Triumph after Trauma: Cyrus Jaffery's Journey from Conflict to Entrepreneurship

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apply let's go yeah make it look make it look make it look easy hey stand up guy boom 10 toes big body pull up in the range rolls i can chase the whole game when i say so i pull it up shut

it down yeah they know running this game ain't a game for me i never switched to no change

welcome back to the show. Today we have a conversation with Cyrus Jaffrey.
Cyrus is an entrepreneur. He's a speaker, a podcaster.
He's a family man. He's a board member.
And all of these things were born out of this tremendous story.

His home was literally bombed in Afghanistan. He was forced to move to Pakistan, in which he lived in a one-room apartment with six brothers and sisters and his mom somehow found his way to the United States and has now become a multi-time entrepreneur, founding multiple brands in the insurance industry, in the technology industry, has more than 160 people working for him across all his brands.
This story is amazing. It shows you that with determination, with the right mindset, with the right focus, with the right belief structure, we can make anything we want out of our lives.
This is what peak performance is all about. It is what this podcast is all about.
And I love bringing stories like Cyrus's to you. So with that introduction and no other avail, let's get on to Cyrus Jaffrey.
I'm good, man. I'm excited to have you on the show.

I'm excited to talk about your journey.

I really want to focus on the entrepreneurial parts of it.

I think that's really where I'd like to talk about it.

Obviously, we can talk a little bit about the insurance stuff, but I really want to know,

dude, you have such an interesting story, being on your show and getting to know you

just a little bit and then just digging in afterwards and learning more about what you're doing. I think it's incredible.
And I guess I'd love for people who don't know your story and maybe aren't familiar with you. You kind of gave me some of your background before we went live on your show, but I'd love for you to maybe just kick it off here, start us off by telling us a little bit about where you came from, how you got into being an entrepreneur and business and all that kind of stuff.
Just give us a little bit of the backstory. Yeah, man.
I'm originally from Afghanistan, man. So I think that kind of throws off people when you're like, okay, so I'm two years old.
The story is actually right right here so my book just came out literally it's the first copy i just got awesome awesome triumph triumph after trauma um and my whole life story is basically just dealing with adversity is just basically having a winning winning attitude so two years old now i was in i was in afghanistan mom and dad are born there so we're basically hanging out that's the early 90s when the taliban came and invaded afghanistan and um they bombed our house like my mom and dad are in there my dad comes into the house and says hey to my mom hey our neighbor's house got i got hit and there's a lot of dead bodies i gotta go help my mom is fighting him because my mom's pregnant i'm with my young brother who is a year old or no my older brother who was four years old and it's me i'm two years old and they're like fighting because my mom's like dude you gotta get your kids out of here you can't be worried about other bodies because we will be next and as soon as she says that dude our house gets hit um uh with uh with a bomb and degree everywhere man i i go under a table my mom's sides open. I've got on the back of my head, actually, cars from it that's in the book because I was bleeding from my head.
And somehow, man, we all got out of that house somehow, man. It was not my time at the time to, I guess, to be the end of it for me.
We go to a hospital for a week. And then so the Taliban, when they invaded Afghanistan, man, they wanted to control everything.

So they shut the whole country down.

And so you couldn't go from roads to get away to go to other countries because they wanted to keep everybody internal.

So you couldn't go through the main roads to escape.

So you basically had to, we had my mom, my dad had to pay like $50,000 a person to go to a remote place, get in a helicopter.

And then from there, they'll take us to Pakistan, which is the neighboring country to be safe. And my older brother and older sister were already there because there was some war.
My dad worked for the US military, so he heard something. So they got the two of them out to go to school there six months before, but he didn't know that things were going to turn really bad that quickly.
So it did happen and we got stuck there. So we, my mom walked for two weeks to me, she's pregnant.
And then my older brother, she would walk during a night. And then during the day she would just hide because she didn't want to be seen.
Cause if they see you, like, they don't care, man. The Taliban at the time didn't care.
And so she did that. We got to to this remote place this is a crazy story because we get to this remote place there's six helicopters me and my mom and we get into one helicopter my mom is just freaking out and she's praying really really hard and the helicopter the pilot is like dude lady stop freaking out get in this let's relax so we get up in the air dude we're up in the air there's six helicopters kabul river is underneath that's the largest river in, um, in Get in this.
Let's relax. So we get up in the air.
Dude, we're up in the air. There's six helicopters.
Kabul River is underneath. That's the largest river in Aspen one or two times.
And then he just kept going, man. It just grazed the bottom of the helicopter.
The other five fall in the Kabul River. I'm 100% positive.
Everybody is dead except for our helicopter somehow. So my story starts with the first two years of my life.
You know, like we pretty much, like I should have been dead two times easily, right? Like so, but God had a different plan for me. And so we got to Pakistan and we're 12 years old, lived in refugee camps for a year and then found an apartment.
And we stayed there for 12 years and tried because my dad's side, their whole family is in Omaha, Nebraska at this point.

Because my dad's oldest sister's husband worked for the University of Kabul.

They had a relationship with the university here in Nebraska.

He came as a professor and then brought all his brothers and sisters as refugees to the U.S.

