The Magic of Thinking Big – Live with Sheik

Assalamualaikum Welcome to this live stream. Today we're going to be speaking about thinking big, or rather the magic of thinking big. Now, just before we get into it, shake green, your internet was really good. And now it's gonna be choppy. Just give me a sec.

That's fine. So while

while shake green is just fixing his Wi Fi, I want to begin off with a narration of the prophets of Salaam, which I think is a beautiful narration about thinking big. And it is the following. Truly, Allah loves lofty matters, said the prophets are Salam, and he dislikes lowly matters. This is a really beautiful narration, and I'm sure that anybody who's going to be, you know, listening to this live stream will really appreciate the true depth of that message. And I asked Sheikh green about this topic today, because I believe, as Muslims, we think, rather, in a very small way, in comparison to the tools that we have, and the amount that we have. We should be thinking far greater

than that. So over to you. Shukran. Yeah, so just talking to her, bro. It's a very interesting subject. But I think that from the point of view of, you know, being transformative, how can you know, how does thinking in a certain way?

You know, like, change your life? How can it really you know, when you say the magic of thinking big, what do we mean by magic? Obviously, we don't mean to help in the, you know, the Haram sense, what we mean is that, you know, that, it seems to, it seems to create a transformation, almost out of nowhere. Yeah. So it's something that seemingly is very unnoticeable, you, you almost can't see it, yet the consequence, and the result of it is just something something magnificent, and astounding and astonishing, right? So when we say, magic, from that point of view, you know, most of what we mean, it's surprising, we mean, it's delightful, right? So it from that point of view, it

has really, really good connotations. And can something as simple as thinking differently creates such a transformative effect on your life. And I definitely think it can. And, although I'm not really well, I haven't read a lot about it, I've read about the subject of neuroplasticity, you know, as I read, as I read a lot of self help stuff, as I read into psychology, obviously, the merging now between psychology and neuroscience. And now they even call it neuro psychology it's becoming, it's becoming more and more of one sort of discipline than merging more and more. And obviously, so the new the idea of neuroplasticity is just basically the idea that your brain can

really change, it's very fluid.

And you're not necessarily stuck in your ways, we tend to think we're very stuck in our ways, we've talked about that. We talked about the power of habits, the power of bad habits, we talked about neural pathways, but we also talked about the ability of a person to change and create new neural new neural pathways. And this is the whole subject of,

you know, neuro of neuroplasticity, that your mind is really, really flexible. And that yes, there can be things that that are very seemingly small and innocuous, but they can make a massive impact. Right. So one of those things is is thinking big, right. But I think the other thing is, it's not only the impact that it has upon, you know, you as an individual, but it's the impact that it has on us socially. Even civilization. Right? Yeah. So when I was thinking about this, I was thinking about it really from two perspectives. I, you know, there is a there's an old that's, you know, one of the old classic self help books that you've made the magic of thinking big, right? And I looked into it,

and I thought, okay, I can see what the guy's getting on about but the funny thing was, is that even I didn't read the whole book, I just read a summary of it. So I may be completely wrong, right? But even his thinking big wasn't really thinking big right? It was just, you know, what I realized is that, you know, he obviously realized a lot of people have what we can call very small minds. So what do we mean by small minded? So, these are things petty minded, small minded, right? So there are people who are small minded, they are petty minded, that different shades of the same things it means that they are people

People who are,

I think, number one, they will normally character be characterized by people who are extremely egocentric. They're very much focused on themselves. They're focused on their own safety. They're focused on their own sense of identity, whatever it may be, and usually it's very, very limited, really pathetic and quite fragile sense of identity.

And you know, that they're obsessed with the minutiae of things.

And, and they, they just don't, you know, they that they don't seem to be able to understand that there is a bigger picture. Now, a lot of us encounter this in in, you know, I was just reading today about some of the horrible horrific things that people are going through and Brexit. Of course, one of the main issues that a lot of a lot of people had with the European Union was that it is this quagmire of bureaucracy. And that's exactly what we're talking about petty mindedness, small nine mindedness getting lost in the minutiae of things. For example, I was reading about some, you know, some person who was in the business of producing specialized pasture.

And this person exports this pasture to posh restaurants all over the world, right. And because it contains dairy, now, it's pasture, right? Because it can take contain some dairy, and potentially some meat produce, for some reason, they have to get a vet to verify it.

Yeah, I know. But that's what we're talking about. This is EU regulations. And he has to get it wrong. It's not only EU regulations is here as well in this country, and he said, like the vets are really, really hard to get hold of, so he has to get a vet to verify it here in England, right? So much for the petty minded regulations, they're still there anyway, right? Then he has to get another vet to do it when it goes to EU and obviously, this escalates the price. And anyway, but the point is, it's this type of petty minded bureaucracy of people who fail to see a much bigger picture, right? It can often become the plague of societies, but it's also the plague of individuals, when

you think about it, on the level of individual relationships, if you as a husband are like that, or you as a wife are like that, or you as a parent are like that. Or you as a teacher are like that.

What what is the result? What are the consequences you you get, you get situations, social situations, not extremely frustrating.

And they go nowhere, no one wants to be in an environment like that. Right.

So that's, you know, that's, you know, small minded, petty minded from one point of view, so Well, I obviously, I'm this guy, obviously, he talks about thinking differently, you know, so you can understand that his approach to the book is starting off from the point of view of exactly how small minded and petty minded people can be. Right? And these are just some examples that I'm thinking of it. In fact, right. Just just

highlights certain thing. So one of the things he points out in the book is people overestimate other people's abilities and underestimate their own. And I think that's, that's a key thing. Yeah. One of the classic cognitive, you know, one of the classic classic forms of cognitive dissonance, right? Well, cognitive bias, right, is we absolutely overestimate our own capabilities. And we underestimate other people's capabilities, right?

Yeah. But I mean, yeah, I meant it.

