Overall, I would not give this month high marks for reading, because I honestly did not read much. But in learning, motivation, experience, and shifts in perspective, I would still give myself a good score.And that is exactly why I care about keeping a <a target="" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.brain.ceo/blog/what-is-brain-carry-on-backpack/">Brain Carry-On</a>. When you are rebuilding your life, especially after immigration, what enters your mind matters. if you feel busy, stable, and yet somehow still not fully growing, I wrote about that feeling more directly in <a target="" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.brain.ceo/stuck-abroad">Stuck Abroad</a>.If you are new to this series, I have also explained here: <a target="" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.brain.ceo/blog/what-is-brain-carry-on-backpack/">What Is Brain Carry-On?</a> It is the books, ideas, conversations, trips, terms, and experiences I carry mentally through a month, not as a perfect list, but as a record of what shaped my mind. That is also part of Brain CEO's mission: helping immigrants rebuild life abroad by rebuilding how they think, choose, and grow.<h2 id="8812ac94-76fe-4b8d-832c-9c766d377edb" data-toc-id="8812ac94-76fe-4b8d-832c-9c766d377edb" style="font-size: 24px; line-height: 1.2;">Books in my Brain Carry-On</h2>This month, I had the chance to read three books.<h3 id="bffe12ca-2760-4275-984c-16f97870e5b6" data-toc-id="bffe12ca-2760-4275-984c-16f97870e5b6" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">Metaphors We Live By</h3>Lakoff and Johnson wrote this book in 1980, but I am sure they never imagined the reason I would read it. <a target="" class="decorated-link" href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.html">Metaphors We Live By</a> by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson is one of those standout&nbsp;books in cognitive science and linguistics. It has a strong psychological&nbsp;flavour&nbsp;too, and honestly, reading it in English is difficult for non-native English speakers,&nbsp;while&nbsp;reading it in another language feels a&nbsp;little like&nbsp;missing the whole&nbsp;point.<img src="https://ezycourse.b-cdn.net/6039/cmockor4c193dr2qr2crqf1s2.jpg" alt="image" containerstyle="width: 100%; height: auto; cursor: pointer; " wrapperstyle="display: flex">The general idea of Metaphors We Live By is this:<blockquote>How do you see the world? What is the world like to you: a dance, a war, or a prison? If you see it as a dance, you meet problems with flexibility and grace. If you see it as a war, you are always ready to fight events. And if you see it as a prison, you are just waiting for your sentence to end.</blockquote>The book helps us understand how language unconsciously programs us. The authors believe that changing our language and the metaphors we use for different parts of life, can change our behaviour and perspective. Maybe 90 percent of the book was not useful for me, but the main idea stayed with me very clearly:<blockquote>The metaphors we use to understand or define anything determine how we perceive it and how we deal with it.</blockquote><h3 id="c1e707d6-4108-44bf-8d81-9b8014cea4e4" data-toc-id="c1e707d6-4108-44bf-8d81-9b8014cea4e4" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">Only the Paranoid Survive</h3>What a pleasure it is to read books that are not hot off the press. Only the Paranoid Survive, published in 1996 by Andrew Grove, the legendary CEO of Intel, is one of the classic books in management. In other languages, I have seen it translated as "Only the Fearless Endure" or "Only the Suspicious Survive." But if I were the translator, I would be more comfortable with another version. The closer meaning is something like: "Only the constantly worried survive.”."Of course, the publisher would probably have said: “You do not need to give suggestions about the title!” 😅In this book, Andy Grove says every business faces Strategic Inflection Points during its life: moments when changes in technology, competitors, or the market, transform everything. In those moments, if you do not respond correctly, the company collapses.