The Mindset Shifts That Changed Everything | Naeem Mahmood

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues, host Pedro sits down with Naeem Mahmood for a powerful conversation about entrepreneurship, leadership, personal growth, and what it truly takes to build a successful business in today's fast-changing world. Naeem shares valuable lessons from his journey, discussing the mindset shifts, challenges, and strategic decisions that have shaped his career and helped him navigate both opportunities and setbacks.

Throughout the discussion, they explore the importance of resilience, self-awareness, and continuous learning as essential ingredients for long-term success. Naeem explains how entrepreneurs can adapt to changing markets, overcome obstacles, and stay focused on creating meaningful impact while building sustainable businesses. He also shares insights on leadership, decision-making, and the habits that separate high performers from those who struggle to gain traction.

Pedro and Naeem dive deep into the realities of business growth, including the challenges of scaling, maintaining focus, managing uncertainty, and developing the confidence required to move forward when the path isn't always clear. The conversation highlights the importance of taking ownership of your journey, embracing calculated risks, and remaining committed to personal and professional development.


Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naeem-mahmood-aa84b019
Website: https://www.naeemmahmood.com/

Transcript

Naeem Mahmood 0:00

For me, business is a skill, just like being a great coach is a skill. So learning that skill set of a business where it's the same for any business. And obviously there's some differences based on industry, but in general, there's patterns in business that are the same across the board, which is why, again, I know if you're a great business owner, you could do a business in any industry. But that's where I realized, oh, like, yeah, I have to learn business skills, not just coaching skills. And then yeah, it is, it is a wild learning curve from going from having leads to having to do the marketing, the sales process, the delivery process, the contracts and agreements and the legal uh and all just top to bottom, the different areas of business that you have to cover. And ultimately you want to build a team around it. But as an entrepreneur in the beginning, you're a solo entrepreneur until you can actually get enough traction to do that. Or if you want to get investors, which is a totally different ballgame as well. So I'd say you need to set up systems so you don't burn out. And the first system you need to set up is your own personal system.

Davis Nguyen 0:49

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues, the podcast where we interview business owners on how they built their businesses and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is David Swin, and I'm a business coach and a founder of Purple Circle, where we help business owners achieve their first six-figure, seven-figure, and eight-figure year, all without sacrificing their quality of life. Before becoming a business coach and before founding Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven and eight-figure coaching businesses and have been a consultant at several businesses doing over $100 million each, including some that are publicly listed and doing over a billion dollars. In every episode of the podcast, you're going to learn lessons that took our guests years to learn, and you'll be able to learn that in minutes. No matter if you're a new business owner or an established business owner, every episode is going to give you the clues in order to elevate your business.

Pedro 1:33

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Naeem Mahmoud, a world-renowned speaker, performance coach, and business strategist who graduated with honors from NYU while playing on the basketball team, a combination that shaped his understanding of how peak performance works both on and off the court. Over the past nine years, Naeem has delivered over 1,000 talks and trainees across the United States, impacting over 50,000 lives across organizations, including Google, JP Morgan, the United States Army, Berkshire, Hathaway, and Salesforce. Naeem's mission is helping businesses, brands, and individuals achieve rapid, measurable improvements in work and life, with students actively learning from him in 113 plus countries around the world. His clients consistently describe his work as culture changing, creating spaces where teams become more cohesive, authentic, and deeply connected while delivering results that go far beyond inspiration. Welcome to the show, Naeem. Wow, what an introduction. Thank you, Pedro. Great to be here. Okay. Well, you're the one to blame, you know, Naeem. You came up with all that. I'm I just read it, honestly. That's all you're doing. That's what I'm saying, okay? Now, I'm excited to record with you the episode since the day we met, okay? And I'd love for us to rewind a bit, a bit, you know, back to the origin story. Because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you?

