Abdurraheem Green – Analysis Paralysis
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Salam aleikum, welcome to a shake up the Rahim Greene's YouTube channel. And if you haven't subscribed already, you should definitely subscribe. He uploads I hope regular content, although I haven't been checking, not as regular as he should. So Sheikh green, you're very interested in personal development. Many people who have seen your lives have seen that you just don't speak about
personal development from a surface perspective. You go deep, you you look at research papers, you sort of analyze different approaches, and then you give this information to the public. Why do you think this is important for us as Muslims? Okay, so good question. It's funny that I was when you're asking because I was literally thinking about this today, this exact same issue I was thinking about today.
And really, it's, it really comes down to the purpose of law, what's the purpose of life? Yeah.
And we know that Allah subhanaw taala, said, we're marthaler kojin. Now we'll insert you earlier.
The Allah tells us in the Quran, that he did not create the human beings and jinn except to worship Him, so that we exist to worship Allah. But it's interesting that Abdullah ibn Abbas, he said that, to worship Allah means to know Allah.
Right? So I mean, he said this an explanation of this verse, right, that it means to know Allah. So and, and there's this old adage, that's very well, you know, it's very common, it's very well known. It's not, it's not a hadith, you know, but it's something that exists from ancient times. It's something that has been repeated by,
you know, our scholars, and the more rfv know, the people who know Allah and who have deep spiritual insights. And that is, if you want to know you need to know God, you need to know yourself.
Right? So this self knowledge how? Well, the reason is, because what happens yourself being creative. So in order to truly know yourself, you have to know that you have been created. And you've been created by God for a reason. And for a purpose. If you don't know that, if that's true, when I say if I mean, obviously, we know it's true, as Muslims, we know it's true, but I'm just posing it from a philosophical, psychological perspective, if it's true that there is a God, and it's true that there's God created us with a purpose, anyone then claiming to have any insight into human psychology is going to be lacking, at the very least, it's going to be lacking. At the very
worst, it's going to be totally totally, completely wrong. Right? If you don't recognize this fundamental dimension of the human condition, right, and I sold that, for me the thing, it all comes together, right, but from our, from our perspective, as Muslims as people who have chosen, who have taken that decision, to submit themselves and to surrender themselves to God, and that we have understood this important truth, that the reality of you the reality of your soul, the reality of your knifes, the reality of your human condition, is that there is a Creator, we've been created for a purpose, and all that comes with that, that life is a test. Then
the more you understand about yourself, the more you understand about the human condition, the more you understand about how your mind works, and how your mind doesn't work. Because a lot of the most interesting things I think, are to do with cognitive biases, which are ways in which our minds, it's not fair to say our minds don't work. That's not true cognitive biases are really useful. They are actually so important for our survival. However, they are these shortcuts that we take, because thinking takes a lot of energy. So we have these shortcuts that we take, we've learned throughout the ages, these shortcuts, but, you know, they don't always help us sometimes these shortcuts that
we have, they actually they cause us to make the wrong decisions. Right. So knowing these things is very, very key. Yeah. So because I believe that you see, that's it to know your so what is it? I mean, this is very, hugely deep. Yeah. But to know yourself means to know you're flawed. That's the first thing, right? We are deeply flawed, yet at the same time. We are gifted with extraordinary
capabilities. So we have extraordinary capabilities, the things that the human mind can accomplish are really mind boggling.
Okay, well, it was mind boggling what the minds can accomplish. But, you know, the things that human beings have done, it's just incredible. Yet at the same time, we're deeply flawed.
And it's understanding those two things, that paradox that is very, very key.
And that connection with Allah. And ultimately, I think, for us, ultimately support.
