Believe in Yourself and You Can Do Anything with Sadiq Hussain

Welcome to True Grit and Grace, a podcast designed to empower you to claim your resilience and thrive through life's challenges. I am Amberly Lago, a mindset coach, fitness expert and bestselling author. Each week, I'll dive deep with the world's brightest thought leaders and elite performers to share tangible tools and practical advice to inspire you to keep your eyes on the prize and forge ahead. So get ready to conquer your fears, heal any trauma, lead with your heart, and elevate your life with grit and grace.

Hi, I'm Amberly Lago. Thank you so much for listening in today because I have Coach Siddiq with us. And Coach Siddiq has dedicated his life to personal growth, becoming a bolder version of himself. And he pushes his mind constantly to take actions toward his ultimate dream of serving others, inspiring them, through his own experiences. He is a coach, a TEDx speaker, a podcaster. I think you're the king of TikTok and social media. And I'm so excited that you're here today. So thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me, Amberly. I'm so grateful to be on your podcast and to share a little bit about myself, my journey, and just what I've been up to so far. Because I know, like, we've been connected for many years now. I think probably like 4 years now. I'm sure it's been 3, 4 years we've been connected on Instagram. And I'm just so grateful for all the things that you've been putting out there and your story and the inspirational messages that you put out daily. So I just want to start by just saying thank you so much for having me on your show.

Thank you.

And I'm just so grateful that we're connected, the friendship that we built, and the fact that we always communicate and we always know what's going on in one another's world. even though we live all the way across, like, it feels like another galaxy, but we're always connected through, uh, through Instagram and through social media. And I think that's something that I'm super grateful for.

I'm grateful for that too. And you know, that's just the, the beauty of social media. I know sometimes it can be like a love-hate relationship because sometimes it seems like a lot of work, but the, the gift in it is that the connections that we make— and I feel like I've known you forever and we've not yet met in person. But, you know, I am amazed by all you do. Like, you put out so much amazing content, so many videos and reels, and that's just on Instagram. You're on TikTok, you're on LinkedIn, like Facebook, you're all over. And I love seeing your motivational messages that pop up. And what surprised me as I got to know you a little bit more was that you weren't always this bold version of yourself. In fact, you were quite shy and an introvert. How did you come from being this shy person to this bold entrepreneur that you are now? Can you walk us through that journey a little bit?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you're absolutely right. Like over 6 years ago, I was just, I was just so shy. I couldn't speak to a woman. I had 8 friends. All I did was play Call of Duty, go to work in the bank, come home, play, eat, go to sleep, and repeat the same thing every single day. That was pretty much my life. And I guess that's because my parents always told me, go and get a good job, you know, so we can tell, you know, the relatives that our son works in one of the biggest American banks and stuff like that. And so after I've made my parents happy, I was just like, I'm not happy. You know, I don't feel like I'm doing something of purpose or value. I'm not really pumped up every day. I'm just kind of, I'm okay. You know, I was still grateful at the time. for the energy, the natural energy that I have. All my friends loved me because I was always very energetic and crazy and I loved sports. And what happened was I met a friend over, over 6 years ago now. It was on the 12th of September, 2014 at 5:33 PM with 18 seconds to go. And the reason why I'm so precise with that time is because when I met my friend on that day, he made me write the time down because he changed my life. He showed me one page from the book called Rich Dad Poor Dad. And I was just like, Oh my gosh! Like no one has ever taught me anything to do with mindset before, anything to do with personal development, self-development. These words were all alien to me. I had no idea what they mean. And so when he explained to me that one page called the Cash Flow Quadrant, where he was explaining the difference between an employee, a small business owner, a big business owner, and an investor, and I was just like honestly, Amberly, I was sitting there gobsmacked, just like. No one's ever taught me this before. Why doesn't a university teach this to students? Why are they teaching people business but not teaching them how to actually start their own business and like, and the steps to take? And I was just really frustrated. And that's where my journey started. And then it took me about just over a year when I started reading personal development books, even though I don't like reading. I'm a visual learner. I love learning by watching and taking action. And then And then I kind of feel like, okay, now I've learned something from this valuable kind of lesson in my life. But I did it anyway, Amberly. I just started reading the books because everybody was saying, if you want to be successful, you got to read books. I was like, that sucks because I don't like reading, but I'm going to do it anyways. And I picked up some of these personal development books like Rich Dad Poor Dad, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I remember reading this really cool book called The Richest Man in Babylon. And I was just like, why am I even reading this stuff? Because At the time, my friends thought that he's reading this stuff because he wants to be rich. But they didn't understand that I didn't want to be rich in terms of monetary. I wanted to be rich in terms of my mindset. And that's what these books are all about— mindset. I started opening up. I started becoming confident after a year. Then I can speak to women. Then I, you know, started going to events and putting myself out there even more. And that's where the journey started, where I started from that super shy introverted person I am. Now I call myself an ambivert, which is I'm actually still happy to be alone and still be positive and take action on my dreams. But also when I'm with people and I love events and I, like, I'm that side of things. I'm also really like, I love doing that as well. I love events. I love people. And I think that's why you always see me on social media because I just love it. I genuinely love connecting with people. Most of the friends that I have now have all come from social media. And I'm just so grateful that we have technology for me to put myself out there. after becoming confident from these personal development books, it's just, I just started having mind shifts, you know. And the one biggest mind shift that I had was the day that I sat right here behind me on my bed. And I just asked myself the question, Sadiq, why are you being so selfish? And why are you not sharing this stuff that you're learning from these books? And I was just like, why are you not? Why are you being selfish? Why are you not sharing it? And that's where I started this thing called Wisdom Wednesday, where every single Wednesday I started making like a 3, 4-minute video And it wasn't even on Instagram at the time, it was on Snapchat. I had 8 friends watching me and I was just like the same 8 friends every Wednesday watching my videos. And then now you have the hundreds of people watching, but now back then it was just 8 people every Wednesday watching my stories thinking, this is what I do.

