Building Confidence the Islamic Way

As long as a cool album while we are and welcome to the show, while the concilium Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. First of all, for our audience who are not familiar with your work, can you please start off with telling us a bit about yourself? Okay. My name is Ismail come the more commonly known by my Kunia Abu Moussa. And well, I've been involved in Islamic work from a very young age, I started studying Islam at the age of 13, I started getting involved in teaching and Tao at the age of 16. I wrote my first book when I was 23, published when I was 25. And yeah, I've been involved in Islamic work for a long time. And more recently, in the past three years, I've gotten involved in

what I call Islamic self help. I've started a blog called Islamic self help.com. And I've written a couple of self help books on time management and self confidence from an Islamic perspective. So I've branched out in that direction. Generally, I like to think of myself as a writer. That's my Yes. Yeah. So what do you actually mean by Islamic self help?

Well, self help is, you know, one of the most popular written genres at the moment when you look at best selling books around the world, you know, by Stephen Covey, Tim Ferriss, Brian Tracy, it's called the self help genre, which is basically books that you read to help yourself become a better person, you know, on fields like confidence, stress management, goal setting, time management, and go manage anything helps to improve yourself.

in training and in teaching, it's called personal development. But in the book writing, it's called self help. So I noticed you know, there's a lot of mazing books out there in these topics in this field, but not that much by Muslim waters. And you know, the Quran and Hadith have so much to contribute in this field that I took it upon myself to start writing about this. Yeah, definitely. I totally agree with you that like when when I go on to find books on Amazon and stuff, there are very little out there Bible same author so it is a it is a needed thing, that that we have more people working on if that makes health health so I'm actually curious to know what like your at your one of

one of your books is called the best of creation, which is a book around self confidence. Now, I want to know, what was the motivation behind writing such topic?

Okay, this book is quite interesting. It actually started off as a it actually started off as a writing of letters to myself, I've got this habit that I write motivational pieces to myself whenever I'm, whenever I'm giving up, right. So as writing I was researching, I came across some nice quotations, some had thesis, some Quranic verses, some do ours. And after a while, I realized I've got enough content to write a book on the entire topic. And I myself, I've been suffering with confidence issues, basically all my life, right? I'm, I'm an introvert by nature, I'm a very quiet person. I like writing. I like reading. I like being alone. And you know, growing up in a society

that values extroverts, I grew up with very low self confidence, I was trying to be somebody I'm not. It's only in the past few years that I realized that 100 Allah made me an introvert for a reason it makes me a good speaker, makes me a good writer. It makes me creative. It makes me a good reader. And I learned to embrace who I am. And that's really what it is about, you know, embracing the gifts that Allah has given you one line that I speak about in that book, which is actually I think, one of my most popular Facebook posts as well. Is my life motto, be yourself as long as being yourself is Halibel Hi, this is something as thick as a bottle of mine yourself because we trying

too hard to be to be other people we try and, you know, we see somebody who we think is pious or we think they you know, they're good people, you want to just like them, you want to look like them. You want to talk like them into the for the practicing Muslim for the other Muslims, they want to look and just like other people, but no one's been the authentic self when they study the lives of the sahaba. And the early Muslims. Everybody was unique. I mean, Omar wasn't trying to be like Abu Bakr, I'm trying to be like Uma, they both accepted that they had conflicting personalities, and they were still best friends. Right and have that get the independent or individual personalities.

So you'd find it the Ceman was a more quiet person who'd spend more time at home reading Quran, Omar was a more extroverted person who would spend more time out helping people and talking to people. And both ways you find you can be a practicing Muslim and a valuable member of society, regardless of your strengths and weaknesses. And that's really where the book came about from most of the topics I speak about in the book or topics from my own life, you know, dealing with failure, dealing with setbacks, dealing with dealing with fear all of this is my my life story you so

really came about is writing a message to myself. Yeah, I totally understand that whole point that you made about being an introvert and actually trying to train to sit in an extroverted world. And it reminds me of a book that I read on this trip because I myself, I will do like, I'm hosting this podcast and everything. I am an introvert and I'm a very quiet person. And the funny thing is, though, there was a book on this called the power of introverts by Susan Cain, have you seen that book? Yeah, that's one of my favorite books. That's when it changed me. And it's like, yeah, when she was like, like, writing on that book, and just saying about, oh, this is how we behave. And I

was like, Oh, my God, that that sounds like me, it's like, extroverts is the way to be kind of thing. And so we all try to try to try to mimic that in order to fit in with them, we lose a part of ourselves. It's actually a funny story about that. When I was a teenager, one of my teachers took me for a drive in his car. And he told me that you don't want to be an introvert when you grew up. I didn't know what the introvert was back again. But it sounded like Sorry.