And dear listeners, the really the most important I think the key reason is that I don't think that you could really approach the topic of sincerity, which is,
there's really two things, there's two things that are absolutely the most important things if you're going to boil everything down to what is the purpose of life and how to worship Allah, it really boil boils down to two, well, three things. Number one is to have faith to believe in Allah Alone, that he alone is worthy of worship, that Muhammad is his messenger and all that comes with that. But apart, putting that aside, once you have faith, the two things are number one, sincerity. Okay? That means that we have to try and do every act of worship sincerely and purely for the sake of Allah. Now, we can never know 100%, whether we're sincere or not, but we have to work really hard
for that. And that's the inner struggle, that's the jihad against yourself. That's the fight against your own ego, your own impulses. And that is where this whole topic of, I don't even you know, I don't like this thing of self development. But that's what it really is about. Because if you don't know yourself, if you don't understand your cognitive biases, if you don't understand the way your own mind tricks you how are you going to be sincere? How are you going to know whether you're doing it sincerely for Allah, or whether it's an impulse of the ego. So therefore, in order to even begin to understand the topic of sincerity, or to be sincere towards the issue of sincerity, you have to
go deep inside this mind? Right. And that's what our great scholars and the great, you know,
what, I don't know what the term that the great, you know, the people have inside because they're not necessarily scholars, there are people out there who have had very deep insights into the human mind and the human soul and the connection with Allah. They're not always necessarily the greatest scholars, but they spend a lot of time a lot of time thinking about that spiritual condition. And it's so interesting, because we have anyone who has read, you know, those books, from those great scholars, and those great those people of understand these inner dimensions of the human being, and have read books on psychology will say, wait a minute, you know, our guys were figuring stuff out
1000, you know, 1000 years ago, 600 years ago? Yeah.
And this is, you know, in fact, sometimes, in sometimes, in fact, one brother told me, he said, there are some things that he reads in books of psychology, that literally seem to be seem to be have been lifted. Word for words. Yeah. From certain spiritual treaties that have been written by Muslims, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, he literally said sentences lifted. Yeah. Because, yeah, because that because they, because they, they understood that in order to be sincere, in order to really be sincere to Allah, you're going to have to first examine yourself very deeply. And you're going to have to look into yourself and think about what motivates you. Why do you do what
you do? Why don't you do what you don't do? What's really going on in your head? If you're not ready to look at yourself in the mirror? And really, be honest about who you are and what you are and what you're not? How are you ever going to take this matter of sincerity? Seriously, and just quickly, of course, the other thing is that you it's not just enough for your deeds to be sincere, but they have to be correct. Yeah. Okay, so that's where the other dimension comes in of studying fifth of understanding fic and you know, that, you know, that deep scholarly, and you know, that, that, that, that other path of being able to understand the Sharia, right, so the two things come together,
right.
Yeah, so that's it really, that's why it's a very, very important subjects. And related point to this is something that you mentioned
To the last time that he covered this topic, that the whole idea was not the whole idea. Some of the justification that was made for following mud hubs was actually because of decision practices. It's very difficult if you're just there trying to analyze everything and analyze analyze the cost of your school. And you also give the example of the cat and was it which other? The cat the cat in the fox became the fox? Yeah. So maybe you can start off with that, because I think that's okay. So I mean, there's this old story, you know, it seems to be a very ancient story, it seems to it's well, it's known as one of Aesop's Fables. But the origins of the story seem to go way, way back beyond
that. And it just shows that, you know, we're not the first human beings amongst human beings to think deeply about the human condition, right.
So you have the story of the cat, and the foxes, the cat and the fox are sitting there, and they have a common enemy. And the common enemy is the pack of hounds. The pack of hounds are both the dogs are both after the fox and the cat. So they're discussing escape strategies, you know, how are we going to escape? The fox? And the cat says, Listen, Mr. Fox, I just have well, I don't have, I don't have a plan. I just literally that's it. I just run for the nearest tree. That's the I see a tree, I run for it. I have no other escape plan. I just got one escape plan when I hear the hounds. That's what I did. And the foxes No, look, I have, I have figured out 15 Escape strategies, 15
different strategies
that will fit 15 different scenarios, and I'm working on more. And you know, just as the fox is beginning to elaborate on his various strategic options. Sure enough, they hear the pack of hounds around the corner. And so the cat just automatically strategy, one bolts up and runs towards the nearest tree, and gets up meanwhile, the fox is trying to figure out which of his 15 strategies he's going to employ in this particular stage. Yeah, but by the time he's got through strategy number five, the hands already there, and they rip him to shreds.
So yeah, the point of this whole, so here's this is, you know, this is another what they call a cognitive bias, or, you know, it's, it's a potential form of human dysfunction. And a potential form of human dysfunction is analysis paralysis, is that you can we sometimes we can over analyze the situation, and we analyze it so much that we actually end up doing nothing.
And, you know, obviously, that can be a very dangerous thing to do. And most of us, to be honest, also suffer from the opposite of that. And the opposite of that is always reacting like the cat.