Oh, thank you for sharing that because I think a lot of people think that it's just overnight you have this successful business or you have hundreds or thousands of people watching your videos or you get invited to go speak on stages. But you've really walked us through part of that journey. And I think the big lesson that I took away from that is, first of all, you were willing. You were willing to do things that you didn't necessarily want to do, like read the books. But you're like, well, but I want to grow and evolve. So I need to get this information in however I can. But then you also took the action steps and you did stuff every day. And you started on Snapchat. And then slowly build your, you know, build your confidence and we're doing more and more things. And I also totally relate to what you said about, for me, I love my time alone. Like I, I really actually need that time alone because I feel like we all need to check in with ourselves on what our intentions are. Where do we want to go with our— and what do we want to do in life? So I think it's really important to kind of be by ourselves and kind of quieten all the noise out there.

Yeah.

But I, Miss events, like live events, so much. And you know, it's funny, right before COVID came, I had been living out of a suitcase for like 2 years, traveling everywhere, going to conferences, and I was tired and a little bit burnt out. And I was like, I don't know if I can keep up this pace. And then COVID hit. Now I'm like, I would give anything to be at a live event with people. And I mean, thank goodness for Zoom that we get to do these things. What are some of the ways that you have pivoted your business since COVID So I would say one of the things that I straightaway realized just before—

so like literally 2 days before COVID was like in the lockdown here in the UK, in London. 2 days before that, I did my TEDx talk. And so it's literally like I could have— like I was just so thankful, Amberly. I was just so grateful that 2 more days and I would have not have had the opportunity to to do a TED Talk. It would have been cancelled, and God knows when I would have got another chance to do one. So I was so happy that I got to do my TEDx Talk. And as soon as COVID hit, obviously I was just shocked, and I was just like, what on earth do I do? I obviously already knew, being young, and I already knew like the online world is where we need to be. So immediately, one of the biggest things I did when I started, I started posting more. So I started getting more serious about TikTok. Even though people thought it's just a silly app where people are dancing and just doing crazy stuff, I was like, nope, I am just going to go on there. I want to stand my ground. And I'm going to keep making my inspirational videos on there until people see me. And I just, and I keep doing it and I kept doing it and I kept doing it. And now, you know, my account grew to about 35,000 followers. And I didn't even understand how it happened. All I knew was I'm not going to dance on there. I'm not going to do all the silly, crazy stuff. I am just going to put out pure inspiration and love and positivity and kindness and just get people out there. to find my page for that daily inspiration. So the first thing I did was I just started posting more on social media, just so I can help those people who are mentally struggling, who had a lot of anxiety, who are going through depression, who had lots of mental health struggles at the time. For me personally, I've never had those struggles. But I have a lot of empathy because a lot of people around me today have those struggles. And I'm just there as their friend, as a coach, just guiding them and just making sure they're okay and just making them realize That yes, we are going through a really tough time right now, but you're strong. Like, you can get— you can get through this. I'm here for you. Anytime you need someone to talk to, I'm here. Message me, call me. And I remember during COVID I was calling so many of my friends just because they needed to talk to someone. They were alone. I wanted to be that light in their darkness and just be the person there for them so they never forget that, oh my days, during the toughest time in our life, Sadiq was there on the call. on the FaceTime, on Zoom. He was there with us. And he was the only one that cared enough. So I really took time out to post more, to help people that I couldn't physically help. And then the people that I could actually connect with that I knew personally, I made sure that I was in constant communication with them. And just because I knew it was a tough time that we're living in right now. And I just wanted to give as much value as I can. And I naturally have a lot of crazy energy, as you know, Amberly. Naturally super crazy. I am just like the most craziest douchebag you'd ever meet when you came in.

