Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Dr. Random podcast. I'm Dr. Sarah, and here's the deal. We don't do boxes here. Every episode is different, every conversation has its own flavor, and no topic is off limits. If you're looking for predictable, this isn't it. But if you want real conversations, honest takes, and a touch of intellect in the best way, you're in the right place. This is Dr. Random Podcast.
Hello, and welcome to the Dr. Random Podcast. I'm Dr. Sarah, and today I am so excited because I have guest, Dr. Zarik Boghossian. Am I pronouncing your name correctly or.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: That's perfect, actually. Thank you.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: All right.
And actually, Dr. Zarik and I actually were acquainted, and we know each other because he was actually my professor at Pepperdine University.
And I'm really excited to have him because his class was.
I loved his class. It was one of my favorite classes in the program, and I really enjoyed it. And he taught us so much.
And so Dr. Zarik Boghossian is a technology innervator. He's an entrepreneur. He's an educator, an inventor and leader.
And he actually climbed Mount Ararat. I hope I said that correct, too.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Yes, Ararat. Mount Ararat. Armenian Mountain. Yeah.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Yes. Which was.
To me, I'm like, wow, I just think that's amazing. Such an accomplishment. And over the past four decades, he's helped build technologies across industries ranging from aerospace and artificial intelligence intelligence to augmented reality and digital media.
And he led development of mission critical flight software for NASA's International Space Station and founded multiple technology companies, taught entrepreneurship and leadership at Pepperdine University for nearly two decades and continues to champion the power of imagination, kindness, and leadership in creating meaningful impact.
And so Dr. Zarik, and I know you want me to call you Zarik on out, so when.
Is there anything you'd like to add to your introduction today that I just gave?
[00:02:30] Speaker B: No, actually, firstly, I'm grateful to be here. I'm very proud of your achievements over the past few years.
Being a student of mine now, accomplishing the things you love to accomplish. I think it's an honor for me. So I appreciate being here here.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Thank you so much.
And I'm honored to have you here. So thank you.
And I know both of us have that Pepperdine pride, too. So just love Pepperdine.
And when people hear your resume, they see NASA and AI and entrepreneurship, patents and academia.
But how do you describe yourself beyond the accomplishments?
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Yeah, actually, as you were reading all those things, you know, it's just. It's a very interesting feeling, and I'm trying To find the right words to explain or answer your question.
So it is truly, at least for me, unless we have a conversation like this, or maybe I have to submit something from my past experiences and all that.
I really don't even remember what I have done. I remember the achievements, but I don't really go through like, oh, my God, I did all this, right?
Because to me, I've done everything that I love to do, and I was honored to do, and I was grateful for them to be done through my participation.
So the simple answer to your question is, well, I'm older, so I've done a lot of many more things in my life, and I've always stayed true to my abilities, which is technology, innovation, creating things from scratch.
And.
And when I hear the things that you just mentioned, I'm looking back and I feel, like, grateful, but I still feel like I've done enough, not a lot, you know, so.
Because I still like to do what I've been wanting to do for the past 42 years. So I'm grateful for the opportunities I had to be participating in all these industries.
But they all have one thing in common. From aerospace to E commerce to retail to augmented reality and AI, at the end of the day, you have to deal with human beings. So I think what I've developed really well over the years, how to speak to people, how to motivate people, how to, you know, relay my vision or the things we're gonna go do together. So.
So that's been my, you know, I stay focused and I do the things I love to do, and I end up doing it.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: So I love that.
And I just thought of something from class that I was gonna share. I just remembered, but when we were thinking of the entrepreneurial invention ideas of stuff like patents, I don't know if you remember, but one of our projects, and now they're popular. They're everywhere. And I'm like, dang it, I should have jumped on it. Was it the filtered shower heads?
[00:06:01] Speaker B: Yes, I do remember that. It was a great idea then. It's a great idea now.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: I'm like, oh, my goodness. And if there's anything I remember, I could, like, hear your voice in the back of my head saying, do it. Just go do it. And I was like, I feel like that's one thing I took from you, was your enthusiasm. And you're like, just go do it. You know, don't wait. Like, just, you know, tackle those ideas and those, you know, dreams and creative ideas.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: That's true. Because, honestly, unless you do it. You don't know if it would have worked or not. And then when you do something, even if it doesn't work, then you have nothing to lose. See, I think, again, it's a mindset.
So I. I am glad that you brought that up, because that's an example of any topic in our heads.
So you think of something. If it's possible for you to do it, do it. If it's not practical, don't do it. But don't regret in the future just because you didn't start exploring it. So.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Yes.
Yeah. And that's how sometimes I have. You know, I look at life. It's like, am I gonna look back and be like, you know, I'd rather take that step and risk of the unknown? And then, you know, because that feeling of regret when you don't do something, I feel like can hang on you and be heavier than not taking that step. So. Yeah.
And your bio ends with the phrase a simple man. So just curious why you chose that description, or I'd like to learn more about, you know, what that is, means to your. What's important to you with that phrase.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Yeah, there's no scientific reason for that. I think, again, everything I do comes from the heart.
If people recognize the things I have done or achieved that helped them, that motivated them, that change an industry or started an innovation or generation or evolution, I don't.
So I've done it because I love doing them.
So never in my life, in the last 66 years I've been born, I felt like there. There's something genius about me. There's nothing special about me. There's truly, genuinely.
I am just a simple person, a humble person, and a person that appreciates life.
But I'm not doing things for the benefits of recognition. I do them because I love to do things unconditionally.
So it's a mindset I developed, I think, especially as an immigrant who immigrated to US 48 years ago.
So I'm proud of it, but that doesn't mean I'm a genius. I'm proud of it. That doesn't mean I'm any different than others.
So I really think the things I've done in the past, anybody else could have done it, including climbing the mountain. But then you have to do something about it. You know, climbing a mountain is not easy, but if you practice and you take the chance and you have your calculated risk in mind, then you can do it. And so I think I. The benefit or the only advantage I had over the many years I work hard at it.
When it's. Something gets in my head, I really want to try it and I do it and I do it to complete it.
But even if it's not completed, then at the end I'm still happy. So.
So I am a simple man. I just want to make sure this is actually very important. I do some public speaking and I truly, genuinely believe that there's nothing special about me, but what is special about me, that I'm a simple person.
So I want to send a message to all people who are humble, simple, they don't have all the benefits or advantages in life. I never had an advantage in life. I've been an immigrant. I had many disadvantages in my life. But that doesn't mean I could not have been successful. I could not. That doesn't mean I shouldn't have done something that I have. So, yeah, simple man. I'm proud of it.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: I love that.
And I, yes, I love all of that.
And it makes me think. I love that, you know, because you're very humble, I feel like. And because you have accomplished a lot in your amazing success. So I love that, you know, that's. I don't know. I think the listeners are going to enjoy hearing your story behind that.
And looking back over all your innovation, what would you say originally sparked your fascination with technology and science and problem solving?
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Well, this is actually a true story.
So it's a mix of.
I'm gonna go back 48 years.
So as an immigrant, I came to this country.
I was born in Iran, I'm Armenian, born in Iran. So my religion is Christian, My background is Armenian, you know, my identity, my culture, my language.
But due to our past history, Armenians around the world, maybe we'll talk about it later.
Many Armenians were born in different neighboring countries and I was. My grand grandparents were born in Iran, therefore I was born in Iran.
Right before revolution in Iran in 1979, I left the country. And maybe we'll get into it later, but the fact that I was in a new country, my English was poor, I was a shy person, I had no friends, but I was really good in math and science.
So when somebody's asking me, how did you get into computer science and software and technology?
I give them the honest answer. And it wasn't like I was a Zuckerberg thinking ahead, that I'm gonna do something that is going to change the world.
I was good in math and science because of my background in high school and I wasn't good in speaking English, therefore I chose a Degree program at University of North Texas that didn't require a lot of speaking, didn't require presentations, didn't require participation a lot. So it was individual work, mathematical science work, which I felt comfortable doing.
So sometimes luck can take you far.
But even though it was luck that made me start computer science, but then I studied computer science, then I learned computer science. And guess what? As I graduated in 1983, I became one of the millions of computer scientists who actually started the Industry Revolution 4.0.
So I am part of that industry revolution where computing was becoming available on your desktops and then Microsoft comes with the operating system and then the word processors and then the Excel spreadsheets and then Internet comes along. And so I was actually part of that adoption, you can call it the previous AI generation.
So I've gone through that full cycle. So my shyness and lack of speaking English made me to take computer science. And it happened to be a good choice because that's how I built up my career and my life around it for the last 48 years.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: Okay, that's interesting. I love that.
I remember when you had to like plug your computer into the wall, the t. The telephone socket.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: So, yeah, I've been, I've been around since then at least, but yeah, so. And then I remember there was a computer in our house.
And you know, I'm in my, I'm in my 40s, so. But there is a computer in our. I don't. I never say how old I am. There was a computer in our house when I was little. I remember because my dad was in communications in the Navy and so he was always tinkering around with like communication stuff and computers and all that.
So that's fun.
And I guess. Would you say the lessons, Would you say what lessons from your upbringing and this will kind of, I think, gear into what you're kind of talking about. But would you say still influence the way you lead today?
[00:15:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's actually very important question.
And especially for a person who migrated from a third world country into a first world country.
What brought me the discipline and the humbleness was the way my parents raised me.
When you're in a country.
My father was a mechanic, by the way.
We were a lower middle class family.
