August 31, 2025 • 62 mins
What if everything you've been taught about making life choices is fundamentally flawed? Hussein Halek, founder and CEO of Next Decentrum, believes we're approaching life all wrong – and he has a refreshing perspective on how to fix it.
"We never get trained on our choices," Hussein explains, highlighting how our education system prepares us for careers but fails to teach us the most crucial skill of all: how to make meaningful decisions. From childhood through early adulthood, we're given few opportunities to practice choice-making, then suddenly thrust into a world that demands constant decisions. No wonder we feel overwhelmed and uncertain.
Hussein's philosophy, detailed in his new book "The Dark Art of Life Mastery," offers a powerful alternative. He suggests we operate on three levels – personal, community, and systemic – with our greatest power lying in our personal choices. Yet modern life has disrupted this natural balance, leaving us with little time for meaningful connection or reflection. "We barely make one or two choices a day," he observes, despite choice-making being our "biggest power."
This conversation goes far beyond self-help platitudes. Hussein challenges conventional wisdom about business, arguing that companies weren't created primarily to make money but to serve customers through principles like honesty and integrity. He explores how storytelling shapes our perception of reality and how innovation isn't just about technology but about creating meaningful value.
What makes this episode truly special is Hussein's ability to blend philosophical depth with practical wisdom. Whether discussing his work making art accessible through Momentable or explaining how to develop "shorthand" decision-making processes, he offers concrete strategies for living with greater purpose and intention.
Ready to transform how you approach life's choices? Listen now and discover why Hussein believes that despite life's unpredictability, we can master it through conscious choice-making and meaningful contribution.
Hussein’s new book, The Dark Art of Life Mastery, is out now and available!
The full episode drops Sunday, August 31st, and you don’t want to miss it!
Connect with Hussein:
Website: husseinhallak.com
Substack: husseinhallak.substack.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/husseinhallak
BlueSky: darkal777.bsky.social
Instagram: instagram.com/hhdarkal
Facebook
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today I'm honored to welcome Hussein Halek, founder
and CEO of Next Decentrum,global entrepreneur and author
of the new book the Dark Art ofLife.
Mastery Hussein has spent hiscareer using technology and
storytelling to createmeaningful change across
Vancouver, new York, Cairo andDubai.
(00:23):
I always take time to researchmy guests before we sit down and
I have to confess, goingthrough your work, hussein, left
me completely blown away.
The way you continue toinfluence people is
extraordinary, and what struckme most is how clearly your
philosophy on life comes throughin everything you do.
(00:44):
Clearly, your philosophy onlife comes through in everything
you do.
Your mission is clear to helppeople live with purpose and
intention in a world that'sconstantly changing.
Hussein, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Thank you very much for having me.
I'm so glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I am very happy you're here too.
Okay, you've lived and builtacross very different parts of
the world.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I mean you've been everywhere.
Canada.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Almost everywhere.
I mean what I've, and there'sprobably more than what I was
able to find on you, but Canada,the United States, egypt, dubai
and yet there's this commonthread of resilience and
leadership in your story.
Can you tell us a little bitabout your journey and what
resilience has meant in yourlife?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, thank you for the question and so glad to be
here.
I ended up pursuing a lot ofthe things that was available to
me rather than, let's say, thestuff that I really wanted.
I wanted to be a doctor, andthankfully I am not.
I would have probably notenjoyed it as much, but that's
(01:48):
one of the things that I wanted.
I pursued engineering and lovedcomputers.
I ended up working in such away, but I ended up being a
designer first, and then amarketer, someone who works in
branding, and then, funny enough, the thing that I loved the
most throughout my life, whichis writing, and I've been
writing since I was 16, I endedup being a writer and everything
(02:13):
that I kind of ended up livingwas not something that I thought
myself I would do.
So along the way, I guess whatI was doing is discovering what
can my life be, and I was luckyto be able to live the life that
I've lived so far, and I thinkI'm lucky that I'm excited about
(02:33):
life as much as I was 20 yearsago.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, 20 years ago.
What is that old saying If Ionly knew then what I know now,
it would be a great success.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I think I would be calmer if I knew then what I
know now and I would well.
If I take, let's say, howthings unfolded, I would be much
calmer and I would kind of takeit easy.
But I'm not sure that would behelpful for me because I may not
be here and if I knew how,let's say, geopolitically things
(03:13):
will change, or that we wouldhave climate change, for example
, I would be very depressed likethat.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I know You're right there's a lot of things that's
best we don't know.
I know You're right there's alot of things that's best we
don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, going in, so going in blind can be better.
Yeah, it's like knowing the endof a movie.
You know, like sometimes you,and it's not like that very good
movie, so you kind of like, atleast I don't know, at least
there is some surprise there.
But if you knew you would like,you would not probably waste
your time watching it.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Well, what I've learned even if you knew, you
would not probably waste yourtime watching it.
Well, what I've learned even ifyou knew, you would still do it
again.
You know, I mean, we are guiltyof patterns.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Oh for sure, the human race.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
We repeat over and over all our mistakes.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I think what we do is we remember things and we
relate things.
I would argue that, yeah, wesay, for example, history
repeats itself, but what we areis, I think, we are governed by
the same desires and the sameneeds, so we react in similar
(04:20):
ways to similar situationsbecause we're driven by those
needs, because we are humanbeings at the end of the day.
So we can't expect ourselves tobe a totally different species
because 200 years have passed.
Species usually evolve overmillions of years, hundreds of
thousands of years.
I don't think we can expect Ithink we expect too much of
(04:42):
ourselves from that perspectivethat 20 years have passed, or
you know, this was the 50s andthis is, let's say, 20, 2025.
We should have known better.
Well, we didn't evolve asspecies.
We are the same species.
Yes, we we know more uh, butare because we're driven by
(05:03):
those.
I think that wants and desiresthat are embedded with uh, not
with our way of thinking and ourknowledge.
It's more embedded with ourfeelings and who we are as uh,
or what we are as a species.
I think we're driven by thoseand that's why we repeat
ourselves, not necessarily theirmental, but they're more like
(05:24):
embedded behaviors andtendencies nature yeah,
tendencies yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah, yeah, we, oh those are.
I battle those every daybecause we are just human, you
know.
But let's talk a little bitabout what you're.
When people hear the wordinnovation, they immediately
think technology, and I didnotice you know a lot.
(05:51):
I've looked at a lot of yourwork this past week and, man,
you've done a lot of thingsthrough technology, but
innovation is much bigger thanthat, and I've heard you say
that over and over.
So what does innovation reallymean to you and how can leaders
apply it in their own lives?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
or a new version of something that adds new level of
value.
So that is innovative.
So let's say, this mic now isconnected.
So a wireless mic, for example,will be an innovation because
(06:35):
it allows me to move more.
So the value that I'm gettingfrom the Now, this may not be an
innovation for somebody sittingor in a studio why would I want
that?
Or somebody else who would useit, let's say for movement,
that's considered an innovation.
For somebody sitting or in astudio.
Why would I want that?
For somebody else who would useit, let's say for movement,
that's considered an innovationfor them.
So that is what an innovationis.
To be innovative is tocontinuously think of new
applications for something orwhere you can take it further.
(06:57):
And that's why we say, let'ssay about Apple that, let's say,
the last few versions of theiPhone was not innovative
because it didn't add much value.
It's the same thing, kind ofnew shape, so the value is not
deep, whereas if we think fromthe iPhone, let's say the first
iPhone to, let's say, the thirdiPhone, there's a level of
(07:19):
innovation because the camerawas so much better.
Maybe there is Siri wasintroduced I don't know if it's
the third version or the fourthversion.
So innovation needs to be astep up in the amount of value
that we get and the impact onour lives, and I think why it's
important?
Because it allows leaders alwaysare looking to serve.
(07:43):
What leadership means for me isthat, as a leader, you're
looking for new ways or ways toserve the people that you lead.
Service leadership is veryimportant to make their life
better, to make their well-beingtowards, basically move them
together towards well-being.
So how do you bring themtogether?
(08:05):
How do you create something new, or something what we call
innovative, where it providesmore value to the community,
like, for example, allowing themto do their tasks faster, for
example, or creating a new formof protection?
So these are the kind of thingsthat we call innovations, and
(08:26):
that's why it's important,because if you're stagnant and
there's nothing new, as humanbeings we get bored really fast,
especially right now that weare used to this constant stream
of entertainment.
So, I think there is more demandfor innovation and meaningful
innovation there is more demandfor innovation and meaningful
(08:47):
innovation.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Well, and I love that .
And the reason I asked aboutinnovation is because it plays
such a close part to my messageof the plus one theory.
You know, the plus one theoryis all about doing your best,
plus one more right.
No mediocrity, so, but findingthe desire to apply yourself
like that can sometimes bechallenging in the society that
(09:08):
we have today, you know, becausepeople are really turned into
themselves, I mean.
And really who's saying people,I think, love to hate these
days.
It makes me sad to see that.
So I like to talk aboutkindness, and how can we be
innovative with kindness?
(09:28):
You know, not just you know thetechnology of the world, but,
like you said, with human beingsand with with mindset.
I mean, I was having aconversation.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Sorry, did you want to continue?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
No, no, please, I'm.
I'm welcoming anything you haveto say.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
I was having a conversation around this and it
was an interesting one which isI have a different perspective
on that and I'm writing and I'mstill in discovery.
I have a perspective.
That doesn't mean it is true,but it's a perspective.
I think what we tend to assignfor people is way more than how
(10:09):
it works.
So I think of how we operate onthree levels the personal level
, the community level and thesystemic level.
On the personal level, you'reresponsible for your choices.
We never get trained on ourchoices.
In fact, we put so much intoour choices.
To make a choice usually takestime, for example, to choose who
(10:33):
to be around, to choose whatjob you want to do, and all of
those things.
These are usually things thatwe put so much on it that we
don't become good with ourchoices, and I'll come back to
that in a second.
The second level is community,where we work with others and
where our actions and our wordshave meaning.
Without community, our actions,our words really have not that
(10:58):
much value.
Of course, you can go aroundthe house and rearrange cook for
yourself around the house andyou know, rearrange cook for
yourself but really actions andwords have more meaning and more
impact when there's a community, people around you, where you
know your words kind of have animpact or change people's minds
or impact them or inspire them,or your action serves or helps
(11:21):
people, contributes to people,and the systemic level is where
communities come together toform a country or society and
they collaborate and they tradeand so on and so forth.
That's where systemic forces,kind of are in control.
So what we do is, if we look attoday's world, we look at, let's
(11:41):
say, school School you don't.
What do you learn?
You learn math.
You's say school School youdon't.
What do you learn?
You learn math.
You learn some social science.
You right now they're kind ofhistory, whoever's ruling, they
change the history.
So you learn some of thesethings.
But what you don't learn is youdon't learn how to choose every
day, because all you're doingis you're you, study, study.
(12:02):
You don't choose what you studyvery rarely.
You don't choose is you're youstudy, study.
You don't choose what you studyvery rarely.
You don't choose when to get anexam, you don't choose.
You know, and and you're toldthat you have to win and you
have to get marks, because otherthan that you don't enter into
university and throughout yourlife until you get into
university.
You don't know what universityeven means to you.
(12:24):
So all of that gearing up, andthen you go to university and
you're working hard to gethigher marks because you need to
get a better career, but youstill don't know what that means
and what that means to be anadult and to have
responsibilities.
So the solution for that is toget you to work at a at a coffee
shop, maybe, or a restaurantearlier.
(12:44):
That is the solution to get youto learn what work means later.
All of those things are notthings that are natural for us.
It's things that we made up sothat, in service of the systemic
forces, society needs us towork in a certain way,
especially capitalist society.
You need to go to the job, youneed to be productive.
(13:05):
The more productive you are,the more those companies make
money, government functions, etcetera, et cetera.
That's fine, but that doesn'tmean it has to be your life.
What we've done is in serviceof that.
We broke up the communities.
We don't have time enough tospend time with our community,
to be in service of ourcommunity members, to speak with
(13:25):
our neighbors, because we haveto go to work and we have to
come back.
We barely have enough time withour family and the time when we
have with our family and thenwe barely have time for
ourselves to think our choicesor work with our choices, we
have to browse a few socialmedia and post a few posts and
whatever.
So we never have time to spendwith ourselves to enact our
(13:46):
choices and to choose and to andto run through our choices.
We barely make one or twochoices a day, probably what we
want to eat and what to drink,and that's it.
