Leadership Skills

This position is basically as

a manager strategist, she says as a man, do not extend your hand first.

Why? In the roles in the workplace, I feel that women are capable, talked about the sexual harassment you talked about. And if we don't put limits on our interactions, and we don't curtail our interactions, you can enter a very dangerous territory. You don't see the UFC having a man and a woman in the ring, right.

Salaam Alaikum. Guys, welcome to another episode of the deen Show. I'm with brother Emraan, who is the founder of the wall away podcast. He's also a strategist and consultant, former director of Beynon Institute. We're gonna get some strategies, we're gonna get some principles for business, we're gonna pick his brain. And hopefully everyone can benefit who's watching when we come back here on a D show. Don't go anywhere.

Cool.

How are you? Good. Hello. How are you? I'm doing well. So tell us a little bit about the Huawei Sure. Because your non work low Wallah. Non low other non Well, yes, so. So the wall away. The wall away is a podcast I started earlier this year, to focus on the things that I'm passionate about. Some of it is about leadership. Some of it is about health. A lot of it is about mentorship, and how we can apply certain principles into any aspect of life. For example, sometimes we talk about sports in the wild way. But we talk about sports from a leadership position. So when we examine things that happen in sports, we examine why why do certain athletes act in certain ways? What's the psychology

behind it, we've had psychologists in the show on the wall the way to talk about certain decisions in sports, but we talk about a variety of things. But I'm very passionate about leadership, education and health. Those are primarily what I discuss on the wall away. Now you are with this institute, the bayonet institute that was run by nominally correct and you were the director of this institute, I had a few different positions there. My first position was basically as no mana the cons manager strategist. After that, I became the

operator on the operation side of the nonprofit side of Bina. And I was also the director of the dream program. So well, I wore many hats. So you got a lot of experience from being there. I'm gonna, I'm gonna I had I had experienced before I got there. And I definitely gained a lot of experience while being there. So it's always a pleasure and a benefit to be able to work with students, people from different parts of the country, people from different parts of the world, to work with talented staff. So it's always a great experience, to gain wisdom, to gain insight, and to also impart whatever wisdom and insight you may have. So you've had the experience before you came

there, you got some more experience while you were there. So now what is what what what can you give to us now, when you come into a lot of these organizations, that some of the things that you see that I'd been run, right, done, right, some things that I've done wrong, and how people can improve. So they can go ahead and better ship their leadership abilities, and go ahead and do a better job. Regardless of whether one is in the nonprofit or for profit side, everything always starts with leadership, right? So when when everything when everything is

when everything is effective from the from the top, right. Everything that trickles down is effective. So leadership principle leadership methodology is very important.

The leader has to be one who has a vision, a mission, the leaders, it has to be one who is encouraging conflict dialogue. Just imagine, right? Imagine if, right now, what we're doing on the deen show is we're dialoguing. Is that correct? Yes. If we don't dialogue, if you don't bring guests on to your show and dialogue with them, we miss out on a lot of knowledge, we miss out on a lot of opportunity. So as a leader, whether you're in a nonprofit or for profit side, you got to encourage dialogue, you got encouraged debate conflict, not personal attacks, but the ability to question why certain decisions are made, and to question why certain strategies are implemented. So one thing

that I would say is,

when you're when you're in a leadership position, or whether you're running an organization, tried to hire the right leader, try to have someone who has experienced in leadership, try to make sure that the leader is someone who is honest, someone who is modeling the way this is a very important principle in leadership. What do we mean by modeling the way? Now if I say, I am all about integrity, integrity and honesty, right? But you see that I'm not a person of integrity, I cheat, I lie I steal. How would that impact your understanding of me? Would you respect me? No, you wouldn't respect me. So as a leader, you got to model the way you got to be an effective leader by being what

you claim you are. So whatever values I have as a leader, whatever values that I express in the organization, I have to embody and live those values. Once you once you model the way one thing that I say is very important to do is to encourage like I mentioned before, encourage debate. So you have to

