How to Take on Large Corporations and Win, With Arash Homampour, Top Trial Attorney With $500m+ in…
Like The Show? Leave A Rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/successstory
Like The Show? Leave A Rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/successstory
About The Guest
Arash Homampour has obtained over half a billion dollars in settlements, verdicts and judgments for his clients.
His firm specializes in what they call “Underdog” or “David v. Goliath” litigation where they represent one individual client that is taking on a public entity, large employer, industry or manufacturer in an effort to change and/or stop unlawful or unsafe conduct for the good of others and the community.
In the last five years alone, Arash has obtained Eight 8 figure verdicts and Four 7 figure verdicts in a wide array of trials and cases involving dangerous products, roads, driving, and premises (including a record setting $60 million wrongful death/product liability verdict in Orange County Federal Court and a $30 million wrongful death verdict in Ventura County.)
Talking Points
08:09 — The business of personal injury law.
14:01 — Arash’s first big break.
18:03 — Why do attorneys not take these cases on?
20:24 — Taking on $100 million dollar cases.
26:45 — Harnessing new techniques, new technologies.
34:29 — Investing in your own people.
39:49 — The importance of being true to yourself.
44:14 — Advice for young entrepreneurs.
Show Links
Show Sponsor
HubSpot Podcast Network — https://hubspot.com/podcastnetwork
HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business.
Canva — https://canva.me/successstory (45 Days Free Pro)
Canva makes design amazingly simple (and fun)! Create stunning designs with your photos and videos — even if you’re not a design expert!
JustWorks — https://justworks.com
Run your business with confidence with Justworks. Get simple software + expert support for payroll, benefits, HR, and compliance.
Quantum Metric — https://quantummetric.com/podoffer (Code:Success)
Quantum Metric automatically quantifies opportunities in your digital applications, helping you prioritize with more speed and confidence.
Postie — https://postie.com/successstory (Free Demo)
Postie is a technology and data company transforming direct mail marketing into a digitally managed channel.
Flatfile — https://flatfile.com
Create an intuitive data onboarding CX in minutes and say goodbye to messy spreadsheets. Help your team spend less time cleaning messy spreadsheet data, and more time using it.
Watch on YouTube
What is the Success Story Podcast?
On this podcast, you’ll find interviews, Q&A, keynote presentations & conversations on sales, marketing, business, startups and entrepreneurship.
The podcast is hosted by entrepreneur, business executive, author, educator & speaker, Scott D. Clary.
Scott will discuss some of the lessons he’s learned over his own career, as well as have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, notable figures and politicians. All who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas and insights.
He sits down with leaders and mentors and unpacks their story to help pass those lessons onto others through both experiences and tactical strategy for business professionals, entrepreneurs and everyone in between.
Website: https://www.scottdclary.com
Podcast: https://www.successstorypodcast.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/scottdclary
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottdclary
Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdclary
Facebook: https://facebook.com/scottdclarypage
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/scottdclary
Read The Transcript (Machine Generated)
Arash 02:22
Well, I mean, basically, I think it starts with being the child of immigrant parents, that’s a big, you know, common denominator and a lot of success stories is that you come to America with kind of no idea of how things are, there’s no concept of rules, I was telling someone that like, my rich friends, I grew up in West LA, and we were very poor, but my rich friends, you know, in high school would go on ski vacations and go to fancy restaurants. And like, I never went on a ski vacation. I never went to a fancy restaurant. And so kind of my perception of what limits there are and what how life should work was kind of open ended. So I think it gives you more opportunity to sort of grow and be even bigger than you ever could imagine.
