Hangout 12 – Navaid Aziz – Ambitions

			Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah Salam alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
This is brother Mona Mohammed, coming at you with another episode of hangout where we literally hang
out. And we have a great guest with us one of my good friends, and it's an honor to finally have him
on our show. And I like him Chef aliko significant Aziza, we're here today actually in Malaysia, you
can't tell but we're like on a beautiful resort right now there's a beach behind us, she except the
slim is actually hiding on the other side of the camera, maybe we'll get them to do a quick cameo on
film. But we were talking a little bit about motivation. And what I've noticed myself, you know,
		

			dealing with a lot of young Muslims and seeing Muslims in general is that a lot of times, we kind of
lack ambition. For many of us, we don't really think about, you know, going to take whatever we do
to the next level, we're very satisfied with kind of being mediocre and being you know, kind of like
B plus, maybe c kind of people, right? Can you give us some ideas and tips and thoughts as to how do
we motivate ourselves? How do we make ourselves feel as though we want to become the best in
whatever capacity whether it's being a mother, whether it's being a taxicab driver, whether it's
being a student? How do we make ourselves feel like we should become the best in whatever it is that
		

			we do? Okay, fantastic. So I think there's two topics we need to discuss over here. One is the
concept of asset. And the second is the concept of motivation within itself. When we're talking
about the sun, it's talking about doing whatever you're doing at the highest possible level. And
this is why the procession gave the perfect example that it is to worship Allah subhana wa Tada, as
though you can see him and even though you can't see him, he can see you. So you tie this into your
day to day life. It's like you're working at your job. Your boss is walking by when your boss walks
by what happens to you, when you actually sit up straight. You see your body stiffens up, you
		

			pretend that you're working, even though you're not, you know, you want to put on the show for your
birthday, right? Similarly for Allah subhanho wa Taala, when you see recognize it, unless I know
it's others watching you, you want to be performing at your highest level possible. So that's one
element of it. Number two, in terms of hiring, having high and lofty ambitions. This is like a
problem that is plaguing our oma, you know, we're naturally told that look, you guys are backwards.
You guys are barbaric. You're not going anywhere in life have low goals, low ambitions. And you
know, that's where we set our standards, that as long as I'm doing the absolute minimum, as long as
		

			I'm getting by, you know, life is going to be good. This is not what Allah subhanho wa Taala wants
from us, right? Clearly, when Allah subhana wa, tada, created Adam, he said in the jar, I don't fill
out the halifa, that I'm creating a Khalifa on this planet, right? This is someone that's supposed
to lead the people take them on, and you know, create one generation after another of practicing
Muslims. Now, what are the type of people that were looking with a beautiful example? On what a bla
bla bla Han who was one day with some of his companions, and they're inside an empty room, right? He
asked these people, you know, if you could fill this room up with anything, what would you fill it
		

			up with to give out in the way of Allah subhanho wa Taala. One person says gold and other one says
jewels, and other one says silver, and so on and so forth. So they said, Yeah, metal, meaning if you
could fill this room up with anything, what would you fill it up and send it out with this? He said
the law I know, I would fill it up with the likes of Barbados, honorable Jarrah, and why they been
Jebel. And this is what I would send out in the way of Allah subhanho wa Taala, teaching us the
value of human human resources that we are the most valuable commodity that Allah subhana wa, tada
has placed on this planet. And if we don't value us, no one's going to value us. If we don't set
		

			high goals for ourselves, we're not going to get anywhere in life, right? If you have an exam coming
up, if you're not aiming for 100%, you're setting up yourself for failure, right? you aim for 60,
you'll probably end up hitting 40 or 50, aim for 100, you end up hitting 80 or 90, right? Similarly,
with life, if you don't have direction, if you don't have high ambitions, your life's gonna be
terrible. It's gonna and it's funny enough, because I call this kind of like the practicing people's
disease, right? Because you see, there's a lot of brothers and sisters, like they're practicing
Islam to the best of their abilities. They're praying, they're fasting, they're giving the cat, but
		

