B2B Community Builder Show (formerly Chief Executive Connector)

117 | Turning A Company Culture Around From Chaos To Acquired In 6 Months w/ Ahad Ghadimi

June 14, 2021 Pablo Gonzalez / Ahad Ghadimi Season 3 Episode 117
B2B Community Builder Show (formerly Chief Executive Connector)
117 | Turning A Company Culture Around From Chaos To Acquired In 6 Months w/ Ahad Ghadimi
Show Notes Transcript

We have a returning guest on the show, none other than Ahad Ghadimi!

He's a turnaround artist that makes companies profitable by improving their corporate culture and creating employee ownership.
 
He does it by launching groups and communities within the company to make sure that everybody's on the same page, and his methodology has worked in companies as small as family-owned restaurants to enormous manufacturing facilities.

Get ready to dig into his brain with me!
 
Enjoy!

Connect with Ahad on LinkedIn!

Read Ahad's book! Turnaround Artists

Connect with ME!

Also, I'd love it if you connected with me on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Or shoot me an email at youshould@connectwithpablo.com with the "Heard CEC's Ahad" in subject.

This that's a genius email address?  Me too, but I didn't come up with it.  It was the idea of my good friend, and super talented web designer, Nathan Ruff.

If you want your website redone, updated, and managed with unlimited updates for just $250/month (CRAZY GOOD DEAL RIGHT??), go to Manage My Website and hookup with one of the smartest, most talented guys I've ever met- THE Nathan Ruff.

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Ahad Ghadimi:

I sit on the board of the the Rocky mountain employee ownership center and our commitment is to create more employee owners. I mean, that's just my north star in life. I think when you have more employee owners, when you have more people, especially in the front lines of business thinking and acting like owners and being trained on financial literacy and understand how a business operates and how costs operate, and they can apply those things to their personal lives like budgeting. it gives people a lot of pride, a lot of agency in their own lives. And and it helps fill the wealth inequality gap because people actually can understand how they can have an impact, a real impact in their business their power to do so. And, and here's really what I love about all, what ties it all together is. All these things apply ownership, forums at work. it changes the conversation people have at the dinner table at night. So instead of people going home and saying like, oh, my boss did this, or, oh, they're jerks or this, like, they're brainstorming about what they're like, ideas are they're, they're, they're empowered. They, they see how they can have people can have an impact in the world. And th th it's not much better of a feeling than, than that. And so that's why I believe in that's the common thread and that's sort of my end goal for people.

Pablo Gonzalez:

We'll go back to the chief executive connector podcast. I host the chief executive connector, and today we've got somebody that is a kind of, I guess he's a returning guest. We, I just released his just a casual conversation of ours on the podcast, but he was, it was so illuminating, so inspiring that I wanted to have him on to just really, really dig into his brain. He's a guy that's had multiple success across multiple industries as a member of YPO. He's known as a turnaround artist and he turns around corporate cultures by making them employee owned. And he makes them employee owned by launching groups and communities within the company to make sure that everybody's on the same page. And there's nothing that I'm more on board for. So, aha. Ghadimi welcome to the show, man. I'm pumped. Oh, for the record, just read his book this weekend. First book that I've read cover to cover in a weekend since like 2011. So we're going to talk about it. The turnaround turnaround artists by academia. HOD. Welcome to the show. My friend. Man,

Ahad Ghadimi:

it's, it's really great to be back. and it's I'm glad we we hit record last time because as soon as we get the goat we get going, then you know, a lot of magic

Pablo Gonzalez:

happens. Yeah. For sure. Dude, I'm happy. I'm happy to see your face again, right? Like it's it's good to see you, man. hot, as I kind of alluded to a second ago, my podcasts anchors around human connection, right. And my thesis on human connection is the quickest way to build a connection with somebody is to either add value to their life, which I'm sure this conversation is going to do or share a vulnerability, right. If somebody sees your struggle in, in, in their life, then they relate to you. So I always ask all my official guests, you know, now that you're an official guest here to, to share something that you're struggling with or something that you are, you've struggled with in the past to kind of just connect with our friend and listening in her ear right now. And then we'll talk about all your amazing qualities.

Ahad Ghadimi:

Yeah. absolutely. Look recently I had this, Had this insight recently I shared it with my mom and it was that I realized for soul long in the back of my mind look, a lot of my career has been new ideas, new concepts, usually there somewhere ahead of the curb, they weren't really popular, you know, when I sort of filed them in. And so that, you know, in a way I can feel kind of like an isolating place. Like here's what I realized was that for Seoul, Hong Kong has just been waiting for you know, the approval, the validation of others, even though I really believe in these things, like, we'll talk about swimwear and kind of how we read. We, you know, things that we did that change the swimwear industry how we work you know, stuff I've been doing in the remote workspace and the employee ownership space. And even like my personal meditation practice, like a lot of these things have always been, I've always started doing these things some years ahead of time. And I guess I just realized that, wow, like, I, I think maybe I've been driving a little bit with the handbrake on, because I've been waiting for some. It's been waiting for validation versus just putting my head down and driving because I just knew it was right. Like I've been waived from us to be like, that's a good idea, you know? I just didn't think that I was a person that needed that, but I realized and to some extent I don't, but I realize, I realized to the extent that I did that had been really slowing me down. And in terms of these things that eventually I did see come to fruition at sea, but I saw it kind of, I saw the world adopt, but but my hop boy, I thought I could really move these ideas further, faster, and with less internal trepidation, you know, if I just. For you, the cliche just believed in myself more. And I think that's what it is. I realize I'm like, wow, this is really more ground to cover and believing in myself and in the things that I really feel, but may not have like a material representation of around I think back to, you know, things that, you know, I did on a 16 or 21, or just, you know, different when you're younger and having that, kind of belief in yourself. And yeah. Anyway, I imagine go on, it brings up a lot of other things, like the importance of how we, how we support each other and how we believe in each other. And I th there's this one thing I heard when I worked at Dan and about 15 years ago, they came up with this like phrase. I said, you know, in order for someone else to grow, someone else has to believe in them and that's, that's up for debate. Right. But it's, when you think about that, It's it's amazing. When you think about yourself, you know, when someone has your first client is the first person who just really validates what you're doing. So,

Pablo Gonzalez:

yeah, listen, man, that takes me a lot of places. Number one, right. To the root of why we do this is cause I, that makes me feel very connected to you, right? Like the, I think I was really early on in the green building thing. I've been really early on the content thing. I've been really early on, you know, like a lot of these premonitions intuition of what feels right. Playing out and, and also driving with a handbrake on, right. Like totally, totally, totally agree. And I hear a lot of that. And you know, I'm a big fan of Gary V man. I hear a lot of that in kind of like Gary V as I've like followed him throughout the years. He's always like been right early. And then he's now, now like NFTs, I think between baseball cards and NFTs, he started thinking, you know what, fuck this man, like, I'm right. Like I'm just going to go. Yeah. So now he's just going really hard at NFTs. Cause he's so right about it. And my question to you is you said something about it with a youth thing, right? Cause I was also a very overconfident youth too. At what point, at what point in your journey do you give into D like, should you allow yourself to really believe that intuition does there needs to be, does there need to be a sample size of you proving that you were right before other people or. Is it defacto going to be right for other people when, if it just feels right in your core, in your gut, like there's no other way that you can do something, right? Like what, what where's that balance? Have you thought about that?