He didn't even have a car. He was a mechanic. He didn't even have a car.
So we would walk, we would take bus and you know, those are the type of, that's how we commute and all that.
My mom did not work in the beginning. She was a Housewife.
So my father worked. But one thing they spoke about all the time in our household was you, as you grow up, you get your education and you be a good and a kind person, no matter how old you may become, no matter who are you speaking with.
So from a very young age, that had been. Those messages had been imprinted in my head. And you can only imagine, years later, I come to us on my own, by the way, no parents, nobody around me. I could have done anything that I wish to do, but those things stuck with me. And it's not get education, is not go get a degree, second degree and a third degree, meaning that learn and move up, learn and move up. So, so the advancements that they encouraged on us because of the hardship we had as a family when we were in Iran, that. That was the motivation, that was the inspiration, that was the promise I gave to my parents when I left them in 1978 when I was 18.
I'm going to go get education and get a degree and come back and create a good life for all of us. So that was the plan. Obviously, that plan did not work. So I came to this country, I got education and I stayed because if I had gone back, I would be dead because of the revolution and so on and so forth.
So I think the parenting and the parents have a lot to do at the early stage of your life. I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a medical doctor. I'm none of that. But I think I have a lot of wisdom and experience and I believe, at least in my case and the cases of people that I know it's that initial upbringing and validation what's important in life and what kind of person you're going to be and then you will be.
So that was my inspiration.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: So I know we could probably really dive into that a lot. So. Yeah, yeah. And NASA on and the International Space Station, which was one of your most remarkable achievements, was leading the development of the electric power system flight software for the International Space Station.
What would you say did that responsibility feel like at the time.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: Great question, actually, quickly on that story and which is relevant to your audience as well as to what I've done in my life. So, as you know, I do some public speaking and the topic of my speaking is Imagine, Always one of my trademarks.
And I share a story from my childhood. I was 10 years old in Iran and my father had just bought us a black and white TV.
So that was after 10 years of living. I. I saw the TV for the first time and few weeks after having that TV with one channel availability by the way, no remote, nothing, of course I witnessed the, the launch of Apollo 11 and the landing of the first man on the moon.
I think it was July 26, 1969 maybe.
And that became a fascination for me. Like, like we just got a TV and I'm witnessing something out of this world.
And then I didn't know all the details, how they got to the moon, you know, what is the Apollo, you know, what happened or how long did it take, you know, how did they created this thing. But then space became a fascination in my head. So I always felt, oh my God, I wish I could go to space. Oh my God, I wish I could work on a space program.
But, but guess what? In Iran, those were not possibilities.
So fast forward when I came to the country and as I explained a few minutes ago, I studied computer science. Well, guess what? So not that I knew I was going to work on the space program, but if I had any chance of joining the space program, computer science would have been the best choice.
So even though it was out of luck to me, but I took the steps, I studied it and I became good at it. And guess what? Five, six years of experience developing software from machine language to some application programming and all that. Five and a half years later, opportunity knocked at the door that they're hiring for the International Space Station. I applied for a senior technical position and guess what, they hired me.
So see, now I am. You know, there's a reason I do some public speaking because I believe our lives has some destiny, that we have some destiny in our life.
We may not know it early. You know, a lot of things I notice now, I didn't notice 30 years ago, but that's part of life.
So then I joined the space program. But the message there is I was prepared to take that opportunity.
So I have a formula that I use a success equals preparation plus opportunity. So I took the right major, I was really good at it.
I applied for the position, I was hired for the position.
And then two years later, as a matter of fact, not only I was in that position, they asked me to become the manager for the entire space station flight software team.
And I'm going. I have zero management skill, I've never been a manager in my life. I just came to this country like 10 some years ago.
But what they saw in me was not the years of experience, what they saw in me was my passion because I shared them, shared with the managers who were trying to hire the right person.
I shared with them my story about when I was 10 years old.
That was very convincing to them. Even though I wasn't trying to convince them, I was trying to be honest with them because they asked me, have you been a manager? No, sir. Do you really think you can do this? I said, I don't know if I can do this, but rest assured, I'll give my life for this position, so I will never let you down.
So in a way, they made a choice, and it was the right choice for them and it was the right choice for me.
And so if I were to consider anything as my career, lifetime achievement, it is the International Space Station.
So flight software for the electric power system means unless there is a power distribution inside the space station, that space station would not have ever been built.
So when I look at that core value that I provided with my team 30 some years ago, of course I cry anytime I think of it and I look up the sky. I'm saying, the space station still orbiting the Earth. So.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: I love that. That's awesome. Like the fact that.
Yeah, because, like, it's funny, one of my podcasts is about the cosmos and like stargazing and all of that and looking at what's, you know, going on out in space. And so the fact that when you look up there, you're thinking, you know, I mean, that's, that's huge. That's awesome. I love this story.
And the ISS system that you. Well, that's what we just talked about. I was gonna kind of go into that, but we discussed that. Unless you want to talk more about.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: No, no. International Space Station. I think what, what I learned from that program, you can only imagine mission critical means. If I didn't do my job well, or 150,000 other people working on the project, people would have died. These astronauts who are dear people, smart people, kind people, educated people. We actually, I got embedded at the Johnson Space center, living on campus, on building one, meeting astronauts, meeting the operational people.
So when you are walking with an astronaut on campus and knowing that this astronaut is relying on you and thousands of others like me to take a behemoth like a vehicle that is a firebomb, and to go to the moon or to the space, it's a huge responsibility on your shoulder. So unless you're passionate about what you're doing, and unless you're careful and you establish some habits and discipline to take your job seriously, then the space program would have never worked. So I think when you see real people are relying on your passion and experience, Then there's additional responsibility on your shoulders and a lot more stress, by the way.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: And
[00:26:10] Speaker A: that plays into a lot of everything we all do in our careers or passions or anything.
So what you just said, like, it's, it's sticking in me again, you always say things that I'm like, whoa, okay, so.
And with leadership, what would you say as a leader?
I think, you know, you kind of went over this. But what leadership lessons did working on mission critical NASA projects teach you that entrepreneurs often over, possibly overlook, would you say?
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Well, resilience, determination, endurance, you know, staying true to your values, keep imagining and envisioning, you know, before we launched the space station, it was only a dream.
So you were trying to bring that dream to a reality. So your imagination, you're dreaming about it and assuming the hardship that you're going through for a reason.
So if you don't see that far, then you cannot endure the pain or the time it takes, the effort it takes, the sacrifices it takes. You see, one thing I'm trying to be straight right away with my students at undergraduate, graduate and doctoral program is the fact that you have to have endurance. Entrepreneurship is not easy.
If somebody's saying, oh, let's come up with a cool idea and then sell it a couple of years later for a billion dollars, I think that's only a dream that may not come to reality sometimes, most of the time. So that's, that's an exception. Yes, there are businesses who have gone through that, that life cycle and fine, but 99.95% of the time, you have to really work hard to get to that point. So, so this, this endurance and staying true to myself and take my job seriously.
As a matter of fact, that's what I took from the space station days to my entrepreneurship years. Because I'm not building space station for my customers as an entrepreneur, but I'm building a system that I would love to work for. The system to work well, to have quality, to have the stability, to be safe and secure. You see. So, yes, not every application is a space application, but the process is the same.
Yeah, maybe it took longer for a space program and it's going to take less for the mobile application. But the mindset and the process I took away from those years to the rest of my career, even now.
So I think those are the learnings and leadership, in my opinion, not only for space leadership, I'm a little bit different.
One of my trademarks is leadership as a service and that I define that as treat people as human beings. And in return receive loyalty, respect and results.
NASA was looking at the results of the International Space Station to be orbiting around the earth.
They didn't really give us the notebook saying, you're going to do this and this and this and this to get to that result.
So it's the leadership that comes in and says, I'm going to use this style of leadership to motivate my team to create something out of this world.
And that the first lesson for the leadership is to treat people as human beings. You do that and the rest becomes just an automated process.
And I took the same thing to my other businesses, actually, I think I do that to all of my personal life.
Leadership is in all of us. You see, in the olden days, people looked at the CEO as the leader.
That's absolutely untrue. CEO is one of the most important positions in the company. But that's not the only leader.
Leader is the janitor, actually, who prepares the environment so for employees to come in a very nice place, clean place, safe place, and everything is available to them so they can create.
Janitor is a leader.
A tech support person is a leader.
A manager is a leader. A developer is a leader. A CEO is a leader. So what are those common attributes that everybody has to assume in order to create an organization that is going to really work nicely and synchronize?
[00:31:15] Speaker A: And you've also founded and LED ventures across AI, augmented reality, the digital media, E commerce, solar energy and healthcare.
What would you say allows you to spot opportunities before others do?
[00:31:35] Speaker B: Yeah, spot opportunity. Some of it is a dream, some of it. You see something on TV saying, oh my God, there's a problem here and I wish I could solve it. Some of it is, Armenians are social people. You know, we go out to dinner and drinking and then your friend who's an architect says, zarik, you know, is there any way that I can translate a two dimensional blueprint into a three dimensional AR experience?
And you think about it, you say, oh yeah, I think that's a great idea. So why don't we start doing it? Why don't we experiment it, you see, so it's not a scientific task. The common, common denominator here is every one of those industries or every one of those startups have led or co founded have solved the problem.
When you have an idea that solves a problem and then that, that could be the idea now there may be less market for it. So the other thing I always encourage entrepreneurs, do not start an idea because you think it's going to be A unicorn?