My dad was the only one out of 12 that said, I don't want to go.

I love what I do. He was an entrepreneur entrepreneur himself he owned restaurants and gas stations in afghanistan back in the 70s he was like i don't want to do that you know he was a little bit older at the time and so that's why we stayed and we never we never came here and then we had to deal with this we stayed in pakistan for 12 years um one bedroom man you know i'm six of us in one room, sleeping on the floor, going and fetching water to give a bath.
There's no bath showers. You had to go grab water.
There's not running water at the time. You had to go grab water a mile away, bring the water, and then use the same water with six of us once a week to shower before you go to school on Monday.
But you didn't know any better, man. We were like, was me and my brothers i have two or three of my brothers are within two years apart so like man and everybody else was living the same way so like you have no idea you we played cricket we played outside all the time so like we had no we didn't know what life was like other than the life that we were living so we thought we were hitting lottery because we escaped Afghanistan, right? So anyways, tried 10 times to become a refugee, hit the lottery.
I believe it was May of 2002, six months before or seven months after 9-11. We get approved to come to the US.
You know, we come here, I'm a freshman in high school. I don't speak English.
My brother doesn't speak English. 9-11 just happened.
We look, we don't look the same. We look like we come here i'm a freshman in high school i don't speak english my brother doesn't speak english 9-11 just happened we we look we don't look the same we look like we're from those countries that pretty much got them uh nine to brought 9-11 to them so it was a tough upbringing um but uh but uh yeah man so i'll so that's kind of like my backstory of how we go from Afghanistan to Pakistan to come to the U.S.

So when you get to Afghanistan, is your dad reengaging his kind of entrepreneurial spirit? Is he did he find a job? Is he trying to start businesses like like obviously? And we're going to get into more of your what you're currently doing as we go. i'm really interested in how you have had this this entrepreneurial nature embedded into you is this like obviously you saw it but but you're two years old right i mean you're two years old when you first left um afghanistan um for pakistan sorry and now you're in pakistan is are you is he continuing to push that? Is he, is he teaching you? Is he talking to you? Like, like, like, are you guys, is he, you know, how is your dad or, or any family members influencing you at this time as you're continuing to grow? I mean, you were, you were there for what you, you were a, a, a freshman in high school.
That's what 13, 14, that's 12 years that, that you were living there. Um, what was that like? And do you think that played a role in who you are today in terms of the entrepreneurial side? Obviously, it impacted you immensely as a person.
Yeah, honestly, man, like not real. My dad would come to Pakistan for six months and then he'll leave for six months.
He'll come in for three months and then he'll leave for six months. And we had a terrible relationship to be honest with you.
We still do because like my dad was old school. Like, you know, like we got beatings all the time.
We, but that's how his parents were. So by no means, like he was just like, Hey, I'm trying to be, I'm trying to set rules.
So one thing I learned about my dad, man, is like the discipline of like, Hey man, like you've got to do things right um you got to be on time uh when i like we did we would get beat if like so there so over there back home like there was no we didn't have cell phones or watches so you don't know the time so you go play we're playing in this playground which is about a mile away and then over there so there's prayers like so big noises come out's time to pray. Everybody prays in Pakistan and Afghanistan or Muslim countries.

So you see these loud noises.

When those loud noises come and my dad is in town, that means I'm late.

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dude you got to be home that's like you. We're just booking it as fast as we can, that fast mile to get home.
And that bell rings for like two or three minutes to get home. And then when you come home, my dad's praying and you're kind of slowly going behind and trying to sneak into the house saying you're not late.
So my dad didn't teach me a lot about the entrepreneur side of things. My dad didn't teach me a lot about how to become a dad, how to be a good dad, how to be a one, any of that stuff.
What he did teach me was the discipline of like, okay, how do you, first of all, how do you treat people? How do you, in his capacity, how do you raise kids? And, and, and on how to truly be just disciplined and all the other stuff and how to treat other people with respect and all of that stuff. Those are the things that I took from my dad, not his entrepreneurship.
Yeah. You know, I, I didn't have the best role models from a male perspective as well, growing up in terms of my dad and my stepdad.
And, you know, what I took a lot from them at that time in their lives, they both have since come around and are really good grandfathers to my to my children. But as you know, when they were, you know, my stepdad and my dad, not, you know, I basically live from the standpoint of I want to do everything the opposite of what these guys are doing.
So it was like seeing, you know, sometimes if you can have the right perspective, even if that person is not a role model in so much as I want to be who this person is, I want to model myself after them. They can almost be the negative, right? They can be the opposite and say, OK, I'm going to take how they the things they did, the way they treated me or the way they treated my mother or whatever.
And it almost does provide even a stronger framework. At least that's what I found as to what I don't want to be.
I don't want to be this person. I don't want to be an addict.
I don't want to be fly off the hinge or not be trustworthy in my emotional state or how I'm going to speak to you or or the physical piece, right? So I do think that it seems like you've been able to put in perspective and not perpetuate that. And in doing so, you probably use your dad almost as like a, here's what not to do in some cases, right? And that can be just as strong, I think, for us.
I don't know, particularly for guys.