And literally thinking every thinking that every single, you know, every single shout, and every single cry is a pack of hounds. Yeah, actually, this is interesting, because Allah talks a lot in New Age that the more Africans write them on Africa, and they think that every cries against them, they think that everything is raised is something about them, right. And often, this is how a lot of us live in this state. Because and this goes back to our egos, right? This goes back to the fact that we have these fragile egos with these carefully constructed stories that protect our egos. And then when we find something that seems to threaten our idea of who we think we are,
right, which is really just the story we've told ourselves, then we react as if it's a pack of hounds actually coming to rip us to bits. It's not, of course, it's just someone challenging your, you know, your fragile hallucinations, about who you think you are, right? But that's it, we give this, we give this,
this image of ourselves that we've constructed, we look at it as if it is us, and we treat a threat to it as if it's an actual threat to our life. And so, you know, this is the problem with a lot of human beings right now. They're on hyper, you know, they're hyper, you know, they flooded, constantly flooded with,
you know, what would you call it? What's the chemical?
The stress chemical?
Sorry, cortisol. Cortisol. Yeah. We're constantly studied with stress, the cortisol, the stress, chemical, we're constantly feeling that we're on the alert. We're constantly being triggered with dopamine as well. So, but at the same time, sometimes we do suffer from this analysis paralysis. And again, it's partly to do with the fact again, that we have access to so much information, right. We literally at our fingertips on this phone that we're, you know, doing this live appeal right
Now, literally at our fingertips, fingertips, there's an unprecedented wealth of information. So the irony is that there are times when actually, we should just have a simple strategy and execute it. We don't, because we're so busy trying to get everything right and trying to think of every single eventuality to make sure we don't get caught out. But in fact, that's, unfortunately what we do. And maybe we don't get ripped by the hounds. But we often end up missing the boat. We missed the deadline. We missed the opportunity.
Yeah, so this is what kind of happened. Yeah. And as you were speaking, I thought it was a good segue to talk about the fact that a lot of young people who want to get involved in Dawa, they'll watch a whole bunch videos, will talk about everything, from philosophy, to science, to geometry, to history, to poetry, but they'll have your app
where you just kind of
Absolutely.
And the thing is, is that in reality, you see, the fox didn't need his 90, he didn't need 50 strategy, he really did it. Right. He just needed one simple plan. Right? So the danger is, is we are over analyzing when we don't need to, obviously, sometimes we do need to analyze something, right? The real problem comes when, and so with Dow, what are your chances that you are going to encounter a philosophy? Professor? Right? 90% of the time, unless you're at university, right? Or unless even at university to be honest, even at university? Like the level of people that university is not that high? It really isn't. Yeah. Okay. So I mean, you know, the reality is, it's very, you
know, you're talking about 1% of 1% of people who have the level of knowledge where you need to learn these type of things. You don't need these arguments. You just need this the cat strategy, right? Or you need to go rap. You really do go rap works for 95, nine, maybe the 99% of situations that's going to work. Yeah, you'll have a few situations where it won't, but that's all you need. You know, when it comes to doubt, you don't need a lot. Why did the Prophet say believer only Well, liar, convey from me even if it is one I, if there's one that I have one verse of Quran, you really understand it, and you know it, and you understand what it means? Pass it on.
Simple.
Yeah. And the problem, as you pointed out, is, within within a few seconds, we can be flooded with information and resources, not just about that, or anything else. But you know, in your previous livestream, you gave the example of when you want to go out for a walk, you have a whole bunch of different gear and doesn't, doesn't actually the resources don't help in this case. It really doesn't. And you know, what, I realize a lot of the time I sit there thinking, You know what, it really doesn't matter. It's not like I'm actually making it a you know, it's not like I'm doing an Arctic expedition. It's not like I'm Shackleton. Yeah, I mean, even you look at Shackleton the poor
guy that those guys had nothing. Literally they had, in real terms of arts and equipment. They It was ridiculous how poorly equipped they were, but they survived. Yeah.
So like, you're already going out? Most of the time, you're going out for an hour, two hours, three hours, maybe five hours, right? I mean, what do you really need, and you'll be back in your warm home pretty quick. And you can, you know, there's the the reality, the idea that you're going to come across some, you know, extreme survival situation is not your it's not going to happen. Right. It's very unlikely. So yeah, that's exactly the thing. And, you know, it's great to have all the, you know, it's great to have all the nice gear, it really is. Yeah, I mean, I literally could almost, I mean, you know, I have all the gear that I could literally dress for any puts any scenario
that you can think of right? In terms of weather, right, whether it's a downpour, extreme cold, you know, very hot, I have it. But the problem is, yeah, it's all that sometimes you just need to just chat whatever on and just get out of them. Because it doesn't matter. Go and get some fresh air. The point is, you're missing the whole point. And the other thing is, it does become an excuse. Right? This is what the other thing I realized. It's literally you make an excuse. You're, you're giving yourself a reason for procrastination. And procrastination. Procrastination is one of the you know that that literally it's the killer, right? It's the thing that kills so much time kills so much
potential, dispensing with so many beneficials that are beneficial things that we can we could be doing, and we don't because we procrastinate, and sometimes it's just an excuse.
