YouTube interview featuring Richard Canfield and Tehran about Tehran’s transition from engineering to joining the Ascendant team. Tehran recounts a formative internship moment that prompted personal-development exploration (books, networking), running a karate studio (which failed), and ultimately discovering Infinite Banking in 2020 after being laid off. He became a client, then joined Ascendant (about 4–4.5 years ago), praising the team’s abundance mindset, giving culture, and valuing the ‘light bulb’ client moments.
Chapters
Foreign.
I'm pretty excited to ask you what you've learned. You know, what if you were to sort of package up what you've learned since coming aboard the Ascendant team that you didn't even know. You didn't know.
Wow. Hit me with the big guns right away. So that, yeah, it's. There's a lot to unpack there, but if I. If I were to maybe pick one word, it is abundance. Abundance in. In mindset is something that I knew that was. Is always a trait that everyone should have, but I didn't. I didn't realize how much more abundant someone could be when you're in the right environment. And I think by. By being part of the ascended team, learning from wonderful people like yourself, Richard Sorbolo, all the other wonderful people on the Ascendant team, it really expanded my mind and helped me think beyond what my little brain could think about when I. When I. Before even joining the team.
Love that.
And look. Look at how far you've come.
It's an incredible journey, some would say, you know, maybe you've seen some of the rockets that are launch. You know, Elon's launching into space. You know, he's even catching them on the way down now, which is pretty cool. But to say that your rise in the industry has been meteoric, I think would be the type of description I would use. So, Tehran, I'm curious. We were to ride the tape a little bit, even, you know, before joining Ascendant, you know, what was happening for you then? What was? What prompted the decision to become part of the team? Why were you seeking an opportunity to even get involved in this space?
It all began if I. If I could wind back the clock to when I was 20 years old. I got my first internship, or my first real job, as you like to call it. So for those of you who may not know, I'm a former engineer or recovering engineer, as some of our colleagues like to say, and I had gotten an internship. I was in the middle of university. I was super excited. It was the most money I would have, I ever made in my life at that time. And I'll never forget my first couple weeks of working there. There was one day I walked into work, and there's this lady there, and we. We just said hello to each other, and I asked her, how you doing? She said, you know, amazing. I'm doing. I'm doing good. And then she asked me actually how. How I'm doing, to which I said, oh, I'm feeling amazing with a lot of enthusiasm like a 20 year old would, right? And her response was, you haven't been here long enough. That moment changed everything for me because I was completely caught, caught off guard by that comment. And then over the next many months that I spent in that internship, I realized I would pay attention to my surroundings. And I started realizing that there were people in there that were there for 30, 30, 35, 40 years doing the same thing that they started doing when they started 30 years ago. And I realized in that moment that there has to be more to life than just this.
Right?
And that kicked off a journey of exploration for me where I went. I started getting into reading personal development books and attending networking events and seminars of all kinds of different topics that I thought was interesting. That's when I started getting into also learning about multiple streams of income and how someone can start building wealth outside of just working a job. And so that journey was amazing. It led to me meeting some wonderful people, starting my own business. I trained martial arts in the martial art of karate. And that led me down a path of having my own studio, which ended up failing, which was some lessons there that I learned as well. And so throughout my journey, what I was looking for, what I realized is for fulfillment. Something where I enjoyed the day to day and it gave me fulfillment and a joy in what I was doing. And I got that from karate. What karate did wasn't able to give me is the ability to scale further from a financial standpoint. And so that opportunity didn't work out. But like as I always like to believe that everything happens for a reason. And so fast forward many years later, now we're at in 2020, Covid hit. And I was in engineering at that time, in an engineering position, still figuring out my life, still trying to figure out that thing that I wanted to do for a really long time. And when I got laid off, that that was it. I made the decision in that moment that I'm not going back to engineering. And I said that before and I did go back, but this time was different. And that's what I told myself. So I spent many months figuring out what it is that I wanted to do. And that's when I discovered an ad for Infinite Banking where I saw Jason's face with a big smile on there about it. And it worked because I clicked. And I watched the webinar and I went through the process of becoming a client. And in that process is where I realized that this is something that everybody should be knowing about the process of becoming your own banker. The infinite banking concept. And in, in that journey of becoming a client, I realized that this is what I want to do and this is something that checks off all the boxes. At least that is what I believe at that time in terms of helping people, being able to be fulfilled from the work that I'm doing and having the ability to scale with the people that I was working with. And so for that reason I asked questions on how I could be part of this and one thing led to another and I got an opportunity to work with the team. And here we are, four or five, four and a half years later.
Time flies by. Quick, thank you for sharing that. Because the overwhelming majority of our team have come from a different profession. This was not something that they, if you were to sit down with them and ask them the same question, they wouldn't have said that this was an aspiration, that they wanted to be in this profession. But once they went down that journey of becoming a client and really immersing themselves in the process and saying, I, I'm just feeling drawn, I'm feeling pulled to share this with, with other people. And so if you were to contrast, you had your experience in an internship and then an experience with a studio, martial arts studio. So if you were to just contrast that, you hear the word used often culture. So how would you, how would you describe the day to day vibe of your ascendant team?
It's everything that I wanted, everything that I dreamed about in terms of a team environment. The people that you interacting with within the team. I've been part of many different organizations over my journey so far and I've shared this many times with the team. I still haven't found an organization like this where everyone has a mindset of giving, everyone has a mindset of respect, everyone has a mindset of wanting to do better with their lives, whether it's personally or professionally. And I feel honored and privileged to be part of that environment. And it's a complete contrast to what I've seen in the past where I've worked with teams where they had that negative mindset, the water cooler drama that I didn't want anything to deal with because I just feel that it just stems your creativity and your ability to be productive. And so. But when I was part of this environment, I didn't feel any of that, at least in my experience. And that's what I value.
That's really gratifying.
It's interesting because a lot of our teammates work in a remote fashion. You know, we're, we're we're spread out all over North America now to a large degree. And, you know, but we're connected. We're communicating on a. On a regular basis, daily basis, weekly meetings, weekly connections, advisor training, all these types of environments you can put yourself in. So I thought it was interesting about the water cooler, because the only one you can yell at at the water cooler is yourself, because the water cooler is in your own house. So we definitely don't want you doing that. So I hope that that's not taking place.
We have a barricade around the water cooler in the team support center too, by the way.
Maybe that's why there's no drama around me, because I'm the only one here.
And when you. When you think about just being. Being in a position where you serve amazing people, right, like, you're dealing with a lot of wonderful clients just like your teammates are. And what, what's the feeling that comes up for you when somebody catches it? Like, when they catch the concept? Like, they may have approached you initially and said, hey, I'm ready to go. I'm.
I've.
I've watched some podcasts, I've consumed some YouTube videos. But you're wanting to get them to clarity. How does it feel when that light bulb moment happens for someone that you're serving?
That is why I do what I do. That seeing those light bulb moments is my favorite moments when I work with clients. Because you know that you've had an impact on their thinking. And it's just amazing to see because you, you will meet with people that come into this with all different types of mindsets and perspectives on how the world works. And then when they catch this concept, it's just amazing to see that, that paradigm shift in their brain. Like, you can visually see it and feel it. Even though it's. Most of our meetings that I do is virtual, that we do is virtual. You can still feel that. And, And I cherish that because that is what inspires me to keep going, to keep getting better, to keep trying to be the best version of myself.