I think that that you oftentimes can look at that male role model and say they're basically giving me a case study on who I don't necessarily I don't want to be in that standpoint. So.
All right. So tell me, you said you you hit the lottery.
Tell me what it was like. And obviously, you know, I'm a I'm a white kid from the country in upstate New York.

Right. So I have no idea what it's like to be a refugee in Pakistan and to get a letter, a call, a message, whatever, that says, hey, you have the opportunity to go to the United States.

What's that moment like for you guys?

What's the conversation?

How much time do you have?

Just talk me through that process a little bit because it's just such a foreign experience to me and probably most of the people listening listening i'd love to just know a little bit about what that was like and what you were thinking in in your head yeah so like remember so we did um we did like nine interviews and after that final interview they tell you okay like all right you guys are going to the u.s or or no you're not but like by the nine one i was like hey we're just to go do this again. And then it's just not going to work.

So, Dad, I got to go play because I really enjoy being outside and playing sports and

stuff like that. So, for me, it was when we did get the news, it was one of those things where like, oh, okay, this is going to be different.
It was like, dude, I had my life there, man. I had friends there.
I had my life. I had everything that I had going on for me, man.
I thought I was living the dream. I was doing certain things i thought i was going to go up there and do

you It was like, dude, I had my life there, man. I had friends there.
I had my life. I had everything that I had going on for me, man.
I thought I was living the dream. I was doing certain things.
I thought I was going to go up there and do certain things. And I didn't know anything about the US.
So I didn't really have any expectations. It was almost like my mom was taking me from somewhere where I was having a good time and being a party pooper and taking me somewhere else and kind of disrupting my life almost, but one thing i would tell you man about my mom is she's a she's a go-getter man and she she has her mind on something um with how she escaped and walked for two weeks to get us to the helicopter to getting us to pakistan as a single mom and raising six kids um the way she's raised those six kids and then leaving her husband back home and she her husband didn't come my dad did come come in here and saying, hey, I'm going to do what's best for my kids and raise these guys into certain individuals.
So I take a lot from my mom versus my dad, of course. But the moment was like, man, no.
Because we've been going and going and going. This was another time of like, okay, now we got to go somewhere else.
It was like, damn, mom, I don't want to do that. So I cried for the first 30 days.
I promise you, man, I came here because I was like, I didn't want to be here. It's different.
It's not the same. I don't speak the language.
I have to think people, they don't like me. They treat me as an outsider, especially at that time.
So that first part was pretty tough. And that moment when they told me, man, I had some regrets i had some some bad feelings at the time about yeah about leaving was it fairly easy for you to integrate into pakistan relatively yeah i mean i was two so it was one of those things where my mom was just like all right like so i kind of like i know pakistan i don Afghanistan.
So it was one of those times where I don't really remember Afghanistan much. Writing the book and going through the past and then interviewing my dad and my uncles and my aunts back home brought back some memories, but I was still pretty young.
So I don't really, and when you deal with some trauma, a lot of times, man, I'm seeing a therapist and working through a lot of things that I've dealt with in life. And when you deal with some of those things, man, like you kind of almost like block a part of your life that was very challenging and you don't want to talk about it.
You don't want to hear about it. You almost like that never happened, but it shapes you who you are and you need to talk about it.
And honestly, like if you don't talk about it, you're going to keep inside of you for a long time and it's just not going to be well for you. I think I actually said this on your podcast when we were talking that the best advice I ever got was back in, I'm going to forget, it was 2017, 2018, a mentor of mine said, go find a counselor or someone you can talk to.
It's got to be someone outside your family, someone you pay and go see them every other week for the rest of your life and consider it just a life expense. And I've done that for the most part.
And I'm with you, man. You start talking about things and it's funny how, you know, I read a ton.
I consume a ton. I think about a lot of topics.
I write a lot, a lot of topics. But when you actually sit down with someone and you hear the words come out of your mouth as they're asking you questions and you're explaining and you're like, and I've found, and I love your feedback on this since you have this trauma and you have all these experiences and now you've recreated them in your mind through your book, right? Like I found that I would say something and I would, I would like stop myself and be like, is that, is that really the way I feel about that? Or did it really happen that way? Or, you know, and then as I talked about it more, it was like, I started to go, wow, I've pretended like I felt this way about this or I boxed this up or I never really dealt with this issue.
Or, man, I've literally never told another human about this situation or how I felt about this or what happened in this moment. And and then you can start to deal with it.
But, man, it definitely is wild when you are explaining something to people, to a counselor or a therapist, whatever, and you hear certain words come out of your mouth and you're like, I don't know, your internal monologue would have never said that. But when you verbalize it and you hear it, it really starts to set it in your head.
One, is that a shared experience? Is that something that you found? And two, how has that been going through the process of writing a book and recreating these past experiences? How has that impacted you? Man, I would say going to him for the last six to 12 months or whatever that I've been going, um, has made me a better husband.