I meant it as in people underestimate their own abilities. Yes, they do. And they think other people are way more intelligent than them. And that's why they have this. Most most of the time is the the opposite way around. Right? Yeah. But that can happen as well. Right? It can be both most people think they're more competent than they are. Yeah, actually, most of the time, most people think they are more competent than they are. And that's the classic Dunning Kruger effect. When you're really, really ignorant, I mean, you're so ignorant. You don't even know that you're ignorant about something. Right.

And, you know, we live in, we live in an age where people so I mean, there is the other thing, like, you know, there's the other obviously, like all of these things, they fall into extremes, right? You have one extreme of people who are so small minded, right? They have no idea of the incredible things they are capable of. Right. The bottom line is that you, me and everybody have essentially the same brain as Einstein. We do

do this the basic mechanism of what is in there. It's the same, it doesn't matter, even even the most dumbest person in the planet. And I don't mean someone who is suffering from some proper neurological, you know, problem, right. But someone whose brain is functioning,

essentially, the brain is, you know, everyone's brain is the same. It's just about how it's been trained. Right. So this is the first thing is that people, you know, really underestimate what they are their potential. Right, I think, but also the thing is that people also, maybe, you know, maybe they maybe they do realize that, you know, in order to reach that full potential, it, it does take a lot of hard work, right.

But you, you, so thinking big, is just allowing yourself to believe that you have that potential. And that's really what it is, it literally is, it's almost like faith, that's what it is. Have some faith, you know, believe that you have the capabilities. Yeah. So like, when somebody in my organization, for example, says, you know, well, I think we need to get a 24 hour, you know, live streaming, you know, like channel going, and this person starts getting ill you don't know how difficult it is if he

would have done it by now. Right? I think you know, that's really sad, because it's really not that difficult. And give me three days, and I will have it done. And I could I can do it. I will do it in three days, believe me, and I've already found a way to do it, by the way. Right? I have, because this is obviously a real life scenario, right. And I have already found a way that we can do it. And it's actually we can have it up and running in three days. Yeah, I admit that it's going to be a challenge to keep it going. But it can be done. Right.

So, you know, I was on a platform recently. I don't know. Obviously, it's all the talk of the town. Now. It's called clubhouse. I know, it sounds like Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know. It sounds it's like a rave. Yeah.

Well, it's actually a very, very fascinating platform. Right.

And I was on this, you know, randomly invited to it, which is, by the way, the way that this could be done. Yeah. Yeah. And,

and there was a lady, which really inspired me, I just happen to chanced upon some intrapreneur channel, right, because they have these sort of tables and channels, where it's like a radio station. This, this lady had been going nonstop for 12 hours. Oh, my, she had been on that nonstop for 12 hours. And that was after she had had a break, I think of like, eight hours. And before that she had been on eight for eight hours, right? Nonstop. 12 hours she'd been hosting this, this anche Believe me, she just sounded just so lively. She didn't sound like she was at the end of her tether. Right? She sounded like she could keep going for another 12 hours. Right? So this, you know, this.

And so like, it's like, they were saying, how do you do it? Now to be fair, she said, look, it's a lot of training. Right? And I thought when she said what our training was, I thought, You know what, I can do exactly that I've got the same training. I go, I do. Normally I do the new Muslim retreat. I stand up on my feet, probably for what, six hours, seven hours in a day, right? Maybe more. I've stood up in Speaker's Corner, I've done a five hour talk non stop in Speaker's Corner shouting, like she said, so going on this hot, you know, going on this clubhouse, where people don't even need to see me, I can just be, you know, sitting in my yoga pants, and I can still me, that's easy, right?

Like, 12 hours is easy, right? And I thought, You know what, I could do that. Right? So the thing is, is that, you know, thinking big, I, you know, it's just that allow yourself to realize your huge potential. It's part of it is saying, if this guy can do it, I can do it. That's what it is. You really you look at other human beings and you say they can do it. That means that somewhere within me, is the potential to do that. Yes, it may. It may take hard work. Yes, I may need to train myself. Yes, it may push me to the very, you know, limits of my capabilities. But as we talked about, in our first one of these, you know, live streams, we talked about that we talked about flow,

we talked about happiness, we talked about optimal experience. So it really is just the first thing to do is open your mind to the possibilities, right? Never say never, you know, you know when someone tells you it's impossible, you just say no, it's not impossible. There is a way to do it and I will find a way. Right this was you know, I wouldn't even say my dad in gray

Listen to me, he didn't even ingrain it. He literally had a conversation with me once, just probably the right time in my life. But he used to say to me, listen, and because that's what they used to call me. Right, Anthony? Listen anxious or acute because it's so small. But

listen, and he said, nothing's impossible, he would always tell me nothing is impossible. You can do it. And obviously, as a kid, I will try to think of every impossible. Like, can you ride a motorbike upside down in the air? He said, Okay, well, maybe, but he said, they do have and he made, he mentioned these guys who go,

he said that he said, The hit you have these people, they do that? Right. So it's like, you know, he had this attitude. And then I remember when I was at school,

that a lot of people, I had a lot of friends who their plan was to go into the army, right?

You know, the so. And one of the things about the army is that they used to talk about the officer training, right? So if you obviously from my posh school, they're going into the army with their purpose of being an officer, right? So you can bypass all the lower ranks, but you have to go through special training, right? You have to go to Sandhurst, or something or whatever you do that you'll do some basic training. But it's a special, you know, if you can pass the grade. So what is passing the grade, one of the things they do is they test you, they put you in, and one of the things they do is they'll constantly put you in what they literally are impossible situations,

impossible situations, but you will have to figure out with your team, a way to get out of that impossible situation. And since I was a kid, whenever I came across a challenge, I would say what is what if I was in officer training? What would I do? How would I How would I respond to this? Right? How would I deal with this? You know,

and it just developed within me that attitude that, you know, I just believe I just believe that you can do amazing things. You know, and not just you individually, by the way. I mean, when you work in teams, as they say the teamwork is the dream work. Yeah. Right. I spent 10 years in Egypt row, right. I'm probably every other day. I, you know, maybe at least a couple of times a week, maybe not every other day. But my mother and my brother would go everyday to the pyramids to go horse riding. And I would probably go with them a couple of times a week. And so I was everyday looking at the pyramids, right. I wouldn't go horse riding, I would actually walk into the tombs and the you know,

the things and I would just explore that whole area because I was fascinated. How did those people, right? No machines, no tools, you know, no modern tools. They built these mountains of stone with incredible precision, and no one's really figured out 100%. Now, how they did it? I mean, not just that Stonehenge, right. And Stonehenge is not even the most amazing Stone Age, megalithic structure. There are so many of them, they still don't know, some of these stones are 60 tons. How did they move? As 60? Is the teamwork? The teamwork? Is the dream work. Right? Recently, I went to offers dike it this summer, right, which is not far from me. I could probably take me a long, long day, but

