Naima B. Robert – Advice for Muslim Writes Motivational Talks
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
My beloved sisters,
I'm super excited to be back here with
you for another Sunday motivation session. Yay. Let
me know how excited you are in the
comments. Okay?
Really
grateful to be here, to be alive, to
be well, to be able to share some
of what I have to share with you.
As you know, this series that we've started
is all about the traits of successful writers.
So
sometimes I run the session myself. Other times,
I have guests. We have some wonderful guests
lined up for you. But today,
I want to talk about something that is
not often spoken about. Okay? We've discussed
so many of the things that
you will need to embrace
on your journey as a writer. Okay? So
many of the of the characteristics
you'll need to embrace,
the identity
that you need to step into. Right? We've
had those conversations.
So
today,
I actually want to talk about the power
of vulnerability.
Alright?
The power of vulnerability.
That is what we're gonna talk about today.
Many of us know that
a part of our writing,
whether it is a memoir,
whether it's an autobiography,
whether it's a self help book, you know,
whether it's even a business book, right, sometimes
even a children's book,
There is going to be an element of
your personal experience that needs to be expressed
in this book. Okay? Now I know
how private many of us are. I know
how we guard our privacy,
and we are concerned for how we come
across. I get it. There's nothing wrong with
that at all. So the power of vulnerability
is a very scary power. It's a very
scary trait to lean into. Right? Because most
of the time, we are wearing,
a mask.
Right? We're wearing a mask in our day
to day dealings to be able to navigate
the world that we need the way that
we want to navigate it. Right? But when
it comes to writing
and particularly
sharing personal stories,
I've got 10 tips that I want you
to think about
when it comes to the importance of vulnerability.
Okay? And before I go into that,
let me offer you this. This is something
that I said to the some of the
sisters that we, where we were doing our
memoir planning together.
It will take a leap of faith
for you to be able to trust your
reader.
Okay?
It will take a leap of faith on
your part
for you to be able to trust your
reader enough
to be vulnerable with them, to be open,
to be honest.
Now
I know that that sounds scary because we're
thinking, well, what if they think I'm crazy?
What if they judge me? What if they
just don't get it? I know. I know.
That's where the leap of faith comes in.
I have seen this happen before, and I
believe that this is how it works.
For the people of good hearts who are
the majority, I believe that
when
you
trust them enough
to be open with them, to be honest
with them, to be vulnerable with them,
you give them permission
to be trustworthy,
if that makes sense. Right? There's a contract
here. Right? We're making a deal.
I'm going to trust you, and in return,
you are going to give me
the you you're going to you're going to
let you in. You're going to be trustworthy.
Right? I trust you to take my story
in the way that
I want you to take it, the way
that I hope that you take it. Right?
So
that is a leap of faith because you
don't know who your readers are. You don't
know who every reader will be. You can
never know. But
if you do that,
what does that allow you to do?
It allows you to connect with your true
audience.
It allows you to connect with your true
audience,
the real ones.
Okay? Not the fakers, not the haters, the
real ones.
Because real recognizes real as they say. Right?
The people who you really want to reach,
the people who really need your message
when you are open with them and you're
vulnerable with them in the right at the
beginning of that book,
and they see that, oh, this person is
is sincere. This person is honest. This person
is is actually
trusting me with this story,
real, recognize real. And they're like, I'm in.
I'm in for this ride. I'm in for
this story. I'm in for this coaching. I'm
in for this lesson. Whatever it is, right,
that you're offering in the book. Just give
me a yes in the chat, in the
comments, if this makes sense, please. If you're
picking up what I'm putting down.
Something you need to remember on this journey.
K?
Like I said, there's real. Right? There's your
true audience. Okay? The people who your book
is made for, the people who your message
isn't perfect for. Right? That's real.
Then there's fakers
and there's haters.
Okay? Haters go hate. You should know that
by now. Right?
Fakers and haters are going to hate your
work no matter what. Right? And the thing
is, what I've noticed over the years is
not everyone
is ready
for what it is that you're bringing.
Not everyone is ready to hear it.
Not everyone is ready to make those shifts.
Not everyone is ready to to be confronted
about their life or their worldview. Right? Not
everyone is ready. And sometimes
you're
being vulnerable, you're open, your teaching
can actually trigger people and make them angry
with you.
How dare you? Have you ever seen that
reaction on social media? A brother or a
sister shares something and people come and attack
the person. How dare you say this? Or,
you know, why are you saying this as
if?
You can see the people that are triggered.
You can see the people that get triggered,
but
you don't get triggered unless there is a
trigger. That's how it works.
