Typical self development gurus will often advise to go about life finding and discovering yourself. Realize what you like and dislike, know what you’re good at and what you’re not, etc…

But wait, was I born this way? With my likes and dislikes predetermined? With my skills preprogrammed?

“I’m an introvert, public speaking isn’t my thing”
But.. who stamped the introvert label on my personality?

While acknowledging genetic traits that affect your personality, I’m a big believer in the incredible power of the brain and its psychology.
You don’t find yourself. That’s a rather limiting approach. You make yourself. You build, create, and influence it. Again, it’s more choice, less chance.

Yours truly was a shy introvert one day who never thought he could present in front of an audience. Today, I genuinely enjoy public speaking.

What I’m trying to say is, your journey shouldn’t be about discovering yourself. It should rather be about creating yourself. You’re not lost, you’re just a clear canvas. You get to draw on that canvas.

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it”

As much as I truly admire this quote and understand its core, it treats “life” as a reactive experience that happens to you by “Chance” and fails to realize that it could be a proactive experience with independent “Choice”.

I realize more as I grow that once you get over this bias, once you realize that life accepts inputs that were not given as options, and once you understand that your life decisions do NOT have to be reactive to events that happen to you or around you, then life will never be the same experience.
How you react to things is very important, but I for one believe that decisions which are not reactive are the most vital.

You get to shape, form, and influence your own life. And this could be in bold decisions as simple as deciding to wake up an hour earlier every day to read, or as seemingly transformative as migrating to a new country. They are both equally effective decisions that could steer your life in a different direction.

You would live this as a maker/writer/artist or entrepreneur because nobody will get you out of bed every morning. Nobody will tell you what you should think, strategize, or execute. You’re acting, not reacting. That’s at the core of innovation.

Life is 100% what you do.
Most of it should be independent choice, some of it is reacting to chance.

Ladies, Gentlemen, cat that looks like hitler, dog that is terrified from people, and donkey that is pregnant.. I hope I didn’t miss anybody.
I wasn’t going to make it to Marrakech. I only booked my ticket a week ago, and I’m so glad I’m here today.
I’ve done presentations, pitches, and debates.. But this is my first wedding speech, so bear with me. And please excuse my late-puberty voice. I like to think it makes me sound more compassionate.
I’ve met Ali 4 years ago in an event, and I was thinking to myself once he left, man, he must be the biggest asshole I’ve ever met. I loved him. And hated him. It was this mixed feeling of love and hate for the first few times we met. His blunt statements and questions put me out of my comfort zone, yet I felt we related on a few fronts. I don’t know how or why, but ever since, in most major crossroads in my life, I find him there, ready to listen in return for a large cup of costa coffee. P.s. costa coffee sucks
From the time he saw me emotionally irritated in an event and forced me out of it to have a talk, to the time where I was about to sell my company in a shitty deal to start another, he was there, drinking coffee as if it’s fucking water, asking for another, and then giving me some of his compassionate wisdom. He never asked for anything else in return, except for 1 share in my new company, which he’s still asking for, but that’s a story for another day.
We often get told that we look alike. We were asked numerous times if we are brothers, and we fucking hate it. A friend of mine once bumped into Ali, and she said you remind me of someone… His first response with a not-so-impressed tone was “ahmed alrawi”? He guessed right. And it’s not just friends that don’t know us well. Even people close to Ali tell him about the resemblance, more in the personality though than in looks.
“Ahmed, if you had known me 10 years ago, you would understand why they’re saying that. I was exactly like you.” – Ali told me one day, missing out the exceptions of me being smarter and more handsome.
Truth to be told, while we are not biologically brothers, Ali is more than a brother to me, and I will forever be thankful for his friendship.
Nada, you’re fucking awesome. P.s. Nada and I agreed that if I praise her, she would give me an extra 5 minutes.
But really, Nada is quite fucking awesome. I was queuing one day to order food, and this girl looked back at me and said “I know you. You’re my boyfriend’s friend”. I think there isn’t any topic that we did NOT talk about in the next 5 minutes. She was funny and natural. She was throwing jokes at a rate of 2.5 jokes per minute. It was then when I thought to myself, ah ali, of course you’d fall for her, given the grumpy bastard you are.
Listen, I don’t know much about marriage, or love for what it matters. What I do know is, you guys make each other happy, and you make those around you happy too. You being there to help and support each other to pursue and reach your goals is a pretty damn good reason to be together.
Thanks for making me come halfway across the world to say this. The world needs more of you fuckers.
Cheers.

This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and thanks to some self-discipline (which took me a month) and freemium software, it’s finally taking place.

I want to schedule calls in the early morning with ambitious individuals for the main purpose of us committing to the call, hence waking up early and seizing the day, and to talk about the following:Read More

Is this real? Do people truly think I’m successful? Is this how it feels like? Am I really doing so well, hitting success that good that fast? Damn, I must be great.. or am I?

Sometimes, I feel good about myself. I hate those times. Maybe because I think they’re fake, temporary moments of joy and self-satisfaction, knowing that I’m only 0.0001% of where I aim to be, or maybe because I just despise the feeling of being on the top of my world, as it puts me right back into my comfort zone. I don’t like thinking that I’m doing great, because I know that this is where I could stop growing, or at least slow the hell down gradually. I don’t want to do that. Why would I ever do that? If I have oxygen going through my nostrils and processed by my lungs, pumping that warm blood through my heart and giving energy for my brain to think, then I sure as hell should use it. My time is limited. It’s not thinking about life as a rat race. It’s not me trying to speed up so I can catch up with others. It’s about me reaching my maximum potential. Achieving things that help humanity, and contribute to elevating the human race to reach places we never thought existed and do things we never thought possible. It’s not greed. It’s ambition.

I wrote this letter to my future self, to read whenever things seem to be great. I want this to be a slap on the face for when I think that I’m too good. When I get interviewed on a newspaper, magazine, or a TV channel for my ‘achievements’. When I’m asked to speak in a conference and tell the world my bullshit ‘success story’, and get told how ‘inspiring’ I am. While I might be to some, and it makes me happy, I don’t want it to be the thought on my head every day.

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There, I said it. Now some of you might think I’m a filthy materialistic prick.. And for those I say, congratulations, you’re right. But let me explain why I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Linking money with success at least, not being a prick.

Walking away from the “money doesn’t buy happiness” argument, this blog post is more oriented towards explaining my concept of how money is, with no shame, the unit of success. Yes. Money is to success what meters are to distance (unless you’re american, then it’s inches.. thanks for ruining everything). The best schools, hospitals, and companies also happen to be the most expensive ones. The most skilled developers, engineers, and project managers are surprisingly the ones who get paid highest. The best quality products in any industry are the highest priced.Read More

What do I want to accomplish from this project? Why do I want to apply this technique? Where do I see this business in 5 years? How do I make that happen? When will I start working? Questions I ask myself frequently as I work on different projects, until I get lost. All of a sudden, I feel like I’m in the middle of a void space. I’m no where. What am I doing with my life? Why am I in this again? Where exactly am I going?

I wish it was as easy as when I was in elementary school. “What do you want to become?”
– “An engineer, like my father!”
As I grew up, that question became the most frightening thing anyone could ask me.
– What do you mean by what do I want to become? Gees, I don’t know.. I guess I haven’t had the time to think about that yet. Do I still want to become an engineer and join the club that already has a billion people? Work in the same job for 40 years? Won’t that be boring? Wouldn’t I be pretty much a replica of someone else?
I only have one life. In a best case scenario, I already wasted 30% of it growing up.
– When will I actually know what I want to be? Will I have enough time to achieve it?Read More