I'd rather on my bicycle, right. And there's parts of it, that it's not a particularly, you know, by by the Great Wall of China standards, or it's not particularly impressive. But still to think that that was Anglo Saxon Britain. They built a wall that stretched all the way down Wales. And until now, it's an impressive feat. How did these guys do that? So that's the thing, like when we work together, right? It has this multiplication amplification effect, right? And so that's the thing is that it's the ability is not only of individuals to think big, but when societies when people within society, they can think big now so like, you know, I was thinking of a great example of this is if

anyone's I like I know most lots of you tons of you must have watched vertebral by now. Right? Like 3 billion people. It's the most watched drama in history. Right?

So what's the difference really, between Earth Iran, and you know, and colpack not even colpack Like, you know, what's the difference between Earth and Solomon Shaw? Solomon shires. He's a powerful character, right? But what's the difference between Berto and Solomon Shaw? It's, it's the thinking, right? It's the mentality. It's the mindset. He's thinking bigger way bigger than his dad, right? He's thinking way bigger than his tribe. Right. Most of them are.

obsessed in that petty? Our Yeah, that petty but the pettiness of it that this is exactly the example of small mindedness, right? They're concerned about this shape. And that shape, right? And you insulted me. And you said this to me, and you said that to me, and you looked at me in the wrong way. I mean, you know, you didn't give me respect. This is the perfect example of small mindedness. People who are obsessed with these things. They all go nowhere people, right? You understand their idea of progressing, right? is moving from living with your nose poking out of the gutter. Yeah, like that, to sitting on the edge of the gutter with your feet, dangling it in it. And you think

that if you're sitting on the edge of the gutter, like some gangster drooling, dealing, and pimping and whatever, right with a few flippin gangsters around you, yeah, that you've got somewhere in life. That's just a small minded as you can get. Right. And they think they're big, and they think think there's something and they think there's somebody, right? It's ridiculous. It's nothing, that small mindedness, right, those are people who are trapped in a small mind as you can get.

I just wanted to bring in an example here, and those tribal people, it's the same thing, bro. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, this thing that you said, your article thinking big. And then you have people who are worried about the sheep and these types of things.

You know, they are, they are people who spent a long time actually trying to solve how many sleepers in the cave were there, despite

otherwise actually told us that there's a much bigger reason why those numbers are irrelevant. And so I mean, there's nothing in the Quran that superfluous. So why does Allah mentioned Okay, some say, some say is that, because, in a way, we could say that Allah wants us to think, Okay, what's the lesson here? Specifically, Allah says, and don't even talk about it, and don't even discuss it unless you have some clear knowledge.

And what's powerful about this is if we, if we apply this, this sort of thinking throughout the Quran, if you use a filter, if you use a filter to try and sift this out, we'll see this with the story of the cow. We'll see this time and time again, where the cow is maybe a bit different. That's just obstinacy. The end of the bottom line is they just didn't want to want to do it. Yeah. I mean, they, I mean, that problem was a big problem. Number one, they didn't really like, believe it. It just didn't get the fact that wait a minute, this is Musa he's a prophet of God, he's telling you something, put aside your credulity, you know, you're put aside your disbelief, because that's

really what it is. They're saying, wait a minute, how is slaughtering a cow going to help us identify who the murderer of this person is? Well, it's good to start asking questions, God's just telling. So that problem is like a deep psychological problem. Right? And that, I mean, again, that I mean, it's, it is part of the same thing, bro. It is. You're right. It's part of thinking small, right? They just can't imagine stuff. And that that's part of the problem of their years of oppression living under occupation, right. Living in Egypt as second class citizens having your you know, having your male children killed being oppressed like it. Unfortunately, that's what it does,

it damages you psychologically. On the whole lack of on a whole level. It doesn't damage everyone. Moose is not like that.

Joshua is not like that you don't have the point is you don't have to be like that. Right? If you had to be like that, Allah would not hold you to account for behaving like that. Yeah, right. And Allah has given them plenty of examples. He drowned the whole army of Pharaoh right in front of their eyes, like what do you want to see? What do you want? And he spent them too? He said the Egyptians 12 or nine plagues, right? Yeah. What do you want? What do you want to see guys? Seriously, you know, but you know, I want to go back to earlier I'm gonna say something might surprise you. Right?

So yeah, definitely. Ertel an awesome man. They are both and maybe us man is even more ambitious. He's bigger thinking than even his dad. Right? He's thinking on a hold this, this is the power of having an example having an inspiration. You think if my dad did this, then I can do that. Right? So you just take it to a different level. But you know, who is I tell you what, who is a bigger thinker?

purely on a

like a on a worldly scale. I'm not talking spiritually here. Right.

