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Own the Outcome with Tyler Deveraux
Own the Outcome dives deep into the real stories of resilience and triumph that arise from the depths of failure. Join Tyler Deveraux on a journey of inspiration, growth, and authentic conversation. Within every stumble lies a valuable lesson, a chance for transformation, and a path towards success. Each episode features compelling stories from a diverse range of guests, from entrepreneurs and artists to everyday heroes—all sharing one thing in common: their ability to turn adversity into an opportunity for growth. Because in the end, it's not about avoiding failure; it's about owning the outcome.
Own the Outcome with Tyler Deveraux
How to Use AI to Build Your Brand and 10x Your Business with Arman Assadi
What if you could clone your mind to serve others 24/7? Tyler sits down with Arman Assadi—AI entrepreneur, founder of Steno.ai, and mastermind behind Tyler’s own AI twin—to explore how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing business, investing, and personal growth.
From building Tony Robbins’ AI assistant to developing game-changing investor tools, Arman shares what it really takes to stay relevant in a fast-moving tech world—and how entrepreneurs can own the outcome by leaning into innovation instead of fearing it.
This episode dives deep into:
- How AI twins are transforming thought leadership and investor relations
- The truth about anxiety, innovation, and staying ahead in business
- Why flow state and tech don’t have to live in separate worlds
- How to use AI as a personal coach to challenge your thinking
- Purpose, pivots, and finding fulfillment in the process—not just the outcome
Whether you’re tech-savvy or just getting started with AI, this conversation will push your perspective and show you how to lead with both wisdom and edge.
👉 Connect with Arman at Steno.ai or check out his podcast Alfalfa.
Connect with Arman on Instagram 🚀
Thank you for listening to today's episode. If this podcast has brought a smile to your face or sparked some new ideas, I'd love to hear from you! Leaving a review would mean the world to me. Appreciate you!
Connect with Tyler on Instagram: @tyler_deveraux
Interested in multifamily investing? Attend one of our events!
Thank you for listening to today's episode. If this podcast has brought a smile to your face or sparked some new ideas, I'd love to hear from you! Leaving a review would mean the world to me. Appreciate you!
Connect with Tyler on Instagram: @tyler_deveraux
Interested in multifamily investing? Attend one of our events!
All right, welcome to own the outcome podcast. My name is Tyler Devereaux, and today we have the one and only Arman Asadi. Thank you for being here, brother. Thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna dive right in, man I so Arman and I started working together.
Speaker 1:Gosh, what was that? Probably nine, ten months ago, yeah, is it that long? Oh, my god, I don't know either Time goes by too fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, way too fast but Armand has helped us.
Speaker 1:Some of you have been already testing out and going through our internal custom AI, the multifamily mindset. Tyler AI, been able to have phone calls with that, get your questions answered, and this is Armand, is the man behind all of that and creating all of that, and so I'm very grateful for your skill set and everything that you do, and I would love to just dive right into that. Like you have built an AI company that helps people like myself create a clone. Essentially, what was it like? When did you decide to crack into that space and how has it been building a company in a space and industry that is just moving nonstop? I can't even imagine how you keep up on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I appreciate the kind words. It's very much not me and the many smart people on our team, and I don't just say that, it really is. We have an incredible team and I'm surrounded by two awesome co-founders, and around that is surrounding team as well. That brings everything to life. So I'm really blessed in that regard to you know, I've been a founder for 15 years and it's not my first rodeo, and so I know at this point what to look for in co-founders, business partners, lieutenants, chief employees that you're bringing in in the early days, because it shapes the culture, shapes the product, shapes everything, as you know, and so I think I've gotten decent at that. I will never say I'm a master of anything because I'm a student for life, but I think enough repetitions have taught me how to look for the right people, and that core culture and ethos of the company, our mission, our desire to do what we're doing, has shaped the product. So, yeah, you're totally right, ty. It's like an incredibly fast moving industry. I mean, every day that I wake up, it's an onslaught of news and updates. I've got all of my AIs updating me on the market. I'm reading, I'm listening to podcasts and by the time I get to the office, I've already consumed like an hour of content, and that's just to stay at the cutting edge of what's going on. So the question then becomes how do you build something that has lasting value and power and doesn't get consumed by one little small update to the frontier models, the foundation models like OpenAI or anthropics or google's?
Speaker 2:And so a lot of founders have this concern that if they build a startup in this space, in the application layer of the space in particular, like most people I know aren't out there building like a an llm. Yeah, you know, most people we know these are, these are geniuses living and living. Maybe that was a slip, but they're literally living in these offices at OpenAI, at Meta, at Google, building the future of artificial general intelligence. That's not what I'm doing. We're an application layer company. We're an app layer. It's like SaaS back in the day, but it's evolved into an AI native approach, and so the way we approach it is like we need to assume we're going to be obsolete in in a matter of time. If we're building based on. You know Sam Altman said this is like if you're assuming the models don't improve, we're going to clean you up real quick, like.
Speaker 2:So you can't just be building a wrapper around a basic LLM. It's got to be this vertical solution that does something really valuable for your market and our market is these thought leaders, these experts, these people that have spent a lifetime educating, teaching, sharing thought leadership, helping people get value. Teaching, sharing thought leadership, helping people get value. And what if you were to take all that knowledge and create 24-7 access to that brand and to that person? You're creating knowledge for the masses.
Speaker 2:What the AI does is basically we call it an AI twin or a clone, you can call it whatever you want, but we call it a twin, and so it's like that twin is creating a personalized version of you for me, and that's invaluable to people. And we've learned very quickly. So how did we get there? A lot of iterating, a lot of testing the market, a lot of wanting to solve my own problem of wanting access to great people and minds for myself. So that's where it started. I was like how do I get access to you 24 seven to help me, you know, with my investing decision-making? Well, ai solves this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. I love that. That's how. What took you down that path. And give them an idea, Like you've worked with some. I mean, I found you through Tony, so you built Tony Robbins AI and I was blown away at his AI, what you guys created. Who are some people that you've worked with in the space?