Ahad Ghadimi:

Yeah, I think intuitions, it's like shooting baskets. It's practice, you know, and I think there's intuitions. One thing, a feeling is one thing applying or taking an action towards that feeling is another thing we all have Deja vu We all have premonitions intuitions, all these, you know, the unexplainable that other people still experienced. Everyone's had it, but some people have a more, and some people will take action on it. And some people really have faith and believe in it. And I think I think the more we do more, we sort of doubled down on it and the more we sort of get into it and apply it The more, the louder that voice gets and the more reinforces things. cause look, it's like, you know, going back to this analogy of driving with a handbrake on, I mean, it's like either you get to stop or you going to go, but like don't do don't, don't be in between, you know, and I think, I think acknowledging it and acknowledging there's this interesting. I've started doing this thing called tapping. I don't know if you've come across it. It's a re it's called EFT. We sort of do like affirmations or you say these things tap on various shocker points. It's really neat. It's, it's made a big difference for me and people around me. But one of the things he says, as you go is ask yourself, like do a scale one to 10 on how much you believe in your, this idea or yourself and see what number comes up and don't judge it. And it's interesting because when you do that with like your intuition or whatever, you can actually see like, oh, like how confident unconfident? And it's like, Is it that you don't believe in it it's like, it's like what you were saying, like you said something earlier, you said you know, nobody could tell me otherwise. Right. You know, I'm just so I just know it it's like, so that's your knowingness. That's how, like how rooted your in that belief. And then after it's like, okay, so that sounds like a 10, what's your action on it is your action under the four or a five, and then why you know, and I don't think none of it's bad. I think you can sort of look at all this with like neutral observation, just be curious, you know, it's like, oh, I feel a 10 on this. Or you're, you're, you're scared of you as an example. Like, he feels a 10 on X, you know, I think Uber is one of his examples or whatever, I guess he did it for like, well, whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. And he was

Pablo Gonzalez:

passed on Uber early or pass on Airbnb earlier. One of those famous that you feel really

Ahad Ghadimi:

good, but, okay. So if your action is like a five out of 10, well, why, what is it? What's what's there. And I think. As I think engaging our intuition and asking and exploring it, you know, and, and, and relaxing into it. I think we can learn a lot. That's really positive. Self-talk

Pablo Gonzalez:

actually dude. Awesome. And I think I completely agree, man. You just perfectly illustrated the whole, I feel like I've been right on so many things that now that I have this thought I'm all in on it. And the difference between how full, how, how sure of it I am in the action of it that I'm taking is where my is, what I need to reconcile. Right? Like it is the, like if once you align, cause at first it was really about aligning. Who I am with what I'm doing now. It's like, now that I'm sure of what I'm doing, it's aligning my actions with who I am. Right. Like, so it kind of comes full circle. Right.

Ahad Ghadimi:

I moved to Colorado 10 years ago. Right. And then to the Rockies and I had like friends and I grew up in Toronto with, in Paris and Bordeaux Cyrus, all cities and various sort of Sydney culture. People are like, what's your living there? Like, like big mountain bike everyday. Like why, why do you do that? And it's interesting. Cause you look at these places now and it's like for a real estate perspective, it's like blowing up and it's crazy. And but I did feel, I mean, look, we're a product of our environments are a product of our relationships also. And like, you know, and I think validation's a natural thing. And, and sometimes I did wonder, like, you know, and then I moved to a ski town. I was like, I love to ski all the time and I can do what I do from anywhere. So why wouldn't I? And so I did that like few years ago and it's like, And it didn't feel right. You know, and it felt weird, but now you look at ski towns and it's like completely real estate. Like you can't get to, anything is blowing up, but it's like, yeah, but it's like, so what was my hitch back then? I think my hitch back then was like, oh, not everybody agreed. And I could just like, look back and smile and like, like, huh. Interesting. I was just looking, I was waiting for everybody to agree. And now that everyone's agreed you know, like the real estate market's blowing up in these places. So I don't know. I, I think, I think also being really kind to ourselves, you know, I think, look, this is all, there's like two types of self-talk. Right? There's like the unconscious self-talk that just happens a lot, but we're just, I don't know maybe hating on ourselves or criticizing, or we think you're. Or, or the like positive self-talk you don't ask yourself questions like, huh? I wonder why it is, I'm not doing this. Or I wonder what would it look like if I did this, it's both. And I think when you have that, I think when we have that, self-talk he like takes the place of the, the less constructive self-talk that can happen

Pablo Gonzalez:

when it's more unconscious. Yeah. That makes sense, man. Dude, when you're, when you're talking and this weekend, as I spent reading your book, man, it was, so you said something key, right? Like I can't help, but think of the fact that first of all, a couple of things in this story of what we're talking about, I don't think there's much difference between leaning into your intuition and going all out and fail forward, which is a widely accepted business practice. Right. You're right. You're right. So, so, you know, as I think about it, that way, I'm like, all right, it's time to go full ham. the other, the other thing I think about is as I read your story, man, it's clear that you come from a tight-knit family. Well-supported you know, sweet mom, hard charging dad. I echo with all of it, right? Like even, even the ski town conversation that I echo with like three years ago, four years ago, I was like, dad, when I was thinking about leaving my construction career, moving to Jacksonville, to work for this startup. Cause I needed to try other things. Right. Like I'm like, dad, how would you feel if you just couldn't golf, but. 10 times a year. And you had the opportunity to move somewhere where you could golf every week. And he's like, bro, I have never thought about where I would live based on where I like to have fun. Like that's just ludicrous to me, you know? Cause I'm, cause I'm trying to come surf. Right. And and it sounds exactly like that conversation, but the month I moved here, right? Like I moved to Jacksonville and like two months later on Surfline comes out this article about cities with surf and it's like cities with more than a million inhabitants with more than a a hundred days, a year of surfing. And it was like, LA San Diego Honolulu, Cape town Sydney, Rio de Janeiro Televiv and Jacksonville. And I'm like, this is a great real estate play. You know what I'm saying? So, so anyways, so I just, I had to, I had to, you know, the ego had to get off all that out to, to talk about myself there for a second man. But like, I just, I hear so much in your story and I really want to, I think we could spend four hours going into like a biographical podcast of you, but there's specific things I want to dive in with you that I think are that I really want to jam with man. So I just kind of want to like summarize pre this book, right? Pre turnaround artists, you. And correct me if I'm wrong. Right. But you're like a Harvard MBA,