Naeem Mahmood 3:17

Yeah, that's so funny. It's a it's I think you're right on that, that general pattern for coaches. But for me, it was a little bit of a gradual thing. I kind of just one day I'm like, I never planned on being a coach. It was never like a thought or a vision of mine. But I got into my my origin story. I worked on Wall Street. I didn't like what I was doing. I got into reading personal growth books, then it gave me the understanding, oh, I could do what I want, I could travel, I could start my own business, I could live wherever I want, which I was living my life with a lot of shoulds, but not what I actually want for my life. Because that's kind of how I was programmed that way growing up, like I'm a lot of people are. So once I started getting more results for my life and I went to more events, I hired more coaches for myself, I got better results. It was really cool just to see the growth and the uh ability to create what I wanted in life. And then more and more people naturally started coming to me, asking me questions, and I loved helping them, which most people do, they love helping other people. So and uh then I realized, oh, I can make a business out of this because that's when coaching was starting to take, get some more lift in the world. And I worked for Tony Robbins for a few years as well, for five years, one of his speakers and trainers. And that that kind of boosted me even more. And then after I left Tony, then I really went all in on uh building my coaching and speaking business now. Okay, but yeah, to answer your question, though, like it's kind of I guess maybe when I started working for Tony, I was like, I'm all in. Cause when you work for Tony, it's it's all in, right? You can't like be sitting there half half committed. I don't know if we can curse on this podcast. So yeah.

Pedro 4:41

Well, you can if you want to. There's not a problem with it. Okay, you're all good. Now I'm I'm curious about one thing, you know. Uh well, a couple things actually. The first one is that I gotta peel it off a little bit. It's like you mentioned programmed, like a lot of people are. That caught my attention. Can you expand on that? Like, because in a way, knowing a little bit more about you, and we're gonna talk about that. It sounds like this is part of what you can help them help people with. You know, I'm curious about the pro the programmed stuff.

Naeem Mahmood 5:14

Like, how did that look like for you? I love that, man. Yeah, it's a great question. And it is a little bit of a generalization, right? So I'm not trying to say everybody's programmed, but honestly, well, we kind of are too. So it's hard to balance that. But basically, we grow up and we never we have this, we got AI, obviously. Everybody's so excited about AI, and it's the most amazing technology ever invented. It's gonna change the world more than ever, more than fire, more than sticks, more than the steam engine, more than the printing press. But even AI, the most important technology is not AI, it's this your mind and the neural net that's going between your brain and your nervous system and your heart. But nobody takes time to learn about it. And we we don't get taught how to use that in school growing up. So we are kind of just programmed from our parents, from school, from the news, from social media now, from just random experiences that happened to you growing up. And most people don't learn how to change any of that stuff. So, say I got chased by a dog when I was like eight years old and I was freaked out. And I had a phobia of German Shepherds because it was a big beautiful, it was a beautiful German Shepherd, but I was it was chasing me, so I was scared. So I had a phobia of German Shepherds. And if I never learned how to change that phobia for myself, I would keep having that. That's what a lot of people that go to war unfortunately experience, post-traumatic stress, something that happens too fast, too soon, too quickly, where it's like this traumatic experience. And but the cool thing is again, just like a computer, you could unplug that program that gets installed. So for somebody, for me, for the German Shepherd, for example, right? It's like a big scary dog coming at me, like in my head. And I every time that happens, my nervous system creates this crazy response that that causes me to freak out and fire off endorphins and cortisol and all these emotions and hormones that don't serve me.

Pedro 6:55

Okay. Now I want to expand on another topic that I think it's at least adjacent, which is like sometimes I see a lot of people, they're it sounds like they're playing by someone else's rule book, playbook, like they're looking at their neighbors and they're like, so that's what success looks like. And they try to replicate, right? By comparison. Yeah. So do you think there is part of that that people are like kind of programmed in a way they're trying to replicate someone else's life? Like, for example, with social media, right? We see sometimes I see a lot of people comparing their inner self to their other self of others in like Instagram or whatever.

Naeem Mahmood 7:32

Yeah. 100% spot on. Yeah. It's unfortunate. And again, hip society is kind of in a hypnosis, and a lot of it is status. So many people are addicted to status and significance. And that's why social media, it's a beautiful technology, but again, if you don't use it the right way, it's going to use you. And most people, it's using them. So it's most people's highlight reels, they're showing flashy cars, flashy lifestyle, flashy whatever. And it's all like a lot of it's also engineered moments, but even most people, they're not going to show the regular moments, they're going to show the best moments. So it's kind of creating this self-fulfilling thing where every time you log on, I noticed it too. I don't really jump on Instagram much anymore because it's the algorithm. And again, AI, it knows how you think and every button you press. So every time you keep going in, you're informing it what you like, what you don't like. And every time I go on Instagram now, I just use it on the desktop once in a while to check it out. It's like, it's like a crazy dopamine rush, kind of like going into a casino. It's like every every highlight at the top of all my friends and people, it knows I want to press all the posts or the showing up in the thing. So it answers your question 100%. It's very uh wild the way the uh it's set up right now. And that's why it's even more important and why I love our industry, Pedro, learning how to take control of this, because then you'll be able to not let that take control of you. Okay.