And even that.
If you ask someone, what do youwant to eat I don't know pizza,
you know.
Even that choice becomes sohard when we should be making.
We're a choice machine.
It's our biggest power, andwe're wondering right now how to
(14:07):
make choices.
Then our communities are brokenapart because we never have the
time to spend that and all weare is in service of systemic
forces.
That doesn't even help us,because at the end of the day,
and after working for hours uponhours, upon hours every day of
the week, we can barely makeends meet.
Most people are.
So all of that.
(14:28):
You cannot hold responsibilityfor it as a person, so you need
to know where you have thebiggest power.
You have power over yourpersonal choices yes, and you
have less power in a community.
In a community, it's all youractions and your words and you
have even less power andsystemic forces.
So what you do is you have tocome together with community in
(14:49):
order to change how things are.
And you have to do that, andthat usually takes a generation.
Changing the community takessometimes months and years.
Changing yourself is a splitsecond.
So where is your biggest power?
It's in your choices, and wespend the least time making as
many choices.
What do you want to drink?
(15:10):
I'll drink tea.
If you don't like it, you canchange it.
But we say I don't know, shouldI drink tea or coffee?
Just pick.
We spend.
I hear I see I'm going to go offon a rant right now.
I hear I see I'm going to gooff on a rant right now.
Please feel free to stop me.
I see those kids who are just.
You know I have to.
You know I don't know what mypassion is.
(15:30):
I don't know what my purpose inlife is.
Pick something.
It should be as easy as playinga game, and I'm not being hard
on them.
The reason why they can't isbecause we're not used to that.
We think of life as if thesechoices.
You know our life depends on it.
It doesn't.
It's just like a game.
You pick a game and if youdon't like it, you pick another
(15:52):
game.
And if you don't like it, youpick another game.
And the faster you do that,what ends up happening is you
end up trying so differentthings in life.
In fact, right now, researchstudies are showing that some of
the best ways to choose acareer is to actually spend a
few months testing a few careeroptions until you know how it
feels, so that you can make thatdecision.
(16:15):
You cannot make it with no data, but what we're doing is like
we're front-loading things likelisten, let's teach you for
everything, let's fill yourbrain with information for
everything and let's destroy anycreative talents.
How much we spend on music?
How much we spend on writing?
And who are the people who areleading the world right now?
Who make the most money?
(16:36):
Who did we celebrate herengagement?
Taylor Swift, and what's hisname?
The other guy who playsfootball and she's a singer.
You know, they're not thescientists, they're not the math
geeks, but what does schoolteach what?
How much time do we spend onart, culture, music?
(16:57):
Nothing, so we front, load itwith so much information, zero
information on what careerchoice.
You look at the media and yousee people that don't look like
you, that don't spend, and wewonder why do we have these gaps
between our thinking andreality?
Well, because we are making upthose gaps from the way we're
(17:17):
thinking and the way we'refollowing.
So what we need to do is weneed to stop and breathe and
start learning, understand thatschool and society didn't
prepare us for life.
Let's just agree on that.
It's the way it is.
You can change it, but cryingover it is not going to help
(17:39):
Changing it.
You have to change it and youhave to act.
But just understand thatworking to change it will
probably benefit the nextgeneration, not just your
generation, and you should do itfor sure.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
And it makes so much sense.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah, understand that .
That's your reality.
And now that you're anchored inreality, now you make choices
based on your reality.
You haven't been trained forlife, so what does that mean?
You need to practice.
It's like somebody throwing youinto a game of basketball when
all you've studied you studiedmath all your life and now
they're throwing you in a gameof basketball.
(18:11):
And you?
It's okay for them to.
Now they throw you here, butit's on you that you expect
yourself.
Well, now I'm playingbasketball.
I should play basketball, likeyou know, michael Jordan.
Why are you putting that onyourself?
It's like we expect that weshould go through life knowing
how to make choices very well.
(18:31):
We punish ourselves for makingbad choices when we haven't been
making any choices throughoutthe last 20 years of our lives.
You didn't choose your parents,you didn't choose your school,
you didn't choose, you didn'thave any information to choose
the career.
And now you're looking back andsay why am I bad at making
choices?
You haven't made any choices,you're just starting your life.
(18:54):
Usually, in old tribes, whatthey do is you.
When you grow out, when you growup and you're an adult, you
have a mentor, you have you havesomeone to learn from.
You have your adults and whatdo you call them?
Elders that you learn, and youaround and you see how they make
choices?
No, at 18, we're thrown intolife and not only that, we're
(19:16):
expected to live outside of ourparents'.
Help Now, you're on your own.
Right now, you have to providefor yourself.
You know, make right choicesand deal with life when you had
zero experience in life andnothing spared you.
So now, and we're wondering whywe're making bad choices?
Because you're supposed to makebad choices, because that's how
you learn.
(19:36):
You're just starting tofreaking learn right now.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I agree wholeheartedly.
I mean, all the people that Ihelp now with the tools that I
offer are people that have noclue who they are.
They have no sense of identityat all, and it's okay that
(20:05):
they're like is this it?
What's this all about?
I have no clue.
You know, it's the journeyright and it's the mistakes.
It's everything that teaches uswho we really are.
I agree with you.
I love what.
I'm going to play it back overand over and over.
Oh my gosh, you're saying.
I mean, it's quite simple,really, you know if you think
(20:28):
about it.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
We have the freedom to make choices.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Simple but not easy.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
But it's not easy because we're brainwashed.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, I'll explain what that means.
Like we say, simple but noteasy, climbing up Mount Everest
is simple but not easy.
What does it mean?
Simple Simple means there arecertain routes, you take certain
gear with you, you have to gothrough a certain with a group
of people.
Everybody has a role, you havea Sherpa, the guide that takes
(20:56):
you.
So everybody knows how to climbMount Everest.
Everything is known about MountEverest, but it's not easy
because when you're there once,first of all, once you get to
base camp, which is the firstcamp before coming to Mount
Everest, you have to stay therefor a certain amount of time and
(21:17):
you have to acclimate to the,to the height and how it is.
And because we're differentpeople, we react differently.
There are certain people thatjust won't work for them, and it
has nothing to do with how wellprepared you are.
So you can be physically fit,but you can't handle the height.
It's as simple as that.
(21:39):
It's like another example of it.
There are certain people whocan't handle the height.
Uh, you know, if you, if youlook from you know, second floor
, third floor, 10th floor it'slike they just can't help how
they feel, they get vertigo orsomething you know that's not
that has.
You can't overpower, you can'tbrute force through that and but
(21:59):
but everything in life teachesus that it's brute force.
You know like you do something.
You do something.
You study through it.
You power through it, you wantto become stronger, just
practice.
But we're different.
We're not machines.
We treat ourselves likemachines and we build systems
and programs and we teach likewe're machines.
Even school is like everyone'sthe same.
(22:19):
We're different.
So basically, we are put intothis machine to come out
grounded and we look the same.
When we are completelydifferent, it's like what's the
name?
Pink Floyd, you know yeah,don't need no education.
The song and how these kids arefalling into these meat grinder
yes, came out the same, becausethat's what it is.
(22:41):
It's supposed to make us thesame.
Whereas if you look at music,when people pursue their own
dream and their own style, thereare some similarities but
everybody goes after the same.
But when you put it intoindustry, what ends up happening
?
Regurgitating the whole thingonce you.
Once you put productivity intothe world not that I'm saying
(23:02):
productivity is bad forproducing food, but once you're
like you take human potentialand you want to package it to
get a certain thing, you have tomake it similar because that's
the only way you can scale Right.
If I ask you to write 20articles in a week, it's
(23:23):
different than if you had thechance to write one or three.
I mean, you might run three.
Somebody like Noam Chomsky orStephen King might write like 30
and be okay because we'redifferent.
But if everyone has to produce20, what ends up happening?
The person who can produce 30,you know like oh, I have to
produce 20 that are a certainsize.
(23:44):
So you kill their creativity,the person who has to take their
time, and you kill theircreativity as well because
you're putting them in that meatgrinder.
It's like okay, you have to bethe same Quality is out the
window.
Yeah, that's the only way I canscale, because you're now in
service of a different goal thanthe goal of creativity.
And not that it's bad.
It works in certain areas andfor some people it works.
(24:05):
For some people, school is thebest thing that happened.
For others, they need adifferent kind, but we cannot do
that on a scale of society.
So all we need to do right nowis, instead of being angry at
system, we need to be angry andwe need to change it.
We need to evolve it.
What we need to do right now isto understand that this is the
product of the system.
Now that we have thatunderstanding and that awareness
(24:28):
, well, what do we choose to doExactly?
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I mean, I love this so much because you can see in
everything that you're doingthat you're trying your best to
expose people to different typesof create, like art, your love
for art.
I love what you have done withthat.
You want others to learn aboutart because it is a lost.
A lost art, it's lost.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I wanted to be an artist but I couldn't.
It's lost.
I wanted to be an artist but Icouldn't.
I draw and, like I have someartistic talent, but I didn't
reach the level that I wanted.
So my next best thing and Ididn't mean like that's a bad
thing it's like I pursued art.
It's like, you know, let's comeback to the game Like I want to
(25:21):
be the person who's shootingthe hoops, for example, but I
may end up, you know, not beingthat capable of doing that.
So that's what a lead, beingleader, is.
Instead of grabbing on and say,no, I'm going to become an
artist, I'm going to brute force, it's like.
No, I like art.
Is there something else where Ican even have more?
I can add more value and I caneven express myself more?
(25:43):
Because when you're enteringinto a field, you may think that
you want something like.
I played the guitar and I lovethe guitar and I wish I could be
the like great at playingguitar.
Yeah, I am good, don't get mewrong.
I played and I trained and Ibecame good.
But you know what I discoveredafter entering into music?
I am far better at performanceand singing, and when I was in a
(26:06):
band I wanted to be.
I loved if you see all of mymusic, all my libraries.
I adore guitar players andactually a lot of the things
I've listened to are justinstrumental guitars.
But the thing I excelled at wasbeing headliner of a band, and
I loved it as well.
I didn't know when I wanted soyou might enter into something.
(26:28):
That's why you choosedifferently.
I chose to become a guitarist,but then, once I played guitar,
I chose again to become aheadliner of the band and to
sing.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
It's self-discovery right, but you won't know that
unless you make an effort tolearn.
I mean, I noticed in.
Let's talk about your new book.
You just released the Dark Artof Life, mastery man.
That artwork in there isincredible.
I feel all kinds of emotionswhen I just look at one image or
one piece of art.
(27:00):
Did you do that?
Did you do the artwork?
Speaker 2 (27:04):
For the book.
Yes, no, it's actually AntonioPiedade, who's a Portuguese
artist.
I wrote the book and I lovedhis art.
This is his art as well on theT-shirt.
So I love his art and I thinkfor people as well, if they want
to see like that's.
That's the cover is um it'sincredible.
(27:28):
I just I stare at the coverforever and he, he created
actually colorful or like the.
We have the colored versionswhich we will uh will release
soon, hopefully.
So I wrote, I wrote the bookand I loved his art and I said I
wanted people to stop betweenone chapter and the next because
I wanted them to think, Iwanted them to contemplate, I
(27:51):
wanted them to sit with whatthey read and everyone takes
differently.
But it's a good separatorbecause it's a visual separator.
It tackles a different senserather than, let's say, hearing
yourself talking.
So it gives you kind of maybe areflection, maybe you see
something different.
(28:11):
And I gave it to him and he andI told him it would be great if
you can draw, work the art, butI'm not going to give you a
direction, just read it.
He read it, he loved it andyeah, and he started making
sketches and I never interferedwith any of the pieces.
It's complete freedom.
So that's for me the act ofco-creation.
I wrote the uh, I wrote thewords, he created the art and
(28:34):
together this is kind of ourco-work.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I mean it's mastery.
I mean that's in the title, butI mean it is mastery and it
isn't about perfection.
Actually, if you study thatcover design, it's about
embracing the messiness of lifewhich you talk a lot about you
know, and I love it so much.
You say that you can't stoplife and you can't slow it down
(29:00):
and you can't hold on to it, butyou can master it.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Can you just unpack that a little more for us in
your own words, the moment thatwe started this podcast is gone
right now and I can maybe.
Let's say we started thepodcast and I said something.
Let's say I started, maybe Icalled you the wrong name.
