Interview – Self Help Tips for Lockdown

How the billionaire shaytani r rajim Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim al hamdu lillahi wa Salatu was Salam or the European mousseline say he didn't want to be you know Maulana Muhammad Ali he was heavy robotic recently, rubbish roughly sundry WASC Li Amri aka Tamil essene efco Kohli salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa heeta. ilevel. But again, I am tripping, I interrupting whichever way you want to say it. That is what you tuning in this evening. And we are indeed it's Thursday evening in the Western Cape here in South Africa, typical with windy conditions, but we say Alhamdulillah for the bounties of above super Hannover diala and wherever you find yourself watching this evening, I'm sure when

you're going to be in you're going to be enthralled by our topic of conversation number one, and as well as our guests, I've had a few minutes to engage with the with our guests prior to going live this evening. And I'm waiting to get into this conversation. You know, you know if people say why, but a little bit year to try and just get some excitement going, but Guess who's back? This was back with me. You know, he's not sitting next to me right now. But he's here on the platform chef Assalamualaikum while they consider rahmatullah wa barakato how are you doing teacher? I want to have like I missed you. Great to be back. Can I give you a virtual hug? Can you give you a virtual

Allah

here we go let you know the elbow thing if you normally do

Here we go. How you doing man? Alhamdulillah sabbatical was good

and we back inshallah to do what what what you do best I just follow

STD that's good.

But much of us it's really good to have you back and we've had some you know, last week we look at you know, last two weeks we had the poem that made shamima humble cry You know resonated with me when a great case on all I brought him painting and now we have this evening somebody I think I'm going to allow you to do the introduction because you know, I'm already I'm the but a pen and paper really I'm gonna make notes I actually told those watching this evening you know, I am certain that whatever advices you get this evening you can make a note of it I you know, because the topic of conversations be so great insha Allah May Allah Subhana Allah facilitate for us to have a very great

program this evening to inspire that's watching into benefit mankind at large inshallah, but she have an endo with us today Dr. Do is something like the kidney or something and your sight seeker the rate of at the mercy of others.

Okay, Al Hamdulillah salat wa salam ala rasulillah. We are fortunate this evening, to have on our platform, a person who I had the good fortune of working with for almost a decade Alhamdulillah is younger than most of the people who lead in that work, which was amazing. And Also of note, public speaker,

a self help guru if we if we may, right. So that's why that's why is Yeah. Alhamdulillah. So she has smiley Canada has headed the faculty as faculty manager, the teachers at Islamic online university for almost a decade. And Alhamdulillah recently is moved on and it's always good. When people move on to the different spheres within the same genre battle hamdulillah moved on to a different institution, a new institution. And fortunately Alhamdulillah is currently with the European Institute headed by Dr. Omar Suleiman, who's become quite a household name in South Africa currently, but that is accolades right? But I just want to jump in there with a few questions for

chef on on on a personal note, just to to set the tone. So inshallah

I'm going to ask you a few more questions so that those watching get to know you inshallah, so she's easier.

So she just want you to come the easier tea drinker or a coffee drinker, or definitely coffee.

So, okay, we did three coffees at home would you have to buy it from a coffee shop? No, it's at home. But I mean, once or twice a week treat myself out coffee, the coffee shop, but I mean, generally it's at home. I have my French press and

yeah.

Okay, so being South African and being based in Durban? Is it Nando's or ocean basket neither. Neither

we

delve into a lot of other places. You kick down options right?

Really, really really low.

My friends come from Cape Town to Durban to eat out. So like Yo, we've got salt we've got sofra Istanbul my favorite Turkish place. We got smoking we I went to where I want to loosen up. So you guys need to come down. Yes,

definitely, definitely shower. Okay.

Bayshore was in Devon.

Yeah. Okay, third question shift, which I know the answer to but just for the for the viewers, apple, Android.

Android, I've never had an Apple device in my life.

Okay, play Xbox or Playstation. So it was PlayStation until now I had the PlayStation one, Playstation two, Playstation three and PlayStation four. But three weeks ago, I bought the Xbox series x. I feel like a bit of a trader, but the game was too good a deal.

If you always keep your options, open, options open shift. So okay, and the last question before we get into the actual discussion issue. So she

gets a ticket on the blue train. To travel from Durban to Cape Town via Pretoria, you have to go to Pretoria and in your cabin. There are three spaces but you can only fill it with three Islamic icons from the past century, so to speak about the 1900s Hmm.

So which city will you choose? I'll choose even assurx Rahim Allah from Tunisia.

Shia Abu Hassan nadwi from India. And just to spice up the composition shake. She'd read out from Egypt. Oh,

I think those three in the room together would be

31 out

of the blue three, right?

That would be an amazing

trip. So now we get now we have you know, acquainting yourself with * in Somalia. As a teacher, we can go into the discussion and I think you have lots of questions. And she's definitely the person the person to help us with this. Like we said all his work before. March 2020 was already online. of the people that that's work life hasn't been impacted much through the lava is definitely a shade of smell. You can but we give

that Mashallah. I'm surprised Firstly, I'm surprised if you're a coffee drinker, and you come from Durban when I got when they told me to drink tea

to practice about that, but nevertheless, I see you're a connoisseur of coffees like chef used to have either gone to see a road. Mashallah. But you know, looking at the world today, I mean, there's no way you could have seen what would happen in terms of everybody going online, trying to facilitate educate themselves, besides that also start to work online. We did this how strange it was, it was like a strange phenomenon for you to be working and doing things online. Yeah, so it was in 2010, I got my first online job. And everybody was like, watch that. You know what's going to happen? You know, the elders in my family, like you're going to be bored in a few months, I want to

get out of the house. young guys are like, you know, wife guns are fighting every day, there's no way you're going to be in the house together all day.

