Tuesday, 12 October 2021

Takes From Anything You Want


 

Author: Derek Sivers

GenresBusiness, Start up, Entrepreneurship, Money

RatingLifechanging

The Book in One Sentence

Anything you want teaches you 40 lessons every entrepreneur needs to know before setting up any business starting from being who you are and making your business anything you want without following the rules in the market.

Impressions

This book has completely changed my life in terms of how I thought of business. The authors beginning in 1997 mostly resonated with where I am today and of course the end of the book is what I dream to reach in the next 5 years.

Who should read it?

This book should be a must read for every human who wants to start a business, grow it and get out of it anytime they feel like.

How the book changed me

Biggest change and transformation for me from the book is that execution is key. My execution has been zero to none and I wasted lots of ideas due to the less actions. After reading it, I started setting up execution strategies for whatever idea that came to mind.

My top 3 Quotes

  1. Never forget why you are really doing what you are doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?

  2. Most people don’t know why they are doing what they are doing. They imitate others, go with the flow and follow paths without making their own.

  3. Don’t be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.

My top 3 Lessons

  1. Rule number 1 of service business, care about your customers more than about yourself, and you will do well. 

  2. Know your personal philosophy. Whatever you make, it’s your creation, so make it your personal dream come true.

  3. Do what makes you happy and don’t imitate others. Keep inventing and improving and learn to switch when it is not a hit.

Monday, 11 October 2021

Girl Child


 



I wake up early for Fajr prayers and she is already up in the kitchen. I sleep late watching Football and she is stuck in the kitchen cleaning and making breakfast cajiin.

I go to school to compete her and I always come second to her. She leads the class and still has no time for friends at Duhr, because Lunch has to be prepared at home.

 When she struggles to give birth while the dads are away, she takes care of herself. When there is a small argument and He reaches out for divorce, she gets to take care of her children. She never has enough appreciation and support and yet, she perfectly knows what to do. 


She here is every somali girl out there. I cherish you, celebrate you and respect you. I know how brave, strong and smart you are because I have a queen and 3 princesses in our household, another 20 I am blessed with as eedos and Habaryaros, 30 more as close cousins, nieces and nephews and above 100 as close friends and shields. I succeed and shine daily because I am raised by somali queens. I beat my competition everyday because I am surrounded by Somali queens.

I am never disrespecting the male here but I know the female deserve way more praise now and forever.

Do you know why they say behind every successful man, there is a woman? Hear the reason out and try to understand.

A woman gives birth to you, a woman teaches you to talk, walk and play, a woman consoles you at the end of everyday, motivates you and teaches you what happiness is, a woman will cry for you, miss you and be by your bedside when you get to say goodbye. All this are things 90% of women do everyday without getting tired or expecting something back.


If you know all this and understand with me, who are we to disrespect any woman? 

Let us celebrate the international girl day today and learn to respect every female every day.

Sunday, 10 October 2021

A Friend In DEEN Is A Friend InDEED


 

We all pray and ask Allah for what we long for. Some of us are so lucky to still have parents who pray for them every now and then, and others even have friends who pray for them too. Sometimes our prayers are answered directly, other times we get things we didn’t ask for but needed and sometimes we get things we never asked for and never thought we even needed. This category is the best one and only those who are lucky enough get them. 


For me personally, there are times my prayers are answered directly like being protected and given what I ask for. There are also times when my prayers gave me a different thing that I needed but never asked for, like being rejected for a scholarship and redirected to the field of coaching and personal development. Now due to my prayers and those of my loved ones, I got what I never asked for and never thought I needed. Keep reading this blog post and I hope you are feeling well wherever you are pal.


Friends are always a blessing. I believe we all need friends who are there for us on our ups and downs, who cheer us and feel low for us, who champion us and challenge us too. I am someone who has all the friends I need in this life, or l believe that. My Mother – the love of my life – always prays for me to find the best of friends out there. Allah on the other end, answers her prayers and provides me who I need most in my life. Sometimes, I feel down and exhausted and most times I don’t get the reason. But every time in these scenarios, I used to make a friend who was always there for me but I mostly become too busy on them. Due to that, our meetings decrease and it turns to be text messages here and there.


The reason I am sharing all this is because I want you to shuffle your friends and find the person who pushes and pressures you on sides of your life you don’t want to talk about at all. For me, my deen side has always been a secret. I practiced it and I was just an Okay person in that sector. I made friends who always pushed me on the deen side and I listened to them. All these friends used to be male figures in my life who I still regard so high status in my life, but at the same time, I either cut them off or our meetings hasn’t been so regular anymore.