			they just don't, I don't know, they just don't have the ambition to go to the next level. Right?
And, and it comes to career, I'm talking when it comes to career when it comes to family, when it
comes to leaving a legacy. It's like they don't feel as though they need to do anything more than
the basics. Right? And so going back to this idea of motivation, how do we become motivated? I mean,
there's a lot of people who maybe they feel like yeah, I want to change, I want to become better. I
want to take myself to the next level, right? Can you give us some tips or ideas or thoughts as to
how do we actually become motivated to make those changes in our lives? Fantastic. So just to give a
		

			bit of background on this, you know, General psychology theory talks about the carrot and stick
right, where a carrot and stick is used to motivate the donkey that a stick is used, and a carrot is
put at the end of it and spoiling for the donkey. And the donkey keeps thinking that you know, one
day I will eventually reach that carrot, even though he's progressing at the exact same speed. He
never reaches it that so he's been motivated by positivity through that carrot and through negative
reinforcement
		

			The use of a stick that if he does something bad, the master actually beats him at that time, right.
So that's the general trend that has been taking place. Now, what we eventually learned is that
human beings aren't motivated by external factors, you start people using giving money, and try
molding them with money, they will be motivated for a short amount of time it's going to run out,
you try motivating them through fear by telling them, no, I'll cut your paycheck, you know, I'll
take your house away or whatever like that, that's not going to work. Motivation needs to come from
within. So you need to believe in the cause that you believe in, and the reward that needs to come,
		

			it needs to be self satisfaction, and it needs to be gratitude, it needs to be happiness, and that's
what people will truly be motivated. And that is why in Islam, this concept of eternal happiness,
it's tied in with gender, that this world is a world of trial. It's a world of difficulty, but we're
aiming for our eternal happiness in the hereafter. How does the last panel tell us that to motivate
us is that we get these glimpses of happiness in this life, to remind us that our eternal happiness
is there. Number two, is that when you're trying to make change in your life, it's always important
to create a sense of urgency for yourself, why do you need to make this change? Right? An individual
		

			that you know, is very, very sick. He goes and sees the doctor just like, Look, if you don't take
care of yourself, you know, you're going to die tomorrow, then the person takes this seriously
because he's like, Look, I don't want to die. That's similar sense of urgency is what needs to be
created for us. But using again, Jen and Johanna, you need to think about where do you want to go?
Do you want to go to gender? Do you want to go to Japan? No, you're not going to get to gender by
sitting on your butt all day, not worshipping Allah subhanaw taala and just committing sins again,
right? So you need to get yourself you know, proactive. Number three, the importance of making dua
		

			to Allah subhanaw taala this can never be, you know, overrated and oh, and overstated. In fact, I
believe it's understated every step of the way in your journey, whether you're up or down, you need
to be making the law to Allah subhanho wa Taala. You notice this with Musa alayhis salam, Allah
subhanho wa Taala he tells Maasai Salaam in Herbalife IANA in the whole taco that goes around
because he's become transgressive and oppressive in the lens. The first thing that Mousavi Salaam
did, he says all of a sudden he will assume the Emory melissani. Africa who called this door in
itself teaches us so much that most salams natural reaction, let me call out to the one that can
		

			help me they can protect me that can save me and that can help me achieve my goal. What's really
beautiful about this is that since Allah subhanaw taala sent him on this mission, don't you think
that Allah subhanho wa Taala would have helped him and saved him anyways. Yeah, so why did we say
they sent me blah, because that is what we do as a slaves of Allah subhana wa tada we show our
weakness to attract the strength of Allah subhana wa tada we show our dependence to attract the
independence of Allah subhanaw taala we show our insufficiency to get that sufficiency from Allah
subhanho wa Taala. So making it to
		

			the next point, creating a support system for yourself, right mussalam in this very story in sort of
Baja, he says what john Lee was the one that created for me or sent for me, someone from my own
family, who is going to help me in this task, we should be as he grabbed me strength through him.
Well, actually, Kofi Emily and Lenin partake in this mission is of mine. You know, we have this
general statement that you have a moment of happiness with a friend, it's double the happiness, you
have a moment of sadness with a friend, it's half the sadness. That's what friends do for one
another. So you need to surround yourself with people that believe in you, people that are positive
		