But, you know, it's, it became something that I got so accustomed to that I can't imagine living any other way. It's like, this is who I am. I love I love working from home, I love having my own timetable, my own pace, my own to do list. A lot of freedom. No, to just be yourself, you know, without having to have that mask that you wear when you in the office. It's It's really nice. You're like this, when I first started, some of my neighbors couldn't understand how I paid the rent, you know, they would look at my wife and see your husband's at home playing video games all day. Because that's what they think the

people they think is video games. How he makes money. I think right now a lot of older people don't understand how I make money. I tried to explain to them, they don't understand the internet. They don't understand computers, they don't understand ecommerce, so hard to like, really, really dumb it down for them. But things have changed a lot of 2010 to 2021. I'm not talking about the bad change the past two years, talking about the gradual change over the decades, where I noticed a huge shift from 2010 to say about 2016 by 2016. About 20% of the people I knew were working online or at least half the time working online. You know it was becoming more normal. Ecommerce had become a thing.

self publishing had become a thing. It was starting to pick up speed. All the all that this pandemic did is that it just pushed it. You know, it gave me that push, you know ever what happens in in life is that whenever there's something new, it needs like a dramatic world event to like push it to the forefront to make it normal. So for me that happened to two things one was working online and the other ones were the homeschooling my kids, that was like a weird thing until last year, everyone that you homeschool your kids homeschool your kids, and now everyday people like please help us teach us how to homeschool our kids it like just shifted

by kind of thing. I feel like I Jinx things. Because when I was homeschooling my kids, I will always tell them thank Allah that we live in the only time in history where they know pandemics. I tell them this every

chef, surely smile, you know, listening to what you are just you're cheating. And there's a few questions that came to mind. Though the one being you know, I want to just touch on your children, you allow me for four seconds and looking at education. Or one of the things that people find challenging right now in the pandemic is the social inclusion of children, the social engagement of children, and how difficult they are finally, to keep the children socially engaged and active. As a parent that's been doing this for forever in a day. What is your secret? And what advice would you be sitting here this evening giving to be a while to be honest, the pandemic has affected us in that

way as well. Right? Because before the pandemic, my kids would be enrolled in martial arts classes, they were enrolled in swimming classes. You know, we organize like kids or workshops in the in the community for children from different backgrounds to get together hang out, they will go for day camps, organized by the online schools. We will go hiking, we'd meet up with relatives, they alternate, we'll get together all that's gone. That's gone. Now it's we can't do any of that. So I myself am struggling in this area. My kids are at home all day, we scared for them to be around other people.

They socialize life is one, I'm just lucky, I have four kids, so they socialize with each other. So that keeps some level of you know, interaction going. The other kids I noticed who are like alone at home, I noticed a huge change in their personality from beginning of last year to now that they talk less, they interact less, they just by themselves. I'm worried about that generation, this really isn't a solution. We are living through a test from Allah subhanho wa Taala. And you know, the test is going to impact us in different ways. We're just going to have to evolve. So you know, maybe online socialization is a solution. I haven't tried it yet myself. But it is possible. I mean, maybe

you know, just have these zoom sessions like this for kids, for them to just hang out in zoom chats, I don't know.

some amount of fun, make it easier for our children and to protect them. And especially during this pandemic because the saga pandemic has been devastating, not only from a health and losing of life, but also the social engagement. Should we be looking at, you know, the the whole notion of working online, what does it allow you to do? You know, I mean, when I remember when we spoke about the World Wide Web, maybe more than just over a decade ago, he spoke about this global village, how do you engage as somebody being online, all the time engaged with the Global Village as such. So that's what social media is for, right? It's how we engage with the global village where people used to

tease me before they have the social media share. Well, I'm always on Facebook, I'm always on Twitter. But here's the thing, if you're working from home, that's, that's your social life. You You, you don't have anywhere at the office to have a conversation over coffee words and things like that. So social media becomes your outlet, it becomes your way of sharing your ideas, sharing your thoughts, interacting with people. And I mean, there's been good and bad to it. I'm one of those people who like every week I think about shutting down all my social media and just getting off social media altogether because it's a really toxic environment. But then the other side of me is

like I'm benefiting 1000s of people through social media. And you know, to be honest, I'm making money to social media as well. So contrary to any doubt,

but I mean that that's really where your social life is online. So what I did to balance it out before the pandemic is that I would once a week, hang out with people in my community so you know, hang out at a coffee shop or at a restaurant.

You know, what I'd like to do is go in I go to the masjid I used to just hang out with people outside the masjid and watching all that squad. So you know another thing I enjoy doing is whenever there was a guest speaker in town from another country, I would make sure I host Demeter when they hang out to the midterm and so you'll get to spend time in person would everybody like that? But those are people I met through social media. You

hamdulillah so that's how I was able to connect with them. So for example, what two years ago shake Yasaka he was in Dublin and I hosted him for the full two days you know took him scuba diving took him to try ostrich steaks we just hang out over two full days. But we met through social media like I emailed him RC when he's coming to Durban Can I hang out with him? And he's in Durban? He said sure. So

social media really helped open up my international

network of friendships. Alhamdulillah

Mashallah, you brought a nice word into the mix, share the Word network, Mashallah, Mashallah, tell us, you know, you're speaking about social networks. And you speaking about an elephant, you speak about the merchant because I can relate to the fact that you go to Macy's, you meet people, you engage with them, how the day is being maybe sometimes you seen a brother from one wall to the next walk and so forth. And so it continues. But that's not taken away, as you mentioned, now you on this digital domain? How do you go about networking, and also you've mentioned overlap of a, that you, this is one of your superpowers.

