Amer Tadayon, a modern Renaissance man, shares his journey as an engineer turned tech innovator, filmmaker, and musician. He discusses the challenges of balancing creativity with business operations in his AI-powered video production platform, Lucihub. Amer reflects on the lessons learned from past ventures, emphasizing the importance of choosing the right investors and team members. He shares insights on leadership, problem-solving, and personal growth, drawing from influences like his mother, football coaches, and a pivotal math professor. Amer's story highlights the power of adaptability, continuous learning, and maintaining a creative outlet to recharge. His experiences offer valuable lessons for entrepreneurs on navigating the complexities of building and scaling businesses while striving for personal development.

Key Takeaways:

1. Prioritise and execute daily tasks

Amer emphasises the importance of setting three key tasks each day and ensuring they're completed, no matter what. This approach helps maintain focus and drive the business forward, especially for those with ADHD who may struggle with execution.

2. There's good money and bad money in business

Amer advises entrepreneurs to be cautious about accepting investments. He stresses the importance of finding investors who can add value beyond capital, such as through contacts and networks, rather than those who might have detrimental terms or motives.

3. Learn from failures faster

Amer recommends analysing failures promptly and applying the lessons learned. He emphasises the cost of repeating mistakes and the value of using past experiences to inform future decisions and actions in both personal and professional spheres.

If this episode of Push to be More piqued your interest make sure to keep up to date with everything we do here on the Push to be More Podcast.

Sadaf Beynon [0:13 - 1:59]: Hey there, and welcome back to Push to Be More. I'm Sadaf Beynon, one of your co hosts, and today we've got another great conversation about what it takes to make life work. Joining me today is our special guest, Amer Tadayon. And I'm excited for us to hear about his unique life experiences, the hurdles he's had to push through, the ways he recharges his spirit, and the steps he's taking to be more. In other words, it's all about push to be more. This episode is brought to you by Podjunction, where we're all about helping businesses share their stories and build real connections through the power of podcasting. Being part of the team at Podjunction, I've seen firsthand how podcasting can be a real game changer for reaching people and for making a real impact through meaningful conversations. Now, I know a lot of you listening are leaders and entrepreneurs. And if you're curious about what podcasting can do for you and your business, or if you're wondering where to even head, where to even start, sorry, head over to podjunction.com we'd love to help make the process clear and approachable for you. Podcasting offers a unique way to expand your reach and connect with your audience in ways that you may not have considered. And honestly, it's easier than you might think. So head on over to podjunction.com and see what podcasting can do for you. And now, meet Amer. Amer is a modern day Renaissance man, an engineer turned tech innovator with pit stops as a Hollywood filmmaker and professional musician. Now he's shaking up video production with Lucihub, blending AI smarts with human creativity to make high quality content a breeze. With a knack for turning big ideas into bigger realities, Amer is all about investing in people and making business a bold, creative adventure. Amer, welcome to the show.

Amer Tadayon [1:59 - 2:01]: Thanks, Sadaf. How are you?

Sadaf Beynon [2:01 - 2:04]: I'm well, thank you. It's a real privilege to have you tonight.

Amer Tadayon [2:04 - 2:05]: Well, thanks for having me.

Sadaf Beynon [2:05 - 2:21]: So, Amer, as you know, I run Podjunction, which is also the sponsor of this show. So the first question we ask our guests is if you had your own podcast, which I know you do have your own podcast, and you could invite anybody to be your guest. Who would you invite and why?

Amer Tadayon [2:22 - 3:17]: There's a lot of people I'd want to invite, but, you know, one that comes to mind is George Lucas, and I'll tell you why. Because he didn't set out to build an empire, no pun intended. He was a filmmaker. He wanted to bring his stories to life. And he did such a great job at that that the side effect was this huge are these huge organisations that he managed to build along the way. And so I'd be really curious as an entrepreneur, how he manages still being a creative and running a very large business, because they're typically not the same. And with my personal experience, it was once. Once the company was underway, I was no longer really involved in the creative as much as I'd like to be. I was always running the business. I was in operations and finance and all this stuff that's not sexy and fun. And those aren't the reasons you typically start a company. Those are the things that happen if the company actually moves forward and is in his, you know, doing well. So.

Sadaf Beynon [3:17 - 3:24]: Yeah. Well, it's interesting because I can see the parallels between your story and George Lucas's story as well.

Amer Tadayon [3:24 - 3:50]: Well, his story is grand compared to mine. You know, I. Lucy, I was a good example. I started this business because I had this idea and I wanted to see it come to life. In the first, probably 12 months, I was very involved in. In all of the product development, design, everything. And these days I'm not. These days I'm mostly involved in sales and capital raising and all the not so much fun things that go with having to build a business.

Sadaf Beynon [3:50 - 3:54]: Yeah. So how do you cope with that? How do you navigate that?

Amer Tadayon [3:54 - 4:30]: I still make sure I'm involved at some level on the product side. But you also can't micromanage. So I've got an amazing team and you let them do their job. But I do give my feedback, I do give my input. I meet with them once a week just to get a checkup of what's going on and make sure that they're going in the direction I'd want the company to be going into. But I'm not nearly as involved, you know, on the UX side of things or even in the architecture side of things. And so it's. It's kind of. It's interesting because I've noticed this pattern a couple of times in the businesses. So I'd be curious how somebody like George Lucas dealt with it at, you know, at the levels he's dealing at it with.