No, you like, you post these Monday motivational like fitness videos and it's like, yeah, you do have a lot of energy. I love it because energy is contagious, you know? And I think it's important to surround yourself with people who are on fire for life. You can tell they're just passionate about what they do. I know for me, for my business, right away I was able to pivot and, you know, I still had people that I would see one-on-one for coaching in person. And so right away, I would say every one of my clients except for one was like, no, I don't want to do the Zoom thing. I would rather wait until we meet in person. And I totally understand that because technology was always really scary for me. But we don't move forward and we don't grow our confidence and unless we take those scary steps. And I mean, I remember when I didn't know what Zoom was. I didn't know how to work Zoom. And now it's like I can set stuff up, but it's just because of doing it over and over.

Yeah.

And, and it's the same thing with, you know, doing posts on Instagram or TikTok. I remember when I first started and I really got on Instagram as a way to stalk my oldest daughter. who's probably about your age. And then it turned, when, you know, I decided to write a book, I was like, oh, I need to really develop my platform. And so I started using Instagram. And what a blessing it has been to do that. And then my speaking engagements have all been virtual, which is, I'm not going to lie, it's been a challenge because I like connecting with people. And a lot of events that I speak at, I don't see anyone else except for my big face on the screen. And I'm like, oh, I don't want to see that. I mean, I want to see people, not my face. So that's been a little challenging, but the more we do it, the more— and that's scary to me sometimes doing anything with technology. In fact, I just walked downstairs yesterday and I'm getting ready to launch this new big event with someone I'm collaborating with for a book club. And it was a lot of technical stuff. I was so kind of overwhelmed by it. And I walked downstairs and I told my husband, I was like, I don't know why I get so worked up about doing this stuff. He goes, well, you always figure it out. And that's the thing. There's always a way to figure it out. And I have also found that Google has become my best friend. So when I—

Yeah.

Or YouTube, when I don't know how to work something, I'm just like, let me Google that really quick. Because I've had to teach myself how to a lot of times use things on the computer or— and, and so anybody listening that's like, well, I don't know how to do a lot of this stuff, look, I didn't know how to do any of it. And when you have a passion for something and you let that outweigh your fears, there's always a way to figure it out and move forward. You are like so— I mean, your confidence and putting those videos out there What would you say to someone who's listening that's like, but yeah, I'm just shy in front of the camera and I don't know what to post? What would you suggest for them to do if they're like afraid to start posting, you know, videos or TikTok videos or Instagram or blogs or YouTube? What would you suggest for them to do?

So the first thing I'll suggest for someone who's a bit fearful to post a video or just a post on whichever platforms that they use, the first thing they have to do is be self-aware of what is the real issue. Is it because you worry about what other people are going to think about you? Because that's what happened to me when I first started making videos. I literally blocked my friends and my family from every platform at the time. Bear in mind, I wasn't really posting anything at the time. It was just my personal Facebook and Instagram account. But I blocked my family, all my sisters who were on Facebook. I blocked all of them. On Instagram, I found them, I blocked them. All my friends, I blocked them.

You did?

I did, Amberly. I did. I didn't— I knew that they won't notice because I never posted at the time. I wasn't posting anything, but I knew they wouldn't notice. And I just started making the videos and posting them.

Even now, why did you block them? Were they your, like, worst critics or what?

Yes, they were the people who in my life that I knew if they saw those videos, they'd be like, who's this guy? Like, what is he trying to do? Like, trying to become the new Asian Tony Robbins? And You know, like they're trying to— I knew they would take the mickey out of me and, and, and start saying things like, why are you posting these videos for? Like, what are you trying to gain from this? Or what's the point? You're making yourself look silly. Or what's the community going to say when they find out that you're making videos online and stuff? That's a bit like, oh, that's a bit weird, isn't it? And so I was just like, screw that. I was like, if I'm going to— if they're going to stop me from posting, then I'd rather block them and just post anyways. So I blocked them. I started posting videos.

So wait a minute. Are they still blocked to this day or now? No, no, not, not.

Now, okay, now they've seen my TED Talk, now they've seen my videos. My sisters follow me and share, share me on their Instagram.

Oh, good.

Really uplifting me. But what I'll say to anyone watching or listening is when you have a big vision or you have a dream or you have a goal in your life, you have to believe in yourself first so much. Even if those critiques are there, you've got to still believe in yourself and just post anyways, or go and do that thing that it is that you want to do anyways. And show them those critiques, show them how serious you are, show them how passionate you are, and just show them like how genuinely crazy you are about this thing that you're going after in your life. Because only now, even my parents, when they were telling me, what the hell are you doing this? Why are you going to events all the time? Why do you come home late every single day now? Suddenly everything started changing in my world because I never used to even go out before, and now I'm always out. And they're like, why are you always out? Why are you always coming home late? They just never got it. But how I made them get it is where I went out, I was hustling, I was grinding, I was working hard. I showed them proof. And then when I did the TEDx talk, for example, I showed them the video and then they shared it with all my kind of relatives saying, oh my gosh, he did that red— they didn't know what TEDx was, but he's like, he did that red carpet thing where those people go and speak on that big speaking platform. My dad goes to all of his friends and he said, this guy Sadiq hasn't gone to university But he spoke, he did a TEDx or like a big speaking engagement at a massive university just outside of London.