So it's a give me some secrets and some tips around networking each other. So you know, one of the things I learned very early in the self help field is if you don't ask, you won't know, you know, if you ask the word somebody is going to tell you is no. Right. And once you get used to people saying no, you get used to asking things. So I've been the kind of person for a long time, like, you know, we in 2007, I was like 21 years old. I was traveling to India to attend the Dr. Zaki Knights peace conference. And I said, Dr. Bill Phillips email saying, I'm coming to the conference, can I meet up with you? And he said, Sure. And I made my way through the body guards, ducking to the rose, came up

to him, shook his hand, introduce myself to him, ended up landing a job within working for over a decade after the law. You know, same thing happened with Chico Marcella. I was in Malaysia, I was speaking at the conference, he was speaking at a different conference, I saw him I walked up to him introduce myself. And you know, hamdulillah You know, I've been working with him since as well. For me, it's always just been about just ask, you know, like, somebody asked me, my book or Omar bin Abdulaziz, how do I get the astral body to write the foreword? Very simple. I just emailed the monastic.

That's all.

That's what I do. Like I just asked people like, I will ask 10 people something. If one of them say yes, I'll have to Lila. Well, most of us are just afraid to ask, you know, we'd be like, Okay, this is like, you know what, what we do? This is, let me tell you one secret of networking, right? A lot of us we look at people like Dr. Bilal Philips or multibank, or Shia casilla, who is this famous guy, I can't talk to him. You know, I treat them with the respect people deserve. But I treat them as normal people, I don't like to say it's acceptable in which people think you're famous, they walk up to you like, or look at you, like, you know, they give you that that scaly smile, those big eyes,

and they just stare at you that whole time it creeps you out, right? What if you talk to someone like you know, like a normal person and treat them as equal with respect, they're more likely to open up to you and develop a friendship with you.

That's really what the secret of networking is, you know, you want to network with somebody who you think is famous. They don't want you to treat him like some kind of special person. Just normal interactions as you would with somebody else. Obviously, they want you to talk down to them nobody wants anybody to talk down to them. But you know, the normal treat people like human beings, you know, like when she acts encounter asked me what what type of food you like to eat to see, okay, I like Turkey for Okay, I'll take him to a Turkish restaurant and you're hanging out with them there. You know, again, it's just about treating people as people. And don't don't be afraid to ask because

everyone's afraid to ask. So sometimes they themselves get surprised when somebody actually asked him for something. Because everyone's so scared to ask, obviously and ask also has to be reasonable. Right? So if somebody had to ask me for 100 free copies of my book, sorry, I can't afford 100 free copies of my book.

So that's also the other side of networking be very reasonable in what you ask of people you know if you know something's a person source of income, don't ask it for free that people or people must use networking for that especially with family if you've got a business you want everything for free. Don't do that especially in times like this the other help people out to their sources of income which I'd like to also on a topic of asking so I would like to ask something because my my I fell on something well, looking at the chase my eels room. I think it's he's, it's on my right side. His left side is a box with three boxes stacked on top the I don't know if you acquainted with Are you

acquainted with this boxes teacher next to the globe?

So you can see it Okay, so it's the five pillars game. You've seen it 3d, yes.

Yeah, he Yeah, so if you don't know, shaking his head in developing the five pillars, game ash, also, I think it's something definitely, in our current situation that, you know, we have the Xbox and I have the PlayStation, but I think it's something good that we can purchase for the, for the family, in our current situation inshallah, but the real question, I'd really like to ask suresmile and since we are three main year, on this platform,

it's the issue of mental health. And men, because, you know, it's like, the father is the head of the house, the husband is the head of the house.

You know, it's like, we always have to be, we always have to have a game, we always need to be on top of things. How important is mental health for for males, and especially now during the lockdown share with us some tips on how to actually remain sane, during our current situation that we are faced with medical or physical? Yeah, so you know, one of the problems with the past few generations before us is this idea that men shouldn't be in touch with their emotions, right? You got to have this, this, you got to have it you get all the time, I find it much more healthy, to to know your emotions, and to be in tune with your emotions and to work accordingly. Right. So for example, I'm

actually taking the week a few days off this this next few days. And the reason is, I'm feeling burnt out now. And I just, you know, told my boss, you know, I'm feeling burnt out, I'm taking a few days off to to reboot, and they're like, fine, that's good. It's good that you notice that your other reboots you can give us your best

Americans, my family as well, you know, like, sometimes I just tell my wife, you know what, I need some alone time, you know, my brain disease, and I need some alone time. And she understands that I'll just go and play with the Xbox by now, you know, something like that.

Before, before the pandemic, you'll be like, I head out to a coffee shop and just sit and have a slice of cheesecake and just sit there alone My thoughts. Now we can't do that. So at least we've got our games at home. But it's very important that we understand our emotions, each of us are different. Some of us are more extroverted, we need a lot more socialization. Some of us are more introverted, we need a lot more me time. I'm an introvert, but I'm like, I need me time. But I work alone as well. So I have to schedule social time as well, because I need at least one or two hours a week of hanging out to other guys.