Because that's misleading.
Why not have a startup that is $100 million in revenues? Why has it, why does it have to be 1 billion?
What is unicorn? Unicorn is nothing.
If we solve the problem in some poor countries, clean water, electricity, people in villages, even in Armenia, in Iran, in some of those countries we think they're not advanced, but they're not third world either.
People don't have electrical systems for like five, six hours a day.
The kids do their homeworks under the candlelight.
What if we solve that problem?
Then you guess what, you're gonna serve 1 billion people in this planet of 8 billion. And then you will become a billionaire. Right?
So don't think about, I'm gonna create something that is gonna worth something.
Think about, you're gonna create something that solves a problem that has meaning and therefore many people will benefit from it. And if they do, then most likely you won't be able to count the money that you're gonna have after 10 years or so.
[00:33:55] Speaker A: So would you say that that's kind of, that confirms kind of how you would decide whether an idea is worth pursuing or not?
[00:34:03] Speaker B: It sounds like, yes, ideas worth pursuing if they're solving a problem, that's the first thing I look at.
And if it solves a problem, then in your head you're kind of saying, is this a big market or not?
[00:34:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Not because of a billion versus 100 million.
Is it something that is going to have an impact?
Yeah. Right. And lately for the last many years, and you also mentioned initially, I'm also an investor and I focus on, on ideas that actually have meaning.
No matter is it non profit or for profit, doesn't matter.
But social entrepreneurship has become one of my passions for the last few years. Actually one of the classes I teach, it's a capstone class at School of Education and Psychology at Pepperdine.
It's Social entrepreneurship.
Masters of Arts in social entrepreneurship. Okay, so what I mean by that. So four or five years ago, I met a very intelligent person. Her name is Mariam Torocian and she had this great idea named Safe View. And Safe View was an application, a mobile application. And its intent was to help gender inequality issues and especially abuse against women, starting with third world countries. And sadly, even in this country we have a lot of issues like that.
Well, guess what? For me, I didn't even think about is this a unicorn or not.
I said this is a great idea and when it's scaled, it's going to help a lot of people around the world. By the way, this is not just one country, one continent. This is sadly a global issue of magnitude scale.
If a problem is solved through this technology and idea, then I want to be a part of it. I've been an investor for many years. I'm actually now developing the next generation of that software for Safe View because of the passion I have and I believe in the idea.
So that's this example of, you know, if you think of something that solves a real problem, then put everything that you have in your heart and try to make it work.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: I love Safe View.
That's definitely a must have and a need. I myself carry things all the time on my keychain, so a couple different things. I won't say what all they, all of them are, but yeah, that's a very important innovation and invention.
And I basically was gonna ask, you know, your process of turning imagination into reality. I feel like we kind of just went over that.
I actually have a. Right now I have this skin care idea and I haven't seen it out there yet. I think I told you about it, but, you know, but it's, it's. I think it's fun too. I just think it's fun, you know, being able to have, you know, as an entrepreneur and in that space is like, you have this idea and you get excited about it and, you know, you kind of do some research on it. Like, is that out there already? Is this new? I don't know. I just think the whole process in itself is fun and like, almost, you know, me as an artist with a painting, I put a canvas in front of me and I have in my head a lot of times what I want it to look like in the end.
And it's interesting when it actually comes out the way I want it to, and there are times when it doesn't and I get frustrated, but I feel like that's kind of how it would be as an entrepreneur. You know, you have ideas, some work, maybe some don't.
Um, but, you know, you built businesses across multiple, you know, different genres of stuff over the technological age. And how would you say is innovation itself changed over time in that process of being an entrepreneur? Have you seen anything?
[00:38:15] Speaker B: Yeah, innovation certainly changed. It has evolved processes.
You know, when I was working on the space station program, you know, we had the software development life cycle called waterfall. Waterfall meant, you know, go define the requirements. When it's fully defined, then you start writing the code. When you're done with writing the code, then somebody's going to test the code and then somebody's going to validate the code and somebody's going to launch the code.
So for some industries that is still the case. So if it's a mission critical software like space military, they still do that. But what's been introduced is what's known as Agile, Agile development process.
Scrum. Scrum is a development process where you can go to Mars. As a matter of fact, Elon Musk, everybody knows about him, he wants to go to Mars. So Elon Musk, SpaceX, the Solar City that he owns, and Tesla, the engineers in that company, they're using this agile methodology.
Yeah, going to Mars may take 10 years, but I cannot wait 10 years to see if it's going to work or not. So you take smaller chunks at the big vision and you start using Agile development process and every two to three weeks you develop something and you see problems progress toward the big picture.
So that those are the type of things that evolved in our industry and the technology stack. You know, like I, I, I mentioned when I was in getting my computer science degree, we didn't have Internet, we didn't have cell phone, we didn't have chat GPT, oh my God, you know, we didn't have Google, you know, like for me to search for something I had to go to the library in Denton, Texas, you know, big library and my English was poor, so I had a dictionary next to me, I was reading a book and I was trying translate so I can understand did I have the right research or not. So imagine all those difficulties at the time.
So evolving to what we have now, right now you can reach out to the world. Right now we're speaking, you're from out of state, I'm here in la, we're discussing a topic that may reach out to thousands of people. Right.
That's the evolution we've gone through. But I want to mention something important.
Evolution, of course, now it's AI, right? So I consider myself as part of Industry Revolution 4.0. I actually believe AI is now officially part of Industry Revolution 5.0. It's not only AI, it's an autonomous economy, it's autonomous everything.
So truly it's the next revolution.
But one thing that stayed the same from the time Henry Ford invented the first car in 1890 or something.
Where we are now is the human element.
Yes, there are talks about you're going to need less humans because there's more automation. Yes, that's a different topic.
But humans, human minds, human character, human kindness or lack thereof, human motivation, human intelligence, emotional intelligence, it's Been like that for many years. So industry revolution.
Yes, we got more education, I am more, I have more wisdom and more information.
But the intelligence is the same as it was 50 years ago, 100 years ago with maybe with less information. But that doesn't mean we were stupid people.
So my point is there's all these evolutions, but how you treat people becomes in my opinion, number one.
Number one characteristics of a leadership or a corporate culture or getting things done.
Yelling at people has never been part of my philosophy. And I see people who do that and they're successful depending on what you. What do you define success?
I don't call that success. I think it's because I have people yelling at me, by the way. So the, the things I do in my career, all the businesses that I have. I think at some point you come to realization that no, no human being, by the way, at work or out of outside of the work has any right to yell at anybody else.
You may be disagreeing, you may not see eye to eye. Maybe the vision is different as partners and co founders. Fine, separate.
Don't come, shut the door and yell at me because you're my boss. Or the olden days, there was a boss and there was an employee, but there are no employees now. In my opinion, we have colleagues.
A CEO is a colleague is not a bust. You should not have a boss. We all have responsibilities. If you really want me to take the responsibility, give me the empowerment, give me the responsibility. Let me make mistakes. And when I'm making a mistake, don't yell at me, correct me, because that's how I've been succeeding in my life. All the businesses you're talking about, I don't even know how many I had and how many anymore. I may have, but one thing has stayed the same.
Cell phone or Internet being there or not, and you know, a chat GPT. I treat people the same as I have been for the last 48 years in my career. And I think that's one thing that is missing right now.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: That, yeah, that's, that's definitely goal I will take with me is to think when you're working in the different environments of we're all colleagues. So I love that.
And what would you say, you know, with your. We're just talking about AI and the enabled solutions through your Zima group.
What would you say excites you most about AI today?
[00:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah, AI has caused a lot of issues, by the way. So let me, let me put it bluntly. I, I used AI 50 years ago or not. 50 years ago, 30 some years ago on space program. AI is nothing.
Artificial intelligence. Actually I don't like the term many people use.
Augmented intelligence. Okay, it's truly that. I think AI should stand for augmented intelligence. There is a human being and there is some augmentation of some intelligence. But I am still in charge. I'm still sending the commands. You know, you cannot have. Maybe over time you're going to have the so called agents. They're going to learn and they're going to make decisions and they're going to make transactions. That's what I meant by autonomous economy.
At some point, 10 years, 15 years from now, I think there will be Moments Industries that you, you, you teach an agent to do something and they're gonna do something. They're gonna learn when they make mistakes and they're gonna correct themselves. They're gonna charge the customer, they're gonna file the invoices and they're gonna send you a report as the CEO of the company. Yes, those things in some indust.
But I think augmented intelligence is the key.
What is overwhelming now, the employees are worried or colleagues.
Because we've been training our employees, our colleagues for the last three years in anticipation of picking up on AI.
They're using the replit lovable cloud. Cloud. I think it's the most used for testing as well as development. All that.
But the number one aggravation and, and issue with everyone was are you asking us to do this so you can pick up few of the few and then keep them because they're better at sending commands to these agents and you're going to get rid of us, Right? So from a company perspective, people are fearful and in some companies that already happened by the way.
So there are no promises on anything. But my point is if we have an educated force on AI and we can do things quicker, I would rather have more projects deliver them fast rather than less projects with less people.
So a goal for me and people like me is keep the people that we have, have them get education and be certified with AI tools and so we can bring more business and deliver faster.
I think that's the best option.
But what makes it worse is the customers who come to us now, they all have an opinion.
Oh Zarek, we heard they can use an agent and a manager and maybe half a person and you can give me my product in two months.