I recently made a new female friend. We only meet three times so far and in all these occasions, she kept on pushing me on my Deen side and showed me ways I had to improve to succeed in this life. Now is when I understand that all my prayers are answered. I push myself harder to succeed and all success starts from the Deen. This is Allah showing me that I needed a big improvement on my spiritual life to succeed in this life. Allah gave me male friends who showed me that but I pushed them away. Now this shows me How Allah is giving me a female friend, knowing that I don’t push away any female friend and in turn, her pushing me on my spiritual side.


My main point here is for any friendships that you ever make, have one who will always remind you of your deen and it will always be hard to lose them or push them away. Remember, A friend in DEEN is a friend INDEED.

Saturday, 9 October 2021

Positivity Brings Opportunity


 



If everyone could understand what we have infront of us is an opportunity, we would see the world in a difrerent lens than the one we are using now.


We meet people daily. We read books every now and then. We watch movies occassionaly. All these are opportunities too, if only we see it that way. Think back of a person you met randomly and ended up being useful some other time. Think of a book you once read and it’s content played a role in your life. Look at how all the pictures we see online or the movies we watch come into play.


Opportunities are everywhere around us only if we put on a different lens than we use now. We are all clouded with negativity. We see the black ink dot in the white paper when it is only occupying less than 1% of the area. We keep on telling people to improve and change in this area and never mention all the correct things they do daily.  We keep on trying catching out employees doing the wrong things at work when we can catch them doing the right thing and leave them to be motivated and energized.


Everything in this life can be learned through trials and practice. Let us take the next 30 days putting more effort on positivity than negativity. Let us compliment ourselves when we do a right thing and forget about the one wrong thing we do. Let us learn to see this world with a different lens than the one we use now. Positivity wins you more things in life than negativity does. Opportunities are scattered around us more than problems are.

Friday, 8 October 2021

Dear Reader

 




Dear You

Yes, You Reading This.


I am rich. I am rich with lots of dreams inside me. I am rich with lots of expectations I have of my people. I am rich with how much I want to bring change to this world. Any change I dream of starts with me and sometimes I don’t even know how to change myself. I am never complete, never enough neither doing enough. The Sabr that I have, knowing I will succeed, gives me enough satisfaction to sleep every night. You should have the same patience too. You are created to fulfil your dreams and live the best life possible. Don’t lose hope for the pain you are facing now, the problems that are overtaking you now or the obstacles you keep on hitting on a daily basis. Have hope in the fact that you still wake up in the morning. Have hope in the fact that you still take a step daily. Have hope in the fact that you too are capable of anything out there only if you are willing to think straight.


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I am writing this to my inner self knowing too well that one other person needs too. Words are never enough to make anyone feel right but I hope my words will turn on the engine inside you to think straight. They work for me sometimes but not always. When they work for you, well and Good but when they don’t, don’t leave in despair, find a friend.

I have too many friends out there. I don’t communicate with them mostly and I blame myself for that. Each one of them have a purpose in my life. I have those I spend my good days with, those I spend my bad days with, those I go to them to relax, those I take advices from and even those I just sit around them feeling peace and tranquility. My point in friends is this, have one friend who you can go to anytime and cry out to them, tell them all your worries and problems, bring out every vulnerability inside you and sit back to hear from them. From experience, I know their words will be powerful. They will give you the hope you need to wake up from the pain you live in at that moment. Friends play a major part in my growth and I hope they do it for you too.


Life is beautiful and never fair. We need more hope so that we don’t give up easily. Be your number 1 fan and give yourself that hope or get a friend who is there for you at all cost. Any moment you feel low or down, any moment you want someone to talk to, Please do not hesitate to contact me. I might not pick up your call or reply in time, but any text you send me gets back a reply for sure. Leave me a long text on my social media pages and expect a long audio voice note to give you hope and show you the light that got deemed in your life

Thursday, 7 October 2021

7 Takes From Atomic Habits


 

7 Takes From Atomic Habits

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

Disclaimer: Everything I share here are my opinions, thoughts and views.

Hello IsmileWorld, Welcome back to the review of another great read. I first read the atomic habits on March, 2020 and my last read of this book was few days ago. This book has helped me build a whole workshop on habit formation and has personally taught me how to make and break habits.