And you know, you have to be in touch with your emotions to recognize any of this or to know any of this. You know, days where you're feeling sad days, when you're feeling weak days, when you're feeling overwhelmed by expenses. These are all things that men are scared to deal with, because we're supposed to be brave and strong all the time. I'm not saying don't put up a brave face in front of your family. It's I mean, if that's what your family needs, then do that. You know, I mean, if they go into a traumatic event, and I need someone to be the brave one, do that be the brave one. But you also need to take care of yourself. So like if you need to spend an hour alone just to

rethink and get your put your thoughts together and work through emotions. Do that. One of the ways you can do that is to have a dedicated space at home. That's just for you. For me, it's my goodness. Yeah, the man cave. Every man needs a man. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's my other name for my office are calling my man cave. Daytime, it's my office in the week in the evening. It's my man cave. So sometimes you just need that space where there's no wife, there's no kids, there's no neighbors, there's no in laws, it's just you and your thoughts. And you know, whatever it is that you use to de stress. That's very, very important. And I think for too many of us, we just don't do that. We are

working all the time. We're not working with the family.

And sometimes we like we have these bursts of anger. We don't know why. And I think every guy's gone through that, like, you come home from work and your wife's like, you need to fix the tap or the paint is from is peeling off the roof. And you like just shout at her. If you're more in control of your emotions, and you know what's going on in your mind, you can handle it better. Like if you walk into a house, a wife that suddenly this needs fixing that needs fixing your Teller, you know, I just had a very tiring day. My mind's not here, right now give me an hour to relax. I'll get to it after that. Right? We can discuss it after that. That's when you know what's going on in your mind. If you

don't know what's going on in your mind, you're just snapping at people and you don't know why you're snapping at people because you don't take time to process your own thoughts. This is why I think it's also important for everybody to study a little bit of psychology, not to become a psychologist but just to read Basic Books on how emotion works and what are the signs of stress. What are the signs of depression, what are the signs of anxiety, so you can recognize it in yourself. You can get recognized in your kids, you can recognize it in your spouse, and you know it helps you be a better husband and father and helps you be a better man.

No, definitely. I think teacher Shea speaks about that fit of rage. I think that's why we have so much

Road Rage here in annoying Cape Town, you know, a small misdemeanor. And the guy just blows it. But, you know, I do tell people this that I've been with me that I got my first that I was licensed in Egypt and my second driver's license in South F in Saudi and I failed miserably. Yes, I just added converted. So maybe I have one of those bad, bad habits from the Middle East or bad driving habits.

But I mean, the road rage is crazy. And it could be because the guy had a stressful day is thinking of fixing a tap, which has no idea on how to do it, no matter how many YouTube videos you watch on plumbing, you know, it's, it's just not the same. Especially if you stuck it out. You chose to be at home or circumstances. Maybe you work from home for more than a decade. But your average today, man and Mohammed, he's only doing this for, you know, a few months and is not productive. You know, he has his laptop open as his cup of coffee. But he starts working in his PJ's got his pajamas on his kids is playing around and is not productive at all. How do we fix that?

You know, lack of productivity while working from home? I guess that's a good question. And it really is the reason why I got into personal development, right was I needed to fix it myself. So I started reading self help books. And that led to me starting Islamic self help and writing my own self help books. But, you know, really, what you need is a period of adjustment. And, you know, there's a saying that I like to turn around, people always say, I want to be my own boss. I want to be my own boss. So I tell people that it's okay. Do you know what it means to be your own boss, you have to shout yourself and you're not doing your work. You have to give yourself deadlines. You have

to make sure you stick into your hours, you need to make sure you dress appropriately for work. You have to be your boss, right? How can boss is going to interact with you, you have to interact with yourself in that way. So you need self discipline. And this I think is something a lot of people find hard to learn how to be self disciplined.

For some people, it comes naturally, other people need to study it the best ways to learn study, self help books are on these topics. So yes, a few simple things everyone can do to be more productive at home. Number one, is have a dedicated workspace, I too many of us are sitting on our bed with our laptop trying to work, you can't work in your bed with your laptop, you just can't. Your brain is it's not going to be at work, right? Have a dedicated workspace. Even if it's just a corner of the house, even if it's your balcony, whatever it is a coffee shop, whatever it is, right now we come to the coffee shop, but but wherever it is, find a dedicated workspace that you know

where I'm sitting at that space, I'm at work, it has a very strong psychological impact on you. Number two, is you need to have you mentioned the pajamas, right? You need to be dressed with

paperwork. And this is why, you know, if you're working from home, as soon as you wake up in the morning, the first thing you do is you put on the same clothes you have the way if you're going to work, right, so that you remember the way you dress affects your psychology, if you dress in your pajamas, you are lazy, you are sleepy, you want to relax, you know, play video games, you know, watch Netflix, you know, you don't want to work, nobody works in that clothing, it just doesn't have that impact on you. But third thing you can do is have a morning ritual, you know, a way of preparing yourself in the morning for work. So maybe that's making your cup of coffee, you know,

