together. Like it's just.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

'cause you have, you can think about it, you can train that muscle and build it, but I think there's gonna be certain people that are just always gonna be really, really good at it because that's just how they're programmed. And

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: that can kind of learn it. And then there's some that don't think it just ever fits right.

Like it's really hard to be, for example, an introvert and be a super connector, right? 'cause think about if you put, uh, an extroverted super connector and an introverted super connector. Against each other. Right? The extrovert just has way more energy to have conversations with people than an introvert does.

Um,

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: just, it's just how the biology of that works. Can an introvert be a super connector? Absolutely. But it's just gonna be like, take way more energy from them than it is gonna take from the extrovert doing it.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: So I think there's like these fundamental things where it's just like in your nature to

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: And then, um, the other aspects can be grown, but I think it's way harder.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. So is there someone in your family who's that way inclined as well?

Behdad Jamshidi: That's a great question. No one's ever asked me that. But my dad, my dad is a hundred percent, uh, a super connector.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Sadaf Beynon: Amazing.

Behdad Jamshidi: And he, and he doesn't know it. I don't think he's

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: that, but he connects people.

He's like, oh, you need to talk to this person. This person needs to do

this.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: this toran. Oh, I got a guy that will do that. Like, he just does that like foundationally.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: and funny enough, my brother kind of has the same skillset. Uh,

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: than I am, but also he has an insane network in New York and all that different kind of stuff.

And people love talking to him. He brings people together around for food. He's a very high level chef,

Sadaf Beynon: Wow.

Behdad Jamshidi: And so you kind of see it throughout our entire, like family like.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: are just foundationally just people who like to connect with humans and bring people together.

Sadaf Beynon: I love that. I really love that. What role do you think conversations play in then? How you support each other.

Behdad Jamshidi: Uh, I mean, the conversations are everything, but I think the, the aspect is connecting is everything, right?

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: most people when they are talking to a customer, their first thing is like, how can I sell something to this human? Like, that's their, their first question.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. I.

Behdad Jamshidi: in my head is, how do I connect with this human?

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: Uh, when you build that connection and that trust, everything else is built off of that. And that's what I think a lot of people don't know. Like think about when it comes to like the sales role and that kind of stuff.

Like, you know, when you say, you know, I don't want the used car salesman because they think of things transactionally. Right?

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: but when you're there to connect and you're there to connect with humans and understand them and, and, and establish a foundation over something, um, I think that's where the real trust gets built. Um, and to your point, like, can someone learn to connect with humans better? I think the more you know about the world and the more like you travel, the more you do things, you can actually start pulling on experiences to connect with humans better. And,

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: this is something that I learned a little while ago.

Like I had a goal, this is probably six, seven years ago, where I was like, I wanna read a book a month for five years, so I wanna get to 60 books in five years.

Sadaf Beynon: Amazing.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: you do self-work on yourself and introspect and take experiences and do those types of things, that allows you to connect with humans better because you can

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: experiences and those ideas whenever you're having conversations.

Sadaf Beynon: That is so cool. I think I might steal that Bee.

How do you, , connect with people who are introverts and don't really feel like answering questions or having a conversation? How do you do that?

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah, so I think fundamentally introverts are actually not as introverted as people think they are, right? Introverts are kind of quiet initially, but once they build a connection with someone, they're actually extroverted. They show a lot of extroverted tendencies. Sees. And

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Like they, they're not thinking out loud, they're not doing all those things. But once you connect with them, they will share their thoughts, their ideas, how they're doing things, but they just don't

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: in a, in like an extroverted way where we just go out and we just talk to everyone. They're, they're just very selective.

It's like, once I like someone and they're, they're my people. They become very extroverted in that environment with that

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: on one or within a group that they're, they trust. And so I don't think they're any different than than extroverts and introverts. Um, I think with introverts, you just have to be more cognizant of they're not gonna speak as like as much, or you have to like guide a bit more or ask more questions to kind of get it out of

Sadaf Beynon: I get it. Yeah,

Behdad Jamshidi: you just ask 'em one question and they'll, they'll just keep talking. Right.

Sadaf Beynon: yeah, yeah. No, I, I totally hear what you're saying. It's just at what level do they become comfortable? An extrovert will. You know, right away an introvert will just take a bit longer, but once they're comfortable and connect as you say, then it's, then they'll talk. Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah. And you typically give them a little bit more time to think too, right? Because

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Thinking out loud too, right? Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah,

Sadaf Beynon: Um, B, what's the one principle or mindset? That, shaped the way you lead and grow in in your business.

Behdad Jamshidi: so this analogy is stuck in my head. It's not an analogy or it's just a picture that's kind of stuck in my head

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: It's of these two surfers, right? And you have this, you're, they're both surfing. Um, and this day there's not a lot of big waves coming, right? But you have this one guy just like, like struggling to go from one side to the other side to find this like big wave that he just wants to surf, right?

But the ocean's just not giving it to him today. And then you have this other guy who's like, just kind of chilling and just whatever wave kind of comes, he's practicing different things, whether it's his technique or whether the way that he stands up or whatever it is, the, the ocean is giving him certain things and he's taking it and he's flowing with what he's given

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: trying to force an outcome that it's just not there, right?