Pedro 8:43

Now, uh another thing I'm very curious about. Like usually in the show, I ask about the shift, right? From sometimes even coach to business owner. But in your situation, I I want to ask a different question because your leap of faith, to me, it sounds like my I mean the part that is more interesting at least, is that you're leaving uh the Tony Robbins practice, right? That coaching space to your own practice. And there is a leap of faith there because you're working like what? The the best of the best, right? And you're like, okay, I'm gonna run myself, my own business here. So can you walk me through how that looked like? You know, what what did you experience by when you were like, okay, yeah, I I'm I'm going full nae now.

Naeem Mahmood 9:24

Yeah. So I'd say the big that wasn't the biggest leap for me was leaving my Wall Street job and just jumping out. Because the Tony job, when I was working for Tony, I was I already had in my mind before that, my ultimate goal was to always have my own business so I could travel and work anywhere in the world with my fiance. And Tony encourages that, obviously, right? Tony is about making other people's dreams true. So even people that weren't there, he wants to empower you to go do your thing if that's your ultimate vision for your life. So I was prepared for that. And obviously, being in that work, being in that world, I was definitely prepared. And still, it was a leap for sure, because it was really nice to be in that bubble. And it was really nice to be able to, like, when you're in that bubble of being so close to Tony, there's a certain level of awesome things happening, right? You're just so it's kind of like if you play basketball LeBron James, there's amazing things happening, like just in that world. So that was a little bit of a leap where it's like everywhere I go, it's like, oh, you work for Tony, amazing. You work for Tony, amazing. You're kind of like a little mini celebrity, which is cool. So that was a leap jumping out and then also leaving that system and framework for sure was a leap. But ultimately it was what I wanted. And it was there's always a learning curve to building your own business, which I'm still learning because business goes through different seasons and phases, even if you're at seven figures, eight figures, it just different lessons to learn and capabilities to take on. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun so far and just having a growth mindset about it has been uh very okay.

Pedro 10:39

Now, let me ask you this uh after you got rolling, right? Who are the people that kept showing up for your own business, right? The ones you realize, okay, this is my tribe. Yeah.

Naeem Mahmood 10:50

I'd say definitely just my close friends and definitely the people. This is why going to personal development events and investing in yourself and hiring coaches, is so important because the real people, it was definitely my friends, but also the new friends I developed. New friends in the personal growth space, new coaches, new people that worked at Tony, new friends that I met in masterminds. So, because they were on the same path, right? They're trying to build their thing too. So they kind of get what you're doing. Versus sometimes my older friends, which I still love and care for and have a great relationship with a lot of them, but some of them that had a job maybe on Wall Street or whatever, they didn't really understand what I was going through. And a lot of them honestly did think I'm kind of crazy to do that. You're like leaving this nice job to go try to start a coaching business. So I definitely think 100% surrounding yourself with a like-minded tribe of people that are going in your direction and also finding mentors because mentors 20 years ahead of you, 30 years ahead of you that have been there, they're also a great support as well. Okay.

Pedro 11:42

And expanding in your own practice, right? Who would you say is like the the ones you serve, right? Your potential clients. Who's your ICP?

Naeem Mahmood 11:50

Yeah. So I work with founders that are generally doing like between a million to $10 million in their businesses a year. They're killing it on paper, but they feel empty underneath. Usually it's around their identity or their relationships or money. And they didn't hire, they don't hire me to grow their business. They already know how to do that. But what they do hire me for is they want to fix what's going on in the inner world, right? Their fulfillment, their happiness, their meaning, deeper intimacy in their relationship. Interesting. Okay.

Pedro 12:16

Now let me pretend I'm one of those founders. Okay. I'm one of those guys who's killing it on paper, but I'm feeling kind of stuck, kind of empty, you know. Is this all about? Is this what this is all about? Like I'm I'm hitting that ceiling even. Yeah. And uh first of all, how would I be able to find you, Naeem, you know, marketing-wise.