maybe it's listening to the sheet for a few minutes, you know, maybe it's just scrolling through through social media, whatever, everyone's different, but you have the thing that you'd like you while you're doing it, you like chilling a bit. But your brains like okay, I'm getting ready for work in 15 minutes, I'm going to start work. Finally, most importantly, and this is something I mentioned in all my personal development books is you need a daily to do list. And you need to make your to do list the day before. Right? So every day at 5pm I make my to do list. So when I wake up in the morning, I know exactly what needs to get done for the day. Now a mistake a lot of people

make is that when they wake up in the morning, they decide to write your to do list for the day. You're tired. You're groggy, you haven't had your cup of coffee yet, you can't remember what work you need to do for today is going to take you half an hour to 45 minutes to remember everything I write a to do this. If you make it the night before, it'll take you five minutes and you wake up with everything fresh in your mind. Not only that, but while you are sleeping. Your subconscious is working on their to do list your subconscious saying Okay, I've got these 10 tasks to do tomorrow, you know, from 9am to 10am going to work on this from 11am to 12pm or working on debt. Your Your

mind is sorting things out for you. It's organizing your ideas. It's putting things in order. You wake up with a plan and you wake up ready to tackle your day you know exactly what needs to get done.

When you're going to do it, and you're ready to handle the day, all of this is very, very important. Another thing you can do to increase your productivity at home is to take frequent breaks. I know this sounds counterproductive, but it's very productive. So what I do is, every one hour to two hours, I take a break with either a five minute break to relax, maybe watch a funny YouTube video or something, or a exercise break, right? Because you're not exercising, you're going to get fat during the lockdown. Right? So take the one hour exercise break every day is very important, maybe 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon. But if you're not doing that, that you know

you got to come out from this lockdown looking at a very different person. That actually happened to me a few years ago, by the way, right?

It was about six years ago, I picked up weight.

And it was just two years ago, I lost that weight. So because I when I first started working from home, I began to realize the impact it was having on my body. I never really got fat fat, but I mean compared to I am now it was much heavier. And it was it was reaching unhealthy weight. And then I realized the importance of eating healthy and of doing daily exercise because men are not meant to be sitting on a chair in front of a screen whole day. Now we're supposed to be out there with all sorts of Spears, hunting down the animals and Viking barbarians, you know?

Did you have a question? Yeah, Mashallah. You know, just just to be taking notes, you've been taking notes. Haha.

I said I was gonna take notes. And I told those watching this evening, please make sure you're feeling paper ready, because I'm sure there was going to be pulled sheet with us this evening. Just something on the on dress code is that you know that it's been proven in the corporate sphere, that if you people dress like a service, they what they call a service day casual way that people are more unproductive on that day than any other day.

That's true. And so so we, you know, again, lockdown when when we went through hard lockdown last year. I mean, I made sure I placed for work, because that's where I was going to technically, you know, and that does make a huge, a huge, and you enjoy dressing for work. You

enjoy the shiny shoes and

cheer for just us you speak about a smile, you speak about your frequent breaks, that can extend the length of time that you spend at work technically, not really, because you work faster, right? What happens is, if you working nonstop for eight hours, your energy is being depleted. And you're you're actually doing less work. Because if you start work at 8pm, by 2pm, you have no energy, you're not working very slowly, you're dragging, you're just trying to pass the time. But what you'll find is if you work in blocks, if you work like 8am to 930, right, and you take a five minute break, then you work from like maybe

say 945 to 1030. Or what you will find is you'll get a lot more work done during those those blocks, because you are, you're balancing out your energy throughout the day, you're not spending all of it in one go, you're giving your mind time to recharge, you're giving your body time to recharge.

And also, for example, if you're taking an exercise break, I know about you, but when I take exercise break, my mind is still working. My mind is already planning you know if I'm writing a book in the afternoon, it's planning the chapters while I'm doing that exercise. So when I sit down to write, I'm going to write a lot faster than if I were just sitting in front of a computer all day. Right? So that's very important. You give your mind a chance to recharge, you give your body a chance to recharge. So what I do, for example, if I'm working and I start to feel tired, it sounds counterproductive. But I get up and I do 30 minutes of exercise. Right? Because your mind is getting

tired and your body is getting lazy. Your body needs to do some work. Your mind needs to rest so you switch it up.

So that's it. We're not talking about smoke gray today now.

We can go Ah, yeah. So make sure again, I have to add the disclaimer then keep the break. halaal. Right.

I am firmly in the camp of smoking being hot off. Right. That's that's something I wouldn't want.

I don't think sad smokers in the room. Yeah. And

this

show is a show that we have been for for that tradition. How would you

share some common vanilla? You know, you speak about writing offline. You spoke about writing two to three books per year. Some of us struggle to finish one reading one book per year.

All right. So what was your motivation behind the writing? Because you speak about spoke about mental health for men and having an outlet

And sometimes journaling, some people will use journaling. But, you know, getting to write getting that, how can I say confidence to actually write a book? Where did we let stem from? And, you know, can anybody just write the book?

You know, we might have people with different, a different skill set. Not everybody is a scholar of Islam, and not everybody is perhaps a psychologist, what do you advise somebody with, you know, with regards to writing, taking a class?

