Tawfique Chowdhury – How To Become An Entrepreneur

Assalamu alaikum Guys, and Welcome to the Muslim entrepreneurs network.

Today I have with me

all the way from Malaysia is visiting here in London had a very busy schedule the last couple of days I've managed to

tended to ask a couple of questions regarding the business Islam and Muslim chat. Welcome to joining me. My pleasure. And thank you very much for taking some time out to have this small conversation with me.

I know you're a great advocate of entrepreneurship and business, and you really encouraged us to go. Can I just ask you why that's the case. Why do you do that? Well, you see, the Prophet says alum was a great businessman. And one of the ways that he actually found his wife was through business.

And he was ethical. He was a amazing entrepreneur. He made more money than all the other businessmen.

Khadija de la was surprised through that. We also find Allah subhanho wa Taala.

Telling us in the Quran, Allah Jalla wa who will Catherine Allah, Muslim, Mina, Sevilla, Allah will not give the disbelievers a hand over the believers. Many of the scholars of the year explained this hadith to me that that Muslims must be self sufficient and that they have to have the upper hand.

Also, Allah subhanaw taala tells us to give charity in the Quran How many times have you found the masala what was the cup? He was like? How can you give us the cup or soccer or any type of charity? If you don't have any money?

And and everything what the deen tells us that those who give and help others are far better than those who don't. So hamdulillah I sincerely encourage it. So we have the prophets of God. So we have the righteous people, the scholars of Islam, but they'd be Abu hanifa Rahim, Allah, Abdullah Barak, even Muslim, and the Shah, he or him Allah, they were all great business people. So there's nothing wrong with business under law. There's a wrong with how many people do business. But there's nothing wrong with business itself. It gives you self sufficiency gives you dignity gives your honor, gives you time Alhamdulillah and it gives you wealth and money to do what you want to do, and to do and to

achieve your purpose. And Shall I come across the low Muslims in our community and a dominant thought, and the mindset that I find in Muslims is that they think wealth is a bad thing. And they despise people who are with you know, and the next to the first was that. Is that something you support? No, not at all. I think this is a this is a defeatist mentality. It's a it's a mentality that's born out of a little bit of jealousy, and a little bit of ignorance, you know, equal jealousy, ignorance together, you get a toxic mixture, you know what I'm saying?

And, and this is an attitude, which is totally unfounded. The Sahaba, the professor SLM, never used to hate wealth. They they used to hate the fact that people hoarded wealth without giving. Yes, they hated that. But to actually make money, no, that was not, no problem, no problem at all. I mean, I move across to Toronto, he purchased over four of the national membership, he helped them, you know, either accept Islam, or you help them, you know, free themselves from slavery we have, we have, beloved, via Yanni, who helped aboubaker did and who bought the mustard that the Prophet says, was Abu Bakar. So the Sahaba would never against actually making money. They're against hoarding money.

Yeah, hoarding money, and then doing it for the wrong reasons. I'm a great advocate of making as much money as you can as much money. I mean, I don't say millions. I'm just like, I actually get frustrated with people who just want to make millions. So you know, what you don't deserve? My Time goes away. Yeah. And I want to speak to people who want to make a lot more than that, you know, into billions and more.

There's a research that was done about the number of billionaires what 2000 something 2400 something billionaires worldwide now, more than half of them made their money from rags to riches story, rags to riches, at least people are now using their wealth for that which Allah azza wa jal is not pleased with. Why can't we use make lots of money and use it for that which Allah is pleased with that? We have we have many of us have. The first bank in Islam was a big one was a very strong mighty men and ever wanted to put wealth with Zubair. And so where Rajaratnam became the first banker. When he died, he left 56 56

million US dollars worth each for inheritance. For each of his wives. He had four wives. That's 136 of the wealth. 136 of his wealth was what 56 million US dollars. How much money do you have? You're going to, he's going to Jama insha Allah. And on top of that, you don't say he gave that much wealth?

We left that much behind for his family, you know, I'm trying to say, so we have to drop this defeatist, weak, cheap mentality away from us. We have to make wealth, and we must remember to give loads of it away. I mean, I would like to revive the southerner of Abu Bakar. Mama,

the son of giving 50% away, listen, they're giving 100% away. And if you ask, you know, Warren Buffett and others, they're given 99% of their wealth away, because they're doing in entrepreneurship, because of fun. It's a lot of fun to make this wealth and this money and the holiday inshallah. And then giving it away is even more exciting.

Now, from all the stories of the prophets and the sahabas that relate to intrapreneurship, and business and wealth, which is your favorite, and why is that your favorite?

