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Passion and purpose go hand in hand.

When you discover your purpose, you will normally find it's something you're tremendously passionate about.

Tonight, we meet two people using their passion for a purpose.

I'm so happy you're joining us.

From Los Angeles, This is KLCC.

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With Angela Williamson and Innovation Arts, Education and Public Affairs program, everybody with Angela Williamson is made possible by viewers like you.

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Through some what seem to be some small medical decisions that change the consequences of that revolution.

And US relationships with that part of the world wasn't so much, I think, the death of the Shah as it was the way his health issues were handled.

There was a lot of secrecy and even conspiracy.

And I have.

No idea if the Shah ever made a decision himself.

The man was getting sicker and sicker.

What happened here is you had too many cooks spoiling the broth anyway.

Huge political ramifications.

The whole thing is a book of malpractice.

It's sad that a person with so much power, so much money couldn't get the care that he needed because of his political needs and the political situation of the American government and the Iranian government and everybody else involved.

There was a set of decisions made in a very brief period of time that have led us to where we are now with these decades now of sanctions that has affected our relationships while in the wrong relationship with the rest of the world.

You have just watched the trailer for a dying King, the Shah of Iran.

Babak Kalla is the writer and director and he is our first guest.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you for having me.

when I look at this documentary, I realize in I was a born and probably around junior high school.

Around that time, I realized that I didn't understand the full story.

And that's what your documentary tells me is a full story that's been unheard.

So why do you think that's important?

Well, it's not just that you haven't heard it.

I didn't know the story.

And most people didn't know the medical story of the shah of Iran.

We all knew the revolution happened.

He came out of the country and he died.

And I had heard that, you know, he died of cancer, but we didn't know the special circumstances around his death.

And that's what this documentary is that we did in 2018, a Dying King.

And it covers the medical story of the shah of Iran.

And, you know, doing this, discovering how the shah died and how come we didn't know about it.

I kind of went to the next conclusion.

What else don't we know about the 1979 revolution and the history of Iran?

So that's our next project that we're working on is the history of Iran in the 20th century and how we got to this point politically that, you know, the current troubles with the United States and Iran and Iran and the rest of the world.

I think this is really interesting that you're telling me this story because we both grew up during that time and you're really learning your own history and why it impacted you so much.

So you had that first question.

Now, walk us through the steps it takes to come up with how you will do this documentary, how you will produce this documentary, because it really is an enlightening story, but it lets us know how much we missed.

So how do you start there?

Because you get some of the you get people from that time to talk about it.

Well, the documentary is with a Dying King.

The first piece that we did.

I was working at a radio station here in L.A.

It was a Farsi speaking radio station and was producing programing.

And we did a series of programs with a friend of mine.

She's a surgeon here in L.A.

Her name is Dr. Shereen Tovar.

And we did a series of medical programs pertaining to the Iranian people, like how esophageal cancer affects Iranians, how breast cancer affects Iranians, how heart disease affects Iranians.

And one of the programs we did was with a gentleman named Dr. Leon Morgenstern.

He was the chief of surgery at Cedars-Sinai in the sixties and seventies.

He was one of the preeminent spleen specialists in the world.

And he was in his nineties and written an article called The Shah's Spleen, which kind of outlined the medical care of the Shah as he went through all these countries.

When the Shah left Iran, he went to Egypt, Morocco, Bahamas, Mexico, New York, Texas, Panama and Egypt again, and he died.

So we I was he was I did this interview with him and I had so many questions.

So I kept going back.

He was at Cedars-Sinai and he was 92 years old.

So I kept going back every week with more and more questions.

And at one point, I think he was kind of getting tired.

I he was very nice gentleman.

He was just getting tired of coming to work because of me.

So he said, young man, this is your history.

Uh, why don't you go follow it up?

So he put me in touch with all these doctors, and I ended up going and talking to the Mexican doctors and the Panamanians and the Iranians.

And then we went to France and traveled around the world for this story.

And from that story, figuring out what happened to him medically, it brought up a lot more questions about what happened during the 1979 revolution.

And I've been doing this started 15 years ago.