Speaker 2:Yeah, tony, what you guys created. Who are some people that you've worked with in the space? Yeah, tony has been a phenomenal customer. He's one of the first and he was very hands-on. Yeah, um, in terms of how he helped us shape the, the product.
Speaker 2:Um, tony surprised me in the sense that he's he's very hands-on, like he. He's an owner of his companies you know as he talks about he's not in the weeds his companies you know as he talks about. He's not in the weeds operating, but his standards are so high and his desire to make sure that any product or service that he launches is world class. I've never seen anything like it and obviously he comes with a certain level of intensity, in a fun way, to everything he does. So it's been a huge pleasure and honor like working with him and he's been very pivotal in helping improve the product. Obviously, that exposure has been great. We've, we've. We're working with people like Brian Tracy, working with the biggest thought leader in all of Latin America, margarita Pasos, got some big names in the pipeline. We have a big press piece coming out this week, next week, that you know. By the time this is live, people will be able to see a lot more of what's going on.
Speaker 1:Nice, yeah, so tell me about, because I will tell you. For me personally, it's been pretty crazy to work with you guys and create it and then go in and interact with it. The first thing I was like damn, did I just replace myself?
Speaker 2:Was it weird Kind of weird, talking to yourself In a great way, though, because that I would ask it questions and it would.
Speaker 1:I mean it's obviously replying in my voice, but it's it's answering it in a better way than I would answer it like right here, one-on-one, because it's pulling from all the data quickly and it's it's organized right.
Speaker 2:It's like man, it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saw your recent video that you made for us where you were kind of interacting with it yeah testing it and I mean, yeah, most, most of the time, when people first have that experience with themselves, because it is a tool, I wouldn't say we're not a consumer tool, so we're not looking to reach an audience in particular right now, where this is like come to our site and we'll build you, or you build yourself, an AI twin of yourself for yourself, because the starting cost is just too high for a consumer, but it's still pretty useful, like my ArmOn AI that I use internally or share with customers is really useful to be able to say, like, what have I said on this topic? Or, if I'm speaking to it, what have been my recent? How have my feelings and thoughts about capital raising and the trade-offs of fundraising versus bootstrapping evolved over time? That's a really hard question for an individual to answer, but AI does that instantly and searches through you know, to keep it simple this huge knowledge base in order, with a very clean architecture, to be able to come and go. You know, and here's how your feelings have evolved and your thoughts have evolved. So, yeah, it's insanely powerful in that in that way.
Speaker 1:It's incredible. You guys build is incredible. One of the things that I'm most excited about is launching it with my investor base, and I know that's the project we're now looking at. Launching is to my investors to have an investor AI where my investors can come in and ask questions about the project, because what takes up so much bandwidth is investors want to know about a certain deal or what's going on, and if I can just have my team loading in that info and then they can communicate with the AI back and forth, I mean it's a game changer for experience with my investors. I have a lot of people that listen to this, who they also run investment companies, and it's one of the things that I'm most excited about. Man is launching that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like what you're talking about is a really custom use case too. It's like it's non-trivial, it's something that requires collaboration between our companies, and so it would be difficult to try to do something like this from scratch or to think that you could just kind of like do it yourself, builder. It requires this deep collaboration, and so I think that's the space in the market that we've found where we're able to help people with these like really particular use cases, you know, to like add real value to their community and this is I think you guys were actually the ones who even came up with this idea through when you do have an amazing team my team loves working with your team, by the way.
Speaker 2:Likewise, you guys are a highlight. Your team, no, your team's unbelievable man, the energy, the, the positivity, the desire to like, serve and make shit happen. I haven't seen it's high, I love that it's one of the highest.
Speaker 1:I agree, man. Those are great people. Thank you.
Speaker 2:No, we really feel the same about you guys.
Speaker 1:And it's collaborative. It's very fun to be tapped into it and to see how everything evolves and grows. My question as you look at the business space as a whole, you work with a bunch of business owners, thought you know, thought leaders how do you see AI disrupting the space? Because one of the things that you said is you said, if I'm not improving, it's going to become obsolete, but you're speaking more in lines of like the AI space, but I also believe that that applies to any space.
Speaker 2:Really, yes, you mean like as a business owner? Yeah, yeah, like if I'm not. Yeah, we, we see so much. We get so many requests for demos on a daily basis. We're very fortunate for it and I do a lot of these calls with prospects and I won't be able to do this forever, obviously, but I enjoy it because, especially in the early stages, I need to get a sense of how people are thinking and feeling about their businesses and about the market. And are we solving the right problem? At this point, I know we've achieved product market fit, which, as a startup, is the only thing that matters.
Speaker 2:But what I can tell you is like there is such a clear, obvious level of anxiety that people have about the future of their companies. Sure, and it's justified. I'm not saying you shouldn't feel anxious, because to me, anxiety in that form as a business owner is not a bad thing. Yeah, I love that. It means you're worried, you're doing something about it. You're like, okay, shit's changing and if I'm not evolving with the whole space and companies as a whole, I'm going to get eaten up by competitors, I'm going to get eaten up by technology. People are going to place me with other solutions. My content's going to be irrelevant. And so, yeah, I mean it's real. And for someone like me who listens to an hour of shit before I get to work every day, I can tell you it's a legitimate concern. You know it's real.