Naeem Mahmood 12:35

Yeah, so I have my website, I'm on social media, um, I have my podcast too, my Peak Humans Podcast. But most of my marketing I like to do is uh through referrals and also my the events that I do. But yeah, those are the general ways, right? The organic. Sometimes you run paid ads, but I honestly am not really a it's interesting. When I first started my business, I thought I should run ads. But I actually I know a lot of close friends, they keep it very private on purpose. So that's that's always been a nice, and I'm sharing this because I'm I'm sure some coaches think about this too, because we also run a coaching school. I have a business with my business partner, Jarek Robbins, called Performance Coach University. And a lot of people feel like they should be on social media or should do certain things. But what you really should do is kind of find your lane and what's best for you that's gonna help you grow. So my favorite way of building my business is through referrals. And then my podcast is great. Doing talks is always the best. Like if I'm in person doing an event, like that's always the best, right? People see me, they feel me, they experience me, they know I'm the real deal and they resonate. And that that conversion and that quality of lead is always uh the best. So that's my preferred way to do it. And it's more fun for me too to be outside and in the world and meeting people face to face.

Pedro 13:38

Yeah, the in person, right? It's funny because uh like today I receive a tax on my whatever LinkedIn or Instagram, and the first thing I think is like, is this a bot? You know? Yeah. And when you're in person, you're already skipping that step. You you know, it's like it's I don't know, man, it's so different, right? And and it brings credibility and and you're there in the setting, the context, and all that. So that'll make a lot of sense. Now, back to my exercise here of being your ICP, your ideal client profile. Okay, I'm still that founder. Let's say I heard you on a podcast and listened to one of your episodes, or I was referred to work with you, or even I was in one of those events, right? And I'm like, hey, Naeem seems like a cool dude, you know. I wanna I wanna talk with him. Eventually, we got in touch, right? Let's say I went through the sales process. There is alignment. You can help me, you know. I understand you can help me. Now, can you walk me through how does it look like work with you and the potential outcomes I can expect out of it?

Naeem Mahmood 14:42

When you say how does it look, do you see the actual format of how it works with people or just kind of like just the experience overall?

Pedro 14:47

It could be the experience overall. Like, pretend I want to take a look at behind a curtain a little bit and also let's expand a little bit. Is it a one-to-one? Is it a one-to-many? How does that look like? You know? Sure. Great question. Yeah.

Naeem Mahmood 14:59

So I have a couple formats. So in the coaching arena, so there's group, I have a group for founders that want to be in the group experience, which is great because a lot of times you learn from each other. And I I helped to create the container and we have coaches as well in the business as well that help to do that. And then there is one-on-one access as well. People want more of a personal touch, more uh private access. They I do have uh available spots for one-on-one. And then even within the one-on-one, we have what I call the longevity aspect. I'm sure you're kind of keeping up to date with all the advancements in AI and longevity and things like that. So for clients that really want to dial in their health and their longevity, we have that as part of the package as well, where we do their labs, their diagnostics. If they want to get on peptides, we help them with that. And that's not even me. I have a team of doctors and nurses that are like real doctors and nurses that help people with that. If through a clinic that I work with in Aspen, Colorado, and my partner, he's uh got a PhD in longevity. But generally it's again the group and then it's the or the one-on-ones. Okay.

Pedro 15:55

I mean, I am curious about one thing. It's like you're you have a group and a one-on-one setting, right? And there are a lot of coaches out there listening, and sometimes they wonder if they should launch their first cohort group, whatever they want to call it.

Naeem Mahmood 16:08

Yeah.

Pedro 16:09

I have my own thoughts about it. I feel like they're different because sometimes they're comparing a one-on-one to a group, but it's just the dynamics in my perspective perspective. It's different, right? And so each their own lane. But from your perspective, right? I want to hear about you. Would you encourage someone to launch a group? That's the first. If you're a coach out there, listen. And for and second, how did it felt like when you launched it? And was it a scary? How you know, uh, how did it felt like for you?