Because people who have no skin in the
game, people who have, you know, nothing to
lose, they don't get triggered. They could not
care less.
They don't get triggered. It doesn't bother them.
They scroll past or they just ignore it
or they just leave a like and move
on. The people who
give you hate,
it's typically because you have
you've basically touched a nerve. Okay?
But
hear this.
That is
their nerves.
Okay?
You've touched a nerve. Yes. And I know
a lot of you don't wanna upset people.
You don't wanna make people mad. You don't
want to trigger people. You don't wanna make
people upset with you, but I'm gonna tell
you this again. And if you're writing stuff
down, write this down.
If you've touched a nerve with one of
your readers and they're angry with you or
they're upset,
understand that it is their nerve.
Therefore, it is their issue that needs to
be resolved.
It is not yours.
I'm going to say that again.
It is their issue
that needs to be resolved.
It is not yours.
It's not your responsibility.
It's not your,
your your work.
It's not your issue. It's their issue.
And we all have choices about getting triggered.
Right? What to do once we get triggered,
once we feel triggered? What do we decide
to do? Everybody had a choice.
You can decide to lash out because someone's
triggered you. You can decide to to to
to to curse them or to,
malign them or to discredit them. Right? Because
you're feeling some kind of way because of
what they said. You can decide to talk
bad about them behind their back. You can
decide to unfollow,
but you can also
decide
to
examine
and ask yourself,
why am I feeling triggered right now?
And this is advice for everyone, by the
way.
Why am I feeling triggered right now?
What is it
touching inside me? What is the nerve that
is being touched inside me and why?
Then something good can come from it.
Right?
Now you can start to make some progress.
But, again, as the author, guys, this is
not your issue.
Okay? It's not your issue at all. So
let's get on to these 10 tips that
I have for being able to embrace vulnerability,
okay, inside your work.
So like I said, many of you are
gonna be telling personal stories. Okay? So the
first thing that,
I'm going to invite you to do is
to embrace your imperfections.
K? I know
you're putting yourself out there. You're putting your
book out there. You're going to be, you
know, kind of people gonna be reading your
stuff, and there is a tent a temptation
to paint a rosy picture.
A perfect picture, if you can.
And
nobody buys that.
And I don't mean money buying. I mean,
like, nobody believes it because we all know
that we're not perfect.
So if you can embrace your imperfections,
remembering that nobody's perfect
and that your flaws and your mistakes make
you relatable
to your readers
because you're human
and they can connect with that human part
of you,
you get to embrace your imperfections as part
of your journey.
Right? That's number 1. Number 2,
show that you've learned from your experiences.
Right? You have learned from your experiences. Otherwise,
you wouldn't be with me in the program
writing a book about them. Right? We have
all
been shaped and molded by our experiences.
Right? And those experiences that shape us, they
are the positive ones and the painful ones,
and they've shaped us into the people that
we are today.
So understand and remember that your growth story
is is really valuable, and it can inspire
other people. Right? Because there's always going to
be someone who is a year, 5 years,
10 years behind you. Right? 5 steps, 10
steps, 15 steps behind you.
So remember that. Number 2 is learn from
your experiences. Yeah. Allow yourself to learn from
your experiences and show that you've learned from
your experiences.
And then the other part that I'd like
to invite you to consider is sharing your
wisdom.
Now for some of us, that can be
really hard. Right?
Because we maybe don't see ourselves
as particularly wise. Okay? We don't necessarily value
the knowledge that we've gained from our experiences.
But
when you're
writing,
a part of the sharing is
sharing
what you gained
from
the writing,
sharing what you gained from the journey, from
the stories. Okay? By sharing your knowledge and
your experiences,
you have the opportunity now to positively impact
others.
And you may not consider your insights to
be particularly,
you know, mind blowing, but your insights might
be the guidance that somebody else needs.
Now this is something that I I I
teach when we're talking about, you know, telling
those personal stories.
I talk about the zoom in and the
zoom out.
And the zoom in is where you share
that personal story. You tell that personal story
as if
you were right there again.
Right? You use all the senses. Okay? What
did you see? How did you feel?
What could you smell? Right? What did it
feel like,
yeah, physically?
And you take us right into the story.
And a lot of you are quite good
at that. But then the part that I
encourage you to do after that is the
zoom out,
and that's where you you get some distance
from what happened.
And you're able to reflect on what happened.
You're able to to think about it, to
process it, okay, to to to understand what
was happening now in hindsight,
now with the benefit of the years that
have passed, now with the benefit of, you
know, what came afterwards. You have
a level of wisdom
about that situation that you did not have
while you were in the middle of the
situation. Give me a yes if that makes
sense.
Okay? Because that's really, really important.