You know, with immigrants, knowing you’re different, just by appearance, and by name. My name art is our Shadow of War. I think being the weirdo today is considered a good thing. It’s good to be unique and stand out and sort of make your own path and not live by how others live their life and trying not to look like other people, but just be yourself. And so I’ve always had that sort of approach. I was voted most unique and best eyes in high school. And then, you know, I went to USC back then it was not hard to get into now it’s a top 10 school. Back then you went there when you couldn’t get into UCLA. I had good grades, but they just weren’t good enough for a state school. So I went to USC kind of had no idea what I wanted to do wasn’t ready to enter the universe as a professional decided to go to MBA or law school said my law school seems more interesting based on the TV shows that were on back then la law being one of them. And then I knew I could argue, in law school, I really had no idea most people in law school back then wanting to do like entertainment law and music law and something fancy. But I didn’t have that opportunity because I just wasn’t getting the grades and didn’t get the sort of internships that would let you do that. So when I graduated, in fact, in law school, the I did Moot Court, which is the equivalent of arguing it’s like a litigation program. The teacher said, I sucked and that I should not do litigation that I wasn’t good. Ironically, I didn’t really care what someone said. So I went to graduate law school. It was a great law school in terms of teaching you the basics, but it wasn’t like law school that’s going to get you the high paying job initially kind of have to do that on your own. I was at a seminar this weekend. And I told people sometimes the best thing is that you don’t graduate from the fancy school or college because that has a sort of path and course on its own that’s kind of defined and whereas if you kind of graduate with nothing There are no limits, you can kind of kind of you have the hunger and desire to really prove yourself. So that’s who I was in law school, I really had no job, no mentor no cases, and just basically worked my way to where I am today, one case at a time with a passion and love affair for what I do, working harder than anybody else, confidence in myself. And then also, the key to it is developing who I am as a human outside of who I be as a lawyer, because you learn how to be a lawyer or a doctor or an accountant or whatever marketing person. You can learn those trades by reading and studying and going to school and then doing it in real life. But really, I think what sets you apart in all of those areas is you being the best human you can possibly being being evolved like the Deepak Chopra, or whatever, you know, whatever Wim Hof or whatever of humanity, then when you enter into those professional worlds, you kind of transcend the profession. And you sort of become an outlier that stands out. You’re starting
Scott 06:01
off esoterical You’re so I love it. But you’re starting off, you’re starting off very high level. But I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just I wanted to I wanted to understand is that where is that when you hit the ground running out of law school? Did you have that mindset because many people don’t have that mindset going and coming out of law school?
Arash 06:19
Yeah. My best friend, best friend, like she says, do something, I do it in law school said, there’s a program called landmark education. It’s worldwide do it. There’s a program called intro to the forum. And basically, it’s a self development program, live with 500 people where through experiential learning and sharing, you learn about how humans are you learned kind of the roadmap to human behavior. And rather than living your life, where you’re unaware and reacting everything as a mortal human, it gives you a bird’s eye view of who it is to be human, so that you’re less reactive, you’re more in control, you have integrity, and you do what you say you’re going to do and actually accomplish it. So that was essential, doing landmark education. There’s a lot of programs like that, I highly recommend that one because it’s structured, and they use it with CEOs and regular ordinary people. And it’s effective in terms of breaking through with your own life, and breaking through as a professional or in relationships. So that was the one key thing I did that kind of gave me, you know, super, super powers and when other people didn’t have.
Scott 07:28
So okay, so now you’re finished law school, you’re going out, you’re just you’re grinding, but you’re doing it with a sense of purpose like this is this is not the traditional, like first year out of law school type mentality. So I appreciate that. And what is that purpose? What directed you down the path of personal injury, which it’s interesting to hear you say, Why you why you had or what you had, you know, this lens that you saw life through coming out of university or college, just because personal injury seems to be like the law that everybody seems to be what I see the billboards, I see the radio, it’s all personal injury, personal injury, but it doesn’t seem to be through the lens that you’re looking at it through.
Arash 08:09
Right? Well, personal injury on billboards, that’s a business, they’re basically signing up cases. And looking at the practice of law as a business, how can I make as much money as possible in each individual case, on a mass scale, there’s nothing wrong with that, per se. I’m not a business. I’m a lawyer by profession, I was put on this earth to identify and hold wrongdoers accountable and make them pay for what they did and make the world a safer space. on a large scale. I take on the biggest of big, it literally is David versus Goliath. The larger You are the hungry, REM, the more evil your wrongdoing is, the bigger negative impact you have, the harder I’m coming after you and I’m going to hold you accountable. So what I do is really a profession. It’s not the business, I don’t look at anything like how much money can I make and etc. It’s really just how much of an impact can I make? How much can I transform someone who’s been hurt their life and hold someone that’s done something wrong? accountable? So it’s two different phases. But there’s space for both?
