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The troubling decline in conscientiousness – https://www.ft.com/content/5cd77ef0-b546-4105-8946-36db3f84dc43
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My brothers and sisters, I get asked this question, which goes that I want you to be
a mentor. So I say, please write down, write me a letter or note in which I want you to
list your challenges, your questions and your goals from this mentorship relationship. And
why are you asking me to be a mentor?
To be a mentor. To be your expectations. So I get this answer. Can I just call you
and tell you? Can I send you a voice recording? So I said, no, you can’t call and tell me.
We will speak on the phone obviously at some point, but not now. And you can’t send me
a voice recording. What you can do and you should do is,
write the thing down, send me a note. And the reason for that is because when you write
things down, there is a connection. There are actual connections between, neurological
connections between your writing and your thinking. Ideally speaking, write on paper
with a pen. Not even on your laptop or phone. Sit down with paper and pen and write. So
that’s the reason.
So I say, please write down.
Okay.
There is an actual relationship between the act of writing and thinking. And that is the
next positive relationship. What it does is that writing clarifies your thinking. Writing
clarifies your thinking. So as you are writing down and you write down this is my problem,
the answer itself will come to you. So you will discover that, well, I thought this was
a problem, but actually maybe it’s not. Maybe I already have an answer. So I thought I needed
this mentor for this reason and I don’t. So alhamdulillah, good for you. So sit down and
write. And then once you have done that writing, then list those things, that whole list of
things you put there, list them in order of priority. Which is the most important? Which
is the next? Which is the next?
Okay.
Okay.
So in order to do that, in order to list the priority, you have to have a goal because
there is no way that you can prioritize something unless you have a goal. Get it? So something
is more important. Why? Because it helps me to achieve my goal in the most energy efficient,
carbon efficient, calorie efficient, you know.
Okay.
Brain power efficient.
Be efficient, 따라 masi We’re making every experiment possible because
they just want it in their wonderland, the …
So this one is the mo inb priority because this is…
Oh my God.
This is the one spot, be patient.
Because even though it may not be efficient in all these ways, but it will be
more difficult and so on, so on, so on, it gives me the biggest bang for the buck. It
gives me the biggest advantage, it is the biggest rock that I have to take care of.
It is the forest
frog that I have to eat,
Do you know the level of quality?
frog I have to eat. It is the elephant in the room. Call it whatever you want. We have
lots of metaphors and lots of, you know, examples we talk about, but you solve the biggest problem.
The rest of it can only be, you know, easier because the most difficult one you did. You
slew the dragon. The dragon is dead. Now, whatever else is there, even if it’s a tiger,
even if it’s a lion, it’s not as bad as a dragon. It’s not breathing fire, right? So,
therefore, you’ve done your job. Makes it easier. So, define that. Prioritize it. Which one,
which one? In this context, what people get confused is, and I get this all the time.
Oh, Shaikh, but you know, what you’re saying is true, but it’s not easy. So, I tell them yes.
Now, let’s therefore understand one more thing, which is, you sit down and ask yourself,
which do you want?
Because these are two opposite things. Which do you want? You want success or you want easy?
The two are not the same. The two are never the same. You want success or you want easy?
Which one do you want? So, you’re looking at a tree. We are now walking in
Ashiro the Wild. So, we’re going through the forest part of it. It’s beautiful, very, very tall.
Aspens and poplars as well. A lot, very tall tree, maybe a hundred foot tall,
maybe more. So, suppose I say, well, if somebody comes to me and says, you know,
I want to get to the top of the tree, what shall I do? What should you do? I say, start climbing.
Right? Start climbing or learn to fly. What else? Start climbing. He says, no, but that’s not easy.
Yeah, sure. You told me you want to get to the top of the tree. You told me that you want to get to
the top of the tree. You didn’t say you want easy. You want easy, go sit by the trunk of the tree on
the bottom. And if you sit down, you get…
That’s gravity assisted. Gravity will help you. You don’t have to make an effort to go down.
You have to make an effort to go up. And that’s the principle of tower dynamics, right?
The law of entropy. The law of entropy is that without effort, everything goes down.
Nothing goes up. Without effort, everything goes down.
If you have a house and you make no effort over it, it will deteriorate. It will not improve.
Suddenly, one morning, you don’t wake up and find, oh my God, it’s a beautiful, a new color.
No. You have a car, you make no effort, it deteriorates. It goes down. It doesn’t become
better. You can’t say, well, you know, it had a blown up gasket and overnight now the gasket is
back. No, it won’t. Right? If you have a garden and you make no effort over it, it will deteriorate.
If you have a garden and you make no effort, it grows weeds. A weed is a plant. A rosebush is also
a plant. Gladioly are also plants. The garden will not grow gladioly and rosebushes. The garden
will grow weeds. You might say it’s strange. It is strange, but that’s how it is, right? Your body
makes no effort and you turn into a basket case, which is good for the
health system because you make a, you help a lot of different specialists to make a lot of money.
