Fee Sheet Meets ... Mahmoud Rasmi: "Since day one, I’ve been generating multiple income streams"
In the latest Fee Sheet interview, Shane speaks to Mahmoud Rasmi on academia, burnout, Stoicism, Lebanon, diversified income streams and ideal hourly rates.
This is the latest in a regular series in longform, in-depth, Q&A-style interviews on Fee Sheet. If this is your first time here, check out this post about what this publication aims to do, and this one about pricing. All interviews are posted on a 50/50 system. The first half — often several thousand words — will be available for free. The rest, and many other essays, is available to paying subscribers.
Mahmoud Rasmi is an independent writer, researcher, lecturer, and marketing strategist with over a decade of experience. He spent seven years as a university professor before deciding to bring philosophy back to the marketplace through his courses and books, offering a fresh perspective to help readers and students navigate the complexities of work and life.
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His latest book, Philosophy for Business Leaders: Asking Questions, Navigating Uncertainty, and the Quest for Meaning, goes beyond traditional philosophy to explore the value of curiosity, questioning assumptions and finding meaning in adversity. Mahmoud also offers mastermind sessions and philosophical tools designed to help business leaders and professionals navigate challenges with renewed insights. Having grown up in Lebanon, he now lives in Salamanca, Spain.
In this wide-ranging interview, you will learn:
How Mahmoud came to realize the value of diversified income streams
How the university environment came to hurt his mindset
Why he prefers to be paid per project than per hour
Why thoughts about value keep him up at night
How to get confident at selling your thing
How opportunity is everywhere
The importance of Stoicism
And lots more
Shane Breslin:
What was your family’s relationship with money when you were a child? Did they discuss it openly?
Mahmoud Rasmi:
I’d say it was pretty normal. My parents made enough to keep food on the table. You could say we were middle class. Thinking in hindsight, money was no issue until I was 12. Before that, we were renting, and rent was cheap, so I suppose my parents had enough margin for discretionary spending.
By 12, they had saved enough for a house down payment. We sat together to make a decision: should we or should we not buy a house? The renting vs. buying debate is funny. In our particular example, I can tell you now that the decision to buy a house was a great one. Why? Because if we hadn't done that, my parents would have nowhere to stay, and they couldn’t even afford rent given the currency devaluation and crazy rent prices. Lebanon is a country that the gods failed to understand, so they quit looking over it, I think.
I digress.
I don’t exactly know how much my dad was making, but it was good enough for Lebanon standards. But if we wanted to buy the house, we had to go on a tight budget for four and a half years to be able to buy it. A few things are worth mentioning here:
We did not get a mortgage.
The arrangement was such that we were going to pay the down payment and installments ($1k per month) directly to the house owner.
On the upside, after four and a half years, we would have a house.
SB:
Can you say more about this? Your family lived in the house during the time you were paying, or you were paying it down and moved in at the end of the four and a half years? Were arrangements like this — which seems to be quite informal and independent of the established “finance” industry or way of doing things — common in Lebanon?
MR:
It was a new building. The architect owned it and was selling the apartments. We lived in the house while paying the “mortgage”. But since my parents didn’t want to get a loan they preferred to pay both the down-payment and the monthly instalments to the owner.
I don’t know if this is common in Lebanon. It’s pretty informal come to think about it, especially because we didn’t know the guy. So it was somehow a relationship based on trust? Yes, he could’ve gone to the courts if we didn’t pay, but who would want such a headache? Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised that such arrangements exist, especially now that many people have become even more skeptical about banks after some of them went bankrupt.
SB:
With a short repayment timeframe payments were probably high? Did it stretch your family or were things comfortable enough?
MR:
Those four and a half years weren’t easy, but we never had money problems as such. It was all about making decisions to spend within a budget. So we didn’t get everything we needed. But I inadvertently learned how to manage my finances, how to set my priorities straight, and how to save money to get things I really wanted.
This mentally prepared me for college as well. Good education is expensive in Lebanon. And we were just finishing our “mortgage” the year I was bound to get into college. While this was stressful for me — were we going to be able to pay the first semester or not? — it was never a negative kind of stress. It just made me explore different possibilities to solve the problem.
So I got into one uni program the first year, all paid for alright. But then I found out some of my friends were getting up to 70% scholarships at another university if they maintained a certain GPA, so I transferred and got a scholarship that made it easier for us to handle the tuition burden.
SB:
Interesting. So you obviously had a good grounding in money and finance?
MR:
I’ve reflected on this a lot over the past few years, and I realize now I never really had a negative relationship with money. It was more of an awareness I developed around money. I understood that if I were to build some sort of worth, I obviously needed to make money, to budget, to set priorities straight.
I also eventually understood that I needed to generate different income streams. Most importantly, I do not associate earning money with hard work — or better said, pointless workaholism.
SB:
I think it’s fair to say the idea of generating different income streams does not come to everybody. Can you remember when this first came to you? Were there people you observed who sort of became role models in diversified income streams?
MR:
I was a part-time professor at one university, and needed to make more money! So I started looking for more part-time positions at other universities. Since day one, therefore, I’ve been generating multiple income streams. But I thought that the ultimate goal would be to become a full-timer for the job security.
I changed my mind when I read Antifragile (by Nassim Taleb). The book put things in perspective for me. I thought to myself, I already have multiple income streams, I could lose one job today and I’d still be making money, so it just helped me change my mindset and not think about a full-time professorship gig as the ultimate goal.