And I I want to teach you this
ability to get deep into this experience
under the skin of the character, which is
you, and then be able to zoom out
and reflect on it and become a bit
more abstract about it, a bit more philosophical
about it. Okay? Anyway, I digress.
Number 4,
connect through your vulnerability. This is what I
was saying at the beginning. Okay?
You when you're open and vulnerable
about your story, whatever your struggles were,
that creates a deeper connection with your audience.
Okay? It shows them that they're not alone
in their challenges,
and
we are able to connect on a human
level
because the human experience
is one of tests and trials as we
know, no matter who you are.
The human experience
is one of tests and trials
and ups and downs.
And so,
like I said, we all recognize real. When
a person is being fake, we can tell.
When a person is telling a story in
a, like, a a really
shallow way,
no connection.
Right? Because we know they're hiding something.
We know they're just painting a picture for
us.
We know that they're just saying what they
think we want to hear. No connection.
Right? And your writing feels like that when
you're not digging deep enough.
Okay? So that's what I want you to
to think about when you are writing, especially
your first draft.
To dig deep
to dig deep,
that's where
that's where the gold is. You know? I'm
not even gonna go into that metaphor. You
already know what that metaphor is gonna be,
so I won't even go there. Okay?
Right.
So the next
the next step on this is to
know that your vulnerability
empowers others.
K?
Your vulnerability,
your acceptance of your humanness,
your acceptance
of your humanness
and your journey
empowers others
to accept their human
and to be empowered and uplifted.
K?
You own your story and that gives you
the chance to be a source of inspiration
for those who
were where you were once. Right? Or who
have gone through or are going through similar
situations.
Next step is to be authentic. Right? This
is, you know, this is the theme, really,
of this is be yourself
because that authenticity is key when sharing your
story. People resonate with that realness.
And by being true to yourself, you attract
that genuine audience. Okay? Your true audience, your
true readers.
Next step is
understand that what what happens, what life does
is transforms
pain into purpose.
Right? Some of us are ashamed of our
pain
and I get it.
We don't want people to feel sorry for
us. We don't want people's pity.
Right?
So we put on a mask as if
it's it's fine. It's fine. It's fine.
As if we don't feel
as if we don't feel pain.
I'll tell you this little tidbit that might
be interesting to you. Okay? And I I
remember having a conversation with another sister about
this. In fact, she's, she's in the program.
Right? And she was saying how
her big
her big life shift was as a result
of a very, very deep pain. Right?
But she's spoken about this pain so many
times
that now she can speak about it really
without too much emotion. She doesn't get emotional
about it anymore, but everybody else does. Right?
And I said to her,
that's because you have healed from your pain,
but for other people,
they the it's it's their first time hearing
it, their first time imagining themselves in that
situation. So, of course, they are going to
take it differently from you. But
when you write,
I'm going to need you to dig back
into
somewhere close to the nerves.
Because otherwise, you're going to write and speak
in a way that just doesn't connect. Okay?
It's gonna be glossed over. It's gonna be
just like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then
that happened. We can't have that. Okay? So
understand that
you sharing your pain, exactly sharing that pain
gracefully. Right? Exactly. So someone is going to
connect with that pain
and be able to heal in the way
that you have healed inshallah.
Okay?
So understand that your pain has the potential
to be transformed.
It just as it transformed into purpose for
you,
you sharing it has the potential to transform
others. Okay? And next step is to understand
that
being real, being vulnerable, being honest
in your telling, in your speaking, in your
writing,
this is what inspires
change.
Okay?
You
overcame, Alhamdulillah.
Right?
If you can own that story, you inspire
others to take action. Right? And if you
came from a place of pain like so
many of us have
and decided to move differently, decided to do
things differently,
and it ended up with you making this
amazing change either in your life or your
children's lives or your family or your community
or even on a societal level,
that is inspiring.
That is inspiring.
So embrace that, step into that, own that.
Okay?
And then the next step is
remember that you're still learning and growing,
and that's okay.
You don't have to be the finished product
when you write your book. Okay? You don't
have to be
the whole package.
You can write your story, tell your story
from wherever you are in the story and
acknowledge that you still have a long way
to go or you still haven't figured it
all out. You don't have to. And I
remember one of our memoir writers, she was
concerned about how to end her memoir because
she said, look. I'm still in the situation.
Right? I'm still healing from it. So I
said to her, say that.
That's the vulnerability
piece.
Say that to the leader.
I haven't got it all figured out.
I'm still learning.
Right?
I'm still on this journey.
It's okay.
They will appreciate that. I think they'll get
it because most of us are still learning,
and we will be learning until we die.