I mean, I haven't written a book yet. So

how would you, you know, motivate someone to start writing? Well, I wouldn't necessarily motivate everybody. Yeah, I would motivate everyone to spend their life at least dedicate a portion of their life to something that would be so arbitrary for them, right? Something that if you had to die tomorrow, that's going to continue earning your good deeds. So for me, that's where my books are. They're my source of Sawaya. If I like steps, then probably

it doesn't have to be there somebody else it could be a walk of the day start. It could be a school that they get started. It could be, you know, somebody whose education they sponsor, the many different ways to set up source of so arbitrary that should be the focus of one's life. Because we don't know how long we have. So we need to use the time we have putting together sources of so arbitrary now why I chose to write, I honestly don't think I chose to write I think Allah created me as a water, that that's actually been something I've told people for a long, long, long time, that

I believe I have the soul of an author, in the sense that when I write I get a dopamine boost, I get happy, I get that, that that that I get a sense of fulfilling the purpose for which I was created. I love you guys. So that Pixar movies told the New Pixar cartoon, there's a scene they were like with the guys like in the zone, they like their soul elevates to another world. That's how I feel when I'm writing.

Like somebody asked me, What did you do in gender? I said, I probably didn't write the book or what happened for the past million years in general, I because I enjoy writing.

So, I mean, the writing for me is something I love is something a lot of people don't love. That's fine. Allah created different people for different purposes, I found something that I enjoy that on one hand, it's a source of joy. For me. It's a source of so our big idea for me, it benefits the oma. And it makes me money with everything. It's all in one. Right?

So I enjoy writing and it comes naturally. To me, that's one of the reasons why I transitioned from working in education to working in research, because now I'm writing full time. I'm very loving. You know, since I moved over to the Research Institute, I've been writing full time, and able to get more books out and more research papers out, etc. So that's why I chose to write like, for example, when I was 15, or 16 years old, I told my friends, one day, I'm going to write books. And they all laughed at me like, yeah, you're never going to write a book, right? I would love to meet those guys today and show them the dozens of books I've written.

My first book I wrote when I was 21, that book you read having fun, the hallway, I don't even know 21 years old. So I've been writing from a very young age, it's something that comes naturally to me. But it's also something I develop. Because,

you know, even if something comes naturally to you, you're not going to be the best at it. Like, like someone who's naturally good at cricket still has to go for training, they still have to grow into a superstar, right? So one of the things I've done for myself is I I've given myself a daily task of writing 1000 words a day. That's my daily task. 1000 words a day, sometimes will be part of a book. Sometimes it will be a blog post. Sometimes it would be a research paper. Sometimes it's just journaling, you know, the days where I'm completely tired and angry and frustrated. And I can't focus on my books and articles. I'll just open my journal and write 1000 words to myself, just go

into my daughter walk into my thoughts. But I ensure that every single day I write a minimum of 1000 words. Now once I get into a topic, and I fall in love with a topic and I enter a safe zone, it goes up to 3000 to 5000 words a day, right? Like I just go into another world.

That happened this year with the karate karate ebook for yekini instituted shikumen. Suleiman asked me if I could write that. And about three weeks later, it was ready. And he was like, how did you write it in three weeks? I wrote about 3000 to 5000 words a day. And then just three weeks I was just, I just disappeared into the book. 100 Lila, same thing. My favorite book I've ever written is on Omar bin Abdulaziz. This book, one of my favorite memories is writing it. I just I just enjoyed the whole process of studying the life of Omar bin Abdulaziz and extracting 15 lessons from his life and just thinking about it and putting that into those thoughts into paper. And just writing that

book that was like one of my favorite things I've ever done. So for me, I enjoy writing. And that's why I write, somebody else might not enjoy writing. Maybe they enjoy

Teaching, you know, they should dedicate your life to teaching, they enjoy podcast, they should dedicate their life to making podcasts, whatever it is Allah created for people to do different things. Not everyone can be an author. Not everyone can be a doctor. Not everyone can be a teacher. So you know, whatever Allah has gifted us with, we see Alhamdulillah and we use it in a way that's pleasing to Allah subhanho wa Taala

sugar and sugar very much for this bull*. TJ I think that, you know, one episode one segment was definitely not enough. So I didn't mean bungee jumping.

So shall

I, what what we do in sha Allah, we will shedule another time what should be filed in sha Allah and we'll take the conversation a little bit further because it's very pertinent things that has been mentioned tonight. And I think we can expand on some of the items that has been mentioned but also just to grow that and just gain agape again benefit to those following the podcast and insha Allah well for me, I mean, I've made some notes here some things were reminders and some was new. So So again, there's benefits in it and insha Allah we we invite Okay, we invite you to come back shift smile, but we actually say we'd like you to come back

you know

that's after his fellow of this fellow Durban I we obviously knows. It is amazing basis. We're also gonna GC one of my mentors. I actually was my principal when I was in school.

A few weeks ago we add shift be be lolly smile on that we got a smile can go on next few weeks time. Not next week. The following week, we'll have

uncle Idris coming on to our SWAT again in sha Allah. So there

you see he said something very important. Tonight. You need to ask so we asking you now

would you come on to our podcast? Not next not in two weeks, not within three weeks time in sha Allah so we can continue this conversation? Sure. I'd love to do that to just send me a reminder a few days before inshallah.

inshallah we asked, we got the answer hungry.

So see, I was listening chef is mighty. I was speaking I was listening

to somebody is actually listening. A lot of people they listen to the podcast, like, Wow, awesome podcast on podcast. I'm like, Okay, what did you learn? Like,

I can't remember anything.

