| Yes, I make mistakes. I always invest in mentors who are where I want to be at so many different levels: • Coaches who are masters in spiritual guidance • Coaches who specialize in relationships • Coaches who are amazing at building businesses and systems • Coaches who master the 3D world (material success, social status, etc.) That last bullet point is where I got myself into some trouble. You know, it’s always the spiritual mentors in the self-improvement space who you always hear about getting caught for their “cult-like” schemes. Well for me, the cult I joined was all about the 3D world success. Social status, women, social circle expansion, and creating more wealth. When I met the leader of the group through a mutual friend who is a dating coach and heard about the program I thought to myself, “why not?” He is a good guy and still is. In fact, I still chat with him after leaving too. The leader of the group is Iranian-American just like me, we had some commonalities in our own background of insecurities, and he was also local here in Phoenix. He sold me on the idea of a luxury lifestyle, living like a celebrity, and creating a strong network where I become attractive in the nightlife scene. I felt overworked with business at the time. I was getting a bit tired of all the spiritual social events… it felt redundant to me, and I was bored of going to meditation circles, yoga, and ceremonies just to expand my social network. It didn’t feel exciting at all… So I said fuck it, why not? This guy seems to know what he’s doing! Hahaha… you guys really need to be careful who you invest your money into. This was the first time I bought from someone without consuming their content beforehand. WHAT WAS I THINKING??? 😂 The first mistake I am sharing with you is that you must learn from before investing in a coach… Consume their content beforehand. Whether it is video content, a podcast, an email newsletter, Twitter, free workshops, or in-person events. GET TO KNOW HOW THEIR MIND WORKS BEFOREHAND… Not just from a quick conversation. I made this on the spot decision because my ego was so fixated on the money, Gucci clothes he was wearing, a “loving” relationship, and his network out in the nightlife scene. I thought to myself how exciting it all looked and that I “needed this lifestyle to spice up my life and my confidence more.” Now I will give this group credit in the sense that it did help me with some stuff: • It helped me stop judging nightlife people as “losers with no ambitions” and met some cool promoters at the clubs. I get offered free tables whenever I go back and was able to network with people in the music scene. • It showed me more about how the ego of people who engage heavily in the illusion of the 3D world operates on a psychological level, especially in the nightlife world. It was a new game to play that wasn’t fulfilling to me in the long run but it created more of a level of understanding of people’s conditioning outside of the self-improvement space. • It showed me how I could integrate a lot of my own spiritual methodologies into traditional masculine teachings to “toughen up” as a man… now that group was WAY too extreme with it, but I found my inner balance from it. • Overall, I took the lessons the leader and his team showed me on building more of a strong sense of individuality and solidified my personality more. The way it ended was he did not like my sense of individuality and values. He viewed it as a threat and would get pissed at me a lot. We’ll get to that part in a little bit… So before we get into the lessons and what cult-like behavior I noticed, I want to say this newsletter is not about projecting any hatred towards him or his team. It’s simply me sharing with you how to become wiser in your decision-making when forming relationships with others and how to use the mirror of relationships to expand your level of consciousness and ultimately your confidence in yourself. The only way to discover more of yourself is by understanding how you manifest certain situations and relationships in your life. To take accountability. That’s what I teach in my programs, so that is the energy I am bringing into this newsletter. Red flag #1: Constant yelling, shaming, and guilting Shame and guilt are not a part of my values in how I coach and guide my students, in fact, it is what I teach you guys to all release yourself from. Now he would talk about this on his group calls, but then he’d yell at the students all the time. He would call us losers, weak, pieces of shit, and all the terrible things you can think of. He would get emotionally reactive on calls and freak out if you were “out of line” with what he would believe you have to do and threaten to kick any of us out at any moment. I thought to myself… well this is out of alignment with how I do things. But maybe there is something here, maybe I can be more open-minded because of all the luxury he owns. He always spoke with such certainty in his words and tonality. So I figured why not if he moves so confidently. But my intuition knew something was just off about this style of “coaching.” Red flag #2: Making things about him rather than the clients When a client would struggle with similar things over and over again he would make it about him. Look as a coach, I get it. It can feel frustrating having the same conversation week after week with the same student on a lesson they are working to embody. Whether it is in relationships, money, dating, self-belief, etc. It can feel like as a guide I may not be doing a good job, or that it was my mistake for taking on that client in the first place. What has helped me guide and coach better has been to just let go of the outcome of the client’s personal timeline. Everyone has different levels of learning speed in the school of life. It’s like those funny videos you see on Instagram Reels nowadays of millennials making jokes about their parents flipping out when they got stuck on a math problem or reading a sentence out loud as a kid. Now that we are adults, we find it humorous because obviously getting angry at someone will not speed up their level of learning. So why do people get angry at others for not “getting it?” Because their egos get in their way. They are attached to this idea of a person being a certain way. So many people do this in relationships as well, getting frustrated at friends, family, or