Let's say, you know, like,let's say you were, your name
(29:26):
was Pamela and I said Pam, andmaybe you don't, you hate that,
okay, and I chose, and I chosethat.
Now you might say please don'tcall me that, I prefer Pamela.
Let's say you did that.
That moment is gone.
What I can do is like oh my God,I messed up.
Oh my God, what could I havedone?
(29:46):
I should have not done that.
I should have done, I shouldhave asked.
And I can go all in my head,while you're asking me a
question and I'm not present tothe moment at all, I'm reliving
or I'm thinking of a moment thatpassed, yes, and I can't change
anything in it.
What I can do, I can make achoice in the moment that I can
say Pamela if your name wasPamela.
(30:09):
And I say, and I'm sorry if Idid that, but I can say, hey, I
just want to say something.
I want to say that I'm reallysorry.
I'm not saying that you have toapologize, but let's say I in
my mind, I am saying to myself Ishould have apologized.
I can make a choice in thatmoment.
Right now, I just want to say Iapologize, I should have taken
(30:33):
care and, if it's okay with you,I would like, if you want to
say anything to me so that wecan both say it, so I can be
completely present with you.
Let's say I do that Suddenly,whatever is in my head is gone.
I acted on it and I made achoice in the moment.
Or I can choose to say listen,I made a mistake, that's it, sit
with it, be here.
(30:54):
So that's a choice as well.
Or whatever choice.
Or I say I choose to continueto think about it until the end
of it, and that's how I'm goingto do that.
What I should not do ever is toconsider it's gone, I can't do
anything about it.
And now I'm held hostage tosomething, to not being able to
(31:15):
choose to move forward, whetherto apologize or to ignore, or to
continue to relive or thinkabout the moment.
All of these choices arechoices that I'm postponing and
basically I'm refusing to make achoice.
So I'm held hostage for me, notable to make a choice.
(31:35):
Life doesn't care.
You're continuing to askquestions.
Life is happening and I'mchoosing to pretend that I'm
holding it.
I'm going to make that choice alittle bit later.
Choices happen in the momentand when that moment is gone,
you can't do anything.
You can take a shot.
Right now, the game is going tobe over.
(31:55):
Life continues to happen andyou can only make those choices.
And if you live in the momentand make choices in the moment,
and the more choices you make,the more skilled you are at it.
Yes, I, I can tell you, the lasttwo weeks I've had like for
every people think, oh, you'vedone 22 businesses and they
(32:19):
think it's a lot if I, I cantell you how many businesses.
Not only I had ideas for ideas,I have like thousands, but I
would say businesses that Istarted to write even what the
profile would be, choose thename, even book the domain.
I think I had like hundreds ofdomains.
So it's a business that Idecided the idea and I thought
(32:40):
about it and I spent time, wrotethe let's say even the plan,
for the 22 are like the onesthat I managed to execute on,
similar to when you shoot hoopsat a basketball you have to take
hundreds of shots to get a fewin, and that is how life works.
So, in order for you to makegood choices, you have to make a
(33:02):
ton of bad choices.
In order for you to live somegreat moments in life, you have
to live through a ton of reallybad, good, horrible moments and
making mistakes.
That is the only way Lifecontinues to offer you these
opportunities, live them,experience them.
Life continues to offer youthese opportunities.
Live them, experience them, try, test and learn along the way.
(33:24):
What you don't want to do isjust stick with one and keep
trying to go back to it to fixit when it's gone.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Don't let fear dictate what you do right.
Don't let fear.
Over here in my family we sayit is what it is.
Some people like that and somepeople hate that.
Some people don't like it, butit is what it is.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, it is what it is.
It's talking about what'shappening outside, which is
mostly about the systemic level,which is it is what it is and
you can't change it Right whatit does and in one way and I use
that all the time and I don'tmean, but if you don't mind,
(34:05):
I'll jump on it, please do,because it is what it is.
It talks about the outsidecircumstances.
It is raining.
It is what it is and what thatdoes the unsaid, which is what
are you going to do about it?
What's your choice?
So it is raining, it is what itis.
(34:27):
Do you choose to go out or stayin?
If you choose to go out, you'reprobably going to get wet, it's
going to be not a very niceride, but you can drive or walk,
but you can choose to do it.
And if you choose to go in orto stay in, you didn't get the
fresh air, you didn't walk, youknow, et cetera, et cetera.
Every choice there is no perfectchoice.
(34:49):
There is no good and bad choice.
Every choice has the choice andthe consequences.
There is the choices you makeand the choices you don't.
These are the only two kinds ofchoices, the only thing that
makes a choice, good or bad,except if you're harming people,
which is we're outsiding that.
I'm talking about choice, aboutpersonal Talking about right
(35:09):
here, and usually those areactions and words.
These are not choices.
Right, you can choose.
Many times, you know, somebodyangered me.
I used to have anger issues,like I want to choose to harm
them, but I don't do it and Idon't say the words.
Sometimes I used to say thewords which there are
consequences for it.
Right, but that's words andactions.
(35:30):
But choices live within you andthen you act on them.
So there is either a choice youmake or a choice you don't.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Exactly, I agree wholeheartedly, man.
This is some good stuff here,hussein, it really is.
And you also talk aboutbuilding with purpose, and so,
whether it's communities orcompanies or personal growth,
(35:59):
which we've talked a lot about,in your experience, what happens
when leaders prioritize visionand values first?
What?
Speaker 2 (36:06):
happens.
I think so leadership happensat the personal level, when you
choose to act on your choices.
That's personal leadership tomake a choice and to continue to
make a choice and to lead yourlife.
But I think we're talking aboutleaders on the community level,
and on the community level,even a company is a community
(36:29):
level because it's a group ofpeople coming together for a
shared purpose.
So I would say, as a leader,you're responsible for the
well-being of those people.
We kind of right now we'd sayin business no, it's a business
relationship, so you come, yousign an agreement, you do what
you do.
No, that's not true.
All great companies happened,aside from the scale side where
(36:53):
they went beyond, let's say, theability to have that connection
it's because of a group offounders, leaders convinced
another group of people to cometogether and to build something
great or to create value forpeople.
Nobody came, not one companythat you would consider a great
company today.
(37:13):
On their inception, two peoplecame around or a group of people
was like let's do this.
And when somebody asked why?
Because we can make a ton ofmoney.
In fact, most of them didn'tknow if they're going to make
money at all, but most of themstarted because it's cool or
because they wanted to servepeople or because they saw a
(37:35):
vision and they saw a problemthey wanted to solve.
They believed in something.
And most companies I mean todayyou come up with an idea, you
raise funding and maybe you geta lot of that, but these are
like the rare companies.
Most companies spend one tothree years, you know, probably
having to max out their creditcards to try to do that.
(37:58):
So you have to believe insomething and you have to
believe in each other and youhave to believe in something and
you have to believe in eachother and you have to be in
service of something bigger thanyourself.
So that is the community level.
That's what requires and as aleader, you need to be in that.
You have to showcase that.
But somehow along the way itbecame about and it's important
(38:18):
in business numbers and profitand money and we forget the
origins.
So when we say how importantvision and you know, purpose
values values are stories thatare made up.
I would say principles.
Okay, you know the principlesof being business.
(38:38):
I'll tell you.
For example, like you know, wevalue our customers.
What does that really mean?
It doesn't mean anything.
But if you follow theprinciples of honesty and
integrity, you're always goingto deliver, regardless of your
customer, regardless of youvalue them or not.
I don't want to wait for yourpersonal values to judge how you
do business with me.
(38:59):
Your business should be basedon principles that if I took
this and you said it works, itworks.
That's integrity.
So, if you notice, appledoesn't publish values, but
Apple operates based onprinciples.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Very true.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
So these are the things that work.
There's a principle If you getan electronic device, I don't
care how much you value thecustomer.
If your electronic devicedoesn't work, I'm returning it,
value me or not, I don't care ifyou value me or not, I want it
to work.
That's the integrity whichmeans it operates as it should
operate.
(39:35):
The device has integrity.
We say that in engineering.
It has integrity.
The device has integrity.
We say that in engineering ithas integrity.
A bridge has integrity.
I don't care if the engineervalues me or not.
He needs to build a bridge thatworks.
You know the car should work.
So these things about values,for me it's BS, it's marketing.
What needs to happen is abusiness has a shared,
(40:00):
service-based purpose.
It needs to serve a communityof customers, it needs to
deliver value, it needs tofollow certain principles
honesty, integrity and it needsto continue to do so.
And it needs to continue to doso.
Where we would go off rails iswhen we start saying well, the
(40:24):
founder has vision.
Tell me, what was the vision ofSteve Jobs?
Nobody knows what their visionis.
Apple never published a vision,right?
So Steve Jobs dreamt ofsomething and maybe we can call
(40:52):
it a vision.
He's a visionary leader.
He's a product driven person.
And when did we do?
We live by the customers,because once the customers don't
believe, it doesn't matter howmuch vision you have, it doesn't
matter how much money you have.
Look at Apple right now.
It stopped innovating and it'sgoing down.
Yes, it's a collaborative thingthat we come together, but
along the way it became abouthow much money we can make and
(41:13):
how much of our competition wecan acquire to reduce
competition so that we can makeeven more money.
Businesses weren't created formaking money.
They have to make money as partof their function.
It's part of their function.
Just like a clinic is notsupposed to be driven by making
money, it's supposed to bedriven by healing people, a
(41:35):
business is not different.
A business that makes cars, itneeds to make the best cars
possible for a certain group ofpeople.
If it's a truck, it's a truck.
If it's a car, if it's atrailer, it needs to be a
trailer and it does its best joband it's focused and it's niche
.
But somehow, along the way welet I mean in Apple it happened
(41:56):
the same way.
There was a documentary thattalks about the difference
between Steve Jobs and Tim Cook,for example, and how their
leadership style differs.
And Tim Cook started meetingwith investors.
Steve Jobs didn't care aboutinvestors at all, so didn't meet
with investors.
He went to the product everyday of the week.
He would meet with the productteam, tim Cook, probably once
(42:19):
every two weeks.
And he met with investors andthat's why the most innovation
that Apple has done in the pastfew years is financial
innovation where to go withtheir money and what to acquire.
They didn't do any innovationon the product side, whereas
Apple its success and thesuccess that it achieved is
because of the products.
It changed seven industriesit's unheard of it invented
(42:44):
seven or eight industries Everyindustry that it went through.
I mean, one of the things Iwould recommend for the
listeners is to go search for, Ithink, the first kind of earbud
, not the wireless one, thewired one, and there's an ad
(43:07):
where how many ears they testedto create an earbud that fits
smoothly into most ears.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
And how much attention.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Yeah, and the ad itself is such genius.
In fact, apple used to make adsabout the making of the devices
, not the features they made,because the making was inspired
by the needs of people and theproblems that need to solve, not
because apple was great or bigor it has money.
(43:37):
Of course it has money and itcan do these kinds of things,
but the principles and whatdrives them are these things.
And once they lost right nowthe biggest product, johnny Ive
is out of Apple they lost, ofcourse, steve Jobs and all of
that, and Apple became great atmaking money but lousy at making
(43:57):
great products.
So it's what you incentivizeand businesses made for making
products and being productive toproduce.
That's what businesses are.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Right.
Businesses are like people tome they have to have a purpose.
If you don't have a purpose,you know you don't feel any of
the other words that we usevision, value, whatever those
things are, you have to have thepurpose first, and the purpose
needs to be serving people,serving yeah.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yes, in a certain way , like you, know someone who
like a server in a, in a in arestaurant somebody serves
coffee, the other serves, let'ssay, the plates.
In a restaurant, somebodyserves coffee, the other serves.
Let's say the plates, somebodyserves the menu.
You're in service of people.
Everybody does a job andtogether you can actually run a
restaurant very efficiently.
That's service.
(44:47):
And every business is the same.
You have to serve yourcustomers and serve them in a
certain way and serve them verywell.
Your plumber comes and be ofservice.
He serves you by fixing yourplumbing.
You cannot ask your plumber todo your electric or, you know,
to cook your food, so that's hispurpose.
That's the purpose of theplumber, and the same thing with
businesses.
They need to have a purpose andtheir purpose needs to be to
(45:09):
serve their customers in thatparticular area.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Man, I love all this.
This is like you're the mostamazing storyteller and I know
you have mentioned thatstorytelling is so powerful.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
You're making me blush.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
Huh, you're making me blush.
Well, I mean, I know the more.
