Episode 183: The Decision Before Clarity | Sam Yehia on Purpose

Sam Yehia is the Founder and Publisher of Orato World Media, a platform dedicated to first-person journalism. With more than 40 years of experience building and scaling businesses across hospitality, entertainment, and real estate, he brings a long-term perspective to entrepreneurship and leadership.

Episode Summary

Sam Yehia spent 35 years building and scaling 13 businesses before selling everything in 2019, just ahead of the pandemic. He didn't stay retired. He came back to build a platform for first-person journalism, not because the financial case was clear, but because he decided it mattered before he had proof it would work. This episode is for the person sitting on a decision that doesn't fully add up on paper yet, who keeps circling back to it anyway because some part of them already knows it's necessary.

Key takeaways:

• The exit before the crisis:  what it meant to sell everything right before the world shut down, and why timing isn't always something you can plan for.
• The pull back in:  why a venture with no clear financial case kept calling him back, and what that reveals about conviction versus justification.
• First-person storytelling: the model behind his platform, and why verified, firsthand accounts matter more as trust in media erodes.
• Self-trust as a decision: how conviction, not clarity, is what actually moves people forward.
• The honesty question: what he believes everyone owes themselves before committing to a mission that might cost them.

Guest Bio and Links

Short bio: Sam Yehia is the Founder and Publisher of Orato World Media, a platform dedicated to first-person journalism. With more than 40 years of experience building and scaling businesses across hospitality, entertainment, and real estate, he brings a long-term perspective to entrepreneurship and leadership.

After a successful exit, he returned to media to rebuild Orato — focusing on verified, human-centered storytelling. Today, Orato has published over 2,800 stories from around the world, supported by a global network of more than 400 journalists.

His work sits at the intersection of media, truth, and human experience, with a focus on building something meaningful beyond traditional business models.

Website: https://orato.world
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/oratoworld

Full Transcript

Dawn: Welcome back to the Self Trust Solution podcast. I'm your host, Dawn Ledet, the self-trust coach, and today I am joined by Sam Yehia. Sam is the founder and publisher of Orato World Media, a platform dedicated to first person journalism, telling verified stories through the people who have lived them. With more than 40 years of experience building and scaling businesses across hospitality, entertainment, and real estate, Sam brings a long-term perspective to entrepreneurship and leadership.

After a successful exit, he stepped away from business and then made the unexpected decision to return, not because he had to, but because there was something he believed still needed to exist. Sam, I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Welcome.

Sam Yehia: Thank you so much, Dawn. It's a pleasure being here with you.

Dawn: Yes. So take us back to the moment, to your exit. You had already built, scaled, and stepped away. What did that season look like for you?

Sam Yehia: Gosh, you know, it was in 2019 when I sold all of my businesses, and I had spent 35 years building those businesses. We had 250 employees. We had 13 businesses.

So the privilege of being able to sell out really was, in many ways, a gift, an opportunity. And as much as it was an emotional experience, it just proved to be the right thing at the right time, because, as you remember, within a year of my selling all of the assets, we entered into that dark period called the pandemic.

And the whole world shut down and became unrecognizable. So to have realized that I had sold everything prior to that period, I just felt so fortunate and so lucky. People who had stayed in business really had to dodge a bullet there, because it was an existential challenge to survive with ongoing businesses, especially in food and beverage and hospitality.

Dawn: Yes. And so you had made that decision before you knew that that was gonna happen. Did it feel kind of serendipitous?

Sam Yehia: It did. Of course, I had no way of knowing that this was going to occur. This was something that caught the entire world by surprise, even the way that the world reacted to it, by shutting all the economies down around the world and forcing everybody to isolate.

This was not something that anyone had experience in, because the last pandemic, as you know, was over a hundred years prior to that. So it was surreal. And I thought, gosh, this is really a measure and a way of approaching this that I had never thought was actually even possible.

If you wanted to be objective about it, if we encountered another pandemic, I don't think that the world would ever do the same thing that they did in 2020 through 2023, the idea of shutting down the economies around the world. I just don't think that's what they would do in the future.

Dawn: But let's hope that we never have to actually face that bridge again.

Sam Yehia: Correct.

Dawn: So you mentioned that you kept coming back to Orato, even though on paper there wasn't a clear reason to restart it. Tell us what that was like. What kept pulling you back, and what did that mean for you to go back?

Sam Yehia: You know, I think that the thing that worried me most was the contraction and the degradation of journalism. I think journalism is critical to functioning democracies, holding those in power, holding those in authority to account. I'm a media junkie. I love reading and I love knowing about current events, and I love learning about world affairs.

