My name is X. I help small businesses grow into profitable, scalable, exit-ready brands.

My name is Hasani X (Aka “X”). I’m CEO and founder of Chiefs of Story, a business performance coach/investor, professional speaker, and most recently focused on helping businesses become exit-ready through strategic growth and brand development.

I grew up in the streets of Oakland, California – where I developed an inner-belief, strength, and conviction when everything around me said the opposite. And the truth is, without a STORY of possibility guiding me, I wouldn’t be here today.

That said, even with a driving purpose, it wasn’t easy. So I jumped right in starting my entrepreneurial journey at nine years old. I sold ninja stars, husky pencils, my mamma’s tacos, and whatever else I could.

These experiences, combined with my dad forcing me to go to Toastmasters meetings to speak, helped me to hone two highly valuable and transferable skills. How to sell and communicate. Or said differently, I learned how to tell a damn great STORY.

Eventually, I overcame the odds and became the first person in my family to go to college. And to give you context, my high-school started with about 500 freshmen, but only about 38 of us graduated.

While at UPenn, I founded A.U.N (All You Need) Marketing. It was about the sheer hustle of getting clients everything they needed to promote their brand and STORY.

After graduating, I founded 4e Consulting, a business growth firm that combined gorilla marketing and strategic business consulting.

Fast forward a couple of years, I was crushing it in business, happily married with two kids and life was all good. Then one day, I received a call from my mom…

Hi Mom “Hasani they killed him, he’s dead…” Wait, what? “Your brother is dead…”

My younger brother Ramin was shot and killed back home in Oakland, California.

As I put the phone down stunned and heartbroken, my mind flashed back to our last conversation.

We were arguing over something, but it ended when he said…

“You were never there for me… You weren’t the big brother I needed!”

At the time I shrugged him off because I wasn’t going to take the blame for his shit. I handled my business. He should have been able to handle his (period).

But that day, starring in the mirror, I realized that I’d always been dedicated to doing what it took to succeed, but ran away when it came to leading others.

Being honest and RAW with myself, I soon realized that I was comfortable doing just about anything but leading others. I thought…

Who was I to lead? Who was I to say what’s right? Who was I to say this is where we are going?

This realization pushed me to explore and experiment at the edges of personal growth and leadership. I knew that I had to develop a new STORY that went beyond personal success and into the realm of leading.

So I began facing my deepest fears by jumping out of planes, becoming a professional cage fighter (crazy story), mind hacking and exploring spiritual growth through 1,000’s of hours meditating, fasting weeks on end on nothing but water to studying with the worlds best minds on human psychology and performance to developing my own innovations in personal breakthrough science.

Over time I pushed into the personal development space through speaking and coaching leaders on how to build their businesses, life, and legacy (BLL). It was on this path that I finally found my true MISSION.

To build people and businesses.

Feeling the gratification of helping others to break through, I decided to go all in. I exited 4e Consulting, divested all other investment projects and founded Rise of a Leader as an out of the box leadership and team development company.

It was here that I created the Living Leadership Model. A model I’ve used working with presidents of publicly traded companies down to prisoners facing a life behind bars.

In short, anyone who would listen, I helped them with my Breakthrough Performance Science. Because here’s the truth, success principles don’t care about who you are or where you come from. If you Lead It, Live It, and Love it, you’ll eventually breakthrough!

This journey eventually led me to found Lead Your Story, where I discovered that building businesses and building culture were one and the same. We used STORY to drive leads, business growth, and build strong leaders and teams. It was powerful work, but I began to realize we were still treating symptoms, not the disease.

Then in 2022, a past client broke my heart…

She called to tell me her business was shutting down. After decades of work, she was losing everything. No savings. No exit plan. No way out.

She said, “I wish I’d focused on building a business that could sell—one that could thrive without me.”

That phone call hit me hard…

So I started reaching out to other old clients. Same story. Over and over. Good people worked hard all their lives. Now, they face regret for not creating a sellable business.

Then I looked at the research…

Baby boomers own 12 million businesses. Yet, only 30% have a clear exit strategy. Worse still, only 20% of businesses listed for sale actually sell. This means that more than 8 million businesses are at risk of shutting down without selling.

That’s when it hit me… I was part of the problem.

As a consultant, I came in to make things look better. We’d sharpen the story. Fix the messaging. Tweak the funnel. And it worked—more leads, more revenue.

But you can only claim to be better than the market for so long. Eventually, they’ll copy your promotion. Start saying the same thing. Putting you back on the treadmill, trying to find NEW messaging to drive leads.

That’s when it dawned on me…

Marketers do not build great brands—leaders do. Because a strong and enduring brand is more SHOW than TELL. It relies on having a great product, an amazing experience, and a community that cares. These traits help a brand stand out and be different. Leading to customers who love them. And as importantly, competitors that can’t copy them.

I realized then that I was treating symptoms, not the disease.

So I left my consulting company. Shut down for two years. Vanished from social media, and did only the bare minimum work. Then, in 2025, I launched Chiefs of Story (COS) as the solution.

We offer two paths (BUY or BUILD).

For hardworking owners looking to sell, we offer a simple and fast exit. It’s a win for everyone. Owners get to exit and transition with dignity. Their team and legacy live on. And we get to do what we love – the work of building an exit-ready brand.

If the owner is ready to BUILD. We partner to help them grow their small business into a profitable, scalable, exit-ready brand.

Having the good fortune of being able to sit and review my life I can say that over the last 20 years, I’ve founded multiple successful companies, helped to grow hundreds of businesses as a consultant, coached hundreds of leaders and teams, given over 1,000 presentations, speeches and workshops, all while being happily married for 17+ years, raising 3 kids, and being fulfilled and living on my terms.

And in mapping out the next 20 years, I’ve decided to focus on what I believe matters most: helping business owners build exit-ready companies that can thrive without them—because every hardworking entrepreneur deserves the freedom to choose their next chapter.

Out… X