Speaking about Seneca to geria. Right. And they mentioned podcasting. The first time I heard about the concept podcast was one other colleague. She started Appleby. But the first time I actually went and looked for the podcast, is when she is my ill mentioned med mom looks and we checked out, you know, what's the soul? You know, can I use about a humbler from the I've just been hooked to watching podcasts also. So that's also in your misery has said that. Even the madman looks themselves, you know, they told me that they wanted the guys they assume he told me the reason he started a podcast was he was listening to another podcast where we were interviewing me about self

confidence and self confidence.

Like moving moving my shell.

You know, one of the things that I live by is that we don't know when we're gonna pass away, right, my, my father was murdered when he was 29 years old, I was only 18 at that time. And because of that, I've always had in my mind that we don't know how long we have on Earth. So you choose every moment to set up a source of circuit God is so important. So you know that that's our legacy, whatever it is, you know, I mean, she called Allah subhanaw taala that my life has been spent in that way. every lecture, every student, the 1000s of students, I thought that I owe you. The books I have out there, the podcasts, all of them are reaching 1000s of people and ask Allah to accepted so

my sample genome scale of goodies and make it a social arbitrary of all of us army. I mean, I think you've already set the tone for what near teacher wanted to use the last few minutes for, and that's really to, you know, speak about the great losses that we have experienced in our community. Many of us have lost family members, many of us have lost neighbors, many of us have lost dear ones, even if they weren't neighbors or family. We've all lost someone

recently or not So recently, to this pandemic, and you know, we pray to Allah subhanho wa Taala grants these families the strength of me personally, I've lost family members this week. And it's still you know, boggles my mind when you know, people are not taking this care

So we pray that Allah subhanho wa Taala grants us to be responsible members of society, that Allah subhanho wa Taala rewards, the families who are, you know, in pain? And it's so difficult, you know, maybe, teacher last question, how do we console someone virtually, you know, because and it's very difficult to to to share that with the elders in our community because, you know, really a janessa. When we're younger, we go pray and go home, in Cape Town, Cape Town itself process where people actually go, give the minute the US embodies good people's at your home, giving condolences helping the family helping with, you know, organizing the janazah. And now the pandemic just wipes all that

away. Because, you know, it's only 50 people, and though it's your cousin, or your uncle, you might reserve that 50 for his immediate children and their grandchildren. And, you know, we've heard of so many family members or other, we've had so many families losing three, four people, because everybody attended the janessa. So, you know, how do we get around that? How do we maintain that humanity and maintain, you know, that support in this time of strife and difficulty,

all of us, I mean, I mean, you know, in a shift, that's a very valid question, and a lot of the time, you know, it's never about, you know, the social engagement of going to a janazah. But you get to meet people, you get to meet family, you get to meet friends, and you you make Salaam stuff to people that has been taken away from us, in terms of the path the pandemic, but what we must not forget, is to reach out to one another social media and we spoken about social media now in this podcast, is to reach out to people sending in a message of condolences or you know, just being the somebody know that you're on the other side that they can return it's age likelihood and what if it

is making that you are on the phone and you can't come meet him physically? I think in essence, that still needs to happen. But we mustn't lose the essence of that because what happens is that we don't make contact with a person we don't offer any condolences we do nothing we just sit there say oh shame in LA when nalia Roger and Alexander decision but we don't pick up the phone to console and she some words of wisdom or some words of comfort to those that have lost near and dear ones. So it's important in the in this time, I mean, we've lost some some scholars in Cape Town and around South Africa as well. We've asked good people Subhanallah and may always want to grab everybody

that's passed with Gen two kiddos and elevate it is and you know, Grant those who are ill she find Camila. But it's a time when we need to show. So lots of social cohesion in terms of how we do things, not necessarily physically engaging. But even we're engaging on the phone, but reaching out to one another. That for me is one of the cornerstones of building the society and keeping the society and communities intact. That's my five cents.

Yeah, last week, David, like three Genesis within two days of people who I know, and I couldn't attend any of them, right. So I messaged individuals and asked him, you know, give my condolences and asked him, you know, is there anything I can do for you? And they were all you know, introverts like me, and they all said, You know, I just need space. I just need to be alone, you know, to, to, to to process this. And I told him, okay, but if you need anything else, let me know I'm here for you. I think just something like that alone. It helps the person know that you're not going through this alone. It's very difficult, especially for smaller families. Now, those of us who come from

larger families, you don't realize how hard it is for smaller families. There are some families who are like immigrants, and it's just like four of them living together in the country. There's nobody else in the entire country from their family. And if two of them die from COVID, and there's two of them left, they've got nobody to visit them. They've got you know, no one's checking in on them. It's very important that the rest of the community reaches out. Even like right now my best friend is on a ventilator for the past three weeks and it's really taken its toll on us. Mercy the brother who organizes my Juma lectures, he prints my books he organizes my weekly Holocaust does everything

for me in Durban and he messaged me one day to see as COVID weekly to get the messages in hospital weekly to get you on the ventilator. He's still in that state we make into our form every time I look at him complete Shiva.

So very, very difficult time that we are living through.

It takes its toll on us mentally, you know.