You see, those are the things. Of course I don't agree with those things. I think everybody's underestimating the role of the human beings even in the Autonomous economy.
Yes, we can do things faster, but you still have that person. Imagine you asked me to do something for you and it has to be HIPAA compliant, gdpr, you know, other requirements, quality requirements.
I'm gonna ask Claude, please go do this for me. And Claude is gonna send me a code, I'm gonna look at it, I'm gonna compile it, I'm gonna deploy it, and then it's gonna work. And then after a while it's gonna crash and the customer is going to be pissed off. And if customer comes to me and says, what did you do? I said, well, I didn't do this, Claude did it.
Why did you ask Claude to do it? Because you told me you're okay with Claude doing this. Because I told you you're gonna need five people to do this. You said, just do it with one person and use the AI.
You see, of course I would never do that. I'm giving you an example of if I were to do it and if it crashes, who's responsible for that? If I'm still responsible, then I'm going to decide how many people I, I'm going to need to embed with the AI as an augmented intelligence and then deliver to my customers. So I think the stress comes from the customers. They want to save money and they want to have it quick. Then they want everything.
The employees are scared because they may lose their jobs. If I have better AI educated people, and it has created a chaos, I don't think it's a good time.
[00:49:32] Speaker A: I feel it in the air.
[00:49:37] Speaker B: Having said that, I don't think it's a good time. But keep in mind, again, I repeat myself, Industry Revolution 4.0 was similar.
So I'll give you an example. When the Henry Ford invented the first car with four wheels in 1890, let's say 130 years ago, let's say right before he invented the car. Actually, there's a quotation I use in my classes. The great grandson of Henry Ford once said, if my great grandfather was asking people what is it that they needed at the time, in the 130 years ago, they would have said, we need faster horses.
So they know, they didn't know what a car is. They said, I need a horse because that's how I deliver things, that's how I bring people from one location to the next.
But then Henry Ford said, no, you don't need a fast horse, you need a car, you see? So then he built a new car. So The Ford Motor Company hundreds, 710 years ago. And then what happened was people who were riding horses, they got. They lost their jobs.
But guess what?
They then started being trained on being drivers.
So if you look at AI is the same thing.
You know, find your spot, don't fight against it.
[00:51:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:06] Speaker B: Because see how you can adapt to it. So the horse riders became taxi drivers, or they knew how to draw. Right. Cars. Rather than keep complaining.
Now the truck drivers are going to lose their jobs in a few years.
Some of them have, because there's autonomous trucking. Is it good? No, it's not good. But you know, it's going to happen. So why don't you go get training?
Because you still need an operator in the car, in the truck.
Learn the skills.
Because you've been a driver for 30 years. Oh, you have great experience. Use that experience and try to learn how to operate an autonomous truck so that then you can keep your job.
Yeah, it's a new job, but there is a job for all of us. Yeah, but find that. Don't fight it.
Don't complain.
Go find your spot in the AI or autonomous economy evolution.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: So, yeah, words of wisdom here. Okay.
And so as an artist myself, I. I've had some concerns with AI, obviously.
And, you know, I was actually terrified of a. I never actually.
People can believe me or not believe me. I never even used AI until probably like July or August of last year because I was so scared to even touch it during the dissertation process. I didn't want any kind of traces on my study, you know, and that was like a little fear of mine. So I was like, I'm not even gonna dabble into that until after I'm done with my study because I just, you know what I mean, didn't even go there.
So it's been new for me and it's been interesting. But.
But as an artist, I was gonna say is, you know, I paint. I do oil paintings and my photography. I actually took an image when I was in Paris and I had a lot of people just automatically thought it was AI. And I'm like, no, I'm not gonna. It's my art. Like, I took that with my camera. I took it.
And I've gone so far as I think you'll appreciate this. It's an extra step. I do. Which isn't necessarily needed, but I've actually had my artwork filed with the U.S. copyright Office, all my paintings and my photography, just because of everything going on. Like, I was nervous, you know, sharing everything on social media and having a website. But that's how I'm gonna generate business or get my name out there as an artist.
So I took that extra step to protect myself. Yeah.
But yeah, and then it was really fun when I got my. I filed my, you know, patent name copyright for Dr. Random.
So that was fun. But.
And I kind of wanted to talk to you about your.
Do you, do you call it.
Is it med, am or medm? Is there a way you pronounce that?
[00:54:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Med. Am.
That Am.
[00:54:14] Speaker A: Okay.
And the vision behind creating that for Armenia's medical tourism platform? Right.
[00:54:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:23] Speaker A: And what would you say was the gap in the healthcare ecosystem that you were trying to solve? Or what would you say, you know, to those listening out there, what kind of drove that for you?
[00:54:36] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's.
It's a very good question. Thanks for asking.
So as a background, I've been in the software industry for 42 years and for the last 21 years of the last 42 years, I have developed resources in Armenia.
So why Armenia? Because I'm Armenian.
So part of the reason was Armenia is a great country, great nation, but we've been for many years part of the Soviet Union, the old communist regime for the last 34 years, plus we sought independence.
So basically we are a new country. So a 34 year old country is going to have its own issues and problems.
So what Armenians do have is really great brain power, hard working skills.
Part of it, if not most of it or all of it, comes from our very sad history of genocide in 1915, where 1.5 million Armenians were massacred and then we fled to the neighboring countries.
So that DNA gone through hardship and then developed in new countries just like I did in the us Part of the reason I survived through my immigration was I've seen my father, how hard it worked.
I know about our history.
So if I had a bad day thinking about my God, I was working five jobs.
I was a dishwasher, I was a gas station attendance, I was washing toilets every other night. I was working at IHOP International House of pancakes from 11pm until 7am graveyard shift, dealing with drunk people.
So. So when I had a bad day saying, well, I can't believe I'm a young man, I'm alone, I don't have money, nobody is respecting me, everybody's making fun of me.
And then I have a tough life, then I would go back to our past, then I would remember how hard my father worked. Then I would say, zarik, stop complaining.
At least you are alive.
You see, when you put things in perspective, as young as you May be all you need is a few seconds of silence in your head and reasoning.
There is a reason that you are here. There is a reason you have to work five jobs. There is a reason that people are making fun of you.
There's a reason that you have a. Have to have a huge imagination. The imagine always. I think what you asked earlier is actually that I developed it not 10 years ago as a career. I developed that 47 years ago when I immigrated to this country.
I had to imagine what my life could be like if I don't want to wash dishes.
What is that like? Well, you have to have education.
There's nothing. You have no money, your father is not rich, your parents are not rich. There's nobody's going to give you money. So you have to earn your money and get education. Why education?
Because from the upbringing of my parents, if you want to have a good life, you get an education.
It's still true, by the way.
So to get education I had to do five jobs. So it's just. I had to do that. So stop complaining. Sorry. Go get your education. Then when you have an education, you get a good job. What is that good job? Being a programmer. You don't have to wash toilets. You sit in an office, you program.
No matter how hard it may be, it's a better life.
And guess what? That programming took me to the space station, you see.
So Armenians have this DNA that they can survive through hardship. So knowing that and being having gone through my journey, I wanted to get back to Armenia. I want to give back to Armenia. I want to hire people in Armenia if I am to hire anybody in the world.
Because we have great scientists, mathematicians, we're known for our chess capabilities, the number one players in the world, many of them are Armenians. So my point is we have the great mind. We didn't have the opportunity.
So my job was I'm going to establish some presence in Armenia because that's my mother country, that's my mother language.
So it turned out to be a good idea.
And then it's been 21 years. I've established few companies there and have up to 70 resources.
And I think my impact is part of his philanthropy and part of it is bringing the young community, the young people, not to leave the country and stay in the country. There are thousands of people like me, by the way. I just want to be clear, it's not only me, but my intent was that. And I think many people are like me who are trying to do the same thing for our country because we are a small nation.
Armenians around the world are 10 million, and in Armenia there's only 2 million.
So 8 million diasporans.
Everybody finds a way to help Armenia by their own means. So my mean was, my meaning was go hire people, give them that opportunity, have them work on great projects. You know, I have a team there who develops software for a content management software that Walmart is using. You know, like, oh my God, put on your resume that you develop something in Armenia that Walmart is benefiting from. Can you imagine the beauty of that? Yeah. So those are the type of give backs. Rather than let me donate money, let me donate money. I pay them good salaries, they learn something and they can prosper in Silicon Valley. Every one of our employees can come to Silicon Valley and get a job.
But they needed that opportunity.
So that's, that's the story.
[01:01:08] Speaker A: That's beautiful.
And I did get the chills when you were talking about the genocide that. I saw some research on that.
[01:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's, it's, honestly, sadly, there's still genocide around the world. I mean, it never subsided because if you don't recognize a genocide. I don't want to get into politics, but, and I'm not that, but, but I think it's like acknowledging something has a, can have a good effect in the future.
If you don't recognize or acknowledge. I'm not talking about genocide, I'm talking about anything. If you have a relationship and you are in a fight and you don't acknowledge that, guess what, that's gonna linger around and some something is gonna give. Why don't you acknowledge and move on?
Right, Yep. So, and I know that because I've been married for 34 years.
Again. That gives you a lot of wisdom.
[01:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And I saw the picture of your family, Dr. Zark. You do have a beautiful family, beautiful wife,
[01:02:16] Speaker B: and she has a great taste, by the way. She, she's, she used to be a fashion designer. And I would joke with her, you have a great taste. She says, why? Because you married me. You know, like, like I am joking. She's not laughing, laughing at it anymore. But,
[01:02:37] Speaker A: And as far as your leadership philosophy, so you've trademarked the concept Leadership as a service.