The author James Clear is a writer and a speaker focused on habits, decision-making and continuous improvement. His thoughts on the book are:

Atomic Habits is the most comprehensive and practical guide on how to create good habits, break bad ones, and get 1 percent better every day. I do not believe you will find a more actionable book on the subject of habits and improvement.

If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system.

Bad habits repeat themselves not because you don’t want to change but because you have the wrong system for change. This is one of the core philosophies of Atomic Habits: You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. In this book, you’ll get a proven plan that can take you to new heights.

Here are my 7 key take-aways from the book:

          1. How Habits shape your identity

To change your identity, you first have to change your outcomes and processes. Your outcomes are the goals you set and processes are the systems and routines you follow. In other words, outcomes are what you get, processes are what you do and identity is what you believe. The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on what you wish to become.

I remember when I started my reading journey. I was never interested in which book I read or if I finished it. My main goal was to become a reader. I went to the library daily from morning and stayed till late afternoons reading every book I see. When I got bored, I read the next one in line. These processes and outcomes gave me the identity of a reader. Today, friends ask me if I read this book and if I would recommend them to read. I might have not read all the books they ask but I know the outcome they might get from it and can recommend them a book.

Don’t think like ‘I want to read this book (outcome) and if I read 30 pages a day, I will finish it (process).

The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.

The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.

The goal is not to wake up early, the goal is to be productive in the mornings.

 

2.      2. The Four Stages of Habit Formation

Simply, the four stages are two problem phases and two solution phases. The two problem phases are the cue and craving and the solution phases are the response and the reward.


·         Cue: the trigger which predicts a reward: the buzzing of your phone with a new SMS;

·         Craving: the motivational force behind every habit; what makes you act; in the case above, you want to learn the content of the message;

·         Response: the actual habit you perform: you grab your phone and read the text;

·         Reward: the end goal of every habit: the cue is all about noticing the reward, the craving about wanting it, and the response about obtaining it; once the reward comes your way, your craving is satisfied;

I am a visual student and explain better visually, if you need to understand more on this, Please let me know in the comments and I will make a video out of it Inshaalah.

 

3.     3.  How to Create a Good Habit

1st Law (Cue): Make it obvious

2nd Law (Craving): Make it attractive

3rd Law (Response): Make it easy

4th Law (Reward): Make it satisfying

 

The main idea about habit formation is to fall in love with something. To fall in love, all the good things that make us happy has to align there. The 4 laws mentioned above are just mindset shifts, working on the mind falling in love with an activity. For example, I want to become a reader. To do that, I have to make my cue and triggers very obvious. If you want to make people see you to be smart, you dress smart and speak smart. If you want to be seen strong, you show off your muscles and strength. If you want to be seen a reader, you should be making it more obvious. Carry books around, network with other readers and put your books around you all the time. Your mind will be tempted and triggered to read and that is the start of your habit formation. Always carry a notebook to jot down all ideas you gather along the way and come back to reading them another time.

The second law is to make your craving attractive. Everything that makes you act has to be attractive. Choose a good book you will fall in love with. Read the reviews and the talking points from other people. Do anything that will make you be attracted to your next read.

The third law is to make your response easy. This is the part you grab your phone to read that juicy text from your girlfriend. Start with 50 pages book then move to 70 pages and up you go. When I get lazy and unmotivated today, I either reread an old book, listen to an audiobook or read books under 50 pages. Every finish of a book gives me more energy and love for the next book, which is why I sometimes read 2 books in a day.

The last law is to make the reward satisfying. Read a book on your field or on something you want to learn. When you know what you want from a book, that gives you the satisfaction factor and you end up being happy afterwards and easily makes you achieve your goals.

 

4.      4. How to Break a Bad Habit

Invert all the systems mentioned above.

1st law (Cue): Make it invisible

2nd law (Craving): Make it unattractive

3rd law (Response): Make it difficult

4th law (Reward): Make it unsatisfying

5.      5. Role of Family and Friends in shaping your Habits

The culture we live in determines which behaviours are attractive to us. We tend to imitate the habits of 3 social groups: the close (family and friends), the many (the tribe) and the powerful (those with status and prestige). Normally, if a behaviour can get us approval, respect and praise, we find it attractive. It is like cleaning the streets of your hometown and making it a habit or helping old ladies carry their grocery.