ECC, this is where it comes that you have to be honest with yourself, right? And maybe that's more important than anything else, right? If you can just look at yourself in the mirror and say, You know what, you're just making excuses. You want to be a lazy get, you want to sit on your backside in a nice, warm house, and you don't want to go out and you're just making excuses. So stop it. Just be honest with yourself, it's just way better. Because if you're not honest with yourself, how are you ever going to get to the stage when you can tackle the real problem, which is what's going on in here? Right? So yeah, that's another thing. Exactly. So it's that link between, you know, the the
analysis, paralysis, and the Ria, is there something deeper going on? Right? Is it really that you have to because even this can become an it's so even all of these cognitive dissonance is when you start knowing enough about them? Your mind, you know, you will play tricks on yourself stories within stories, you could have story going on within the story. It's almost as like, it's almost as if you feed your mind the information, right? And then your mind will use that information to confuse you even more. Yeah.
Yeah. And you're gonna ask, you know, what color is the cow? Know, how big should it be younger?
Like you mentioned, and, you know, it's the old story of Bani Israel, it's, they didn't want to do this. They just didn't want if you if you want to do something you'll actually do and something that you've previously spoken about in your videos is about how
you essentially have an energy bar when it comes to decision making. And the simpler you make your life, the more likely you are to actually spend time on the bigger actions. So wearing the same clothes every day. And this is, these are well, that's a good point. Well known strategies. Yeah. Used by, you know, like, They're well known strategies. You know, Steve Jobs famously had one outfit, he only had one outfit. That's it, that he didn't have to think about what he was gonna put on in the morning. That is just half an hour, less stress, because it is stressful. That's the first thing. It's stressful. No doubt. That's why a crispy white fold. You can say whatever you like about
it. That's it. You got your thoughts. You got your dishdasha. That's it, you got one less decision to me, you know what you're going to wear? That's it, like what else you're gonna wear, right? That's not a bad thing. You're going to put your buyer on. That's it. Who cares? What's underneath it? It doesn't matter, right? These are very simple things that simplifies your life, even in terms of what you've got in your house, right? The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam had so little, though they said there was nothing in his house salAllahu alayhi wasallam, except cleanliness. He had nothing, right.
But another thing I want to mention, and here's the weird thing as well, right? Is that, that doesn't apply to keeping yourself busy. Now, here's a weird thing. And I'm sure most of us have experienced this, right? The more busy you are with genuinely productive things. The more you find yourself doing genuinely productive things. Right, and I'm sure you will find that, you know, the more you are genuinely productive, the more you use that time in a genuinely productive way. Right. And Isn't it incredible that when you when you've got plenty of time, you've got no deadlines, you've got nothing particularly that you have to do you what any still you don't find time to go for
a walk to go to the gym to you know, read em, seriously.
Yeah, somebody who has literally, they're busy from six in the morning, till and genuinely productively busy from six in the morning till, you know, 10 o'clock at night. They read the paper and they go to the gym. Yeah. You know, they cook their own food, they'll you know, whatever it is, they've got all of this stuff sorted out, right. And they managed to fit all of these things in and I'm sure all of us have. I've certainly experienced that.
Is that actually a lot of the time, the busier I am the more productive I get. But that's busy, genuinely busy. Yeah, because there's the genuine busy. And then there's the saying you're busy and thinking yourself busy and making yourself busy. When you're not. Yeah, you're not actually doing anything that is really productive. And that is actually like the point being, if you're scrolling through your phone, you might like to think you're busy. Right? And you certainly get the feeling of being busy. And sometimes you are watching a literally, you know, maybe hours of content that actually is quite informative, right?
It's addictively informative, right? I mean, like any single one of these things might actually genuinely impact on your life. But the problem is you're not spending enough on anything to really, to be able to actually get any benefit from it. That's the first point. But you know, the point being anyway, the point I want to make is, if you put your phone down,
what would you have lost? If you put your phone down and actually gave your attention to something else? Would you have lost anything? Would you have regret? My, my daughter actually confronted me with this really interesting you one of my daughters, she sat down and confronted me with this yesterday, right?
She said, what, what have you What are you going to lose if you put your phone down right now?