Scott 09:15
Of course, no, it’s amazing. So
Arash 09:18
it’s like Led Zeppelin versus Britney Spears. You know, the Hey, we all love a good pop song. But yeah, and today, is that is that enough nourishment for a true music lover? No, no,
Scott 09:30
I want to go deeper. Yeah,
Arash 09:31
Twinkie. Yeah, but I also want to eat some premium Toro so you need to Led Zeppelin or whatever, you know, sophisticated fan there is out there that floats your boat.
Scott 09:41
So you you went into law, you decided to go into personal injury law immediately. Is that the is that what you knew that you wanted to do right out of college.
Arash 12:24
Well, I saw that the space in which I could make the biggest impact where there wasn’t really a sort of five star five dining approach was in personal injury. In other words, what you’re describing with the marketing and the billboards, that’s basically Carl’s Jr. You know, fast food, legal services. But when you are involved in personal injury that involves a company selling a dangerous product or a dangerous medicine or a roadway that is dangerous that should be fixed, large scale wrongdoing or unreasonable conduct that requires five star dining. Because before you open that restaurant, and you serve a $7,000 meal or $500 meal or whatever, you need expensive plates, you need high end chefs you need thought you need the you know how it looks, how it tastes, how it feels thought out, you need artists making food that stands out that someone’s willing to pay that kind of money for that’s what we that’s what I’m gravitate to, that’s what I wanted to do. And that’s what I built my career up doing. You know, started with the small McDonald’s you know, transactions worked up to medium dining, two star dining, three star dining and now we are you know, the preeminent five star, Michelin star,
Scott 13:39
your mission, your match. Let’s start this fight. We are amazing. I By the way, appreciate the the analogies. Everybody can get that. Everybody can get behind that. Okay, so walk me through some of these wins that you’ve had over your career. And and because some of these stories, I’m sure whatever you’re able to talk about, of course,
Arash 14:01
academic ethic. Well, I started trying cases, meaning going into a courtroom getting in front of a judge or a jury immediately because I was literally the guy that’s like I’m coping, Brian, you don’t know it, give me the ball, get out of my way. And I would basically get a small ball like a racquetball they get the throw it then I get a tennis ball. And then somebody gives you the volleyball. And then finally someone gives me a basketball of primetime on the court. And I don’t get times 10 here. I mean, that’s my sort of the way I looked at things. So basically, what I did is I would take on any tough case that had a big upside, because those are the cases they won’t settle. In fact, all of my big wins are in the context of a defendant that not only underestimated but probably insulted me by offering zero to settle or offering some nominal sum to resolve that lawsuit before a jury decided all of which gives me the opportunity to take a big righteous case all the way Try it and get the maximum result from jurors rather than resolving it with a defendant paying what they think is reasonable. So my first big case was, we were suing the city of Fontana for not having sidewalks in an area that they knew children were walking to and from schools sharing the road with vehicles. And so the city knew they didn’t know when it was going to happen. But they knew based on internal documents, that at one point, a child was going to get hit by a car because there was no safe place for the child to walk. And rather than spending, they had millions, I mean hundreds of millions of dollars in and designated funds available to be used to fix the road, which would have cost about $30,000. They were not using their own money and trying to get the state to fund their own financial obligation. And so it was a very tough case in that a 15 year old, unlicensed, uninsured. Undocumented child was driving the car, trying to pass someone got angry, went around and hit a young girl killing her 13 year old Karen Medina. And in that case, the interesting thing was the city thought the case was so dumb because of the facts. And because this they thought this girl had no value. Literally. This is an ironic thing for if any attorney knows who I’m about to talk about the, the adjuster, they have insurance companies that adjust claims against big cities. He called me and he’s like, this was the beginning of my career. He goes you know, you’re you’re okay. But you’re no Tom Gerardi Condor already being the attorney, but we now know stole millions of funds or allegedly stole millions of funds from his clients, and fell from you know, from being one of the considered one of the top attorneys to one of the biggest losers ever. And then he also said the adjusters from the insurance company said, and your client was just some Hispanic girl, what do you think a jury is gonna award her? I mean, when he said those two things, it was literally as if like, God put a lightning rod inside of me and said, we’re going to show you what’s going to happen. So they offered zero to settle that case. And I got $38 million for a wrongful death case, which if you talk to any attorney is like not not a number in the stratosphere. It’s like outside the realm of logic in terms of how much money that is, for an unknown attorney to get in the context of that difficult liability. With those damages. It’s unheard of. And what I was doing is it wasn’t like you know, your like your bands have one hit wonders, that one song It’s like all gels, and that’s it. I wasn’t a one hit wonder literally every single year after that verdict. I was hitting huge verdicts, sometimes four and a year of seven to eight figure verdicts meaning 10 million 20 million 30 million 50 million 60 million verdicts in cases, other attorneys, not only would they not touch but could not win, let alone win at the levels that I was getting. So I started the ground running and then literally just kept running, running, running, running, winning.