			people that are optimistic, and people that are going to help you get through your mission.
Constantly. We surround ourselves with people that don't believe in this. They're like, you know,
even just as a joke, like you can't do that you're gonna fail. And why are you even trying? Just
haters? Exactly. Just haters, you can surround yourself with these people. You know, Hamdulillah,
very early on. When I came back from Medina, one of the very first things that someone I looked up
to told me, don't let your CEO Don't let your critics become your CEOs. Someone that's constantly
criticizing you can't let them dictate your life. You can live a life of fear the whole time.
		

			One thing I would comment on over here is the element of fear. And this is what we see in the story
of Musa Lisa that musante salami now has her own. They're both talking to Allah subhanaw taala. They
say in and a half a year full of the Elena Oh, oh, yet for that we're afraid that either they will
fail and will overpower us or he's going to transgress against us. Allah subhanaw taala responds in
the very next verse lead to hoffa in the markoma small world that don't have any fear, because I'm
with you watching and seeing and hearing everything that is happening. So let us understand fear for
a second. Fear is a human trait. It is a human characteristic, and we need it because you'll notice
		

			that when we become afraid our gentleman rushes through our body and allows us to do things that we
normally wouldn't be able to do right. Now. How does this tie in to what we want to achieve in life?
The fear we have is usually the fear of the creation. And this is what paralyzes human beings This
is what prevents them from taking actions in their lives. fear of Allah subhanaw taala It enables us
so what we want to achieve and aim for is the fear of Allah subhanho wa Taala briefly touching upon
the concept of fear of failure
		

			I was reading a book very recently by Seth Godin is called tribes. and in it he talks about why are
people afraid of failure. And he says, in reality, people aren't afraid of failure. What they are
afraid of, is criticism. They don't, because when you actually feel you actually learn something,
you benefit, okay, I shouldn't be doing this, I shouldn't do it again, I should be doing a different
way, right. But what people are actually afraid of is their friends, their family, you know, people
that they associate with looking down upon them and criticizing them and judging them, right? They
fear judgment. Now, when you can eliminate that from your life, you will probably eliminate the most
		

			paralyzing element of fear, which is the fear of criticism, where you need to decide whose criticism
Will you value and benefit from and whose criticism Do you definitely need to ignore? Is it fair for
us to start to cut in but is it fair for us to say that, you know, we don't listen to anyone who
even who will receive perceived to be haters, right? I've heard people say that, you know, your
haters can oftentimes offer you a perspective that you might have not recognized otherwise. Right?
So how do we take haters and give them their due without obviously becoming, you know, our CEO,
fantastic. So what we do is, we divide the people in our lives into three categories, those people
		

			that will always love us, those people always hate us. And those people, people that are for the
most part neutral, we call this at 1010. The 10 people that always love us, the you can like screw
up your life, become like a drug addict, you know, a prostitute, whatever you want, these people
will still love you. It's our mothers, pretty much. Your mothers and you know, your dad,
		

			your dad's probably on the verge of disciplining you pretty well, yeah. But like, we all have these
special people, no matter how badly you've messed up, they will still love us for who we are. Okay,
second category of people are the haters, right? These people, no matter how amazing of an
achievement you will achieve in life, become president of a country in a win, then the Nobel Peace
Prize, they're like, Yeah, but you still have that spot on your face that makes you look ugly,
that's probably my dad.
		