You have to be comfortable with conflict. Right? conflict is good. If you watch a movie, if you read a book, what's at the center of most movies and books? conflict? Right? Can you think about a movie or a book or any thing that you've seen, that doesn't have conflict? It has some type of dilemma, it has some type of issue that's trying to be resolved. Okay. So when we have this conflict, we have to be able to be open and transparent. If we're not open and transparent, guess what? People are not going to commit to whatever decisions that are made. Because if I call you guys into a meeting right now, and I say, Okay, let's talk, but I'm really the one doing the talking. And I don't let you

express what you want to express. And you just nod, nod your head, yes, and agree with me. The reality is once once we tried to implement whatever this decision is, you're not going to buy? There's quite a few things. But those are three very important things. What do you do when you open up that door of dialogue and conflict, and now, people where you keep it balanced? where people are expressing their views, and then now that when everybody is having their thoughts expressed, but now when you don't go with their thoughts are expressed, and then egos get in the way and hurt? And have you had these situations happen? Absolutely. And then someone doesn't agree with what this person is

saying? And then it becomes an argument, how do you balance that out? This is why as a leader, you have to embody your values. So number one, what are your values? Do you stand for justice knew stand for integrity, if people respect you as a leader, and they see that you have integrity, you have values and that you're principled. They will accept what decisions you make. Part of accepting your decisions is that that's what you have to implement. You say you go into meetings and say, Look, we're going to have a discussion. But by the end of the discussion, we're going to go with one, you know, agreed principle. And I need to have consensus on that. You allow for debate to happen. People

get passionate people express what they what they believe in. Once you read it all in, and you go with, say I go with employee A's opinion and not employee B, you It's a very simple thing. Employee b, this is what the majority accepted. This is what I accepted as a leader. Let's go forward with it. And let's see how it goes. What's very important, because to counter what you said, if this thing doesn't go, right, who has to take ownership of the of the of the loss? You do? The leader does. And if you take ownership of it, guess what that shows to the team shows many things, it shows number one, it's okay to be wrong. It's okay to take ownership of doing something wrong. And now

this is why leadership and team building and running an organization is a process. It's not a one finite event. Right? small wins, not big wins. So if you have the right people on the bus, if you have the right people on the team, I don't really find that the question that you posed to be a problem people buy in people, you know, agree with what has been agreed upon? You know, this is why when you hire people, or when you hire different positions, you have to be able to hire the right people. See people people get caught up in the losses. People never talk about the successes, right? Or it could be both ways. But here's what I mean.

I go in as a consultant, and I see that

the leader of an organization is complaining about toxic environment, a toxic work environment, people think that this happened in one day, no, it happened from the time before you interviewed that employee. Even the principles you use to interview employees have to be adequate and proper, you know, I have to make sure that the person is the right fit for the organization. So there's many ways to examine that. But in summary, again, I don't think it could be that big of a problem when you employ the right tools, have conversation, have dialogue, let things fall in place. And again, this is where we have to be able to differentiate. Conflict is not bad. Conflict is not bad.

ideological conflict is not bad. Right? What is bad is personal attacks. If I say Eddie, you know, I think we could do this better. I think we should use this type of microphone or this type of camera. Or maybe we should do this with the lights. You should accept that. If I say, Eddie,

if I personally attack you, right, if I attack your demeanor, if I attack your looks, if I attacked your intelligence, how would that make you feel?

How would that make you feel you wouldn't feel you wouldn't feel right. So, again, conflict is good. As long as it's not personal attacks, you're not insulting someone that you're trying to get your opinion across. Right? Correct. And also part of the training is to do what we're talking about with your team. So I would sit with my team and I would take them through this argument, right? Or I would take them through these principles by saying, look, there's going to be times during the course of the year, or the course of this, you know, consulting session, where I may not agree with what you're saying, and you may not agree with what I'm saying. That is fine. We can disagree. We

can even argue respectfully. We are not going to personally attack each other. And when you sit down with people and you tell them that disagreeing and conflict is okay. Sometimes they question it right. You even have to take

them in baby steps to this training and allow them to understand that these things are okay.

When when you see when you listen to some of the entrepreneurs are out there, and you see some of the character traits that they talk about a leader having. And then you see you compare that to Islam. So let's say for example, he talked about being punctual being honest. They talk about pretty much Sure, sure, right. But then when you see Do you see those things? In the deen that the dean also teaches those same exact things like was like they read a book on on Islam. I've had those moments happen throughout my master's, I got my master's in education and leadership. I've had those aha moments happen when I've read a lot of the books by the so called gurus and leadership. But

yeah, there's a lot of connections. So one of the first things is respecting people. You know, a lot of the the work that comes about comes about leadership entrepreneurship, team building has to do with respecting others, letting people talk. Do we not have examples from this of this from this owner?