I'm a better communicator. I open up a lot more.
I share a lot more. Um, I just feel like, man, there's one thing in my life, like that I'd never, there's one thing that like, I never shared with anybody in my life.
And it almost like we, I knew it happened. Um, and it was embarrassing a lot of times and then

talking to like a counselor

or a therapist whoever things just come out of your mouth almost it's like wow like i can't believe like i've never even told my wife this i've never told the person i care about the most because whether it was embarrassing or anyways i was i was really young when this thing happened so like it's not my fault that somebody took advantage and all that stuff and like so i think there you are bud dude right no you're good you're good you just you just dropped on me that's okay hey let's uh let's restart at um at you said you started to hear things come out of your mouth and you uh became a better communicator your wife, better communicator with your family, that kind of stuff.

Right around there is where it started to get a little choppy.

Okay.

And you said, and I just sent a message to the team.

So I think, I think we're going to be just fine moving forward.

I apologize for that.

No, good.

Oh, good, man.

You were talking about how, when you started meeting on some, you know, things started

coming out of your mouth that you hadn't said before, some stories you hadn't even shared with your wife, and that has made you a better communicator. So they're around there.
Yeah, so it has, man. It has made me a better communicator.
And the biggest reason being is because when you can tell your dark, deep secrets to somebody that you just met six months ago, and I think it feels a lot better to say that to somebody because that person is not going to judge you, right?

And like your significant other is not going to judge you.

Your brother and sister is not going to judge you.

But you almost feel embarrassed to tell them because what are they going to think of you?

Because they're important to you.

Your wife and your brother and sister are important to you.

You don't want them to think any different of you because certain things happen to you.

So I would say, man, I wish everybody in the world, man, would have a therapist, would have a counselor that they can just go and talk to about life. Obviously with mental health and a lot of things happening, man, especially some of that stuff happens in the winter around, around this time when it, when I got, when it, when it's, when it's a little bit colder, I guess here, or, or anytime really in general, man, I feel like when people talk about it, get that stuff out,

it's just such a,

you're just a better human being.

I'm a better father.

I'm a better husband.

I'm a better leader at the office

because I feel free

and I don't have things inside of me

that I'm just not sharing with somebody.

And it's not embarrassing.

It really is not, man.

It's not you.

It's things that happens to you in your life

and a lot of those times.

And honestly, sometimes if it is embarrassing,

things that you did,

Share this stuff.

But man, there's some bad stuff too, man.

And I think we need to talk about it because that's the only way to become better and move forward. And especially with me and you, man.
People that are like, a lot of people we know, people that are like high achievers. They want to do certain things and go and go and go and go and do this or that and all the other stuff.
I feel like those are the people that are hiding a lot of things sometimes because you're hiding things. Because you're just getting yourself caught up in all these businesses and stuff.
So you're more busier than you truly should be. Yeah.
So there's a couple of things in there. I think, one, the more open that I've been with my life, the more I've found that most people's stuff is even crazier than mine.
Right. So you think your stuff is the craziest stuff.
You know what I mean? You think, oh, no one's going to understand about this or no one's going to understand that, you know, you know, my, my, you know, every male role model in my life was an addict or that, you know, you know, for a large portion of my life, my, you know, my father was in jail. You know what I mean? Like people are not going to, and then you, then people are like, oh, you know, here's what I had to to deal with.
You're like, oh, wait, your stuff is just as crazy as my stuff or crazy. We're all messed up, broken people trying to do our best.
And I think this is this is the thing I may be the most interested in about you. So you got a wild story.
And I am positive that there are dozens, hundreds of moments that you could have just become a victim. You could have just said, you know what? You know, you know, I, my, my, my home got blown up in Afghanistan.
God hates me. Uh, you know, I lived in a one room with six on the floor and my mom and my dad wasn't around and, you know, God hates me.
And, you know, and then I got forced to go to this country where I don't speak the language. You know, and I'm dealing with all this nonsense because this thing just happened when I let, you know, you could have been a victim so many times.
Yet you're not. You've pushed forward.
You're a family guy. You're a business guy.
People respect you. You help people.
Your family's part of your business. How did you not become a victim? What is it about? Is it you, your story, the people who surround yourself? You could be a victim and no one would blame you.
No one would say to you, hey, man, we get it. You had all this messed up stuff.
You got all these things going on in your head. Like, like we get it.
It's okay to to not achieve. It's okay to sit on couch and eat Doritos and take money from the government or whatever.
Like it's okay. You didn't do that.
You chose a different path. And I'm so interested in why you why how etc.
You you didn't go down that path. You didn't choose.
You chose to push and to become this thing that you are. I just think it's such a great example of what's possible, and I'm just really interested in how you got there.
yeah 100 i think i think a lot of it to be honest with you is because other people like

