Blog Post 1/30-unedited

 

Start time: 8.45pm

I am reading one of my favorite people’s blogs and I came across an interesting article and idea. Ali Abdaal mentioned something on public journals and morning pages. What also came up here was chatting to Mathew Dicks, the author of Storyworthy and an expert in storytelling. He shared how he has been blogging everyday since 2003 and this gave me lots of ideas.

First I downloaded morning pages and I started sharing my first post on 8.45pm on a Sunday night. I am planning to write 500 words daily and also writing a blog post everyday. I don’t know if I will get that energy or drive to continue but the only way to Find out is by trying. Let me keep writing this post and maybe make it online without edits or delays. Coming up tonight is my first blog post pals, but what should I write on. Let me use Mathew’s example and generate my thoughts.

And here is where I start…..

I have been thinking about management and innovation lately. I have been thinking about design thinking and making projects come to life. I have been thinking about podcasts and rebranding. I have been having lots of doubts on many issues ongoing in my life right now. Let’s talk about all this, I don’t feel like they should be private anymore, let’s share what’s on my mind just like how much Facebook wants us to. 

What’s on your mind? 

My first job in Mogadishu is becoming a manager. I don’t only manage few of my friends but I am managing big plans for a big community. I have lots of ideas to impact our community and what a better time than now to turn all my thoughts into concrete actions. I am looking forward to turning different lights to a community that lived in the darkness. I know they only expect a small light to light their path but they definitely deserve different shades of lights to brighten their lives. Our community deserves its own people to think of them but not eat them out. I am blessed to have crossed this path now because I know together with my team, we will lit a whole world for our community. 

I might have had dreams of becoming a construction manager but then, right after I became one, I felt like I should be a community leader. I felt the happiness and the satisfaction it came with, I don’t see the time on the field or the less money I benefit, all I see is impacting one life everyday. Being a leader is not only enjoying the fame part, but it’s sweating in the game part and producing real results.

I feel like I have lots more to share and my words are coming to end. I will stop here for today and I will definitely write more words tomorrow Inshaalah.

Writing these, my friend is playing with his camera taking pictures beside me and I will definitely use of those images as a thumbnail for this. Thank you for giving me your time to read this and if you are still reading it, please stop now Lol, like it and if you enjoyed, share it on your pages. Thank you and be blessed always.

End time: 9.03pm

2021 Recap

 

2021 Recap

I started 2021 celebrating on the balcony of my apartment in Nairobi, shouting out my lungs and welcoming 2021 in style. I posted on my status a little short resolution saying “2021 a year of more traveling, a year of more service, a year to fall in love and a year full of blessings. To a year of growth and learning Inshaalah”

365 days later, looking back and reflecting, I feel like I had a big year. I am not one to feel pride in myself but the past 12 months has treated me well and taught me a lot.

My year started slow. I just got back from visiting family in Somalia and I was supposed to be in a great mood. There was nothing like that. January started with lots of hopes and goals but in the middle, career problems, loneliness, obstacles, depression  and pain hit me bad. I dealt with it as best as I could and made books my closest friends. I left social media and spent January either on bed sleeping or reading books in my little balcony on the 5th floor of an apartment in Pangani facing the sunset and sipping my homemade coffee. My routine was simple and always the same, bed or books. The digital detox helped and I ended January shooting a YouTube video to explain my slump and provide solutions to anyone facing the same issues.

February came with its own fun and it brought me back to social media, with a little focus knowing what I wanted to do. I shot another 4 videos for YouTube, numerous others for Tiktok and increased my reading to double taking my tally to 13 books in 2 months. I spoke on 2 stages and my hopes for 2021 became brighter. My February came to a close with a workshop on values and purpose.

March was all about more MCeeing, reading, speaking, traveling and serving the community. It started with travelling to Nakuru and Kericho and spending time in the green. I MCeed an event, spoke and mentored a boarding secondary school and took part in Ajarso Afuri- a program that serves the Eastleigh community by providing them with a month worth foodstuff for Ramadan.

My April kicked off with a public speaking workshop and trained 20 young youth. The impact this training had on a young girl was enormous. She came to the training not able to utter a word infront of others and today she confidentally speaks on stages. This is what she texted me two months ago “Assalam caleykum warahmatullah wabarakatuh, I hope you're doing good. On Sunday I'll be on stage for the 3rd time Alhamdulillah. I am very very happy and I feel like I am now living the life I have denied myself for 22 years of my life. Before I could not stand infront of even two unknown pple and talk. I was dealing with self esteem issues and zero confidence and this limited me from doing what a lot of people do but I remember the first time I met you at awjamac I didn't know that the workshop you held would impact me greatly and this is another day of appreciation ,Thank you so much And May Allah bless you every day”

The rest of April was enjoying the Ramadan Barakah, doing food deliveries and working harder on my spiritual side. My friends and I were able to conduct two Ramadan competitions for youth on general education and rewarded them at the end. It has always been fun for me organising and bringing together many youth.