Ahad Ghadimi:

right? no, it's the Richard Ivey school of

Pablo Gonzalez:

business, the school of business, some other fancy

Ahad Ghadimi:

it's like, it's like the Canadian Harvard, it's a case study this school

Pablo Gonzalez:

in. okay. All right. That's I like, I like, I like what that's a bit. All right. So, so you gotta, you, you, you have an MBA, you worked for Dannon at a very, very high level. You started this fashion slash swimwear brands that did wildly successful. Then you. Took over in a manufacturing sector of a felon owned company, right. Or you turned it into a felon. Yeah, no, no,

Ahad Ghadimi:

no. So it was it was a manufacturing company that they'd been on 70 years, massive union politics based in Canada. And I moved down to South Carolina where it's a right to work state, so you needs, can exist. And so they had to completely re hire, rebuild everything from scratch, and then but couldn't, you know, and so, and so a lot of the workforce actually came. From the South Carolina penal system. So people would sort of people who come out of prison, you know, they call it the bounce back program, you know, we'd hired them because we were making industrial water filters fiberglass, resin, like it was, it was pretty nasty work environment really. And and so w most of the people who worked there were people who couldn't get jobs anywhere else, frankly. And so by the time I got there, this company was completely bankrupt insolvent. And so there were just like weeks from shutting it down. And so they so I became a co-owner of the business, which means I just took on a bunch of debt, you know, it really means I'm sure I've got worse off than when I started, but the idea was. I, you know, if I can turn this around and I would you know, benefit from the upside of the sale. And so I, I had and so the objective was we made sort of these huge water filters, like, you know, big as a room you're sitting in. And so the idea was can we make these things on time on budget and with this workforce, you know, and that had been a solid no, for the last four years that the company was down in South Carolina. And and look, I didn't know, a first thing to industrial water filters. Like I still, I kind of still don't, you know, and or residents, I mean, grade 11 chemistry was as far as I got, you know, but what I did know, you know, and it's interesting working with that population people I miss and think about often actually now, is that. Choose what they want and men respect like everybody else, you know, they wanted to be respected. And so here's an interesting thing. If you go into a business and you know, nothing about, it you could do one or two things, you can strut and pretend like you're yeah. You're, you know, you're, you could, you can act like, you know, you're know it all. I mean, I can get very far obviously, or you just come clean and you say, look, I have no idea for anything with this business. And then an amazing thing happens is you have to start asking questions and you have to like really listen. And for the first, like three months, every time I asked a question, someone answered, I tend more questions because I just, I didn't know anything, but I literally met every single person. I think there were 120 people at the time at the, at the plant, maybe 20 odd people in the back of the front office. And then the rest I'm maybe a little less plans. and if I just got together with people and I said, look, I just want to learn. And you're, I need to learn from you. Nobody's asked these people or these, these factory workers, you know, on the front line and no one's really listened to them. So intently and a few things happens. One, they say, we do this, we do this this way. You ask questions, you know why sometimes it's, I don't know why we do it that way. Cause should make a lot of sense. And, but the other thing is there's a lot of pride and respect and people realize that they're where they are valuable or not valuable. Then they really shouldn't be there on the payroll, you know, including the the custodian, you know, when the custodian, the guy who cleans the bathrooms, if he's not there for two days, you really feel it and you really smell it. Right. So everyone's really valuable, but getting people to realize that, getting people to understand how they can. Approach each other with that same energy and that same behavior and openness and acceptance. I mean, that's, that's what turned that place around. It's not because I was a proficient engineer or a tremendous sales person. It's just, I just, you know, I knew how to get those people to collaborate and and support one another because I'm, I lead, you know, beautiful.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Beautiful. So how long you, you took that in, you started asking those questions, person to person micro change within lead to culture change. How long was that process from you taking this over, taking ownership in it, by the way, this is, I mean, that's leveraged buyout, right? Like you're just, you're basically. Buying into a company based on how much you can turn it around. And I imagine you took on, did you take on some debt to make it happen? And then so we

Ahad Ghadimi:

had, no, we had no, cause this is going to sound absurd. And this does, this may not really speak well in my business acumen, but look, and I was like, I just wanted a deal. And when you want to, when you want, like, cause before that I was doing turnarounds. So I was, I was doing turnarounds as a consultant, you know, for a long time. And I realized, and this might not make me popular for saying this, but often the issue wasn't the employees, it was the owners with the senior leadership. And there, you know, they bring me in to fix, you know, to fix the employees. I'm like often it's like the problem starts, you know, whether it's my father always says the fish stinks from the head, you know? And so that's where it really starts. And as soon as we realize God, if I just, if I was the CEO, if I had ownership, I've had real power here. I can probably turn these places about much quicker and make a lot more value because often, you know, as a consultant, you never really going to make the full value of what you're creating because you'll shoot out the full risk. So I was like, no, I'm going to, like, I ain't go with my own deals and I didn't have much money and I didn't have much, I had like fashion swimsuit, startup, CEO, and some corporate experience. But yeah, I was looking for businesses that were doing at least 10 million in revenue. And I just decided one day, that's what I was going to do. I just decided, and I just knew that I could, I didn't know how well I can do, but I just knew I could, you know? And so, so, so when those are the circumstances, you kind of pick up what you can get. And so with this one, I actually had an option. So my option was I'm like, look, I'll I ran the company on my credit cards. Which is like absurd. So I ran about a hundred grand a month on cars. Cause, cause we, I mean, it is completely, I had four credit cards that I got and everybody in the office, all of a sudden, all the procurement people had my credit card numbers so they can like, cause cause we have, we been no more credit. Cause then we had like 2 million deal to move dollars to our suppliers. And so, you know, he has to negotiate. I'm like, look you like, you have to buy like a lot of resin for the, for the the building, these tanks with fiberglass or the main, my main two main sort of materials was resin and fiberglass. And so, and I say them, I'm like, look, if you don't sell it to us, we're just going to collapse. You guys do so many of us, but we're not going to give you any credit because we don't think you're good for it. And I fine put on my credit card. I mean, I got a lot of miles, miles, miles for days, but but anyway, that really kept me on top of it because I always had to, you know, So that was my risk. And then I was had like an basically I had an option because I couldn't buy, buy a piece of the company because it wasn't worth negative money. So, so I thought, okay, if this thing does well, if this we sell it then I get 40% of the upside. So that was kind of the deal. And and I think, I think it's just important because I was talking to these other young guys the other day who were like looking for a dos, like, man, like the world needs young or people who are, who want to go and lead and take over a business. There's a lot of businesses, a lot of business owners who don't want, who want out whose businesses may or may not be sellable and they just are burned out or uninterested and they need the right person to come and lead them. And there's a lot of that out there actually. So so, so I started in April I think it was 2016. I can't remember. but By the time. And this is in Spartanburg, South Carolina, that's where DMX, you know, rest is S and P that's where that's, where he's from. So, but Spartanburg, top 10 murder capital in the United States like it is. So they call it sparkle city. And I didn't realize why I thought it was me. Cause it was a sparkle factory because every factory is inspiring for it's because when you fly over at nighttime, you see sparkles from all the gunfire. Wow. That sparkle bird, that spark that Spartanburg rather. So so this is like the environment here and we started, you know, in April I took over in April of that year by October there was rumors of someone buy us out. Cause we had, we, we had gone from losing about, I think it was a$2 million a year to break even again by by October. and it wasn't me. It was me. And everybody else, I didn't make one fiberglass tank, you know? So but you know, we, we did, my predecessor was someone that, you know I never worked with him, but from what I heard from my people was, you know, you could hear them yelling from the front office across the 50,000 square foot factory, you know? And so, so if someone was late, he freaked out. So guess what? No one ever told them, you know, there wasn't that trust. There was no psychological safety there. And one of the first things I said, when I started, I said, look guys, like everybody starts with an A today. I don't. So everybody has an a right now, no matter what you've done before. but. If somehow you lose your a and you just, you know, you, you know, you're not in line, I'll never disrespect. You, you might be asked to leave, but you'll never, you'll never be disrespected here. And that was like the number one thing. And an interesting thing happens when you sort of set that tone as a leader, is that everybody people realize, oh, that's the, that's the bar. And everybody else starts treating each other that way. and so one of the things that I did was I started getting people. So when I started asking about questions, I brought them in as groups, you know, and then, so I really sort of create this culture where people would get together. And these, you know, we come at communities of practice or forums where they get together and you know, what you share, what you talk about, stays there and you can feel free to ask for. Support or share your ideas and no, one's gonna judge you in a way that's not so revolutionary, but at least rare. But when you create that environment it's pretty amazing. The magic that comes out of people's mouths or the combination of ideas and things that come up when people realize that they're valued and that they what they say matters, you know, because I just believe virtually everybody wants to do well and wants to, you know, feel good about what they're doing,