Like the environment's not there. So think like for example, you're running a business and the headwinds are against you, right? Like things are moving in another way. AI is taking over certain things that you're doing and you're just like trying to force this business to work. But. external environment's not giving you that, right?

And so you go, well, what can I do with what it's giving me and being more relaxed about it. Maybe I do need to pivot or I do need to shift and just enjoy the process of what I'm doing and shifting and pivoting and that kinda stuff. That becomes more of the, um, fun aspect of business than I'm trying to get to a certain outcome.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: mindset for me is really just enjoying the process and not focusing on the outcome, which you hear all the time, but once you actually live it and you understand it internally from experiences, it just makes so much more sense.

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah, I mean, like for me, the, like, my business does well, right? Like it's, it's

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: growing. I'm still getting business from everywhere. I've built connections and stuff. But the way that, like I've internalized that is to go, okay, if I, let's say 10 years or 15 years from now, CJM is is not around because I of things, external factors that kind of happen, that's okay because I enjoyed the

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: of building it.

I learned how to build a profitable business. I learned about marketing. I learned how to build relationships. I've built communities. I've like, I've done so much. I've learned how to do different offers. Like I just learned

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: stuff and. go, well, what is the world giving me next? Right? Like, what can I do next?

Maybe I take all that knowledge and I become a speaker on things, or I write a book, or I, I decide to go back and be a sales engineer for AI stuff and marketing stuff because I

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: notice that when, you know, if you looked at me two and a half years ago, three, four years ago, I worked a lot. Like I would be working like 12 to 16 hour days on my

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: right? Um, I'd do the full-time thing, I'd do the business thing, and even when I stopped, I'd be doing, like, you know, uh, when I stopped engineering, I would still be doing 10, 12 hours in the business because I was trying to make it continuously work, continuously grow.

I didn't want it to fail.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: I don't do, I don't run my business with that same energy anymore. It's, it's very different. Like, for example, today I blocked off my entire day 'cause I'm, I'm supposed to be off on Mondays, so I'm doing the podcast after 12 o'clock, me and my wife are gonna go out for a nice lunch.

Uh, I

Sadaf Beynon: Amazing.

Behdad Jamshidi: couple of videos, and I'm gonna go hit the gym and then try to sleep well to get ready for the rest of the week. Like, though I have a bunch of stuff to do and a bunch of things to move forward, I need to hire an assistant. I got a bunch of emails I gotta

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: I don't need to stress about it in the same way.

I can actually just like

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: forward one, one thing at a time and just enjoy the process of what I'm doing.

Behdad Jamshidi: Exactly. It's, it's, I've seen too many people get sick at such a young age, or they've given so much of their life and then later on they go, that is that actually what I wanted? For me,

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: I'm only gonna be. 35 once, I'm only gonna be 36 once I'm only be 37 once, like, so how do I get to enjoy those years?

Because at some point, if I'm in my, I'm 55, 60, 65, uh, looking back and going, oh, I wasted all of my youth growing a business and doing all that stuff, and I thought I'd have more time to do stuff later, but I'm not gonna be able to do the same things that. I want it like that I can do right now in 35, you know what I mean?

Like going to play

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: Hanging out with my friends, maybe going, um, you know, river rafting or those types of things, which are just much more intensive for the body that you won't be able to

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: it's all around like balancing life out and not prioritizing just, uh, the business or just making money.

It's around like just living a full life that I'm like super happy about,

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Sadaf Beynon: The, you know, listening to you talk, it's, I'm reminded of, um, this other person I was listening to about being happy and what happiness brings or doesn't bring. And often, um, as he was explaining it, often we think, you know, we wanna make 6, 7, 8 figures. And that is when I'll be happy.

You know, I want to, I wanna lose weight and get to X amount, like X pounds, and then I'll be happy. Um, you know, that you, the list goes on and on and on. But actually he was saying happiness is in the process. It's exactly what you're saying actually, that it, it's, it's in the, it's in the growth. That's where the happiness is because you don't really get happiness at a, at arrival, you know, if you've lost the weight that you wanted to lose and you get there,

well, the only happiness, happiness you have is like, you can never eat the foods that you really enjoy ever again if you wanna maintain that.

Right.

Behdad Jamshidi: it just, it all comes down to what you wanna optimize for in life.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm,

Behdad Jamshidi: long as you're doing that proactively and not reactively,

Sadaf Beynon: hmm,

Behdad Jamshidi: I think, I think you win, right? Like at the end of the day, if you're like, I proactively, I wanna make a ton of money and I wanna run five or four or three different businesses at the same

Sadaf Beynon: hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: what brings me joy. Cool. Do it.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: but if it's a reactive thing where it's like, I feel like if I run three or four or five different businesses and make this amount of money, then I'm gonna be happy.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm

Behdad Jamshidi: that mindset, you're, you're ultimately just gonna be unhappy at the end. And I've seen it enough

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: I'm in business groups enough times to see people selling for eight figures and being like, oh, I don't know who I am, and they're depressed because they don't know what they do next. Right. And they're

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: just start another business. It's like, no, like take that

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: be uncomfortable for a little while, and in that things are gonna align for you.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Yeah, and you, you've used the word react a couple times too, and I think that reacting often creates stress, physical, mental stress and stress. And if you're doing that for prolonged periods of time. Then that's when you get the burnout, right?