Right. The biggest thinker

The mall is getting his con. Right? The Mongols, like, although the Mongols are very negatively badly portrayed in Earther, right? And a lot of it is just nonsense, right? A lot of the stuff in that program actually makes me a bit upset, right? The Mongols would not go around slaughtering their own soldiers, right just because they get angry and this and that. It's just nonsense, right? The Mongols were actually they weren't a horde. The Mongols were mostly, actually from this perspective, like the sahaba. vastly outnumbered. Right? The Mongols are actually relatively small in their numbers. And the reason again, Gus Kahn was an an outstanding tactician. He was

outstanding, the reason why he burnt and slaughtered everyone in the city who resisted him. Right? Was because he, they were actually so averse to losing any of their soldiers. They were extremely averse to losses. That was the biggest thing that they really were, you know, the Mongols they were. So they created these literal terror tactics to terrify people into submission. But the Mongols they had the biggest vision of all right, they literally their idea was to conquer the world. Right. And they may they didn't conquer the world. They they still had the biggest empire ever. Well, until the British. Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting. The British came along, they had the biggest empire in

history. Right? So obviously, the big differences, I say, apart from the spiritual perspective, right? Because the biggest thinking of all right, the biggest thing that you have, is that thinking that you have when you're connecting to God. Right? That is thinking that is transcendent. Actually, and this is in Islam, it transcends Christianity, that transcends transcends Buddhism, Buddhism, despite all of its claims, is still it's basically a universe, temporary, temporal based ideology, it's still rooted in a very sort of real physical, self, right? But Islam transcends that, you know, you transcend yourself to, to ultimately over this paradox of being this slave of God, you know, the

free slave, right? Because you, although you're a slave, it is the freest state that you will ever be, right. And it's this understanding that through this, through this submission, and the surrender to God, you actually free yourself of the limitations on the confines of thinking small, right? Because the more you are connected with Allah, the less this world means to you, the less importance you give it, right? It becomes less and less relevant to you, its meaning becomes less and less you truly understand it is only a means to an end, right? You know, you don't care whether you have money or not, the only thing you might care about is because what can I achieve with that money? And

then what you can achieve with it is still ultimately a spiritual, objective, right? And so on and so forth. Right? So this is the ultimate thinking big, this is the ultimate thinking big because, you know, even when, you know, these guys talk about thinking big and so on, they still mean it in worldly terms of worldly achievements, right. But when we talk about thinking big from the Islamic perspective, we ultimately are talking about freeing yourself from the shackles and the confines of the stress and the worries and the concerns that limit us in this life. Right. Obviously, from that perspective, definitely autoloading us man, you know, they have the edge over the Mongols. That's

why they're always gonna beat them in the end, right? Yes. Or you will always, you know, that spiritual mindset where that is always ultimately going to trial. It doesn't matter what you're up against. Right? And maybe not individually. Yes, individually, maybe your life will end right. But not even so. I always I was, you know, one of the things I always talk about is, you know, if you want to be famous Think about who are the most consistently long lasting, famous people.

All right.

Probably ask is probably generals.

It's not you know, it is there are people in the world who have no idea who Julius Caesar is, right. But they know who Abraham is. They know who Ibrahim is. They know who Musa is. And they know who Muhammad is similar. Awesome. And they know who Jesus is. They have no idea about these generals. Yeah. But you look at the vast majority of people, right? Yeah, right. They know these people.

They know, they know who they are. Right. And that's a fame that has lasted 1000s of years. Yeah, from a worldly perspective, what did Ibrahim achieve? Right? I mean, although the house that he built, or its remains has been rebuilt and rebuilt many times, right, people are visiting that house that he built to worship Allah, Masha, Allah, millions of people are visiting it every year now, right? But you know, in his time, what who was he even the Prophet you think about it, even the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam we actually achieved in his lifetime, right, in worldly terms was quite small, like he saw Arabia had come to a slam, and you just compare that to what happened

under the reign of Omar ibn on top right.

But no, I mean, obviously, everything goes back to the profits or loss from from that perspective, right, we still think of it as the consequence of what he saw Allahu alayhi wa sallam the foundations that he laid down, right? And actually, when you look at the Prophet, you have this, you have an amazing example of a person who was thinking big, obviously, from the spiritual perspective that goes without saying, but even from a worldly perspective, he thought big, and he inspired his companions to think big, right? And, you know, for me, the ultimate like,

it's just mind blowing. When you think about Arabia, you know, when he stands in front of this Persian general rostrum, and you read about restaurants, this guy was like, you know, this incredible general, right, who defeated the Romans and had all these conquests and was standing in front of him with all his glory, and his you know, his his tents with studied jewels and all the finery sitting on his throne. And he just comes in, you know, walking with his spear stabbing this cotton or even noticing the carpet, to be honest, sits down right next to the Persian General Guide, and they throw him off and he shakes himself off and says, you know, like, what do you want?

What is it you want with me? Yeah, I didn't, you know, I didn't ask to come yet. You asked me. Well, what do you want? He said, I used to, we used to think you are smart and intelligent people. Now we can see you idiots. Why? Because some of you behave like lords over others. Yeah. Oh, kings and precedents of Muslim lands. Yeah, you think, you know, look to look to these words of Robbia. Right. Okay. That's the difference. Right? Okay. Even the chefs and the Imams, yeah. Oh, Chef, this Oh, Chef, that, right? The Prophet used to sit amongst people and they wouldn't even know which of you is Muhammad?

So Hala, yeah. So this is Ravi, this is the companions. Right? They you know, this is because they were thinking big bro. So when when he this is this is the this? What I'm saying is this is what the prophet has installed in that lowest of them. Because Rob says, Who are you? He says the restaurant says to you, though, Are you the leader? He thinks he's the he thinks that Muslims have sent their FIFA? Yeah, they think they've sent the leader. Right. Because because of his manner, his confidence the way he that he is right. He says no. He says, Well, are you a general in the army? No. He's, what are you I'm just an ordinary soldier. Because literally, they just sent Oh, Joe.

You go and talk to him.

We don't even know Robbie from anything except this narration, right. Nothing from him. We don't have a Hadith from him. We don't know biography as far as we know, right? We just know him from this one story. This is how he's justice. Like, of course, all the companions were extraordinary. And it just shows how extraordinary they work, right? And he says, and so restaurant says, What do you want?

What do you want from us? Do you want camels? Do you want sheep? Do you want women? Do you want gold? Just just tell us what you want? And we'll, we'll give it to you. Yeah. And he says these amazing words. This is thinking that we have come to take people away

from the injustice of we compete to take people away from the worship of men, to the worship of God.