Now think of why our Somali community has less readers? It is because we are surrounded by social groups who are not giving us the approval, respect and praise we deserve. To overcome this, we have to join a culture where we already have something in common with the group. Make friends who are readers, join book clubs and follow anyone who reads more than you.

6.      6. True Stories

The book has a lot of true stories of Olympic gold medalist, award winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians and star comedians. To be better at what you do, study the examples and stories of those who did before. Somalis say ‘Sadar Muuqda Suaal Ka Dhan’ meaning, what you see before you or the line in front of you does not need questions to be asked, you see it for yourself.

7.      7. Habit Journals

My last and key take away is journals and keeping the progress of habits. Keep a daily journal and think of the happenings of everyday, keep a gratitude journal and remember what you are grateful for each day. Keep a productivity journal and list your most important task every day. Keeping journals shows you the progress of your habits and the system you follow on a daily basis.

I have enjoyed writing these and I hope you take away something from it. Leave a comment and let me know of your thoughts. Do not forget to share with family and friends too. Till our next read, Happy Reading.

Ismile Inspires

 


Wednesday, 6 October 2021

Reading More - Tips

One thing most of us have in common, we all want to be readers. We all know the importance reading adds to our lives and I won’t talk about that here todayu. Instead, one area we all want to work on is reading with concentration. It is easy for us to watch hours of a football match without losing our concentration. It is also easy for us to watch lots of movies in one seating without losing our concentration. But why is it so hard to read for an hour only with all our concentration present. This is what I am going to cover here today. If you check the examples of football and movies above, they have three things in common that helps it to have concentration for a longer period. These three things are: 

1. Programming
2.Practice 
3. Passion 

 Movies and football are automatically programmed into our minds, we do it all the time and that checks off the practice and it is one thing we love doing it hence the passion aspect being present.

 How can we make reading tick all the above boxes? 

PROGRAMMING 

 If you set out to do anything, you are supposed to program your mind first. You are supposed to answer your WHY for wanting to do that thing. For example, If I want to exercise and go to gym, I will sit down somewhere to set out plans. Why I want to go to gym? It is because I want to lose some weight. Why this gym specifically? Maybe it has good trainers or it is closer to my house or my friends go there or maybe it is cheaper than the rest. Now I will think of what times I want to go there every day. Maybe early mornings because I don’t go back to sleep and it is easy for me or maybe I will go in the evening because my friends go there that time and they will be my accountability partners. Asking yourself all this and planning out the answers is what we call programming of the mind. When the mind knows all these answers, it is like a GPS you put it all the directions and it is ready to take you wherever you want to go. Your mind plays the role of making sure you concentrate throughout the gym classes and not miss a day. Same goes for reading. 

We need to sit down and program down our mind to create a reading habit with concentration. But how do you do that? It again starts with you sitting down with a pen and a paper and asking yourself the following questions? 

1. Why do you want to read? Why now? Why this book?
 2. When or what times do you want to read? Daily or two times a week or more?
 3. Where do you want to read? At the library or in your bedroom or in the dining table?
 4. How will you be reading? Read over everything and be done or take notes? 

 These are examples of questions when you answer them, they help you program your mind perfectly. For example, you want to read to better yourself and now is the time you think you are free and the reason you want to read this book is maybe you want to work on your leadership skills. You want to read every morning before you leave the house for 10mins only and you will be reading in the balcony of the sitting room. You will be going through the book and noting down all important points along the way. These are your answers. The way your mind works is it will remind you every morning that you are missing something and when you get a book in your preferred place, it will make sure you concentrate throughout the reading with less distractions.

 The only way you can know if this works is if you give it a try. Program your mind today and start creating a reading habit in your life.

 PRACTICE 

The example we set above was only 10min reading every day. This is the best practice that can help you create a reading habit. Read for only 10mins and stop reading even if you were enjoying that book. Come back to it at a later time and read for another 10min and stop. The practice here is the same way you practice every other skill you learnt whether it is football or even cooking. Do it in a short period over many repetitions and you get a well-practiced skill in your life forever.

 PASSION 

Passion is the love and energy you put in into everything you do. If you are really into something, you have to love it to succeed in it. You can’t do something you don’t love and expect to get something big. 

Fall in love with reading first to get your concentration and reading speed to another level. How do we fall in love with reading? Go back to your why, why do you want to read? That gives you a clear reason which can make you fall in love with reading. Another thing that can help is only read what you love. If you are into histories of people, read more biographies. If you are into personal development, read the personal development books written by your favorite authors. That way you will fall in love with reading and become more passionate.