Do we not have examples of people coming to meet the prophet SAW them, and him giving them a voice? him letting them talk him letting them finish speaking, even though he would probably make a certain decision? He would give him the opportunity to share their vision, share their thoughts, share their opinions, right? And then when that happens, and even if another decision is made, people feel invested, they feel Look, I was heard. My opinion was heard. It was it was discussed.

There's many other there's, you know, what's up with that one? Right? Yeah, I mean, this is this is really important. Because if you don't let you want to be heard, and let's say you let someone like the prophet SAW something, he will let someone talk. And then after they're done, so you finish and then not interrupt them. And have you had these situations in a meeting at home, this is just any time in life, you're listening to someone. And then as soon as you want to get things going and express yourself, they start cutting you off. And then it keeps going, and then I'll cut you off again. But hold on, you just sat quiet for like five minutes, 10, maybe 20. And then now it's your

turn, but they don't let you talk. Imagine we're at the workplace. Okay, imagine we work together. And I'm the leader, you are on the team. Every time you want to talk to me about something, an idea that you have a problem that you're facing at work, while you're talking. Every time I cut you off, and I stop you, it happens the first, the second, the third and the fourth time, the fifth time when you're thinking about coming to speak to me, what are you gonna? What's going to be going through your head? What are you gonna be thinking, you can't get anywhere with this person, I'm not even going to this person. Right? So again, when you allow people to finish speaking, they feel vested,

they feel okay, at least this person is going to hear me out. So this is one great example you have to let people speak. You have to respect their opinions. Another great example. And this is very pertinent for anybody in HR, anybody in a leadership position. Pay people on time, pay people on time, what's the translation of the hoodie, you know, before the person sweat dries before the sweat dries off? You pay them?

How does this not relate to the common work error? If I am giving you 40 hours, 50 hours of my life a week, right? And you're not paying me on time? That's going to be a problem. But we have this solution in the summer, pay people on time? Why do we pay people on time, I think giving you their expertise, they're giving you their knowledge, they're giving you their time respected, pay them, you know, their people use money, it's none of the business of a leader or HR to think about what these people need the money for it right? So sometimes you'll have experiences where they say, oh, that payment came a day or two late? No, that is none of your business. Meaning if it's only a day

late, they should be fine with it. No, we don't know what type of bills people have. We don't know what type of expenses people have on a weekly, daily or monthly basis. So pay people on time. You have these situations where I just heard a story from a brother, he was talking about how now there's obviously nothing wrong with trying to get a good deal. Some people call it wheeling and dealing, negotiating right? To get a fair price. But then once that price is negotiated, and now the brother he's talking about, I'm praying with this brother, everything is good, you know, and then we get into a business transaction, we make a deal. Let's say the deal was $400. That's what we agreed

upon. I start working, and now he's hitting me. He's a brother, can you do it for 60? He's already invested his time his effort. He's they've made the deal. The deal is for 100 or 1000, or whatever the course. And now while they're doing the deal, he's, he's already invested. He's got him. He's already sweating, brought his tools. And now he's trying to come in and get a discount. What do you call this? Not this is unfortunately, not uncommon, right? Yeah. But again, do we have any safeguards in the religion to protect us from this happening? We have contracts, right? We're encouraged to use contracts, again, and at the professional level. We find many organizations,

especially many faith based organizations, not you

Using contracts, they don't use contracts. They do not write they do not put pen to paper and write down what they expect from the employee. Nor does the employee write down what they expect from their employer. And then what happens? One month in you haven't got paid?