Okay?
And then the last point that I want
to remind you of is
when you are able to do all of
these things, you know, embracing the pain, owning
your story, being vulnerable, being authentic,
you touch lives.
Okay?
You touch lives.
And when you touch lives and you impact
people,
you leave a legacy.
That's what you, you know, you know, that's
what you do in the world.
That's the trail that you leave behind you.
And be it nullah, inshallah, if you had
the right intentions, you get reward for that.
So your words and your experiences
expressed with vulnerability
and honesty and authenticity
have the potential
to have a lasting impact on someone's life.
So I want you to remember that.
And when you feel the fear coming up
when you're writing
and you feel yourself
wanting to to dial it back and saying,
no. No. No. This is too much. Write
more.
Lean into that. Say, this is the real
me coming out right now.
This is the real story bubbling up right
now.
And yet it may be scary
and it may feel some kind of way,
but this is the real stuff.
Because when you start writing and you start
to feel,
that's when you know you you now have
gone to that place, that deep place
where the the true story is lying.
All of us can tell
a potted version of our story. We can
all tell a sanitized version of our story,
but that's not the story I want in
your book and that's not the story that
your readers deserve.
Your readers deserve
this. And as I said to you before,
it's a trust exercise.
You all prayed istikhara
before you came here.
Right? You all prayed istikhara
and we continuously
remind you to
to, correct your intention, to purify your intention.
Right? And you know for a fact that
if Allah
didn't want you to be here, you wouldn't
be here. Now I'm speaking to my authors
who are in the program with me, my
clients.
If you were not meant to be here,
you wouldn't be here.
So if you are meant to be here,
which is evidenced by the fact that you
are here,
you know that you have a job to
do, and your job is not to phone
it in. Your job is not to
just put something mediocre out there. Right? To
just put some something that is not even
anything and waste your time and waste everyone
else's time by something that really nobody is
gonna be interested in because it's not real.
It's not real.
And that's why when we do our planning,
guys, remember for those of you who are
writing a book to help others who are
in a situation of pain. What do I
tell you to do? Dig deep into the
pain.
What is the real pain?
What are those
situations that the sisters are going through that
they don't dare speak about,
that they don't dare mention to their friends
that they're ashamed of,
that they're scared of,
speak to those.
Speak to them,
see them,
name them, and give the solution for them.
I know some of you this is exactly
what you need right now.
Don't phone it in.
Because if you write something for a demographic,
right, that is going through a pain
and you pretend that the pain is level
12 and the pain is actually level 8,
they are not going to trust you and
they're not gonna stay with you because you're
fake.
You're fake.
You're not being honest.
You're not being real. You are not acknowledging
the real issue, the real problem. Why should
I read anymore? This is a load of
rubbish.
This is just some feel good BS,
basically.
And that's not what
you're here for.
That's not what you're here for.
So please
take my advice,
dig deep.
Okay? Allow yourself.
Be courageous enough
to dig deep and be vulnerable.
And even if it's not your personal story,
guys yeah. Even if you're not going to
talk about your personal story, you don't have
to, but be real. For example, say you're
writing a guide for,
for example, someone who's had a miscarriage. Right?
You're writing a guide for sisters who've lost
their their child, their baby,
and you don't want to tell your personal
story in there. That's fine. Okay? That's fine.
Because maybe it's just a guide and it
has information in it, and it's fine. It's
not a personal story. It's not really self
help. It's not a memoir. We don't need
to tell your personal story. That's fine. But
can you be courageous enough to truly because
you've had the experience, but you don't wanna
talk about it. Can you
be
courageous enough to dig deep and acknowledge
the true feelings that you had when you
had that miscarriage and speak to those
because that's what they need.
They need someone who's gonna see them and
and and know what they've been through and
acknowledge that, yeah, this it was tough. This
is what it meant. This is what it
could mean. This you may be going through
this. Right?
So you will need to be courageous enough
to do that because they're looking to you
to give them something that they can't get
elsewhere.
Right? And if you've had that experience, you
do have something that other people don't have.
So with that being said, I'm gonna leave
you with that, Insha'Allah.
Another week ahead, Allah is blessing us with
the Ibni La, a week to
worship him, to do good, to work on
our story, right, to work on our book,
to work on this legacy that you are
building for the world, and I cannot wait
to see how your journey progresses.
Those of you who are watching, who are
not in the program,
you want a coach, you want support, you
want accountability, you want this amazing sisterhood that
we have here for all these lovely, lovely
women who are writing books, just send a
DM or pop a message in the comments.
I will reach out to you inshallah.
For now, that is the end of our
Sunday session. I will see you next week
inshallah.