I looked at all of your work,the more I was like this guy's
unreal.
He's so amazing.
I've learned so much just inthe week I've researched you.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Thank you so much.
You're so welcome.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
You're so welcome.
I've learned a lot already, butthe storytelling that is my.
I tell everyone that they havea story in them and if everyone
would just share their stories,I think that all of us would be
a lot better off.
Would just share their stories,I think that all of us would be
a lot better off.
So you think that it shapes howpeople in organizations grow?
(46:04):
And yeah, oh yeah, I believe sotoo, because when you tell a
story, it's either about it'seither about a mistake or
something that has happened.
You know that you learn from,and basically that's what we
need to do as people andorganizations we need to, like
you said, make choices and keeplearning, keep educating
ourselves.
So the world's changing reallyfast and too fast, I think and,
(46:29):
like we've talked aboutuncertainties, overwhelming.
What advice would you give tosomeone trying to find clarity
and direction?
I guess maybe you would talk tothem about making a choice,
making choices.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Yeah, and I think one of, let's say, you're living in
the moment, whether you're,let's say, going into adulthood
or you are my age, you knowmidway through your life and
you're kind of making choices.
I think you need to be aware ofyour environment and the story
(47:05):
you tell yourself, like I cantell myself, that I can tell
myself many stories.
At 51 right now, I can say youknow what I lived all this life
and I still don't have, you know, 100 million dollars in the
bank, which is, I think, 300million.
That was, that was, that was my, that was my vision board thing
(47:26):
.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Your personal goal.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
I had 300 million.
For some reason I love thenumber three.
So like, why, why get 100million if I, if I had three,
three, so I also.
One of the stories is I willclimb mount everest is the peak
of, uh, of physicalaccomplishment or human
accomplishment, and I have toclimb it and I would have to
have, um, the mercedes sls redcar that would be, that would be
(47:51):
the.
These were, that was the storyI was telling myself.
I would.
I could look back and say, well,I haven't achieved those.
So it means this.
So I tell myself the story andthat story will color and will
impact how I look at life.
Because if I look at life andsay I haven't achieved what I
meant and maybe it's true, Imean it's true that I haven't
(48:13):
achieved those things but I'mnot telling myself or I'm not
talking to myself about the mostimportant thing, which is what
did I really want?
And, along the way, if I, oneof the things that we don't, we
don't spend a lot of timecontemplating is what do we want
(48:34):
?
We know what we don't want.
If you ask anybody, they knowimmediately what they don't want
.
But what do?
Speaker 1 (48:39):
you want?
Oh, you're talking to a webdesigner.
That's what people they tell me, what they don't want.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Yeah, I'm a designer as well.
That's one of the reasons Ileft.
Design is because I would showsomeone.
I was like, well, I don't likegreen.
I was like, who cares what'slike?
(49:06):
We spend a lot of time.
We don't spend enough timeconsidering what we want and why
we want it, and what does itmean to us and why it matters.
And when we do that, what endsup happening is we become more
intimately aware of who we areand what matters to us, and we
also discover that that changesacross time.
You know, if you think ofsomething simple like the food
you eat, very rarely would youlike the same food at 40 as when
(49:27):
you're 30 or 30, as you're 20,and definitely when 20 is, let's
say, 15 or 10.
So you change as a person.
So you find out that you growand you change as a person.
So you find out that you growand you change as a person.
You find out that your wantsand likes some of them matter to
you, some of them don't andthen you can make better choices
(49:48):
because your choice is now inservice.
So if I give you uh, I we didthis, uh, I would say forum
called the Forum, which ishighly recommended.
I would recommend for othersand they would ask you this
question chocolate, vanilla,choose.
And if I haven't spent enoughtime, you know chocolate and
vanilla, you know like going toan ice cream and you don't know
(50:11):
these options and you don't knowwhat you'd like, you'll stand
there like a deer in theheadlight.
You do the same in Starbucks,especially when they introduce
something new.
I mean, when they introducethree things that are new.
It's like, oh my God, as if Ineed more choices.
Can you just introduce onething new so I can make the
choice?
And in fact this is actuallyproven by science, they say in
(50:32):
the.
That's why if you look, let'ssay, in anything Costco or
Walmart, you see those peoplewho go around to give you
options.
There's a book called theParadox of Choice.
You shouldn't give someone morethan six choices, because more
than six choices now they'rehindered by the choice, even
though it's more choices.
That's why you go to Ben andJerry's like I don't know what I
(50:55):
want to choose, even though youknow what you like like.
You know you like, you alwayslike chocolate.
And maybe every time you choosechocolate, but every time you
see it, the overwhelm.
Because we were not.
We used to spend.
We used to go for hours to findone thing to eat when we were,
you know, 100,000 years ago, yes.
But now we're like we have aton of choices, so we're
(51:18):
crippled by the number ofchoices.
Our brain is not used to thatkind of thing so overwhelming,
yeah, so we need to spend timeknowing what we want and my
recommendation is to choose orto create, I would say to create
a big short or a shorthand tomaking certain choices, because
(51:39):
it becomes easier.
For example, I do a lot ofpartnerships with people, so
every time I need to consider apartnership, I need because I
need a ton of people.
I mean, like I know, thousandsand thousands of people.
Uh, I mean my, what is it?
My, I think, my, my phone bookitself is around like 3,000,
(51:59):
4,000 people Almost.
So I remember I had to changefrom a Samsung to an iPhone
because the Samsung phonestarted when I went to dial
someone, it would hang upbecause I had so many people on
my phone.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
It couldn't handle the load.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
Couldn't handle that.
So how do I make decision onto?
Who do I spend time with, whodo I partner?
Because when you're a certain,let's say, level, you're working
on something and something thatit's fine.
A lot of people want to workwith you.
So I developed a short hand forthat and I say I have to work
with people that I like.
(52:37):
So that's the first thing, andit's easy to, and they have to
be like snap judgments, you knowlike they have to.
I know who I like.
It's very, it's very visceral.
You know who you like, you knowwho you don't like.
The second thing is our visionshave to align.
So I asked them the first thingI said I'm like what kind of
world, what are you workingtowards?
Where are you heading with yourlife?
And if they have a vision thatI align with, that's the second
(53:01):
thing.
And the third thing we have toleave the world better than we
found it.
Oh, yes, so if they're workingon something that, because I've
done, you know I've done so manywork, so I'm not interested in
something that gives mesomething that is like some work
that gives me something that Idon't want.
Like somebody said, let's workon an e-book that you know I
don't know, help people knowwhat to feed their cats.
(53:24):
Now, if I work, I can work, Ican do the work, but do I want
like, is that what I want toleave?
No, I want to write, you know,about mastery and life mastery.
Not that there is anythingwrong with that.
Some people who love cats likeI have two cats, I love cats,
but not that much you know like.
But for others, for somebodyelse working on life mastery,
(53:44):
whatever they don't, and theyand they care about cats, they
become vets.
So everybody has a differentthing they want to leave their
life with or they want to.
So these became my shorthandfor making quick decisions in
regards to partnerships.
Shorthand for making quickdecisions in regards to
partnerships.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Well, I think the perfect example of your
shorthand is Momentable, becauseI was looking at that.
I even loaded it on my phonejust to try it out, and I'm
really not that into art, butnow I feel very well versed.
I mean that's I think you said,and at one point there's over
(54:19):
120,000 works from artists,galleries and stuff.
But not only do you exposepeople that probably have never
been exposed to art, you're alsohelping like storefronts and
museums.
I mean you're accomplishing alot of different things with one
effort.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Well, I'm hoping, I'm hoping to the art.
The art thing is, I would say,something that I've always had
since 1992.
Because I always I was bornbefore the internet didn't have
access and I remember begging.
So I can borrow one art bookfrom the father of a friend of
(54:56):
mine, because the art book inAmerica is $100, $200, let's say
, I remember Picasso's art bookand Dali, two of my favorites,
but for me in Syria $100 is thesalary of an engineer for a
month.
It's like if I told you rightnow, you know, and not any
(55:19):
engineer electronic engineer.
So I's like if I told you rightnow, you know to, and not any
engineer electronic engineer.
So I would say, if I told youright now, here's a book, all
you have to do to buy it is sixto $8,000 a month, you know.
Like to buy one book a month.
You wouldn't buy, like ifsomebody would have given you to
say, here, do you want to seethis book?
You would want to borrow itbecause it's very valuable.
So that's how valuable thosethings were for me.
So I've always felt that therewas so much more and I loved art
(55:41):
and there was very little spaceto experience art.
We didn't have a nationalgallery.
We didn't have, like a lot ofyou know, these big museums.
We had two museums, one warmuseum and one national museum,
which is more focused onartifacts rather than art, and
we had some galleries.
There is there are a lot ofartists and I've hear about the
(56:03):
artists but I'm yet to see theirwork, so I always had that.
So when the internet came around, I was like I can see, you know
, I can.
I'm finding so many things, whydon't I?
I put you know artists online.
So that's kind of my driver.
And right now, because I lovemuseums so much and I love art,
it's very hard to travel to seemany museums.
(56:25):
So, and I'm finding it hard andI'm blessed and I'm lucky to
have the life that I have, whatabout all the people that are me
right now that can't see theart of museums, can't visit
museums?
Can I help the museums create adigital presence?
That is true as much aspossible, true to the art and
(56:46):
the experience of art.
So it's not like a metaverse,it's more like you know, you
experience the art in its purestform and gives the museums the
ability to reach far more thanthe people who have the money to
travel to the museum itself.
Speaker 1 (57:01):
Well, and it's the epitome of the plus one, because
I mean it does everything thatyou just said, but also it
introduces the art world topeople that may not know what
artwork they like yet.
But it's AI-driven correct, soI mean, like, depending on what
art that I'm choosing to look at, I mean it can decide for me.
(57:22):
Oh, she likes this type of art,so let's show her these artists
, let's show her these, let'sshow her these.
I mean, it's educating me and Iprobably wouldn't have even
known it if I hadn't looked thatup.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
Yeah, we, we are.
I mean we we held back a littlebit on the AI until the AI
models are developed a littlebit more.
It does give you now somerandomness.
It's like how you discovermusic right now.
Music streaming might be notthat great for artists,
unfortunately, musicians butit's great for discovering new
(57:56):
music and lowering the barriersfor people to discover new music
and listen to new music, and Ithink that's important.
That art and culture used to besomething that we shared.
We've always spent timeattending plays, sharing it with
(58:18):
each other.
It creates shared language.
It builds bridges, breaks downbarriers, and I think it's
important that we come back tothat or else we're going to
continue to see ourselves adriftfrom each other.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Yes, yes, yes.
And back in my youth ministrydays, when I was a youth
minister, you know I had sixthgraders through 12th graders
their whole time, and you knowteaching them about faith and
the importance of it.
However, I would also haveclasses on just the basic skills
of life, you know.
Show them what art's like andwhy it's important.
(58:56):
Show them how to change a flattire, for Pete's sake, or how to
balance their checkbook All thethings that would prepare them
to go out, since, like you said,we're just shoving them out
there at 18 years old.
You know they're not preparedto live life and I think that if
a lot of leaders would takethat approach, I think that you
know we'd have a lot of uh.
It would make a big differenceout there.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
I agree.
If you could leave listenerswith one principle from the dark
art of life mastery that youhope they apply starting today.
What would it be?
I would say the biggest thingis remember that that life is
(59:39):
finite.
Um, we don't like to thinkabout that, but I think it's
important to remind ourselvesthat we don't know how long we
live, and so the moment thatyou're living right now is the
moment that you have.
It's not to make life moreprecious or less precious than
it is, but that that's what youhave right now.
So, in this moment, live to themax and let that be an act of
(01:00:04):
service and an act ofcontribution, because that will
build you up, that will give youso much more value than you can
ever think.
And we think of contribution askind of giving, but it's
sometimes just loving someone,saying a nice word, smiling at
someone.
Contribution can come in allshapes and sizes, so I think.
(01:00:25):
But when you put yourself intoit, you find your purpose,
you'll find out more aboutyourself and what works for you,
and you'll end up buildingcommunity and you'll end up
changing the world with smallacts of kindness and
contribution.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
Oh my goodness, just kindness heals my friend, I know
that for sure.
So before we wrap up, hussein,where is the best place for
listeners to find you, followyour work or get a copy of your
new book?
Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Absolutely.
Thank you very much.
