Accidental Muslim – Short Interview with

Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu to another episode of accidental Muslims calm here in beautiful place of heaven. Tonight and this evening we've got a wonderful guests as promised this ship is Malcolm. He is a wonderful shackle we've known for many years, and we're going to get to know much more about him someone who can share. So shukran for for coming this evening. Tell us about yourself. Yes, so I grew up in Durban with all our youth, you still remember when you tried to join a group? who referred you to nerdy myself? Dude, we became friends out there for like 400 enough to keep us friends for a long time. And, you know, I've done my

bachelor's in Islamic Studies, the founder of Islamic self help.com, the faculty manager of the Islamic online university recently become the content manager of the niche. You start up and you have been homeschooling Dad, what for more?

So the list of what you're writing? How did you get into this into this field of writing? And tell us more about your books? Yeah, well, I've always been a writer, I live in a school. I feel like all comic books in the hope clash together of yours. Yeah, yeah. So just just be a writer from the time. And then I just love the world of words. I'm a, I'm a reader and a writer, I read like 40 books a year. And I try to write two or three books. And so the world of words, books, this is something that I just completely love and get consumed with. And so I started writing my first book, having fun to Holloway, as a response to someone in my life with a time who has very extreme, okay, and

this individual will become a citizen, that is around that I would gather against him. And after I looked at my compilation of police against him, it was enough to write the whole book, it was literally enough to make a whole book on this topic, like, Whoa, there are so many Quranic verses about having fun being Hello. So that became my first book. And since then, I've made it my goal to always write on topics that people don't write about. Yeah, so you've chosen a lot of topics. And yeah, like, and one of them is self help. And then Islam itself.

So about five years ago, when I became the faculty manager at the Islamic online university, I found myself not having management experience or management education, I need to improve my interpersonal skills. And so I started reading books in the south healthiest. And they completely transformed me they made me a better person, how many people think self help, books are bogus, they're, they completely transformed my life, they made me a better person, that's for sure. All these five steps to success. Really Work. If you're finding the thing, finding the people to find focus that people don't apply and read the book, I think the books will magically change can change. It's about

applying what you need. And so people began to see the changes and people began to ask me Are you concerned with the time management we can learn about it? Yeah, because so good, the self confidence, you know, we can learn about it. And the books are suggesting to people the pillar here, but this is by a non Muslim author, I prefer to read something by an author. I couldn't find anything by Mr. Water. And actually, the light bulb went off. I was like, this is it. This is a niche that nobody's gone into. I need to get started that I put the domain in WWE something Southampton calm before anybody else thinks of the idea. And I wrote a book a time management book

of self confidence, they both went on to sell 1000s of copies worldwide. And since it is just the clothing, including we now have many ebooks, many online courses, many articles, and 100 beta for the 1000s of people around the world. And it's really grown into such a powerful and empowering field, I joined because it's helped me grow into a better person, the challenge of, of running my own website and helped me to really grow into a better person. And I really enjoyed the fact that almost every week, somebody emails me to say how a book of mine or course of my article of mine has changed their life.

It's really something that I've enjoyed. So you met many tenants. One of the things we spoke about is homeschooling. Yeah. And I think that's a lot we spoke about on the on the actual podcast yet. So if you're gonna be watching and listening to it, then please tune in and but we'll talk much more about it then. But apart from that, how do you find the balance and why and why are you so interested in doing so many things? It's two different but equally important questions balance.

When I was younger, I was just all of it work. I remember one day, so I was taking my my grandmother's.

I'm telling you all the things that my grandmother told me about yourself, what do you do for yourself? You pick it up for yourself? But what do you mean said you must take care of yourself to take care of everybody else.

And actually, I learned a very important lesson.

All right, today, I make time for my son, I take care of myself, because if I don't take care of myself, I cannot take care of everybody else. So I have a very strict schedule. But that strict schedule includes home for Netflix and PlayStation, right? So, I may look like this guy who's like, do too many things. But at the end of the day, in one day, I've homeschool my kids, I've run the university I, I've done my work for the startup, I've written articles, I've written a book, I read Quran, I've read a book or listen to a podcast. And I've still found time to watch Netflix, time to play video games, and so forth, and just to have a coffee and enjoy my thoughts. It's all about

making time for what's important. And to meet, taking care of myself enjoying myself, giving them the time is also important. It's also by the sub realities. The other thing I do to help me maintain peace and keep going, if I live a life of gratitude. So the first thing I do every morning, is I write out three things that I'm grateful for today. And for each of those three things, I see 100. And throughout the day, whenever a negative thought enters my mind, I counter it with a thought of gratitude on the exact same thing. So if my kids are making noise, and my mind starts thinking about it, I see 100 I have four meeting kids. And I tell you that

if I'm like, I'm so busy, I have so much work to do,

I have so many jobs, so

it becomes a total gratitude. So when you are grateful for what you have in your life, you are always positive, you are able to turn any game that you see in front of you, it is something to be grateful to Allah for. And the best part about the Allah said if you have read even more. So I had a car before was really beaten up. Whenever people used to complain, I say 100 on mechanical breakdown. And today I have a really awesome car. And I believe that's because I was grateful.

So I really believe in the power of gratitude. And that's a simple low, we go follow him. Yeah, I follow it every single day without fail, I don't allow myself to go out be grateful. And really, why why do I do it? I do it. Because number one, I believe our life is short. We are accountable to a level how we spend our life, how we spend our money, how we spend our time, how we spend our knowledge, our wealth, to be accountable for these things. So I make sure all of these things are spent in ways which are pleasing to alive, beneficial.

I also know that Allah has blessed me with gifts and skills that most people don't have. The ability to write and to speak, some people are authors, some of these speakers, I'm a teacher, I'm all three, I'm good at all three. This is something Allah has blessed me with. And so Allah has given me the skills, I have to use them, because I have to use it to help you. Because he's going to ask me about it. The Academy is going to ask me that you are given the ability to write work. Why did you use it? You were given the ability to teach, why did you teach people that are beneficial. So I look at each of these gifts that I have with each time management with each my public speaking skills

that you can use as a responsibility that Allah has given me that this is what you have, let's see what you're going to do with it. But generally, it will come for us or against us. Everyday attire can really come

as a powerful words and if you want to listen to more shift, and I have been having a wonderful conversation, and we'll be continuing the day after so once again to the children for joining us this evening. And for those of Devin we're going to have next Devon meet up soon. Jeff was there when our last one we had a great response. So hopefully see you they show up for my ca them