<img src="https://ezycourse.b-cdn.net/6039/cmocl5gtd1nfvr2qr6qry3mm9.jpg" alt="image" containerstyle="width: 100%; height: auto; cursor: pointer; " wrapperstyle="display: flex">I fell in love with one sentence from the book, and because the book is easily available, I will limit my favourite quotes to this one line:<blockquote>Imagine all the managers were fired and a new team replaced you. What would that new team do? Well, do that right now.</blockquote>Of course, I cannot resist putting this question in your mind too:<blockquote>“If a competitor wanted to destroy us today, what would they do?”</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(15, 23, 42); font-family: Inter, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; float: none; display: inline !important;">The book is extremely old, at least in this context, so if you are not a "Cyborg Learner" - which is the name of a course, where I teach how to become a professional learner in the age of AI - definitions like "What is the internet?" may genuinely annoy you. But I really enjoy reading old books.<h3 id="9459af6b-9f5a-4ca3-922e-f715290d0e8e" data-toc-id="9459af6b-9f5a-4ca3-922e-f715290d0e8e" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">Oversubscribed</h3>In <a target="" class="decorated-link" href="https://danielpriestley.com/oversubscribed-book/">Oversubscribed</a>, Daniel Priestley presents the idea that the best brands and businesses create so much demand that their supply cannot keep up. Instead of chasing customers and customers compete to buy from them. That is the whole purpose of the book. But for me personally, the most important lessons were about our performance after a campaign.For example, in several campaigns in my businesses, we break very interesting records, We sell a lot, seriously, a lot, but at the end of the campaign, we do not show our performance clearly enough, we do not show that the campaign sold this much, moved this fast, or reached that level of demand. And that silence, I realised, leaves part of the story on the table. That was a big lesson for me.<img src="https://ezycourse.b-cdn.net/6039/cmoclyay328sypuqratueb0bs.jpg" alt="image" containerstyle="width: 100%; height: auto; cursor: pointer; " wrapperstyle="display: flex">Of course, I learned many other points from this book and most of them more detailed and practical.<h2 id="032533ca-30df-443d-9af6-c23efe987021" data-toc-id="032533ca-30df-443d-9af6-c23efe987021" style="font-size: 24px; line-height: 1.2;">Podcasts and Interviews</h2><h3 id="7484a460-edbd-44ca-a5fb-778fa0f0db5b" data-toc-id="7484a460-edbd-44ca-a5fb-778fa0f0db5b" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">Charity Work with Soroush</h3>Good friends introduce good friends. A few days ago, I was talking with my old and dear friend Setareh, about doing charity work in Sistan and Baluchestan with the money raised from the Cyborg webinar. She introduced me to Soroush.As always, before following someone, I first do a kind of FBI CHECK to make sure I know who is feeding my brain. 🧐 And when I watched the Fuse podcast by Soroush, titled: Whoever Has No Footprint... It Is As If They Have No Feet! It gave me so much joy. And as someone who has had some experience doing this kind of work, I can see that I need to add much, much more of this joy to my life.<h3 id="eca8d44a-1c60-49c8-9abe-f429721c6df6" data-toc-id="eca8d44a-1c60-49c8-9abe-f429721c6df6" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">The Future of AI and Simon Sinek</h3>I really enjoyed Steven Bartlett’s interview with Simon Sinek, titled <a target="" class="decorated-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4tqbEmplug">Simon Sinek: You’re Being Lied To About AI’s Real Purpose! We’re Teaching Our Kids To Not Be Human!</a>. Simon Sinek spoke with his usual confidence about the future of AI and humanity, and I mentioned part of his AI-related points in the Cyborg webinar.<img src="https://ezycourse.b-cdn.net/6039/cmocmd61g2o24wqqs63ls1utt.jpg" alt="image" containerstyle="width: 100%; height: auto; cursor: pointer; " wrapperstyle="display: flex">Perhaps the most interesting point from Simon Sinek, for me, was the distinction between destination vs journey:AI can do everything for us. It can write a book, edit an article, and even tell you how to resolve your conflict. In other words, it can get you to the destination. But if you had walked the journey yourself, you would have become a different person. You can become an "author" through AI, but the person who actually wrote the book is truly a different human being from the person whose name is simply on the book.