Caught In The Crossfire with Mario Nawfal, Ep #76
On this episode of the Coming Clean Podcast, our guest is Mario Nawfal. Mario is the founder of the Athena Group of Companies, a business conglomerate that operates in more than 40 countries. He started his first business with $300 selling blenders door to door. He loves launching business, bachata, and now Clubhouse, which is where you will find him most waking hours. He’s here on this episode to share who he is, what he’s about, and where he’s going. He’ll also tell us his side of the story on how he got temporarily suspended from Clubhouse.
You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...
Who is Mario and what is the Athena Group? [1:17]
How Mario came up with pattern interruption [4:02]
Double down on what works but timing is EVERYTHING [5:47]
Mario’s struggle to be successful on Clubhouse [8:57]
Would Mario do anything differently today to avoid some of the controversies? [16:23]
How two people who disagree can still support each other [21:50]
Where does Mario see the platform going… what should be next? [28:46]
Is the moderator badge one of honor or power? [32:30]
How does Mario want to be remembered? [37:04]
Being right on time can make or break a business
Mario took his business and made a million in his first year and then turned it into 8 figures in the second year. How was he able to scale his business so quickly? He says it’s a simple concept of doubling down on what works. You have to have something that works and most importantly it has to be the right time.
You can get everything else wrong. Timing is the most common factor among successful businesses. It's more important than the business plan, the funding, the idea, and the team. Everything is less important than time. If you're too early, it's not going to work. YouTube in the ‘90s wouldn’t have had fast enough internet. Opening a restaurant right now would be terrible timing because people aren’t eating out as much as they used to. But Clubhouse is right on time.
A life sacrificed for the beauty and success you see today
Mario says that people don't understand that all they see are the best parts. They see his life and it seems to be a beautiful life. That he got it easy, but he knows that’s so far from the truth. He says he’s got 6 companies and the way that he got them was through sacrifice. He sacrificed his life. Mario explains how he genuinely didn't have a life. He didn't have a girlfriend or go clubbing until his mid-twenties. Fun was not part of his vocabulary. He didn’t hang with friends, or go on dates or to restaurants and the movies. He just didn’t do those things. And now he says anyone that knows him, knows that every day from when he wakes up till he goes to bed he’s on Clubhouse building there, making connections, and helping people.
Struggles in Clubhouse and the direction Mario is hoping the app will go
Mario says he started on Clubhouse as a small fish and has put in a lot of time and effort to get where he is on the platform only to be reported— for something that isn’t true— and get a temporary suspension. However, he expects his comeback to be smooth due to the number of people reaching out to him.
Mario thinks that Clubhouse needs to remember how extremely imperfect humans are. That there need to be rules and systems that help to ensure we control our emotions and know our boundaries. He thinks there needs to be a level of systems to allow for humans to operate without the drama. Clubhouse is very new. The system, the law, which is the algorithm is very immature in the way that you can remove people from the audience without knowing who did it, or that anyone can shut down a room. These things seem to create a lot of toxicity and he hopes that will be recognized as the app moves forward.
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