 In conclusion, always remember to write down your goals clearly. If your goal is to read 50 pages daily, write it down and that will help your mind into programming yourself. Also, start saying No more often. You will for sure be distracted, Say NO to everything when it is time to read. I hope you fall in love with reading very soon and you create a habit that will stay with you forever. This is the greatest investment I made for myself and I am sure it will be the same for you. Happy reading more books.

Sunday, 3 October 2021

The Diary Of Xamar - Ep 1

I moved to Mogadishu. Shall I say that again to make myself louder and clear. Many of my closest people would not believe this at all. I have been running away from my country since 2012 and why will I want it this much now? Moving to Nairobi has not changed only my career path, it has changed many other things including my passion and purpose in life.

 I so much wanted to go abroad, get a degree and work in a prestigious engineering firm or even make my own. These were my dreams and aspirations. Today, writing my daily blog post from my bedroom in Mogadishu do not see such dreams for even a second. I was born with the love of leadership, wanting to take initiatives, feeling like I should lead everyone and tell them what to do and not do. Some of this childhood wishes were reborn again in Nairobi. 

Due the course of my life, I felt like I made alot of wrong choices and career mistakes. Some of these still haunt me till date. One of the main things I have missed was a role model, someone to look up to, to learn from and get directions for life. I was not close to my older brothers and neither had an older friend or that old friend in the neighborhood who all the children around him followed his lead.

 I made friends older than me who were not the right example at all and went astray along the journey. After many prayers, Allah has saved me and Nairobi decision came at that moment in my life. From that period onwards, I promised myself I would take two years to learn from everyone I meet, go back to my country and be an example and a role model to every Somali youth missing one. I cannot touch everyone’s life but I believe I can inspire many to make a difference in their neighborhood and create a generation better than the one we live in today.

 Mogadishu has so far welcomed me great and I am enjoying my stay here. This is the first entry on my diary of Xamar and I will be posting an entry as a blog post everyday Inshaalah. To any reader reading this now, I promise you, you have a story and that is what will make a difference in our community. Speak up, share your story and let us together create hope for our siblings and the siblings of this great nation.

Saturday, 2 October 2021

The Birth of Ismile Inspires

My name is Ismail Burhan, I am a motivational speaker and a content creator and I am going to tell you the story of my journey. I took the most important decision of my life 2 years ago in 2019. I decided to leave my life in my hometown Bosaso. My heart was longing for something else. I needed more satisfaction in my life. I moved to this place, Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. My biggest goal then was to start masters and be done in the next two years, go back to Somalia and work for my dream organization, the UN and be the difference I always wanted to be. Today marks exactly 2 years and this is how my life has unfolded in that period. The only dream that I ever had, the only goal that I ever envisioned was to become the best construction manager and work with UN, travel to many places and own lots of real estate’s everywhere.

 What a typical dream for every little child growing in his hometown who have not seen the real life outside its comfort zones. Moving to Nairobi with shoulders held high, with only one visible goal, everything seemed easy. With my love for my community, I settled in Eastleigh easily and I was happy being surrounded by a community just like the one I grew up with. We only had one difference thou, the youth here knew their purpose, their goals and the reason they woke up every day. I was amazed with that at first, I wanted to be closer to them and know what ticked them. Due to this, I gave most of my time making friends and networking. 

What helped me most here was Awjama Cultural Centre, a community center in the heart of Eastleigh that was run by Somalis for Somalis. It was a library in a cultural Centre and it attracted every book lover and community enthusiast, all the networks I ever needed to have. I volunteered at this Centre and it gave me everything I needed, rich networks, leadership role and a platform to better myself and above all, an opportunity to discover my love and passion for community work. At Awjama, I learnt many skills including leadership and storytelling and the power the community has on its youth to becoming the change our country is waiting for. It taught me to change a community, you have to change yourself first and I turned to be more of a community leader than a construction manager.

 My love and dedication for my master’s degree slowly started to decrease whereas my love for community work has increased in big numbers. With this mentality, I almost came close to dropping out of university many times and every instinct told me to do so. I felt lost and completely had zero motivation to attend classes anymore. Fortunately, for me thou, after finishing my first semesters, the Covid broke out and that gave me a break I yearned for in a long time. Our city went into lockdown and I got the rest I longed for.