Pablo Gonzalez:

dude. Amazing. That's that's an incredible story. And had a couple of things I want to talk to you offline about is you're right. The world needs people that want to take over a business. And there's so many really, really talented. Mid to upper mid-level management operators in corporate America, working for the wrong company that are in a specific niche that may just have, have to be waiting for 25 years before they make an extra 20% more in salary. And I'm thinking about one person's specific question. He lives in Greenville, South Carolina. I don't want to say his name cause I'm going to introduce you to him cause I wanna I want to get him anyways, incredible operator. Who's been working in B. Construction trades industry for 15, 20 years now has taken over operation after operation, but feels like, and, and, you know, he's like, he's dying, man. Like he, he just works for a fortune 500 company slowly sucking his soul out. And while he's like stressing out and you know, maybe he makes an extra 10% this year or, or whatever, any of those fine. Right. It's like the golden handcuffs. But the idea that he could be, he could take over a company like you, you know, like work with a group like yours as an operator to take over a company, participate in the upside, go through all the same stress he's dealing with right now. We're actually have an exit on the backend man. That's that's like, there's so many of those guys, right?

Ahad Ghadimi:

And the irony is actually you have more control because in the corporate environment for whatever, maybe because the company is so successful, we talk about doing bad. What if it's so successful gets bought out. Boom. If you're redundant your gun and so on. So the irony is, is that people do that for the security, but it's a false sense of security, you know? And I think that I, I think, I think once you are more, more control of your your destiny and your outcome, you actually have a lot more at least it's in your hands, you know, more so than someone else making that

Pablo Gonzalez:

call a hundred percent agree, man. All right, dude. So you enter this manufacturing facility, turn it around and that's kind of the beginning of this book, right? Like you have an exit and. You get a phone call from your mom that your dad's played up in the hospital broke his femur. He's has a 30 year old restaurant that does really, really, really well, but he's been the guy that has, you know, the, he, he he's ran it as a totalitarian as opposed to a venture capitalist or something like that. Right. give me, give me, set it up, set it up for our friend that's listening right now. Right. Cause I don't want to go too deep into the story cause I already know it. Right. But like kind of like set up where you are in life when you get this phone call and what's going through your head.

Ahad Ghadimi:

Yeah. So I'm, I'm, I'm at a stage where I'm finally like, I, I know what I'm good at. I love what I'm doing. one of the things, look, I grew up in the family business. I'm the eldest of four and so. I started working in the family restaurants when I was like seven, eight years old, you know? So by the time I was like 14, 15, 16, I was like, okay, this is, I actually made a vow to myself that I would never take over the family business. I'm like, listen, my siblings could happen. It's all yours. I don't have anything to do with it. And I just, you know, I, I adore my my father. it's just, I just, I didn't feel good. It felt like stressed. I didn't like the relationship. I didn't like the stripes, the friction. I didn't like being there really. I didn't like, I didn't like working there. It wasn't, it wasn't, I didn't leave there feeling energized, you know? And I, and I just believe in co like, You know, a child's idealism that I just felt like that's what working should be like, you know? And so fast forward, you know, and I get the call and yeah, I never forgot it. I actually spoke to my dad and like, man, he, he, I don't really get into this too much in the story, but he just sounded Hoff. Like, he just sounded like, like psychologically off. And I was like, whoa, like I need to go home. You know, I need to like go. And and I did. And and it's, it's interesting. Can there ever like packing my, my login? Like how much do I pack? Like, how am I going? There's like, there's kind of like what I thought it was by wanted to be there. Like what I thought is actually going to be right. And so. I ended up taking a carry on and was not enough clothes because I ended up being there for a while. And, you know, I remember going back into the restaurant, I always had continued going. I mean, I love the people and I loved the food, but but just going back there and just thinking like, okay, like what's the goal here? And the goal for me was not to be my, not to replace my father. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to become the next, you know, the restaurant or it just wasn't in the cards for me. And um, but I do remember sitting there and looking around and thinking like this, about what, like almost a hundred employees here. I'm like, wait, everybody just took like 1% of ownership. Like, like. Look, there's psychological mental ownership. And then there's sort of you know, more material like stocks and profit sharing, whatever, but it's like your feeling towards like, you know the, or you're the responsibility, you attempt your commitment to something, my God, everybody, just took 1% of that here. This place wouldn't need one, a patriarch to carry it all you know, and that's a theory right? So does that actually work? And, and, you know, and, and, and here's one thing that business owners will tell you, like, yeah, yeah. In manufacturing or in architecture, or fill in the blank, you know, but in this business, none, and it's completely different. Anyway, I used to believe that actually at this stage of the game, you realize the common denominator is people and, and And often people have been taught or the conditions have been set for them to collaborate or to think about a business as their own or their jobs as their own. You know? And, and here's the beauty of it is we all own things, you know, whether it's your sneakers or your shoes or your home, and it's very different from the car you rent the car, you own, you know, nobody takes the car, they rent to the carwash. You know, nobody pumps the full, the best gas in the car. You're you, you, you rent.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah. Never buy a car from enterprise.