Naeem Mahmood 16:36

Yeah, sure. So I'd say with this too, again, people need to really tune into their true nature. My friend Nico always says this. He's a meditation teacher and meditation coach, studies in India with all these amazing rishis. And uh I love how he says that. You always have to tune into your own essence and your own true nature. So I know I have a friend that's doing over seven figures a month in his business. And he told me, he's like, all you should do is group coaching. And I'm like, that's a great, like, cool. That sounds amazing. Sounds like it's working for him. And he's like, don't do one-on-one. But I also have friends that are doing just one-on-one, and some do a hybrid, and they're killing it too. And it's not just about the money. I'm just saying, like, as an example, like they're obviously doing well in serving people if they're making that much money and people are getting results. So my answer is I wouldn't say just one or the other. I feel like there's so many kind of cookie-cutter recipes, even as marketers, right? It's like you should do this funnel and do a VSL or do a webinar. Like, there is no right way. Even like organic or paid ads or whatever, you need to really tune in to see what resonates most with you and what feels most aligned with you. So for me, like I love it, it's a nice split for me to be able to do. I love the one-on-one, but I also love the group. And it's a nice split to be able to have both those available where if somebody is somebody isn't always necessarily a good fit for me one-on-one, but they are a good fit for the group and vice versa. But I'd say for people listening that are trying to kick it off or just get some traction, I'd say tune into really what aligns most with you. Generally, I would say one-on-one is probably smart if you're just getting started because you do want to really understand more about your ICP and learn more and like get those patterns and pain points and really understand what's happening. So if you're literally just starting out, I wouldn't try to do both and I would probably lean towards one-on-one. But even still, I'd still say you got to tune into really what's your true nature and what's uh calling you.

Pedro 18:20

Appreciate the insight. Okay. Now I'm thinking about something here to ask you for a while. Like you're moving from Tony Robbins, right practice, and you have in that situation the background is being handled, right? The leads, the sales. You not saying it easy, but you show up and do the thing, right? But when you move to a bus by being a business owner, you have to deal with everything. And I I see a lot of coaches out there that they advocate against burnout, but sometimes they're burning out themselves. Like they're wearing all the hats. They're the sales, the business development, marketing. And there's coaching, right? At the end of it. Now, how do you think about capacity? So don't stretch yourself to a theme.

Naeem Mahmood 19:03

Yep, 100%. It is wild. Working for Tonyo is like insane how many leads there are. It's like I could just open the database, the CRM, and make calls for days to new people. And part of my job, it wasn't just getting new leads. Part of my job was sourcing my own leads, which was great because I I built that skill set to go knock on doors and just meet people during the day and book talks and set talks and do talks and things like that. But generally, you said, how do how should people think about the leads or building their business?

Pedro 19:29

It's more about the capacity, right? So manage your time when you have to deal with everything as a coach.

Naeem Mahmood 19:35

Yeah, it is crazy. Like again, that's where the business side of it is. And this is what's cool for me. Business is a skill, just like being a great coach is a skill. So learning that skill set of a business where it's the same for any business. And obviously, there's some differences based on industry, but in general, there's patterns in business that are the same across the board, which is why, again, I know if you're a great business owner, you could do a business in any industry. But that's where I realized, oh, like, yeah, I have to learn business skills, not just coaching skills. And then, yeah, it is it is a wild learning curve from going from having leads to having to do the marketing, the sales process, the delivery process, the contracts and agreements and the legal uh and all just top to bottom, the different areas of business that you have to cover. And ultimately you want to build a team around it. But as an entrepreneur, in the beginning, you're a solo entrepreneur until you can actually get enough traction to do that. Or if you want to get investors, which is a totally different ballgame as well. So I'd say you need to set up systems so you don't burn out. And the first system you need to set up is your own personal system. You need to have your own daily practices to feed yourself, work out, meditate, journal, whatever it might be, to start the day, to end the day, make sure you get sleep. Like I wear this whoop and it make it a game changer. When I actually know how much REM and deep sleep I'm getting every day, that's the most important, powerful drug on the planet. Sleep. Like it's gonna help you more than anything in the world can help you. If you're sick or not feeling good, you got to dial into your sleep. So I'd say, yeah, like build that architecture around your physical, mental, emotional well-being. You got to coach yourself first. And even you should definitely have a coach if you are a coach. I tell everybody you should have a coach, but especially if you are a coach, you want to practice what you preach and then build systems in your business too. Because again, you're not gonna do it all in one day. So you got to build sales systems, marketing systems, delivery of the product systems, innovation systems. So that's my short answer for what you just said.