I guess

there's a lot, that's, that's my favorite. I think the one that's favorite is after hongtao, right? It's my favorite because he became wealthy through good values. And something we've forgotten the great strategy that he employed was, was to be as transparent and as pro customer oriented customer focus as possible. So the alpha delta, and we made money through horses, so he was a horse budget, and no one needs to buy horses, etc. Now, the reason why was because because when you wanted to buy a horse from him, he would, you know, you'd go and sell capital, man, how much is this horse? So you'd go, yeah, this was 1000 dinars, you know, 1000 gold coins. So a person will be you know,

getting the money out is about to pay, because you know, it's always a good price.

Because it's, you know, it's into all seasons can monopolize the market, you know, because it has so many ounces, a great, great variety, great choice, so people can buy. But then what he would do is it's going to hold the holder don't pay me 1000 1000. Look over here is a little bit of a chip in the teeth and look, some hairs are missing from the from the from the tail. And look, the host is a little bit problems a bit rusted. And by the way, it's not a fully Arabian horse. It's mother's Indian, you know, I'm just,

I'm just adding it on. I'm imagining that's how it was. But what was noted was that I would keep on rather than who would keep on putting the price down. And for pointing out the false. Imagine I was looking what he's doing, pointing out the false until the people would say no, I don't want to force I can't do this. I can't keep taking it like this. I want to force you out of brotherhood. So he would show brotherhood, they will show brotherhood back. So no one would buy horses or anyone but man. Right? Yeah. And so therefore, you know, you get more customers and more customers. Right? So and that's the that's the trick of the game is to is to make little but a lot, right. I mean, I have

a friend who's a multi billionaire in Saudi Arabia, how the heck did you make that much money? You know, I ask these questions to all of them. Right? It's 46 and say, is a 17 billion Saudi Arabia's worth of income, and wealth. And the other day he, he bought a property. And he went in there. And then the guy came, hey, this is already yours, you don't even know. So he bought his own property.

Funny guy, he's got so much property in Riyadh. So he goes, my trick was different from everyone else, everyone buys property, and then they hold on to it, and then wait for a year or two to make 10 to 15%, whatever, me, I don't care. I make the 5%. And I sell quick. But I make 5%. But you try now 5%, six times a year, compared to, you know, one property with 15% margin, you know, over one year, who makes more money, I make money. And he said the hidden benefit, which no one realizes is that at 5% for selling, and you're selling more, all the real estate agents, they know that he anyone wants to sell property and he wants money, who to go to go to Mr. Mohammed, you know,

Mohammed, he knows he's always buying property and is always selling. So I became the number one guy that everyone came to. So all the best deals came to me. But I made the tiniest of profits from all of them. But I made billions because I moved it quick. So spotlight You know, that's a we've got to think about this. If somebody is thinking of getting into business and want to make wealth and got encouraged by seeing wealthy people, what should be his biggest motivation to want to do that? biggest motivation should be given to the cause of loss? biggest motivation? I mean, I was I spoke to one another billionaire, how to speak to millionaires anymore. It's like, what the heck am I

gonna do with that?

It's true, because my grandma's a millionaire. You know, if my grandma sells a house, you make a million you don't say this, like okay, what am I gonna learn from grandma? Let me go learn from you know, multi billionaire. So, this guy is the richest man in all of Malaysia and he told me

you know, he said that he was a rags to riches story again, 10 years old. He came from Yemen, okay, on a boat, came to the shores of Malaysia. And the first thing he did is sold his shoes, enough shoes, and he went and he bought some rice. They do a bit of training, a little bit of trading. And he made some money. Yeah. And he went to his mom at the end of the day.

He went to his mom. And he said, Mom, I made temporary, temporary. It's like, it was a one and a half, one half pounds, right? And his mom said, give half of it in sadaqa. Case, give half of it.

So the man said, Listen, and this is a typical attitude that you're gonna find entrepreneurs having. Yeah. Which is wrong. Yeah. And you got to get this out of your system. He said, Ma'am, can I use can I save the timbering now, and reinvest it? And I'll keep doing more and more and more. And so I'll have more money to give, eventually, rather than me now give the five rings and right now, he said, No, my son. She said, No, my son. He said, The reason why you make money is a login you buck. Yeah, money is an opportunity for making money is an opportunity for you make more money for opportunity than you make from your capital investment. How many times have you a, you know, an

entrepreneur? entrepreneur skill is to make money from nothing. Correct? He looks at the opportunity. He sees money there. It's not because he's got capital that makes him money? No, it's because he's an opportunity. And that's the whole point. The whole point about entrepreneurship is to make money. Right? Without your own money. Yeah, using other people's money, right. And an opportunity is the opportunity for all of them make some money, not the fact that Okay, I've got a million that's reinvested that makes 2 million No, that's, that's a, that's a easy way out. You want to be it'll be a true entrepreneur, you want to make money, you're gonna make money from nothing.