Is it in the contract when you're supposed to get paid? Oh, there is no contract. So there's nothing to fall back on. Okay, I was called in to do XYZ. But now, they've added more tasks to my job. Well, what does it say in the contract? I don't have a contract. Again, Islam has the solutions for a lot of these problems. You go in when you when you even if I'm not an employee, I'm I'm not a normal employee. Right. But say we want to go into a business venture together, say we have intellectual property that we're discussing his IP, right? What can we put in into place to safeguard both of our investments, both of our ideas, you can use nbas. You can use contractor contracts, you can use any

type of template, there's many, many services online now. Very easy to utilize, right? Which will protect your time, your ideas and your investment. But the problem is, we don't like taking the extra step to use these contracts. But we have to,

even if it's a at a smaller level, absolutely. The guys come in to change your toilet. What's wrong, what's wrong with using a contract that takes five minutes to write out? Or this is something just you could pick up a pen and just on your own just a paragraph, a sentence, you don't even have to? Because people think contract, I need an attorney. I need to spend you know, money to draw this up. We're not talking about that. If you are going into a bigger venture, that's something that's more complicated, definitely get an attorney, right. Okay. You have services like Rocket Lawyer, great service, you sign up for it, you pay a very minimal fee a month, right? And it according to what

state you live in, it gives you a set of laws for that state, a certain level of understanding. Okay, now I want to go into a contract. I want to get a plumber, does it there's a template for that. There's you don't have to even write a paragraph. It says Who is the one receiving the services in Marana and Lola? Who is the one providing the services? Okay, for example, say it's a TV audio visual consulting the deen show? What's the address of the business? This is the address? How do you expect to be paid? Right? It's as simple as fill in the blanks, very small words, very small phrases, and the contract is that few minutes. So there's no complications later on, you have

something to protect not only you, this is what I always tell people, when people call me about going into,

they want to use the wall away or my other business digital learning partners as a consulting, what I say is, let's sign a contract, not only to protect me, but to protect you. So another thing that I do is I mentor millennials, right? So part of mentoring millennials is that a lot of times when they feel comfortable with you, which is built through trust, when you when you when you show them that you're trustworthy, and you're honest, they start opening up and they start sharing ideas. What I say is, if you guys ever want to bounce an idea off of me, let's sign some documentation. They say but it's you. I said, but it's it could be a million dollar idea. It could be a million dollar idea.

Believe in yourself, but not only believe in yourself, protect yourself, what are you supposed to do? Trust in the law and tie your camel, right? Tie your camel, take the means that are going to protect your future. This is not only your future, this is the future of your children. This is the future of your family. This could be generational wealth. So what I do is I have the the mentees create an NDA that I have to sign to protect their ideas. And when you do that, believe me it goes a long way with the mentees, they take it even more seriously. Right, because now they're trying they're interacting with God Willing people of integrity, people who have their best interest in

mind, not only my own my own best interest, and you find that a lot of the times in businesses a deal seems very good. Something seems too good to be true. But you find that people are just trying to be essentially be predators. They're trying to find talent. They're trying to eat up this talent take

concepts and ideas from people to keep themselves going. But you know, as Muslims, we have to be above that we have to be beyond that. We know that our risk our provisions are written, we're going to get every penny that we are supposed to get, right we take the means to protect ourselves. But what's wrong with wanting for your brother or your sister what you want for yourself? I want to be a millionaire. But how do I become a millionaire? I want that for other people. Until I show that sincerity. I should not expect to get it. So you see you've you've witnessed a lot of that but you can't business predators. Yeah, it's a phrase that I just use right now. But unfortunately, in every

in every aspect, not just in faith based organizations and other organizations. The reality is we know that this exists in the non faith based realm. We don't want to believe that this exists in the faith based realm. But why shouldn't it

has every employee been vetted, has every person that you've brought into the organization been vetted. And I'm not talking about any specific organization, I've dealt with a lot of different talent, a lot of different people from different parts of the world, different parts of America, from different organizations. And you find that people are very similar. You find some people who are always very sincere, but very sincere, people are often trampled upon, walked over, and their ideas are taken from them. Why? Because they don't put the proper corrective measures in place. And then you find another extreme, you find people who look professional, they look great. But sometimes

their their knowledge in the dean is not where it should be. And the practical parts of the dean the entire Look, the entirety of Islam is practical, right. But if you're going to be working in a professional setting, you should learn the thick of working in a professional setting, you should learn the parts that are pertinent to being a leader, the parts that are pertinent to being an employee, right there, the religion has parts that discuss that. So unless you learn these things, unless you learn the principles of the religion, it's very easy that either intentionally or unintentionally, you are going to take someone's rights, or you're not going to be doing justice to