We've come to take people away from the injustice of man made ways of living man made religions, to the justice of Islam. We've come to take people away from the narrowness of this world, to the vast expanse of this world and the next

right.

This this the like, what, how can this is and this. The reality is bro it's not thinking that allows you and me to sit here today, right 1400 years later, still inspired and still motivated right now.

because that was thinking big that was thinking so big, right? That until today you are me belong to an organization that is inspired and motivated by things that Prophet Muhammad said 1400 years ago, right? To spread this message, this beautiful message, right? So it all comes from that thinking big, you see, but you know we as Muslims especially, we have to part that's part of honoring this Deen right is to also adopt that mindset. Unfortunately, bro. We are. We are. We are drowning in pettiness. We are drowning in pettiness and small mindedness. Right.

You know, still arguing about stuff that is just frankly that we're ridiculous. That is ridiculous that we're arguing about my new shy of should we pray like this? Should we wiggle this finger? Should we, you know, things that have no effect on the validity of your prayer? Right? Still going on about attacking each other over? Whatever is the pettiness is incredible. Right. And it's more incredible that the people involved in this, right, imagine that this is something pleasing to Allah.

Right.

And I find very, very few people. Very few people,

you know, have escaped this.

Very few people. I think, I think one of the I asked a scholar about this once.

You probably know he's referring to, I asked a scholar that once that why do people focus so much on this? I feel as if and I just said to my solution. I feel as if it's the only way of giving themselves some form of authority because they, they don't know anything else. So that's why these issues become big. And you said, Yeah, you're right. That's why I think as well, because sometimes it's like, Okay, forget about this very important thing. You know, can we use the miswak in Ramadan? And then let's have a Darson.

Yeah, yeah. Well, the chef years ago, he said it he, you know, he said that. The, he said, in fact, sometimes it's good that they occupy themselves with these things. But now, if they actually allowed their minds to deal with the bigger things, they would just, they would just wilt away. Yeah, I mean, you know, like, you know, they just can't deal with it, bro. Right? I mean, they can't deal with the real, a lot of the real challenges because I mean, I listen, it takes hard work, bro. I've been there. I've been, you know, like, one of the reasons I don't do debates, for example, is not because I think debates, I mean, they they can be negative, but that's not my main reason, right?

Actually, I think debates can be very powerful and very effective. Right? The main reason I don't do them is because they take so much what you the input you have to put personally, right? into studying in order to really be able to debate someone is absolutely massive. Right? It's huge. It's It's huge, right? I mean, if you want to do a proper job, if you want to do a proper job. It's like full time mm a marshal it's like full MMA training here. No, but like with your mind, you know, it's like being that right. So like most people are not not up for it, bro. You know?

Unfortunately, bro, unfortunately, you know, whatever it's Allah's will. But

you know, it's not good enough anymore, bro. Like, especially we have large Muslim minorities living in the West, we have the influence, we have the media, right? We have the internet reaching every corner of the globe, and everything is accessible to everybody. So this idea that we could somehow distract people with these things is just not applicable anymore. Right? I mean, Islam, you know, people are hemorrhaging. They're leaving Islam at a very, very shocking and rates there the increase in atheism, apostasy. It's really, it's a major concern. And part of it is because

the, you know, the religious elite serves to speak, don't have the answers, because they haven't invested the time and the energy in order to be able to deal with these problems and find ways of communicating these things to the youth who need to hear them. Right. So, you know, it may have been, you know, 40 years ago, fine, right? Not anymore, bro. It's, it's, you know, it's like the time has run out.

And

you know, a lot of light the room said people are going to enter the religion and crowds and leave in crowds. So on. Conversely, on the other side, the people who are accepting Islam,

literally people are accepting upon who've never ever met a Muslim before I was talking to anyone from Brazil, who lives out in the sticks. He lives out in some village area. I came across his stuff because he was actually making YouTube videos telling Brazilians about Islam. So anyway, I started messaging him, and I found out that you're not gonna believe this right? I found out. He found out about Islam while living in a village in Brazil, and he has no Muslims. Then he accepted Islam. Then he learned how to pray using stuff like the deen show and other stuff. After that, he went online and started giving Dawa. And my last conversation with him was when he was pretty well grounded in

Islam, and he was involved. And until that point, he still hadn't physically met a Muslim. And he's never prayed Juma. He's never been in a mosque. But all the time he's in a village in our so even Conversely, the people who accept Islam, it's not because of debates or these types of things. It's the same thing, just like we have a hemorrhage we have, you know, on the other side, a huge amount of people coming to Islam, purely through just stuff that they see online, even like Ertugrul. Just in the

last couple of weeks, I met somebody who became Muslim by watching Ertugrul, just a typical English guy. But I mean, I think the thing is, bro, yeah, yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, this guy in Brazil is fortunate from one perspective, right? From the perspective that he hasn't probably encountered encountered the infighting the bunkering. Yeah, the small mindedness, right, that I was talking about this really preoccupied the OMA for a long time. Right.

It has preoccupied us for a long, long time. And this is one of the things where I believe that Tao is essential, right? Because we need, you know, one of the things that I believe when we go back to the mindset, we go back to the magic of thinking big, if we talk about that goal, back to the magic of thinking big, it was that ability to think big. That was one of the contributory reasons for the Sahaba being the people they were and being the success that they were right, is that even when they were this is now this is really interesting, even when there was infighting amongst them. Right? Even when they were disagreeing with each other to the extent that sometimes they had even, you

know, what, even fighting with each other. When it came to the bigger issues when it came to, for example, dealing with the Romans or whoever they every one of them was ready to drop everything. Right. They were ready to stop all of their disagreements. Yeah. And deal with that issue at hand. Really powerful point. That's awful point. The reason I just want to highlight this, because even the disagreement was about a significant matter

about who you know, where you place your hand, it was about a very important

disagreement.