Well, that's a, that's a huge deal. That's amazing. I'm sorry. Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, my husband didn't really know what a TEDx talk was, or I mean, he had heard of it, but he didn't really know that that was, you know, an honor to get asked to do a TED Talk. And I remember he didn't get it until one day he was out And there was a doctor at the gym. He had run into this doctor and he was telling him that I did this TED Talk. And there was like, she did a TED Talk? What? And then Johnny was like, oh yeah, she did, she did. And then after that, he was going around telling everybody, do you know she did a TED Talk? It doesn't— sometimes it hit. And I felt the same way. Here I didn't have a college education and I was speaking at TEDxBerkeley for their 10th anniversary. And it was sold out with 2,000 people. And I was the only one there that didn't have a PhD. And so it was really intimidating for me. And I really had to believe in my message so much and know that it really worked for me. And that's the only way. I think when things come up, whether it's our family members say things or maybe people we don't know even on social media or out there, or Or we can be our own worst critic. I can be my own worst critic. I think that it gives us an opportunity to go, okay, well, how much do I believe in my message? How much do I believe that this can make an impact and a difference in someone's life? That's what it did for me. I think it just made me believe in the message even more. Well, I don't know if you've had any haters. Have you had any haters before?

Of course. Yeah, of course. Like so many.

So many along the way have come, and I mean, I find that hard to believe because I can't imagine anybody not just loving you, and you're all about positivity. But it's a crazy time out there right now. What happened and how do you deal with it?

So obviously, when you're on social media and you're putting yourself out there into the world and you're doing something good and positive and really trying to make an impact in other people's life, you're obviously going to get people that don't agree with your opinions, with your videos, with a certain subject you're talking about. Um, so I've had so many people through social media— I wouldn't say yet anyone physically, like at an event or something, because most of the time at the events people are there for a specific reason. They don't really have that negative kind of, um, energy to throw at you unless they disagree with something you said at the event. But online I've had so many And the way I deal with negativity or these haters is if it's through like my DMs, like they sent me something like a massive paragraph, like just grilling me and telling me how bad I am and how useless I am and stuff like that.

Oh my gosh, that really?

Yeah. And then in the comments, what I do, or even those messages, I love it. I have so— I had so much fun because the one thing that I learned from Gary Vee is like, you have to have empathy for these people and you've got to really have compassion and just be like, wow. The fact this person took the time to write me this lecture, this crazy message or this crazy comment telling you how you suck and how you don't know what you're talking about. You don't even know how we feel when we're depressed and this and that. And these massive long messages. And I just send them a little energy emoji and a love heart straight at them. Just a little energy emoji and a love heart. Because I know that they're obviously in a really bad place right now, that they need some love. And most of the time I send that, I don't even get a response back from them. They don't fight back. They don't bite. They just accept it. Probably just like, wow, I needed that. You know, because end of the day, like, if someone sends you that negative vibe or that negative energy, it means they're in a place in their life that they're trying to bring everyone else down with them. We are up here at the top. Crazy, energetic, passionate, loving, kind. And when someone tries to come and take that energy from you, if you're resilient, as you always talk about, if you're— if you just stay resilient and you have that mental toughness, then you don't really care. And that's the other point that I want to mention. Like, when I stopped worrying and caring about what people think about me, like, life just becomes easy. Like, life becomes so much more content, and you find more inner peace because everything you do from now on you don't care. You're doing it for yourself, and you're doing it because you want to help others. You're doing it because you want to spread that love and positivity and kindness. And when someone tries to come and, you know, eat at you and kind of take that away from you, it just— it's just like a little pinch, literally like a little pinch. It doesn't hurt you. It's just like, oh, it's like, you know, I'm— I feel sorry for this person. I'm gonna send them some love and, you know, just share some kindness with them, kill them with kindness, as they say. Because at the end of the day Life's too short to worry about these few people that you don't even know who are trying to pull you down. You don't need that. Like, you should just be so high that anybody trying to jump up, they can't catch you because you're already way ahead of the game. And so I always talk about mental toughness and resilience just as much as you, because I know how much even your story and the things that you talk about in your content and how you always talk about resilience. Anytime all of you guys hear Amberly, I'm sure you hear that literally straight away you put the word resilience with her.

No.

And so for me, that's what it's all about. Just being resilient and fighting through the pain, the struggles, the challenges, the obstacles in your life. Not allowing anybody, even your own parents and your siblings, to stop you. Because I know how that feels. But I promise you one thing, if you keep going and you prove to them that you can do it and you're really serious about what you're doing, they'll come around. They'll eventually come and say, oh wow, just like how your husband says now to everybody, oh yeah, she's a TEDx speaker. Suddenly so proud because now my parents go around telling everybody Yeah, he spoke at this huge university, and yeah, he's doing all of this stuff online, and yeah, he's doing well now. He's doing really good. And then I also tell them about my dreams and like what I want for them. So like, for example, one of my mom's biggest dreams is to kind of have like an apartment or like a holiday home in Dubai. So I told her, I'm going to work so hard my lifetime to make sure that I buy you that apartment one day. And so you're going to go there for your holidays, and you can, you can go and chill in the heat and relax and You know, you can go as many times as you want because money's not going to be an issue that time. And then for my dad, he just always wanted a nice car. So I was like, I'm just going to buy him a Range Rover one day. And he's going to be shocked because he's like, oh my days, he's been driving like a Toyota his whole life. I was like, look, hey guys, this is your present, Dad. I'm going to buy you a nice Range Rover and you can go and enjoy it. So those dreams as well always keep me pumped up and going because people always say, Sadiq, how are you so positive? How do you take so much action every day? How do you have so much energy? just my reason, like my compelling reason. My parents, my siblings, they push me every day to just never give up and to prove to them that I'm gonna— even though I don't have education, I have common sense.