And I kept on thinking that the trust factor when it came to media continued to drop, continued to fail. Increasingly over time, it became that one could no longer distinguish the difference between fact or fiction. And I think that's really problematic, that we can't discern that difference.

Anyone, as you know, has the ability to say whatever they want to say, and they can publish it, whether it's true or not, whether it's a conspiracy or not. I think it's critical that we have a voice that is trustworthy, that can be relied on, that tells a truthful, honest story about a real person's experience.

So I kept going back to that as the challenges around journalism and media continued to grow, and the amount of misinformation and disinformation was just out of control. The more that became prominent, the more I felt this burning urge to create a brand where people were going to be able to trust that the story we are reporting is a story of a real person and a truthful account of the experience they sustained.

I'm not sure whether you know, but all of our stories are based on current events that have been reported in the news. And when an event breaks, we go and we look for somebody who's experienced that event firsthand, and we interview them as an eyewitness. We verify the veracity of the whole story, and then we publish it, so that people can realize what it actually took, in human strength, to be able to survive and live to tell that story.

Dawn: Yeah. So you described this as a different, and true, and obviously very honest look at journalism, and the disparity and discrepancy we have, and the trust we've lost in receiving these different versions of stories. So what was going on for you at this moment where you're stepping out of retirement, basically doing something different? It's like changing the message out there and trying to convince people that you are the one, your stories are the ones to trust. What did that internal experience feel like for you? Speaking about trust, what was the self-trust that you had in that moment?

Sam Yehia: You know, originally, this is a concept that I've actually harbored, that I discovered from 15 years in the entertainment business, in an earlier part of my career.

I was producing popular performing arts. I had a number of showrooms, and my role, as the producer, was to hire the talent, welcome the artist, mount the show, sell the tickets, host the artist, and then put them back on the plane so they could get to their next gig. The artists would stay with us for one to two weeks.

So in order to garner attention, I would invite traditional media to come and do interviews with the artist. We had a large budget, so all of the artists we booked were major jazz artists, like Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughan, Mel Tormé, James Brown, B.B. King, it just went on and on.

I would invite journalists to come and do an interview with them. These are African American superstars in the realm of jazz. And more often than not, they had been mismanaged. They had been misled. In many ways, they were prisoners of their career, because that's the only thing they knew how to do.

But what was really interesting was listening to them tell those stories of what they had to go through to achieve that degree of success that allowed them to survive in that industry. As African Americans having very few options in what it was they could do and what they were gifted to do, it was really passionate and visceral, the experience they were going through.

And I walked away from all of those interviews with this notion that getting the story directly from the person who's experienced the event is an entirely different approach to hearing the news. I walked away with that conclusion, thinking, gosh, wouldn't it be wonderful if at one point I could create a brand entirely dedicated to first-person news storytelling.

It was at the advent of the internet, all of a sudden learning that this worldwide web was about to exist and take over the world, that I realized this is an idea whose time has come, the ability to communicate and connect with people all over the world on this virtual platform.

I said, this is really an idea, and this is the time when I have to actually try to do it. At that time, I was thinking, okay, how can we make money, how can it be profitable. All of those standard elements of doing a commercial venture were critical, but at the same time, I could not find what the revenue models were to try and sustain this.

So I was forced to kind of suspend it and wait until I could figure out what the revenue model was. It was only after fast-forwarding twelve, fourteen, fifteen years, that I realized the ability to make money from this venture on its own was a long shot, and it was becoming more and more difficult.

That's when I realized, I understand this is not something I'm going to be doing because I'm going to become wealthy. But at the same time, it's something that needs to be done, because the world has changed, and the world has changed as a result of technology and as a result of the internet.

So I stopped looking at it as, where do I find the money to make this thing happen, and started looking at it as, this is really something that is necessary. Our world needs it. I think the thing that distinguishes our differences, and I'm talking about people all over the world, is the values that we hold, because three quarters of the world is connected digitally.

We are all part of this global village, and the thing that is most striking, the difference between one another, is the values that we keep. I think most of the world shares common values. Of course, in the political ideology of the right and the left, there's that fifteen percent on the extreme of the right and the left that are, I'm going to say, the radical part. But seventy percent of the entire world is preoccupied with making a living, putting bread on our table, raising our children, raising our families.

Dawn: When you made that decision, when you shifted to stop trying to justify Orato as a conventional business, what changed for you when you made that decision?

Sam Yehia: You know, it became easier to imagine how this could work, where money was not the only motivator of why it is that I was going to pursue that. There was going to be a higher purpose, a more altruistic need for why Orato needs to exist. At that point, I looked at it differently, and I started imagining, okay, maybe if money is not the direct result of what we're going to do, maybe there are going to be collateral opportunities that will come to rise as a result of that.