Ahad Ghadimi:

Exactly. But you know what? It feels like to own a car and to be like, Hey, don't, don't bring your drink in my car. All of a sudden, like it's different, you know? And it's like, so people know that is to feel that commitment. so how do we create that? And more importantly, what gets in the way. Because you think about when someone starts a job, typically there's always a lot of enthusiasm and excitement. But then it slowly erodes and there is an apathy that gets created. Why, why, w w what are those hurdles? What are those things that get in the way from people? really having their heart into something at one point of the people say, ah, screw it. It's just, it's just a job. You know? And often people say, well, nobody else cares. So why should I, because there's this dissonance where you join and you see a lot with the young people, the 20th, they sort of turns out that the, like the it's been a pour their soul into it, but for whatever reason, they become apathetic and cynical and they just, they switch off. So it's interesting. It's this notion that like, it's actually not about switching people on, but it's like one of the things that is switching people off, you know, what's, what's getting people to stop caring. and, and we're not really sure those things, and that's a big thing, but what I think about in, in leading culture change and you know, what the book sort of talks about it, and actually it's so the book when I wrote it. It was meant to be. guide actually, so, so it's funny you say you read in one sittings When I was, I do my betas, I was like sharing people I share with a lot of my peers. And you be like, oh, it was great. I finished in one sitting and I was like, oh, you weren't supposed to do that. You supposed to stop at every chapter. And I used to have like action steps at the end of every chapter. you supposed to stop there and probably take the action step. And then I realized, okay, I can't force them to do that. You know, reading a book. So what I did was I created like an online learning platform so that people can actually go through the book. And I actually only, I only share one chapter a week. So it's like TV episodes from like the nineties, or you have to wait like the next week

Pablo Gonzalez:

Seinfeld appointment, watch appointment television. Yeah,

Ahad Ghadimi:

exactly. And the whole sort of purpose with Genesis was he used these 10 things. And if you do these 10 things that each one thinks about 30 seconds, maybe one of them takes a few months, few minutes, but they're like tiny little things. If you did these things, you know, once a day for the next 10 weeks, you're going to have a very different experience of the place that you work at. And that was my why, because here's what I realized after like the, the fiberglass, the distribution company or the e-com, all these, the one thing I realized he has a weird feeling I got at the end of it, but then every I had a bittersweet feeling at the end of every one of those ventures was I thought, awesome. The work awesome. These ideas happen in this new industry, you know? Ah, but I don't, I only just like. Touched 50 people or a hundred people like those tens of millions, of hundreds of millions, people that are, and I'm never going to make it this way. I'm never going to be able to reach those people with this, with this process and these little things that are simple and that make a dramatic difference the way I'm at this rate, I'll never make it. I won't even touch the surface. So, so I thought, how do I reach more people and create some that's going to be accessible? And that's what the book and this sort of learning platform is, was, you know, one of my values going into this was accessibility. Like price could never be a hurdle. This has to be available to all people so that they can change their experience of work and in life.

Pablo Gonzalez:

You know, I, I wanna, I wanna dig into the brilliance of the book, but right now, what you're saying to me is something that it's one of those truths, right? That I'm, that I'm chasing. It's the idea that if you want to make an impact, whatever you're working on, you got to make it into content. Right. Like the book is one form of content that I can get over a weekend. Your courses, another form of content that now gives me the prescriptive recipe. And then if people can, if people buy into the book, right? Like if people consume it, like me, next step is go to the course. Next step is okay, I've implemented this stuff in my business. Now I actually want to make it employee owned. Cause I really, really believe in what a HODs doing. So now it's time to bring on, you know, your core, core work capital, right? Like, like I, I, you know, I, I have to call that out because it's so, because as I'm reading this book, cause I remember you, I, I listened to our conversation. You're like, yeah, man, I'm just, I'm trying to figure out how to affect culture change at scale. And I'm like, you know, that came out on my, on my social feeds this weekend, as I'm reading this book, I'm like, ah, you know, like this is scale bro. You know what I mean? Like content is scale

Ahad Ghadimi:

you know, you're, you're,

Pablo Gonzalez:

you're spot on. Yeah. Yeah. Cool man. So, all right. So then that's all the validation I needed. This, this interview is over

Ahad Ghadimi:

and that to me too, that said that like because cause then what I want to do is raise a fund so I could buy out a bunch of a lot of companies or finance this and get people like your friend in Greenville to come and run them and be co-owners and like, and, and create more employee owners. I mean, that is my mission in life is to create more employee owners. And it's interesting because when I was like, at first, when I was going around talking to investors about investing those funds, they said, okay, we believe you can do a turnaround, but when you have 10 companies, 30 companies, there's only one of you. And we just think it's you I'm like, I'm like, I appreciate that. But it's not me. It's the things that I'm doing. And those things are learnable. I'm not the one person out of 7 billion. And that's actually why my book is called turnaround artists. It's not called the turnaround artists. It's not about me. It's about the fact that these are behaviors that if you just do these behaviors. So let me share a little story with you. That's like, again, bittersweet, like I think a lot of things in life. So I was in the process of buying out this company, very successful business that e-commerce business. And the owner was completely burnt out. You know, all he wanted to do is he literally would say, I want to take my phone and I want, I want like a tractor trailer to ride over it. So I never have to like answer the email and he was done. And so I talked about this employee ownership thing. He was. You know, dubious. I love my guys, but there's no way these guys to me, they barely even show up for work on time. Like you dream. Anyway, long story short, I spent a couple of months with them two days a week, no, two days a month for three months, halfway of the process him and his wife were like, okay, we see it. We want it. We want to do this. We want to get out. We want to cash out. We want to consider a police. And so we kind of, we've got that. We got the price together. We on the price, we were just waiting for, like was getting bank finance. To allows employee ownership, especially before we were using a lot of bank financing. And so as we're waiting for that happened, I. Learn the lesson and that you don't, don't take over a business until you actually purchased it, you know, until you other the deal is done, because you might create a lot of ads, like you might blow up the deal. So I took over, you know, cause I'm like, well, my other business was doing really well. And I really liked the business. I was like, really? I really liked the guys. And so it was really, it was like a new industry, so it was really exciting. And so anyway, long story short, the four five months over waiting for the bank financing, It was taking forever to get like organized, to come together. The business, the value of that business went up 20%, you know, about. And so profits of business went up 40% at that time and long, the short of it and, and the employees like took no shares, had been distributed, nothing had like ownership and the guy blew up the deal. He called off the deal and And there was a lot of pain. There's a lot of, there was like financial pain for me. And then there was also like, you know, like we didn't get to start really cause, and I was trying to improve this business really. Like all my cards were like, I was getting double this business and in the first year it was all my backpack. I was just waiting. I remember my lawyer at the time said, he goes, you did too much. I was like, and I remember I kept saying, I didn't do anything. And I kept saying that over and over and I didn't do anything, I didn't do anything. And I was like, oh, but like by this show, I didn't go to work. Every day I spent six hours, seven hours there and I was like, oh, maybe it wasn't what I was doing. Maybe it was what I was, how I was being. So how was I being, I remember like I was whiteboarding this. I was like, why was be a good listener? Because I was like asking a lot. I was being really inquisitive because I didn't know anything about the business. I was talking to all these guys and, and those things are the elements of that, that, that the action steps in my book. Because I thought, boy, if someone just, it's not about what you're doing all the time, but it's like, how are you being? And what do you, what kind of environment are you creating in terms of how you're being and how that ripples? And so that was kind of where I came to. I thought, I wonder if I got other people to be this way, what impact that would have and how do I make that? So simple, a T-ball, you know, where you just, you can't really miss I wonder what would happen. And that's really what, where this book and this process and this learning platform and all of this has come from, you know,