Yeah, well, I think that's, I think that's very important. Common sense is definitely important. And I did want to ask you, like, how do you develop that resilient mindset? Are there— do you have a daily routine that you do? to help you stay more resilient? Or how, you know, how do you stay positive? What are some of the things that you do? Because there might be some people out there that are like, well, I don't have family or friends to keep me pumped up or to keep me motivated. I don't know what to do. What are some of the things you do to keep— to stay resilient?

So the first thing that I do every single morning before I wake up— sorry, after I wake up is I turn the alarm off, which is my phone. I don't have another alarm. My phone is my alarm clock. So I turn my alarms off my phone. And I don't go on social media. And I'm the one that you said, you call me TikTok king, and everyone else calls me whatever they have, the names they have for me, the machine and like the sports guy. And the whole point is that I don't look at my phone in the morning. Because I believe the first thing you wake up in the morning, you're alive. Like you should start talking about what you're grateful for. The fact that you just woke up today and someone else in the world didn't. The fact you're going to go in that nice warm shower and someone else ain't going to have the water to do that in. The fact that you got to drink some water when you wake up. The fact that you get to walk to the station if you're going to work. You know, the fact that you're going— like, you have legs. Like, I go so extreme to just like, I have my— I can see, you know, I can breathe, my teeth are fine, you know, my arms are functioning. I go so extreme. And I literally say this as I'm walking out, and usually when I'm walking out going to the station in the morning, I tell myself these things and I constantly repeat it because I know, like, gratitude just has such a massive part in our life that if we just start repeating every single morning what we're grateful for, and every single evening before we go to bed as well, just reminding yourself for what you have, how your day was, that you're still alive, that you still have so much more than people in the world right now who are suffering, who are in wars, who are going through terrible times. So just be grateful. That's the first thing. The second thing I would say I got rid of all the negative people in my life. All my negative friends, all the people that didn't support me, all the people that never even like, you know, shared any kind of kindness towards me for seeing what I was doing in my life. The people who didn't support me, who were just negative, I just got rid of them. I just literally distanced myself from them slowly. And then I just, I just, I made them disappear from my life. Obviously with my family, I couldn't do that because in the beginning, the first, I would say, 3 years, of my journey was so hard. Because believe it or not, Amberly, I used to never ever be home. I used to go to work in the bank, I used to come home, and I used to literally eat something at home, have a shower, and then I used to go out and sit in cafes and hotel lobbies. And that's where I'll be doing my social media work from. That's where I was doing my— running my online business from at the time. I was never home because my home was the negativity hub, aka my parents, right? They were here and they were like that negativity that they always even if it wasn't about me, it was just they're always talking about other people's families and look what they're doing and look what they're doing. And I don't know if some people listening can relate to that, but that's how my family and our upbringing was, where they're constantly trying to compare their kids with other people. And I just didn't care about everyone else. I was just so focused in my life and myself and what I want to do and my vision that I just stay out in a cafe or hotel lobby on my phone and I just literally just post all my social media content and do my online business from that. Also, just to kind of mention, Amberly, did you know that for the past like 4 years, probably, I didn't even have a laptop? Wow.

So you were like me.

I posted everything from my mobile phone. And I had literally everything, Amberly. All my posts were coming from my mobile phone. And people were literally like complimenting me in my DMs, telling me how good my content was and how professional it looked and my logo and all this stuff. And then, and they say, what do you use? What software on your laptop do you use? And I should be like, I don't have a laptop. I do everything from my iPhone 6s Plus. And they were like, what?

How?

I'm like, yeah, there's softwares out there that can help you create good content. You just need to find them. And I think for me, it was more about, I'm really simple. I think that's kind of like another thing that I can kind of add on to how I kind of stay more resilient is I don't, I don't complicate things. I just like to keep life simple. Like, I'm even going so simple now. I just want to wear the same clothes every day. Like, just buy a bunch of the same clothes, like a black t-shirt for the whole week, and just wear that. Because when you think about it, everything in life that we do, we overthink and we overcomplicate things way too much.

Mm-hmm.