um they were like i was so first and foremost so when i came here

at 14 15 like i really caught caught up on like soccer like my dad played soccer and we played up we played i was a good athlete so like i really got caught up into soccer right away when i got here at 14 15 years old and i was really good at it man i was like the best player in our in our jv team right away as a freshman and played in varsity my for my sophomore junior and senior year and like what soccer did to me man at the time was like it turned almost something negative that was basically happening to me it turned it into something positive because as I started having success on the soccer field as a freshman you could see all these people that weren't talking to me that were making fun of me that were doing all this stuff and being racist to me, all of them kind of turned into like, wow, Cyrus, you're really good, man. Hey, do you want to hang out? I was like, what? I was like, you guys were just doing this like two months ago.
And now that I'm on the soccer team, I'm one of the best players. I have all these friends and I've never had that in the past.
So then I was like, man, I'm going to be really, really, really good because I want a lot of friends and I want a lot of people to like me. So it's almost like a drive to make it so people could like you.
And then it basically turned into, okay, how can you do better? And how can you do better? How can you be an All-American? Can you be this? Can you go to college? Pay for college and all these things. So at the time, it was – here's what happens.
God puts you in different situations and puts different things in your life for certain reasons. Right.
So if my house didn't get bombed, if I didn't get in the helicopter, if I didn't go to Pakistan, if I didn't go through all the stuff I had to deal with my freshman year in high school, I wouldn't be the person I am today, man. Maybe I am that couch potato that's sitting there and saying, man, like I had it really good.
So I'm sitting here and I'm doing my thing. So I almost see it as, Hey man, like the more adversity in life that you deal with, it's almost building calluses in your mind to tell you that, Hey man, this is just another, another day in Cyrus Jackery's life, man.
It's just another thing I got to deal with. Right.
So I don't know where that comes from, to be honest with you. Maybe it's from like just born being born and just putting into this like like adversity after adversity after just making it like every day is like, where are we going to eat today? How are we going to eat today? Do we have enough for everybody to get fed today? So it's almost one of the survival mode, right? You're not really thinking of like anything else other than making it through the day to be able to have food on the table, if that makes sense.
So that kind of survival. And even to today, I'm still in the same mindset today.
I'm just like, man, I just got to make it throughout the day because now that I have people that honestly, I got with my wife at 23, 24 years old, and I was like, oh, this person relies on me. I have to support this person at the time.
And then when i became a father is when i truly changed i became a completely different person because from like when you have too much success when a lot of friends as you might know like i when i was 17 16 years old man like i had a lot of friends i was on the varsity i was like a cool kid for once i did some stuff that i'm not proud of man and like i wasn't be i wasn't the person i am today for sure from like 17 to 22 man i just went into like a hole almost and everybody in life you're gonna go into certain kind of hole what do you but you gotta know how to get out of that hole because you're gonna a hole is always gonna be there you're gonna go in a hole and you gotta be able to find a way to get out of it and that's where i'm looking at. God puts different people and different things in your life saying, hey, soccer is going to get you out of that hole.
And then it's Michelle, which is like my wife now. She got me out of that hole because I'm like, man, this person relies on me.
I've got to do really good on my job to pay the rent for our place that we had. And then when you have a kid, you're like, man, now like Sophia, my first, I had her at like 27, 26 years old.
I was like, man, I can't fail because now it's not just me failing. I'm failing many other people.
And then you have employees. And then you're like, man, I can't fail in the business because man, I'm going to fail like 10 other people.
So I feel like it was survival made for a long time. And then God puts all these people into your life and you got to take those as fuel.
So now I've got our organization, 130 people. I've got three kids, my wife, my mom, my older brother who got in a car accident, who was disabled.
I feel like all those weight of all those people are on my shoulders. And like, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just man going, going at it.
And there is, I can't even sit down one minute and think, oh, because I don't have time for that because I got to just go, go, go. And that's not good.
So that's why a therapist is really nice because you can sit with them in that hour and just absorb everything and be like, man, not every one of those people have to be on your shoulders. Who is carrying you? And that's a question that's hard for me that I'm still searching today because it could get lonely at the top once in a while.
Yeah, I think it certainly does. In my career, in my life, I feel like I've been on the top of the mountain and been knocked all the way down to the bottom quite a few times.
I've had to start from zero quite a few times and everything that you talked about it, going down past, becoming a person that you don't necessarily like or even recognize in the mirror at different times and having to pull yourself back out of that. And I think people excuse it when we're young, but we don't like to talk about it when it happens when we're older, right? There's like a certain age, and I don't know what that age is.
Maybe it's late 20s, early 30s, where all of a sudden, when you find yourself in a hole, it goes from like, oh, you're just a kid finding yourself to, you know, what's wrong with that guy? You know, what's wrong with her? Why, you know, I can't, I don't want to tell anybody about this. I don't want anyone to know that I got fired.
I don't want anyone to know that I'm, I'm, I'm depressed, even though I got all these people and I'm making all this money and you know, what, what's he got to be depressed about or why is he stressed or anxious or you know what I mean? Like, like, oh, it must be nice to have those kinds of problems. Like, like you hear this stuff and, um, you know, I, I think that these are the struggles.
like it doesn't it literally doesn't matter you know sometimes I hear people who are super successful give advice and I'm like yeah you know I I think I think it's it's very trite and um and it's like yeah you know you can say that now but let's talk about what it was like when you were getting to where you are right and And it feels like to me, you know, how do you plow through that for the person who's looking at what you built? And I want to talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But like when they hear about what you built, if they don't already know and they're hearing 130 employees and you've gone through all this, like how do you deal with the day to day? How do you make make sure that that like you you have these people who are who are relying on you like you know this is the last thing i'll say and i'll let you talk i i will say something to myself when i'm when i know i'm not in a good mental place and i don't know if it's the right thing to say or whatever um but there are days when you just Like you said, you feel like the weight of the world is just and maybe it's even not but it feels like it and and you have to be aware of that data point right even if even if like logically you know that's not true some days you feel like and i will literally look in the mirror and i'll be like and i'll say to myself like your only goal for today is don't fall apart i mean you don't fall apart i'll literally look at myself in the mirror and I'll be like, and I'll say to myself, like, your only goal for today is don't fall apart.
Don't fall apart. I'll literally look at myself in the mirror and I'll be like, Ryan, just don't fall apart today.
Right. Don't, don't be reactive to someone.
Don't have drinks when you get home. Don't, you know, death scroll on Twitter or Instagram or something.