Pablo Gonzalez:

dude really good. A really good story there. I, I, my number one question, when I finished the book, number one, I gotta say it, right? Like. You package it up beautifully, right? Like, like when, as you're saying, man, I didn't want you to read it through the weekend. I'm like, oh, I think he's missing the point that like I read it through the weekend and now I'm all in, on going through chapter by chapter and implementing it in my business. Right. Like, so you package it up beautifully, man. and my number one question was, you know, you described this as this like kind of, it's like a 12 week process for like a 10 week process, right? Like where you it's just like every forum meeting goes from, you know, humanizing using the other person, understanding what's around them too. Being grateful for the things that matter to you because you just learned what mattered to other people to be better at listening to like, you know, being more self-aware to then asking other people what they think to then implement, you know, like it's, it's brilliant, bro. and my number one question was, did it really just take 10 weeks, but with this story, I'm just like, yeah, it kind of sounds like it does just kind of take 10 weeks, right? If, if you can turn this business in four months of due diligence into 40% better, that's insane.

Ahad Ghadimi:

Yeah. So that's what you're hitting on a very common question and people, people will say, because change is hard. Culture change takes a long time culture change. I don't know. it can't happen so

Pablo Gonzalez:

quickly. It's daunting it culture change sounds

Ahad Ghadimi:

daunting. Yeah. So here's, what's really interesting is that. For culture change to work. It actually has to go pretty quickly. You actually have to be immersive in it, you know, because you have to be committed to. And and it's, it's, it's really remarkable what could happen in 10 to 12 weeks. And so look, there's one part of my experience of going through this, you know, I mean, one time I have to tell you a story about, like, I took over a big construction site in the north coast of Jamaica. So this is a country where there's more guns than people. And and I don't know anything about construction and, you know, two years overdue this constructive today. And I think that's the train that you're familiar with that world, right? So

Pablo Gonzalez:

I'm familiar with not knowing anything about construction and leading construction. That's me.

Ahad Ghadimi:

And it's like, you know, if it's actually not going to happen, if the first few months in a big way that it probably won't happen and you're probably not even on the right track actually. And that's really, that's sort of the Maybe the, the misperception with, with culture change and that it's not, it's, I'm not saying it's necessarily easy, but it is simple. Actually culture change is simple. And I think how hard we make it is it's like, it's, it's, it's hardest because we're making it hard. You know, everybody wants to work in a great environment. Everybody wants to be authentic. Everybody wants to connect. Everybody wants, like these are human things, you know, so, okay. So then what's getting in the way, you know, is it an ego thing, you know, is it a power thing? Is it a greed thing? Is that, you know, and so these are, those are the things that actually make it hard. So they're all sort of self-induced self contrived. And so that's why, well, frankly, you know, It makes a huge difference. Really. If the CEO is on board, if the head of the company is on board, it makes a huge difference because I get it. if you're a manager at a company and you want that kind of environment, but that CEO is not willing to give up ego and greed or whatever stuff, you know, if he's not willing to change also you're right. In that case, it is really hard because it's, it's actually not hard. It's impossible in that case. So it's easy because that person's not willing to change. it's actually, I look for that a lot, you know, if I said, if I'm going to partner with people or especially as a rolling out these programs, especially if I'm not the sole decision maker, I'm like, man, this person has been really good to get on board because they're not, you probably shouldn't start.

Pablo Gonzalez:

This is awesome, man. Like you, you kind of answered what my up question was, right? Like my, my idea was, okay, it can be fast, but it sounds from your stories and from this book that it can be fast, as long as leadership is fully bought in and leading by example. And then it also seems like the person that is moderating these groups, you know, either needs to be the CEO or needs to be a highly, highly skilled group moderating person that can walk the line between buy in from CEO. And buy-in from bottom, not bottom from everyone else.

Ahad Ghadimi:

Yes. And no. So, so here's, so my book, like I told you, we we've developed a learning platform around it. And so we've been rolling this out. We're in like somewhere like a dozen countries now. So Africa, Europe, central America, across the United States, Canada and Japan. So I'm seeing as a lot of different cultures. Right. And so is how people say like, well, how do we roll this out? Where are we start? So here's what I've always encouraged him to do. So first of all, the whole process is we use to provide a moderator. We don't do that anymore. We've actually set up so you can self moderate, cause we want you accessibility and democratizing this process. That's what it's really about. We don't want you to be dependent on us. We want you to build that capacity internally. So it's yours. So we actually get the senior leadership team to go through it. And then we also get like a high performing middle management team. So it's kind of like bottom up top down. We get them to go through it. And actually every meeting a little bit like in the book and the book that the protagonist Adrian, he moderates most of them, but in real life, actually we get, after the second or third meeting, we get people to take turns moderate, and there's a moderator guides. We tee it up so that it's like really easy to be successful and to win and a few of the exhilaration of moderating. Cause it's a lot of fun and here's what we noticed happens. Once those two groups go through it. Most, if not all of them that are like, oh my God, first of all, like that was amazing. What, like the connection, that's both Ts what we've learned. I'm going to go run that with my own, my own team. So it starts cascading and people start running it themselves. And then that will be do as we start, we keep giving them more content, more topics and themes to discuss. Really what we're saying is spend at least an hour a week to get together and have like a really intentional well-structured well guided conversation where you're learning from and about one another on these various topics do that. And your, your culture will be, you know people will feel more energized at the end of the Workday because work will be a source of energy. Like, like the gym is you have a gym, you know, you lift, you do all this crazy stuff where you leave more energy. How does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez:

It's brilliant, man. So what's the, I guess what's the business model, cause this is, you know, this, you're not going to rich off this book. The courses mostly free, right.