For the next few years, I there's huge conflict inside, I don't want to be an introvert. And you know, the book you spoke about by Susan Cain power of introverts that really helped me to come to grips with the fact that this is how Allah made me and he made me this for a reason. And it's fine. It's perfectly fine. Yeah, it's perfectly fine to be introvert and perfectly fine to be an extrovert as well. So I mean, for the extroverts out there, so.

So, I mean, so you explained that this this book that you wrote about self confidence, it was it was coming from finding a solution to your own troubles that you have, but have you noticed that there is an like, it's, it's very common to find low confidence amongst the Muslim community?

Low confusion? Yeah, yeah. Especially since you work a lot, like a lot in the community and stuff. I mean, is that something you noticed as well?

Yeah, actually, the second and third chapters of the books are based on my experiences with the community. You know, the second chapter of the book deals with misconceptions about self confidence. And the third one about causes of those self confidence. And really, both of those chapters are based on things I've seen in the Muslim community is give you an example. The second chapter, I speak to you about the fact that many Muslims think a confident person is arrogant, right? Yeah, build up your confidence. They want to put you down, you know, put you in your place to make you humble. And what?

Yeah, and that's not how the prophets lie. Some doubted people, you know, he would tell even his enemies, you tell them, You are intelligent, you will tell them that you are sincere, it tells them that you're wise. He wouldn't put people down. He even told people not to put them themselves down. He said Don't belittle yourself. So the idea of putting people down to humble them that's not from the Sunnah. And again, this is something which I struggled with and which I know a lot of people struggle with a lot of people would write to me saying that, you know, where do I find where do I draw the line between confidence and arrogance? How do I know whether I'm being confident or being

arrogant? So just the inner conflict is there for a lot of young people, and I believe it's affected the Ummah as a whole, because now we think that to be humble, you have to think low of yourself. But guess what, if you think that you stupid if you think that you dumb if you think you can't do anything, then you're not going to do anything with your life, and the entire Ummah is thinking like that the entire world could do nothing. And then we look around the world today, the Muslims are not leading in any fields. It's because we don't have the confidence to lead we killing each other's confidence one Muslim starts doing good work everybody else pouches on him or her as such talking

that person keeps up.

And what we're doing is we're killing the OMA we really killing any initiative from the Ummah to rise up. So confidence is an issue in the third chapter is speak about parents. And parents do this, call the child stupid, call their child an idiot, tell the child you're useless. You're killing your child's confidence. You know, teachers, I spoke about a friend of mine, who the teachers used to call him dumb, John, you know, and it completely destroyed him. I mean, you know, completely destroyed his life. I spoke about bullies, I spoke about culture, you know, our culture's kill our confidence. I mean, think about women who are forced into marriages. That's not from Islam at all.

But we know it happens. I mean, I've seen guys who've been forced into marriage to people who don't like and those guys and whose girls were forced into marriage 90% of the time, they don't have the confidence to say no and to stand by the decision because the family and the culture have just crushed whatever competence is in them. So this is a major issue of Sintra out the OMA NFL do something needed to be done about it? So I went on Facebook, my Facebook page, and I wrote Dear, would anybody like to read a book on cell components from an Islamic perspective and hundreds of people? Yes, it read that book, confusing topic. So that's it. I

have to write about this topic. Yeah. So you touched upon the point of but if you're confident then people think it's like arrogance. So how can you tell the difference between the difference between self confidence and arrogance? Like how do we ensure that we are nurturing the former not the latter. To me, it comes down to one thing, whatever is haram is harmful, or whatever is halal is beneficial. And that's really the difference that confidence is productive. And arrogance is destructive. Right? So that is going to cause problems. Well, okay, if you got two people who are public speakers, right to be a public speaker, you need confidence. Definitely. One public speaker.