Speaker 2:Right now, the space that you see this like most impactful and most exciting is coding, coding, coding, okay, yep, I think like, and what that means overall is like, so AI, coding, development, software development has become. Have you heard the phrase vibe coding? I don't think so. Okay, so vibe coding is like this new think of it as, like everyone, like what used to require like special expertise to become a developer, you go and you learn a language. Essentially, you know, you learn this language called Python or you learn this language called Ruby on Rails, but now you can just talk to AI in human words, with natural language, and it'll vibe code for you.
Speaker 2:So there's this famous developer who came up with the phrase, and Rick Rubin, the music guy, is writing a book about this right now. He's writing a book about the future of like how vibe coding with AI is like the new art form. And so everybody there are nine-year-olds on the weekends right now coding, vibe coding, building software in a weekend that would have taken months before. So your competition, your future, the way you should be viewing your space is there's a nine-year-old vibe coding his way to building the platform that you might have spent $3 million building, and they'll do it in a weekend for one one-thousandth of the price. That's the world we're living in now.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. Yeah, so how do you stay up? How do you stay up on top of that and make sure that you're not becoming obsolete? That's a very tough question for you to answer, obviously, but what's your thoughts? Because you've seen some. You came from google, right, you left google, yeah how long would you leave google?
Speaker 2:oh my god, when I became a founder like 14 years ago.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you dude, you've seen a ton there. I'm sure ton there yeah and then ton, in the 15 years that you've been in the space. Yeah, yeah, what's your, what's your thoughts on it?
Speaker 2:well, I guess it depends what you're doing Not becoming obsolete as a thought leader or content creator versus a services provider, versus a software sort of platform versus a copywriter All pretty different, sure, and so we can talk about any of those hats.
Speaker 1:What about the? How do you see it impacting the investment space?
Speaker 2:different Sure, and so we can talk about any of those hats. What about the? How do you see?
Speaker 1:it impacting the investment space? Hmm, as an individual investor or as a real estate investor? Individual investor, either either direction.
Speaker 2:That's a good one. Um, you know my that's. That's a good one that I haven't put a lot a ton of thought into, but, like off the cuff, I think that it creates accessibility. So I think that the information that was once time consuming and difficult to access becomes more accessible to more people, like even what you want to do for your investment group, the speed of information that they're going to be able to gather and how quickly they'll be able to make decisions. Now, um, deal sourcing will improve the the whole. A lot of the bottlenecks get removed in general. Yeah, so, as an investor or you know, running an investment kind of vehicle or company, or being a general partner, or whether you're a limited partner, I think it all changes a little bit for everybody. But in particular, I think the answer is, like the through line across everyone is that back in the day, when any new technology was arriving, like, say, the last great technological innovation, in my opinion, was like the iPhone Okay. So the smartphone era yeah, that changed everything Before. That was like the dot-com iPhone Okay, okay. So the smartphone era yeah, that changed everything Before. That was like the dot? Com era Okay. So every 15 years or so, there's this huge new innovation.
Speaker 2:Now, what I've seen and what I've observed is that there's a pace of adoption and that. And then have you ever heard of the book Crossing the Chasm? It's a really cool business book about how technologies get adopted, and so there's a chasm. There's this adoption curve where there's the early adopters, the really early adopters, and then the middle and then the late adopters, which is like our parents or people that are anti-technology. And you see the same thing in everything. Crypto. It was like the guy that bought crypto in 2013 is a bajillionaire. He's an early adopter. Bitcoin has crossed the chasm. It is completely now like okay, this isn't going anywhere. The government has backed it, this is legit, we're going to buy it through treasuries. It's not going anywhere. That adoption cycle has shrunken in time.
Speaker 2:It took Bitcoin, let's just say 10 years, right, and with AI, or it took the smartphone era, maybe like if you jumped on the smartphone building an app in the first five years, you probably did well. You know, you jumped on this new innovation and you built an app in the first five years. You probably did well. You jumped on this new innovation and you built an app and you figured out how to turn a flashlight into a calculator and you probably made a million dollars. In AI we have the exact same opportunity, bigger than every other previous adoption cycle, and the adoption window is tightened every other previous adoption cycle and the adoption window is tightened. So what I'm saying is, if you don't adopt, you will get left behind much more quickly than in the past. So the companies and you as an individual, you just have to be a lot more flexible and willing to take some risk and willing to spend some money or time and lose it to know that you are moving with the wave.
Speaker 1:Say that last part again Lose the money in order to keep up with the wave.
Speaker 2:I don't want anyone to lose money, no, but I mean like invest the money, invest the time, be willing to risk something to stay up to date with the wave, inject some innovation into your company and into your life. Yes, otherwise like you're going to get left behind. Yes, and I think everyone feels that. But what I'm saying is shift from anxiety to action, the reason you feel a person feels anxiety and the reason I like it. Jeff Bezos had this, has this really great 30 second video that you can find online, just like Jeff Bezos on anxiety, and he says that the reason you feel anxious is because you're not having a conversation that you know you need to have. So there's this like stuff pent up inside you that needs to come out, or you're not taking an action that you know you need to. So anxiety is just like inaction. Yes, yes, just step up inaction. Yes, yes, just step up and go Dude that's so good, that's so simple.
Speaker 1:Like anxiety really is inaction A lot of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the non, you know the version that I don't need medication for, and I don't mean that in a joking way, like there's real crippling anxiety. I'm talking about the day-to-day, real like entrepreneur anxiety, yeah it just builds up.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, with the anxiety behind ai. What do you believe? Let's say somebody out here, they're, they haven't even like they haven't even created a chat gpt account, like they haven't done anything. Yeah, what do you believe their next steps are like? What are the most fundamental, simple ways that somebody can start using and getting familiar with ai, to start progressing in ai?