Like, who cares what it is that you're wearing? Why don't you care more about how much action steps you need to take towards, you know, achieving the thing that you want in your life, rather than what you're wearing or what your friends are going to say about your dress or your bag or your trainers? Like, who cares? You should just care about your energy and the love and the principles and values that you have. Let people connect with that, your character and your energy. That's what really matters, not what you're wearing. None of the successful people that I've learned from—

I think being in COVID too, people— I for sure have realized more that, you know, we don't need as much as we may have thought we needed. I remember, you know, when I first moved in with my husband Um, I, you know, I moved everything out and he made space in his closet and I moved in my clothes and he said, well, that's all the clothes that you have? And I said, yeah. Because at the time I mostly had just like some workout clothes and that— not many, some jeans and maybe a couple of dresses. I didn't really have much. And now doing a lot of different events and stuff, it's like, oh, I have to have a different outfit for that stage and a different outfit for this interview and a different thing for this. And I've been looking at all these clothes in my closet that I haven't worn because I haven't been on stages, and I've literally just been dressed from the waist up on most days. Yeah.

Because of Zoom.

And it makes you realize we don't really need as much as we might think we need. And I think it is important to really look at what your values are and When you look at those values and you really know what your values are, it makes it so much easier to make decisions in your life, whether it be for what friends you're going to hang out with or what jobs you're going to take on, or if you're going to say yes or no to any situation. It makes it much easier. For me, integrity is really big. Authenticity, honesty, those are very big things. And if I come across something that I know this sounds crazy, but I recently, you know, I had a friend that was like, I really want you to try my product. Just buy it. And I'm launching it. So just buy it and I'll pay you back. And it's not that, you know, I want to be supportive, but it was the I'll pay you back. And of course I bought it knowing I'm probably never, he's probably never going to pay me back, but he didn't. It was the whole integrity. It was like, and I thought, you know, I'm trying not to be judgmental, but this isn't a business that I would want to pursue with him because I think if he can't pay me back for one simple product, what would the rest of our business relationship look like?

Yeah.

So that integrity made it really easy for me to say no to the business opportunity. You know what I mean? And so I think that it's really important to have those values. I would Love to know, like, it's so hard right now, work-life balance. For me, the lunch mom and in between Zooms and interviews and events and speaking, running downstairs, getting lunch ready, making sure I don't forget, because sometimes it can feel like I'm in a time warp because it's just session after session. It's sometimes hard to create that work-life balance. How do you create Work-life balance?

I love that question. I think the one of the, uh, one of the most important things that I started implementing in my life was something that I learned from one of my mentors online, David Meltzer. He always says, be a student of your calendar. And ever since I learned that, Amberly, I put everything in my calendar. Whether it's a friend I'm going to meet at this time, it's in my calendar. Whether it's I have a family thing going on in the weekend, it's in my calendar. Whether it's I have this many podcast episodes recording this week, I have a Calendly for that reason where I can just get people to just put— schedule their time in the time that I know I'm free in the evenings. I just get them to schedule it in there, half an hour slots. Also, I started like realizing where am I wasting time. So like, for example, before, over 6 years ago, where I used to just play games and stuff, when I started coming in personal development, I was like, I can't do that no more because that's a waste of time. It's not, it's not helping me to grow as a person. It's kind of entertainment and it's okay to just You know, kind of Netflix and chill sometimes, but it's not okay for you to not know what you're doing in the rest of your day or your week. And so I think becoming a student of your calendar is so important because then you actually know, like, your time is prioritized. You know what's happening in your day and you know when you can relax. As you said about the self-care time, like, I know on a Saturday I have my self-care time and a Sunday is actually not my self-care day because that's the day I edit my podcast and, and that's the podcast day. So for me, realizing that everything is in your calendar and then you stick by it, like you are a person of your word, you'll have everything in there and then you just stick by time. The other thing that I think is so important, one of my values, is timekeeping. Most of the people that know me, they know I'm never late. Never in my life. I have never ever for anything been ever late. And the only time possibly that I remember once that I was, was genuinely because I was in— I was stuck in traffic. As most people do get stuck sometimes. But I always, always leave even like 3 hours early just to make sure that I'm just there already in the area somewhere, you know, because I just, I value and I respect people's time so much. Yesterday I was supposed to have a call with someone who, like a potential coaching client, and they didn't turn up. I waited for about 10 minutes or 8 to 10 minutes and they didn't turn up to the Zoom call. So I messaged them as I do. I'll message them out of kindness, hey, we're supposed to have a call now, are you coming or not? And then I didn't get a response for like an hour. And they responded after an hour. And I just, and I already know that this is someone that I don't want to work with. Because if they're already late and they forgot, they told me they forgot. If they gave me a good excuse, I would have gave them another chance. But they told me they forgot. So that just shows me they're not serious. It's not in their calendar. They're not someone that I want to work with because they're already not very serious in their life. So I want to work with people who are already bold action takers and that are like doing something more meaningful in their life. And they know that their time is important. So I think the calendar thing—

Again, like you're going back to what your values are and it makes it easier to make decisions, even whether or not you're going to take on a new client based on your values, which that's very important to me too. I do not like being late. In fact, if I'm 5 minutes early, that feels like I'm on time. But if I'm on time, I feel late. So, you know, I like being— yeah. So, and so I love— I too love David Meltzer. I'm actually supposed to have him on the show soon. So it's interesting you brought his name up because I recently just learned about him and I love all that he shares. But I think that's really such a great example of how to keep that work-life balance. And, and I put everything in my calendar too, but then it takes discipline to stick to that.

