S7E9 You have 5 minutes to change the world. Motivation from the heart. Effective and worth it.

We're about a third of the way through our 30 day reinvention course, Subhanallah

I need you to steal something for me.

Don't worry too much. What I need you to do is to steal five minutes.

I need you to steal five minutes for yourself.

Somebody asked me once, what is it that Muslim mean has done that isn't quite up to the standards of what it appeared to do in the times of the Felipe's in the times of when Islam was at the forefront of Science and Technology.

Well, I, I've got various theories or opinions on that. But one of the ones that I know from my professional point of view is I think we have forgotten our individuality, because we're so scared that we need to conform.

Here's evidence, and here's how we're going to steal five minutes for ourselves. What I'm sure that nobody has told you for a long time, or in an Islamic education context, anyway, is that you as an individual with your own particular strengths, your own quirks, your own differences, you are essential to muslimeen you are made deliberately By Allah, to be who you are, not to anyone else is not some saint or not some do gooder or not some outrageous success or anything like that, you.

Allah made you different because he wants us all to find our individual places. So that we mesh together to form a society that is more than just a bunch of individuals. It doesn't matter what you've succeeded in so far, it doesn't matter what you've failed in so far, it doesn't matter who is limiting you, who's standing in your way, it doesn't matter who's on your side encouraging you.

All I need you to do is consider the next five minutes, and I want you to steal it for yourself. If you can decide to make the best of the next five minutes, and you keep sticking to that for the rest of your life. I guarantee you a good future because Allah guaranteed you a good future. Why? Because he says attend, attend to your life as it is now.

And that's the only time you can make a difference in

now in the next five minutes.

So consider this do you need to change? What do you need to change? Do you want to be happier, more assertive, more in shape more in command of your faith? Do you want to be better qualified, have better relationships.

All of these things can happen in the traditional way. by carrying on without those five minutes, by trying very hard and out of the fear that you're not good enough out of the fear that you don't fit in, out of the fear that you're not the same as others.

And your next five minutes will be spent, as you spent many of your five minutes agonizing, worrying that you come across to others as not quite good enough. Or maybe judge yourself is not good enough. And people who love you will love you. But you'll come across to them as preoccupied or unavailable, you might be irritable, even to yourself, you won't be pleasant. You won't allow yourself to do other things. And even things like Salah will seem like an imposition on your time. Yeah. If only I could just have this 15 minutes to study rather than to pray Salah, another distraction. Another tiring thing, something I can? Well, I'll make up for it later.

Or you can go about achieving the greatness in the next five minutes. So what am I telling you about? Am I selling you something magical? No.

Here's how you begin.

You begin by being kind to yourself.

You begin by treating yourself as you would an employee or person who you really, really treasured. By accepting your faults and by encouraging yourself remembering that you have strengths that are hiding, that are yet to be discovered and that are yet to become big. Because you've been too busy concerning yourself with the things you do wrong, where you lack.

If you turn your head towards the things that you have, that would be a bit more honest with yourself and a bit more honest with a bit more grateful with what Allah has given you. Rather than focusing on what you don't have. Look at what you do, and look at how to make the best of it.

Pay attention to the people around you the things around you.

Pay attention to the stranger on the bus, the other people in the traffic queue right now. With a partner you have in the house right now. Pay attention to your children playing nearby right now.

Be aware of that. Be sensible be warm.

And show them in some tiny way that you are there. But you're here right now. Smile at your parents, let that stranger pass into the traffic lane. When your child comes up to you make it feel as if it's the only thing that matters. Why? Because if you think about it, the next five minutes, they're not yours, they are gifted to you by Allah.

What happens to you, in the next five minutes has already been written a long time ago, long before you were born. What's not quite written on what's open to you is how you will act. How you choose to behave.

Time brings events to you a bit like a conveyor belt. And if you're at the end of that conveyor belt receiving events as they arrive, you're better off dealing with events that are in front of you, with just a little bit of an eye on what's coming up from further up the line. But you can't be worried about what's so far away, you can't see it. And you certainly can't be too concerned about what's already passed by you.

There's no point looking back at how good a job you did yesterday, or how bad the job was. Not right now. Anyway.

Now you're being observed by Allah, this month, now is your chance to shine it now means you in the next five minutes. And it's as easy and as hard as that to change.

Accept. If you can't do it easily accept if your mind wanders, take some breaths, acknowledge that it's not easy. Be honest with yourself.

You don't have to overcome everything. In the next five minutes. You just have to accept it's hard, believe me, it becomes easier once you do.

change your attitude and your actions over the next five minutes in some small way. And if you're terrified about that, if you're unsure what to do, about how you just become better, well, nobody just becomes better. People make an intention. Just say Alhamdulillah. Give thanks for what is around you for what you have. Give thanks for the difficulties you face. For successes you have what resources you have. Take some slow, deep breaths and take your time to do what you're about to do. Slowly and majestically, if you're doing will do to it majestically slowly with the kind of composure you would expect from a prince. Why? Because once you spend the next five minutes, well,

guess what? That five minutes became your past.

And there's another five minutes after that. And if you deal with them, like a prince. Now you've had 10 fantastic minutes, you are rewriting your history.

be unaffected by triumph or by disaster, and be unpersuaded by voices or concerns in your head or from elsewhere, that you haven't done it well, that you can't become better be dismissive of all except the fact that you have been invited by God Himself to pay attention to him for the next five minutes.

And try to think about that as frequently as you can through the day.

If you'll join me on this, then we'll turn a corner. For the second third of our reinvention month, we'll look at change, strength, assertiveness, steel, persistence, resistance, individuality, artistry, creatively, all of those things you never expected to hear in an Islamic setting. Because you've been incompletely educated about what it is to be a strong Muslim. We need you. We need you. Yes, you because you have something to offer that nobody else does quite as well as you. We the Muslim world, the world needs you.

Maybe you know what it is, maybe you don't, but only you can start to unravel those things. And that depends if you're prepared to have a good five minutes, steal those five minutes.

steal those next five minutes for yourself. It might not be easy, but try to give them to yourself when you just might remember what it felt like when you were a kid and everything was possible. And Allah was only good in the whole world would promise you things. The reality is the same. Allah is only good and the whole world will promise you things. But it doesn't happen if you're not prepared to treat yourself more gracefully and more kindly to begin with.

Five minutes

talk more tomorrow. I mean