			But I think about it evenly between these two, it's a disease that we have to over criticize, right.
And then you have 80% of people that are genuinely neutral. But when you do good, they will give you
constructive feedback as to how amazing you are, when you do bad, they will give you constructive
criticism that look, you messed up, this is what you should do. instead. Now all of these three
people have the rules, the people that love you in any situation, these are the people that you turn
to, when you're actually feeling down about yourself, you're lacking self confidence. You go to
these people speak to them interact with them, you boost your confidence up. And then you put these
		

			people to the site for a short period of time, your critics, these are the people that you go to
when you notice your egos getting too big. Like Mashallah, you've been on a hot streak of
achievements, you're like, I'm the best thing that happened since like sliced bread or something,
you go to your critic stumble yourself, you have 1000 flaws, you just blind to that you don't see my
wife
		

			putting you back into the present. And then you have you know, the other 80% of people, where again,
these are the genuine people who will give you valuable critique on what you're doing, right. And
that's the, you know, the these are how we this is how we divide people into these three categories.
So just going back to your five points, I think you're at number four. Correct. So we talked about
making tallest pilots. And then we talked about having a support system right. Now, the last thing
that's important over here is your source of motivation. And by source of motivation, is very
different from sense of urgency. It's very different from purpose, source of motivation over here is
		

			where are you getting your inspiration from? Like, what is it that when you're down, will encourage
you to keep going and again, going back to the story of musante salam Surah Taha Allah subhanho wa
Taala tells him over here was for nakatsuka, Nene FC, that I have created you for no other reason,
except for myself to fulfill my mission. When scholars comment on this verse, The they've extracted
three lessons from it. Number one is the importance of sincerity, that anything that you do in life
needs to be for the sake of Allah subhanho wa Taala. And the more you focus on sincerity, the more
easier it must handle what's on the mixer task, and as some of the predecessors they used to say
		

			palabra en veiligheid Allah but Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, that you know, in early stages, we we
sought knowledge for the sake of other than Allah subhanho wa Taala but knowledge refused or refuse
to be sought for other than for for other than the sake of Allah subhanaw taala meaning that the way
Allah subhanaw taala created goodness or ultimate goodness in this world is that it's not for the
sake of Allah subhanaw taala you're not going to achieve ultimate goodness, but ultimate goodness,
we mean success in this life and the hereafter both of them have to go in hand. The first key to
that is sincerity. The second lesson they derived from this verse, is that the help of Allah
		

			subhanho wa Taala will always be there for you. If this test is meant to be yours, Allah subhanho wa
Taala would not create Masada his salon to fail against fell down. Right And we see this in the
story of moosend fell out that you know, around the armies chasing him to the Red Sea. The Red Sea
is in front of them. The people are like what are we going to do for them
		

			He's going to kill us right now he's going to destroy us. Allah subhanho wa Taala parted the seas
for them, moose and his people crushed through and fell down and his army drowned so many lessons in
that in that, that for Allah, nothing is impossible when you're sincere, when you're doing a good
cause, right? Then inshallah you will feel fulfill that mission and Allah will even make the
impossible possible. And then Allah subhanho wa Taala will also end up killing evil at the same
time, to giving victory to good destroying evil. That's, you know, something to remind us and to
motivate us as well. The third lesson they lead mastery over here is that when Allah subhanaw taala
		

			says, I created you for myself, I created you to follow the laws that I created, meaning that you
have to live your life according to the regulations of Islam. You can't try to take shortcuts by
cheating, you can't you know, just constantly fill into desires in a haram way, you have to live by
the laws of Allah subhanho wa Taala. And this is like a beautiful lesson from the Life of Pablo de
la Hondo. He used to tell his army before they used to go out fear your sins more than you fear your
enemy. Because you're your enemy can only destroy your your dunya whereas your sins will destroy
your dunya and your accuracy. So when you're not, you know, in trying to minimize the sins in your
		

			life, that's what's going to happen you're doing it and you're accurate is going to be destroyed. So
that motivation needs to come from that hey, as long as I'm you know, do trying my best and I'm
living according to laws of Allah subhanho wa Taala you know inshallah, I will succeed in sha Allah
Jazakallah shake for giving us your time or not to allow your Liggett to be one of greatness and
something that you will be proud of on the day of judgment as well as all of us in you watching at
home as well. inshallah you enjoyed this episode we'll see you again on another episode of hanging
out. This is Brother Mohammed signing off Zack Allah here for watching sulamani commandments Allahu
		

			Akbar catch
		

			confetti then