And so as a result, give it away. I'm not asking that you give tons and tons and tons. But I am asking, give 50% I may give 20% away. And I have met a group of people now, whose growth strategy for the business is

the growth strategy said my growth strategy is my groceries project. I mean, I've unbelievable people, unbelievable people the amount of subducted they give, yeah, we have to revive this, we have to revise. I know you've spotted so many projects, Mashallah. And

both of them monetize, so they can run on themselves. When you think about starting a project in a dream, but think about that they might fail? Does it cause any kind of concern for you? And have you overcome that fear of failing something? Everybody kind of don't take any action? Because they're afraid they might just say, Yeah, I guess, you know, you could also die when you drive your car. You know what I'm trying to say? You could have a piano falling from the roof. When you're walking down the road. You could eat something that had some bug, you know, you could die from that. You know, I'm trying to say, you could walk down the road and get mugged. Like, when does it stop? When does

it stop? People who are afraid of going to be honest, afraid? You know, I'm trying to say the thing that you should be afraid of? The thing that you should be afraid of is is Allah subhanho wa Taala takes your ability to take risks. Yeah, risk itself is not wrong. Well, how do you become? How do you become brave bravery is conquering fear. Right? So you have to have fear in the first place. To become brave, because then you conquer the fear become brave. Yeah. So an entrepreneur is a brave man. Because he's conquered the fear his head fear is conquered. become brave. Yeah. And Islam tells us to be brave. We don't want to be cowards. We've lived our life as coward for too long. You're a

coward The one who doesn't want to leave his job. You're a coward. The one who says you know what? I don't have money. And you know, I gotta pay rent and all that. Yeah. What what? What you don't have to pay rent, the other entrepreneurs are to pay rent. figure this out, man. You're smart man. You know, and most people are just too happy with status quo. And they just getting their rent paid and they're happy. And you know, masala, right. But what someone who wants a bigger piece of gender knows that rent for the gymnasts. We paid now, the property has we purchased now the the mahadevi hold on a net pay now, those people they are courageous. So my sincere advice is to build courage.

If you can't build courage, you too, too difficult, that hang around with people who are courageous. You know, you have to take risks. It's not reckless to take risks, it's reckless to take reckless risks. Okay, risk itself should be second nature should be second nature will calculate the risk. And then yeah, because look at the greater risk to your life. You've taken the risk of working for this business, you're getting a bit of a payment out. Now you're just like, you know, happy and sitting down. That's not that's not who we are. We are better than that. We're better than that. I wish for a time when you know, I mean, you know, when people lose their jobs, right? Everyone says,

Man, I lost my job. You know, for me, we're lucky. You know, and I've been quoted on TV and on on radio saying Alhamdulillah Muslims are losing their jobs. Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah it's true. Alhamdulillah they lost their jobs. Finally, they're gonna get up the backside and try and do something about it. You're not trying to say, Yeah, because we just need to knock you know that they do they need to knock.

Yes. It's not to say that everyone's going to make money through business. I know that. But at the end of the day, there is some business or the other day and everyone can do. Most people now will just create a business for them.

job, they need a job. So they create a business, the business is actually a job for them. We don't want that we want more than that. And I'm sure these sort of people, they've taken the hard step of wanting to work for themselves. People like you through the through the Muslim entrepreneur network should help them. People like me should help them. I mean, my personal goal has been that I'm going to create 10,000 millionaires and Charles. Yeah, I'm gonna do it. Are you gonna help me do it? And Sharla we're gonna do

one last final question.

Obviously, entrepreneurship requires an intrapreneur to build up to learn

certain kind of skills, and there's so many, if you were to just say, random, all of them and put a single one main skill that an entrepreneur needs to develop, who would you say that would be that working? Like? Yeah, I would say networking, I would say so many things. But I think nothing helps you to learn more by networking, but when you just sit with good people, you have an ability to network, you will eventually make money. I mean, you know, your net wealth is 10 of your friends divided by 10. Okay, so same thing with your Eman. 10 of your friends, what is the man what is their faith? How much you practice Islam divided by 10, that's your faith is the right? The same way as

your net wealth in wealth as well. So get really good at networking, get really good at having that. I mean, you know, I'm so busy with my double work, right? I'm a medical doctor. And I'm busy with our work. But you know, I'm talking to people now we're launching hospitals, and I'm talking to people about, you know, trying to say I've got a 500 bed hospital, they're about to launch, I'm talking to business, people about, you know, buying large stuff from Bangladesh and selling them in, you know, I'm making 100 million dollar deals. Every day, I'm helping business people make, make all of that money comes for you. And the way to do it, is to keep your network nakisha makes really good

networks in Sharla. And lastly, you'll get local Wellcome Trust. My last final question.