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah, exactly. You're

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: for too long and you don't have time to just kinda sit, pause, think what you want to do. Um, I think it's important, like right now, for example, I'm, I'm thinking about building out a podcast and I have all these different ideas that I want to do, and I just like. I just started doing and then I was like,

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: I need to sit down a second.

Plan this out strategically. 'cause there's all these things that I want people, I want to have on the

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: do I build that image or that thing to, to kind of bring it around that? And then the question becomes, is the podcast for making money or is it for me to like just explore my own curiosity

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: I need to sit down and think internally to be like, what do I want to build for it? Um. And that's just like an example in business where you have to take a pause for a second

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm. Are you, are you the kind that gets, um, caught up with the shiny, with the shiny objects? So if you're taking the, that pause and you see something that maybe is a little bit off track from where you're trying to get to, do you feel like you're gonna go towards it? Or are you good at blocking it out?

Behdad Jamshidi: I think I'm pretty good at blocking it out. Um, I. And, and I get better and better at it because I'm starting to realize with business, the more things you do, the more things you have on your brain. It's just like

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: you have, the more stuff you're gonna have on your brain. Um, so for me, uh, for example, AI is a super shiny object thing right now.

Like everyone's kind of like

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: it, but I'm using it very like, like I'm using it, but not in that way of like just drawing everything into it. 'cause I'm

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: take a little bit of time for it to like figure itself out.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: put a lot of thought before I do things. Like, for example, when I'm talking about the podcast thing, I've had this on my brain for the last year and a half to two years, um, of how I want to do it.

Sadaf Beynon: Okay.

Behdad Jamshidi: but I haven't created the channel or anything yet. Just to get a sense of it, to

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: of it. Does this make sense? Does this align? Is this the topics I want to talk about? So I actually do a lot of like. Of testing and research a little bit initially before I actually go fully through it. And now that I'm kind of like down that road, I'm like, okay, well I'm removing SEO as a marketing channel for myself because I think SEO is not going down the right path anymore.

And

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: um, I have a channel that I can bring on potentially. And so podcasting actually fits into the whole ecosystem 'cause it creates a ton of content for all

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: Um, and so now that I'm kinda like down that route, I'm like, okay, cool. Like this might be something to explore. Um, it was the same thing for. When I built a, i, I have a marketing community that I've built,

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: the last eight months. Um, and that idea once again was a year and a half, two years in the making. 'cause I always thought like if I run a community, then I have to do a bunch of these things and it's gonna add more workload. I have to do all this stuff and it takes away from my core business model.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

So now it actually has a function that plays for my core business model, and now it starts making sense to me to run that community.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: but my question was always like, I don't want this community to take a ton of my time. And so because of that, um, I now basically only do one meeting a month for the community.

I have a virtual networking event, and then

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: individual month I'll have someone come and do guest speaking. And so it doesn't take a lot of time for me now,

Sadaf Beynon: Mm-hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: it takes 30 minutes a month to run that group at the level that I wanna run it at, and

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Behdad Jamshidi: setting expectations properly. But to answer your question, I don't run towards the shiny objects

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. No, that's great. And I can also see you as a super connector. Um, why you would be drawn to podcasting.

Behdad Jamshidi: Yeah.

Sadaf Beynon: It's great.

Behdad Jamshidi: I talk to so many cool people and I'm like, I should probably talk to you about VC stuff. And it's, and a lot of it's around curiosity too, right? Like,

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: smart people that I talk to, and I'm like, I would love to learn more about that. Why am I not like just. Creating a podcast that's just like learn with be, um, you know, like as I'm learning from VCs and I'm learning from people doing like no code AI stuff.

Like

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: people wanna learn alongside, uh, that are also curious?

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. No, that's great. Bee, this has been such fun. Thank you so much for sharing your experience and your insight.

Behdad Jamshidi: Thanks for having me, uh, have a great time. I.

Sadaf Beynon: It's my pleasure. Before we wrap up though, Bee, where can our listeners connect with you and learn more about CJAM Marketing?

Sadaf Beynon: Hmm.

Behdad Jamshidi: website on the bottom, there's a resource section, uh, and there's a bunch of free resources there as well that.

Uh, business owners and uh, other marketing professionals can take advantage. Job.

Sadaf Beynon: Awesome. Thank you. And to those of you tuning in, thank you for joining us. You'll find all the links and details that Bees mentioned in the description, and if you're someone who's been thinking about using conversations to grow your own business, maybe even through a podcast, but don't have all the time to handle all the moving parts, we can help with that at Podjunction.

So head to podjunction.com to find out more or just reach out to me on LinkedIn. So bye from Bee and from me and I'll see you next time.