<h2 id="716c3fa6-f336-4d6e-bf7b-763d8779a3a4" data-toc-id="716c3fa6-f336-4d6e-bf7b-763d8779a3a4" style="font-size: 24px; line-height: 1.2;">Terminology and Beautiful Sentences</h2>In a meeting I had for the Pol psychology platform with my dear friend and partner, he said a sentence I fell in love with. He said that in job interviews, he asks candidates whether they understand this sentence. If yes, they have to explain it:<blockquote>Follow-up until the result is achieved.</blockquote>I really loved this sentence. Follow-up without achieving the result has no meaning at all. It was one of those sentences that stuck to my brain.The second sentence this month came from Jason Fladlien, who said:<blockquote>The fastest way to get rich? Work your ass off for free.</blockquote>The fastest way to get rich? Do a piece of work for free.<img src="https://ezycourse.b-cdn.net/6039/cmoe91gz91b5azfqy938ccjel.jpg" alt="image" containerstyle="width: 100%; height: auto; cursor: pointer; " wrapperstyle="display: flex">In general, there is an interesting contradiction in the world: to reach greatness and many outcomes, you have to do the complete opposite first.<h2 id="3d94f38d-b2ce-4c48-b7c8-9903ac24d926" data-toc-id="3d94f38d-b2ce-4c48-b7c8-9903ac24d926" style="font-size: 24px; line-height: 1.2;">Courses and Seminars</h2><h3 id="17321daa-c02f-4b60-a510-a2c5e69b7bfe" data-toc-id="17321daa-c02f-4b60-a510-a2c5e69b7bfe" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">Tony Robbins’ Four-Day UPW Event in Cologne, Germany</h3>Well, after seven years, it was finally time to attend <a target="" class="decorated-link" href="https://www.tony-robbins-europe.com">Unleash the Power Within</a>, by Anthony Robbins. More than anything, I looked at it as an exciting experience rather than an educational programme, and I wanted to make it there under any circumstances.<img src="https://ezycourse.b-cdn.net/6039/cmoe96kte4s75cqpa6sjjd4cv.jpg" alt="image" containerstyle="width: 100%; height: auto; cursor: pointer; " wrapperstyle="display: flex">I spoke about it in detail on Instagram, but I will pass over this strange programme, which on some days lasted up to 11 hours, with one sentence:<blockquote>Love your family but choose your peers. Love your family, but choose the people you surround yourself with.</blockquote>UPW was not the kind of event I could reduce to "I attended a seminar." It felt more like walking into a room where thousands of people had agreed, for a few days, to suspend their normal limits. The music, the movement, the long hours, and the strange emotional intensity of it all made it truly amazing.I had gone there after years of waiting and wanting to experience it, partly as education, partly as curiosity, partly as a challenge to myself. What stayed with me was not just one technique or one motivational sentence. It was the reminder that sometimes the people around you are not background noise; they are part of your operating system. I could feel how a peer group can raise your standards.Maybe that was the real value of UPW for me: not information, but atmosphere. And for an immigrant, this is not a small point. After moving countries, many people slowly lose the environments that used to raise their standards. They lose their network, their old signals, and their familiar mirrors. This is one of the reasons Brain CEO talks about rebuilding the system around your life, not just "trying harder."<h3 id="dbc05156-f2ff-4a4d-9341-4fc0761da4a7" data-toc-id="dbc05156-f2ff-4a4d-9341-4fc0761da4a7" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">Mark Inglis’ Seminar in Sydney, Australia</h3>Mark Inglis’ Seminar was also an interesting experience: it was led by a Paralympics cycling champion from the Sydney Games, a businessman, philanthropist, winemaker, athlete, speaker, and Everest climber without legs.Of course, getting myself to Australia from America, the other side of the world, was truly difficult. In roughly six days, I spent more than 100 hours in flight. But those two hours attending Mark Inglis’ seminar were a good reminder for me. the kind of reminding that believe is more important than learning.I will share here one of the slides presented in my One-Person Army webinar, one of my great webinars for people who want to enter the world of entrepreneurship without capital and without a team, and start generating income as quickly as possible.