And sure enough, between 2020 and 2024, we produced some 2,800 stories, and one of those stories was about an Afghani judge who, when the Allied forces left Afghanistan in 2021, became a target and was targeted for assassination because she was a woman and she was on the bench, and she had to find a way to escape Afghanistan.

Eventually she did succeed in escaping Afghanistan and settled in the UK, and, obviously, had a new life there. But what was interesting is that the story we had written in 2022 was so compelling and so passionate, it ended up actually getting licensed and published as a book this spring.

So it gives me great pride to have seen the story of a woman who lived this experience being licensed and published as a book. That's one of those collateral opportunities that came as a result of the entire model of first-person news storytelling.

Dawn: Yeah. You said something powerful, that at some point you have to trust your own perspective, especially when it's shaped by experience. What does that look like for you in practice now?

Sam Yehia: You know, I'm an immigrant to Canada. I've lived most of my life in Canada. I've lived in five different countries, and, of Jewish faith, I have experienced prejudice. I have experienced people looking at me differently because I may not be white. And all of those things are something I carry with me, even for the fact that I was born in Cairo, Egypt, of Jewish faith, born in an Arab country. The struggle between the Arabs and the Jews lives within me, because here are two tribes that have been fighting for thousands of years, and I have the genetic composition of both tribes in me.

So all of those things play a role in my pursuit of giving everyone the sovereign right to tell their story, to account their truthful, honest opinion about what they had to sustain, no matter what race, color, creed, or culture they come from. All of these things came to play a role in my conviction about why Orato is not only necessary but a necessity for all of us to be able to have, in our world, so that we can digitally hold hands and give each other strength. Because at the end of the day, we are all the same, and if we share common values, we have a lot to share.

Dawn: It sounds like your turning point, and please let us know if this is true, wasn't when things became necessarily clear, as much as when you stopped waiting for clarity and led with conviction, knowing that this was necessary in the world.

Sam Yehia: I think that it's the state of our world that certainly drove that point. It hurts me to think that there can be people who believe there are alternate truths. We've never grown up with alternate truths, and the idea that the alternate truth is now somehow going to have greater currency than fact-based truth and science is uncomfortable for me. I don't necessarily want to live in that world of alternate truths and conspiracies.

Dawn: But I think it's important to acknowledge, you say it's the state of the world, which it is, we are all living in that state of the world, and not everyone is making these types of moves.

Sam Yehia: You know, it is no small feat to try and create a global media brand. And nothing ventured, nothing gained. I'm not gonna stop trying. That is something I've always had, the conviction to go down a path that no one is prepared to go, and the courage to try something that no one else is prepared to try. This is something that is innate, and it keeps me sane and keeps me excited about tomorrow and what's possible.

Dawn: It may be somewhat innate, but it's definitely cultivated by you, through action and through experience. So your story feels different from many entrepreneurs. It's not about urgency or survival. It's this conviction of seeing an injustice and wanting to write it in a way that you uniquely can. So how would you define self-trust at this stage of your life and career?

Sam Yehia: You know, I would say that one's conviction about something that deserves to be is a powerful motivator for doing everything they can to realize that goal and that mandate. I have no doubt that as we go about growing and establishing our brand, there'll be a multitude of challenges we're going to be facing, and a lot of them are going to be existential. But I'm not going to be deterred, I'm not going to be discouraged by it.

The fact that we are going to do it in a way so that we can be self-sustaining and grow, I don't think this is an idea that belongs on the shoulders of only one person. I think this has to be a coalition of people who share these values, people who understand the necessity for having a media brand they can trust. So I'm in that process now, where I'm appealing to board members and donors and influencers who share our values and share our vision, who can actually jump on board and make this come true.

Dawn: What you describe, without saying it in the words of self-trust, is so aligned with what our work is at The Self Trust Coach, because what you've demonstrated is a decision that you make ahead of time, and not blindly. You know there will be challenges, you know there will be, but you make the decision to move forward with them, because that's who you want to be, that's how you want to show up in the world, and that's how you want to impact the world. And that's really beautiful.

So for someone listening who is maybe in the place of questioning whether to move forward or walk away, what would you want them to understand?

Sam Yehia: You know, I think that first and foremost, you have to be really honest with yourself, and be honest about what exactly it is that you're trying to achieve. If it is only profit and power, there's nothing wrong with that, nothing offensive about that. But one needs to be honest with themselves that that is what it is I'm trying to achieve here. I want to be filthy rich and I want to be uber powerful. And if that's what you want to do, and you can do it without compromising or undermining the quality of other people's lives, all the more power to you.