Can you tell us kind of what you mean by that?
[01:02:49] Speaker B: Like, yeah, I actually, you know, there are books written about leadership, and honestly, I never read any of them.
And not that I dismiss what's in the book.
[01:03:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:03:05] Speaker B: But there are certain things in life, in my opinion, that it's innate in us. It's actually God's gift.
[01:03:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:03:14] Speaker B: And one of those things are common sense.
One of those things are asking yourself a question twice.
One of those things is what happens when you're kind to a person.
What happens really when. When I'm kind to you and I answered your call.
How did you receive me?
With open arms, with smile, with thanking, with being grateful.
You see?
Do you really have.
Did I learn this at school? No, I think it comes part of the upbringing, maybe a reminder as a child, you know, be kind to people.
That's the least that we can do as parents.
And it doesn't mean don't stand up for your rights. See, I think people are mistaken. Being kind as, oh, you can't be kind to everybody. I actually think you can be kind to everybody.
You may not like the benefit of it or lack thereof, but you can be kind because you. You're being kind for yourself.
[01:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:25] Speaker B: It's a selfish thing when I say be kind unconditionally.
I really need that, because if I'm. My friend calls me and says, ari, come and help me. I want to move, and I need somebody to help me moving my boxes.
And then I teach until 10pm at Pepperdine. I call my wife on the way back. I said, before I come home, I'm gonna go to my friend's home because he's moving. And the first reaction, are you kidding me? It's 10:30. Why don't you come home? You've been out all day. Right?
Not because she's unkind, because that's normal.
And then I tell her, because he needed my help, I could have simply said, I can't. I'm sorry, I am so tired, I can't help you.
So if I choose to help this person, he didn't force me.
He asked me. And if I answer that question by, yes, I can, then let me do that unconditionally, not, I'm gonna do this if you do that.
And guess what? When I come home as tired as I am, but I'm happy because I help them.
[01:05:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:05:39] Speaker B: It's simple. So the leadership.
I hate it when I hear somebody's written a book. Now, there are many people writing a book.
I'm happy in a way. But in a way, they feel like they're discovering kindness as a new phenomenon. You know, like, oh, kindness in leadership is a good thing. Like, oh, they discovered it after 30 years of research.
Well, guess what?
Kindness has always been good.
It's nothing new.
[01:06:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
So
[01:06:12] Speaker B: I think. I think it's a human element. You see, I I may not be happy with the outcome of something that that may have happened in a project with a customer, with my colleague, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be kind to them.
[01:06:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:06:28] Speaker B: I can make a very good point and correct them by being kind and not belittle them, especially in front of others.
So leadership, to me, treat your people as human beings.
[01:06:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:06:45] Speaker B: Be one of them, not on top of them.
Cry with them, smile with them, celebrate with them.
Create an environment that promotes this freedom, corporate culture, and be available unconditionally.
That's leadership.
[01:07:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:07:13] Speaker B: So that's what I've been doing for many years. And by the way, I didn't learn this in my MBA school. MBA taught me a lot of things, by the way, but not.
I don't think.
I think people have to learn this on their own.
[01:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
So it sounds like to me, that's what would separate great leaders from successful executives. It's kindness from what you.
[01:07:38] Speaker B: Yes. And that's your competitive advantage.
But. But you know, Sarah, it has to come genuinely.
That's actually key. So. So some people may say, okay, I'm gonna be kind because I want them to work hard. Right.
That's gonna show. That's not genuine.
So. So genuine leadership, genuine kindness, not fabricated kindness is what I'm talking about. When I help somebody, I actually mean it.
[01:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:08:09] Speaker B: It's not, let me do this because I got stuck.
Let me do this because I'm gonna need his help tomorrow. I'm gonna call him.
So a leader in a company that is doing everything I said they should do or they could do is meaning it rather than, oh, my God, yeah, we have a delivery. I want everybody to work this weekend, so let me be nice.
Niceness and kindness should not be seasonal.
[01:08:46] Speaker A: It's funny we're on this top because, like, I feel like a lot of times I'll have some genuinely, like, kind things I want to do for people, but I'm apprehensive about it. Or I took a step back because I think they'll. I don't know. It's almost like.
Is kindness a gesture that is becoming less. I don't know how to say it, like, less common, possibly, or something, because it's interesting that I would have to, like, double think, should I do this or are they going to take it the wrong way? Just me wanting to genuinely be kind and be myself to somebody because I feel like I'm genuinely, like, authentic about a lot of things I want. Want to do for people. I would even do more, but I think that, I don't know, sometimes I have found too that people are, who are genuine in that way and authentic. Sometimes they don't get it in return, but I feel like may right away or from that person. But you don't do it to get the return or feel it or acknowledge it. But I feel like the world and the earth has a way of inserting you and it's always around you. And I feel like kind of the love you give other people or kindness kind of engulfs you. So I feel like you're just a more joyous, happy person possibly too. And that could kind of stem through as a leader too. When you are genuine about it like you're saying, I think it, that authenticity will, you know, shine through.
And that's kind of in a way like your return.
Does that make sense, what I'm saying?
[01:10:15] Speaker B: Yeah, you said it very nicely, actually. It's a great point.
So let me be clear. Not.
I'm not saying if you are kind genuinely and as a leader and not only kind, everything else that I talked about, that's the right thing to do. Now, does it mean you always are gonna get return for your kindness? No.
I've had many people who basically, let's say, took advantage of my kindness. But guess what? I never changed myself.
I never said, oh, see, I helped this guy and that guy and that guy. And at the end, you know, nothing happened. I asked him one time about something, he never responded. Let's say that's where I put unconditional in my vocabulary, right? I live life unconditionally.
I help people unconditionally, I support people unconditionally because if I don't expect anything in return, then I have a. I am happy because I'm not mad if they didn't do it because I didn't expect it.
But you said something very important, something good happens to you because of that.
Some good things will happen to you over your lifetime.
Some things may happen to you much later than in your lifetime because of the things you have done.
And what are those things? I, you know, we shared a couple of experience. The space station program, you know, it was meant to be for my character, for what I have done, for how I endured, for the hardship I had that somehow at some point in my life.
20 years after I watched the Apollo. So I was in Iran Apollo. I was 10, I was 30 when I joined the International Space Station.
That happened not only because of my education and the steps I took, because that was supposed to happen to me.
It was always in my head. Good things happen to the people who do good.
[01:12:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:12:40] Speaker B: 20 years later, 50 years later, I don't know.
But I think that's why you should have it unconditionally. Because if you're looking for a return, then you cannot. You cannot.
You cannot do that. You're going to suffer through it rather than you're going to be okay through it.
[01:13:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
And would you say after, you know, your years of teaching entrepreneurship and leadership at Pepperdine University, does anything stand out to you that maybe some students have taught you something, that maybe, you know, a moment or something you remember?
[01:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah, actually, that's a tough question, because I am sure they have. I am sure they have.
But do I remember?
I think.
I think, You know, my style of teaching is different, as you may have noticed. You know, I'm not a traditional professor. I have three advanced degrees, and I've sat across the aisle. I've heard my professors, great professors, I think what they show me over the years, Having them acknowledge my style of teaching and adopting it and enjoying it and then staying in touch with me and sharing their success stories after many years, they taught me that doing good and sharing with young people about your knowledge, your wisdom, will benefit them at some point in their lives.
So if I had a moment that, you know, and there are many moments like that in class, you know, you're thinking you're talking to 30 people, nobody's paying attention. Right.
And it's a tough, tough night of the year. I'm tired, you guys are tired.
I don't take it personal because I know it's hard, but I'm trying to get everybody's attention.
Not to be boring, to be mixing. So when you're thinking that they're not paying attention, and then years later they come back and say, zarek, I remember I did this in the class. Remember I told you this? But remember you helped me with this business plan. I am doing it now, and thank you.
So what they have taught me is what I do, they internalize.
Maybe they don't show it, but I appreciate them paying attention. So they. They taught me that they're not sitting there for a grade. Only because I always said in your class, too, I said, you know, if you're here for a grade, you may get your grade. But if you want to learn something, then you're going to learn something, but you have to want it. And if you learn something, you did whatever you're supposed to do. There's not a good reason for you not to get A good grade, but you earn your own grade. I don't give you your grade. So if you do whatever you're supposed to do in life too, you go for an employer. Why is there that they should fire you if you're doing your job well?
So you earn everything. You earn your grades, you earn your education. I'm not pushing. You go do this so you can get an A. What is it means nothing, by the way. You may have an A and not have learned anything. You may have a B minus. And you'll be, oh, you're gonna start have a startup next year.
You see, that's. That's the education I'm looking for. Yeah, not, not the grade. Don't go after the grade. But my point is they taught me that if I speak their language, if I adopt my style or my delivery, I never change my philosophy. Everything I said here on that, it's not going to be for undergraduate. I'm going to say something else. But the way I deliver and the way I get their attention, they taught me how to do that. And then it seems to have been successful and I'm grateful for it.
[01:17:20] Speaker A: Love that.
And if every of a question on.
And by the way, if everybody listening to this podcast episode, if you're an alumni of Pepperdine with Pepperdine or you're trying to decide where to go, I'm going to recommend Pepperdine, of course. And make sure you take a class with doctors Arc. So and if. What would you. If every entrepreneur, entrepreneur could master one skill before launching a business, what would you say that should be?
