Business, sports, spirituality—for Nasser Zaghi, it all comes down to a dancedone with love.
Born in Shiraz, Iran in 1945, Zaghi came tothe United States with his wife Ashraf in 1978 (they now have three daughters: Gloria, Tanya, and Dalia). In Iran, he had been a successful civil engineer and a nationally known volley ball champion (think Joe Montana stature). He was also well known for many construction projects in Shiraz.
Starting over in the states, Zaghi’s first challenge was to get a driver’s license. Then he embarked
on building a new life, studying real estate and construction, as well as taking courses in contract and criminal law. He rallied friends and acquaintances to create partnerships for investment and development. Zaghi also became active and well-known in local Bay Area community organizations, including the Iranian Jewish organization (he was the founder of this organization in Iran).
When the construction industry was hard hitby the economic downturn of the recession, Zaghi turned to another field, creating Vivon, a chain of clothing stores. Vivon has been a very successful venture, which Zaghi continues to run. In an article he wrote during the Reagan years, called “Zaghinomics,” he described his research into the reasons for failures of businesses in the U.S. He concluded that the two main contributing factors were overhead and middlemen. Controlling those two factors was Zaghi’s road to business success.
Zaghi was ordained by AIWP in October, 2001, with the title Spiritual Messenger. His belief and philosophy is that we must “dance with life.”To do that, we must believe that “love is the solution.” We must believe in acceptance, we must be fair, and we must always make sure that we do our best. Because of this philosophy of acceptance and fairness, and his habit of always evaluating to be sure he is doing his best, Zaghi says he never feels sorry, bad, frustrated, or “like a loser,” nor does he experience negativity. He states that religion is a very personal thing, and that prejudice is the greatest problem in the world today. When we can prevent prejudice, there will be peace. War is due to hatred. The only solution is creating love between people.
He believes that our country’s laws against discrimination, which give us all the same rights and freedom to follow our religions without persecution,are a primary reason that we are doing so well here. This is one of the few places in the world where such freedom exists.
Zaghi doesn’t believe that we need to ask God to help us. God is fair and helps everyone. According to him, the challenge is to “live a good life, be useful to people, be a good person, take nothing personally, dance with life. Love has no bad side effects.”
Zaghi can be reached through the AIWP
office at 707.586.9498