We have probably 50, 60 interviews, not only with doctors, we talk to historians, academics, uh, people that worked in government.

And we try to cover the history of Iran and the 20th century to see how we got to this point today with the demonstrations and uprisings of the Women for Human Rights, for religious freedoms.

And it's a very fascinating story, and it's been told in pieces, it's been told by in books, by academics.

But we're trying to put this whole thing together.

You know, Iran went through two world wars, five upheavals with changes of regime.

We were occupied.

We were almost divided.

We had devastation during World War One and World War Two, where millions of people died.

We've had revolutions.

We went from two monarchies to a constitutional revolution to a theocracy now.

And this is kind of a way for me to understand what happened and how it brought that kid to the United States in 1978 as a seven year old coming here, which I really didn't understand a lot of the things that were going on.

So this is kind of a voyage of self-discovery for myself that I'm sharing.

Well, I mean, really what you're doing is you're finding your own roots.

But on top of that, you're educating all of us about it, too, so that we can change our perspective.

Because I see that if I had to come up with one theme after watching your documentary, is that we need to change our perspective.

Am I right or wrong?

Well, true.

It was important for me.

You know, I was born in Iran, but I was raised in America, and I've been raised here since I was eight years old.

And this story is important for Americans to to learn because, you know, we have problems.

We might be entering into a hot war with a country that we know very little about.

And even our own history with the Shah and with Iran is murky.

But I think it was it's important as an international story for everyone to know this because it could help us down the road.

You know, we have a lot of the people I talk to, they say we have a bipolar policy with respect to Iran.

We have presidents that want to negotiate with them and lift sanctions and, you know, create create a good relationships.

Then we have presidents that come in that want to bomb them.

And, you know, it's a complete different story.

I think knowing this history will help us in how we relate to Iran and as Americans and help us, you know, better understand what our government is doing with them, if it's the right thing or right a right or wrong thing.

And you talk about that understanding.

And I think that's really important with how you actually tell this story.

So my question to you is, because you did this for yourself and you needed to enlighten yourself, thank goodness for this doctor.

That said, learn your history.

But you found that a lot of people, after you have this documentary out there, a lot of people are interested in this history.

So you are on the path of telling us more.

So tell us about that next phase of what you're doing right now.

Well, the next phase of it is, is really it's a monumental task because it's putting together a history of Iran through the last century, through the 20th century, which involves it starts with the constitutional revolution that we had in 1906, which was unheard of in the Middle East.

People rising up for their rights, for freedoms, standing up against oppressive governments.

This is 1905.

So the whole series of reforms that came throughout the century with following leads, it started there.

That idea started there.

Then our story takes us to World War One and the devastation that Iran suffered.

There was the Russians, the British, the Ottomans, the Germans.

There were they were fighting on Iranian soil.

Iran was a failed state.

It was a very, very dismal form of government.

Millions of people died from famine, from hoarding, from a drought, from war.

And that led us to coming out of the World War and the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty, which is the father of the Shah.

And he was a Cossack officer, you know, and he came in 1921.

There was a coup.

He came in as a war minister.

He became prime minister.

And by 1925, he became king.

And we follow his reign.

You know, a lot of the good that he did for Iran, modernizing Iran, changing, changing the government, changing the structure, which takes us into World War Two and his closeness with with the Germans kind of brought about another change where the allies, the British, the Americans and the Russians occupied Iran in 1941 and used the country as a transport corridor for Russia in his fight with Hitler.

So that was a period of devastation where we were occupied again from 1941 to 1945.

And after that came about a constitutional period where we have the prime Minister Mossad there.

And you hear about that, the nationalization of the oil and it led to 1953, which was another coup, which was orchestrated by the CIA and MI6 with a lot of help from the Iranian people to overthrow that that that regime, that that people call it democratic.

But I would say it was more of a constitutional regime with the prime minister, which goes into the reign of the Shah.

Now, the Shah went from 1953 to 1978, and we follow his reign.

How he, you know, rose up as a shy young prince to become king.

And, you know, years later, he was declaring himself the king of kings and changing the world order, which leads us to the Islamic Revolution of 1978.