Don't, you know, like, like, just, just don't fall apart. You don't have to kill it.
Just don't fall apart. And like, I found that that just giving myself that grace of like, you can, you can have a C plus day today and it's okay.
Right. Gets you through to get to more a days where you have a, you know, you have a day where you blow everything up, right.
You just decide to go to the bar or or whatever your vice is whatever your thing is right um those days knock you back so far versus just just having a kind of crappy okay day getting to do and getting the next one so so that has worked really well for me um what you know i don't know a psychologist may have different thoughts on saying that but um but like how do you do that you you had 130 people that look at you like how do you get through each day and make sure that you don't fall apart yeah i think well i would tell you you're gonna fall apart right um and if and if you don't if you don't fall apart you're lying to yourself that you're not falling apart um it okay. It's okay to fall apart.
But one thing I know is I know when I'm falling apart. I think a lot of people, for me, like when you know you have a problem or some things are not going well in your life, that's when you know you pretty much excelled at this thing called life because you know you're falling apart.
Because that's the only way to fix it if you know there's a problem right if you just keep bullshitting yourself that oh i'm not falling apart i'm the best and i'm doing this and this like that's just that's just not right for you so for me it's pretty simple man like i know when things are not going well and i put triggers in my life to be able to know when those things are not going right for example there's there's four things in my life, man. And I look at this in the mirror at night every day, every day, because I know these four things are right, man.
Everything else is going to fall, fall, fall, fall in the line. And if I have a C plus day, I know that tomorrow is a new day, but I need to know that I've had a C plus day.
The people that are going to have four C plus days in a row are the people that are going to have a very hard time having a lot of A days. But the people that go from C plus to an A the next day, man, just don't fail twice.
If you can just do that one thing, just don't do it twice in a row. Things are going to be just fine.
So for me, it's the relationship with, for me, for me, obviously with, with, with, with God or what he has created for me and then my wife my wife like so so i know at the end of the night man one thing we do me and my me and my wife is like it's a kiss at night so we don't just kiss a night just to go to bed it's one of those things where like if we if my wife is this way like she won't give me a kiss if something's wrong and we need to talk about like that then i know it's my trigger like hey babe i'm going to bed a nice second. And I know something's right.
Let's talk about it. What happened? Because a lot of times go to bed not talking about it.
Then I go on tomorrow night you will go to bed not talking about it. The next time you'll go to bed not talking about it.
You're not on the same page. So for us, it was pretty clear right away that like, because I know that if that relationship is right, man, everything else is going to fall into place because I'm not in the correct mind when I come to work and I'm fighting with her or something.
I'm just not in the right place. I'm going to have a C plus day.
So that's number one important thing is, if that communication up there is correct, because from then it goes my second one on my mirror. I cross out a day.
So right now it's 4,231 days. That's how many days I've left with my daughter when she leaves for college.
So I know how important it is for me every day to cross that out and go one more day. I'm like, man, did I spend quality time with her and with my son and the other son? Because that's extremely important as well.
Because every day you're crossing it down. You're like, man, I didn't do a good job today.
But you know the next day you will have a good because you'll remember that. And then third is health, man.
because if you're not taking care of your health, you're crossing it down, you're like, man, I didn't do a good job today. But you'll know the next day you will have a good because you'll remember that.
And then third is health, man, because if you're not taking care of your health, you're eating bad, you're not doing certain things, you're just going to go in a funk, man, when you're not eating right, when you're not exercising. For me, it's 5.30 in the morning.
Every morning I go outside, I work out. That kind of puts me in the right stage.
And it's my meditation. A lot of people, it's meditation.
For me, it's early morning and I go work out. And then fourth is I pick one employee every week, man, that's on my list that I have to just touch base with, whether it's a quick call or email or just keep an eye on them.
Because a lot of times when you have a larger organization, we have like 29 to 30 employees and another a hundred contractors. And I'm, and it's all over the country, 30 some states.
So I can't talk to everybody, but I know that strategically I can pick one person a week and then I can just go down the line. So at least they know, like, I'm just touching base with them, seeing how, how, how's your son doing, daughter doing, whatever that you need to ask.
And so for me, if I can be disciplined on those four things, I know everything else is going to fall into place. But if one of those things is off, I know I'm having a C plus day, but having it visually every night when I'm brushing my teeth, it's very hard for me to be off two days in a row.
Yeah. No, I love that.
I love the don't fail twice. This is actually something that at Rogue Risk Risk and in every team that I've managed I used to say all the time I was like guys we're gonna make every mistake that exists every mistake and I think as humans as people we're gonna make every mistake like and and and I'm I'm with you like God tests us you know I'm a I I'm a uh'm a firm believer and I have a strong faith and I believe that God purposely tests us.
And I think the test is, okay, here's the miss, right? You didn't even talk to your daughter tonight. Didn't even talk to her.
Didn't see her. You were doing this crisscross.
She's got this thing. Bam, bam.
You didn't even talk to your daughter tonight didn't even talk to her didn't see her you were doing this crisscross she's got this thing bam bam you didn't even talk to her and you go in and you and and that's the miss and you're standing there in front of the mirror and you're brushing your teeth and you're like man nah you know you just get mad at yourself for a sec and then but here's the test don't let it happen the next day right and this goes for everything you you missed your workout don't miss your workout the next day. You had a bad moment.
Your willpower was low and you grabbed a bag of potato chips instead of a handful of grapes for a snack. And you mowed those potato chips because potato chips are delicious.
Okay, right? Potato chips are the best. But don't do it the next day.
Next day, go to yourself i had my chips yesterday i'm gonna have grapes today and now the chips mean nothing and like little trivial things that we the the loss is when it becomes a habit that when the when the the the failures become a habit and and like you know and again dude this is a big reason why i changed the name of this podcast from the Ryan Hanley show to Finding Peak. To me, these are the conversations that we need to have as entrepreneurs, as leaders, as mothers, fathers, partners.
I think in life, I've never heard. I'll put it this way.
And I think you would agree, but obviously you give me your feedback. I've never talked to a successful person who, whoever blamed tactics for something not going right.
They never, I've never had someone blame tactics, right? Ever, ever in history of all the conversations I've had with all the successful people either on this podcast or in business, I have never had someone blame tactics for the reason that something happened in their life or their business that they were unhappy with. It was always their mindset and the way that they operated their life.
I wasn't disciplined for this period of time. I let my relationship with my spouse go.
I neglected to have a tough conversation with this employee. I was too egotistical.
I was too, I didn't have courage. Whatever the thing is, it's always the stuff that's going on between our head that causes the real problems.
It's never like, well, you know, if only I knew how to optimize my Facebook campaigns,