Scott 18:03
Why? Why is that? Why? First two questions on that point? Why do other attorneys not take them on? Why are some of these cases so difficult to win? what’s what’s your differentiator and
Arash 18:14
I tell people, if I walk into a courtroom, it’s me against the defense attorney or attorneys many times we have multiple law firms against us. And I’m not saying this to brag or boast or anything, because I really don’t like operating from ego. But I am an Evolved Human on another level, right? I am kind, loving, generous. I know my, my failures, I embrace my weaknesses. I embrace my tendency to be ego oriented. I’m always trying to kill the ego. I’m always trying to come from love and kindness. I have talent. And when you take someone evolved, and put them in a courtroom next to your typical defense attorney, which is, you know, typically an older white male or an older, you know, unaware person, they tend not to do as well, because they’re not evolved. They’re unit dimensional. They’re angry. They drink the Kool Aid, that everyone’s a fraud and a fake. They tend to use artifice, or trickery or deceit to win their cases, hiring the same experts who come in and tell a bunch of lies to jurors, or try and confuse jurors. And so when you’ve got a defense with its bag of tricks, it’s deceptive. It’s not good. It’s mean it’s evil. And you’ve got an evolved person who not only can convince the jury of what’s righteous, but can no unravel and reveal the lies and deception of the defense. It’s no match. The only time I lose is if I deserve to lose because the facts justify a juror finding against me other than that, it’s no competition, if that makes sense. And that applies to any space, anywhere, any profession. If you are an evolved good, fundamentally good human. You are and you love what you do, and you’re passionate about what you do. You will do infinitely better than your competition.
20:04
Very, very well said.
Scott 20:05
Very, very well said. So, as your career evolves, now you’re hitting homeruns again and again and again. What is your What is your current? What is your current focus in your career? Because I feel like you have many of these stories, but just at a high level, sure, what is your career progressed to now?
Arash 20:24
Well, I always wanted to create a firm where I didn’t have to do everything, where my talents and efforts can be more focused on the biggest possible result. So right now I’m doing cases worth let’s say, 20 to 60 million, I’m trying to transition to doing cases worth 100 million to a billion, not because I want more money, because I’m not about consumption, simply because I want to generate as much money from this wrongdoing as possible to give back and make a difference in the universe. Like I set up a foundation of, you know, where I funded it with a million dollars of my own money to help other people get to the next level in their life through micro grants to individuals that deserve it. You know, you see these attorneys and firms, they do these $1,000 scholarships, and like more power to you, but come on what’s $1,000 scholarship, in the context of the marketing budget, we know these businesses are spending on internet and advertising, it’s nothing. It’s a joke, it’s actually offensive. Because that $1,000 isn’t gonna do anything. We know clearly, you’re using it for marketing. Again, I want people to do these scholarships, but $1,000 is not going to cut it. So for me, I’m putting my money where my mouth is, I’ve been given this opportunity and like sort of love luck of making a lot of money doing something I love. And for me, if I use it to buy a bunch of garbage for myself and things, that’s disgusting. If my existence is to consume by more Ferrari’s or whatever, I don’t have any for hours. By the way, that’s me. I want to use the money to make the biggest impact and help other people I was we were talking about this this weekend, there are so many Ilan Musk’s, and, you know, other females and persons of color who have potential that never get that potential, because a no one told them they can do it be there’s no environment conducive, that fosters that thinking. They don’t have the resources, they just don’t have the ability to get there. And so rather than teaching kids, you know, math and geometry only, I want to start teaching kids at an early level, at an early age, they can do whatever they want to do, literally like if you’re in an auditorium, we’re thinking about doing this. And there’s a kid whose shoes aren’t as cool as the other person who’s not as popular as the, you know, homecoming person, go look at you, you’re the one that’s going to be successful, you’re the one that’s not going to flame out in high school, where your heyday is, I was the prom king or queen, you’re the one that’s going to be the weirdo that makes a difference in this universe, but they don’t know it many times, and we don’t get the benefit of it, because there’s no sort of structure set up to help those kids. So what’s my purpose, bigger and bigger cases more money, start start donating more and making a bigger impact in the universe and helping other people achieve the success if not more than I have in my life.