romantic partners for not understanding. It’s because they make it about themselves. “Poor me, I am working with a client who does not understand.” “Poor me, my girlfriend just does not want to understand my point of view.” “Poor me, my parents do not understand my values and I still let it affect me as a 30-something-year-old adult who doesn’t even live with them anymore.” Welcome to life. This is what you signed up for. He would constantly tell us on calls how we were wasting his time and betraying his trust in him over things we just did not understand at the time. He would get angry, emotionally fired up, and do favors for us then throw those favors in our faces when he would get upset with us. “I can’t believe I did xyz for you and you betray me like this, you are a piece of shit and you will never get a loving girlfriend, etc.” He would question our loyalty to his company over our own commitment to the growth of ourselves. The more I got deeper into the calls, the more this came out. Red flag #3: Business advice ended up being about him This guy was very hungry for his money. And as an entrepreneur, I get it. As an entrepreneur, you must have the drive to put yourself out there and become resourceful rather than waiting for resources to come to you. But when you let money interfere with your craft, you will have a downfall. We’ve seen this in Scarface. We see this publicly with celebrities. We’ve seen this in many stories, but just like any other lesson in life. We all sometimes need to experience it firsthand to get it. He would constantly push the idea for our coaching businesses to collaborate. I finally budged and was open to the idea. We had a gameplan set and he paid money for an appointment setter to start using my account so I could help him create collaboration packages with both of our brands. Later that week I helped coach one of his clients. That weekend, I found out he pressured the client to pay money for a girl to be a VIP assistant. Essentially a pretend girlfriend for the night he could practice his confidence with. I was not told about this and as soon as I heard about it in the grapevine I called him. This did not align with my brand, and did not want future students I onboard to have to deal with this. Paying a woman to pretend to like you is not going to help you grow your confidence with dating. I had a tone in my voice when I called him but still addressed my concern respectfully. He raised his voice, called me a piece of shit, told me I am not worth hearing his side of the story, and did all of his defense tactics. This is when I knew I sparked fear in him. The defensiveness, the anger, the tactics he would use. I realized I was doing this to myself and it was blocking my ability to step into my most powerful self. So I left the “cult” that night. People then started leaving on their own the same week. Now what did I learn from all of this? Many fucking lessons. Many. Here they are… 1. Never compromise your values I don’t care how much money is involved. How entangled you feel in a relationship. How much energy you have invested into someone, something, a team, a workplace, etc. Learn to walk away when your values don’t align. You have an internal set of values, rules, and disciplines you live by on purpose. It’s your inner guidance and your integrity that solidify how you move in the world. Compromising them takes you to places that don’t align with your vision. I needed to compromise my values to learn this lesson, and some of you may need to in your life over and over again until you finally get it. But remember your internal compass exists for a reason. It may change as you grow and learn, but for now, trust what you have. 2. Don’t tolerate disrespect when you see it As within, so without. People are a mirror of your internal world. If you keep getting disrespected by someone (in this example the yelling, shaming, guilting, etc.) It comes from the way you deep down treat yourself. I didn’t realize how hard I could still be on myself. Yes, past mentors would tell me I can be hard on myself at times. And I understood it, but there are layers to this game of expanding consciousness. I realized I was taking the yelling and him being hard on me because I am still hard on myself in that same toxic way deep down inside. This showed me how valuable it is to just love myself constantly no matter where I am in life. 3. Don’t let material world objects be your motivation Before I joined this cult I wanted more “excitement” in my life. I thought this could be achieved by having more money, buying more cool stuff, and dating what I thought were “high caliber” women based on just looks. I realized after leaving, I had that all along. In myself. I can create my own excitement. I can create my own deeper level of love. I can create my own sense of adventure wherever I go and whatever I do. Because wherever I go, there I am. This got me to dial in back on my projects, but now from a place of love, joy, and compassion. I started going back out to coffee shops and group settings with similar mindsets. But this time, with more leadership energy in myself. To bring my love, joy, happiness, and excitement into the rooms I step myself into. This didn’t need to be found at a nightclub. Sure, was it cool to go to nightclubs sober and talk to people and flirt with women? Yes. But it wasn’t aligned with my truest self and how I deep down wanted to use my time. The hookups felt empty afterward. The conversations weren’t fulfilling for the most part. It just wasn’t for me, my vision, and my values. I’ve learned that if I just put love into what I am already doing, the idea of excitement will naturally come to me. Because I am loving myself through the things I choose to engage in. That is what creates the feeling of “excitement” through my own thoughts and state of being. I wrote this newsletter for you today because I want you to be careful who you invest into as a mentor. Yes, getting a girlfriend is an awesome desire. Yes, becoming confident in yourself in social settings is a good to want. Yes, always expanding your level of increasing your income is a great thing to do. But will you compromise your values for it? Because there are a million ways to do everything. Do it your way, and have full trust in that. |
| Much love, Shawn “Sheshn” Heshmatpour |
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