 I got a long period of completely no work whatsoever. My school was closed; the center I volunteered was locked too. I had to figure out new things I would do to overcome the long boredom hours locked inside my apartment. Ramadan in 2020 came and we did our worship indoors too. This Ramadan was figuring out what I wanted with my life and learning a lot online mainly Instagram lives. I came out of the Ramadan with more focus into community and doing something for them. I started running which was a passion for me; I always knew I would rather ran kilometers than swim in a small poll hence started running early morning. This new experience attracted my friends first, we had a busy morning routine that was composed of running, and nature walks. It gave birth to forming a team who ran with us in the morning. 

This branched out to forming a football team from this squad with both male and female teams and we gave our energy into running and playing football together. We had a lot of time where we met and had fun, drank shaax together and many times played Ludo in each of our houses. The love and teamwork between the team gave me a new responsibility, taking care of them and giving them more of the wisdom I believed I possessed. I started adding an input to our morning runs, at the start it was a speech every day after the run and then book readings every morning. To stay motivated, we had weekend trips outside the city and our team grew and loved each other more.

 The greatest accomplishment we had from this love and togetherness was starting a morning charity program where we fed the street children every morning from July 31st 2020 to April 2021 and great thanks to Ikram, Zakaria, Qaran, Laarsin and the rest for their dedication and work ethic on this. In this period, I also became a coach and a speaker and shared the knowledge I believe I got from the books I read to my community. My main way of passing this was through the platform I had at Awjama, my social media pages and YouTube and I later started a tiktok channel and a podcast in Somali.

 My speaking career was a dream I have never seen before I came here and it turned out to be something I always missed in my life. This has been what my heart has been longing for although I got it so late but it is something am grateful for. It taught me beyond what I expected and it opened doors engineering would have never knocked at. 

To the many people in my family who disagree with the way I do it, my main hope is you will be proud of me one day Insha Allah. Looking back at it now, I first spoke on Nov 13th 2019 to university students in Multimedia University many thanks to Imtiaz who gave me the opportunity and I last spoke last Sunday 1st August 2021 in Korogocho to empower young boys on becoming their better selves many thanks to Hamza Hassan who gave me the opportunity. During this period, I spoke In Nairobi, Nakuru, Garissa, Bosaso, Carmo and Garowe and lots of Thanks to Awjama Center for the many opportunities and all my friends who set up these platforms and entrusted me with something I was not perfect at. 

My only input is to share what I know in how I know best and to always be a student taking every lesson and giving it back to my community. In this period, I spoke at schools, universities, libraries and restaurant halls for 30 times to over 1150 audiences ranging from young primary school students to adults doing businesses. My stand out moment was on 3rd December 2020 speaking in my hometown Bosaso in front of my mother and family members and the only thing I am waiting to accomplish now is to speak at an event where my Dad is present too.

 I have also collected over 24,000 views on YouTube and roughly another 30,000 views on tiktok and Instagram. These numbers only give me more hope and motivation to double my efforts into my new passion, which is in the areas of personal development. I have not monetized or started earning any income from my social influence yet but that will be one of the big priorities in the coming months Insha’Allah. 

I have not started any of this to gain any income, my sole and main purpose was to build my community but at the same time an empty stomach cannot do anything big and that brings the idea of monetization and income generation from my newly found passion. I failed in my biggest goal coming here, which was to earn my master’s degree, but I succeeded in my other goals, which were perfecting my English language skills and developing a continuous habit of reading books. Today, I read an average of 100 pages daily and I speak English fluently. The fact that I have not graduated university yet gives me the idea of going back to Somalia and starting a hustle but again finding a new passion that might be a side hustle gives me the hope of staying here and proving doubters wrong.

 The biggest obstacle in everyone’s life is himself or herself and I should fight harder to silence my inner critics and keep working harder to achieve all my dreams very soon. The only question that I ask any reader reading this is; did I ever have any influence on you? Have I been there for you or has any of my messages changed your perspective on anything? I love to believe I did so and I am grateful to the One Above for giving me the opportunity to have an influence on others. I am grateful to everyone who gave me an opportunity to speak anywhere, to everyone who trusted me with their story, to everyone who asked for advice, to everyone who believes in me, to everyone who made me their mentor and to everyone reading this. Thank you and kind regards.

Blog post 8/30 - Reflections

 Start time: 02:21pm January comes to an end today. It has not been as productive as I hoped. I set plans and rules to follow and I almost f...