Yeah. So I mean, I think but again, you see, and that's part of the transformative effect of thinking big, right? Because the other extreme is, you can think so big that you just don't deal with the nitty gritty of what I mean, because the thing is, that's the reality, right? There are reasons that I guess you could say, from an evolutionary perspective, right? You can understand why it's important for some people to be obsessed with the minutiae. Some people do need to be obsessed, right? There's some things that we'd never have achieved if there's not someone who is obsessed with details, right? Because this is another issue, right? You still need to be obsessed with details,

there still needs to be this obsession with getting little details, right? There's some things unless those details are right, everything would be wrong, you know, need to get much wrong in accounting, right to get numbers hugely wrong, right. You don't need to get much either like your take a simple thing like knitting, right? Or sewing a garment. Like for example in the Scottish Highlands apparently, in the past, they had developed a form of cloth woven from sheep's wool. That was because of its weave was completely waterproof.

And they still don't know how they now they don't know how they did it. The Art of Doing it has been lost. And no one knows. Right? All I'm trying to say is that came from some real obsession with my new shy right with very it's something very small, right? But at the same time, it was still in

Water. So it's not that those small little things are not important, right? But it has to be part of a bigger picture.

It has to be part of a bigger picture. So for example, exactly

need to be balanced out and like everything, almost everything you can think of, it's all about balance, right?

balanced way, it's not all spirituality, spirituality, live in a monastery, live in a cave, you know, meditate and whatever, and don't get married. And that's not Islam, right? You live in the world, you deal with a world you have, you get married, you have kids, you have a business. Yet still, despite all of that, you seek to, you know, not be enslaved to the world and its things but you are really connected to a lot. But it's still that balance, right, you realize that you're still you still have a body, you still need to feed it, we have societies, those societies need to be run, right? Because within those peaceful societies, then people more people can worship God more people

can know God, right? And it's conducive to the betterment of everybody. Right. So thinking big also means the ability to

understand the necessity of getting the small things, right. And again, like both of us working within an organizational framework, we can understand that it doesn't take much right does it wrong for for, you know, someone to get something wrong, that can upset literally the whole applecart? Yeah, I mean, the way we can sort of take these two ideas to, to show that there's no contradiction, and as long as you're doing the absolute essential, so for example, if you need to plan a wedding, there could be 200 items you need to do get the balloons send out cards with a certain engraving and silk. But essentially, the five things you need is the Wali.

So as long as you can be pedantic about those things, because it's

something I learned when I was doing engineering, they actually taught us project management, funnily enough. And all I remember is I was so confused, because he was like, guys, okay, here's a chart, here's a lead time, here's a finish to start with the contingency. But then he said something which just made sense, after all of that, he said, That's all fine. But it's just this critical path, these five or six things, as long as they're done. Everything else doesn't really matter too much. And I was like, I got it.

That's basically it. You just need to get it's the 2080 rule, essentially. Well, it's like the five pillars in Islam. We have five pillars.

The five pillars of you know, five pillars of Islam, six articles of Eman. Of course, there's a whole lot more to Islam than that huge amount Islam. Right. But you know, you got to get those critical things. Absolutely. Right. You know, that if you don't have those, that your where's your foundation? Right. That's the thing on which everything rests on. Well, you know, in which you build everything. Right.

But yeah, I mean, I think that's different. I think in bed, I guess the whole thing about the magic of thinking big, big ultimately, right? You know, to sort of recap really from, you know, to go backwards from a spiritual perspective, it's making that connection with God, right, which is the biggest thinking thinking big that you can actually make, really,

because you're thinking on a whole different dimension.

Yeah, yeah. So just to see if I just remembered something which I thought you would appreciate, Inshallah, when it comes to the Prophet Solomon thinking big. When he had the grand obviously idea of getting rid of Shirke in the entire Arabian Peninsula. And he was in Makkah, and he's looking for allies. He's traveling around looking for elegance. And he came across a tribe conveniently said, We will support you, we will do exactly what the people from Medina are going to do, except they weren't going to give unconditional support. It was going to be conditional upon. Once you die, we will take leadership. And because of his thinking big and his foresight, that was a very tempting

thing. If you studied the Sierra, you'll see it's very tempting, because he had no other options, and he's suffering in Makkah, but he's still declining them. And eventually he came across people who gave unconditional support. So again, when you think big, you don't go for petty low hanging fruit, which could be poisonous, because we never lower your standards. I think that's a really powerful thing from Sierra. But again, Rob, because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam was thinking beyond his lifetime. Yeah, that's the thing he wasn't, you know, he realized that wait a minute, that he couldn't allow that to happen. Why not? Because that's not the path of how

succession should take place in Islam. Right.

Obviously, once he's gone, it's not his responsibility anymore. He's left the guidance, right. And if

The Muslims don't follow it. That's their problem. Right. But I mean, as long as he's there, he has to set that precedent. You know, he has to show people that no, because it's part of God's plan. It's part of the way that God wants us to rule ourselves through shora and through, you know, collectively choosing, you know, who our leaders should be within obviously, certain parameters, right. Obviously, for most of our history, right, that hasn't really happened.

But that's to our own detriment. That's, that's not Islam to be blamed for that for that. Right.

And it's ironic, in a way, that part of that tradition that was left to us by the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam when he was, you know, it takes non Muslims to show us that it can be achieved, you know, you don't need to have a team, you don't need to have a, you know, dictator over the right.

You know, you don't need to have someone born into the role. You know, their dad was, you know, the king, and therefore, you know, I'm going to be the king, you know, but yeah, again, I mean, the end of the day, that was that was all part of the guidance, wasn't it? It was all part of what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, you know, was leaving us Alhamdulillah. And I think that's it. I mean, you know, that's the great thing about Islam, Islam. You know, I do definitely think that.