Speaker 2:um, it's a great question. I mean, I would say if, if you can budget it, just take like a hundred dollars a month and purchase a few tools. Um, get a chat gpt premium account like a plus account it's $20 a month. Get a Claude account. So you got like two different base LLMs that you can compare. Get like an AI video note taker. My favorite is Granola by far.
Speaker 1:I've never heard of Granola.
Speaker 2:Amazing, amazing.
Speaker 2:And they just launched for Windows too. What does Granola do? So Granola is, like you know, when people have the little note taker in Zoom. But it's like an extremely good one and it's not annoying and no one needs permissions or anything, because it doesn't show up into the Zoom. It runs through the hardware. It's software that runs through the hardware of your computer. So it's just like you could be just talking in the room and turn it on and it'll just start taking notes. But it's more than something. It's like it summarizes. There's a chat bot to ask questions like okay, ty and I had a kickoff meeting nine months ago. Where did he say he got those shoes? I could ask that and it'll pull it up. So Granola is amazing. I don't love typing. I like using my voice. Yeah, I think you do too. Yep, definitely. So there's a tool called Whisper Flow. Okay, yeah, amazing, 10 bucks, 15 bucks a month. You just tap a button and, instead of having to type, it just instantly transcribes everything you say and it does it great.
Speaker 2:That one I use.
Speaker 1:You do. Yeah, oh yeah. I love that Because it does it so much better than like the native iPhone Exactly. Talk to you later. It's way better.
Speaker 2:The little dictation thing. Yeah, did you download the app they just launched? It was before, I think so. So now they just launched an iPhone app too.
Speaker 1:So instead of doing it on the computer, you Keep going. I love hearing these different platforms.
Speaker 2:So I mean, there are so many tools, but I think the key, those are some of my favorite. If I think of more, I'll pop them in. But I think the key is like a lot of people will try something I've heard this so many times from the AI naysayers They'll try something that AI is not good at. And then they'll be like this sucks, this is dumb. They'll just they'll make a mistake and I'm not saying this to insult the person listening.
Speaker 2:No, I'm just saying like Don't be this. This guy or gal like, like, like, try harder, don't go. And like six months ago, if you went to Chattopadhyay and you said like what's the price of, what's the price of Yahoo stock today? And you didn't have the internet search button pushed, it'd be like I don't currently have access to this information. I have only been trained up until six months ago. And people are like this is dumb, this is useless. What am I going to use this for? I can't use this for investing, so you've got to train yourself a little bit. Ai is plenty intelligent.
Speaker 2:Don't worry and people are so like. This is never going to replace me. I have a PhD. It'll never do what I do. You don't want to be this person? Yeah, so be adaptable, utilize it. Find a use case for your field of work and talk to people about how they're utilizing it. If you're unsure, I would go to X or YouTube and type in journalist AI use cases. What do you do? What are the use cases? How can I work at the cutting edge of my field? And then what you'll find is there's all these other tools that I don't know about for journalism that are incredible. So every industry has its own amazing tools.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I actually don't think that I've even done that Like going. I mean I listen and consume and I'm on tons, but I've never actually just went and been like what are the use cases for my niche? I've not done that.
Speaker 2:It's surprising yeah, it's really surprising what's out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when I you know, the name of the podcast is own the outcome. And so for my first question would be what does own the outcome mean to you? Like, when you hear that, what does that mean to you? And then maybe I'll take it a little bit deeper from there.
Speaker 2:I think it's a to me that, like when I hear that it's about taking on the responsibility, not skirting my way around the responsibility of the life that I want to create and the outcomes that I want to achieve. It is nobody else's duty, no one is going to save me. I think every man in particular gets to a point in their life where they realize, oh my God, it's just me.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 2:This is it. My mentor, my dad, my whatever my teacher is not going to, is not going to make this outcome happen for me, and it's like a rude awakening. So you can either like turn into a kind of like scared you know, shelled victim or you can like really grab life and own the outcome. And I'm like a pretty. I embrace masculinity. I embrace, like you know, the grind. I embrace, like you know, the warrior mindset.
Speaker 2:I view like my journey as an entrepreneur, as I'm a warrior. I'm at war every day, not in a negative way. I love it. It's the process. It's like you know, we're out there, we're masterminding, we're brainstorming, we're moving chess pieces, we're getting little wins, we're taking little hits, you know, and like owning that and never complaining about that and fully carrying that burden. I call it a burden because it's a choice and I'm making the choice to create this life and to be this person, and so it'd be pretty ridiculous of me to not fully own all of it and to give it a full shot. So I see so many people that want to do something or are half-assing something and that doesn't resonate with me at all, because I think this is it. I think about my mortality. I think it's healthy Me too, and it's real and it's a tool. It's a very valuable thing to know. It's one of the most beautiful things in life to know that there's a finite amount of time.
Speaker 1:Yes, what are you going to?
Speaker 2:do with it. Yes, you know.
Speaker 1:That's so true. I love that perspective. I love how you answered that. I love how you said that I've never been, which is why I love asking everybody, because everybody has their different perspective of it. I love how you said it's I'm taking the responsibility on and it's you know you're the one. There's nobody else that's going to come and save you. You have to approach it that way, or else you know you'd be lost for a while. But, man, I love that perspective of it because I've never even thought of it that way, like if, if I knew that I was going to live forever, man, I, man, I you know I would be. There's not a time, would you have that?
Speaker 2:would you yeah?
Speaker 1:you know, it's like I'm just gonna be joan would.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is a blessing there's a great show, uh called the good place. Okay, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's. It's probably my favorite show of all time uh it's up there.