But it is critically important to look at the question of what am I going to contribute to others, to the quality of life for others, and is that enough motivation to give me the courage to navigate the challenging waters I'm going to go through, to, at the end of the day, make a difference and raise the quality of life for others. That's really critical, and I think it's important that one be absolutely honest with themselves, so that we have a clear understanding of not only what our mission is, but what it is that others are going to be able to walk away with, or garner, from that experience.

Dawn: 100%. I truly believe we are all made for service, and that service comes in various forms, whether your service is as a parent, as an executive, as a server in a restaurant. It's all important, but we're made for service. And if we're doing that, being clear about our wants while also making sure they truly align with our values, then that's how we move forward.

Sam Yehia: You know, I find it a challenge when, all of a sudden, we see the number of billionaires we have in America, in the world, and the pursuit of more power, more profit, more money. Eventually you get to this burning question I always think about: how much money does one actually need? How much money can one actually spend in their very short and fast lifetime to justify, no, no, no, one billion is not enough, I need more billions. The whole idea that Elon Musk could eventually become a trillionaire, kudos to him, but it frightens the hell out of me.

Dawn: Yeah. I think there's a difference between chasing something to fill a void that thing was never meant to fill, whether it's money or another person. That becomes where we're just chasing something. There's something about the ability to make large amounts of money, the fact that it's possible, that can be inspirational. But when we're using it against ourselves, or when we shift our wants just because it's possible, that doesn't mean it's the right thing for me. So sometimes we end up chasing something that is right for someone else, and that's where we end up with these gaps in our identity, and in feeling good about what we're doing.

So I think it's such a good point to bring up: what is the amount you're going to chase, until you decide ahead of time that that amount is not going to fulfill you? It might be fun to reach for, and there's a huge difference between those two.

Sam Yehia: You know, I grew up most of my life in Canada and America, capitalistic countries. And I learned early on that there is this chase for more cars, more houses, a bigger house, fancier jewelry. It is a treadmill, and people don't always learn or understand that it has its own limitations. I've come to know a lot of wealthy people, and money does not buy happiness. This whole idea of "he who dies with the most toys wins," I don't necessarily subscribe to it, and I don't think it's healthy, not only for us emotionally, but spiritually or intellectually. We need to have a clear understanding of how much wealth we actually need to achieve our degree of happiness.

And then, once you've achieved that, which is not in the billions, look at the idea of, now it's time for me to give back, now it's time for me to contribute and give other people something that's going to make a difference to their lives. I think that's really critical, and I think it's the kind of planning and forethought that doesn't necessarily dominate in capitalistic countries, and I think it should be emphasized. There is a point of reasonableness, and I think one has to actually be honest with themselves.

Dawn: Well, you are certainly an example of that. So tell us now, where can people learn more about Orato? How can they connect with you?

Sam Yehia: You know, we have a website, orato.world, O-R-A-T-O World, online. There are some 3,000 stories there. It's an accumulation of all the stories we've done, from the first time I started publishing in the early 2000s, and then between 2020 and 2024, we did another 2,800 stories.

We are in the process of resuming publishing, to pursue more first-person stories. The site is live and available, and you can hear accounts from all over the world of people who've actually experienced a current event and lived to tell about it. It's interesting to see how people who have the presence of mind to survive a life-changing moment, how the human dynamic can rise on those occasions. It's a study on the human race and what we're actually capable of.

Of course, you can always see me on LinkedIn, and also on the site. I welcome people who want to learn more about what we do, and who want to join and help us make this a success.

Dawn: Amazing. We'll include all of those links in the show notes. Sam, this conversation is a powerful reminder that self-trust doesn't always come from urgency or even necessity. Sometimes it comes from recognizing something that matters and choosing to move forward even when it doesn't fully make sense yet. And your story really highlights that clarity isn't always the starting point. Sometimes it's the result of taking the next step. So thank you so much for being here and sharing this perspective.

Sam Yehia: Thanks, Dawn. I really appreciated that. I wish you continued good health. Thank you for taking the time.

Dawn: Yes. And for those of you listening or watching, if today's conversation stirred something in you, I want you to take one next step before you close this episode. Consider checking out Orato and connecting with Sam.

Take the self-trust identity map. Before strategy, before motivation, before more effort, you need to know where your identity is operating from, because that is what determines everything that follows. It's free. It takes three minutes, and it will give you a precise read on where your identity is actually operating from right now, and exactly where to focus next.

The link is in the show notes. Subscribe so that you don't miss what's coming. These stories are just getting started. I'll see you next time.

Ready to know where your identity is actually operating from right now?

Take the free Self-Trust Identity Map. It takes three minutes and gives you a precise read on exactly where to focus next.
https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/identity-assessment-page

Want to go deeper? The Floor: Your Build is available now. Self-paced, structured, and built around the same framework.
https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/the-floor-your-build