Go to husseinhalakcom, so thatis H-U-S-S-E-I-N-H-A-L-A-Kcom,
and you will find everythingabout me that you want to know,
or maybe you don't want to know.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
And I will make sure and note this in the show notes,
everybody, so that you can justclick on a link.
Hussein, thank you so much forthis conversation.
Your journey reminds us thatinnovation, leadership and
purpose aren't abstract ideas.
They're choices we make everyday.
For those listening, Iencourage you to connect with
(01:01:29):
Hussein through his website I'mgoing to repeat it for you
Hussein HusseinHalikcom and it'sH-U-S-S-E-I-N-H-A-L-L-A-K, and
follow him on LinkedIn,instagram and Substack.
I'll include all those links inthe show notes and, of course,
be sure to grab a copy of hisnew book, the Dark Art of Life
(01:01:52):
Mastery.
And, as always, thank you fortuning in to the Plus One Theory
Podcast.
Remember your past doesn'tdefine you, it prepares you and
you can always finish strongerthan you started.
See you next week.
Today I'm honored to welcome Hussein Halek, founder
and CEO of Next Decentrum,global entrepreneur and author
of the new book the Dark Art ofLife.
Mastery Hussein has spent hiscareer using technology and
storytelling to createmeaningful change across
Vancouver, new York, Cairo andDubai.
(00:23):
I always take time to researchmy guests before we sit down and
I have to confess, goingthrough your work, hussein, left
me completely blown away.
The way you continue toinfluence people is
extraordinary, and what struckme most is how clearly your
philosophy on life comes throughin everything you do.
(00:44):
Clearly, your philosophy onlife comes through in everything
you do.
Your mission is clear to helppeople live with purpose and
intention in a world that'sconstantly changing.
Hussein, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Thank you very much for having me.
I'm so glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I am very happy you're here too.
Okay, you've lived and builtacross very different parts of
the world.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I mean you've been everywhere.
Canada.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Almost everywhere.
I mean what I've, and there'sprobably more than what I was
able to find on you, but Canada,the United States, egypt, dubai
and yet there's this commonthread of resilience and
leadership in your story.
Can you tell us a little bitabout your journey and what
resilience has meant in yourlife?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, thank you for the question and so glad to be
here.
I ended up pursuing a lot ofthe things that was available to
me rather than, let's say, thestuff that I really wanted.
I wanted to be a doctor, andthankfully I am not.
I would have probably notenjoyed it as much, but that's
(01:48):
one of the things that I wanted.
I pursued engineering and lovedcomputers.
I ended up working in such away, but I ended up being a
designer first, and then amarketer, someone who works in
branding, and then, funny enough, the thing that I loved the
most throughout my life, whichis writing, and I've been
writing since I was 16, I endedup being a writer and everything
(02:13):
that I kind of ended up livingwas not something that I thought
myself I would do.
So along the way, I guess whatI was doing is discovering what
can my life be, and I was luckyto be able to live the life that
I've lived so far, and I thinkI'm lucky that I'm excited about
(02:33):
life as much as I was 20 yearsago.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, 20 years ago.
What is that old saying If Ionly knew then what I know now,
it would be a great success.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I think I would be calmer if I knew then what I
know now and I would well.
If I take, let's say, howthings unfolded, I would be much
calmer and I would kind of takeit easy.
But I'm not sure that would behelpful for me because I may not
be here and if I knew how,let's say, geopolitically things
(03:13):
will change, or that we wouldhave climate change, for example
, I would be very depressed likethat.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I know You're right there's a lot of things that's
best we don't know.
I know You're right there's alot of things that's best we
don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, going in, so going in blind can be better.
Yeah, it's like knowing the endof a movie.
You know, like sometimes you,and it's not like that very good
movie, so you kind of like, atleast I don't know, at least
there is some surprise there.
But if you knew you would like,you would not probably waste
your time watching it.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Well, what I've learned even if you knew, you
would not probably waste yourtime watching it.
Well, what I've learned even ifyou knew, you would still do it
again.
You know, I mean, we are guiltyof patterns.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Oh for sure, the human race.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
We repeat over and over all our mistakes.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I think what we do is we remember things and we
relate things.
I would argue that, yeah, wesay, for example, history
repeats itself, but what we areis, I think, we are governed by
the same desires and the sameneeds, so we react in similar
(04:20):
ways to similar situationsbecause we're driven by those
needs, because we are humanbeings at the end of the day.
So we can't expect ourselves tobe a totally different species
because 200 years have passed.
Species usually evolve overmillions of years, hundreds of
thousands of years.
I don't think we can expect Ithink we expect too much of
(04:42):
ourselves from that perspectivethat 20 years have passed, or
you know, this was the 50s andthis is, let's say, 20, 2025.
We should have known better.
Well, we didn't evolve asspecies.
We are the same species.
Yes, we we know more uh, butare because we're driven by
(05:03):
those.
I think that wants and desiresthat are embedded with uh, not
with our way of thinking and ourknowledge.
It's more embedded with ourfeelings and who we are as uh,
or what we are as a species.
I think we're driven by thoseand that's why we repeat
ourselves, not necessarily theirmental, but they're more like
(05:24):
embedded behaviors andtendencies nature yeah,
tendencies yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah, yeah, we, oh those are.
I battle those every daybecause we are just human, you
know.
But let's talk a little bitabout what you're.
When people hear the wordinnovation, they immediately
think technology, and I didnotice you know a lot.
(05:51):
I've looked at a lot of yourwork this past week and, man,
you've done a lot of thingsthrough technology, but
innovation is much bigger thanthat, and I've heard you say
that over and over.
So what does innovation reallymean to you and how can leaders
apply it in their own lives?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
or a new version of something that adds new level of
value.
So that is innovative.
So let's say, this mic now isconnected.
So a wireless mic, for example,will be an innovation because
(06:35):
it allows me to move more.
So the value that I'm gettingfrom the Now, this may not be an
innovation for somebody sittingor in a studio why would I want
that?
Or somebody else who would useit, let's say for movement,
that's considered an innovation.
For somebody sitting or in astudio.
Why would I want that?
For somebody else who would useit, let's say for movement,
that's considered an innovationfor them.
So that is what an innovationis.
To be innovative is tocontinuously think of new
applications for something orwhere you can take it further.
(06:57):
And that's why we say, let'ssay about Apple that, let's say,
the last few versions of theiPhone was not innovative
because it didn't add much value.
It's the same thing, kind ofnew shape, so the value is not
deep, whereas if we think fromthe iPhone, let's say the first
iPhone to, let's say, the thirdiPhone, there's a level of
(07:19):
innovation because the camerawas so much better.
Maybe there is Siri wasintroduced I don't know if it's
the third version or the fourthversion.
So innovation needs to be astep up in the amount of value
that we get and the impact onour lives, and I think why it's
important?
Because it allows leaders alwaysare looking to serve.
(07:43):
What leadership means for me isthat, as a leader, you're
looking for new ways or ways toserve the people that you lead.
Service leadership is veryimportant to make their life
better, to make their well-beingtowards, basically move them
together towards well-being.
So how do you bring themtogether?
(08:05):
How do you create something new, or something what we call
innovative, where it providesmore value to the community,
like, for example, allowing themto do their tasks faster, for
example, or creating a new formof protection?
So these are the kind of thingsthat we call innovations, and
(08:26):
that's why it's important,because if you're stagnant and
there's nothing new, as humanbeings we get bored really fast,
especially right now that weare used to this constant stream
of entertainment.
So, I think there is more demandfor innovation and meaningful
innovation there is more demandfor innovation and meaningful
(08:47):
innovation.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Well, and I love that .
And the reason I asked aboutinnovation is because it plays
such a close part to my messageof the plus one theory.
You know, the plus one theoryis all about doing your best,
plus one more right.
No mediocrity, so, but findingthe desire to apply yourself
like that can sometimes bechallenging in the society that
(09:08):
we have today, you know, becausepeople are really turned into
themselves, I mean.
And really who's saying people,I think, love to hate these
days.
It makes me sad to see that.
So I like to talk aboutkindness, and how can we be
innovative with kindness?
(09:28):
You know, not just you know thetechnology of the world, but,
like you said, with human beingsand with with mindset.
I mean, I was having aconversation.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Sorry, did you want to continue?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
No, no, please, I'm.
I'm welcoming anything you haveto say.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
I was having a conversation around this and it
was an interesting one which isI have a different perspective
on that and I'm writing and I'mstill in discovery.
I have a perspective.
That doesn't mean it is true,but it's a perspective.
I think what we tend to assignfor people is way more than how
(10:09):
it works.
So I think of how we operate onthree levels the personal level
, the community level and thesystemic level.
On the personal level, you'reresponsible for your choices.
We never get trained on ourchoices.
In fact, we put so much intoour choices.
To make a choice usually takestime, for example, to choose who
(10:33):
to be around, to choose whatjob you want to do, and all of
those things.
These are usually things thatwe put so much on it that we
don't become good with ourchoices, and I'll come back to
that in a second.
The second level is community,where we work with others and
where our actions and our wordshave meaning.
Without community, our actions,our words really have not that
(10:58):
much value.
Of course, you can go aroundthe house and rearrange cook for
yourself around the house andyou know, rearrange cook for
yourself but really actions andwords have more meaning and more
impact when there's a community, people around you, where you
know your words kind of have animpact or change people's minds
or impact them or inspire them,or your action serves or helps
(11:21):
people, contributes to people,and the systemic level is where
communities come together toform a country or society and
they collaborate and they tradeand so on and so forth.
That's where systemic forces,kind of are in control.
So what we do is, if we look attoday's world, we look at, let's
(11:41):
say, school School you don't.
What do you learn?
You learn math.
You's say school School youdon't.
What do you learn?
You learn math.
You learn some social science.
You right now they're kind ofhistory, whoever's ruling, they
change the history.
So you learn some of thesethings.
But what you don't learn is youdon't learn how to choose every
day, because all you're doingis you're you, study, study.
(12:02):
You don't choose what you studyvery rarely.
You don't choose is you're youstudy, study.
You don't choose what you studyvery rarely.
You don't choose when to get anexam, you don't choose.
You know, and and you're toldthat you have to win and you
have to get marks, because otherthan that you don't enter into
university and throughout yourlife until you get into
university.
You don't know what universityeven means to you.
(12:24):
So all of that gearing up, andthen you go to university and
you're working hard to gethigher marks because you need to
get a better career, but youstill don't know what that means
and what that means to be anadult and to have
responsibilities.
So the solution for that is toget you to work at a at a coffee
shop, maybe, or a restaurantearlier.
(12:44):
That is the solution to get youto learn what work means later.
All of those things are notthings that are natural for us.
It's things that we made up sothat, in service of the systemic
forces, society needs us towork in a certain way,
especially capitalist society.
You need to go to the job, youneed to be productive.
(13:05):
The more productive you are,the more those companies make
money, government functions, etcetera, et cetera.
That's fine, but that doesn'tmean it has to be your life.
What we've done is in serviceof that.
We broke up the communities.
We don't have time enough tospend time with our community,
to be in service of ourcommunity members, to speak with
(13:25):
our neighbors, because we haveto go to work and we have to
come back.
We barely have enough time withour family and the time when we
have with our family and thenwe barely have time for
ourselves to think our choicesor work with our choices, we
have to browse a few socialmedia and post a few posts and
whatever.
So we never have time to spendwith ourselves to enact our
(13:46):
choices and to choose and to andto run through our choices.
We barely make one or twochoices a day, probably what we
want to eat and what to drink,and that's it.
And even that.
If you ask someone, what do youwant to eat I don't know pizza,
you know.
Even that choice becomes sohard when we should be making.
We're a choice machine.
It's our biggest power, andwe're wondering right now how to
(14:07):
make choices.
Then our communities are brokenapart because we never have the
time to spend that and all weare is in service of systemic
forces.
That doesn't even help us,because at the end of the day,
and after working for hours uponhours, upon hours every day of
the week, we can barely makeends meet.
Most people are.
So all of that.
(14:28):
You cannot hold responsibilityfor it as a person, so you need
to know where you have thebiggest power.
You have power over yourpersonal choices yes, and you
have less power in a community.
In a community, it's all youractions and your words and you
have even less power andsystemic forces.
So what you do is you have tocome together with community in
(14:49):
order to change how things are.
And you have to do that, andthat usually takes a generation.
Changing the community takessometimes months and years.
Changing yourself is a splitsecond.
So where is your biggest power?