Speaker 2:So it's about these people that basically go to to the afterlife. Okay, um, and there's this whole segment of the show, you know, because once they're in the afterlife they're, they're immortal, they're basically like living forever and and there's a lot of philosophy. It's it's a comedy show, but it's really deep and it explores like all these things like immortality, and there's a whole few episodes about what happens to them, like in heaven or whatever, when they're just like immortal, and it explores this and I mean, I'm not going to do any spoilers or anything, but you can imagine they basically turn into like jellyfish. You know, you're just there's nothing, yeah after you've traveled the world 9,000 times.
Speaker 2:What else? What else is there, and so it's.
Speaker 1:It's a beautiful thing as much as it's like a you know, this is what I love about how you talk about it, because I believe true happiness is eternal progression, like you're always progressing, you're always making progress. But one of the things that I love like that I've heard from your content is I'm big on outcomes. Right, obviously, my show is called only outcome and I'll say when the target is clear, success is near. But I've heard you talk about this thing of like you can't be so attached to the outcome because you'll get there. I can't remember the exact example you get, but you'll get there. I think you're talking about becoming a New York times bestseller. Oh yeah, and you're like dude, that used to be one of my goals. God, if that was still my goal, I would have got there and then just been so let down, miserable. So what's your view on having a clear outcome?
Speaker 2:But how do you? I know we're shifting from the AI side, but this is one of the things I love about you, bro, is that you really talk about this stuff of like how somebody can find joy now while pursuing. Are outcomes important? Do we need them? Yeah, I think one of the greatest lies ever told is that when you achieve some goal of yours, like that's it that you'll be happy.
Speaker 2:I don't think the purpose of achieving your outcomes or goals, personally speaking, is happiness. I think it's what you said. It's the constant, never-ending improvement on a daily basis of achieving many outcomes. Yeah, over and over and over again. But it's no one goal that's going to be like now, I made it. Yeah, I don't believe in like it there. I made it.
Speaker 2:I think there's many made it moments throughout your life where you maybe get to celebrate, pop a bottle of champagne. I like to have a drink every once in a while, so to me, that would be like hey, the champagne. Like you know, some people don't. There's a different way they like to celebrate. There are those moments, there are champagne moments, but then the next day you're right back to it. So if that's true, and if it's true that 70 to 80% of founders who sell their companies become depressed within six months. And you have all this data and you have all these anecdotes. Why continue down this track of this lie of believing that becoming a New York Times bestselling author or and I'm not saying no one should become a New York Times bestselling author? I'm just saying I don't think it's going to give you what you need.
Speaker 2:I have worked with many New York Times bestselling authors and one of them I won't name him out because it was kind of private in particular because before this life I would work with thought leaders. We would help them launch their products and services and I was known as being a great copywriter and a funnel specialist and we'd come in and we'd do it all. I don't think I knew that, yeah, we'd do it all. I worked with over a hundred companies. Eleven times we helped a thought leader launch a new product or service that did seven figures or more.
Speaker 2:It led to being like on the cover of Founder magazine, as like this guru guy, and it wasn't the life I wanted. So I kind of pivoted, but I was. I was really good at it, and one of these guys one time was like Armand. I thought that the day and he hit number one on the New York Times, that the day that happened, my inbox and my phone would just not stop ringing. More press come to the Today Show, do this, do that, do that. And he was like dude, it was crickets, like a couple things, but like and then, like, I updated my bio, number one New York Times bestselling author. I had this hit of dopamine for 10 seconds and then it was like now what, and so my point is I have more of a Kobe mentality.
Speaker 2:Okay, I love practice, I love the process, I love the grinds, the everyday thing that doesn't have all that dopamine in it. So if you can give yourself the conviction to chew glass and build a great company and and enjoy that day to day as much as, if not more than, the little moments of achievement, that I think is gonna make you a lot more happy in a sustainable way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's my point about all that. Really Tell me about purpose and do you believe that purpose? How does somebody tap into their purpose and does purpose change? Or is purpose finite?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I think your purpose can change throughout your life for sure. I think it's like, I don't know similar to, like the soulmate question. Maybe, maybe some people have one, maybe there are, like, multiple people that you have this deep, everlasting connection with. And I think purpose is similar in the way that it's constantly being uncovered and explored. And to me, purpose is a very spiritual thing. I don't think it's just something you go through a workbook and find. I think that it's something that you need to connect more deeply with yourself, or some higher purpose or some higher version of yourself, and by removing that noise and trying a lot of things too. I don't think you just like go and sit in the dark and find your purpose and I don't think you go to India and find your purpose. I think that you, you do a lot of things. I have more of a Robert Greene. The book Mastery is one of my favorite books of all time.
Speaker 2:I have more of a Robert Greene perspective on this and I would say it took me 35 years to find my purpose. I thought I had it before and I've always been attached to like, if you asked me at 25 if I was a purpose-driven person, it's a hundred percent yes, but looking back, I'm like it wasn't quite that, it wasn't quite this. So you're always iterating, almost like you're the way you build a business, and you're always refining the business and the product in the market. I think it's always evolving and the key is to just keep swimming, keep moving, keep aligning toward that north star that brings like a a fire in your belly.
Speaker 2:That's what I think purposes to me. It's like what gets me excited and makes me really optimistic and makes me want to jump out of bed in the morning. Yeah, and when I have felt burnout or sadness or melancholy or full-blown depression, it's because I am not aligned with my purpose. Something needs to change, there's a conversation or an action or something that needs to happen and a realignment, and then, once I do that, I'm like okay what do you do in that moment?
Speaker 1:Give me an example of that. Like you feel like you're not aligned with your purpose, you recognize it, which that alone is huge. And then what do you do to like reconnect?