Sadaf Beynon [4:30 - 4:39]: Yeah, no, for sure. Also, I know that you have a creative side, don't you? So tell us more about what you do on the side that you have that outlet.

Amer Tadayon [4:39 - 5:33]: Yeah, I'm a musician. I'm a drummer. Some musicians, larger drummers aren't musicians, but I'm a musician and I lucky to live in Vegas where I get to play music with incredible artists and, and so I make an effort to, to play professionally a few times, A few times a month. That used to be more, but there's a startup in the way right now, so I've got to focus on that. So I do that. And then I have my Makers N Jam podcast, which really combines business and music. So I, I interview people who have, you know, varied backgrounds, but they have some form of musical background. And I interview them from behind a drum set and we talk about their life and their experience and then we jam with them and play some songs with them. So we had, we had this one person who was an attorney and she was actually a singer and she was an attorney. And her, the way she blew off steam as she went to Disneyland and so we played a couple of Disney songs with her and it was pretty fun.

Sadaf Beynon [5:33 - 5:42]: That's cool. That's cool. So it's, I, I guess you're not, you might not see the balance at work, but you are seeing it in life, right? You've got the creative blend as well.

Amer Tadayon [5:42 - 5:50]: Yes, yes. And I, and I, and I enjoy it and it's a, it's actually a good way for me to shut down work and just do something completely different.

Sadaf Beynon [5:50 - 5:59]: Reflecting back on your journey, what is something that you have found to be a challenge in your personal life or in your business?

Amer Tadayon [5:59 - 6:38]: So for me, I have adhd and I don't hide it. It is what it is. It's actually a double edged sword, I think, because it gives you a lot of creativity, but it also hinders you when it comes to executing. And so I really work, I think harder than most to balance that piece of it out so that I can actually finish on time and do things that, that need to get done. And these are things that people who usually have adhd. ADHD kind of suffer from. Right. So, But I think if you, if you flip the narrative, it's actually a superpower because it's, it's what lets you come up with some really grand ideas and move forward with them.

Sadaf Beynon [6:38 - 6:42]: So what does that, what does that look like on a day to day basis?

Amer Tadayon [6:42 - 7:53]: So for me, I have, my, one of my coaches would call me a mantra guy. I have a few mantras, okay. And I pick them up here and they're reading. One of them is from a book that I read. It's called Extreme Ownership. But the one mantra I have every morning is I get up in the morning and I prioritise and I execute. And so what I do is I keep a little sticky, I put three things on there. And regardless of what happens during the day, my day isn't over until those three tasks are completed. And typically they're tasks that have to move the business forward. So I look at the. In the morning, I go, what do I have to do to make sure that, you know, we've got money in the bank that customers are selling and the product is being delivered? And I typically look and see what the most important tasks are, and those are the things I focus on. Now, we'll all do a million things during the day, but whenever time it is, if I look at that sticky and it's still on my. On my monitor, and if it's not checked off, one thing isn't checked off, I'm not done for the night until it is. So that's one way I've been actually dealing with it, which is. Which has been been pretty good. And the other mantra is just, you know, focus on solutions, not problems. Any entrepreneur is going to get thrown, you know, million problems. You're basically a firefighter of sorts, right?

Sadaf Beynon [7:54 - 7:54]: Yeah.

Amer Tadayon [7:54 - 8:03]: And you could either dwell on what happened and why it happened, or you could figure out why it happened and go and fix it and focus on that. So those are the two things that I literally tell myself daily.

Sadaf Beynon [8:03 - 8:05]: So you've started several companies, haven't you?

Amer Tadayon [8:06 - 8:08]: I have, I have, yeah.

Sadaf Beynon [8:08 - 8:15]: So what's something that didn't go as planned and what did that experience teach you?

Amer Tadayon [8:15 - 9:23]: I had. I've had a few things not go as planned. And, you know, they talk. They talk about failures being lessons. Only if you learn from them, otherwise. Yeah, but I think one of the biggest ones, and I think anybody who's an entrepreneur should be wary of this, is there's good money and bad money. And. And by that, I mean there are people who will invest in your company who will have the ability, the contacts, the network to help you help grow and sell it. And there are people who will invest in your money because they're looking for an opportunity to take something. And I. I unfortunately took some capital on one of the businesses that ended up coming with some really bad terms and it ended up costing me that business. And so that's one of the lessons I moved forward with. And this company could have been even better capitalised earlier on, but we walked away from investments because the terms were just too egregious. And it hurt. It hurt really bad because that meant I had to finance, you know, growth and I had to finance a Runway and Things like that. But I've been on the other end to see what happens when you bring the wrong people in just because you need capital.

Sadaf Beynon [9:23 - 9:23]: Yeah.

Amer Tadayon [9:23 - 9:30]: So that's one of the biggest lessons I've been trying to overcome. Avoid, or one of the biggest mistakes I've been trying to avoid, not do again.

Sadaf Beynon [9:32 - 9:34]: So how would you have done things differently?