What would you say is the top three habits that one must embody to be

in business? Top three habits? Okay, top three habits? Well, first of all, spend money on educating yourself. How much money do you spend educating yourself by about making money for example, okay. I spend about 14 to $15,000 every year, on educating myself on entrepreneur skills on skills required to make wealth and money on leadership skills, stuff that has that is going to help me attain strength. You know, that's still I mean, I'm nearly 40 at that age. I'm still spending 14 15,000 How much are you spending? So you know, most people's Okay. Oh, yeah, I bought that book. Yeah. Rich Dad. Poor Dad. What the heck you're doing Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Now you're buying? You don't try to

say, Oh, yeah, but the cash quadrant? Now you're buying it? Oh, yeah. But I don't know. Make a million before lunch. Now you're buying it? I mean, what just one book that's 10 pounds. I'm spending 15,000 on myself an education? How much are you spending? It's important that you do. So it's really important that you learn about new techniques, new strategies of that. So education, education, education, yeah. education, education, education, find out how to save tax, find out how the new richer living, find out where the best strategies are, find out what the best, you know, options for a property investments are, you know, I'm trying to say, educate, educate, educate,

educate, it's really critical. And I say minimum 10,000 pounds $10,000 every entrepreneur must spend on himself or herself every year. That's, that's rule number one. Rule number two, I would say that you need a mentor. Everyone needs a mentor, like just a jabril Alisha, for a pseudo social, you know, someone to whip your backside and get you moving, you know, someone who's helping you so that you don't fall into the love and desire of, you know, I'm a mentor for a lot of great people. And a lot of my mentors, I make tons of money. You know, me myself, I've been busy with social entrepreneurship, because for me, that's my empowerment, because I made so much money already and in

others in other ways. It's like, yeah, you know what, I make money later. But now I want to help the homeowner make money, or help them launch projects, you know, that's why I love being able to launch the other stuff. So get a mentor, a mentor is extremely important. I think it's a great habit and a great skill. They will summarize hundreds of books for you in a word word of advice. Sometimes they'll be able to see something that is so apparent to them that is that there's that difficulty because you're in the problem. And finally, they will direct you in shalabh. So what who's a good mentor, a good mentor is someone who gives you time, someone who has the right values. So you don't

want to mentor was like, you know, money hungry maniac but you want a mentor who's doing it for the right reasons. So he'll always help you with your class inshallah. Finally, you want a mentor who has made money ethically

You know, and not, not the wrong ways, but other ways to make money.

The third skill, I would say, is get into the habit of early charity. Early charity. Don't wait for later. And gifts. Early, just like

Mr. Bahari, the richest man in Malaysia did. He gives up early. And I know of many of the wealthiest people are the ones that are less thrown in my path. The billionaires not talking millionaires, I'm talking about billionaires, they have made money through SATA. Yeah, and the attribute were given, what do you mean by that, but for example, younger a year, like yesterday, I met a brother who, you know, he told me about how he was totally on his last 50 pounds. And, you know, and then he did this ridiculous, you know, gymnastics with his knowledge and skills that he had, and made 20,000 pounds, just like that. So I was gonna ask you, how much of it did you get from South Africa? Perhaps he was

thinking, no, no, I got to have my rent paid, and I got to buy my first car and etc, those things are going to come. Your point is you should have looked at as an opportunity to look through that opportunity at you to see what you're going to do with that money. So give something away, give something away. I mean, I would I would encourage 20% to be given away in South Africa, you know, or half of it. You know, I mean, I I generally, myself, I've told my own children, for example, saying, My children, I'm going to give you great education, shall they help you launch your first business? I'm going to help you to do all of that. Yeah, but you're not going to get any of my wealth. You're

not gonna don't ever expect them to leave anything behind. Because if I leave wealth behind for you, and you don't know how to make wealth, you're gonna spoil it anyway. And if you already know how to make wealth, and what do you need, my wife anyway? Does actually don't need mine to go away. Okay, my wealth is for the Omaha masala. Yeah, but what I am going to do my heart, my response to you will give you fantastic education. And to make sure you, you have the world in your hand and in your heart, you know, that's what I told them. And so my, my kids are already very much away from now on, they're launching their businesses. They're 14 years old, my son's launched his first business and

made his first first 2000 3000 ringgit already. Now he's thinking, Okay, what am I going to do as a son, you know, invest early, invest early, and, you know, savings is more important, blah, blah, blah, teaching him some, some strategies in Charlotte Allah that I learned only when I'm late, you know, I learned it in the 30s. But he's learning it when he's 14, you know, I'm saying, inshallah, he'll do a better job than me and Sharla just a little aside for sharing some awesome bits of information. And I'm sure our audience out there are gonna love and enjoy and actually benefit so much from what they've just said. I do the best for the rest of your trip of the season. So

thanks a lot. My pleasure. So microphylla