We generally deal with a janazah and if we spent six months recovering for me today we have another janaza experienced now it's three or four a week. We don't have time to recover. I lost a lot of my teachers in the in COVID. A lot of people

I studied these under or fake under corn meal they did cultivated over there and I think it took the lives autocratic gender, family in January I do attend my aunt's janazah, she also passed away from COVID. Young, you know, in the 50s, you know, no one was expecting it. So, I it's a very, very difficult time. So it is from Allah subhanho wa Taala. And every generation has their tests, you know, this is simulataneously and as up and a test, right? I've always felt for many years that this world is overdue for and as up. I don't I'm not supposed to say things like that. But I mean, you you know what the world has become like in your studies. your studies? Yeah, yeah, I just studied

history. I know the ups and downs. I know that every 100 years, there's a panic plague or black plague or Mongols rushing through your lens or Crusaders, rushing through your lens, something was coming. I didn't know we can live in Laughlin and Cambodia prison and imaginable, and the alleged punishment will come. But of course, it's not a punishment for everybody. You know, the prophet SAW himself said that the pandemics are a punishment for mankind, but the mercy for the believers. So we have to take it in that in that way that for those who it does not change, and they remain firm upon center, they remain firm upon evil, and the plague takes them in that way the pandemic takes him in

that way it is, it is the beginning of the punishment. But for those who it was a means of martyrdom, it was a means of Toba a means of turning to righteousness, it's a mercy to them, it's the best thing that could happen to them. So this is a test from Allah subhanho wa Taala to the believers, and it's a wake up call to all of mankind. And every generation has to deal with something like this, you know, we were lucky that we didn't have to deal with that much our forefathers had to deal with a party they had to deal with before that world war two before that World War One, you know that we didn't have to look to any of that. The younger ones along so they

know about teacher maybe look to

me, she's not allowed to go.

I don't know your age. So I'm just assuming, you know, maybe a veteran or something.

This podcast

does that give the shape for those beautiful wise words? Alhamdulillah Allah subhanho wa Taala make us of those who reflect? If this is not going to make us reflect then I don't know what really will be polite, Allah subhanho wa Taala, you know, grant us to be better

coming out of it, and then we've entered and we've also inshallah Darla, we are about to enter the 10 best days of the year. And you know, I would have thought that hedge would have gone from 2 million plus to how many was it last year 1000 people to 60,000 this year, and imaginable, but yet, it happened. And I was speaking to Shana Adamson yesterday, teacher, and he was telling me, you know, being a student in Medina, he probably, you know, did O'Meara hundreds of times, and every time you think you're just gonna come back and it's you know, as just like, basically routine. And even when you go now, we think it's even a second year or once a year, and now it's just stopped for

for everyone that there is something to think about. And for those of us who, you know, all of us try to do the best in Ramadan. And if we miss that up a little bit, you know, we have this 10 days, best in days of the year, which some scholars are instead of based on the last day nights of Ramadan. So we should really, inshallah Allah make the effort to use it fruitfully and Shobana reminder, not a instruction to watch the moon sighting shall be for the most evil, clipping the nails and, you know, cutting the hay in shovels always happens with me. Fortunately, for years, they haven't cited the more than avid extra last day, but 100

Sharla. So, when we meet again, that will be in the last or the first 10 days of the hygiene show. And next week, we have a hedge, special teacher you are hosting a hedge

as the CO anchor, Michelle dissertation. She has any last closing remarks. And we'll we'll wrap up. Yeah, I think we can close off now just a reminder to everyone that you know, again, you know, we supposed to frequently remember that. And Allah has put us in a situation where it's in our face. It's all around us. So if that's not making us change our priorities, I don't know what well, may Allah soften our hearts and put you through the mud. Our own

Highly recommend this is like my main thing I speak about the uncomfortable activity that every single person sets up for themselves sources of so arpeggio. That that's the most important thing. Because if you had to get COVID and pass away, Allah protect all of us. If you had to happen to me or you What have we left behind the benefits the oma What are we left behind it continues to build up our good deeds. There are three things mentioned in the Heidi's and these are three broad categories not doing small things, knowledge, the benefits people, charity that continues to benefit people and righteous children. These are not three things your three broad categories. Knowledge

could be books, could be podcast, could be anything building a school building, university, it could be anything. Charity, again, it can be anything and often age or hospital or work of anything. Your children are not necessarily your biological children, a younger generation that makes to offer you that's what it is right orphans, children of your neighborhood children, you taught the mucked up people you adopted your own children, your own graduate, any your nephews and nieces. a younger generation that makes to offer you after you pass away. These are the three areas the broad areas we should focus on and I asked I always advise everybody in each of these three areas have something

that you live by, have some form of charity that continues to pile up after you're passed away. some form of knowledge continues to benefit people after you're passed away, and some form of of next generation that you have impacted that will make to offer you after you're passed away, if you do these three things and inshallah inshallah that will be enough to make up our sins on the Day of Judgment for the low FICO chips, did you any closing remarks or shall we say tomorrow was tomorrow reflections we shall at 1205 but I think shall leave the vote of thanks up to you later with us if you haven't been able to leave your

job. Tonight, I need to catch up. Okay, so from the profits are lower they were so lums advice is that Eva does not think mankind does not like a loss of a handout with the Allah. So we think she is my hero for sharing the platform and also committing to sharing the platform in the future in sha Allah May Allah subhanho wa Taala put that in a scale of good deeds. Allah subhanho wa Taala protect all of us teacher, shake a smile. Sohail everybody involved in this platform and everyone watching everyone in general will also have a handle with Allah protect him. And if they end his distance in the spec Dimmick that would be a good in an end, which we have prepared for a shift is ill advised

in sha Allah Subhana Allah who will be humbucker

less than federal Gov. Like I said, Mr equal Rahmatullahi we're gonna get