He's boasting. He's putting other speakers down. He's doing character assassination. He's trying to only promote his own lectures, that becomes arrogance. Right? The other person, he goes out there, he does a good job, do a good job. He wants what's best for everybody. He wants to succeed, but he wants his friends to succeed. He wants his students to succeed. That's confidence. Right? So confidence is productive, it benefits the Ummah it benefits the individual. It benefits everybody. Arrogance is destructive. Confidence is Musa Islam standing up to your own arrogance is your own denying the message of Mousavi salaam height. Confidence is Omar Rajon who's standing in front of

the Kaaba and saying he's going to make the hijra, you know, and who's going to stop him? That's confidence. Arrogance is Abu Jehol coming out and fighting the prophets like some of the battle a battle, you know. So whatever causes destruction, whatever causes harm to society, that's when you know, you've stepped over into arrogance. As long as you're being productive and you benefiting the OMA, then that's just competence. I like that. So that confidence is productive, and arrogance is destructive. That's really nice.

So, my next question that I have here is that, okay, so it's easy to say that we're confident that we're happy that we're less than a Kratos, and this might even be backed up by having a perfect social media presence. But then, in the real world, they, you know, the world that we all live in our actions may suggest otherwise. So I want to know, what are some signs of insecurity and low confidence that we can look out for so that we can do something about it? Well, low confidence would be not having goals or not chasing after your goals, because you don't think you have what it takes to complete them. Right. For example, one of my goals is to become a best selling author, and to

really go full time into writing books. Now, yet, I haven't been successful in selling books yet I've written books, but maybe a Best Writing author doesn't make you a best selling author. Now, what happens here is someone who's not confident, it will say, I've done what I could, and no one's buying the books, forget it, I'm not gonna write anymore. A confident person will think that this is just a minor setback, I'm going to keep going because this is my goal. And I know I can do to the help of Allah. So when you feel that you can't do it, you know that word I can't that low self confidence. And when I was a child, my mother used to tell me for anything, don't ever say I can't

ever say I can't do it really became part of me. Whatever it is, I wouldn't say I can't do it. I mean, I'm an Islamic teacher, but I built my own books, shelves, I could change, I would, you know, fix any electronics that I do anything. If I don't know how to do it, I googled it and watch a video on it. I learned how to do it. I don't say I can't do it. I believe that we can learn anything, we can do anything. So I think the main sign in anybody's life that they that they have low self confidence is that I can't. And so many times I tell people, why don't you do this? You're good at this. It's like no, I can't do it. It's not that they can't, is that they don't have the confidence

they don't believe in doing their most important. That's a sign of those have confidence. Yeah. The other real major sign of those competencies just going along with every society and culture says, you know, this is really a major sign that you know, it's wrong. You know, your family is wrong, you know, your culture is wrong, you know, what the people are doing is wrong, but you're doing it because you scared to be different. You scared, you don't have the confidence to stand up and speak the truth. Or to do things differently. This is a major sign of low self confidence. So you'll hear people say things like, I know it's haram. But what will the people say, you know, they have this,

this, this mindset, that's low confidence, you're not confident in your message, not competence in your deen, you're competent in the fact that Allah is going to help you stand up for the truth. So the confidence is not there. So I believe that this is going along with whatever people say, even when you know it's wrong. That means you don't have the confidence to stand up for what you believe in. That's an interesting way to put it. So just whatever, not kind of stepping back and asking yourself is, is this what I want to stand up for? Or is this the kind of life I want to live? Yeah, and I think confidence also comes now practice of Islam, you know, nowadays to wear the hijab, you

know, in societies which without a point that requires confidence for a man to go for business interview with a beard, even though they might reject Him that requires confidence. To pray your salon public requires concrete