Then I came across people like Daniel Vassallo and GuruAnaerobic on Twitter (this was in 2018) and later Hassan Osman, and it helped me understand that no matter what I pursue, be it a full-time job or building a business on my own, the best way would be to attempt to diversify my income streams to hedge for uncertainty.
SB:
Let’s take it back a bit. What are your first memories of earning your own money?
MR:
Early on I would get extra money if I helped with house chores. But that was partly just regular house stuff. So I don’t think it’s made much of an impact.
But I always somehow managed to make money as a kid. You can say both as a full-timer and as a freelancer.
I was 12 when I first spent the entire summer working at a clothes factory. The owner was a relative. I was there from 7.30am until 4.30pm, with coffee-break and lunch-break, the whole thing. My task was to trim excess threads off clothes, and to arrange them properly. (Is that what quality control looks like?!?)
I got paid per week. $50. It was money I earned for work I did. That felt good. I rented a VHS. Bought a few things. And invited some of my friends out for lunch.
“Seven years later I was in a very dark place. Weak mindset, a doom and gloom take on life … Somehow academia got to me, and it started feeling as though money and opportunities were hard to come by.”
SB:
How do you think about value now?
MR:
This is a very complicated topic, I think. One that has always kept me up at night.
A lot of factors play a role in whether or not I feel like the thing I’m offering — or the thing I’m buying — adds value.
When I first started charging for my philosophy courses, it felt weird. But over the years, I’ve learned that I just have to keep improving, and not worry much about pricing.
As for the things I pay for, when I’m on a budget, I just set priorities, and buy when I can. For example, I was on an extremely tight budget with very low income between August and December 2023. I decided to invest the time writing my book, even though by December I had almost no money left. Like, literally no money left!
I sometimes wonder how the hell I manage to stay calm under these circumstances, but still, despite that, I paid for a professional designer for the book, bought the ISBNs I needed. So you get the gist.
SB:
I have two follow-up questions here. First, when you say you don’t worry too much about pricing, tell me about the thought process there? How has that evolved?
MR:
The thought process is simple. It doesn’t feel awkward if I increase the course prices anymore. This is a question of value rather than a price per se. The thought process went something like the way stand-up comedians think about this.
If I want to test new material, try a new way of explaining a concept, refine a particular approach to a certain subject, I would set a low price point. I would also make sure to explain exactly what it is that I’m doing so participants are on the same page. This way, once I am confident about the material I’m delivering, then setting a higher price doesn’t feel awkward precisely because the material offered is curated and packaged in such a way that I know is of high value for those who are willing to pay for the course.
SB:
Love that stand-up comedian analogy. The second question I had earlier was about that time in 2023 when you were almost down to zero money, but you still managed to be calm. Do you think this was faith at work? In that, you had faith that you — or future you — would just figure it out and everything would be fine?
MR:
I seem to be happy to live on the edge financially. A few years ago I ditched my Canadian permanent residency to pursue a Spanish self-employment residency. My friends didn’t understand what I was doing, but I threw myself into the uncertainty. I knew I would be better off in Spain than in Canada. It was a big financial risk too. It could have gone badly, but thank goodness it didn’t.
I think I feel most comfortable in precarious work and financial circumstances. My mindset is such that if I can manage to stay in a relatively calm place like Salamanca, then money and opportunities would pop up. Delusional? Maybe. But I’d rather get paid less while being in a cool place than be paid a lot more living in a stressful place.
Mindset probably plays an essential role in all this. I had a weak mindset for some time. I started having a weak mindset regarding opportunities, work, and money right after I joined academia. This is very weird though. I had no reason to fall into the cynicism trap. But I did. It was a rabbit hole. One thing led to another, and seven years later I was in a very dark place. Weak mindset, a doom and gloom take on life.
I don’t know where that was coming from. I was making money, but somehow academia got to me, and it started feeling as though money and opportunities were hard to come by. In hindsight, it was a mix of Lebanon stress, and a constant longing to be back in Salamanca.
Then one day I snapped out of it. I thought to myself: I’m constantly chasing something. But if the grass is always greener on the other side, it means I’ll never be happy anywhere. If I am not happy where I am and make peace with it, I’ll never be happy anywhere.
So I began a healing journey. I made peace with Lebanon, and slowly built my mindset again by reflecting, reading books, and watching podcasts on Stoicism, Joe Rogan, Tim Ferriss, Nassim Taleb and others.
A few months later, in the middle of the Lebanon shitstorm (2019-2020), I wasn’t fazed. I spent my time working, building, diversifying my income streams. So yeah, mindset is important. Especially having an abundance mindset. There’s more than enough for everyone.
SB:
You’ve mentioned your home country a few times. You’ve described it as a place the gods failed to understand, talked about the Lebanon “stress” and “shitstorm”? I also read Nassim Taleb on Lebanon. In Chapter 1 of The Black Swan, he talked about the region having been home for a dozen different sects, ethnicities and beliefs for more than a thousand years and that it “worked like magic”. That all changed a few decades ago — the first “black swan” of Taleb’s life, the outbreak of the civil war, turned the place suddenly, as he wrote, “from heaven to hell”.
How do you think about Lebanon now? Do you think you’ll ever go back for good? What would need to change for you to consider that?
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