your job. Yes. So you have to learn these things. What have you learned? And what advice do you give for now, when you have the male female gender roles in the workplace? I mean, look, do I feel that women are capable

and competent human beings? Absolutely. We got to dispel this notion that women cannot do a lot of the work that men do. they've proven that wrong. But we have to also be cognizant that a lot of the issues that happen

at the HR level in organizations, and you can read a lot of case studies about this have to do with sexual harassment has to do with discrimination based on gender. How do we curtail this? Number one, we have to understand that fundamentally, we are different beings, right? We're all humans, we're all equal. But my chemistry in your chemistry is different. Right? And when Islam teaches us that being in seclusion with a with a woman, for a man to be in seclusion with a woman or for a woman to be in seclusion with a man, suddenly one way, it's both ways can be problematic, right? If we're to be honest with ourselves, and we should be honest, this is one thing that people do not like being

any more, which is honest, is that we have certain desires, we have certain ones.

And if we don't put limits on our interactions, and we don't curtail our interactions, we can enter a very dangerous territory. So one thing that Islam does is we have certain dress requirements for both genders. As a male, I'm not allowed to walk around naked, I'm not allowed to walk around exposing certain parts of my body, right? For a woman, it's the same thing and rightfully so, we want to be able to concentrate on what the task at hand is not unlooked. Right. This is why sometimes people that are against meetings by phone, or meetings over the internet, I'm completely for it. Because what you're able to focus on is the voice, you're able to focus on what is being

said. Not what is what you're gazing upon. You have to be let's be honest with ourselves, we go on social media, we have we overhear locker room conversations, how do men most often talk about women in a derogatory way derogatory way talking about them physically, when you remove that side of it, and all you get is the woman's intellect, her voice her opinions, what are you left with? her intelligence, her ideas, right, not to say that women should be completely removed from the situation, but we have to understand that certain rules and regulations are put into place. Moreover,

just to kind of curtail the relationships, right, we have to understand that relationships at the workplace should be professional. Right? So if I'm interacting with the sister at work, what what are some do's and what are some don'ts? Somebody consistent, how are you? I'm doing great. How's your family? Mashallah, they're great. Okay, that's good, right? By the way, were you able to finish the report that I asked for? Or by the way, how is the design going for such and such project, when you start getting very casual and very comfortable, this is where you start getting into that danger zone. Because remember, wait for you to go from point A to point z, say a is the ideal and point z

is complete disaster. It doesn't happen in one big leap. It happens in steps. So those steps they take time. So one day, it's one piece of conversation. The second day, it's another piece of conversation, the third day, it's okay. Now, when whenever we speak, we're three or four feet apart. Now we're speaking, we're two feet apart. Two weeks later, we're one foot apart. Next thing we know it, we're shoulder to shoulder, it happens step by step. So you kind of you need to realize what is professional, what should be left in the house, what should be for the workplace. I think I brought this example to you before when I was in high school in 2004. As a senior, I went to a non Muslim

high school, and I was a class president of my high school, right. We went to this mandatory leadership training with high schools across the state 1000s of students, not in Islamic training.

A very qualified woman got up, and she was giving us some advice. She goes, when you introduce yourself as a man to women, this was 2004, not very far back, not in the 70s, not in the 80s, not in the 50s. She says, as a man, do not extend your hand first.

Why? She says maybe the women don't feel comfortable shaking hands. This was not a Muslim woman.

She says, Let the woman extend her hand first, to see if she's comfortable with it, keep a certain distance. What happened to this time, this was from a non Muslim woman who was giving leadership training to high school students across the state of Illinois.

Right. But again, you find a lot of relation to what she was saying to our principles, right. So there's a lot that I've learned over time, there's a lot that the the theories entail. More than theories is a life life experiences, right? You don't want to get your heart broken, you don't want to break up your home. So when you interact with the opposite gender at work, keep it professional, keep it professional, stick to while you're at work, you're at work for work, you're at work to get a certain task, done a certain job done, you're there with a certain mission and vision in mind. Think about that only. How about now before you even know when you're choosing a role? Let's say you

really you want to get out there? And what's your what should you be your vision, your objective? Is it just for I'm choosing this career just for me, or we're limited in a certain area where they need more people in this particular field. So now we're deficient here, and I'm going to help the oma to help the community. Or I'm just like just filling out resume just to be working at McDonald's. Look so excellent. They're not going to have those same, it's different. You're in an environment, the environment is going to set the stage for probably what comes next, of course. So excellent question.