And I put my phone down. And I couldn't answer because I was thinking this is really deep. Yeah. Because I genuinely felt at that moment, I was really immersed in what I was doing. Right.
And I felt that I was doing something genuinely, if I felt I was being informed, I felt I was learning something. Right. I felt that there was some genuine, you know, I was keeping connected with something. But when I put my phone down, like thought about it, I realized, you know what, there's nothing, there's nothing I'm really gonna miss. There's nothing really that important that if I don't do it, and her whole question is why, why are you doing that? Why, you know, whatever. That's from a kid that's from a teenager, right? Well, she's older than a teenager now. But you know, like someone who you would expect them to be immersed in scrolling on their phone and social
media. But asking me that question.
It was really good. You know, it, you know, so last about a day, you know,
that's
Hamdulillah, at least I found myself today actually doing a few more genuinely productive things. You know.
It's interesting, you say that about the scrolling. You know, the guy who, you know, the marshmallow experiment you have in your world. Right, yeah. So he's mentioned in the book, stolen focus, the book I recommended, I still have to read that. Yeah. It's, it's, it's hard to describe, it's just the best one of the best books I've read in a while. So he speaks about meeting the professor who came up with willpower experiment. Oh, and he goes in meets him. I don't know where Australia where he tracks him down in Moscow University. And, you know, he's talking to the professor about willpower and stuff. And the professor says, you know, what, nowadays, I just find myself scrolling
on my
you know, what, I even like, the the guy who came up with the experiment is now playing Candy, whatever. It's called Crush, Candy Crush or whatever. Right? Yeah. I mean, I find the same thing. I've done this willpower course. I guess the thing at the end of the day is that, you know, even with it, even in my willpower course, you know, one of the things having gone through it, one of the things that was very clear to me, is that even before the whole thing of willpower comes in, right? You still and I've mentioned this in the course, right, is that you still have to make a decision, there has to be a point where you know, there's something in your life that you want to change, and
then you genuinely want to change it. Right? So the willpower strategies come in when you've made that decision. And you've made that commitment, right. And it's not enough just to have, you know, a genuine decision to make a commitment. I mean, that's the first step in really change happening, right? And again, remember remembering the willpower course, you have to be very careful, right? Of just constantly making decisions and making commitments, right, because that itself becomes an addiction, because, you you, it gives you the feelings if you're changing, whereas in fact, you're not changing anything. All right. But the point being anyway, it goes back to
you. It still needs someone like someone or something needs to happen in your life, to make you think, Wait a minute, this thing I'm doing is not good. Right? You understand? It's not good that I'm overweight. Like most of us know that. But we don't care because why I prefer chocolate. I prefer that I before I was that's how it was. I would say I don't care. I would literally say I don't care. Yeah, I know. It's good to be slimmer and thin. But I enjoy eating chocolate. I enjoy eating tubs of ice cream, and I don't really care. I don't there's nothing that made me really care enough.
But then something happens to make you care. Yeah, right. And it's got to be the same with scrolling. Right? Like you can say, Yeah, I just spend my time. Well, you know, like, I guess you're a professor. Everyone knows who you are. You've done your you know, you've called
probably contributed more to psychology than 90% of even people in your field. Right? You know, you've done it, you've made it, you know, I don't know what, what keeps a person going when they've got to that stage? Do you understand what I'm saying? Like, you may feel quite happy, playing Candy Crush and scrolling through tic TOCs. You know, you may not care anymore, right? And I guess that's the question you have to ask yourself, right. Those are the things like, we can make each other care, we can remind each other, that's what's important. You know, while also in that in Santa Fe, also Illallah Dena Armand OVA, AMILO, Solea? What, tawassul, Bill Hakoah tawassul this summer? And
that's the important thing that tawassul Bill has to remind each other. Right, to be productive, to be better human beings to keep improving yourself? Yeah, you know, that's the best thing. Can you imagine when one of your own kids, you know, that's an answer to your DUA. Right? When your own wife or your own kids is reminding you, and in a sense telling you fear Allah and do something better with your life. And but hamdulillah you're the one who helped imbibe that into your child, that's just a beautiful thing. That's what you want. What more does a person want? From your, you know, from your nearest and dearest than something like that? Yeah, I know, in some cultures, right. You
know, it's like, how dare you speak to me? Who the * do you think you are? You know, that's why they're doomed. I mean, cultures like that are you know,
you can just look for yourself and see. Yeah,
absolutely. And, you know, when you was earlier speaking about making not making decisions and getting more information and saying, Well, I need more information to make a decision, you said, what you previously said, and maybe you can elaborate on this, that. Sometimes it's the fear of making a bad decision, or to make a good decision than a perfect decision. When it comes out time and opportunity is gone. I think, yeah. It's it's not the fear of making a bad decision. Right. It's the fear here in this particular instance, of not making the best decision or not making the perfect decision or not making the right decision. And in this particular instance, the right decision, you
know, would be the perfect one. Yeah. Okay. So, the point being is that no, it's better that you make a decision, you know, you make a decision that's achieved something that you then you make no decision, because no decision achieves nothing.