Speaker 2:I think you have to get away. You have to get outside of yourself, like I see on Twitter all the time, like people are very vulnerable and open and it depends which corner of X you're in. You know. These kids sometimes will post like, hey, I'm really lost, and a bunch of people try to help them and you know the advice that I see that I think is always the best and what I've done is like the reason you're burnt out and you can't get out of it is because you keep on showing up and just trying slightly different things and you're just like repeating the problem on a daily basis. You've got to like go away for a week. If you can go away for a weekend, go away for a day, whatever you can do to go to a float tank for an hour.
Speaker 2:Get away from yourself and your mind and your day-to-day, because you're stuck in a repeating pattern and you're trying to solve it but you can't see the macro version of your actions and your world and yourself. It's kind of like why people need a coach. Why do we get a coach? Because you're not good at coaching yourself. It's kind of like why people need a coach. Why do we get a coach. Because you're not good at coaching yourself, no one can really see themselves. You're so good at providing advice for other people. So how do you get yourself to where you can coach yourself?
Speaker 2:You break the pattern, you step away. You call an immediate, like, hey, I'm going to be gone for a week, whatever you can pull off. You got kids. I know everybody's different. And then once you get away, for me it's like silence, journaling. I journal a lot when I feel overwhelmed and I need to get things out. I have this like remarkable tablet, use, pen and paper, whatever you know, listening to certain guided meditations, and then everyone's process is different. But that disconnecting starts to bring answers. The voice, the higher voice, starts to have room to come back in. Some people call it the muse, but there is something. Everybody has felt it. It's like this some people feel it when they're in flow state, some people feel it when they're writing, some people feel it when they're playing a sport. But there's something else that, if you get out of the way, will show up and that, to me, that's the voice to listen to. Love that and it'll realign you.
Speaker 1:So when you say get away, you're talking about get away of like your current everyday environment and just that could really be anywhere. And when you're saying it's not going to be found in India, you're you're. You're not saying that they couldn't go to India and be in silence, you're just saying like it's not just going to go to India and you're going to find it. It's like you got to get outside your environment and look inward. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's not in India. It's in a cabin an hour away from your house. It's at your favorite lake, it's at your favorite spot. That is your sacred space, your little special cocoon where you break away. You don't have your phone, you don't have your distractions, you don't bring your laptop, you don't tell anybody maybe a couple of people that really need to know where you are. You just you get away. You break the habits that you're on on a daily basis. Get off the treadmill yes if you will.
Speaker 2:Once you do that, the silence, the because what happens is like it's kind of like a dopamine detox, like anybody who's ever turned off their phone. What happens? You grab it, yeah, ah sure, and you're like okay, you do that like five times and then you eventually are like it's bricked. I can't do anything which, by the way, brick is a great tool. It's not an ai tool yeah but brick it's like. Have you seen this before?
Speaker 2:yes, oh I love the brick I get home I tap that thing and and then it's like, oh, this thing is junk, yes, which?
Speaker 1:is so powerful, it's very powerful. I do these kind of off topic but I do these call them board meetings with my kids and Britt and I will have two kids, so we'll just rotate, but Britt will take Pax. Last one we just did Britt took Pax and it's my little boy and I took Marley, and the rule is it has to be four hours. The kids get to choose the activity. Whatever they want to do, we we're going to go do which is beautiful, because it's not me trying to choose this activity or convince them to do this activity, it is I'm going to be fully engaged in whatever you want to do, like dude, if you, if I put pull off my shoes right now, I have gorgeous. I got a gorgeous pedicure with paint, pedotone else, because that's what my little girl wanted to do, and she was just like dad, your feet are gross, I'm gonna take care of you, you know, and it was so cute. And then we went into the bounce house and so so kids choose the activity. Four hours and no electronics involved, like no electronics allowed. So my phone literally just gets locked in. I keep it in my glove compartment or whatever of my truck and it's just there and it is unreal, man, and one like the connection that you'll make there with, once again, these kids that I love more than anybody. But here's what's cool is, once I started doing that, I saw how powerful that was to just truly disconnect.
Speaker 1:And so now Mondays are my creation day. I am not. I am unaccessible in the mornings on Monday From all the way up until noon. No, like my phone is I'm unaccessible in the mornings on Monday, from all the way up until noon. No, like my phone is I'm unaccessible. Yeah, and I go to the beach is usually where I'll go, because that's that time and once again, I don't have my phone. I'm just sitting there and in silence and in nature and think. I mean, my mind is going, my thoughts are going, but that's where my best ideas come, that's where clarity comes.
Speaker 1:What an epic way to start your week. I feel very grateful for that with being in Maui, and you can do that here where you are at too, but it's like it's powerful. It's helped me a ton because my mind runs at a pretty rapid pace. Yeah, I can tell.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you don't create the room for that, those things would never bubble up that's it, yeah, and. I feel for people that say, like, well, I can't do that at the stage of my life right now, or in my job or, you know, in my company we're too early stage. I've got to be there on Monday morning and run at the show. I get it. I'm kind of in a similar stage to like we've only been at this for a year and a half or something.
Speaker 1:So it's only been launched for a year, bro, you guys are incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what you're, what you've done in that time frame is incredible, yeah, less I did not even know. That's incredible man, good for you guys. Thank you, yeah. No, it's been awesome, but so I'm still pretty hands-on. Yeah, I'm in founder mode.
Speaker 1:I'm not in like um, I'm still in operator well, you know that I am too, and I already know. You know that, because of my like, you talk about how Tony was connected versus how I'm connected. You know, like starting your week right or creating, some space in your week.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be Monday morning, but some space. I like walking and getting. I think walking is like one of the greatest cures to things. Tell me about a bad day and then go on a long-ass walk. A long-ass walk cures just about anything. Amen, yes, I mean a long one, like really hit it. You know, if you think about all the great thinkers used to do this, all the old fart like European philosophers, like they all had this Einstein and Nietzsche and everyone just long walks, long walks, and everything would just come to them, I think there's a real power in it.