In studio, thou art requires confidence. Competence is necessary to be a practicing Muslim, in a society where you'll be a stranger for practicing Islam. That's so true. So though there was a point that you mentioned in the book about people who criticize, and it was said that such people who criticize those with low self esteem and and you know, it's an interesting observation, because you'd think that if someone criticized that, it's because they've got everything sorted out in their life, which, of course, is not true. But I want to know, like why criticizing was created with low self esteem? Well, what I found is that people were unable to chase their own dreams. They don't

want anybody else to chase their dreams, people who are cut off from chasing their own goals. They don't want other people to chase their goals, they become bitter, they become cynical, they think it's not possible, or they don't want somebody else to remind them of what could have been. So just say, for example, there was someone who wanted to be a best selling author, I am talking about this, because it is my goal, right? Yeah, somebody wants to be a best selling author, and this person failed miserably when they were young, and they gave up. Now that person's gone, oh, they've gone cynical. And they see a young person wanting to be a best selling author, that old person is going

to put that guy down, you can say it's not gonna work, you never going to be able to do it. Don't waste your time become a doctor, or whatever it is, whether it's coming from his his own lack of self confidence in his own ability to being a bestselling author, right. He knows he couldn't do it. So he thinks I know. And, and that's really what it comes down here. No one else should do it. That Senate Senate got me think about someone who's had a bad marriage. You know, they'll, they'll say things like, All men are the same, or all women are the same, or no, marriage is handcuffs, you know, to me, I've heard that 75.

And this is coming from projecting their reality upon somebody else, that because their marriage isn't working out, or hasn't worked out, they project this and everybody else, you know, does, again, their own confidence, their own lack of confidence, that's expressing itself in this way, they don't realize it themselves. But when you study psychology, you realize that very often when somebody is talking to you and talking about your fault, they're actually talking about their own faults, they also actually talking about themselves, that we are mirrors to each other. You know, the Hadith says that the believer is the murderer of the believer, we see in each other ourselves.

So I mean, when someone looks at you, and they see faults in you is usually because they have the same faults in them. So that's actually, that is very deep when you think about it, because it's like when when someone goes and criticize another, it's because they see something in them that reminds them of something about themselves. So they're like, you know, let me give you an example of this, you know, the issue of hijab, there's sometimes a young sisters that's wearing hijab, and suddenly, all the older sisters start getting jumpy, and they start making noise and start talking back to her. And she wonders, why is he doing this to me, it's because they, when they see her, they

are reminded of the fact that they didn't do this. And they reminded the fact that they're sinful for not doing it. And they don't want that reminder, you know, if they can get her to take up the hijab, just a reminder out of the way. So they think she's criticizing her hijab, they actually coming from their own point of view, they don't want to see any reminder of what they supposed to be doing. And so, so at the end, if if someone were to criticize you, then it's never about you. So that there, isn't it? Well, the way I deal with criticism is I firstly, I separate it from the emotions, right? Yeah, when it comes to me positively or negatively, I don't look at it until I've

emotionally come down. I mean, if this was criticism comes, we all go into the state of anger, or we go into a fight or flight, you know, this runaway or fight type of response. So I don't handle the criticism straightaway, I leave it for data. So if it's an email or a Facebook comment, whatever, I leave it aside, I look at it later, when the emotions are not there, then I look at it constructive to say, is this a genuine point? Or is this person just, you know, projecting the reality upon me, if it's a genuine point, identify the point and I try to change my life accordingly? If not, then, you know, I thank him for the point and see I have a different perspective and leave it as that.

Because the end of the day, there is criticism, which is true. We all have our faults, we all have ways that we can improve. For example, many years ago, people were telling me that I talk too fast, or that I have too much of an accent, or do they use certain words which are not understood outside my country. And I began to improve my speech accordingly, to such an extent that now the people in my own country ask me what country I'm from, because I no longer have the local accent.

But the point is that you have to listen to to criticism, you can't shut it all off. Yeah, at the same time, if you're only going to listen to it, you know, this is more criticism. I didn't anything else. I mean, if you go to any shakes Facebook page and look at the comment section, you know, the comment the amount of criticism people throw at them, if they're going to listen to everything, no one's going to get any

work down. This is the reality. So we have to separate what is what is beneficial for us from what is somebody else's projecting themselves or what I say just plain trolling. Yeah, true, true. Big. And it's also a lot of people do it because it's easy to criticize that actually do it yourself. That's true yesterday, a lot of people.

Yeah. Like how how how you were mentioning about on Facebook pages and stuff. There's so many people that criticize and it's like, they're not the ones that are thinking the forefront of doing the work. And they're just like, sitting there saying, oh, you know, this stare at this. And it's like, yeah, the keyboard warriors

in real life.