Scott 23:20
Beautiful, um, I want to I want to bring out some some ideas on, I guess, on personal development that I can hear that you get very passionate about. But I just want to I still want to get a little bit more of the tangible legal insight out of your brain before we go into other stuff. So I think that the most you know, the the most important question would be when people take on these companies, the what, what, what do they even hope to achieve? How can they take these companies on and when I guess hire you.
Arash 26:45
So it’s the David versus Goliath sort of frame is interesting because today, a 17 year old kid can make a hit song on his laptop with three pieces of software. Okay, a 15 year old kid can make money in cryptocurrency, right on a level that the traditional bank could never make. So there is an efficiency that exists today through the harnessing of technology through using the new techniques through being you know, a good person that will allow you to transcend and annihilate the biggest Corporation, because they just don’t have the deep ability to navigate through things as easily with the best results as let’s say someone who’s more nimble and more A great way or a group. And so harnessing that allows you to take on Toyota, because Toyota’s got 50 attorneys, right. When there’s 50 attorneys on the other side, I’m gonna win if I deserve to win. Because you can’t compare one person who knows everything who’s evolved to 50 people that are like too many cooks in the kitchen, you’re literally that’s how we take advantage. We can spend just as much money as they spend in doing testing and working up a case. They can’t outspend us because many times these defendants will spend money inefficiently on dumb stuff. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times we take on a big products defendant and they spend a million bucks doing something that ultimately isn’t even admissible. Because I know what is and isn’t admissible. I know what games they are playing with the stuff that they’re doing. So how do you take on big corporations, you appreciate the strength you have in who you are in 2021 The world is now moving away from the old paradigm and the old structures and the old narratives and is way more receptive to the new narratives of you know, inclusiveness of of loving everybody, of letting people define what their happiness is of not believing this baloney structure that the only thing that’s good looking is, is, you know, white, there, there’s space for everyone to shine, you know, it’s a different world. So I think in any profession, it’s easier to distinguish yourself and sort of be an outlier than it was ever before. And
Scott 29:13
I guess my because these themes are there, they’re so right on but what why are you so passionate about these things besides the fact that it’s just good to be passionate about being good and being a better person, but I speak to you know, just I speak to a lot of people, and I’m sure that they are good people, but they aren’t as passionate about the things that you’re speaking about. They don’t bring them up in discussion. What was the cause? The trigger?
Arash 29:38
Well, I mean, look, anytime you define happiness by yourself by what you get for yourself, you’re never gonna be happy. Happiness is when you’re of service to others. When the circle of what makes you happy is larger, and you’re of service. Meaning that like, love is not about getting it’s given happiness is not about getting Given when you when that clicks in your brain, then you realize the more joy you’re going to get in your life, by the more people you help, I literally have this sort of analogy of I’m a candle. And my job is to light as many candles in this universe as I possibly can, no strings attached, no expectation, I don’t get anything other than make the world a better place. If I can inspire someone to get to the next level and be happier, you know, that’s infectious, it helps the universe, it helps my children live in a world that when I die they want to live in and it really makes an impact longer than your, you know, your limited number of years on this earth. I mean, that’s one thing about music I talked about about this, you know, someone wrote a song in 1960, they’re dead, they sat in a studio with a drummer and a guitar player, and a bass player Jimi Hendrix, and they just jam. And that little six minute jam has brought so much joy. And like millions and millions of times, people listened to that, and it gets them through hard times, or pokes him up before their workout, or pumps them up before board meeting or whatever, right. That’s the power of music. That’s the power of what it is to be human. And so that’s kind of transitioning to why I love music so much is because it just has so much power, transcendental power. Beyond the six minutes it takes to make something
Scott 31:21
I want to I also want to like I want to unpack some lessons that you’ve that you sort of live some of the values. But also, let’s talk about your firm because I was listening to I was listening to another show. And you speak a lot about how you run your firm and how you want to reinvest in the people in your firm and how you want them to have balance. All these concepts come from this, like, the best way I can describe is like a mindset of abundance. And that’s not where I expected this podcast to go at all. But that’s where that’s like your core theme, if I could sort of pin it on when it’s a given given. So walk me even through some of the lessons that you’ve discovered in your firm, because I think that’s a smart leadership, smart management style, that sort of thing.
