Leaving behind the well-trodden path of the nine-to-five lifestyle and forging your way forward can be daunting, but it can be done. Entrepreneur Ali Haseeb is living proof of the advantages that lie beyond the road less traveled. Haseeb currently heads up the ‘Principles Creative Studio,’ a creative branding agency that conceptualizes and curates exclusive content for entrepreneurs. Him and his team are also making waves in the real estate wholesaling space. We were lucky enough to have an interview with the enterprising entrepreneur and his words might just change your perspective on today’s business world.
Q1. What inspired you to leave behind the nine-to-five lifestyle?
During my time in corporate America, I was working sixty to seventy-hour weeks every single week….I had a strong work ethic, but not only did my salary not reflect my work ethic, there was no inner fulfillment at the end of the day. I literally built someone else’s business from the ground up, wearing multiple hats, all the way to a 50 million dollar business. That salary felt like a bribe for not being able to build my own business and legacy. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted the chance to create something meaningful that could build a lasting legacy for my family and the rest of the world. But I felt stuck. not only physically but mentally. I knew I had to make the jump one day but the question was, How much longer should I wait to make that jump? After three years of building someone else’s business, I said enough is enough and with the help of my business partner, I quit my corporate career and bet on myself. It has been the best decision I’ve made and I haven’t looked back since.
Q2. How were you able to start multiple ventures and still balance everything.
Well there wasn’t always a balance. When I was stuck working 60+ hours weeks, I didn’t have extra time to do much else because I was tied down at a location that didn’t allow me to explore other options or diversify. It seemed like I was spending all my time there and I didn’t have time for my health or my family. The truth is I had to learn to eliminate distractions. I spent every single night learning additional skill sets, watching thousands of videos and reading one hundreds of books. I didn’t let my lack of time or failures stop me. In fact, I learned from all of it. As I grew as a person I started getting better at time management. I would wake up earlier, cut out useless activities and surround myself with smarter and more well rounded people. The fact is, your success literally boils down to how you allocate your time to which activities. I had to really evaluate where I was spending my time and with whom. Once I was able to start my business from home, I did a few things that helped me take my life to the next level. I gave up partying. All of it. Cold turkey. No drugs, alcohol or even hookah. I invested in a mentor. Multiple mentors. I dropped all the friends that were dragging me down. I replaced music with audiobooks. I made the gym a priority. These habits helped me generate my first six figures. Then I doubled down. I started 2 more ventures. I expanded my list of service offerings. I built teams to help me automate certain processes… and it has worked wonders. I started with me taking care of my body, making sure I put the right information and ingredients into it. I perfected my crafts, put thousands of hours into learning and studying. Then I started hanging out with people that were experts in certain industries, providing value to them and in turn, learning how I can apply their knowledge into my own life.
Q3. In 2020 you and your business partner Shawn Virani released a book. How was that whole experience?
That’s right. We released our book ‘Create Your Frequency’ early last year. It was a lifelong dream and a goal of ours. The book was our way of teaching what we know, sharing that knowledge with the world. The concept of the book aims to help people create both a lifestyle and a business that explores the importance of the principles we learned and lived on a daily basis. It was designed to reprogram your brain to think differently. To create positive habits that helped you level up. We discussed the compound effect of treating your businesses and your body with the utmost care. We were blessed! This book became an Amazon bestseller within 3 weeks. We had a whole launch party where we rented a mansion, had amazing speakers, had vendors, dropped our merch line, and had a huge content shoot. The book opened many doors for us, building our credibility as authors and allowed us to go on tour to go speak to college students in 10+ different cities. We will be dropping our 2nd version pretty soon, after a solid year of being in business, learning everything we learned. Can’t wait to share it with everyone.
Q4. Can you tell us about the Your other ventures that you are involved with?
Certainly! I personally have too many hobbies and interests to confine myself to one industry. The thing is, we are not only designers, I have experience structuring and operating multiple businesses and worked with one of our strategic partners to systemize and automate several ventures. We have recently opened our real estate wholesaling business, that’s our newest venture. We have our own course teaching people how to scale businesses using virtual assistants. We have our own custom clothing line. We create content, we consult. We are in the yacht business. We have created apps.. We are getting into NFTs and software development. To be honest the sky’s the limit. I love leveraging our creative ability and we are blessed to live in the digital age where we can make money in so many different ways.
Q5. So tell us about your course. What will it teach people?
Yes, it is called the VA Formula. Teaching people how to scale their businesses utilizing Virtual Assistants. With the whole pandemic situation, the whole world learned a few lessons. 1. Almost everything can and will go digital. 2. Additional streams of income are a necessity. 3. Take care of your health! For the first two points….My success has a lot to do with the fact that I levered both digital tools and talent from very early on. I was able to use technology to my advantage, making both my business processes and my life easier… and I was able to duplicate myself and build teams that can help scale my ventures. Well after a year of doing this for myself. I had a lot of friends asked me to help them do the same. I was able to systemize many processes for multiple companies in spaces like credit, e-commerce, real estate, marketing, content creation, etc. Now since we were shooting courses for other clients as one of our service offerings, we combined both processes and came up with the VA formula. We have a course and a done for you model where we help you source, interview, onboard, train, automate your virtual team. Every entrepreneur must have this information!
Q6. What advice can you offer to aspiring entrepreneurs?
Invest in yourself; It is the most important investment you can make. Before you worry about investing your money in an idea, you need to invest into a few things that can help you get to the next level. First things first, there are about 10 books that you can read that will really shift the way you see life. If you don’t like reading, do audiobooks but read these for sure. Next, using platforms like youtube, instagram, and the internet in general to learn additional skills that can generate you income. Then taking the social platforms and connecting with peers, mentors, clients, and other people that you can exchange value with. Also Take the time to learn your limits and your strengths. Read about EQ and build discipline and focus. The last piece of advice I would give is to eliminate bad habits that hurt your health in the long run. Health is wealth and you can’t live a successful life without one or the other. You truly need both! Invest in yourself now!