It's in your choices, and wespend the least time making as
many choices.
What do you want to drink?
(15:10):
I'll drink tea.
If you don't like it, you canchange it.
But we say I don't know, shouldI drink tea or coffee?
Just pick.
We spend.
I hear I see I'm going to go offon a rant right now.
I hear I see I'm going to gooff on a rant right now.
Please feel free to stop me.
I see those kids who are just.
You know I have to.
You know I don't know what mypassion is.
(15:30):
I don't know what my purpose inlife is.
Pick something.
It should be as easy as playinga game, and I'm not being hard
on them.
The reason why they can't isbecause we're not used to that.
We think of life as if thesechoices.
You know our life depends on it.
It doesn't.
It's just like a game.
You pick a game and if youdon't like it, you pick another
(15:52):
game.
And if you don't like it, youpick another game.
And the faster you do that,what ends up happening is you
end up trying so differentthings in life.
In fact, right now, researchstudies are showing that some of
the best ways to choose acareer is to actually spend a
few months testing a few careeroptions until you know how it
feels, so that you can make thatdecision.
(16:15):
You cannot make it with no data, but what we're doing is like
we're front-loading things likelisten, let's teach you for
everything, let's fill yourbrain with information for
everything and let's destroy anycreative talents.
How much we spend on music?
How much we spend on writing?
And who are the people who areleading the world right now?
Who make the most money?
(16:36):
Who did we celebrate herengagement?
Taylor Swift, and what's hisname?
The other guy who playsfootball and she's a singer.
You know, they're not thescientists, they're not the math
geeks, but what does schoolteach what?
How much time do we spend onart, culture, music?
(16:57):
Nothing, so we front, load itwith so much information, zero
information on what careerchoice.
You look at the media and yousee people that don't look like
you, that don't spend, and wewonder why do we have these gaps
between our thinking andreality?
Well, because we are making upthose gaps from the way we're
(17:17):
thinking and the way we'refollowing.
So what we need to do is weneed to stop and breathe and
start learning, understand thatschool and society didn't
prepare us for life.
Let's just agree on that.
It's the way it is.
You can change it, but cryingover it is not going to help
(17:39):
Changing it.
You have to change it and youhave to act.
But just understand thatworking to change it will
probably benefit the nextgeneration, not just your
generation, and you should do itfor sure.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
And it makes so much sense.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah, understand that .
That's your reality.
And now that you're anchored inreality, now you make choices
based on your reality.
You haven't been trained forlife, so what does that mean?
You need to practice.
It's like somebody throwing youinto a game of basketball when
all you've studied you studiedmath all your life and now
they're throwing you in a gameof basketball.
(18:11):
And you?
It's okay for them to.
Now they throw you here, butit's on you that you expect
yourself.
Well, now I'm playingbasketball.
I should play basketball, likeyou know, michael Jordan.
Why are you putting that onyourself?
It's like we expect that weshould go through life knowing
how to make choices very well.
(18:31):
We punish ourselves for makingbad choices when we haven't been
making any choices throughoutthe last 20 years of our lives.
You didn't choose your parents,you didn't choose your school,
you didn't choose, you didn'thave any information to choose
the career.
And now you're looking back andsay why am I bad at making
choices?
You haven't made any choices,you're just starting your life.
(18:54):
Usually, in old tribes, whatthey do is you.
When you grow out, when you growup and you're an adult, you
have a mentor, you have you havesomeone to learn from.
You have your adults and whatdo you call them?
Elders that you learn, and youaround and you see how they make
choices?
No, at 18, we're thrown intolife and not only that, we're
(19:16):
expected to live outside of ourparents'.
Help Now, you're on your own.
Right now, you have to providefor yourself.
You know, make right choicesand deal with life when you had
zero experience in life andnothing spared you.
So now, and we're wondering whywe're making bad choices?
Because you're supposed to makebad choices, because that's how
you learn.
(19:36):
You're just starting tofreaking learn right now.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I agree wholeheartedly.
I mean, all the people that Ihelp now with the tools that I
offer are people that have noclue who they are.
They have no sense of identityat all, and it's okay that
(20:05):
they're like is this it?
What's this all about?
I have no clue.
You know, it's the journeyright and it's the mistakes.
It's everything that teaches uswho we really are.
I agree with you.
I love what.
I'm going to play it back overand over and over.
Oh my gosh, you're saying.
I mean, it's quite simple,really, you know if you think
(20:28):
about it.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
We have the freedom to make choices.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Simple but not easy.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
But it's not easy because we're brainwashed.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, I'll explain what that means.
Like we say, simple but noteasy, climbing up Mount Everest
is simple but not easy.
What does it mean?
Simple Simple means there arecertain routes, you take certain
gear with you, you have to gothrough a certain with a group
of people.
Everybody has a role, you havea Sherpa, the guide that takes
(20:56):
you.
So everybody knows how to climbMount Everest.
Everything is known about MountEverest, but it's not easy
because when you're there once,first of all, once you get to
base camp, which is the firstcamp before coming to Mount
Everest, you have to stay therefor a certain amount of time and
(21:17):
you have to acclimate to the,to the height and how it is.
And because we're differentpeople, we react differently.
There are certain people thatjust won't work for them, and it
has nothing to do with how wellprepared you are.
So you can be physically fit,but you can't handle the height.
It's as simple as that.
(21:39):
It's like another example of it.
There are certain people whocan't handle the height.
Uh, you know, if you, if youlook from you know, second floor
, third floor, 10th floor it'slike they just can't help how
they feel, they get vertigo orsomething you know that's not
that has.
You can't overpower, you can'tbrute force through that and but
(21:59):
but everything in life teachesus that it's brute force.
You know like you do something.
You do something.
You study through it.
You power through it, you wantto become stronger, just
practice.
But we're different.
We're not machines.
We treat ourselves likemachines and we build systems
and programs and we teach likewe're machines.
Even school is like everyone'sthe same.
(22:19):
We're different.
So basically, we are put intothis machine to come out
grounded and we look the same.
When we are completelydifferent, it's like what's the
name?
Pink Floyd, you know yeah,don't need no education.
The song and how these kids arefalling into these meat grinder
yes, came out the same, becausethat's what it is.
(22:41):
It's supposed to make us thesame.
Whereas if you look at music,when people pursue their own
dream and their own style, thereare some similarities but
everybody goes after the same.
But when you put it intoindustry, what ends up happening
?
Regurgitating the whole thingonce you.
Once you put productivity intothe world not that I'm saying
(23:02):
productivity is bad forproducing food, but once you're
like you take human potentialand you want to package it to
get a certain thing, you have tomake it similar because that's
the only way you can scale Right.
If I ask you to write 20articles in a week, it's
(23:23):
different than if you had thechance to write one or three.
I mean, you might run three.
Somebody like Noam Chomsky orStephen King might write like 30
and be okay because we'redifferent.
But if everyone has to produce20, what ends up happening?
The person who can produce 30,you know like oh, I have to
produce 20 that are a certainsize.
(23:44):
So you kill their creativity,the person who has to take their
time, and you kill theircreativity as well because
you're putting them in that meatgrinder.
It's like okay, you have to bethe same Quality is out the
window.
Yeah, that's the only way I canscale, because you're now in
service of a different goal thanthe goal of creativity.
And not that it's bad.
It works in certain areas andfor some people it works.
(24:05):
For some people, school is thebest thing that happened.
For others, they need adifferent kind, but we cannot do
that on a scale of society.
So all we need to do right nowis, instead of being angry at
system, we need to be angry andwe need to change it.
We need to evolve it.
What we need to do right now isto understand that this is the
product of the system.
Now that we have thatunderstanding and that awareness
(24:28):
, well, what do we choose to doExactly?
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I mean, I love this so much because you can see in
everything that you're doingthat you're trying your best to
expose people to different typesof create, like art, your love
for art.
I love what you have done withthat.
You want others to learn aboutart because it is a lost.
A lost art, it's lost.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I wanted to be an artist but I couldn't.
It's lost.
I wanted to be an artist but Icouldn't.
I draw and, like I have someartistic talent, but I didn't
reach the level that I wanted.
So my next best thing and Ididn't mean like that's a bad
thing it's like I pursued art.
It's like, you know, let's comeback to the game Like I want to
(25:21):
be the person who's shootingthe hoops, for example, but I
may end up, you know, not beingthat capable of doing that.
So that's what a lead, beingleader, is.
Instead of grabbing on and say,no, I'm going to become an
artist, I'm going to brute force, it's like.
No, I like art.
Is there something else where Ican even have more?
I can add more value and I caneven express myself more?
(25:43):
Because when you're enteringinto a field, you may think that
you want something like.
I played the guitar and I lovethe guitar and I wish I could be
the like great at playingguitar.
Yeah, I am good, don't get mewrong.
I played and I trained and Ibecame good.
But you know what I discoveredafter entering into music?
I am far better at performanceand singing, and when I was in a
(26:06):
band I wanted to be.
I loved if you see all of mymusic, all my libraries.
I adore guitar players andactually a lot of the things
I've listened to are justinstrumental guitars.
But the thing I excelled at wasbeing headliner of a band, and
I loved it as well.
I didn't know when I wanted soyou might enter into something.
(26:28):
That's why you choosedifferently.
I chose to become a guitarist,but then, once I played guitar,
I chose again to become aheadliner of the band and to
sing.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
It's self-discovery right, but you won't know that
unless you make an effort tolearn.
I mean, I noticed in.
Let's talk about your new book.
You just released the Dark Artof Life, mastery man.
That artwork in there isincredible.
I feel all kinds of emotionswhen I just look at one image or
one piece of art.
(27:00):
Did you do that?
Did you do the artwork?
Speaker 2 (27:04):
For the book.
Yes, no, it's actually AntonioPiedade, who's a Portuguese
artist.
I wrote the book and I lovedhis art.
This is his art as well on theT-shirt.
So I love his art and I thinkfor people as well, if they want
to see like that's.
That's the cover is um it'sincredible.
(27:28):
I just I stare at the coverforever and he, he created
actually colorful or like the.
We have the colored versionswhich we will uh will release
soon, hopefully.
So I wrote, I wrote the bookand I loved his art and I said I
wanted people to stop betweenone chapter and the next because
I wanted them to think, Iwanted them to contemplate, I
(27:51):
wanted them to sit with whatthey read and everyone takes
differently.
But it's a good separatorbecause it's a visual separator.
It tackles a different senserather than, let's say, hearing
yourself talking.
So it gives you kind of maybe areflection, maybe you see
something different.
(28:11):
And I gave it to him and he andI told him it would be great if
you can draw, work the art, butI'm not going to give you a
direction, just read it.
He read it, he loved it andyeah, and he started making
sketches and I never interferedwith any of the pieces.
It's complete freedom.
So that's for me the act ofco-creation.
I wrote the uh, I wrote thewords, he created the art and
(28:34):
together this is kind of ourco-work.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I mean it's mastery.
I mean that's in the title, butI mean it is mastery and it
isn't about perfection.
Actually, if you study thatcover design, it's about
embracing the messiness of lifewhich you talk a lot about you
know, and I love it so much.
You say that you can't stoplife and you can't slow it down
(29:00):
and you can't hold on to it, butyou can master it.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Can you just unpack that a little more for us in
your own words, the moment thatwe started this podcast is gone
right now and I can maybe.
Let's say we started thepodcast and I said something.
Let's say I started, maybe Icalled you the wrong name.
Let's say, you know, like,let's say you were, your name
(29:26):
was Pamela and I said Pam, andmaybe you don't, you hate that,
okay, and I chose, and I chosethat.
Now you might say please don'tcall me that, I prefer Pamela.
Let's say you did that.
That moment is gone.
What I can do is like oh my God,I messed up.
Oh my God, what could I havedone?
(29:46):
I should have not done that.
I should have done, I shouldhave asked.
And I can go all in my head,while you're asking me a
question and I'm not present tothe moment at all, I'm reliving
or I'm thinking of a moment thatpassed, yes, and I can't change
anything in it.
What I can do, I can make achoice in the moment that I can
say Pamela if your name wasPamela.
(30:09):
And I say, and I'm sorry if Idid that, but I can say, hey, I
just want to say something.
I want to say that I'm reallysorry.
I'm not saying that you have toapologize, but let's say I in
my mind, I am saying to myself Ishould have apologized.
I can make a choice in thatmoment.