then, you know, my business would have been a success.

Like that's never, ever been the case, you know, and I just think I just love that to

death.

So so I do have one fob question on this is so someone's listening and they love and

they're going, you know, this is I love this. Right.
I am going to get just a little nerdy on this because I think it's just interesting. When you say it's on your mirror, like piece of paper, did you write it? Like, how did you visually present this to yourself so that it was, it was a reminder every day? It was just a marker, just a marker, a black marker on the mirror.
I just wrote it. I just wrote it down.
And then I have a marker right next to my toothbrush every night. I cross out 5,220 days.
Now 5,219 days, right? Wow. Put it down.
It just keeps me on track, man. Because here's the thing, Ryan, man, like money and fame and all the other stuff, man, none of that stuff truly matters.
What truly matters is in that order, man, your relationship with your faith, your significant other, your kids, and then your health. Last in the bottom of it is all, is my work.
Like work stuff doesn't, at the end of the day, man, like that stuff really doesn't matter to me if the first three are not, are not done down correctly. But if the first three are, man, at a nine out of 10, at a 10 out of 10, work is going to be well because you're going to be in the right mindset.
And for work, you need to be in the right mindset. Nobody ever comes to work fought with their significant other or their kids are fighting with them and they're going to come to work and give it a hundred percent.
They're just not, man, because you're just thinking about those things. So yeah.
Yeah, dude, I absolutely love it. So I want to, we haven't even talked about like the entrepreneur stuff and I want to be cognizant of your time and of the audience's time.
And I think we got to have another episode here and I want to even learn more about the book. There's like a whole bunch of stuff.
So I definitely think we're going to do a part two of this if you're up for it, if you agree. We love that.
A couple of weeks, have you come back? I want to do a part two because I want to get into the book and I want to get into your entrepreneur journey. So let's stay understanding that we'll do that.
And I got your commitment and I'm excited for that. Let's stay just the last few minutes we have together on mindset.
So as you've talked about how you've started to go to therapy and I know you're a big, I know you have your own podcast.

You talk to a lot of successful people there.

I know you're a big thinker about stuff.

I know you spend time on these thoughts.

What is, so you have three kids.