So then the next thing that I want to actually ask you about was use, you spoke about keeping a mistake journal. And this was something that you spoke about in your book. And firstly, I've never heard it before, because like, generally, it said, you know, celebrate your wins and other positive reinforcement. So, I want to know more about this. And how does it actually further develop adults, especially in confidence? Okay, mistake journal. I can't remember where I got it from, is it Stephen Covey, or Dale Carnegie, one of those artists who spoke about it in one of the books, I can't remember which one, but one of those authors had mentioned that whenever he made a mistake, he would

sit down and reflect upon it and write write it out. So I started trying this a few years ago, I started in 2012. You know, we ever made that for every small mistake, but like really big, big blunders that cause problems to somebody else. I didn't all of us make mistakes. So, you know, this happened a few times a year where you did something and like, how did I do that? Why did I do that, you know, a mess things up? Well, the thing about the mistake is, it can be a learning experience. And the best way to learn from something is to analyze it. So what happens when most of us we keep the mistake inside, right? And he boils any any leads in our mind, and it drives us crazy. And this

is even worse for an introvert because, you know, we always remember the most awkward things that happened to us in our lives. If that display, if you write it out, it stops playing on your mind. So this is what I do. And so when I make a major blunder, I write the date, I write out what happened, right, or what led to it. And then I write, what can I do in future to make sure this never happens again to the rest of my life. So at the end of the day, I've learned the lesson, a life lesson. And it's highly unlikely. I mean, whatever mistakes I've written about my mistake journal, they've only happened once in my life, I've never done them again for the rest of my life. Because I've analyzed

them, I've extracted a lesson from them. And he's made me a better person. And this is something I mean, many of us we, we don't even want to admit our mistakes, leave alone, analyze them and see what did I actually do wrong? Most of us play the blame game, when something goes wrong, we want to blame everybody and everything else. And for me, I sit back and say, Where did I go wrong? Because really, that's the only way you're ever going to sit positively. If you're going to blame everybody else, you know, we always going to have have been fused to remain as we are, we're not going to grow, we're not going to develop, you're not going to mature. So to actually analyze it and see

where did I go wrong? And how can I improve? At the end of the whole process, you will feel more confident because you learn a lesson. And now you know, next time that situation happens, you're going to tackle it differently, you have a plan on how you're going to tackle it differently. And so in that way, it really does help you with your confidence that you I think in my book, I had a chapter called reframing mistakes, right? If you stop looking at stakes, start looking at it as life experience, you when you go for a job interview, people tell you that they're looking for someone with experience, someone experience means that you've already made your mistakes at some other job.

So you're not going to make the same mistakes at your job. So it means I don't want somebody young who's fresh out of college, because he's going to make all these mistakes there. So then either you make a mistake is somebody else's firm, and then come work for them. Having looks like that's actually what experiences and many of us think experience is just success. And it's just, you know, doing things that you can be proud of, but really experience is failure. And I actually was watching a TED talk today, which said that failure is a necessary ingredient for success. And that's why most people don't succeed it because there's they're afraid to fail. You have to fail and learn from it

and fail again and learn from it and fail again and learn from it. And by that whole process is over you now on another level and you're able to succeed. Yeah, that's true on that on that note of failure. I remember reading somewhere how it said that if you're not failing a lot that that means you're not trying harder. Like you're not really trade.

Yeah, but you're not feeling a lot image not trying anything new at all. Yeah, yeah. That's so true. And and to be able to admit your mistake is something that makes you feel uncomfortable and take you out of your comfort zone. It's something that maybe not a lot of people want to do because of that, the pain that it causes.

Well, that takes us back to what we spoke about earlier about arrogance and conflict.

And remember the prophets Allah is some city arrogance is refusing to accept the truth by that someone who doesn't want to accept that they make mistakes, someone who doesn't want to accept that they could be wrong. That's not confidence. That's arrogance, right? Yeah, a humble person knows that you will make mistakes, Hey, be willing to learn from his mistakes and be willing to look at his mistakes and analyze them. He also the very ability to look at your mistakes, and to know that you've made mistakes, and to admit that that requires humility. And if you're unable to do that, that means there's some ego involved, right? Because that's the only reason why anyone would not

accept mistakes, because there is some level of ego there holding us back from doing so. So really, that's when we go to the high quality thing that if you really want to grow in life, if you really want to experience any kind of success, we have to let go of that ego and admit when you're wrong, and learn from our mistakes. Yeah, if like, when you put it that way, yeah, does really show how important it is to be able to pretty much admit your mistakes and move on from there. So I'm, I want to know, like when you do have your mistake journal, is it is it something? Is it like a physical journal? Or is that something that you see the electronic journal? Just out of curiosity?