Thanks to you. You make no effort. It always deteriorates. Whatever it is, your relationships,
you get married, no effort, the marriage will break up. Your relationship with your friends,
make no effort, the relationship will go. Everything needs effort,
needs follow through. I don’t know how many of you play golf, but if you play golf,
you understand one very important thing. The first thing my caddy taught me when I was,
when I was learning, he said the most important thing is to follow the ball, keep your eye on the
ball and follow through with the club. So you hit the ball, you turn your body, keep your feet in
the same place. You turn your body completely and your club is over your shoulder and your eye is
on the ball. You’re seeing where the club is. You’re seeing where the club is. You’re seeing where
the ball is going. He said, that is the most important thing. And that makes sure that the
ball will go the furthest. Now I can tell you the reasons of physics. I can tell you reasons of
logic that this is nonsense because once my club has hit the ball, I have no control over that ball.
Whether I look at it, whether I sing to it, whether I weep over it, whether I ignore it,
the ball will do what the ball is supposed to do according to the laws of physics, which are
that the momentum the ball got from the shot of the club will take it that far depending on the
air resistance that it is meeting as it is flying through the air. That is the physics of it.
But believe it or not, if you don’t keep your eye on the ball, somehow it doesn’t work. Right?
Now, I don’t believe in magic. I don’t believe in magic. I don’t believe in magic. I don’t believe in
magic and all that. All I’m saying is that this is a indication. Forget the ball and the golf. This
is an indication of what life is. Your ball, which is your goal, will happen if you follow through.
If you show up, the key thing is show up. That’s why when somebody comes to me and says, I want you
to be a mentor, and if the guy is a Muslim, I tell him, come back after 12 months. Come back after
365 days.
And in the 365 days, I want you to pray tahajjud every single day without fail. And I don’t care
what happens to you. But if you’re alive, you have prayed two rakat tahajjud. You must pray two rakat
of tahajjud at least every single day for 365 days. Then come back. I will accept you. And if
you miss on the 364th day, you missed, you go back to day one. You start counting. You start counting.
So alhamdulillah, I have no murids. I have no murids. I’m very happy about that. And if you think I’m insane, let me tell you some story of somebody who is not insane, definitely. And that is one of our greatest scholars of the subcontinent, Marana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, Rahatul Ali.
He had a rule that if anyone came to him and said, I want to be a murid, I want you to be my mentor, my musleh, he would tell them, write me 40 letters.
Over whatever period of time it takes. 40 letters. Explaining why. Why do you want me to be your
shaykh? 40 letters. Can you imagine? That is the reason. Because before they even accept you,
they want to make sure that you’re not going to be wasting their time. They want to make sure that
you are not going to be wasting their time. They want to make sure that you have
the sincerity and you have the persistence to be able to see it through. So if you can’t even write
40 letters, and in my case, if you can’t pray tahajjud 365 days, then you know, you are not
serious. So I make this rule. My point is this, that nothing that is worth doing or happening in
life is easy.
I’m reading a very eye opening thread on Twitter about this present generation. Be me, I’m not bad talking anybody. I’m not beating up this generation. I just want to open the eyes of this generation to what they are doing to themselves. And what they’re allowing the clever people in this world who are using this generation as their base to become wealthy and to become influential.
And how this generation is selling themselves, not even cheap, they’re donating themselves free. Because of this, because of no staying power, no follow through, no consistency, no showing up, where they have been convinced somehow, morning, they’ve been convinced that their life is not going to be the same.
So I’m reading this, that nothing that is worth doing or happening in life is easy. So I’m reading this, that nothing that is worth doing or happening in life is not going to be the same.
So I’m reading this, that nothing that is worth doing or happening in life is not going to be the same.
So I’m reading this, that nothing that is worth doing or happening in life is not going to be the same.
May Allah bless all of them. All of them are equally in set. So we get up at six o’clock in the morning, we get up earlier than that, alhamdulillah. But we get out on the street at six in the morning and we walk five miles, six miles.
So the point to make here is that liking means nothing.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala mentioned it in the Quran.
Where Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala told us in Surah Yusuf.
Right?
Right?
Yusuf alayhi salam, a Nabi of Allah, with all the protections of that.
He is saying, my likes will take me to sin.
Nafs al-Amar is what?
It’s likes.
Nafs al-Amar is likes.
It’s likes.
He is saying, my likes, bahawa.
Hawa.
That’s why Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala called the Abdul Hawa as a mushrik.
Allah did not say they like their desires.
No, Allah said they have made their desires into the object of worship.
They have made their desires into their deity.
They are doing ibadah of their desires.
They are worshipping their desires.
Now the question is,
is this how I want to define my life?
In my case, of course not.
I mean, absolutely not.
I never did my whole life and I’m too old to start now.
