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In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the Prophets and Messengers.
Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his followers.
Peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his followers.
Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his followers.
My brothers and sisters, I’m sitting here in one of my favourite places in Mitinayu Park.
On the bank of this stream, which flows through the park.
This is spring, so there are no mosquitoes.
But later on, it becomes a bit of a test sitting here because of the mosquitoes.
But right now, it’s absolutely fabulous.
It’s early in the morning and you see the sun shining on the waters.
Very, very, very beautiful part of the world.
And one of my favourite haunts, I walk here from my house and
. . .
I go around the park.
It’s not a very big park, but I walk from my house, I go around the park and I walk back.
And that is about six miles.
So this is my Mashghala.
Alhamdulillah, I want to talk about three things.
Let’s see how many of them we can hear.
Maybe the first one.
Question which gets, which I get asked because of my leadership development practice
and . . .
the mistaken impression people have of my wisdom.
People ask me, how can I become influential?
And of course, by definition, they also mean wealthy, but they don’t actually say that in so many words.
But how can I become influential?
How can I become powerful?
Now, the answer is very simple.
And first of all, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be influential and powerful.
Because what is the alternative?
To be powerless and uninfluential, nobody cares about you, you are a sort of, you know,
a slave to people or something.
No, that’s not an alternative.
So, wanting to be influential and powerful is good.
How do you do that?
The answer is pretty simple.
You do that by three things, by doing three things.
Number one is help people.
Number two, become a cover for people, hide people’s faults.
Become a cover of Allah for people, hide people’s faults.
And number three is add value to people.
So, three things.
I want you to keep these three things in mind and we’ll talk about them and we’ll see how much, what we can do to this.
So, first of them is help people.
Secondly is hide people’s faults.
And I call it become Allah’s cover for people.
And that’s my brother’s term for it.
I shall have a very beautiful and wise brother.
Hide people’s faults, become Allah’s cover for people.
And the third thing is to add value to people.
So, let’s see how do you do that.
Help people.
Very, very simple.
Go around looking for ways in which you can help people.
And some of these ways are so simple, it’s unbelievable.
We live in America and one of the joys of American life is that you get to take out your own light, own trash.
So, in West Springfield where we live on our street, Wednesdays are trash days.
Every Wednesday the trash goes.
Every other Wednesday also recycling material goes.
Each one of them has a different bin and each bin is about almost four and a half feet tall, quite big.
And you might say, why do you need such a big bin for trash?
Well, you live in America, you know why.
Truly, the American lifestyle creates more trash and garbage than I’ve ever seen in my life.
More paper, cardboard, plastics, you name it.
Unbelievable amount of stuff that gets wasted.
So, the issue of taking out trash.
Now, you put the bins out in early morning, the trash truck comes around usually about eight-ish.
But depending on where you are, I mean, obviously it can’t come at eight o’clock in everybody’s house.
So, it comes along when it comes along.
You go after it.
You go after work and your trash bins are still sitting there in front of your house on the sidewalk or something,
which looks bad, which looks nasty.
So, what I started doing was, since I have flexible working hours,
I started if I saw, say, about nine o’clock, trash is gone
and my neighbor’s bins are still out there,
I would just go across because I would come out to bring my bins back into the garage.
So, I would also walk across to the neighbor’s house, take their bins, put them in front of the garage and that’s it.
I didn’t send them a note or I didn’t call them or not.
Just take the bins, put them there, that’s it.
You’ll be amazed how much difference that makes.
What a huge impression it made.
My neighbor came across me and said, you know, you are a good man.
He said, we have lived here, people have been here 20 plus years, no one has done anything like this before.
Something as simple as that.
And of course, everything has a return curve to that,
which is that now it’s almost like a competition between me and my neighbor to say who can grab whose trash cans first and put them where they belong.
So, if I take my trash cans and put them where they belong, I don’t have to worry about it.
So, if I delay a little bit on some day, I hear my trash cans being rolled up the driveway,
and I know my neighbor has beaten me to it.
And now he, husband, wife, one of them has taken the trash cans and brought them in front of our garage.
Help people.
You will be surprised how many different things, ways in which you can help people.
Another thing which we do is,
when our, again, started with just, you know, casual thing.
But now, any time we go out anywhere, we leave for a few days,
we tell our neighbors we are going to be away for this period of time.
And can you please keep an eye on the house?
And they do.
And we do the same thing for them.
And once my neighbor said to me, we are going to Florida, could you please keep an eye on the house?
And I did.
One day I was sitting in my study and I saw a car come into their house.
So, I went down and I just walked over and said, hi, how are you doing, what’s up?
You know, my neighbors and I don’t want to take their name here, but they are out, can I help you?
So, this person said, no, no, no, thank you very much.
They called me and I am so and so and this is my address and this is my phone number.
They are very particular about all these things.
And he asked me to do this thing for him.
And I said, no, no, no, no, thank you very much.
They are very particular about all these things.
And he asked me to do this thing for him.
You know, in the house.