Ahad Ghadimi:

People pay for the course. And so the course is kind of it's a little bit like we call it like Netflix for L and D learning and development. So, so people pay like it's nominal, it's like 30 or 40 bucks a person per month, but they pay. And though they have this whole learning platform and this whole sort of program, they go through it, but then there's sort of more content so that they get together with this program and then they just keep talking and keep meeting. And then what we also do is we're rolling out this platform. So once you've gone through the first course, that book, you learn how to be in a forum. You learn how to be in that space and how to create cause being to be in a forum, you, everything you talk about is confidential. You share a top 5% and bottom types that, of how you feel. You don't give advice, you share experiences, you know, and, and you really listened to connect. Once you, once people have gone through that, then they become trained in how to be in a forum. So then our, what we're incorporating in our platform is that what introduced you to other people of your same seniority level from other companies where you can join into forms with them and have that connection where you can learn and grow with other people and have other pods around the world with people who are relevant to you, but also speak this language and believe

Pablo Gonzalez:

in this. So it's kind of like a product led model then, right? Like it's kind of like premium product li like you're, you're gonna just keep ascending because the product is so good, then creates this giant LTV on the backend. Cause you're never gonna want to come off it because once you're in these meetings, you're going to be like, all right, well, we got topics for the next 12 weeks. What about the fall? It's always cause I'm addicted to this thing.

Ahad Ghadimi:

W well, that's what happens. People finish it and They're like, well, now what now? What do we do? I'm like, well, now there's six other things that you can start, you know, from like, you know, a four week program on creating mindfulness. So you and your forum could create like a mindful practice or can the conversations or persuasion skills or inclusive. I mean, the list goes on, but it's like, but people do find your right once. They get the cadence of meeting once a week and having that talk, you know what it does, it replaces. We need to connect, right? We need to socialize. We need to learn. These are, these are sort of innate human things. What we've done is instead of doing that in a survey half hazard way by the water cooler, or we've actually made a really intentional and structure So that it's one it's enjoyable. One, two, it's simple. It's, you know, it's, it's easy. You don't have to prepare very much. but three it's very intentional. So in that hour you just got, you'll learn about a bunch of people that you work with that are new to you learn a new tool. You'll learn about yourself. You've got all this happens in an hour or so then after a while, you're like, wow, that wasn't the best hour of my week. And so to your point, We just keep feeding that and that's, and that's really what we want. We want to really create the best hour of people's weeks that stills over the rest of their lives.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Amazing. I'm so impressed. Like never did. I talked to so many course creators all the time being in like the online marketing world and I'm never impressed, right. Like this to me is transcendently amazing. and I love it, man. So I'm good talking about that if you're ready for the lightning round. Yeah, yeah,

Ahad Ghadimi:

yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Okay. I'm actually really pumped to ask you about this. What is your favorite restaurant? Where is it and what do you order.

Ahad Ghadimi:

Look, there's a restaurant in in St. Germain in Paris. It's not terribly fancy. It's, it's a nice restaurant. It's called long cook cook. So when I lived in Paris, I was 25 years old. And if I ever had a hard day at work and I was working in a corporate environment, I felt like being a world famous swimsuit company. So sometimes I was like, what am I doing here? Right. I mean, it was good for me, but anyway, when I had a hard time, I'd go to long click code because it was says remains a fabulous part of Paris, but you only have two decisions at that. Restaurant is how you want your steak cooked because it's only steak and fries and salad. And what kind of wine do you want to drink? What do you want for dessert? Like, so you don't have to make no decisions, but it was just like, it was right out of like 1960s. Like the way to address the core, the steak is delicious. And I just, the one place I could just go and go on myself, you can't make a reservation. She wait outside and go in. And I just felt like. Like, it was like my treat for like a hard day, maybe even a song, like a good day, but like that's, that's the first place that comes to mind and it's just easy. And it was just, it was like good for my

Pablo Gonzalez:

soul. The experience, man did something. You just put me rev, like, you know, thinking of like classy old school, Paris puts a big smile on my, and I like the pump Fritz and you know, like, all right, man, that just made me hungry. Okay. what what content are you most into right now could be Netflix and chill series to whatever book you're most into to whatever podcasts you're most into right now. Like what content wise, what's feeding your brain.

Ahad Ghadimi:

I just finished watching Halt and catch fire on, on, on Netflix. And that was so it's about like it's like loosely real about people, that group of people who started, like who are like tech in like Texas in the eighties and eventually make it the Silicon valley. So it's just interesting to look back. On the development of the first, I don't know, laptop or like modems, and it's almost like it's helped me kind of look back to look forward. Like, what is it like to look back and see people like think, but they're like, oh my God, this thing called the worldwide web and how they're like thinking about it then how small or big they're thinking. And, and because I like thinking into the future, I like thinking about where things are going. and so that was kind of it was, it was, it's been a nice thing to watch at the end of the day, you know, and I'm sort of fried, but also really energizing to help spur me thinking about where things are going next. You

Pablo Gonzalez:

know, there's something really, really, I find the same pleasure in looking at inflection points in history to contextualize into exactly how I feel is right now. Right. Like, like what you're describing feels very real. I was in defensive sex or whatever, right? Like the Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary, not documentary, but the movie and like watching them go from this like old way of thinking, kind of like guard to what's inevitably coming down the pipe, as far as like female equalization just felt so like exactly what the LGBTQ battle is right now. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's really encouraging to just understand that. Yes we are in an inflection point in history. No, it's not the first one ever in the, world's not going to end man. Wait,

Ahad Ghadimi:

the way you strung that together. I couldn't say it again at the inflection point to contextualize where you are now. It was like so beautifully packaged that so well, and it's so great when someone does that, because they just take all this raw riffing that you're saying, and they just catch with the three words. I'm like. Yes, so nice. Thanks man.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Thanks. I'll take that compliment, bro. That's I like it now. I'm blushing. what is man, w what is something that you were sure about in your twenties that you no longer believe?

Ahad Ghadimi:

It's just that you becoming very wealthy is going to solve all my problems and it's going to be, make, make me really happy. And it's going to be a solution that the false promise of wealth. Like, I really, I really, really believe that, you know, especially sort of leading up on the swimsuit days, I'm like, oh, this is the solution that this is going to sound absurd, but I had to stop. I'm like, okay, I could just be like, check, okay. The money thing about the whereabouts and everything else is fine. And I, and I just, I know for a fact that's just not not the way it works, you know, and that's just it's, it's part of the equation. It's an important part of the equation, but it's, it's, it's not the whole formula.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, man. I yeah, it's, it's funny, man. Like all these, all these like themes that we're talking about have been themes that have been just like popping up to like prepare me to this conversation over the last like three days. Right. Like, but the idea that you don't, you don't run out of problems. You just, you just get to solve better problems.