You were tasked with, God comes down and says, Cyrus, you can give your kids one idea, one concept to help them become the best versions of themselves. You get one concept that you can give to them.
What would that concept be? What would be the message that you would give them to help them? You're pushing all three of them off into their life journey at the same time. And you can give them one message, one, one idea as you push them off into that journey, what would that be? Fail and keep trying, um, fail, fail, and keep trying because man, you, if you don't fail, you will not learn.
Um, and I, and I use that use that to heart man i have made some decisions on the business side that we've lost a lot of money we have failed big time but i learned so much from it right and and the other part of it is i don't want to set 10 years from now i don't want to i don't want to be like man i wish i would have spent 10k and did that venture because look, look where that person has gone who tried it when I was. So like, I never want to be that guy that sits back and says, man, I wish I would have done that.
I want to be like, man, I lost 10K. It is what it is.
Not everybody can't afford to lose. I understand that part of it.
But relative to them, it could be $1,000, probably $100 bucks, relative to them. A hundred percent, a hundred percent.
So try, dude, try everything. And I tell people all the time, dude, in your twenties, man, try everything.
And that's what I would tell my kid. Try everything.
If you don't wake up in the morning and ain't excited about putting your pants on to go to work, no. Go find something that you truly enjoy.
Try a bunch of different things in your 20s. Figure out exactly what do you really want to do.
Fail and all because failing is truly what's going to tell you what you really like because the things that you fail in, you're probably not very good at. You're going to learn some stuff from it.
And then the next time you're going to do it, you're going to do it correctly. So for me, for my kids, that's going to be the thing.
Hey, it's okay to fail, get back up and do the things that you're supposed to do

because adversity is going to hit you. You're going to go in a hole, you're going to run into

stuff, but how do you kind of, kind of, kind of get away from it and then take risks, right? Like

I'm, I'm a risk taker, man. I think a lot of people that are entrepreneurs are risk takers,

of course, because 97% of businesses don't make it after five years. So if you're not taking those

risks, man, you're not going to be in situations that you truly want to be. So you've got to be able to take risks.
I'm not calculating risks for some people, of course, right? You've got to really – what I was going to tell my kids, they want to be in insurance, right? One of my biggest jobs in this world is, man, to make sure those kids are good human beings. If they can be that, like the rest of this stuff, I don't care what they do, whatever, like none of my business.
If they can be good human beings, but if they, one thing they can learn from dad is to truly just do what you love, right? And if it's insurance or banking or tech, whatever that is, when you grow up, do what you love. But then the other part of it is like, fail as much as you can, because that's going to teach you a lot of things then.
And I'm hoping those lessons go to them. But as you know, kids, man, they do whatever they want to do.
Here's what I know about that is that my dad said a bunch of things to me in all the craziness of my childhood. And many of those things when i was a kid i probably couldn't have recreated however there were some concepts that he said to me over and over and over again that as an adult now and as a father myself uh have now become part of my core value structures and one of them exactly what you just said you know if you if you were to ever meet my dad who who's an amazing grandfather and our relationship is wonderful now and you know whatever but like um you know he said to me one time uh uh rye he said you're gonna realize this when you become a dad i was asking him about something he said you're gonna realize this when you become a dad when you become a dad or and this goes for moms too uh when you've become a parent, your only job from that moment on is to make your kids better than you.
And that does not mean financially better. It means a better human.
Your job is to help fill in the gaps where your places are so that they can be better versions of you. And to your point, I think if you do that and you make that your focus, the derivative of everything else in your life, your work, your relationships, your friendships, your hobbies, all these other things, they just become better.
Because you can't put that kind of positivity into these humans that are connected to you and not have good things come out the back end. I think it's wonderful, my man.
Dude, so the book, Triumph After Trauma, where can people get it? How do we get them connected to the book? Will there be links in the show notes for anybody, whether you're on Amazon or sorry, whether you're on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening or watching on YouTube, I'll have links to the book. So where can people go if they just want to go directly? Yeah, it's just my story, man, about my life and how I've come from where I came from and detailed notes on things that I used to basically use as leverage to be where I am today.
So it's on it, it's on cyrusjaffrey.com where you can go in and grab a book. We would love for you guys to try it out, man.
And I hope the book was honestly pretty simple. The legacy thing, one thing that sticks around for a very long time, as you know, is books.
And it's something that I'm hoping that it maybe changes just one person's mindset about what they're dealing with that. Hey, a lot of other people have dealt with this as well.
Wake up and do big things in life. Well, I mean, after people hearing your story and hearing the type of guy you are, I think they'd be crazy not to pick up the book.
And I know that more than one person will learn something and grow from it. It's been a it pleasure.
And we're definitely going to do this again in a couple weeks because I want to get into

like the business side of stuff, which we didn't even.

But I appreciate the hell out of you.

And thanks for coming on the show.

Man, this means a lot to have me, man.

It's an honor.

So I appreciate you.

Thank you.

Make it look easy. I'm Gabe on 10 toes.
Big body pull up in a range roll. I can chase the whole game when I say so.

I pull up, shut it down.

Yeah, they know.

Running this game ain't a game for me.

I never switched up, no change in me.

The only thing changing is easy.

You go against me, then you know that you tweaking, okay?

Cause baby, I'm him.

I be on 10.

Two stepping in the party.

I do not dance.

Watch how I move.

Make it look easy.

Counting up wins, that's part of the plan.

Black male taking up my head as a CC.

That can't fail. I'm not get the reason we'll repeat.
I'm knee deep. Need a job.
That's if you seek me. I'm too sick.
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