Pedro 21:24

Interesting. I appreciate that, man. I I actually struggle with that. I'm a coach too, right? So I struggle, kind of struggle with that. Like I worked in banking, not in Wall Street, but a bank here in Brazil. I work in corporate Ernest and Young. And when I clocked out, I clocked out, right? I was like Sayonara to everything. But when I'm a business owner and I am a podcast full time host, sometimes I have fun doing it. I believe it or not, right? I'm having fun working. And sometimes like I'm looking at it like 10 hours go by, and I'm like, this is gonna get me depleted either way. You know, it's not just about having fun or not, it's like an in energy outtake. Eventually. So having to compare the different experiences I had with uh like clocking in out from corporate and being more miserable with today that I sometimes overworth, but I'm having fun, it's a hard balance for me, you know. Even coaches out there that are like sometimes they're so passionate about their work, right? They want to help people, they want to impact the world. So I appreciate you sharing that insight. Like it's coach. You have to coach yourself first, right? That's what she said. Yep.

Naeem Mahmood 22:27

Exactly. Yep. You nailed it, man. There's a great concept, and you guys could YouTube, look it up on YouTube. It's called the 20 Mile March. It's from the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, I think his name is. But basically, there's an most people, again, even if it's fun, I'm having so much fun. I love my business, and most of it is fun. But even still, when you're having so much fun, there's an upper bound and a lower bound. So every day you have to have a minimum standard for what you'll do no matter what, even if you're feeling bad, even if it won't feel like making a sales call. It's like every day, no matter what, I make 10 sales calls. And then also on an upper bound, and that's just on the sales part, right? There's obviously other things too. But then the upper bound, it's like on a good day, if I'm feeling amazing and I'm having the best time in the world, it's like, oh, no matter what, I gotta shut the screens off by seven, get ready for bed, and make sure I'm asleep by nine or ten so I can get full sleep, wake up early, meditate, go to the gym, and be ready for the next day.

Pedro 23:15

You gotta you gotta find yourself in the middle, like having those agreements that it's not like a super high note, yes, I'm having the best time of my life and keep working. And that you've got to respect the boundaries, it sounds like.

Naeem Mahmood 23:27

Exactly. Yep. And it's the consistency over time. Because some people they do a little bit same day every day over and over. And if you do that over 25 years, that's gonna exponentially get you a totally different result than the person that does a bunch of work one day and then they get tired, and then a bunch of work the next day and they get tired. Like that choppy flow is not gonna get you to where you want to go, especially if you zoom out and look at on a larger time scale.

Pedro 23:50

I saw it's trying to it's like trying to get some or body in a day at gym at the gym. It's like it's not, it doesn't work like that. You gotta find consistency. Okay. Exactly. Got it. And you know this. No, I'm curious about where you're taking all this, man. Shifting gears for a second, you know, future. Looking ahead, what do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling, hiring, or is there a next step you're excited about?

Naeem Mahmood 24:11

Yeah. So it's interesting. I try to make sure this is where it's really important to have a values architecture of the business. So my top value for the business is always having fun and enjoying what I'm doing and then impact, and then definitely making a lot of money. I like making money. Before I used to be like, I shouldn't make a lot of money, but definitely making a lot of money. But making sure those are the sequence stays intact. So I definitely want to keep having a lot of fun in the business every single day. And again, it's not every moment's gonna be fun. There's sometimes you're gonna be a little painful and arduous for sure. And then I want to make sure I keep having impact. So, in terms of like the vision for that, we should do a better job measuring it. That'd be fun, right? Just how many lives and things like that. Like I have a little bit of my intro. I want to figure that out better with my team now that we shifted to kind of the business model a little bit to more to the one-on-ones. But impact more lives over the next, I look at it on like 10-year timescales, right? So over the next 10 years, impacting more lives, obviously. I don't want to just throw out a random number arbitrarily, but just and this is where people, for me, I'm like, even if it's one person, instead of like a billion lives, I'm like, let's just impact like one life today or even this week. So kind of taking off some of that pressure to like be so important, right? And be so significant, which has been really helpful for me. And then I'd say for money for sure, I do I definitely want to be making like a million dollars a month. Uh, but again, it's not like my top focus, because if it does become the top focus, then it's gonna get me into scarcity mode and not enjoy the process as much. So that's not like my leading indicator. And I think the money is just really a reflection of how much value I put out there and how many lives I touch.

Pedro 25:38

Interesting. Okay.