GMT20210412-160615_Recording_avo_640x360 (1):

Yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah. It's true. Yeah. what is, what is either your favorite singular piece of advice someone's given you or like your go-to piece of advice that you always give people? Either one.

Ahad Ghadimi:

Oh huh. I can't let me think piece of advice. So here's the interesting thing. I really don't like to give advice. And it's so much about maybe by being informed, but you just learn to like, not give advice. And so I guess I'm really proud as a man to not be like, to not tell. So maybe I've rewired my Mr. Fix it, you know, it's like soon as someone's like, you know, go and tell me it's about something I'm like, here's what you need to do. Like, I just, I like reprogram, I think for the most part that that instinct but we started talking about intuition in a big way, you know, and I just really believed that you could actually ask yourself a question. And you can actually get an answer. It might not come right away in that second, but it will come when you're on a ship, on a chairlift or in the shower or the bathroom, or brushing your teeth, washing the dishes, somebody can kind of menial. But if you kind of plant that question, so I do that a lot. Like I, I list questions in my journal all the time that I want to solve and it'll just like blindside me. and so I do offer that as kind of a framework to arrive at what they want to know, because you know, it, it comes with it. You're not expecting it because that's your subconscious talking to you because your conscious will have like a ready, made thing. But that's probably not the answer you want to go with. It's like, it's the one that you hear or inside you. And you're like, yup, that's it. And you feel it.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Nice man. That's really good. Yeah. The questions, the questions you ask dictate, dictate the answers you find, right? Like, so ask better questions. I love it then before my last question because your, your opportunity promote whatever somebody's, you know, whoever just listened to this is obviously like, dude, this guy's awesome. I want to connect. What's the best place to, I'm going to, I'm going to link to forums. I work.com. I'm going to link to core war capital.com. If you want to kind of like tell our friend who's been hanging out with us, what, which one to go to and when, or how to reach out to you, they want to reach out to you. Here's your, your moment to promote whatever ma a charity that you really want to play, whatever you want to do.

Ahad Ghadimi:

Hey. Yeah. Well, listen, I I'm. if someone wants to reach out and connect, I think LinkedIn's a great place to do it. that's an easy place to get me. you know, I think if people are interested in employee ownership and by the way, I just want to say employee ownership, it's a spectrum. You don't have to sell your company to become employee owned. If your employees think and act like owners and have some sort of benefit in the upside of the business, that can be profit sharing. then you, then you're on the spectrum of employee ownership and you have to fall at the far left side of the far right side is hundred percent Aesop or co-op or fully solely share. So that's, but all of that counts. and so, you know, I think core work capital website is a great. Place for resources and to learn about that. forums at work is really about a really simple, engaging way of creating connection, both for yourself and in communities of practice, both within your organization in a way that's really efficient than Energizing. and I, I sit on the board of the the Rocky mountain employee ownership center and our commitment is to create more employee owners. I mean, that's just my north star in life. I think when you have more employee owners, when you have more people, especially in the front lines of business thinking and acting like owners and being trained on financial literacy and understand how a business operates and how costs operate, and they can apply those things to their personal lives like budgeting. it gives people a lot of pride, a lot of agency in their own lives. And and it helps fill the wealth inequality gap because people actually can understand how they can have an impact, a real impact in their business their power to do so. And, and here's really what I love about all, what ties it all together is. All these things apply ownership, forums at work. it changes the conversation people have at the dinner table at night. So instead of people going home and saying like, oh, my boss did this, or, oh, they're jerks or this, like, they're brainstorming about what they're like, ideas are they're, they're, they're empowered. They, they see how they can have people can have an impact in the world. And th th it's not much better of a feeling than, than that. And so that's why I believe in that's the common thread and that's sort of my end goal for people.

Pablo Gonzalez:

That's beautiful, man. I'm super into that. and I'm, I really, I really want to get involved for whatever reason, anything that starts with Rocky mountain and ends with Institute makes me want to take a part of it. last question HOD, where do you find your community?

Ahad Ghadimi:

I, I, you know, it's funny, they say you create things, things, you create a product because you want it yourself. Like I'm like constantly in community. one structurally from these forums that I help lodge at my own form own life. You'll form that I'm part of. But it's interesting. I just, I find that being involved, all these things and thinking and talking about these things, it, it, it keeps

Pablo Gonzalez:

the,

Ahad Ghadimi:

helps me keep the behaviors and the ways of being that energized me and the people around me top of mind, I'll give you an example. The other day I went into the grocery store. but before I was coming to the office, before my forum, my own forum meeting, I was in, he had a bunch of like pizzas and so I could have it for my farm and the guy was making a sandwich and I was like, Hey, there. And he was busy doing something. I kind of startled him, you know? And I felt like there was this moment where he was like, oh, Hey. And like, and I realized that I was doing in that moment was, I was like, you're doing something. I want you to do what I'm doing because I'm in a hurry. I got that in the second. And so I just shifted gears and I was like, I don't know. I said something like, man, that family's you're making is making me rethink my life decision. I don't want a pizza. And so we got to talking again and I just, I went from this, like I came at the situation really self-centered about what I wanted get, get in, get out to like a moment of realization, like just disguise, like like doing something. And I got to take this moment here where this person, we had an amazing connection. We spoke for like four or five minutes after I learned a lot about this person. What create a community. I, I know his name now. I'm going to look for next time and like, But I think it's because I'm always helping create or part of community that helps me recognize and gives me the ability to create, like in little instances everywhere I go. So I think community for me is, is everywhere

Pablo Gonzalez:

now, not surprise, man, dude, this was so much fun, man. Like you know, from very Bain things like the fact that you're Canadian and from Colorado, which makes, you know, like that like two, two sub six of people that I always got along with to just how, how much I hear, you're a fireman, your family dynamics in your story and how they echo my family dynamics to everything that we stand for. This is one of these interviews where it just felt so easy, man, like that, like this conversation and conversations where you feel really, really, really easy and energizing and. There's very, I don't know if I've ever had another one of these experience where I'm just like, I just need to be doing what this student's doing, man. Like I like, I don't know, man. I, this has been awesome. I really appreciate you, man. I love the work that you're doing. I think it's as important as anything. Like, I think you could be the Peter Drucker of the next generation kind of thing. Cause, cause I believe that in this rapidly digital automating future, this sense of community ownership is going to be what separates businesses and what eliminates this inevitable, impossible churn future that we're going to in this world of increasing add you know, and, and bring it into all the way into the dinner table, man. You just synthesize it so well that I'm happy to be a part of this journey, man, and to be friends and for this conversation. And thank you for doing this, man. I appreciate you.

Ahad Ghadimi:

I yeah, I I'm kind of speechless really, actually. I've been rambling on for the last couple of hours. I'm specious of mood. So thank you. It was a profuse

Pablo Gonzalez:

compliment, so don't worry about it, man.