Alaa BouGhanem

Founder & CEO @ AB Group

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

Early to bed Early to rise
Work like hell and Advertise

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

Maturity is when all your mirrors turn into windows!

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

There ARE dumb questions.
“There’s no such thing as a dumb question” is often just social padding
The moment you speak, you reveal your preparation, awareness, and depth. Every question signals either diligence or laziness
Think before you talk. Make your first impression strong

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

what the Internet did is confuse people who are good to look at with people who were good to listen to

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

If you kill a cockroach, you are a hero.
If you kill a butterfly, you are evil.

morals are always biased in favor of beauty.

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

The problem with people is that they know just enough about a subject to think they are right, but not enough to know they are wrong.
There's always more to the story!

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

Capitalism:
1% extremely rich
20% rich
60% comfortable
19% broke
= meaningful inequality

Socialism:
100% Broke
= meaningless equality

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

people who have the least to do usually have the most to say

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

How much you worry is a direct reflection of how capable you are!

Capable people dont worry much!
Worried people are not capable of much!

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

You can gauge someone's mental toughness/weakness by the how often they use the word
1. "Trauma" to mean discomfort
2. "Abuse" to mean inconveniences
3. "Crisis" to mean setback
4. "Toxic" to mean irritation

Those who use these words often need a reality check!

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

A tax writeoff is a $1 trade for $.30 back!

it's never a good strategy to buy stuff you don't need just to write it off!

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

The fact that you think something is attractive is a direct indication that you don't know enough about it!

When you understand the effort that goes into making something successful, it stops being attractive.

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

A $2M revenue business operating at 25% net profit is equivalent to

$2.5M @ 20%
$3.3M @ 15%
$5.0M @ 10%
$10M @ 5%
$16.6M @ 3%

More revenue is important, but preserving margins is key!

High revenue, low margin businesses are the most stressful to manage!

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

you don't keep people around by forcing them to stay
you keep people around by treating them so well that they dreaded a single minute away

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

Having a temper is the brain trying to hide its own incompetence and lack of control.

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

experience is measured by number of hours on task, not in number of years

spending 10 hrs/day for three years will result in more experience than spending 3 hrs/day for five years

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

Pressure is a privilege...
If there is no pressure on you, are you really relevant?

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

The best advice I ever got from an old boss:
"if you don't think your income matches your intelligence, the problem is not your income"

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

on your way to make:
$1k prepare to lose $100
$10k prepare to lose $1k
$100k prepare to lose $10k
$1M prepare to lose $100k
$10M prepare to lose $1M
$100M prepare to lose $10M

when you make peace with the ratios, the numbers don't seem so scary

[Alaa BouGhanem @alaabg_]

make sure who you are adds so much weight to what you say, so you don't have to say very much