And we look at his reign, the mistakes he did, the reforms that were never made, which led to that that revolution.

And our story kind of goes a little bit past that of how after the 79 revolution, the constitu option was formed.

It was pushed on the people and the beginning of that regime and the hostage crisis, which everybody in the US remembers, and breaking relations with the United States and America, the United States and Iran and the sanctions, which lasts till today.

So we kind of get into how the rupture in relations happened and hopefully understanding this story.

It gives us a way forward because you see what's going on in Iran.

People are demonstration demonstrating, women are losing their lives, their freedoms.

And this kind of gives us a primer of how we got to this point.

And maybe if we do get to a point where there's a change of regime or a vacuum in power, we have a little bit of, you know, hindsight and what happened before that.

Believe it or not, our time has gone by quickly.

But before we end our conversation, can you just tell us how we can follow you out there so that we can support as you move into these next phases of production?

And then when you're done, will you come back and talk about your new documentary?

I would love to.

I would love to come back.

A Dying King is on YouTube.

We have some of our interviews there.

Hundreds of thousands of people watch it.

You know what we have there?

And I don't have the title for the new film.

We're working on a documentary and also a script format.

So that's two new projects that are coming out at the same time.

But you do have a website.

A dying King dot com.

Perfect.

That's what we'll find you for now.

And then once that changes, we'll put it out there and social media for August.

Thank you so much.

And come back to hear more about passion driven purpose with Nicholas Eller Sick, At the U.S. Center for Safe Sport.

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Hey, guys, It's me, Isabella Gomez, filling in for Smokey Bear because he's got more to say than just.

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Like if you're outside enjoying a barbecue.

Don't let a hamburger distract you from fire safety.

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Welcome back.

Nick, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me here.

I really appreciate it.

And, um, yeah, this is really cool.

Is the set and everything and the makeup.

It's super, super cool.

Not something you expected when you took my public speaking class two years ago, right?

No, not at all.

Well, there's a reason that you're here today.

And before we talk about that, I want our audience to get to know you.

So tell us a little bit about yourself.

So my story a little bit on my story is I was diagnosed with dyslexia and it's to, uh, you a speech impediment.

Um, and I've had to fight through tremendous amount of adversities, whether it's on whether it's like getting picked on or getting, um, uh, not, uh, not getting.

These are great.

I one, but I pushed through it.

Um, and, uh, yeah, just a lot of adversity and it's just a true testament, uh, to right now, like this moment, like I've had a fight so hard to get to this point, and I've, I've done and the biggest the biggest support.

Who's been the biggest support?

It was my mom.

My mom was the biggest support through the ups and the downs and and everything.

What?

I didn't want to go to school one day they a class.

She'd be the one to say, no.

You got this.

You can do it.

Well, let's talk a little bit about the importance of parents because there are parents watching, including myself, that we have children that we consider then they have special needs.

And how important is that support system to keep you motivated so that you can move forward?

Because life is difficult, right?

Yeah, it's it's really important.

I think my parents every single day on my, uh, my mom was my everything like she she be the one to push me.

She she was always positive, always a positive.

She still is to this day, a positive person.

And, um, it just that positivity was a fire to get me through the day and to, to any parent out there.

Just be positive.

Be positive for your kids.

Uh, you're there.

Light to to the darkness.

So, yeah.

I love that.

That is great advice also, too, because of that encouragement of your mom.

I mean, not only did you graduate from high school, very successful might add, but you transferred into a four year university.

So tell me, walk us through how Nick works.

Takes what you've learned in high school, the motivation you get at home and use that to get your degree or.

uh.

So I went to Concordia University, um, not knowing anybody.

Um, I, I had a, I think I had no, I knew nobody.

And I, I had to persevere and, and the positivity really helped because, uh, if I was, if I got like, a bad day on the test, I definitely was down that day.

And, um, but, um, but the positivity and, and the positive reinforcement always, always, always helped me and gave me, gave me the extra edge to like, move forward.