Mm-hmm.

And my daughter is really good at helping me stick to that in so many ways. Like, you know, the other day I walked downstairs and I'm on my phone and she's like, Mom, Mom, Watch me do this. Watch me do this. And I said, wait, I got to— I'm working. Let me just send this one email. And she goes, if you're working, go to your office. And I was like, oh, you're right.

Mm-hmm.

I'll go right back up there and then I'll come down when I'm all finished. And then when it's family time that I need to be present in that moment. But I write down everything in my calendar when I'm going to work out, not just my clients, but also I will write out time For, you know, block off time for— this is the time that is for my own creativity, to whether that's doing videos or working on my next project or whatever that may be. Because if I don't, I will fill that time up completely back to back with clients. Yeah.

Just—

and so it's sometimes hard to be disciplined and go, nope, I don't have time on that day. And I see that open space, but that's time for me so I can keep growing my business. And I wanted to ask you, do you have a team of people? And if you do have a team, how do you manage them?

So at the moment, I don't have a team because I'm literally just in— so I just started my coaching business this year, right? Literally just after COVID started, a couple of months in, and I started my actual coaching business. Before that, I was doing speaking gigs. Whole of 2019 was just me growing a speaking business. I was just getting myself out there, social media, speaking, and all the content I was doing myself. And I still do. I definitely plan on having a team in the coming future when I start, when the clients and everything start growing for me. And in the meantime, I'm just, I still create all my content. I will always still post my own content. But one day I do definitely want to create a team where people help me create the content and then I just post it. So that's definitely in the books. It's in the plan. Also, I'm planning in the next probably year or so to get a virtual assistant that can work with me and that I can just kind of give some load of my stuff for them to do. So yeah, I plan on definitely having a team because I don't think anybody can become successful by themselves for sure. And it's really hard because we need leverage, you know, like to have more time, we need to create leverage. So some of the things that are easy, like content, you can teach someone how to do it. and then pay them to just make it for you and then you just post it yourself. Because I still believe in that authenticity where when you post, it has to be you writing, you responding, you replying to people's messages. People know when it's your team replying to you and they don't really—

Oh, for sure. I had a connection at all. Yeah, I guess it was maybe about a year ago. I was just traveling nonstop, back-to-back events. And I finally hired someone that was going to help me with social media. And they were awesome. They were an awesome person. But I was like, after one day, I was like, this isn't going to work. I just got to do it myself. Because they started responding and people could tell it wasn't me. And I even had one person say, that doesn't seem like the response that you would usually make, Amberly. And I was like, you're right.

You are so right.

Right. Like I can't, I wasn't going to lie about it. I was like, you're so right. This is what's going on. And I'm really busy and blah, blah, blah. You know? But I was like, it just, you know, it didn't work for me. I think that for me too, that if I didn't see the comments and responses, that I wouldn't know my audience and I wouldn't know what they need. And I remember listening to a podcast once with Rachel Hollis, and she was saying that, I don't even look at responses or anything. I don't even look at that. And I was like, wow, I don't— the reason I post is because I like connecting with my friends and my family. You know, I call them my Insta family. And that's what also, it really spurs me along. It really fuels my passion to keep going when I can see. So I can't imagine that. I think it's really important. Important to read your posts, you know, comments on there. I think it's really important. And even, you know, even Trent Shelton, when I was interviewing him, we were sitting talking. I'd flown to Dallas to go interview him and we're in his kitchen and he's like, yeah, for a while I wasn't, you know, getting back to people on Facebook. And I really felt like he just said he felt like he kind of lost his fuel a little bit to keep going and that connectiveness And I think it for everybody that even no matter how big your platform is or how small, I think it's really important to connect with people. And I have people ask me all the time, well, how did you build your platform? And I'm like, through hours a day. And people like, whoa, well, hours a day? I don't have time for that. Well, I had to make time for that. So there were days that I would get up, you know, 5 in the morning morning just because I knew I would only have 2 hours in the morning before my day started, you know, with clients or, you know, taking Ruby to school or whatever it was. So if something's important, you have to make time for it. And now I don't spend 3 hours a day on Instagram, but when I was building it, I sure did, you know. And I don't get to do that anymore because of my schedule. But when started. I really did. And when I interviewed Mae Musk on the podcast, she said, I used to, she said, I spent 5 hours a day on Instagram and that's how I built my platform. So we all start somewhere. You know? And the important thing is just to start. I could just talk to you all day. And I know we've got to wrap up. I just wanted to ask you a couple more questions. Okay. One more question. If I have to pick, I'm going through, I've written so many questions out and I'm like, okay, if I have to pick. Okay. If you could share like your greatest life lesson through your journey as an entrepreneur, what do you think the most valuable lesson that you've learned since you've started this journey of, you know, building your online presence and, you know, doing speaking gigs now? And now you've launched your coaching program. What do you think is the most important lesson that you've learned throughout this journey?