On 7th of May, I have achieved one of my biggest goals of the year and launched my podcast. It is called Ismile Inspires show and it is available on every podcasting platform. We will have video series too on youtube starting this thursday 6th January. I also challenged myself to do a 30 day vlogs on my youtube channel and this has been teaching me discipline and consistency. We hit 1000 subscribers on youtube and May ended well.

June is the most important month of the year for me personally. People are born twice, once when they come to the world and also when they find themselves. This month happens to combine both my birthdays and I call it Birth and Reflect month. The tradition for the past 3 years was to take a break from 5th June, to pause, reflect and plan for the coming year. This year, I travelled to a nearby town, disconnected my line, went offline and took a week of solititude. I created new goals and plan for 12 months to come and I will reflect on this on June 2022 Inshaalah.

June also gave me more opportunities and I MCeed two other events, spoke on stages and did a workshop on finding your passion. My retreat week gave me more clarity and focus and I was working on a high speed again.

July was a low month again, I felt too bad about my state and I wanted a stop. From June’s reflection, my biggest problem was being dependent and I gave myself 3 month for that to stop. Having this feeling, I decided to move to family and spend sometime with them atleast to smile again. I travelled with family to Mombasa for vacation and came back to organise and MC Ambassador Americo’s book launch. These two have cheered me up and blessed my July.

August started with a mentorship talk to young boys followed by 3 other speaking engagements in schools and book launches. Apart from the talks, I journalled alot this month and looked for solutions to my dependency status. I had to stop being fed by family and be responsible for myself.

Lots of thoughts and journalling welcomed my September and I reached a random decision to move to Mogadishu. I saw a bright light at the end of the tunnel but I was scared to fail in Mogadishu. I had to move and try rather than stay on a comfortable zone and be dependent on my sister. I took a hard decision and arrived in Mogadishu on 19th of September. I did not have family or lots of friends apart from my online friends and a friend welcomed me to his home. Mogadishu welcomed me so perfectly and changed lots of online friends to real life friends and made new ones. The last two weeks of September in Mogadishu was the most amazing days of the whole year so far. Now I feel like it has been a correct decision moving here and I am loving it everyday.

October was all about meeting more friends, seeing new places, writing more blogs and doing two contracts on communication.

November was a busy month of work and fun. I started giving a 10 min talk at Simad University. I also had an online workshop with an organisation in the UK for youth all around the world. My topic was on finding your passion and it went well.

The stand out moment of November was my work trip to Uganda. I have been away from 17th to 28th of November and spent some beautiful days in Kampala, Nairobi and Garissa.

December had two big events planned and I was part of both. First up was the Mogadishu book fair where I did storytelling for school children representing Awjama. Next up was Mogadishu Tech Summit and I was part of the communication team that made the conference trend for 3 days on every social media platform. It was followed by my first workshop in Mogadishu on Personal Development that attracted over 100 youth for two days. 

I end my December on a retreat and reflection week and I travelled with a team to WarSheikh to spend 5 days here. So far, it has been very effective and taught me a lot and I hope I will be doing vlogs here too. 

Indeed, 2021 has been a year of travelling more, doing more service for the community, falling in love that later broke lol and I attracted lots of blessing which I am deeply grateful for. It has been a year full of growth and learning and it has led me to a different new city to live in, make new friends and get to work here. I read 100 books and I am so proud of achieving that goal.

If I were to rate 2021, I will give it a 8/10 and I am so happy with my progress.

I hope and pray for even a better 2022 and my biggest goals are to have an impact on 22 people, make 22k savings and marry Inshaalah. It will be a year of more impact, income and building a new family.

Coversation With The Waves

 

I had a conversation with the waves today and asked why there is rubbish in its doors (the shore)

The waves Said, “ I am the care takers of the sea, I clean it to give a living to its inhabitants. My job is to take out the rubbish from inside the sea, push it out to the shores and let mankind do the rest. The problem I have with my neighbors ( the mankind) is that they want to ignore their job ( collecting the rubbish) and come to our house to enjoy swimming on us and leave us for their warm shelters. All I ever ask of them is to pay back to us, after every swim, collect the rubbish and throw it away. That way we would be interdependent on each other and succeed together to have a beautiful and clean beach”

My little encounter with the waves today reminds us that we all need each other. Animals take in Oxygen and give out carbon dioxide while plants take in that and in return give us oxygen. Human beings give plants to animals and in return get food, animals eat plants to get us food and in return give the plants their shit to act as nutrients for plants to grow. Everything and everyone on this planet need each other. As much as we need the sea to swim and have fun, it needs us to collect the rubbish and clean it too.

If Everyone does what they are supposed to do, everything will be as we need it to be. Simple Maths.

#TeamSeas

Takes From Anything You Want

 

Author: Derek Sivers

Genres: Business, Start up, Entrepreneurship, Money

Rating: Lifechanging

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.

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.

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.

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.