Right, no decision. I mean, even to be honest, a bad decision still achieves something.
As long as you're ready to learn, you've learned that that particular thing didn't work. So, you know, famously, you know, there are so many famous people, but Edison is the one who comes to mind, you know, like, famously how many 1000 times he, you know, he learned how not to make a light bulb, right? You know, he'd never looked at it as a failure. He just said, Okay, that's not the way to do it. Right. But he, you know, each one, each one of those experiments was a decision, right? It's better you make those 1000 decisions and get it wrong, because as long as you're learning, you've at least learned, okay, that's not the right way to do it. And so many people say that success is
really just, you know, learning from your failure failures. That's what success is right? In anything, you know, whether it's sport or business, or whatever, right. It's learning from your failure failures, right. So it's better that you make decisions. Right? And, you know, don't don't I mean, there's a saying I allow I love this saying Don't let perfection be the enemy of doing good.
Yeah, this is a really good saying. However, it you know, the way the world is right now, this is the sort of Zeitgeist with the cancel culture. This unfortunately has almost produces the opposite effects, right? It's as if you could do 100 things, right? No one wrong will remember those 100 things right, you do one thing wrong, and it's not even really badly wrong, right. You do one thing wrong or you say one thing that goes against whatever it is the status quo, the whatever, and you are canceled, you are treated as if you have never, ever done a good thing. Right.
And that is a shockingly bad way for society to behave. Yeah. That is really unconstructive. And that's just that's going to be a you know, a go nowhere fast society. If we allow a culture like that to dominate. I mean, no
You have to look at everything holistically, you have to look at the whole of a person, you have to look at everything they have done. But we've seen this again and again, several people have dedicated their lives dedicated their lives.
To, you know, for example, anti racism. They say one thing that one group of people doesn't like, one mistake, one, whatever. And it's treated as if this person never has done anything, they are canceled, they are not listened to. It's
not only is it disgusting, not only is unjust, not only is it oppressive, what sort of society you're creating, you're creating a society of people who will not be ready to take decisions will not be ready to put their neck on the line will not be ready to stand out, and stand up and you know, be counted and be heard. This is what you'll get, all they'll be ready to do is just bear like sheep. Now, I'm sure there are a lot, there are some people who would like us all to be like that.
There are some people who would like us all to be sheep, because they want us to be sheep because they want to, you know, they want to slaughter us. You know, not literally, but figuratively. They just want to use us like sheep, there are some people, a few people who would like us to all be sheep. Right? I don't think that's how we should be. However, that's not really good for the collective human race.
And it sounds like to me, that could be a road for disaster. Not progress. But yeah.
And this is linked to what you mentioned earlier about sincerity, because if you're sincere, then you shouldn't worry so much about making a bad decision, when overall what you are doing is making a decision according to the best information that you have.
So, you know, one of the things that you emphasize, I hear a lot as well, is the deadline is a deadline, or whatever you need to do you have to take action before that deadline. Yeah, a lot of people they just they just scared of failure. And therefore they just don't take any action when not taking action is far worse than the failure would have been.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, first of all, just forget even, you know, a deadline is a deadline. Some people don't even give deadlines, like, you know, that for me is like, for on a management level, but even on a human level, even on your everyday life level. Right. The the general thing is, if you don't have deadlines, you will just keep on drifting on and on and on. That's just the nature of things. Right. So like, even if the deadline, you know, just number one is just give everything deadline, that's the first thing. Again, you know, I teach that in the willpower course, is one of the things I teach right? SMART goals, you have smart goals, part of SMART goals, as they are
timely, that's the T of smart, the end timely, is you give it a time, right? You're gonna be specific, you want to make your goals specific, you want to make them, you know, measurable, you want to make them attainable. Okay? You want to make them I forgot what the R stands for. And you want to make it timely, right? So all of these things is like, if you want to achieve something, dig down, how much of that do I want to achieve? Let's be specific, let's bake, break it down into things that are actually realistic and attainable. Right? Okay. So and give yourself a time give yourself a deadline, I want to achieve this and this by this and this, this amount by this time,
right? So just doing that, and then writing it down
will make you you know, fit 60% more likely to actually achieve the goal. Just that. Right? Just that. Right? So obviously, you know, then you want to, you know, obviously then you want to give yourself consequences as well. Like that's another you know, again, you know, that's one of the things we learned is you know, there's consequences for not,
you know, reaching those deadlines. And the funny thing is, I mean, it's all the weird thing is is that we need to play tricks on ourselves. And even though we're doing it to ourselves, and we know ourselves that we're just playing a trick. Yeah. It's incredible how it just works, right? Yeah, it's almost like there's this you know, this will there is this sort of inner battle going on between different us, you know, different selves that you have, right. Yeah. And it's almost like you have to outsmart you have to outsmart yourself.