Right now, I just want to say Iapologize, I should have taken
(30:33):
care and, if it's okay with you,I would like, if you want to
say anything to me so that wecan both say it, so I can be
completely present with you.
Let's say I do that Suddenly,whatever is in my head is gone.
I acted on it and I made achoice in the moment.
Or I can choose to say listen,I made a mistake, that's it, sit
with it, be here.
(30:54):
So that's a choice as well.
Or whatever choice.
Or I say I choose to continueto think about it until the end
of it, and that's how I'm goingto do that.
What I should not do ever is toconsider it's gone, I can't do
anything about it.
And now I'm held hostage tosomething, to not being able to
(31:15):
choose to move forward, whetherto apologize or to ignore, or to
continue to relive or thinkabout the moment.
All of these choices arechoices that I'm postponing and
basically I'm refusing to make achoice.
So I'm held hostage for me, notable to make a choice.
(31:35):
Life doesn't care.
You're continuing to askquestions.
Life is happening and I'mchoosing to pretend that I'm
holding it.
I'm going to make that choice alittle bit later.
Choices happen in the momentand when that moment is gone,
you can't do anything.
You can take a shot.
Right now, the game is going tobe over.
(31:55):
Life continues to happen andyou can only make those choices.
And if you live in the momentand make choices in the moment,
and the more choices you make,the more skilled you are at it.
Yes, I, I can tell you, the lasttwo weeks I've had like for
every people think, oh, you'vedone 22 businesses and they
(32:19):
think it's a lot if I, I cantell you how many businesses.
Not only I had ideas for ideas,I have like thousands, but I
would say businesses that Istarted to write even what the
profile would be, choose thename, even book the domain.
I think I had like hundreds ofdomains.
So it's a business that Idecided the idea and I thought
(32:40):
about it and I spent time, wrotethe let's say even the plan,
for the 22 are like the onesthat I managed to execute on,
similar to when you shoot hoopsat a basketball you have to take
hundreds of shots to get a fewin, and that is how life works.
So, in order for you to makegood choices, you have to make a
(33:02):
ton of bad choices.
In order for you to live somegreat moments in life, you have
to live through a ton of reallybad, good, horrible moments and
making mistakes.
That is the only way Lifecontinues to offer you these
opportunities, live them,experience them.
Life continues to offer youthese opportunities.
Live them, experience them, try, test and learn along the way.
(33:24):
What you don't want to do isjust stick with one and keep
trying to go back to it to fixit when it's gone.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Don't let fear dictate what you do right.
Don't let fear.
Over here in my family we sayit is what it is.
Some people like that and somepeople hate that.
Some people don't like it, butit is what it is.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, it is what it is.
It's talking about what'shappening outside, which is
mostly about the systemic level,which is it is what it is and
you can't change it Right whatit does and in one way and I use
that all the time and I don'tmean, but if you don't mind,
(34:05):
I'll jump on it, please do,because it is what it is.
It talks about the outsidecircumstances.
It is raining.
It is what it is and what thatdoes the unsaid, which is what
are you going to do about it?
What's your choice?
So it is raining, it is what itis.
(34:27):
Do you choose to go out or stayin?
If you choose to go out, you'reprobably going to get wet, it's
going to be not a very niceride, but you can drive or walk,
but you can choose to do it.
And if you choose to go in orto stay in, you didn't get the
fresh air, you didn't walk, youknow, et cetera, et cetera.
Every choice there is no perfectchoice.
(34:49):
There is no good and bad choice.
Every choice has the choice andthe consequences.
There is the choices you makeand the choices you don't.
These are the only two kinds ofchoices, the only thing that
makes a choice, good or bad,except if you're harming people,
which is we're outsiding that.
I'm talking about choice, aboutpersonal Talking about right
(35:09):
here, and usually those areactions and words.
These are not choices.
Right, you can choose.
Many times, you know, somebodyangered me.
I used to have anger issues,like I want to choose to harm
them, but I don't do it and Idon't say the words.
Sometimes I used to say thewords which there are
consequences for it.
Right, but that's words andactions.
(35:30):
But choices live within you andthen you act on them.
So there is either a choice youmake or a choice you don't.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Exactly, I agree wholeheartedly, man.
This is some good stuff here,hussein, it really is.
And you also talk aboutbuilding with purpose, and so,
whether it's communities orcompanies or personal growth,
(35:59):
which we've talked a lot about,in your experience, what happens
when leaders prioritize visionand values first?
What?
Speaker 2 (36:06):
happens.
I think so leadership happensat the personal level, when you
choose to act on your choices.
That's personal leadership tomake a choice and to continue to
make a choice and to lead yourlife.
But I think we're talking aboutleaders on the community level,
and on the community level,even a company is a community
(36:29):
level because it's a group ofpeople coming together for a
shared purpose.
So I would say, as a leader,you're responsible for the
well-being of those people.
We kind of right now we'd sayin business no, it's a business
relationship, so you come, yousign an agreement, you do what
you do.
No, that's not true.
All great companies happened,aside from the scale side where
(36:53):
they went beyond, let's say, theability to have that connection
it's because of a group offounders, leaders convinced
another group of people to cometogether and to build something
great or to create value forpeople.
Nobody came, not one companythat you would consider a great
company today.
(37:13):
On their inception, two peoplecame around or a group of people
was like let's do this.
And when somebody asked why?
Because we can make a ton ofmoney.
In fact, most of them didn'tknow if they're going to make
money at all, but most of themstarted because it's cool or
because they wanted to servepeople or because they saw a
(37:35):
vision and they saw a problemthey wanted to solve.
They believed in something.
And most companies I mean todayyou come up with an idea, you
raise funding and maybe you geta lot of that, but these are
like the rare companies.
Most companies spend one tothree years, you know, probably
having to max out their creditcards to try to do that.
(37:58):
So you have to believe insomething and you have to
believe in each other and youhave to believe in something and
you have to believe in eachother and you have to be in
service of something bigger thanyourself.
So that is the community level.
That's what requires and as aleader, you need to be in that.
You have to showcase that.
But somehow along the way itbecame about and it's important
(38:18):
in business numbers and profitand money and we forget the
origins.
So when we say how importantvision and you know, purpose
values values are stories thatare made up.
I would say principles.
Okay, you know the principlesof being business.
(38:38):
I'll tell you.
For example, like you know, wevalue our customers.
What does that really mean?
It doesn't mean anything.
But if you follow theprinciples of honesty and
integrity, you're always goingto deliver, regardless of your
customer, regardless of youvalue them or not.
I don't want to wait for yourpersonal values to judge how you
do business with me.
(38:59):
Your business should be basedon principles that if I took
this and you said it works, itworks.
That's integrity.
So, if you notice, appledoesn't publish values, but
Apple operates based onprinciples.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Very true.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
So these are the things that work.
There's a principle If you getan electronic device, I don't
care how much you value thecustomer.
If your electronic devicedoesn't work, I'm returning it,
value me or not, I don't care ifyou value me or not, I want it
to work.
That's the integrity whichmeans it operates as it should
operate.
(39:35):
The device has integrity.
We say that in engineering.
It has integrity.
The device has integrity.
We say that in engineering ithas integrity.
A bridge has integrity.
I don't care if the engineervalues me or not.
He needs to build a bridge thatworks.
You know the car should work.
So these things about values,for me it's BS, it's marketing.
What needs to happen is abusiness has a shared,
(40:00):
service-based purpose.
It needs to serve a communityof customers, it needs to
deliver value, it needs tofollow certain principles
honesty, integrity and it needsto continue to do so.
And it needs to continue to doso.
Where we would go off rails iswhen we start saying well, the
(40:24):
founder has vision.
Tell me, what was the vision ofSteve Jobs?
Nobody knows what their visionis.
Apple never published a vision,right?
So Steve Jobs dreamt ofsomething and maybe we can call
(40:52):
it a vision.
He's a visionary leader.
He's a product driven person.
And when did we do?
We live by the customers,because once the customers don't
believe, it doesn't matter howmuch vision you have, it doesn't
matter how much money you have.
Look at Apple right now.
It stopped innovating and it'sgoing down.
Yes, it's a collaborative thingthat we come together, but
along the way it became abouthow much money we can make and
(41:13):
how much of our competition wecan acquire to reduce
competition so that we can makeeven more money.
Businesses weren't created formaking money.
They have to make money as partof their function.
It's part of their function.
Just like a clinic is notsupposed to be driven by making
money, it's supposed to bedriven by healing people, a
(41:35):
business is not different.
A business that makes cars, itneeds to make the best cars
possible for a certain group ofpeople.
If it's a truck, it's a truck.
If it's a car, if it's atrailer, it needs to be a
trailer and it does its best joband it's focused and it's niche
.
But somehow, along the way welet I mean in Apple it happened
(41:56):
the same way.
There was a documentary thattalks about the difference
between Steve Jobs and Tim Cook,for example, and how their
leadership style differs.
And Tim Cook started meetingwith investors.
Steve Jobs didn't care aboutinvestors at all, so didn't meet
with investors.
He went to the product everyday of the week.
He would meet with the productteam, tim Cook, probably once
(42:19):
every two weeks.
And he met with investors andthat's why the most innovation
that Apple has done in the pastfew years is financial
innovation where to go withtheir money and what to acquire.
They didn't do any innovationon the product side, whereas
Apple its success and thesuccess that it achieved is
because of the products.
It changed seven industriesit's unheard of it invented
(42:44):
seven or eight industries Everyindustry that it went through.
I mean, one of the things Iwould recommend for the
listeners is to go search for, Ithink, the first kind of earbud
, not the wireless one, thewired one, and there's an ad
(43:07):
where how many ears they testedto create an earbud that fits
smoothly into most ears.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
And how much attention.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Yeah, and the ad itself is such genius.
In fact, apple used to make adsabout the making of the devices
, not the features they made,because the making was inspired
by the needs of people and theproblems that need to solve, not
because apple was great or bigor it has money.
(43:37):
Of course it has money and itcan do these kinds of things,
but the principles and whatdrives them are these things.
And once they lost right nowthe biggest product, johnny Ive
is out of Apple they lost, ofcourse, steve Jobs and all of
that, and Apple became great atmaking money but lousy at making
(43:57):
great products.
So it's what you incentivizeand businesses made for making
products and being productive toproduce.
That's what businesses are.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Right.
Businesses are like people tome they have to have a purpose.
If you don't have a purpose,you know you don't feel any of
the other words that we usevision, value, whatever those
things are, you have to have thepurpose first, and the purpose
needs to be serving people,serving yeah.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yes, in a certain way , like you, know someone who
like a server in a, in a in arestaurant somebody serves
coffee, the other serves, let'ssay, the plates.
In a restaurant, somebodyserves coffee, the other serves.
Let's say the plates, somebodyserves the menu.
You're in service of people.
Everybody does a job andtogether you can actually run a
restaurant very efficiently.
That's service.
(44:47):
And every business is the same.
You have to serve yourcustomers and serve them in a
certain way and serve them verywell.
Your plumber comes and be ofservice.
He serves you by fixing yourplumbing.
You cannot ask your plumber todo your electric or, you know,
to cook your food, so that's hispurpose.
That's the purpose of theplumber, and the same thing with
businesses.
They need to have a purpose andtheir purpose needs to be to
(45:09):
serve their customers in thatparticular area.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Man, I love all this.
This is like you're the mostamazing storyteller and I know
you have mentioned thatstorytelling is so powerful.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
You're making me blush.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
Huh, you're making me blush.
Well, I mean, I know the more.
I looked at all of your work,the more I was like this guy's
unreal.
He's so amazing.
I've learned so much just inthe week I've researched you.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Thank you so much.
You're so welcome.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
You're so welcome.
I've learned a lot already, butthe storytelling that is my.
I tell everyone that they havea story in them and if everyone
would just share their stories,I think that all of us would be
a lot better off.
Would just share their stories,I think that all of us would be
a lot better off.
So you think that it shapes howpeople in organizations grow?
(46:04):
And yeah, oh yeah, I believe sotoo, because when you tell a
story, it's either about it'seither about a mistake or
something that has happened.
You know that you learn from,and basically that's what we
need to do as people andorganizations we need to, like
you said, make choices and keeplearning, keep educating
ourselves.
So the world's changing reallyfast and too fast, I think and,
(46:29):
like we've talked aboutuncertainties, overwhelming.
What advice would you give tosomeone trying to find clarity
and direction?