Speaker 1:I love walking. When I'm in my office and I'm just starting to feel like any way that I don't want to feel, I will just go walk. I don't have a destination, I'll walk around where I'm at 10 times it doesn't matter, but I'll walk. Some of my favorite phone calls that I'll do is when I'm walking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can do phone calls.
Speaker 1:Yes, throw my earbuds in and go Like no.
Speaker 2:I'm not doing a Zoom. Call me yes, you know, and I do that a lot now Like I have Zoom fatigue for sure. Oh yeah, so like I would much prefer sometimes people I don't mind talking to someone.
Speaker 1:Just call me, we'll jam one of these walks and my family came to like to the office to drop off, like just show me, love is what they're doing. But I just went on a walk and so they were leaving as I was walking up the street where my office is, and they're like they see me, you know, so they turn around, they pull over, and I was like I had been like a little teary-eyed, not in a bad way, like in a happy way, joyful way. They're like, oh my gosh, you okay. I was like, oh, I'm beautiful, I'm so good, you know, like that's what? Like these are tears of, like gosh, I've just been out in nature walking I'm like that too, actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife will sometimes be like are these, are those the happy tears? Yes, yes, you gotta clarify. Yeah, that's good, that means you feel it, you feel stuff oh yeah, being able to feel yeah that's a very masculine thing actually oh, it's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, feeling is a beautiful thing, like for sure. Yeah, I want to feel the good, the bad, like feeling is beautiful. So this might be now I'm going to combine these two and this, you know, maybe kind of the where we send it off at, but I look at you as this person who's so tapped into purpose and flow state and you very much are and being in your you know, this is the first time we've met face to face and your energy, just you are that. I feel that, thank you. But you're also so tapped into the tech, ai, space. Yeah, how, how could somebody use or maybe you don't use this to do this, but is there ways or do you see AI or tech helping somebody tap into flow space to find their purpose? Can those two worlds exist?
Speaker 2:It's ironic, isn't it? Because there's this like huge juxtaposition in my personality where it's like you know, grinding startup CEO in the cutting edge of tech and then, like you know, purpose and philosophy in the cutting edge of tech, and then, like you know, purpose and philosophy and presence and all this like but in many ways they are necessary, they're complementary, they're like if I was off that deep end, I'd probably burn out and be on drugs and like fall apart pretty quickly, right, sure, and then if I was on this end, I'd be too hippie, yeah and I wouldn't, I wouldn't accomplish the things that I want to.
Speaker 2:I'd just be like it's all good, like as is. So there's a juxtaposition and a paradox there that balances each other out. I very much use AI for personal development and I think that that's like one of the greatest powers of AI. I talk to the various thought leader customers that we have, like I learn about investing like. Another customer we have is justin donald. You heard of him? I don't think, uh, the lifestyle investor. So justin's a great guy. I should introduce you guys. He's phenomenal and his whole thing is like um, multifamily is actually a component of what he does, and he teaches, like you know to, to invest the principal and and kind of get that back as quickly as possible and build these cash flow. You know streams and he's done a very good job, great book and great, great brand, and so I'll talk to him about, kind of like you know, the deals that I'm looking at, and I'll talk to chachi pt in a therapeutic way too. So I have this combination of, like our customer ais, but also like the general ais available to, and they've all become like my personal coaches already, like my personal AIs because they have memory Totally If I pick up the call with you where I left off, you're like Arman, we were evaluating that deal.
Speaker 2:Did you end up signing it? Or do you have any concerns. If I'm with ChatGPT and I'm like, hey, remember when we were talking about that contract that I was evaluating and redlining, and it would be like, yeah, you had a problem with this section. I can just pick up where I left off. But on the personal stuff too, it's like it knows about me now and people often say, like well, which AI is going to win? You know which one's going to be the one.
Speaker 2:Where are the moats in the technology? Where's you know which one's going to be the one? Where are the moats in the technology? Where's the defensibility? And what does that mean? The moat, the moats, is like you know, when you have like a castle and there's a moat around it, and so it's like your defense, like so, your every business has a, a moat, okay, a thing that makes it unique and defensible. And so in tech and in ai, there's a constant, ongoing conversation about like, what are your company's moats? What's your company's defensibility? What's going to stop Google from coming and crushing you as a startup? Well, the real answer is Google's slow as hell, and you know they're a huge company and it takes them six months to even decide to start on a project, although Google has improved a lot on their AI and in general, I'm just talking about like big companies, sure.
Speaker 2:Speaking as a former Googler, but big companies take a long time. A VP has to sign off and then a team has to get created. A startup can show up and vibe code over a weekend, build a solution and start monetizing yes, in two weeks. Yep, so the defensibility for a lot of these companies is personalization, personalizing to their market, building like memory features with the AI, because the more you talk and you share with the AI, the switching cost of going from one to the other is higher. Yeah, so if chat, gpt or Claude or Gemini knows everything about me, for me it's harder for me to want to switch to another one just because there's a 2% improvement. Yes, so that's the way I use it. They know everything about me, my documents, my company and I've given up on privacy. I mean, probably to my own peril, but I've given up on privacy.
Speaker 1:Well, I kind of have too. Honestly, I feed it as much as I can possibly feed it because I just want production and growth. It's. It's funny, man. I just I'll read you the prompt that I just started, that I, but once again, this works because I've communicated with you know chat, gbt, so much right. But the prompt that I said was I said act as my personal strategic advisor. And I did this because I realized that a lot of people want chat and GBT. They use chat and GBT as almost like tell me what I want to hear, I want to know what, tell me what I? Yes, push me. So I said strategic advisor with the following context you have an IQ of 180.