[01:17:57] Speaker B: Master1.1.
[01:17:59] Speaker A: Just one or a skill like, you know what. What would you say stands out? Do you think that is a must for.
[01:18:09] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I, again, I go back to respect resilience, you know, skill.
[01:18:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:18:16] Speaker B: You know, maybe it's cliche, but it's so true.
Of course there are many more things, but do not get into entrepreneurship if you think it's going to be a slam dunk. You see, a lot of people get disappointed.
You know, I'm actually an investor and I am part of this community called Angel Communities. I, I'm part of. And we have pitch session by young entrepreneurs and they come and pitch ideas. Some good, some not so good, but they have this, this common issue that they think. So I asked, what is the valuation of the business? Let's say it's three months.
A startup in three months they are using AI to do something.
Okay. What is the value of your business, in your opinion? Because they're asking for money.
Almost unanimously, everyone is 10 million, 12 million, 15 million. And I'm seeing a three month old idea.
See, maybe, maybe there are cases like that. But, but you see, if a company's 3 million at 10 million after three months, unless it's an invention, unless it's something out of the ordinary, what I'm trying to say is resilience must be there.
An Idea may take seven to eight to 10 years before you can see actually the first initial positive impact.
The first three to four years is really, really tough.
You're not gonna like it if you're not have, don't have the tough attitude, the tough mind.
And why is it that, that I was able to go through many of the things I have because I developed that as a being the dishwasher, you see. So I, I say these things to my son, then I share sometimes with my students. I don't want my son to go wash dishes to develop endurance, but I want my son to know he has to develop endurance.
Is it through sports, is it through reading, is it through using his common sense?
I developed it forcefully. I had no choice.
So if you do five jobs and you, you are struggling to eat and work and pay your tuition and help your parents back home and oh, by the way, my father passed away a year after I was in us I never saw my father back. Right. So hardship, like all these bad things are happening to you, what do I do?
I can't go back home because there's a revolution. If I go back home, then I can never come back to us. And by the way, I would not be alive to come back anyway.
So I stay here, work hard to bring my mother over.
So then actually, so she will have a comfortable life while I'm going to continue my education, let's say.
But you know, because of those hard days, the endurance, the resilience, the decision making, I developed some soft skills that I didn't even know existed. It's like critical decision making. That's entrepreneurship. I had to make decision making as a dishwasher, you know, analytical thinking, you know, like, oh my God, if I do this, I cannot do that. If I do this, I cannot do that hard work. You know, I was working IHOP from 11pm 7am and come home, shower, and I go to my computer science class. I would not sleep in between. That's endurance, that's resilience.
That's exactly my point. So I developed it through those channels, but you don't have to go through that.
But keep in mind, if you want to be an entrepreneur. It's going to be a tough journey. But guess what? You can do it if you really have your heart into it, because the other people who have done it, they're not geniuses. Yeah.
Maybe Elon Musk is. Yeah. But Steve Jobs was not a genius. He. He had this savvy attitude.
Maybe not a good manager, but it's a good visionary. Everybody has some problems.
I would say. Resilience. Resilience. There's one thing. Yeah. Then resilience.
[01:22:51] Speaker A: So I'm gonna chisel that resilience.
Share that with everybody.
And.
And that's.
Yeah. And you can feel with everything you're sharing and everything you've accomplished, it's such a great, inspiring story that you're sharing. And so thank you again for being here today and sharing all of this. And.
Yeah. And.
And as the creator around the concept of. Can we kind of talk about Imagine Always just a little bit more with the philosophy and just why you believe that imagination is such a critical leadership skill. And how would you say people can cultivate creativity even when they're busy managing teams and businesses?
[01:23:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So how it was created, I kind of explained.
I.
I think immigrants in general from any country to any country.
Yeah.
And people are a bit more disadvantaged in life.
They must use their imagination to change their lives.
[01:24:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:24:15] Speaker B: Yeah. There is. There is no other way. You know, like I said, you know, I would never want to be stayed as a dishwasher for the rest of my life.
[01:24:25] Speaker A: Exactly.
[01:24:27] Speaker B: But one thing I've done which actually added to my entrepreneurship. Soft skills. I always took my job seriously.
What I mean by that?
I was the best dishwasher that they ever hired.
My pots and pans. This is in Texas, by the way, that you have all these big pants, you know, like. Like with a big meat in the middle of it. That's all stuck to the bottom of it.
And I had to clean that. After being cooked for like five hours, six hours, I took that big pan and I put some hot water on it. I started scrubbing multiple times until started shining.
I can tell you with certainty my manager never asked for that.
My manager said, just watch this. Make sure it's clean.
But to me, clean was. It has to be clean. What is clean? Like, there's no spots on it. Right.
So take your job seriously. I always took my job seriously.
And that developed into a habit that I formed going forward. But major part of it, besides taking my job seriously was imagination. As I said, if I want to have a better life, I have to get education If I have to get education, then I have to have a better job.
And then I would set goals. I would imagine, okay, now I have a job. Now I worked on the space station. What is it that I would love to do? I know I would want to work on a commercial product. You know, I want to create something, I want to invent something.
I imagine then I found the proper place to go and do it. So career wise, I imagine my steps in life. As a matter of fact, I had a notebook with me. I wrote it down. I do a lot of handwriting in my book from 30 years back. I had set some goals for me to become the president, I called it president of my own company.
I had to do all this, go through the channels and the type of positions I was envisioning, imagining and then to get to those positions. That's how I continued my education. I got my MBA because I was a good technical person. But I want to be a good managerial. At the time it was a managerial.
But it wasn't only managerial, it was financial, it was marketing, it was those things.
So I imagine I could get those jobs if I have the mba. And then the doctoral degree was a gift to my mother because she always told me go get education. Really and honestly Dr. Was a personal achievement. Not that I got a promotion, nothing. It's not like I got anything.
But I proved myself that I have the resiliency, the endurance to be a husband, to be a father, to be a son, to be, to be a colleague and to also continue my education.
That's why, you know, I was encouraged education.
Now it may not be a degree, but advancing your knowledge is really what I mean.
So imagination not only on career by but my personal life. Yeah, I wanna buy a house.
Okay, well the house you can't afford that house that you want to buy.
Well, let me buy this one then. As I'm working, I'm going to save money and I want to buy a house with a pool.
Imagine what it would be like if I have a house with a pool.
Well, guess what, I've been living in a house with a pool for 25 years now.
But I took the steps, I studied. If I want a house with a pool, it's going to take me so much money I have to get funding and I have to to get loan and all that, right.
So nothing comes easy. But unless you imagine, I don't think you will achieve it. So imagine always is that. And then I relate imagine always to entrepreneurship. Soft skills though some of them we talked about it here.
[01:28:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:28:43] Speaker B: Imagine always learn always. Actually that's another mark. Learn always. Extreme collaboration.
Don't quit.
Failure is an option. Yes, there's a saying failure is not an option. Yes, failure is an option. Yeah. On the space program it's not. That's why it took us 10 years, 20 years to develop that. But you know, we are, we are programmed to believe that if I failed in a game, if I. My program is crashing, if my marketing didn't work, if I had a startup and it didn't go anywhere, then I am a failure.
See, I think it's wrong.
You may have failed in something, but that doesn't mean you're a failure.
So what I say is failure is an option, but quitting is not an option.
So if you failed on marketing, go learn what happened. So you fail. Fine, but don't quit.
Yeah, right. So I talk about my public speaking. Imagine always is. All that and having hope. By the way, team collaboration. Extreme collaboration I call it.
So, so those are the things I focus on. My imaginal is public speaking.
Yeah,
[01:30:00] Speaker A: you got me thinking. I've.
I myself had some interesting jobs.
Yeah, I actually did a job once time. I don't know, it was like this temp job and I just, I just knew I had to work and so. And I was out at this factory. Nobody will believe me when I tell them I actually did this job. It was for like a week. I think I was just filling in for somebody or maybe once they realized I was the little white long girl in there, they booted me out, I don't know. But it was a factory line of these plastic bottles with this company called Blue Magic product or something.
I think it was for water beds or something like this liquid and. And I had to sit there in the assembly line and we were looking at these bottles and if they had a weird like plastic thing coming down, you'd throw it out because that meant it was a bad one. So it was like an assembly line thing I was doing. I did that for like I think five days. And I remember it was, was so hard, but I was like, but I did it. And then, and then after that I moved in, you know, it was one of like my first jobs, you know. And I think I was like 18 or 19, I don't remember. I didn't start work until I basically wasn't allowed to work because my parents. Until I was out of high school, but.
And I worked in a deli. I was like a deli girl to Italian deli where I come from there's, like, a lot of Italian. Italian. So I worked in town as a deli girl. I did a.
And then I also. I used to do, like, waitressing, serving jobs, and I worked in wineries. And, you know, when you work in a winery, I don't know, people, they probably don't like us talking about this, but you have to, like, clean everything, you know, too. So you're, like, cleaning everything.
So. Yeah, I've had, like. But I think what you're saying is so true, because I think when you're forced to. To work and you have to provide and do it all yourself, you know, that you do.
It does brew something inside of you. And I believe. I totally agree with you on the imagination part, because I think I kind of have that kind of mindset where, you know, I think some people think I'm kind of dreaming in a dream world sometimes, but it's like, no, that's how I keep going and do what I want to do. People might, you know, and sometimes, you know, Even the whole Dr. Podcast, I'm sure people were like, what?