And alhamdulillah, I’ve seen the results of my single-minded focus
and my ability to deliver what I promise.
Gives me results.
Gives me phenomenal and beautiful results.
So I’m not going to change.
My point is,
you,
whoever you are listening to this,
wherever you are in the world,
define yourself.
And ask yourself,
you want to live ruled by your likes?
That’s how a pig lives.
Eats whatever he wants.
Sloshes around in the dirt all day.
Yeah, he doesn’t care.
He doesn’t care.
He’s living by his likes.
So if that is the life you want, well,
that’s a choice you make.
But if that’s not the life you want,
then that also is a choice.
And I would strongly recommend make that choice.
So very quickly recap.
Number one, get your life goal true.
And decide on your goal in your life.
Why do you live?
Why do you exist?
What will happen when you cease to exist?
What will happen if you go away?
What is that?
What is that?
What is that?
What is that?
What is that?
What is that?
What is that?
What is that?
Need in society, need in where you live that you are satisfying.
Right?
That’s number one.
Number two, therefore, everything you say and do must be calibrated based on that.
And say, what is the most important one?
What is the one which has the greatest leverage to help me to achieve this goal?
Number two.
Number three, now get up and work.
Get up and work.
Get up and work.
Get up and work.
Make your work into something you love.
Think about this.
We like holidays.
People like to go on holidays, right?
The holiday industry.
Ask how many people who run the industry go on holidays.
But anyway, so you go on holidays.
Now, how many holidays can you take in a year?
Most people, one.
Duration, two weeks.
Let’s assume that you are not most people.
You are the special people.
And you can take two holidays.
So now you’ve got a month.
So month you’re taking holidays.
You ask, why are you taking?
Oh, you know, I really want free time to do what I really like to do.
Okay, fantastic.
Right?
Good.
You have some free time to do what you really like to do for one month out of 12.
So by your own definition, the other 11 months, you are doing something that you do not like to do.
You’re doing something which you don’t.
You’re doing something which you would rather not be doing.
And tell me, do you need more evidence of your insanity?
Do you really need more evidence to show how stupid you have made yourself by focusing on the wrong thing?
How about this?
That if you were doing something you liked, then you won’t need a holiday because every day is a holiday.
12 months of the year.
You can do anything that you like.
Think about this.
Take any person, man or woman in this world who achieved something of repute.
Something worth talking about.
Right?
Something which of value.
Take inventors.
Take scientists.
Take technologists.
Take the prophets.
Take people who.
Spend, you know, like Jane Goodall, for example.
She spent her whole life with the chimpanzees and the gorillas in the Congo working for their conservation and so on.
And there are many such people who are working in the environment for conservation of animals and so forth.
Take anyone like that and ask how many holidays do they take in a year?
I can bet you that the only time they take off from their work is if they have a problem.
Right?
They need some medical attention or they need to go find something for somebody.
Otherwise, they’re living the life.
They’re living a life of pure pleasure because they’re doing what they like to do.
And in the process, they are achieving enormous things.
In some cases, they make money, but money making money is not the objective.
Doesn’t matter if you make money as long as you’re doing something which has value.
And if you look at all the.
If you look at all.
The discoveries, the scientific discoveries and so on, you find people who made no money.
Right?
Madame Curie, for example.
How much money did she make?
I can list for you a list of scientists, right?
People who discovered somebody who discovered penicillin, for example, right?
Completely changed the lives of millions of people.
Millions of people didn’t die anymore because of penicillin.
Thanks to the work of one person.
The person who discovered quinine.
Which beat malaria, which is another major killer.
Didn’t happen anymore because somebody took the trouble.
And some of the stories are absolutely to read the story will be incredible.
You’ll be absolutely.
I don’t know.
I know what to say because they’re so unusual and so amazing.
But people did that because they were so dedicated.
They loved what they were doing.
And that’s why I recommend this.
Sensei.
Forget about what you like.
Do what has value and learn to like that.
If you do your passion, you don’t even have to learn to like it.
You will like it.
That’s why it’s called your passion.
A passion is different from pain.
Right?
A passion may take a lot of effort, but it’s not pain.
It’s joy.
You love doing that.
If you are passionate about golf, you will love hitting 1000 balls on the in the morning on the on the team.
Right?
Because you love it.
You want to make sure that you your strokes are good.
And same thing for for take Kobe Bryant Kobe Bryant didn’t go to the gym because he loved it because he because he was trying to make money.
He did it because he loved it and he loved it.
He knew why he was doing it because without that he would be he would lose out.
So I want to conclude by saying that success comes from taking the right decisions and the right decisions.
And if you are successful, you will get better.
You will get better.
You will get better.
You will get better.
You will get better.
Your decision is do you really want to succeed or not?
What’s up?
Allah Allah.
Nabi Karim Ali.
He was a bit.
Maybe I’m thinking of horror.