Of course, whenever you do something, you should always think how can I benefit the oma? How can I not only the oma right when we say Oh, man, this define what we mean by the oma, we mean human beings, right? We mean all people, because of as Muslims, we believe what we have is beneficial to everybody. And I know that you've talked a lot about this in your show, this is what I talk about on the wall away, as well as mental health, physical health. So we have a solution for everybody. To answer your question.

You have mentorship is very important. So sometimes we are in a position in our life where we think we know what we want. But we haven't accumulated the right amount of experiences to know exactly how to get there. Or maybe how our life can change every five or 10 years. So when I'm 18, or 19, I think I understand the world I think I know everything, and to an extent you do. But mentorship is important. So what I would say is find a mentor, find someone in the community that you trust, have them mentor you, and have them help you decide what you fit into, for example, because another another important principle in leadership is competency. competency, right. So as a leader, you have

to be honest. But number two, you should be competent. What do we mean by that? You have to be competent in your specific rule. You have to be competent in

navigating the culture at a workplace, if you don't have competency as a doctor, right? You're not interested in learning chemistry and biology and anatomy. But you say I want to become a doctor. how's that gonna work out? Right? So with whatever position a person wants to go into, develop those competencies. So if I want to become a graphic designer, what are you doing to learn graphic design? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.

We've had a lot of people fighting against themselves. I mean, the culture has changed, you know, people start to define their way of life according to the norms of society. What have you seen, because we've seen a lot of women, even men, but particularly because they call it a doggy dog world, it's a rat race. So you've had people now make certain decisions, and they put themselves in very uncomfortable predicaments. You talked about the sexual harassment you talked about people. Now, you know, the the man will get up, go out into the rat race of life, go to provide for his family. Now, it's become kind of a competition, right? Some of the roles are mixed up. Have you seen

this? Now, we know that it's beautiful and Islamic because you have the two genders complementing each other. Right? biologically, they're different, right? But they've been spiritually spiritual that is same in the sight of God, but they have

you know, you don't see the UFC having a man and a woman in the ring, right, gather together, and there's a reason and there's a reason for that. But then we've had a lot of

sisters and women, General now that they've, they've they fought sometimes against themselves. And now they have they've have everything they have, because it's a man's duty to provide for his family. He's the maintainer and to protect it. When somebody wins a UFC fight and they grab that Joe Rogan brings over the mic and start speaking, what's the one of the first things that they do? I'm gonna leave it to you. What's one of the first thing

They do. They bring it away when What? So I've just want to fight. Joe Rogan put some mic in my face. What's one of the first things that they say?

Who do they think? What do they think? Yeah, yeah. Oh, Who do they think? Yeah. depends who the person is tell who usually the team, the team, they see I think, you know, thank you to my coach, thank you to my trainers. Thank you to my team. Why? Why? Because this is a team effort. Very often we see one person going through the journey and winning. But we don't realize that even these winnings are team efforts. Same thing amongst lions, you brought up lions, okay. One is protecting one is hunting. My one of my specialties is team building. This is what I love doing. And I in the podcast, what I try to exemplify is using examples from sports. I'm a big fan of basketball and the

San Antonio Spurs. The way the Spurs win is by finding people who fit specific rules, like you said, How do people complement each other? A husband and wife complement each other, right? Everyone has a design designated role. When we start trying to do what the other person is good at. We have redundancies, we have inefficiency, we have certain tasks being done in certain tasks not being done. It's the same as the workplace. It's the same biologically right? One person usually bears the child. Right? Is that is that right? Or is it that the man is bearing the child as well? No, the woman's bearing it so the woman is bearing the child. And we find that these examples translate into

many different spheres and realms. So we have to be honest, and I think you put it the best way we can leave it there compliment. How do we complement each other? Right now we are on a talk show. We are talking to each other, we are complementing each other You are not talking to yourself, I am not talking to myself. This is a compliment. We don't have a problem with this, right? There's a mutual benefit marriages the same, there's a mutual benefit, right?