But, you know, I'm enjoying it. And I, you know, so I love all of that, what you're, you know, talking about. And I would like to encourage other people, too, like, dream big, be creative, have your imagination work for you in a good way.
And I guess I kind of want to now go into your whole thing with climbing Mount Ararat and just discussing that whole, you know, that challenge and that you climbed it with your son Alex and, you know, the inspiration of that journey. I know I shared earlier the YouTube video in case people wanted to check it out. And most. And of course, I'll share it again because it. So everybody knows he has a YouTube video on this expedition exploration and challenge adventure of climbing Mount Ararat. And do you kind of want to go into that experience?
[01:33:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So if you go back to what I shared earlier about Armenia being dear to me, I wasn't born there, but I'm Armenian. My mother language, my culture, my ancestors are from Armenia.
So as I started developing in Armenia, and so we have this mountain, sacred mountain called Mount Ararat. And that's one of the identities, you know, an Armenian is kind of identified as motherland and Mount Ararat. So you go to any home in Armenia, there's a picture of Mount Ararat and all that.
So the offices I had in Armenia, they always looked over.
You open the window, then you oversee Mount Ararat.
So the perception of. I see our mountain, but it's not in Armenia.
You see, Mount Ararat right now is located in Eastern Turkey, the region of Eastern Turkey. So in a way, it's our mountain, but it's not in our country.
So to get to Mount Ararat, many people before me, thousands of people have climbed the mountain. So I was hearing about it for years.
And then I.
10 years later, this is 2014, let's say I developed this thought process that I want to climb that mountain.
And it's. It's kind of the mindset I've developed when it's. Something gets stuck to my mind and I really, really, really want to do it. I'm going to try to do it. I don't know if I can finish it, but I can try it.
So then I spoke with a friend of mine, Armand Simonian, a dear friend of mine.
And his son is now the best man for my son Alex for his wedding.
I went to him, I said, listen, Armin, Armand, I've been thinking of this for years, and you've been thinking of it, by the way, shall we do this next year?
And immediately says, yeah, Zarik, we got to do this. You know, it's been long time. You know, we've been talking and why next year? Why 2015? So it wasn't only climbing, it was in 2015. So 2015 was coinciding with the hundredth anniversary of Armenian genocide.
So from 1915 to 2015.
So in a way, if I were to climb the mountain, that year would have meant a special moment for me. Because 100th anniversary, we want to take our flags and show our flags on top of the mountain.
So then. Then guess what? We said, okay, we're gonna do it, so start training in a one or first or second training. I came up with the idea. I don't know why, but my son was graduating from high school at the time. He was 18, I was 55.
And then I thought about having my son with me and having Armand's son with him to go as father and son.
And naturally, I think the wives were not happy because it's risky for us, let alone take a young man with us.
So I was hesitating, but I thought it would be a cool idea. So I talked to Armand, and then he said, oh, my God, that's cool. Let's do it, you know? So basically, we decided to go with our kids, and there was another person wanting to join us with her kid.
So in a way, we told our kids, listen, we're gonna do this. And they were very excited. By the way they say, oh, man, it's cool. Yeah, let's do it and all that. I said, listen guys, we want to do this, but this is not a joke. So we're gonna train. What is training? We're going to get up at 2am, go to Mount Wilson, Mount Baldy. We got to exercise, we got to build up, you know, we got to have endurance, you know, in the cold.
At the top of the mountain is glacier. So it's not an easy mountain, but. But it's achievable.
[01:37:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:37:54] Speaker B: So anyway, we exercise for almost eight months.
And then the month, two months before we start our climb, my leg broke. You know, I had a broken leg and here I am, I'm crying and everything because I prepared, you know, this is the year I don't want to go next year. I really want to go this year.
So part of the resilience, the endurance, you know. So I went to Orthopedic and I had some things done on my leg and then I covered it for six weeks. Then I started practicing, practicing again. But nevertheless, the mindset was we're gonna start and I hope I can finish it, but if I can't, at least I gave it a try.
So, so we, we keep in mind the, the mountain is in Turkey.
So we had to go to Armenia and take a bus, a private bus. They took us to Georgia, neighboring countries, country, and then from Georgia to Turkey and from Turkey to this village that we had to climb the next morning.
I think the video has a lot of detail. I think it's very cool. It's not a Oscar nominated movie. That video was made as a gift to my family and as my kids watched it and they said, can I share with a friend? Can I share it with friends? Then it's that itself.
So my point is it's a story, real story that I, I don't mind sharing with people. But the, the, the, the whole moral of the story is that when you decide to do it, something, do it, start it and then try it.
But imagine it's going to be hard. So we talked about entrepreneurship. Of course you should start, but imagine it's going to be hard. So if you have that resistance and that resilience, then go ahead and do it. Don't wait on it, don't sit on it.
So we had to sleep on the mountain for two nights.
The second night, again, back to life moments. My son develops really high fever and he couldn't even walk.
High temperature, he's weak, he's white and he's, he's bad you know, So I think he got food poison or he was tired or whatever it was.
So that moment was a decision making. So again, critical thinking, making decisions. So we had to sleep for like three, four hours only and get up at midnight so we can climb on the top of the mountain.
So I told my son, you're not feeling well, and I am your dad, and I'm saying, we should not climb the mountain where we are. It's. It's good for us. We're gonna see our friends go and come back because I will never sacrifice your health over this. And he goes, no, dad, I'll be fine. I'll be fine. I said, well, thanks for letting me know, but if you're not fine, we're not going.
Well, guess what? Again, Sarah, I've been saying this. If something is meant to be, it will be.
I don't know how. I still don't have an answer.
But Alex woke up four hours later without any fever, without any loss of energy, without anything.
And here I am looking at him. I said, alex, are you okay? He says, dad, I'm okay. Look at me. See, stood up. He wants to dress up to get off the tent.
[01:41:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:41:38] Speaker B: And then I looked at him, I said, are you sure? He says, yes, I'm sure. Because I was hesitating.
And then we climbed the mountain together.
What I told him when we reached to the top, which is almost 17,000ft, by the way, so it's 5,300 meters.
So the last leg was extremely difficult. It was all ice, glass, glacier minus 29 degree Fahrenheit. We had to use special shoes and all that.
We reached to the top. I cried for like 30 minutes. I hugged him and he said. I said. I told him the first thing I told him. I can't believe we reached this high. We reached at the top of our mountain, but just remember this day because what you went through yesterday and how you picked up today and you reach to the top of our mountain, this is the most difficult thing you have achieved when you were at the age of 18.
So do not compare anything else, any other difficulties in your life with what you went through today. So anything else is nothing compared to what you did. So in a way, that was a good lesson learned to my son, that he was incredible.
It was incredible. The only thing I can say, maybe you researched a little bit.
It's claimed that the Noah's Ark is landed on Mount Ararat.
Okay, no Noah's Ark.
And I don't know what that has to do with how he felt the next morning.
But I can certainly tell you it was not the medication I gave him because we didn't have a lot of medication to make.
Is it faith? Is it destiny? It was meant to be.
Somebody was looking at our shoulder saying, you tried so hard. This is the year you have to do this father and son. You see things happen to you.
If you have good intentions, you worked hard, you really, really tried hard, and you were rewarded by completing your journey.
[01:43:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:43:49] Speaker B: Took the step.
[01:43:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:43:51] Speaker B: But something helped us. Somebody pushed us. Some mindset was clear where I'm gonna do this because I wanted to do this. So, anyways, it was an incredible moment, and I would never forget in my life.
[01:44:09] Speaker A: It's amazing.
Yeah. And you're. It's. It's funny. It's almost like I'm getting a theme. I had another podcast guest who's also a mountain climber. Isn't that funny? And when I asked you to come on the podcast, I didn't even know that about you. So it's funny how that happened.
It's like I'm. I don't know where that's coming from, that energy, but maybe it's.
I don't know, the energy of the mindset of the people who decide to do mountain climbing. Maybe there's something thing that's resonating with me. I feel like in some ways, you know, I. I've been really pushing my fitness journey recently, but just things with, you know, even the doctoral journey, to me, I'm, you know, the first person in my family who I think even got a master's, if I'm not correct. So masters and now doctorate. So.
[01:45:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:45:06] Speaker A: And, you know, that has a lot of pushback on it because I think their mindset a lot in my family is work.
So a lot of times it's, you know, so it. I've had a lot of resistance with the path I've chosen, but I keep going and keep seeing my dreams. And I think what you were talking about, that's just so amazing that you guys did that, and the whole meaning behind it with, you know, you being Armenian and all that, it brings such special meaning to you climbing that mountain. And it's such a great, great story.
[01:45:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. You said something very important. Let me. Let me just touch on that quick. Mindset you said. Mindset, I think. Yeah, they all are important. You know, resilience, mindset and all that. But I think doing things like that, like a mountain thing, it's mindset over body.
It's a physically you have to be fit, but you may be fit and not be able to climb. So I think develop that mindset in anything you do in your lives. You know, I, I always say this in some of people ask me, have you climbed mountains before that? I said, no, I am not a mountain. I'm not a mountain mountaineer, but I climbed the mountain.
And guess what? Two years later, I am not a runner, but I ran a marathon.
[01:46:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:46:34] Speaker B: Because of the mindset. And by the way, I ran a Marathon in 2017, and I'm proudly mentioning that to everybody because I finished it in five hours and 55 minutes and something within two hours and three or three hours.