Arash 32:03
You know, it’s shocking how many people don’t have manners. If you go to someone’s house clean up after yourself. If you go to someone’s house, respect the people around there. If you go and meet someone new, don’t be small. And go ahead, don’t matter. Say hello, be polite. Hi, thank you manners, and you take those basic lessons at home and you put it everywhere you go. When the busboy talks to you, you look them in the eye, when the valet looks at you, you talk to them. When you’re an elevator, someone strikes up a conversation, say hello. Same with your staff at work, treat them like family, treat them like you would treat them like you would treat yourself or any other member of your family that the world doesn’t exist for you to exploit and gain them or if the world exists for you to take care of other people treat people with joy and love. And then the outcome of that the outflow and what comes back to you is good vibes, good karma, positivity, synchronicities. I have synchronicities in my life that are like mind blowing in terms of I think of something I want something to happen. Someone comes along and like I cut, you know, six months ahead in terms of doing something. Why because I’m a kind, loving person, I put good vibes out there. I treat people with respect, I tend to I tend to actually treat people nicer. If you look at how, what how I treat people nicer than you would expect. I should or would, but I do it because that’s the way I was raised. That’s what works. And that’s how it should be. So same with employees. I just believe in work life balance, not overworking them. I never yell. I’m never disrespectful, I tolerate mistakes, because that’s part of being human. You know, we have good employees who have been with us a long time. And if you come to my office, you’ll see they work because they love to work. They want to make a difference. It’s not a job for them. It really is a place where they want to be the office looks nicer than most fancy hotels. The Office provides food and drink like fancy tea, fancy water, whatever they want to eat, I pay for those things. If they want to take self health course I pay for it. If they want to take the yoga, I pay for it, why? The more well rounded and happier they are as a human, the better their productivity at work. It’s like Win Win no brainer stuff that so many people don’t understand they’re misers when it comes to taking care of their employees and they don’t understand their shortchanging their, their potential.
Scott 34:29
I was gonna say, like, you know, you hit the nail on the head, like when it comes to when it comes to investing in your own people. And I was just hearing about when you did an interview on work life balance and stopping people from working on the weekends or whatnot. But if you actually look at the if you do if you run a cost benefit analysis of investing in your people versus even hiring and staff turnover and whatnot, there’s some numbers there that you really have to consider. But you know, you also said it correctly. I’m in alignment with everything you’re saying, but many people just missed the mark. Many leaders Many managers, many CEOs found they just missed the mark, which is unfortunate. A few other a few other points that I thought were interesting. One of the themes that I was prepping with when I was prepping this interview, one of the things that brought out was not letting your past dictate your value and setting your own value. Speak to me about that.
Arash 35:20
It’s really simple. Your past is your past, you have no control over it. So whether you did phenomenal or you did poorly, it’s irrelevant. Who you be is who you declare you’re going to be by walking into a room and I think I’m hot shit, because I want a $20 million verdict. I’m not gonna relate to anyone they’re gonna go this guy’s an idiot, a moron like you thinks he’s hot shit, by walk in a room and go, Well, I’m a loser because I lost four trials. Again, that’s not relatable. What matters is Who do I declare, I’m going to be in this moment in this transaction with this human being? If I declare it to be loving, kind, generous, be it now do we fail? Or we sometimes jerks? Or we sometimes ego based? Yes, clean it up. If you do something that that, like you go, Oh, why did I do that? Clean it up with the person, forgive yourself, you’re human. everyone’s done it. But don’t let your past whether positive or negative, dictate who you be, who you be is who you declare yourself to be? That’s it.