Look, there's there's been a lot of things that have happened throughout history to kind of start changing these dynamics. A lot of authors and researchers have pointed out that I believe it was World War One or World War Two, when the the, you know, in America, when the men went out to Europe to fight, the woman were left alone. And then the women were sent to the factories, to build the war machine to build bullets, ammunition, etc. So traditionally, women were not working outside of their homes. Now all of a sudden, overnight, they were sent into the workplace, they were making their own money they were providing for themselves. That's not the only issue.

Young boys were left with these women. So traditionally, what would have happened is, the father would have been a part of rearing his son, maybe took them out to the farm. He took them to the workplace, he took them in the car, they went shopping. But now when the father is overseas and fighting, you're left with the boy being completely reared by the mother, which look, I'm not saying that the mother should never rear the child, you have a mother, I have a mother. We know the benefits of our mothers instilling certain principles and values within us. But we also need a father, right? We need a father. And when you take either or out of the equation, it's detrimental.

Yeah, it's detrimental. Another author pointed out that when you go into the schooling, system, preschool, kindergarten, who are a lot of the teachers in preschool, kindergarten, and elementary school, it's women. Again, we're not knocking this. But when there's balance,

there's a benefit. So we have to bring balance to these things. And we have to be we have to be honest, I'm not saying that everything that I've said right now is 100% accurate. I'm open to criticism, I'm open to dialogue. But that's the difference. When we talk about tolerance versus intolerance. Part of being tolerant is being able to have a conversation. But most people don't want to have conversations, and especially in 2018, when we talk about gender roles, psychology, whatever these things are, people do not want to have a balanced conversation, and especially one side of the spectrum balance Yes, we will conclude that balance keeping it balanced in Islam is a balanced way

of life. And you know what the beautiful thing is the one who created life, the owner of life, he didn't leave us to figure these things out on our own. He sent the guidance, it's there. So whatever field you're going, you have the fic of this fic of that everything is there according to the verbatim Word of God, the Quran and the Sunnah, everything is there. Have you found that of course, everything is we it's not for us to be fumbling in the dark. But when people start falling their desires, they start ignoring this. That's when they start getting lost and end up making a lot more mistakes rather than adhering and looking at Okay, what is my Deen say? Is this acceptable? It's not

I'll leave it I'll make an adjustment. But that's when you put the crater first. And then things usually fall in line much better. Have you found that? Look, put the tablet down. Turn off the computer, put the phone away. be introspective. Just sit down at the table. Lie down at your bed. Take out the headphones and Think. Think about your day. Think about your doings. Think about your actions we make. We're humans we make mistakes. But the benefit is when you're introspective. What led you to make that mistake what can lead

do to avoid making that mistake. And as you mentioned, Islam is a balanced way of life Islam as a solution for a lot of these problems, but it's going to start when you're introspective. Right now we're too connected. We're always connected to either Facebook, Instagram, social media, YouTube, our TVs, our phones, our tablets, this disconnect for a while, find a time in the day where you can disconnect and just be introspective. Think, think meditate, you know, you've had guests on previously and you've talked about it many times. Eat right. Eat Right, right. Lower that inflammation in your body. When you eat right. And that inflammation is lowered. You can think

right? Yes, you can be right. Think positive, be positive. Fill your heart fill your brain food or stomach with good things. And then it's easy. But you have to start with being introspective. You need to ask yourself some hard questions. Beautiful where can people get ahold of you the wall away you can go on the wall away.com that's the wallet wha la way why.com while away also has a Facebook page you can hit me up on there and look up imraan on the wallet on Facebook or Instagram and I'm there thank you really good thank you for having me. Thank you so much is

that you have at the wall away with our brother imraan Islam has left us a complete guide from A to Z on how we need to live our lives and be introspective think ponder Everything is there subscribe if you haven't already, hit the little notification tab so you can get our our shows weekly sent to you We'll see you next time here on a D show until then. Peace be with you a salami please subscribe to the de show. Follow us on our official Facebook and Twitter pages in the links below. Please also help support the show by making a donation in the link below.