But I do I, you know, on a personal level, I get frustrated, I find that a lot of that I find very, very few people

have that ability to think big. And the reality is, it does take training, it does take training, it's something you have to keep forcing yourself to do, you have to have that attitude. And you have to believe there's a way to make it happen. You know, if there's a will, there's a way like this, what I say, right? I mean, obviously, you know, you may decide that the energy that you you need to put into a particular project in order to make it happen is just not worth it. Because at the end of the day, we do have limited energy, we do have limited resources, and we still have to decide

what things we're going to put our energies and efforts into, you know,

but I don't think that's the problem. The problem is, you know, I found again and again, that just people think, Oh, it can't be done. It can't be done. And it's like, no, it can be done. And like, it's happened to me, several times when I've gone away, I've done that thing and showed those people look, there you are, it can be done. And I've just done it. And I'm not I don't even know, I'm not even an expert in the field. I know absolutely nothing about this subject. And I've still managed to do it. And you told me it can't be done.

You know, so but 100 law, you know, I guess, yeah, awful thing that we can learn from kids and young kids. And I realized this, they might have limits. And adults, in a way are not more mature than kids because a child literally, why can't I do that? Like they don't think I can't do that. They want to put their finger on this, okay, but they also want to go to the moon. So they're not limited, you know. And I think as when we're growing up, we keep having these sorts of biases, and these limitations can't be done can't be done, even to the point.

And I'd admit this, right, I sometimes I just slap myself because I'm like, think, you know, you sometimes think, okay, if I have limited time, that means I can only do limited things. That's not really true. Because some people in the world like Tony Robbins, for example, the guy is doing the job of essentially 50 CEOs, he's got different companies different it's just he just manages his time so effectively that he'll spend half an hour on this and that's that company dealt with for the entire week. And then next week isn't get an update. And then that company's worth maybe 100 million or whatever. So yeah, I mean, if we think me then these these the shackles fall off.

But even that again, bro, like the same thing, it does come to thinking big, right? You're right. So the end of the day, if you really want it, whatever it is you want to achieve. If you have the right mindset, you can do it and like I said, the teamwork is the dream work. It's not like you don't need to think of yourself doing this thing all on your own. Right. It's like who can I you know, I can pick up the phone and who can I ask who's going to help me out with this? You know, I know this person and that person I know someone who knows someone right? So like go back to the that example of you know, a nonstop you know, 24 hour data platform you know, whatever right? It's like okay if

you like I said again if you if you have no choice yet like you know like I've said to you before right one imagines you know, someone's kidnapped your family, right and they give you three

Three days, and they're gonna kill your family if you don't make it happen. And we don't. Are you telling me you can't do it be done? It's like, yeah, you know you're doing you will find a way, right. But what a person really means is now I can't be bothered. Yeah.

It's not important to me, right, I can't be bothered to do it. That's what it really is. Right, which is fine. But then that goes back to being honest about.

I totally agree with that. And even with the livestream, I just remembered an example. I'm not sure if you've seen this video, this video went viral a few a few months ago, is basically a guy who has survived an airstrike. And he's holding his daughter, and he's running up to the ambulance, I'm not sure if you've seen this. And he runs and runs and runs and runs, and his daughter is, is wounded, and he's wounded as well. But as soon as he gives his daughter to the people in the ambulance, he literally collapses and dies. Subhanallah

I was like, Oh, my God, His Will came alive, obviously, by Allah's permission, but because he had something so important to do, as soon as he was done, he literally just fell and died. And it's a it's, it's a sad thing, which happened in thing, it's like, you know, you know, part of the thinking big is also because it what it becomes, bro is, this is part of the magic of it. Right? Once you accept the possibilities, right, once you accept the possibility that there is a way to do it, your mind finds, you know, you find within yourself, the motivation you find within yourself, the mental resilience, you find within yourself the energy and the wherewithal to make it happen. Right?

Obviously, with the permission of Allah subhanaw taala and the help of Allah. Right. So this part of the magic, right, but, you know, at the end of the day, it's, you know, it's like that saying that, you know, the faith can move mountains. Right. You know, it's it comes basically down to that belief. And I think one of the beautiful things that I remember, you know, Hamza had this profound insight, you know, is that people think that, you know, perhaps the idea of pother right, is limiting, you know, and it may, you know, it may be, you know, the people think of it as a limiting idea. And yeah, for sure. Unfortunately, like many things like in sha Allah, Muslims use it in the

same way, right? You know, we're supposed to mean, it's supposed to mean, I'm definitely going to do that thing, unless, you know, my stops me, but for a lot of Muslims, it means, well, if Allah actually, you know, says be can then it will be otherwise. I'll do it.

If I'm forced to do it, I'll do it. Yeah. But I mean, the same thing with others. Like what you know, when you really have that belief in Allah, you realize the hollow inequality, I love Allah, Allah has power over all things. Allah has control over all things, if unless your support, and he's the creator of the universe, and he has all the power and all the strength, what is going to limit me what is going to prevent me what is going to stop that thing happening? If Allah wills it, right. So from that point of view, it can also be hugely empowering, it can allow you to overcome your limitations, right? And to realize there's nothing stopping me from making that thing happen if

Allah is going to help me, right? Yeah.

And what do you lose anyway, that you'll never lose, right? By making the effort that sometimes just the struggle, and just making the effort is itself the rewards, right? And this is something you find that, you know, again, when you go back to many of these help, self help books and stuff like that, you know, one of the things that I mentioned again, and again, and again, is like, never be put off by failure. All of these guys who have made it to the top, they will say, Yeah, I've made it to the top, whatever the top is, right at the top and by their criteria, and yeah, but I mean, you know, but how many times did I fail? How many times that I thought, hundreds of times, dozens of

times, right? How many times have I lost everything, but I picked myself up, and I started again, you know, I you know, Elon Musk, for example, is a person who really fascinates me. And it was interesting. I was listening to him. He there was an interview with him and he was talking about

Tesla or Space X.