Naeem Mahmood 25:40

But I do want to keep building the podcast to give you more tangible answer, right? Build the podcast, have more awesome guests like Jack Canfield, build my cro program, right? I'd love to have a thousand founders in there, maybe in the next three, four, five years or something like that. That'd be cool, right? Have a thousand founders in the group program. One-on-one, I'm not really tracking that too much because again, that's more of like a private case-by-case basis in terms of it's a good fit for people to work with me. And then definitely more events and talks, because I love doing events and talks. So I love to just keep reaching more audiences and uh touch more lives that way as well.

Pedro 26:10

Yeah, I was thinking about what you said, right? Um the goals we set for ourselves. And sometimes I I think that really hits home. It's like if I set a goal that is not very tangible, it's a little bit too much of a stretch, and I don't hit it, I'm like, uh, what what do I even try? You know, and I stopped trying where I got back to square one, like, oh, I just disappointed myself again. So, in your point of view, it's more about hitting realistic goal goals or something like that. Did I got that right?

Naeem Mahmood 26:41

I'd say realistic goals, but also you're just getting more clear on the values because the goal, a lot of people set goals, but they don't hit their goals because they're not clear on their values, and also because their goals aren't aligned with their values. So making sure the goal, the values lead the goals first. Because again, if my top goal values are fun and impact and money, and before I was like, I want to grow my business to $100,000 a month, or I want to have 50 clients a month, right? Whatever the numbers are. And I wasn't moving in those directions because that wasn't really my top value. Your value determines what you're gonna move towards and away from. So when people arbitrarily say, hey, I want to do this goal, but it's not aligned with their real core values, they're not gonna move towards the valve towards it. And then they're gonna keep repeating that cycle and be frustrated, like, damn it, why don't I do that? I keep not setting my hitting my goal. But if you really attune to it, be like, oh wow, like my real like core values are this, like fun and impact and then money too, and like, oh, that makes sense. Like, that's why I'm not running first to the money goal. I'm running first to like the enjoyment goal, the impact goal. And you just still need to make sure it aligns, kind of like a Venn diagram. It's like you got to make sure if there's like three circles, in this case for my values, fun, impact, and money, I want to make because I still want to make sure I make money because some people are like, oh, it doesn't matter about the money and they're broke. So you still need to be intelligent and make sure it hits your targets, right? So I'm not saying don't think about the money at all. As a business owner, especially, you need to have KPIs, KPAs, take your action items, make sure you practice your sales skills, practice your closing skills. So that's definitely still very important.

Pedro 28:09

It's like don't ignore the data, but don't don't turn it into the main drive, right? That's just part of it, part of the process. Because if you want to impact more people eventually, you're gonna have to need those numbers, right? The the business side and all of that. That's basically what you're meant.

Naeem Mahmood 28:25

Yep. Yeah, 100%. Nailed it. And ultimately, it's again, it's up to you. Some people love the data and good for them, right? And they just they just love focusing on the data, and that's awesome, right? And they probably and then they kill it in the data world. I have friends that are, I have a lot of clients that are AI, they're they love AI, right? They're building agents, open clause, and I think it's really cool. I'm learning AI and playing with it a lot, and I'm using it all the time in my business, but I'm not like data, like even for marketing, right? Like on ads and cost per click and things like that. Like I do not love looking at the data. So ultimately, what's smart with that, you got to find somebody who not how, right? Instead of me trying to do that, because that's not my nature. I find somebody that's great at that, that loves it to go do it for me. Who not how?

Pedro 29:01

That's from Dan Martell, right?

Naeem Mahmood 29:03

Dan Sullivan.

Pedro 29:04

Then Sullivan, yeah. Dr. Naim Rung.

Naeem Mahmood 29:07

Okay. That's the other one. Dan Sullivan's great. He's a great coach. I was in his program, strategic coach. It's a great uh program.

Pedro 29:12

Nice. Appreciate the insight. Okay. You know, and whenever we're aiming towards the next chapter, we're just talking about future, right? There's always something we're working in the present. So, what are you currently trying to improve or tighten up in your business right now, Naem?