I said, sure, no problem.
So, we check on each other, helping.
At work, maybe you know some technology, right?
Especially nowadays, a lot of young people.
It’s a huge opportunity for you to get a lot of brownie points which will come in, very useful.
You know some technology and almost by this, it’s not always the rule, but almost by definition, young people know these technologies better than older people.
So, you know some technology.
You know some technology.
You know some technology.
You know some technology.
You know some technology.
So, you have older colleagues who may be struggling with something.
Just offer to help them.
Can I help you with that?
Can I do this for you?
Now, obviously, I’m not saying turn into a doormat where everyone, you know, sometimes
you say the reward of good work is more work.
So, don’t fall into that trap.
Feel free at, if you feel that you’re being taken advantage of or somebody is, you know,
making a career out of asking you for things, then politely say, sure, absolutely.
say, sure, absolutely, I’ll do that
as soon as I finish the
work which I’m doing. And the work
which I’m doing is going to take me
another 10 days. So, you know, after
that, I’m
saying that, you know, like putting
away. But the point being that you are
making clear that, look, I’m
happy to help you, but
you know, don’t impose. Also
remember that I have a life and I
have work to do and I have assignments and so on.
So, without getting into arguments,
you can do that very politely, very
subtly, and there’s
no problem with that. But help people.
Look for opportunities to help people.
No matter who they are,
what they are, I don’t want to go into
a long list of things that you can do,
but just look around yourself
and you will find opportunities to
help people. Volunteer
for things. Volunteer for school.
Volunteer in schools.
Volunteer in your
city affairs. Just volunteer.
Don’t ask for money. Believe me, if you just
volunteer without asking for money,
you will get a lot of work. And you can
pick and choose what makes sense to you
and you gain a lot of experience.
They can’t give you money, but they can’t
stop you from getting experience, and experience
is worth money. So, it’s like that, right?
So, just volunteer.
All kinds of things. Walk
somebody’s dog or something, you know.
It’s seriously
the amount of
leverage you can get
by helping people make this
into a habit. And of course, as you know,
all of this is also
earning you rewards with Allah
subhanahu wa ta’ala. Because helping people
is, you know, this is one of the
good deeds that you can do. And
it is a sadaqah jariyah
because this
works in your favor when you meet Allah
subhanahu wa ta’ala. All of these,
all of this is sadaqah jariyah.
So, I remind myself and you,
let us do that. Let us make sure
that we
help people
and we become influential
in the process.
Don’t think I need to remind you.
Maybe let me remind you, in closing
with one of the beautiful
stories from the life of Rasulullah
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, where one day
he came out of his house in Makkah
and he was going somewhere
and he saw this old lady with
her baggage
standing by the side of the road.
So, he greeted
her and he said, my mother, can I help you?
She said, you know,
I need to take,
I need somebody to help me.
Take this stuff to the
place where caravans go from.
It’s like saying, can you help me get to the bus stand
or something, or the railway
station.
So, Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, sure.
He picked up her things, put it on
his shoulders and they’re walking there
and this lady says, you know,
you are such a nice man and so on,
but in this town. He asked her,
where are you going? She said, no, I’m leaving town.
I’m going away to
some other place where
I don’t want to live in Makkah anymore.
So, Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
this is very strange. Why would you not want to live
in Makkah? He said, because
you know, there is this man called Muhammad and he
is inviting people
to change their religion. He’s inviting people to
worship only Allah,
worship only one God. We are people of,
we worship many gods, we worship
idols and he’s saying, all this is
wrong, you mustn’t do it. And
this is turning
son against father, daughter against father,
mother, because
young people get these ideas
and
they are challenging their elders
and so, so much of
turmoil is happening
in this land and it’s all the fault
of this
man Muhammad. Now, while they are
going,
Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is listening to the story,
saying nothing, just
listening and
you know, helping
this old lady
and they continue
and then she says, you know, look at you,
you are such a wonderful man
you are so helpful and I
didn’t know who to ask
how would I get to the
bus stand
for that, it’s not a bus stand
in their case but
and then suddenly it strikes her
and she says, what is your name?
And she says,
he says, my name is Muhammad
bin Abdullah
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
She said, which Muhammad?
He said, the one that you have been talking about.
She said,
SubhanAllah, you are Muhammad.
She said, yes.
Now she’s shocked.
She stops.
She says, if you are Muhammad,
then turn around.
He says, to what?
To turn around, do what?
He said, no, let’s go back.
I will not leave town.
Because if you are this person,
then, you know,
what’s the problem?
Then, I will not leave town.
Now, how does that happen?
By akhlaq, by Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
helping this lady.
Help people.
Do things for people.
Don’t seek reward.
Don’t seek payment.
Don’t even think about it.
Obviously, I know you won’t ask for it
but don’t even think about it.
Just do it for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala
and lo and behold,
you will become
the most influential person
in your place.
And may Allah’s peace be upon him and his family
and his companions.
May Allah’s mercy be upon him and his family.
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