Yeah.
And you spoke about in the right in the beginning. Do you have cognitive
biases, which are essentially shortcuts that we have or parts of our dispositions. And if we don't know what, okay, so there may be somebody who is very hasty. And then you need to slow down, there may be somebody who is actually, you know, a perfectionist, and they need to speed up, going back to the original thing that I started off with, and we can end the stream on this. Inshallah is personal development, how will this help your spirituality? Can you just emphasize that point?
Well, the main important thing, like I said, is
at the end of the day,
the reason why you want to work on yourself, you want to do that inner work you want to do that work on yourself,
is because
you will never be able really, to achieve or bigot to even understand what it means to be sincere. Yeah, you know, unlike the, you know, you find like, I mean, obviously, I'm talking in the language of Islam, I'm talking as a Muslim, and I'm sure most of the people who were listening are Muslims. So we talk about F loss, right, that's what we talk about F loss. But even for non Muslims, right, they have some concept of that they, they talk about keeping it real, for example, right? Keeping it real. And they understand how problematic it is to tell yourself stories. Because if you keep telling yourself stories, and you keep protecting your ego, you're not really ever going to achieve
your full capabilities, that's the number one thing, you're not really going to be able to achieve your full potential. That's the first problem. And secondly, most of the time, you are going to be miserable,
you really are not going to be happy. And this is again, another thing, I've noticed that, you know, even people are not Muslim, they figured this stuff out, they've begun to, you know, they figured out this thing that the more you live in this ego, and this, you know, this bubble and this image of what you call yourself, the harder you're gonna have to fight to protect it. And the unhappy you are, you are, right. And then the more ready you are, the more ready you become to make other people's lives miserable, to fulfill your own story of what you think is important to yourself.
Right? So I mean, it has many, many consequences, right? And that, you know, has many consequences. So there's, there are many, many reasons. I mean, you're just, you know, you will be a happier person, the more honest you are with yourself, the more real you are with yourself,
the happier you're going to be. Ultimately, that's the reality.
And insha Allah from the Islamic perspective, how were you? I can't reiterate. I mean, I say like I've given he's been giving these talks for quite a while, and I sort of slowed down and stopped. But
I think it was for two years. And I think almost every single time every single time I Give it I say why is this topic so important? I mentioned it again and again, is to do with sincerity. How are you going to be sincere to Allah? If you keep lying to yourself? How will you know what is motivating you? That's the question. That's what sincerity is. Are you doing it for the sake of Allah?
If you can't be honest with yourself about who you are, what is motivating you? How will you know whether you are doing it for Allah? Or for some other reason? How will you know?
You can't the only way you can know is by doing this work of stripping yourself there. And you know, being honest about who you are. Now I I think, interestingly, Sybil rove it's very interesting that I think that
that, in a sense, the not the converse, it's not the converse, but it's, it works the other way around. Right? If a person really loves Allah truly loves Allah. Right? And they truly want Allah's pleasure. And they want to please Allah more than anything else. Right?
And they, they try hard to be sincere. Their mind will be open their heart there, you know, it's like, this is what I guess this is the sort of thing they call cash. It's like, it's not like some it's literally like you will begin to understand all of this stuff, but you don't need to read any books. You honestly don't need to read any books on psychology. You will begin to spot this stuff yourself. You
will need you be able you will begin to see yourself for who you really are you will, that will happen to you. Right?
The same thing, if I go back to this is interesting, simple, right? The same thing with all this willpower stuff. And I thought about this a lot, right? I mean, even though I teach this willpower corpse, there is another way to achieve all of that stuff without ever studying any of that willpower stuff. Right? You can achieve all of it. If you reach a level of Taqwa. If you reach that level of Taqwa, you don't need any of that stuff, right? Because your mindfulness of Allah will drive you
to be in control of your knifes, right and to regulate your willpower and to give you
the control to be able to achieve whatever you want in terms of being mindful of Allah and keeping away from sins. And not just that, in terms of making yourself the best human being that you can possibly be, whether it's in your health, whether it's in your character, whether it's in business, or whatever, because all of this is there in this lab, right.