Naeem Mahmood 29:25

Right now, we're tightening up. What are we doing? We're building up the AI. The the thing that we're doing that that's taking most of my focus, again, like I told you before the call is the Discord where my AI agents are. It's really that. It's really just getting these AI systems to work better together and inform my coaching process better and also make it more streamlined. So it's amazing, though, the tools, right? Because I could have all these transcripts now so I can understand patterns better with clients. I could come to them better with exercises and how to help them better during calls. I can, I'm also building out products through that. So I can now have products for certain challenges clients would come to me for with the AI system. So just learning how to kind of just build this all together and still breathe at the same time because it is can be overwhelming too, right? Because it's very exciting and it's kind of like lighter fuel on a fire.

Pedro 30:12

We got to respect the boundaries we will that we were talking about earlier, right? Yep. Exactly. Yeah, yelled in. Okay. Now let me ask you this last question. Okay. Let's pretend we have a time machine in front of you. Okay. And you can hop on that and give past naim when he was opening shop, his business, right? The mood ventures. He can give past naim one piece of business advice. What would that look like?

Naeem Mahmood 30:37

Yeah, great question. So I would say to join communities like yours, like Purple Circle. Like the best thing you can do to grow is not read books, not even jump on the AI. It's to be around peers, like you asked me before, right? Having that tribe that helped me to go to the next level. It's being around a peer group and a mastermind group and also mentors and coaches that know your outcome, that are aligned with your outcome, that are there to support you and also challenge you and kick you in the butt when you need it. And that's the quickest way to learn by osmosis. If I want to be great, I played basketball in college. If I want to be a great basketball player, the more I get on the court with people like a LeBron James, if I was able to even do that, the better I would get, the quicker I'd get. So it doesn't always feel good originally because you kind of, you're like, damn, I'm not very good. I kind of suck. And that's where you have to realize, oh, yeah, that that's engineered that way. But you're gonna, your skill set and your capabilities are gonna grow a lot quicker and you'll get to the next level a lot quicker as well. And same in business. If you want to grow your business more, which I'm sure people do here too, same thing. You guys I know help people with that too, right? When you have great business uh entrepreneurs around you that are already where you want to be, you're gonna be able to grow the business a lot quicker than trying to figure it out yourself or reading even a book by yourself, right? When you're doing it and applying it in real time with people, that's the best way to learn.

Pedro 31:52

And also it humanizes other people, right? For example, we just came back from our retreat, right? And then sometimes you sit down with a guy that exited a business at what, 110 million, and he's just joking around with the guys and cracking up jokes, and it's like just a human being, right? So it it it you don't have that perception of, oh, that's impossible. That's uh I'm never gonna reach that. So whenever you you hang around people like that, you're like, okay, I think I can do it too. Yeah, right. I I mean it's not that far. Exactly. I love the reminder. Exactly. Then you nailed it. Yep. Okay. Now, Naeem, if someone listening wants to connect with your follower work, and we're gonna have all the links in the description, okay? Where can people find you and connect with you? Like the best place to go.

Naeem Mahmood 32:34

Yeah, sure. They can go to my website, it's naimamod.com, and then from there everything is uh linked to that, and then all my social is just my name at Naeemamod.

Pedro 32:41

Okay, you know, Naeem, there were certain parts of this chat that I feel the need to highlight. I would say when we're talking about the origin story, right? And you're like, yeah, you gotta find your lane and what's best for you, and you cap that the entire episode, like find your true nature, you know, get clear on the values. And I'm asking you tactical, and it sounds like in a way, I'm even asking the wrong questions, right? Because you're like always going deep, you're always in a deeper level, you're always bringing back to reason of like, okay, but where do you want to go? What what drives you? What do you want? Is it money? Okay, go get money, buddy. You know, it was for a while for me, and believe it or not, that was a time I made a little not enough money or not as much as I wanted because the balance was off, you know. Whenever you have that intention, and it sounds like you're a very purpose-driven guy, you know, whenever you have that really dialed in, you're gonna find your uh happiness, your sweet spot. And it sounds like you're kind of into it, right? In that. So kudos to you, man. And I appreciate what you do, you know, and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today. You know, it was great having you. Absolutely, Pedro.

Naeem Mahmood 33:51

I appreciate you, man. Thank you for having me on. It's great chatting with you. And uh, love the work you guys are doing. I love uh what you're up to, man. It's it's great to have uh we're all in the same tribe, trying to make the world a better place through coaching. So great, awesome job, man. Editor, cut here, poink.

Davis Nguyen 34:05

That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business through six, seven, and eight figured years, all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at join purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you and your business.