Scott 36:18
And I think that’s a smart as a smart entrepreneurial lesson as well, because I think that if you aren’t going to embark on anything, like even you said, you had a not so easy to go about the first you know, the the first part of your education in your and your life, you are not raised into money or anything like that. And you set that standard yourself, and you sort of carried it forward. And that’s something that I think a lot of entrepreneurs have to deal with, because they’re going to have multiple failures and repeat failures. And it’s normal, and it’s common, and actually, hitting a home run that soon is actually uncommon. I know a lot of people that have gone 789 10 years before they hit that proverbial homerun. Another thing that I thought was interesting, how to be an outlier in your field. So how do you differentiate yourself? You sort of touched on it, but you’re in a crowded field. There’s there’s the you know, the Carl’s Jr. injury and personal injury attorneys. How do you differentiate yourself besides attitude? Right, I guess that’s part of it.
Arash 39:49
Number one be yourself. So there’s only one version of you don’t be a version of somebody else. Don’t mock mimic anyone else. Don’t copy anyone. Literally Be yourself. You like neck tattoos, add neck tattoos. You like armpit What? Whatever it is, again, uniqueness is not defined by tattoos just be your unique, unique self. And what I specifically did is I went out of my way to help people. I have undiagnosed ADHD, I love distracting myself from the task at hand sometime. So I would I was on this listserv, which is just basically a subscription of let’s say, 10,000 attorneys in California where you send an email, everyone can read it and you ask a question. I literally with a DD would interrupt my day and answer 20 to 30 questions a day, someone asked a question, they have no idea what to do, we’ll take them two weeks to figure it out in two seconds, I’ve answered it, I’ve given them a sample. And I’ve told them they can reach out to me for help, that really made a difference in terms of one getting my name known to people in terms of just my willingness to help and then my results distinguished doing. So if you get a feel, if you score 50 points a night, after, you know, a year for 10 games, people are gonna know who you are. So it’s results. It’s complete, letting people know your results, and then helping others look at every transaction not as an opportunity to help yourself, but how can you be of service to others, and then it will come back to you how that transaction can help you maybe on a bigger scale than you ever thought when you initially entered that transaction. But look at things in terms of how can you help people, you know, it’s
Scott 41:23
just, it’s powerful coming from you, in particular, because you have achieved success and what many would be considered, like, many will consider trial attorney to be like a highly adversarial, like, don’t mess with that guy. He’s gonna, you know, like, when somebody hears that you’ve taken on all these car companies and all that you’re like, this must be some mean as mother, you know, like, that’s, that’s the general takeaway perception. So I think that that’s, it’s an important point. It’s, it’s an important, like, pay attention, because there’s good ways to do business and to be successful. And I think, you know, over the past year and a half, two years, everybody’s stressed out everybody’s been in that you said it was the miser attitude towards business to these being frugal, furloughing hoarding, like just all these things that are so negative, but like, you’re you’re living proof, man, you don’t have to, you don’t have to live like that. I need to work on it, too. It’s tough. It’s very tough.
Arash 42:24
I think another important aspect of my success is surrounding your Pete, your yourself with people who are not toxic, for up to big things to bring out the best in you. I mean, one of the best things that ever happened to me, which so many men and women spend their time looking for is that perfect mate. You know, when I was 23, graduating law school, I met my girlfriend who then became my wife, we’re divorced now, but we’re super close. But I would not have any of the success success I have. Now if it wasn’t for her. She really elevated my mindset believed in me pushed me took care of a lot of the stuff that I couldn’t handle efficiently so I could work insane hours. So I would tell people, if you’re in a bad relationship, friend, lover, family, get out of it, and stay alone. And then surround yourself only with people who will push and challenge you who don’t think small. They don’t have to be billionaires or successful, but they need to be on the path. And you surround yourself with those people that push you and you push them, you will get a lot further in life than if you are surrounded with negative toxic people who are just going to drag you down. So again, one of the most important things was finding that special one person to help me navigate and sort of get way further than I ever thought I would ever get.
Scott 43:40
Amazing. I have a couple I like to go into a couple rapid fire career questions. And we’ve already gone into a lot of really great insight. And that’s amazing, because sometimes we just really stick with whatever domain or whatnot, but we brought it you brought it out I think a lot of stuff is applicable across the board. Was there anything that we didn’t dive into? Or I didn’t think to ask that was more domain specific. Any any last learnings out of law taking on corporations dealing with these types of litigations that you just want to close up with?