<img src="https://ezycourse.b-cdn.net/6039/cmoebztwu664lcqpa9eoi3te3.jpg" alt="image" containerstyle="width: 100%; height: auto; cursor: pointer; " wrapperstyle="display: flex">My most important takeaway from this seminar in Sydney, Australia? I will challenge myself more.<h2 id="db589344-7ff0-441b-89f5-ec44f7217d03" data-toc-id="db589344-7ff0-441b-89f5-ec44f7217d03" style="font-size: 24px; line-height: 1.2;">Travels</h2>September 2025 had two trips for me.Sydney, Australia, and Cologne, Germany. In Sydney, the most interesting moment for me was walking on the <a target="" class="decorated-link" href="https://www.nsw.gov.au/visiting-and-exploring-nsw/locations-and-attractions/sydney-harbour-bridge">Sydney Harbour Bridge</a> with Dr Sahebi, along with the thousands of points I learned and a few days staying at the home of Javad and Maryam. Many ideas have shaped and changed in my mind in Australia, but this short trip was filled with good memories too.<img src="https://ezycourse.b-cdn.net/6039/cmof3hehnggbzcoqybaqr7zt1.jpg" alt="image" containerstyle="width: 100%; height: auto; cursor: pointer; " wrapperstyle="display: flex">Cologne, Germany, was also very interesting for me, partly because I attended Tony Robbins’ seminar, and partly because of the wonderful encounters I had with people there. Sara, who was my cycling companion in Cologne, said: “We are the exception. Germans are really not this kind!” 😄And then there was walking on the <a target="" class="decorated-link" href="https://www.cologne-tourism.com/arts-culture/sights/detail/love-locks">Love Locks Bridge in Cologne</a>, looking at the magnificent Rhine River, and listening to Music.Sara said that in Cologne, if somewhere is more than 20 minutes away by bicycle, they consider it far and usually do not go there. How relative everything is. Even 20 minutes by car counts as close in many cities.September 2025 gave my brain a Carry-On that was light on reading but full of experience. I am grateful to myself for being the CEO of my mind.Not every month gives you a clean lesson. Some months give you fragments: a sentence, a bridge, a difficult flight, an old book, a strange seminar, a conversation with a friend. But sometimes, those fragments are enough. They remind you that rebuilding a life is not only done through big plans. It is also done through what you keep feeding your mind, who you sit with, and which experiences make your standards rise again.If you enjoyed this month’s Brain Carry-On, you will probably love the following months, <a target="" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.brain.ceo/blog/brain-carry-on-10-2025/">October </a>and <a target="" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.brain.ceo/blog/brain-carry-on-backpack-11-2025/">November</a>. I move to London and start writing Brain Carry-On from day one, taking you through the books, mental inputs, experiences, and small adjustments that shaped the way I began moving through and living in London.Thank you for coming along with me through this month’s Brain Carry-On. Rebuilding life abroad is not only about reaching a better outcome; it is about becoming the kind of person who can build, think, choose, and grow in a new environment.After spending this time inside the thoughts, lessons, and experiences that shaped my month, you may want to treat yourself to a short pause. Try this <a target="" class="decorated-link" href="https://www.brain.ceo/blog/5min-meditation-immigrants/">5-minute meditation for immigrants</a> to create a little mental space, hear yourself again, rebuild your direction, and become the CEO of your own brain. 🙂

from Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia to Cologne’s Rhine in Germany, with books, AI, seminars, travel, and lessons on growth abroad by Payam Bahrampoor

September 2025: Low on Reading, Rich in Experience | Brain Carry-On

Tony Robbins’ Four-Day UPW Event in Cologne, Germany

Mark Inglis’ Seminar in Sydney, Australia

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September 2025: Low on Reading, Rich in Experience | Brain Carry-On

September 2025: Low on Reading, Rich in Experience | Brain Carry-On

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