I think the most important thing for me personally has just been the fact that when I stopped caring and worrying about what everyone else around me thinks about me, anything that I do or anything about me, even like my face, how I look, anything— when I stopped caring and giving a crap about what people think about me, I think my life started changing then. Really, I think that was for me the point, the pivot, because I— and obviously that comes from a lot of personal development. That comes from a lot of mindset training. It could come from you having a coach or following people online. I just followed so many people online and made them my mentors and made them my coaches. And I started learning from them. And as I said, I'm a visual learner. So I was watching YouTube videos and Instagram videos. And I picked a few people that I want to learn from. And I started becoming like them, but in my own way. So I think the biggest one for me is basically just, just Just please work on just becoming a better version of yourself by indulging yourself in some kind of personal growth every day. Like, you have to be learning something new every single day. I always learn something new, which is how I'm able to come up with so much content. Otherwise, how would I be able to make so much videos if I didn't ever know what I'm talking about? It's because I'm always learning, and people don't see that because I don't read books and show them my books. I, I listen to them or I watch them on YouTube, and then I think as soon as you start developing your mindset and you get to that bold version of yourself, and then just literally ask yourself, you know what, whatever these people are saying about me, whatever negativity is coming my way, or whatever criticism is coming towards you, does it really matter a year from today? Does it really matter one year from today? Will that person's opinion matter to you? Are they going to be in your life still? If not, then why worry? You know, like, why care about their opinion? And so I think for me, the biggest lesson It was that, you know, just because when I stopped worrying about other people's opinions and what they're saying about me and what they think about me, I started becoming way more confident. I started posting and putting myself out there and branding myself even way more. I don't care what people think about me. When I go to store to buy something, I'm the same person I am on this Zoom call as I am in an event, as I am in real life. Like, my authenticity and vulnerability never changes. I'm the same guy whenever people meet me. And I think for me that's so important because once you don't care about what people's opinions of you is, you, you can always be yourself. You don't need to lie. You can always be truthful. You can always tell the truth. And then you don't need to remember, oh crap, did I— what did I say to that person? What, what lie did I make for that person? And what lie did I make for that person? When you don't care about what people think about you and you just be yourself, like 100%, your full complete self, I think then you have no worries. The stress that comes into your life will, will disappear faster than other people's because you no longer worry because you have gratitude. You've learned through your life that people's opinions about me doesn't matter. What they think, what they say about you, how they're talking to you about other people, it doesn't matter. All that matters is you're doing something that you love. You're doing something to pump positivity into your mind every day. You're surrounding yourself with positive people. And I know you always talk about this, Amberly. Community is the biggest thing. Like just having good positive community. And if you don't have it, go and follow Amberly's community, or check out— go and talk to people within her comments. Go and follow other people online who are doing inspiring work, and then connect with their community and be part of their community. Because I'm pretty sure that nobody minds you being part of their community. Everybody wants the best for you. Everybody wants success for you. Everybody wants you to be happy. And everybody wants you to be more resilient. And the only way that can happen is if you constantly pump the positivity into your mind. At the same time, you stop worrying about people's opinions.

Well, thank you so much. Well, tell us where— tell everybody where they can find you.

So you can pretty much find me on every platform. I live on everywhere. So I mean, I'm on TikTok, on Instagram, on LinkedIn, and every platform is the same name. So it's just @CoachSadiq on a majority of the platforms. And then if you just go to Instagram, you can literally— my website is there. So you can just connect with me on my website, find out more about the coaching and stuff that I work on. And yeah, you can find me on any platform and I'm always, always open to connect with you guys. I respond to every comment. I respond to every DM. People say you're mad and you're crazy and you take time out to do that. Even on TikTok. I'm like, yep. Someone took the time and they cared and they showed some love and appreciation towards my video. I'm going to take the time back to even send them an emoji because that matters to me. That people care about my message. Because I remember when I started and had nothing, had 8 people watching me and they wasn't even saying anything to me. So I know how it feels. So feel free to connect and ask me any questions, or I'm always here. And if, if not, then just, just follow my content and hopefully that keeps you pumped up and inspired and something. Because I do fitness and I do mindset and I kind of mix it all together. And I just want, I want everyone to just understand that when you start leveling yourself up in both Your your body and your mind, your soul and everything else becomes connected together.

So that is yeah, that's so true. Thank you so much. And if you're listening to this and you don't have a pen on you, don't worry; it'll be in the show notes. So anyway, thank you so much for for sharing your wisdom, your motivation, and your light.

Thank you so much for having me, Emily. I'm so grateful that I've got the opportunity to share a little bit of. my life with you guys. And yeah, thank you so much. I'm looking forward to staying in touch.

Thanks so much for joining us this week on True Grit and Grace Podcast. If you like it, please rate it or share it with your friends.

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