And he said, There was a time when it looked like I had to choose one of the two of them. Right? It said he was either going to be Tesla or SpaceX. I wasn't I didn't have enough money to do both. But he couldn't. He said, I can't, you know, I, I can't give up either of them. I have to make them both happen. Right? So he literally split his money 50

The 50. And if either one of failed, all of them would fail. Right? So can you imagine that right? Can you imagine, like two huge projects, and I think he was saying was obviously Tesla that from the car point of view took off from those weren't very successful. But, you know, that was helping support his SpaceX project, as far as I remember. Right. So, but the SpaceX project came literally down to one launch, right? He had had, I think, three launches, or two launches, and two of them crashed, or three of them crashed, right, his rockets crashed. If the fourth one and the third one, I can't remember what it was, if that crashed, that was it was gonna be the end of it. He everything

was going to be finished. You know, that's how it was. That's how on the edge it was. And talking about thinking big. I mean, this guy, you know, is really thinking big, you know, when you talk about, I want humans to be an interplanetary species, right? And you think that the nearest star is? How many million light years away? 16 million light years away? I don't know. Let's google that. Right? What's the nearest star? Right? Apart from the sun? Yeah.

far is the nearest star, right?

93 million? No, that's the sun right? Outside of our son's system, the nearest neighbors, alphas and jury. Okay, it's a triple star system. Right? How far is it?

It's 4.37 light years.

What's that in actual miles?

I don't know. Anyway, it's a long, long way. 93 million miles know that the sun itself is 93 million miles away. Right? Out of the century, is 4.37 light years away? Right? I don't know how far that is. Because a light year is like, that's how long so the speed of light. I don't even know what the speed of light is. A light year is how long you were traveling. If you traveled at the speed of light, nonstop for a year. That's how far it is. That's one light year.

And the speed of light is do you any idea what the speed of light is?

I don't know. It's Oh my god, bro. I'm talking you could be doing a Google searching by now. It's a long, long way. And we don't even know that if there's going to be any sort of planet there. That's habitable. Right? So I mean, you know, you think Oh, you just being an idiot, Mr. Musk, right? Kind of one guy, he was just saying it's a really bad idea to go to Mars, right? Like the human body is not going to be able to take it. Like you start spending. Even if you spend a month in space, your body is starting to deteriorate, your organs are starting to float around your bone mass is starting to disintegrate, right? You're going to have so many problems that when you come back to gravity,

you know, you have to be hospitalized for a certain amount of time, right? Like

even if we went to Mars, and we lived on Mars, we wouldn't be able to come back to Earth, we've literally probably become another species is saying like, this is the guy who's going through all the things, but it doesn't. It doesn't stop this guy thinking about it. Right? It doesn't stop this guy thinking, now we need to do it. And you got to see us just just thinking on a different scale. What a different scale is thinking. I mean, this is one of the things that if somebody without eemaan, if somebody who is a you know who disbelieves in Allah, if they can have the courage to think big, and they can remember, it's not just thinking big is automatically it's a virtue, you

could think big and nefarious ways. So the current

Chinese General Secretary Zhi Jing Pina, he used to live in a cave at one point in his life, did you know that? No, I lived in a cave. And today he is arguably the most powerful man on earth, right? And he started off with him in his family actually living in a cave, because they were banned by the Chinese Communist Party and his father had some issues to becoming the head of the admission of over a billion, but it's a shame. We didn't learn a bit of humility and respect.

Of course, but it just shows you that if and this is the thing that we have something amazing we have the idea and I think this beautiful idea which you mentioned, I think it needs to be emphasized. If we fail from a worldly perspective, we're still rewarded as if we were successful. Yeah, no, and you have to Muslims meet each other.

with swords, because they intended to kill each other, they both going to be punished for that, even though they never did it. So the thing is in Islam, you're rewarded according to your intentions of failure anyway. It's only just yeah, there is absolutely no failure. So JazakAllah cache.

We've had a, we have a really good live stream, a lot of questions. I mean, I haven't been able to engage with the audience because of, you're gonna need to put your camera bit because now we're seeing your head chopped off of

the questions. And I, we can't really get into them. Because there's only an hour slot. However, there's one question, which I think is quite a burning question. And I want to ask you, so someone's asking your opinion of where do you think Islam is going to be? In 10 years time?

I have no idea, bro. It's up to us. You know,

it's really it's up to us, honestly,

is there's no reason conceivable reason why we Muslims can't wake ourselves up, get ourselves together, right? And it honestly wouldn't take long, it wouldn't even take 10 years, right? If Muslims allowed themselves to think differently, behave differently, act differently. We have all the resources, we have everything we have, you know, we have some of the best people on the planet. But some of the cleverest people on the planet, some of the most resourceful people on the planet in terms of natural resources, we have it all right.

It's really up to us. It wouldn't, it wouldn't take much and it wouldn't take long, right? But it takes the will. And it takes the desire and it takes, you know, it takes thinking big. One of the things we have to think we have to think beyond on national borders, nationalism has to die. You know,

I don't see us achieving the Muslims, anything significant, as long as we are still bound by nationalism. Right? We will have some limited success. But it's until we begin to break down those things. And we begin to see ourselves again, as one or more. You know, yeah, I mean, I don't know, only only Allah knows, right? Like, it doesn't take that much, it really wouldn't take much to affect, you know, a massive change, a positive change.

It really wouldn't. 10 years, maybe it's a short time.

But

But I don't know, I have no idea. Right? And part of the reason I have no idea is because I genuinely think that it wouldn't take much for things to go in a really good positive direction.

And it doesn't take much for things to go the other way either, right, we could just keep getting worse and worse and worse.

It's just, you know, it really is up to us. And when I say us, I mean just you and me, like every individual has to make that choice, because that's all it is. Ultimately, we're just a collection of individuals. It's not like if one person however inspired and motivated, they are right, unless people are going to line up behind that person and join in right, and you know, help them on that path then no, nothing will be achieved. Right? I mean, yeah, maybe in that individual person's life, but not as an American.

Dr. Akash green, we're going to be live in 4pm GMT on Saturday on this channel, and for everybody watching make sure you subscribe a lot more content inshallah is going to be coming up in the coming weeks and months and let us know in the comments, any topic you want us to cover JazakAllah khair for listening us salam Wa alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh y equals C