Well, and you said something really interesting, and I didn't even know this, that when you went to Concordia University in Irvine that you didn't know anyone but you actually had already, by the time you graduate, you had built a community of friends.

So how did that help you as you were going through your educational journey?

Oh, it it helped tremendously.

And even to this day, like I chose for myself with the most, um, like, great people who wanted to see me succeed in life.

And it's, it's just when you have people all around you that want to see you, it just makes it even better.

And so I was a senior manager for the Bachelor program and I Concordia and that helped me out a lot on with the players surrounding me, as well as great teachers like yourself, just surrounding me, just surrounding myself and just hold me, hold me, hold me out through my journey.

And you, you mentioned the support system and how important that is.

But there's also going to be parents and grandparents that are watching that have their own college student.

And so my question to you is, how tough was it to manage?

Because you had extracurricular activities, but you also did really well in your classes, I can tell you that.

And then you completed your degree.

So how tough was it to manage your time and keep up with your grades and what really stood out to help you the most?

Yeah.

So time management was a was a key.

The key part, because I had to I had to keep up on my grades while running a basketball program, uh, baseball team and, um, and also a social life as well.

But, um, as this, the key was just getting a planner and like, writing, like, every single thing I needed to get done.

Um, and just scheduling and, uh, Scheduling.

You make it sound so easy.

I just had this schedule and then, yes.

Everything was on point because if something, if I missed something, then then it would just fall apart.

And so, yeah.

And you did this for four years because now you do know is really now a days.

It's unheard of for someone to go through and get their degree in four years.

So you're making it sound like, Oh, I just had to do the time management.

But what you did was incredible because you set that goal for yourself, right?

Yeah.

So I, so go to, um, um, um, can I get my degree in four years?

And, uh, and, uh, yeah, I, my mom and my dad, I think they took a little bit longer, but it's all right.

Um, uh, some of us took a little bit longer.

Yes, it's all right.

It's all right.

Um, but, um, yeah, I the goal to get in four years and I accomplished that, but how I accomplished that was my.

My hard work ethic.

I have a really, um, I have a hard work ethic that helped me get that.

And, um, it's just to if you want to accomplish anything in life, it's just hard work and that's it.

Oh, that's it.

I'm done.

Well, with that being said, before we finish our interview together, I want to transition you to why you are doing what you're doing today, because it is a passion for you.

So when did you decide that you were going to use your experiences to encourage the next generation?

Um, it was probably a year ago on your goals.

So, uh, I just wanted to impact others, whether it's social media or interviews.

Um, speaking, uh, I just want to add value to somebody's life.

Uh, and if one thing I like is when somebody sees my social media posts and they've gotten value from it and they either DM or text me saying that I've gotten value this homie that just like made my day like it's, yeah, it made my day.

Like I go to bed happy every time.

And I when I hear that.

And it's sharing your struggles and how you've accomplished what you have today, it's motivating others to get in touch with you and share their own experiences.

Yeah.

Basically.

Yeah, I, I go on social media and I, I share videos, strategies, tips on, on how you can fly overseas, challenges and overcome them.

Well, I wanted you to share this story because I think it's so important not only with what you're doing, but how you have turned from the inside out to get to your own goals and accomplishments.

So before we end our conversation today, can you let our audience know how we can support you and what are your next steps?

Um, So how you can support me, just follow me on on Instagram and my handle is Nicholas Underscore LLC and uh, and uh, yeah, just follow my social media of like you can like on my videos and if you have a kids question out there and uh, I was looking for a speaker at your school, I would love to come speak on, I would do for free and um, yeah.

Well, you didn't have to through the free thing and at least pay Nick for gas.

Okay?

Oh, Nick, thank you so much.

You are the reason why people like myself go into education.

We love to see you grow and blossom, but on top of that, that you are giving back.

You are a testament not only to your parents, but to Concordia University as well.

So thank you so much.

And we'll make sure to get all that information out to share with our audience.

Thank you.

And thank you for joining us on everybody with Angela Williamson, viewers like you make this show possible, join us on social media to continue this conversation.

Good night and stay well.

Hi, I'm Angela Williamson, host of Everybody with Angela Williamson.

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