Electronic for me keep doing some work on a file in my computer when no one will find it.

Okay,

so we're actually nearing the ending of our interview. So before we end off, I just have final questions which we ask all our guests. So the first one is, what are your top three reads, particularly when it comes to confidence and what we discussed today?

I'm sorry, I knew the question. Your top three reads those books, favorite books in their top two books regarding confidence? Yeah, especially regarding confidence, although if it's, if it's not so big, or if it's just, it's fine.

Well, you know, I'd like to plug my own book, the face of creation.

When it comes to confidence, one book that really helped me was feel the fear and do it anyway, by Susan Jeffers. Right, feel the fear with anyway, I mean, that book, really, it really goes straight to the heart of where most of our lack of confidence comes from the issue of, of fear, right, I have a whole chapter about in my book, she has a whole book just on that topic. And that's one book I really get caught me, you know, believing in myself in terms of confidence, again,

another book, which I think is really good for confidence.

The name slipped out of my mind.

Well, I think the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, everyone should read that, not specifically on confidence, but on all four, generally, I think that's a book I've suggested to every single person who's ever asked me what book should I read. And every one of you came back and said, Thank you for suggesting that book is changed my life, the same principle that just apply to everyone, whatever field you are in.

As far as Islamic books are concerned on the subject, as I said, there aren't there isn't much written on this topic by Muslims. So the book don't be sad by Dr. Idol colony. That's really one that kept me going. When I was younger, I think a lot of people can relate to that. And related to that is his other book for women specifically called you can be the happiest woman in the world. I think his books are just written from a very optimistic side, actually by the same author as well, because I remember seeing that.

Okay, yeah, there will be the same water. Yeah, I mean, his books written in Arabic and translated to English. But really, they have a very optimistic take. And I mean, for me, when I was younger, most of the Islamic books, and most of the lectures I used to listen to, were very hardcore and always about you know, the, the more this is haram, that is haram, you go into higher kind of things. And these books have a very light feel to it is full of hope, full of mercy full of, you know, things are going to get better. You're going to learn from your mistakes, you know, Allah is going to help you. It's just full of positive messages. And I think I've done a lot of inspiration

for my writings from his writings as well. So don't be served by Dr. Idle colony is a book that I think every Muslim home should have with that also the book enjoy your life by Dr. Mohammed Al reefy, another Arabian scholar. I don't know if you read the book, enjoy. Yeah, I see that book. I actually never got to finish it because I was like taking it a chapter at a time. But now

for me, sometimes when I'm done, I just opened randomly any chapter in that book and read the story is just really, really beautiful and optimistic. It really, really just gets you going. Yeah, that was a good one. So our next question that we have here is what is your favorite life hack in terms of growing your confidence? My greatest life, my favorite life hack in terms of growing my confidence?

Of course, so many actually.

Well, for me, one would be talking to myself in the mirror.

Sorry, I think that's something talking to myself in the mirror. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think people actually find

the mirror.

But I'm really feeling lonely. And I know things myself in the mirror and say you can get, I love to give myself an extra look myself in the eyes to keep us up to lecture. It works, it actually boosts me up.

And another thing that really boosts me is having motivational quotes all over the place in my books on my computer, everywhere, you just have the most motivational quotations lying everywhere. For example, my background on my computer will be the same statement, you are a writer. So make sure you write something today, no matter what I'm feeling like I'm going to write.

