Freedom and Responsibility pt3

Brand Now, why am I saying brand? Because, why should you create brand?

How to create brand?

One word you want a one word answer how to be successful in life one word answer differentiate.

You know why differentiate because if you say I am an IT engineer guess what 85% of the it engineers in the world are Indian in origin India meaning India, Pakistan Bangladesh so you are one among God knows how many probably a

big deal

if you say I am a lawyer

So,

there are a zillion like you

So, big deal who can

say anything in the world? I am a teacher

or a trillion like you

I'm a mother.

I'm a father.

minute, anything you say there are a zillion like you.

So, what did

the What must you do?

Or say what is it that makes me special as a lawyer

which differentiates me from the crowd?

What do you call a colored piece of cloth which is hanging on a clothesline and flapping in the breeze? laundry? What do you call the same colored piece of cloth when it is on a flagpole? The flag

without going into a flick of it. Why do people salute a flag? Because we like to salute colored pieces of law.

Standard it's a standard is a symbol it represents the nation it represents everything the nation stands for it inspires patriotism, it inspires all kinds of feelings.

And so people will salute a colored piece of cloth provided it is in the right place. The same flag if it gets dirty, what do you do you wash it? And where do you dry it not on the flag, not on a flagpole. you'd write on your phone line. Once it is dried, then you raise the flag and when you raise the flag, we'll just raise the flag. There is a whole ceremony of raising a flag

yes or no.

There's a whole ceremony of lowering a flag called beating the retreat.

You don't just lower a flag.

What's all this drama about

It's nothing to do with a colored piece of law. It's what that thing represents.

And this is the issue. The issue is that if you differentiate then even if you are a colored piece of cloth like a million other pieces of cloth because you are on top of that flagpole, you have some very special status

and that differentiation is called brand

so I said why brand because brand differentiates brand creates loyalty brand leads legacy and brand is the best insurance in the world.

People talk about economic upturn and economic downturns this happened and that happened believe me you got brand none of that was affected.

None of that with the oil can go up and down. Nothing will change for you. As far as you're concerned. Your world will go along quite fine.

Without without brand

you are a grain of rice in a sack.

You still rice. You're not sad. You're still edible.

But that's it.

No influence.

no power, no authority, no nothing.

You live then you died.

Just think about this. You know if all that can be said at the there's this famous character in the Bible called Medusa, who's supposed to have lived for 950 years or something? Right. So they say that Methuselah lived for 950 years and the only thing that could be said about him was that he died.

I mean, that's pretty sad Nami

he lived for 900 years all that you can see what it was that he died.

But you will be surprised. This is the this is the reality about May Allah forgive us the majority of people.

They live with the guy

Nice if that is all that supposed to happen if all that supposed to happen is you stay alive. For a while you eat you drink, you get married, you make up two babies, you build a house, you buy a couple of cars, and then you die and you're gone. Then tell me what is the difference between you and a cow?

Seriously when a cow also eats and drinks and more than you try and recover to the call of duty

15 liters or a stroke.

And then it also makes a few babies and dies.

So what is the difference between a human being and an animal?

The difference between a human being and an animal has nothing to do with their biological shape or size or stuff is to do with what legacy they leave behind.

What is the legacy? Wait, what difference does it make that you walk the earth?

didn't make any difference? I'm not saying global difference does not make a difference to the whole world to somebody somewhere, maybe your family

but does make a difference is what difference did it make that you walk the world that you walk the earth

and that is what you need to focus on.

Right? So three secrets of branding.

Number one secret of branding, quality. Never, never, never, never compromise quality no matter what you do. Number one quality not because of who the customer is not because of who the audience is, but because of who you are.

First rule of branding is

quality. Secondary bagging and branding is called third rule of branding is

no matter what you do if you are a street sweeper be the best street sweeper in the world. First, I went to Singapore.

I checked into my hotel while doing a workshop for GE that gap.

So check them out. And so I decided to go and see what Singapore town looks like. So I went out. I said Can I get a taxi, just stand on the curb, they'll come. So I stood on the curb and literally even a couple of we 10 second graders on this car drives a beautiful shining

riser. Now I'm standing there, the guard stops the driver gets out of the car comes around to the back opens the door and say says Sir, please have a seat.

So I thought to myself What's going on here? You know, the taxi driver, right?

So is it because he sat down, he tells me serves as a newspaper, there is some water there if you like our if you would like to have some water, he shuts the door comes and sits in the front in a seat. And he said Sir, I would like to go. So I said I don't want to go anywhere. I just want to sit in this car and enjoy the experience.

Enjoy the experiences the first time I live.

I mean, no, no offense meant to New York or New Yorkers because I lived there myself in New York taxi guys talk to you about

and sometimes depending on where you want to if you want to go there.

Taxi Driver, taxi driver.

way he did his work leaves an impression in my mind forever. I mean, I would have told his story. This This story is old. This is like 1994 or something. And we are now in 2011 almost. I've told this story across the world. I've got a couple of these stories of drivers and this one and that one, people who are in you know, so called lowly jobs. I'm saying so called because no job is lonely in that sense. So so called lowly jobs, but who do that job with passion with differentiation.

So it doesn't matter what you do, but you need to do that and differentiate yourself. Because otherwise no matter how power, you know, your job might might look big, but

if somebody says Alright, so this guy was, you know, the chairman of Discovery's, so why

you structured so what I don't know so what?

And that's why our work defines us. And that's the reason I say that the worst reason to work for is money.

And believe me, I'm not allergic to money.

I think money is a very good thing, but it's not the reason to work.

The worst reason to work for is money. Money is the consequence of work. It's not the reason to work for

You do good work, high quality work, money will come.

But that's not the reason you're working

to work to create a legacy work to create a benchmark work to become to please Allah subhanho wa Taala work to become somebody that people will refer to when they are when they are looking at that work. And so Allah This is a thing that my whole consulting work with, with family businesses and Muslim companies is this can we create iconic Muslim businesses, which are 100% halal, but which are global in reach?

You know, humongously, large corporations very powerful, but 100% halaal run by Muslims who look like Muslims.

That's what that's what you want.

That's what you want. I mean, today we got names, but you actually go into the