Speaker 1:You're brutally honest and direct. You've built multiple billion dollar companies. You have deep expertise in psychology strategy execution. You care about my success but won't tolerate excuses. You focus on leverage points that create maximum impact. You think in systems and root causes, not surface level fixes. Your mission is to identify the critical gaps holding me back. Wow, for each response. Start with the hard truth I need to hear, following the follow with specific actionable steps and with direct challenger assignment. And bro, wow, what it produced. I was like no, this it knows me, wow like it produced that's a damn good prompt.
Speaker 2:Thanks, man, I was.
Speaker 1:I like put some time into like freaking barreling that thing out, but what it produced is pretty incredible. So I I agree with you with what you just said is I've started to use it as a coach. Like, coach me, yeah, like, because you don't want to be like yeah, girl, you got it, which is what it started doing for a little while.
Speaker 2:Yes it was like you are the master. It was like whoa bro, slow down, like tell me where I'm wrong here yes um, and they, they kind of fixed it, but. But I agree, but that prompt is going to do the opposite. That's going to be like you know, push back on me, build me, like, like, make sure I'm making the right decision oh, yeah, yeah, it's interesting because then I had my.
Speaker 1:You know, it gave me some stuff and I had my leadership call a couple days later and I handled my leadership call completely differently and my team was like, at the end of it um, I don't know if you've worked with imran at all through this project, but uh, yeah, a little bit. Yeah, imran was like man, I loved the meeting, you know, like that was different and I was like well, let me tell you why I did it different. Because my, my ai called my ass out, oh, and I was like, and it told me the things I needed to hear, and so we changed it and he's like man, that's. So I shared it with them and you know one piece of alpha.
Speaker 2:This reminds me of like using ai. Getting going with ai, using the right model for the right task is so important. The majority of people just go to chachipt and they just speak to the free version. So you're getting like a stripped down, dumbed down version of 4-0. Their names are so stupid right, I mean 4-0, and oh three and oh 04, high mini, and they know that and they need to fix it, but the names are so terrible. But all those models are completely different. And then sonnet 4 with claude completely different. Gemini's models, pro 2.5 completely different.
Speaker 2:So, doing a little research, you could literally just go to your favorite AI and ask it like tell me for me for what I do, which model to use when for which use cases. Okay, am I reviewing a legal agreement? Maybe I should be using O3. Am I doing hardcore logic and reasoning? Maybe I should be using Sonnet 4. Am I coding? I should be using Sonnet 4. Am I doing deep research? Which one has the best? By the way, deep research is life-changing. If people don't know what I'm talking about, it's literally that little button and you give it a decent prompt and you just say research this market for me and come back in 10 minutes. I mean, it's unbelievable Unreal and the deep research right now on Gemini is by far the most powerful I've tried that one I've not done it.
Speaker 2:It's like a 30 page because Google has access to so much and I think they're also scraping YouTube when they do the deep research and so they have more references and sources. So it's just going way deeper on things. But they're always competing. So right model for the right task is very important. I use a lot of O3. 4.0 is just for like general chat, general search, general stuff. When you need it to be smart, you've got to use.
Speaker 1:At the time of this recording, chatgpt is like O3 model in my opinion, that's a great thing too to ask that 03 model. In my opinion, that's that's a great thing too to ask that these are the things that I do. Which models and tools should I use?
Speaker 2:to do them. Yep makes a huge difference. Yeah, that's a good night and day result.
Speaker 1:Go, go and compare, go ask the same thing twice to two different models and you'll get like completely different results well, I mean, I found, when I found the deep research side even on, if you use perplexity, uh-huh, okay, so perplexity. And then when I found even that deep research button on ChatGPT, the first thing that I did with that deep research is I plugged in all the info about my company, my P&Ls, all of it, and I learned so much about my company. I was like, oh my gosh, like what it came out with was incredible.
Speaker 2:I know I did it on you guys when we first started working together, that's a great thing too, brother.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you, where can people get a hold of you?
Speaker 2:What's the best way for people to get a hold of you? Yeah, so our website is stenoai, sweet Stenoai, sweet Stenoai. I host a podcast called Alfalfa, so alfalfapodcom. We're on YouTube and wherever you can podcast.
Speaker 1:It's good, by the way, it's very good.
Speaker 2:Co-host now. I used to do Flow with Arman Asadi. That's still up if you want to listen to that, and that's yeah. Instagram is probably my main platform, Sweet platform Sweet People can reach you.
Speaker 1:We'll put all the links below, for sure.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for everything you've done to help our company Only just begun.
Speaker 1:Man, I believe that I agree with that. I very much agree with that. But I'm telling you just, you know the what you guys have been able to produce for us over this past nine, 10 months however long it's been has been incredible for us and to you know, compile all the data and to plug it, because these is years and years and years of stuff we've been putting together and, man, it's been such a unique tool. I've loved launching it out we just did like a baby launch with the community and to see their feedback and it's well, it's been amazing so honored.
Speaker 1:Thank you, man for pursuing your purpose to help, because, man, what it has done for me I love how you call it a twin it has allowed me to man to communicate with my students on a regular basis yeah, bro, and provide them value of the things that I have. That's like, anyway, and my team has been able to communicate with it I'm just grateful for you. For real it's been a big unlock for us and something I'm very excited to just go full tilt with even more good thank you man.
Speaker 1:thank you. Excited for everything me too, man, for all y'all out there. Hey, go share this episode, go connect with Arm on it and the company Steno AI and then live always with loha Peace.