You know why? Because I wasn't competing, racing against the time.
I wanted to start the marathon and finish the marathon without having a heart attack in between. And I did that.
The mindset was there.
[01:47:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:47:06] Speaker B: Well, I am honestly sharing this for motivation for your audience and for my students and whoever I thought, for my colleagues. Actually, I do a lot of this as team building and all that.
[01:47:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:47:19] Speaker B: I said I walk a lot, but I don't run.
But look at me, I finished the marathon.
You see, if I can do that.
Imagine what else can you do? You can do the same. Many, many more things.
So it is a mindset. I think it's, it's very important. On top of other things, you know, the body, physics and those kind of things. Things.
[01:47:45] Speaker A: Yeah, love that. And yeah, I think I mentioned I know somebody who's going to be climbing Mount Denali here soon.
[01:47:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:47:54] Speaker A: So I'm just envisioning him sending good vibes at the top. That's what I'm doing.
[01:48:00] Speaker B: So I'm sure he will. I'm sure.
[01:48:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
And, yeah, so I think, you know, I guess I just have a couple closing questions if you're okay with that. On time.
When people think about your legacy decades from now, what do you hope they remember?
[01:48:31] Speaker B: He was a kind man and a simple man.
That's it.
[01:48:38] Speaker A: Okay. And that's. Those are good, though. That's good.
Yeah.
And if you could, what do you hope, basically, with the companies, your innovations, all the patents and the technology and all, and you know, your.
Everything that you, you know, you've invented.
What do you hope mostly, ultimately it would have an impact on the world. It sounds like to me it would be like the civilizations that need help. Like you're talking about the electricity or maybe people without running water, things like that. That's kind of what I'm getting from you today.
[01:49:20] Speaker B: Would you say that's Yes, I, I think sadly, sadly.
And I'm at the core of innovation, all that.
So I think there are 8 billion people on this planet Earth right now.
Maybe 3 billion out of 8 billion are not living in great conditions.
And great condition means from hygiene, from infrastructure, from electricity, from water, people are dying from, kids are dying from diseases that are preventable, drinking bad water, you know, like the kids die, you know, so you wonder sometimes with all these things that we have and with the resources, the brain power, the education, the inventions, the speed to create and reach and we still have all these problems. So from a social perspective, social wellness perspective, I think those are the type of things we must create.
Any inventions or innovations in those areas, electricity, water, medical attention.
So I think that's, that's from social impact on the human beings.
But my passion going forward is going to be helping save you.
MARIAM Torosian to lead and make a lasting impact globally.
To not eliminate, because I think that's hard to eliminate, but to improve the gender inequality and abuse against women and children and human trafficking.
I think that would be my personal goal, not a career goal.
But yeah, I think, I think those are the things I'm going to pay attention to. And of course I'm going to finish what I have started and then.
And transfer one, I know to my kids.
[01:52:01] Speaker A: Love that. And I do a lot of volunteer work with IJM International justice missions for the human trafficking stuff.
So, yeah, that all plays into all that. It'd be great. Somehow there could be a collaboration with that.
[01:52:17] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[01:52:18] Speaker A: And, and if you could leave the audience a message about leadership, imagination and living a meaningful life, what would it be that could also play into. I always like to know when I see.
Because like your marriage, like with your life, do you have like any meaningful advice for that too? It could even be in that because, you know, for people out there, and I would say that's one of the most important things, is to have a happy, you know, successful marriage too. That plays into, you know, the whole package.
[01:52:54] Speaker B: I would, yeah, great question.
Let me start with marriage.
So I've been married for 34 years and as you noted, sometimes I again, I don't remember everything I've done, but when I'm reading or when somebody's reading it and I'm saying I'm hearing all those things.
And for most, if most of those achievements, my wife was behind me.
So from my.
So we've been married since 1992. I had started Space Station then, but then during our marriage, it was the toughest period of the development effort. I had to be co. Located to Houston.
We were just married. And now I'm in Houston, you know, and working with astronauts and all that. She comes and visits me. So what I mean by that. So she was 100% behind me, supporting me as a newlywed.
And when my kids were born, I was always available and around and a great father, my husband. But nevertheless, it was her support only that allowed me to achieve what I have achieved in life.
Because she realized what I'm doing is not for the matter of being selfish, but it's for the common good.
And, and perhaps a good way of leaving behind some learning and wisdom to my kids.
Because kids learn how your parents are behaving or acting or working.
So I. I told you I saw my father work really hard. I thought that's normal life.
So when I was working hard, I wasn't as upset because I thought my father did it. And our ancestors went through the genocide. So what? Who am I to complain?
So I think a strong marriage, a woman, or a person that you have as your wife or your husband are the foundation of your success, career wise or personal wise. So I consider her the role model as well as the.
My support. If she wasn't around, I couldn't have done that.
And the number one cheerleader and recognizing my achievements first. You know, like she comes and says, I can't believe you have done that. Not in a bad way, like in an encouraging way and. But the key to that is relationship communication and respecting one another.
I think again, this is not a marriage therapy or anything like that, but we talked about kids learning.
In my opinion, kids learn what they see at home.
I'll give you an example.
When my kids were young, I would come home, they were doing homework, I would kiss them in the head because I didn't want to disrupt them. You know, like they were doing homework, they come home now, they kiss me in the head. They learn that it's one way of showing love and, and this respect is. Yeah, they didn't want to. They don't want to interrupt me, but they kiss me on the head. They saw me doing it. They're doing the same.
They see my. They see me holding hands with my wife. My son who just got married, he's holding hands. It was his wife all the time.
Not even now that they're married before they got married, you know, so, yeah, it's like those things, I think those make me happy. So it's.
Yeah, I am a simple man, but I think I try to do simple things in life.
[01:57:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:57:06] Speaker B: That has greater returns.
And my wife has been the. The best supporter of me and for entrepreneurs. Take the steps, you know, don't sit on it. There's a saying that says indecision is a thief of opportunity.
You sit on indecision is a thief.
Opportunity, like your opportunity is being stolen from.
You're not deciding soon. Decide if it's a bad decision, you'll know. If it's a good decision, then you better do it quicker so you get the results.
The other thing, I don't want to end on a sad note, but life is truly short.
I can't believe I'm 66 years old. I can't believe I lived here for 48 years. I can't believe I've done all those things that you read to me in the beginning.
And here I am. I'm not done.
But life has gone.
It's moving.
So there's a saying. Yesterday's past, today is present, tomorrow is a gift.
So we look at it, we understand it, but we don't apply life principles to it.
If you truly believe in that saying, which is true, life is short, but it's beautiful, then we should treat every day as a birthday. Imagine when it's your birthday, you get up, happy, jolly. You know, you dress up, you. You can't wait. Somebody sending you a text, oh, happy birthday, honey. You know, happy birthday, Sarah. You know, like, you look beautiful. This that you imagine that day. Yeah, you have to make that every day. Not when you turn 30, not when you turn 40. The anniversary, like, it's golden anniversary. Golden day.
It's not me.
I remind myself every day. But the blessing we want, we have versus the other 3 billion people who do not, is we walk, we talk, we smell, we see, we have conversations, we watch, we learn. Many people in this world do not have that opportunity. So, yeah, I think if you leave every day as if it's our birthday and then understand.
Understand the element of kindness and the importance of kindness, that would be a good world.
[01:59:37] Speaker A: Thank you for that.
I. I love all that. Thank you for those.
All of that. I know that.
Yeah. Priceless wisdom, everybody.
And so is there anything next or on the table you want to share? I know in your world of entrepreneurs, I know a lot of times you don't share what's coming next, but is there anything you want to share with anybody that.
[02:00:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm gonna share something with you which has nothing to do with entrepreneurship, because we talked about it. So. My son is getting married in Costa Brava near Barcelona on June 17th.
And myself and my wife and my daughter are looking that. So what's next on our plate is. That's what. What's next? I'm not thinking farther.
We're gonna celebrate my beautiful son's wedding. We have a gorgeous, beautiful, kind daughter in law and I'm gonna take my beautiful wife and my beautiful daughter to that wedding. We're gonna celebrate.
So what I'm gonna do after that, God knows. But I'm not retiring, but my father focuses just my son's wedding to be sure. We're gonna have a great time and celebrate together.
[02:01:05] Speaker A: Lovely. Oh, that's so exciting. Congratulations on that.
And Barcelona is somewhere I would like to actually go. That's on my list. I know they have kind of an art scene in Barcelona too.
[02:01:17] Speaker B: So Costa Brava is on the hills and there's ocean in front of it. So it's a beautiful place. It's a magical. It's going to be a magical experience. So looking forward to that. Nothing else.
[02:01:30] Speaker A: Oh.
All right. Well, thank you again for being here, Dr. Zark book Zoe and I.
Yeah, I just want to thank everybody for listening Today to the Dr. Random podcast.
And if you, if anybody wants to get in touch with you, would you want to share what you're comfortable with, if anybody wanted to get in touch with you?
[02:01:53] Speaker B: Sure. You have the link.
Maybe you can post and I don't know if email is necessary. Maybe I can share with you and you can. So yeah, I think maybe as part of your posting you can share some information.
[02:02:08] Speaker A: All right.
All right. Well, thank you again and I appreciate it and this has been a wonderful conversation and thanks for, for all your words of wisdom and advice and just everything.
As always here on the Dr. Random Podcast, I'm going to say ciao.