Arash 44:13
Well, yeah, I mean, just remember, there’s always new approaches to doing anything surgery painting music, there’s always a space for innovation creativity and passion. If you cut sometimes you can’t do it why did this bazi song you know your mind three minutes song hit it right but you listen to it you go there’s just something about the ingredients of that song. It’s all high level. It’s like food, you know, just stick with basics good stuff, and you’ll be successful. Same in law or any other thing. Start with the best ingredients. Look at it like an art form master to the point that you can do three ingredients instead of 50 and still kill it and have people go wow, use that approach. Always know their space. You know, if you said yourself as a guitar player I’m never gonna be as good as Jimi Hendrix. Why should I play guitar? Right? Everyone would quit. But when you realize there’s a space for punk rock guitar player doesn’t even know what they’re doing, but can still create amazing music that speaks to you. Even if you’re not technically proficient like Jimi Hendrix. That’s how you should look at life. There’s a space for you to shine in whatever career path you want, whether you have the technical proficiency or not, if you are really good at it, you love what you do, and you’re creating something unique in a space that somebody else hasn’t created before. Amazing advice. Thank
Scott 45:33
you. Okay, let’s, let’s go into some rapid fire. You’ve had an amazing career, you know, multiple, eight, figure seven figure settlements. You’ve had a lot of challenges, what has been the biggest challenge for you personally, or professionally? How’d you overcome it,
Arash 45:50
getting over my ego, you know, you, it’s like, once you start getting successful, then you start believing the hype, you start believing I deserve this, I deserve that I work hard, I should play hard. And realizing that look, if you’ve been given a talent, and you are successful at it, you can’t squander it on personal ego based events. Because there are a lot of people that are living that rely on it from your staff, to your employees, to other consumers. And then there’s a lot of people in the future that will be relying on your output and work. So don’t squander that talent with stupid stuff. It’s really just killing my ego, fighting my ego not being lazy, really living up to my potential and living not to generate income for my own personal or family or whatever consumption, but generating to help generations of humans. Amazing.
Scott 46:46
Who was one person that had an incredible impact on your life? And what do they teach you?
Arash 46:53
I mean, well, first was my my father, obviously, my father taught me one not to be emotional, which was a very sort of a bizarre sociopathic way to live your existence if you’re very emotional. Learning how to compartmentalize your emotions allows you to swiftly navigate life without sort of the pushback that you would have if you’re a sensitive person. And then if you actually happen to be super sensitive, and get up in front of a jury, it’s super powerful, because you tend to win. So that was kind of like an unintended outcome of my father’s anti emotional upbringing. He’s now super emotional, and very sensitive. So he’s evolved. And now we get to share our emotional side together. He also taught me the value of hard work, how no one plans to be, you know, to not win to sort of be unsuccessful that you have to plan to be successful. It takes hard work, there’s no substitute for it. And then my ex wife kind of just showed me what love and affection can produce and just being kind and nice. really gets more sugar you get more with sugar than you do with poison. Yeah, those are the two people that had a huge impact on me.
Scott 48:09
What would be one thing that you would tell your 20 year old self? Oh,
Arash 48:16
I would tell my 20 year old self please develop the DJ gig because believe it or not for four years you could make 600,000 a day DJing in the south of France or Vegas and then cash out and then go to law school.
Scott 48:32
I saw your your you do DJ part time, right? I do but not that $500,000 a gig. Yeah, I was gonna say just a few years ago. That was amazing. Yeah. That’s a lot of fun. Yeah, I did I did my my bit and University and I still enjoy I still have all my equipment.
Arash 48:52
DJ equipment around my kids and was like, please, one of you please. Let’s start over at Ableton let’s start DJing you don’t know. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott 49:04
Your favorite source to learn from or it could be a book podcast, audible Anything you’d recommend people to check out?
Arash 49:10
Sure untethered soul. It’s on Amazon. It’s under $10. paperback. I read that over and over it takes all of the Eastern Western Deepak Chopra, high level Human Design understanding and puts it into an easy to understand, really beautiful book, you can open up look at any page. The paragraph will apply currently to your life and give you insight. It’s one of the most important books I think everyone should read and reread so that they can successfully navigate this human existence.
Scott 49:44
What does success mean to you?
Arash 49:47
Success means to me, how much of an impact Have you made in this universe? How much joy happiness inspiration Have you brought to others?