So it's it can work two ways, right? You can use this stuff to help you build your taco. But if you have enough taqwa, you'll have this stuff under control already. The same thing, you can use this stuff to develop your sincerity. But if you really, really have that depth of sincerity, you will automatically this is almost as if this knowledge will come to you. Right, you'll see it for what it is. You'll know when you're telling stories to yourself. When the how do people know some people don't know the difference between their own thoughts and what Shere Khan is putting in their head.
You ever experienced that support? It? Was there ever a time in your life? You didn't really know? Was this meal? Was this checked on? Lots of people have this problem? Right? Why? Or even even check? Sometimes you think you're doing something for the sake of a lot, but you know, deep down there is actually an ad hoc rationalization. Okay. But I'm just talking here about shaytaan. Like so that's like, I'm just going to a big extreme.
But I don't know bro. My years I've had lots of people. They just don't know the difference. When is it my own thoughts? When is it Shere Khan? Like certainly happened to me? Right? It certainly happened to me. The only way you know is by reading the Quran by studying the Sunnah by say, by sincerely wanting to please Allah. And when you live your life according you then you will know you big then you very quickly not right. Because you know what's halal? You know what's haram? The Halal is clear, the Haram is clear. Right? You know, when it che con coming to bother you? You know when it shaytaan putting thoughts in your head. But if you don't know that stuff, bro, if you have no,
you have no knowledge, right? You have no understanding. You have no facts of the dean. Of course, you will get confused. Yeah, of course. Shaytan is going to confuse you. Right? You won't even know what's your voice or what shake hands voice to scary thought.
They shake that was a wonderful talk. Inshallah. We'll be back next week. Everybody watching Please, could you subscribe to shake up the Raheem Green's YouTube channel? And actually he hasn't been posting much? Nothing, bro. Oh, come on. That's that.
That's a no no for the algorithm. You know, one thing you should do is you go on your you know, your mountain biking and these types of things. And you putting up some videos of that I think people really do wrong I have so much footage. It's honestly not that it's the editing decision. I have literally literally hours and hours and hours. It is literally the sitting down putting it together. No. And as much as I enjoy I enjoy the editing. But it is it is a whole art form and a whole process in and of itself. Right. And it's actually quite exhausting. You know, so the filming is that easy. But it's the putting it all together and editing it there's actually a solution which is linked to
decision paralysis.
If you you have a laptop, of course, and you have a editing software. Yeah, I do. Okay, if you just tell yourself that I am only going to film on my phone and upload it using whatever I have on my phone basic programming. You will actually upload when you have your laptop and your Premiere Pro and these things are speaking to No, it's true. It's
a YouTuber who's doing really well at the moment I lead our so I was speaking to him about his, you know, martial. He's putting out content all the time. And he doesn't actually use a laptop. He says I just use my phone. Yeah. So sometimes if you restrict yourself like the cat and you say you only have one strategy
Oh
yeah, and I do something because I'm really lazy when it comes to editing. I don't even edit sometimes I just upload Yeah, I do. In fact the funny thing is the last I think the last second last thing that I did was all done on my phone is literally it was all done on my phone. I filmed it on my phone I went for a walk with the kids everything was filmed on the phone edited on the phone put it together it was beautiful really really nice. Just went for a little picnic with the kids and did it the thing is see I'm not trying to make excuses here when I'm going mountain biking the phone is probably not the best thing to be sticking on your mountain bike because it's a good flying off and
brake and this and that so like that's when that's the one time when I have to get the you know the action camera out and then you know sometimes the drone because it just gives a beautiful effects I like I have stuff I have like it there's this video I want to do called before it's all about like it's literally a combination of some of my faults right which is I got you know so I have stuff that is just sitting there but
what is it bro is that zombie scrolling bro zombie scrolling I should be getting down doing some editing it's that time of year actually this is winter the time of year when you get down and do some editing. I don't really feel like going out that much but but yeah just after LeBron come to LA thank you so much for your time shake everybody watching please make sure you subscribe and tell others about shake greens channel. We will be live inshallah next week we will be covering decision fatigue that's gonna be an interesting topics until very similar but different to this.
All right, Rob, As Salam aleikum, Allah