Yeah, so are you putting those quotations everywhere? And then, of course, you know, to me, one of the most important things that keeps me confident is that, understand that Allah has a plan, whatever happens at this time, except Allah has a plan to see part of Allah's plan. And, you know, one day you will understand why it happened. So no matter how badly I feel to be failing, no matter how things seem to be thinking, you just have the confidence to move forward. Because you know, Allah has a plan, and you know, everything will go according to His plan. So I remind myself of that, which statements like the whole of La Quwata, Illa, Billah, and hospital Lo and Mo appeal. And

you know, these kinds of statements that remind you that Allah is in control of everything. So if you succeeded, is because Allah wanted you to succeed, if you didn't succeed, because Allah wanted you to learn a lesson, he wanted to test your subber he wanted to see how badly you wanted, Allah has a plan, and you just have to go along with that. So that's the third thing I do is that whenever I'm feeling low in confidence, I remind myself, Allah has a plan, and to keep working, and Allah will help me eventually. That's true. So finally, where can our listeners find you online? And to find more about this, the book and everything? Yeah, I have two blogs. One is my Islamic dog we are

right Islamic articles. That's how we are.com Yep. And the second one is we are write self help articles. And that is Islamic self. help.com. So we know how to write about confidence and time management and goal setting and productivity that you find that Islamic self help.com When I'm writing about fake and EDA and Dawa, and duck seal that you'll find [email protected] As for the book at Islamic South hub.com There is a page there on my books.

But you'll actually find it everywhere. I mean, if you want my book best of creation, it's on Kindle. It's in Kobo, it's on iTunes. It's on Google Books, whatever e reader, you You will find

Kindle yet, so Amazon Kindle. It's also a nook. It's also available in PDF format and various websites. And you can always order a hard copy of Amazon or

Barnes and Noble. So yeah, there's a variety of places to bite anyone on their favorite ereader. Inshallah? Yeah, so so we'll include all this in our show notes. So that they can be able to find it and be able to go through so that was the true blogs and the book, which is available on all major

stores? Any readers. Okay. Excellent. Okay, so is it first, since we're ending off our interview? Is there anything any final words you want to say? That you haven't mentioned before you want to touch upon?

Yeah.

You know, when it comes to these topics of self confidence, we need more people writing on these topics, I don't want to be the only one writing about these topics, is actually hard for me to find material on this. And so my advice to brothers and sisters out there is this get involved in these fields, you know, let's start. You know, instead of relying on others for our guidance in these areas, let us be the leaders in whatever field we into. So I would love to see other people writing on some of the topics. I mean, I might sell my book on time management. I've written a book on Halal entertainment. I've written a book on confidence. My next book is going to be on homeschooling, you

can see a tackle topics that people don't normally write about, right. And anyone who asked me tells me they want to be a writer, what should they write about? My advice always says, write about something that nobody's written about before. Otherwise, it's not worth writing. Yeah. I mean, I remember one day a young boy came to me said he wants to write a book about salah, and I asked him, What are you going to write about salah? And he told me you know the basics of how to pray Salah 20 buddies already 100 books on the topic, what would be the purpose of writing the book? He said, I just want to write a book. I told him if you want to write a book, look in the community, see what

nobody has written about and what will benefit people and write that to be if any of my books you'll find them such topics and like

twice, you know, I advise people accordingly if you're going to be right, if you're going to be a speaker, I mean, just look at Muslim life hackers, this is something nobody else is doing. And that's what we all need to do. Awesome. Awesome. Okay, so thank you so much, once again, while we have for joining us on the show. It was a great interview. And I learned quite a few things today. And we hope to see you soon as well on the show, as

well.

So that wraps up the interview with Abu muawiya. One thing that I learned from this interview that stood out for me was the whole idea about having a mistakes journal, because I can still relate to the part about having whenever we experienced blunders, it just goes on loop setting, like you see a video how you put it on loop, and that's what happens in my mind. And so, actually taking the time to analyze that mistake, so that we can be able to further grow. I think that is a very powerful way of being able to use these mistakes and these challenges in our life to further better ourselves. Anyway, I'd love to hear your feedback on everything we do on the show, including any topics or

guests that you'd like to see on, you can do so by going to Muslim life hackers.com/contact If you want to support the show, the best way to show your support is by telling your family and friends, online or in person. Now friends, that brings me to the end of the episode. Until next time, remember, the only person you should aim to be better than is the person that you were yesterday, so give it your best today.

Thank you for listening to the Muslim life hackers podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave a review for us on iTunes by going to Muslim life hackers.com forward slash iTunes