I guess maybe you would talk tothem about making a choice,
making choices.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Yeah, and I think one of, let's say, you're living in
the moment, whether you're,let's say, going into adulthood
or you are my age, you knowmidway through your life and
you're kind of making choices.
I think you need to be aware ofyour environment and the story
(47:05):
you tell yourself, like I cantell myself, that I can tell
myself many stories.
At 51 right now, I can say youknow what I lived all this life
and I still don't have, you know, 100 million dollars in the
bank, which is, I think, 300million.
That was, that was, that was my, that was my vision board thing
(47:26):
.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Your personal goal.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
I had 300 million.
For some reason I love thenumber three.
So like, why, why get 100million if I, if I had three,
three, so I also.
One of the stories is I willclimb mount everest is the peak
of, uh, of physicalaccomplishment or human
accomplishment, and I have toclimb it and I would have to
have, um, the mercedes sls redcar that would be, that would be
(47:51):
the.
These were, that was the storyI was telling myself.
I would.
I could look back and say, well,I haven't achieved those.
So it means this.
So I tell myself the story andthat story will color and will
impact how I look at life.
Because if I look at life andsay I haven't achieved what I
meant and maybe it's true, Imean it's true that I haven't
(48:13):
achieved those things but I'mnot telling myself or I'm not
talking to myself about the mostimportant thing, which is what
did I really want?
And, along the way, if I, oneof the things that we don't, we
don't spend a lot of timecontemplating is what do we want
(48:34):
?
We know what we don't want.
If you ask anybody, they knowimmediately what they don't want
.
But what do?
Speaker 1 (48:39):
you want?
Oh, you're talking to a webdesigner.
That's what people they tell me, what they don't want.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Yeah, I'm a designer as well.
That's one of the reasons Ileft.
Design is because I would showsomeone.
I was like, well, I don't likegreen.
I was like, who cares what'slike?
(49:06):
We spend a lot of time.
We don't spend enough timeconsidering what we want and why
we want it, and what does itmean to us and why it matters.
And when we do that, what endsup happening is we become more
intimately aware of who we areand what matters to us, and we
also discover that that changesacross time.
You know, if you think ofsomething simple like the food
you eat, very rarely would youlike the same food at 40 as when
(49:27):
you're 30 or 30, as you're 20,and definitely when 20 is, let's
say, 15 or 10.
So you change as a person.
So you find out that you growand you change as a person.
So you find out that you growand you change as a person.
You find out that your wantsand likes some of them matter to
you, some of them don't andthen you can make better choices
(49:48):
because your choice is now inservice.
So if I give you uh, I we didthis, uh, I would say forum
called the Forum, which ishighly recommended.
I would recommend for othersand they would ask you this
question chocolate, vanilla,choose.
And if I haven't spent enoughtime, you know chocolate and
vanilla, you know like going toan ice cream and you don't know
(50:11):
these options and you don't knowwhat you'd like, you'll stand
there like a deer in theheadlight.
You do the same in Starbucks,especially when they introduce
something new.
I mean, when they introducethree things that are new.
It's like, oh my God, as if Ineed more choices.
Can you just introduce onething new so I can make the
choice?
And in fact this is actuallyproven by science, they say in
(50:32):
the.
That's why if you look, let'ssay, in anything Costco or
Walmart, you see those peoplewho go around to give you
options.
There's a book called theParadox of Choice.
You shouldn't give someone morethan six choices, because more
than six choices now they'rehindered by the choice, even
though it's more choices.
That's why you go to Ben andJerry's like I don't know what I
(50:55):
want to choose, even though youknow what you like like.
You know you like, you alwayslike chocolate.
And maybe every time you choosechocolate, but every time you
see it, the overwhelm.
Because we were not.
We used to spend.
We used to go for hours to findone thing to eat when we were,
you know, 100,000 years ago, yes.
But now we're like we have aton of choices, so we're
(51:18):
crippled by the number ofchoices.
Our brain is not used to thatkind of thing so overwhelming,
yeah, so we need to spend timeknowing what we want and my
recommendation is to choose orto create, I would say to create
a big short or a shorthand tomaking certain choices, because
(51:39):
it becomes easier.
For example, I do a lot ofpartnerships with people, so
every time I need to consider apartnership, I need because I
need a ton of people.
I mean, like I know, thousandsand thousands of people.
Uh, I mean my, what is it?
My, I think, my, my phone bookitself is around like 3,000,
(51:59):
4,000 people Almost.
So I remember I had to changefrom a Samsung to an iPhone
because the Samsung phonestarted when I went to dial
someone, it would hang upbecause I had so many people on
my phone.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
It couldn't handle the load.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
Couldn't handle that.
So how do I make decision onto?
Who do I spend time with, whodo I partner?
Because when you're a certain,let's say, level, you're working
on something and something thatit's fine.
A lot of people want to workwith you.
So I developed a short hand forthat and I say I have to work
with people that I like.
(52:37):
So that's the first thing, andit's easy to, and they have to
be like snap judgments, you knowlike they have to.
I know who I like.
It's very, it's very visceral.
You know who you like, you knowwho you don't like.
The second thing is our visionshave to align.
So I asked them the first thingI said I'm like what kind of
world, what are you workingtowards?
Where are you heading with yourlife?
And if they have a vision thatI align with, that's the second
(53:01):
thing.
And the third thing we have toleave the world better than we
found it.
Oh, yes, so if they're workingon something that, because I've
done, you know I've done so manywork, so I'm not interested in
something that gives mesomething that is like some work
that gives me something that Idon't want.
Like somebody said, let's workon an e-book that you know I
don't know, help people knowwhat to feed their cats.
(53:24):
Now, if I work, I can work, Ican do the work, but do I want
like, is that what I want toleave?
No, I want to write, you know,about mastery and life mastery.
Not that there is anythingwrong with that.
Some people who love cats likeI have two cats, I love cats,
but not that much you know like.
But for others, for somebodyelse working on life mastery,
(53:44):
whatever they don't, and theyand they care about cats, they
become vets.
So everybody has a differentthing they want to leave their
life with or they want to.
So these became my shorthandfor making quick decisions in
regards to partnerships.
Shorthand for making quickdecisions in regards to
partnerships.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Well, I think the perfect example of your
shorthand is Momentable, becauseI was looking at that.
I even loaded it on my phonejust to try it out, and I'm
really not that into art, butnow I feel very well versed.
I mean that's I think you said,and at one point there's over
(54:19):
120,000 works from artists,galleries and stuff.
But not only do you exposepeople that probably have never
been exposed to art, you're alsohelping like storefronts and
museums.
I mean you're accomplishing alot of different things with one
effort.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Well, I'm hoping, I'm hoping to the art.
The art thing is, I would say,something that I've always had
since 1992.
Because I always I was bornbefore the internet didn't have
access and I remember begging.
So I can borrow one art bookfrom the father of a friend of
(54:56):
mine, because the art book inAmerica is $100, $200, let's say
, I remember Picasso's art bookand Dali, two of my favorites,
but for me in Syria $100 is thesalary of an engineer for a
month.
It's like if I told you rightnow, you know, and not any
(55:19):
engineer electronic engineer.
So I's like if I told you rightnow, you know to, and not any
engineer electronic engineer.
So I would say, if I told youright now, here's a book, all
you have to do to buy it is sixto $8,000 a month, you know.
Like to buy one book a month.
You wouldn't buy, like ifsomebody would have given you to
say, here, do you want to seethis book?
You would want to borrow itbecause it's very valuable.
So that's how valuable thosethings were for me.
So I've always felt that therewas so much more and I loved art
(55:41):
and there was very little spaceto experience art.
We didn't have a nationalgallery.
We didn't have, like a lot ofyou know, these big museums.
We had two museums, one warmuseum and one national museum,
which is more focused onartifacts rather than art, and
we had some galleries.
There is there are a lot ofartists and I've hear about the
(56:03):
artists but I'm yet to see theirwork, so I always had that.
So when the internet came around, I was like I can see, you know
, I can.
I'm finding so many things, whydon't I?
I put you know artists online.
So that's kind of my driver.
And right now, because I lovemuseums so much and I love art,
it's very hard to travel to seemany museums.
(56:25):
So, and I'm finding it hard andI'm blessed and I'm lucky to
have the life that I have, whatabout all the people that are me
right now that can't see theart of museums, can't visit
museums?
Can I help the museums create adigital presence?
That is true as much aspossible, true to the art and
(56:46):
the experience of art.
So it's not like a metaverse,it's more like you know, you
experience the art in its purestform and gives the museums the
ability to reach far more thanthe people who have the money to
travel to the museum itself.
Speaker 1 (57:01):
Well, and it's the epitome of the plus one, because
I mean it does everything thatyou just said, but also it
introduces the art world topeople that may not know what
artwork they like yet.
But it's AI-driven correct, soI mean, like, depending on what
art that I'm choosing to look at, I mean it can decide for me.
(57:22):
Oh, she likes this type of art,so let's show her these artists
, let's show her these, let'sshow her these.
I mean, it's educating me and Iprobably wouldn't have even
known it if I hadn't looked thatup.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
Yeah, we, we are.
I mean we we held back a littlebit on the AI until the AI
models are developed a littlebit more.
It does give you now somerandomness.
It's like how you discovermusic right now.
Music streaming might be notthat great for artists,
unfortunately, musicians butit's great for discovering new
(57:56):
music and lowering the barriersfor people to discover new music
and listen to new music, and Ithink that's important.
That art and culture used to besomething that we shared.
We've always spent timeattending plays, sharing it with
(58:18):
each other.
It creates shared language.
It builds bridges, breaks downbarriers, and I think it's
important that we come back tothat or else we're going to
continue to see ourselves adriftfrom each other.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Yes, yes, yes.
And back in my youth ministrydays, when I was a youth
minister, you know I had sixthgraders through 12th graders
their whole time, and you knowteaching them about faith and
the importance of it.
However, I would also haveclasses on just the basic skills
of life, you know.
Show them what art's like andwhy it's important.
(58:56):
Show them how to change a flattire, for Pete's sake, or how to
balance their checkbook All thethings that would prepare them
to go out, since, like you said,we're just shoving them out
there at 18 years old.
You know they're not preparedto live life and I think that if
a lot of leaders would takethat approach, I think that you
know we'd have a lot of uh.
It would make a big differenceout there.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
I agree.
If you could leave listenerswith one principle from the dark
art of life mastery that youhope they apply starting today.
What would it be?
I would say the biggest thingis remember that that life is
(59:39):
finite.
Um, we don't like to thinkabout that, but I think it's
important to remind ourselvesthat we don't know how long we
live, and so the moment thatyou're living right now is the
moment that you have.
It's not to make life moreprecious or less precious than
it is, but that that's what youhave right now.
So, in this moment, live to themax and let that be an act of
(01:00:04):
service and an act ofcontribution, because that will
build you up, that will give youso much more value than you can
ever think.
And we think of contribution askind of giving, but it's
sometimes just loving someone,saying a nice word, smiling at
someone.
Contribution can come in allshapes and sizes, so I think.
(01:00:25):
But when you put yourself intoit, you find your purpose,
you'll find out more aboutyourself and what works for you,
and you'll end up buildingcommunity and you'll end up
changing the world with smallacts of kindness and
contribution.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
Oh my goodness, just kindness heals my friend, I know
that for sure.
So before we wrap up, hussein,where is the best place for
listeners to find you, followyour work or get a copy of your
new book?
Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Absolutely.
Thank you very much.
Go to husseinhalakcom, so thatis H-U-S-S-E-I-N-H-A-L-A-Kcom,
and you will find everythingabout me that you want to know,
or maybe you don't want to know.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
And I will make sure and note this in the show notes,
everybody, so that you can justclick on a link.
Hussein, thank you so much forthis conversation.
Your journey reminds us thatinnovation, leadership and
purpose aren't abstract ideas.
They're choices we make everyday.
For those listening, Iencourage you to connect with
(01:01:29):
Hussein through his website I'mgoing to repeat it for you
Hussein HusseinHalikcom and it'sH-U-S-S-E-I-N-H-A-L-L-A-K, and
follow him on LinkedIn,instagram and Substack.
I'll include all those links inthe show notes and, of course,
be sure to grab a copy of hisnew book, the Dark Art of Life
(01:01:52):
Mastery.
And, as always, thank you fortuning in to the Plus One Theory
Podcast.
Remember your past doesn'tdefine you, it prepares you and
you can always finish strongerthan you started.
See you next week.
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