Sahil Bloom’s advice – Part 2

We continue with Sahil Bloom's wonderful advice. Point number six. He says, be a yes person early in your career. Saying yes expands your luck surface area. It may mean you are a bit overwhelmed at times, but the benefits from the increased luck outweigh the downsides of feeling stretched. Now, I think it's a lot more than just luck. What happens when you say yes is that you get to learn new things. You get to stretch your own imagination when you say yes, especially when you are not sure how to, how to do it. You're putting yourself on a deadline to say that I have to learn this new thing by this time in order to be able to deliver what I promised I will deliver. And this is very, very helpful. I have personally done this all my life. I've never seen. I never said no to anything, as long as it's not, you know, illegal or something. But nobody asked me to do anything illegal. But I'm just saying that as long as it's not something completely out of my area of expertise. I mean, like somebody asked me to do brain surgery, I would say no. But anything in my area of expertise, which is in leadership development, which is in education and so on, I never say no, even though I may not know to begin with exactly how I will accomplish that task. But I take it as a challenge to say that, okay, if I don't know, I don't know. So the person who's asking me also doesn't know. So let me learn. And I think that's what is really meant here by expanding your luck surface area. It's not just luck. It's not chance. It's not just happens by itself. It is something that you make happen because of your attitude. Point number seven. He says wake up early and work out. When you wake up early and work out, you do a hard thing to start your day that sets the tone. You start to self identify as a winner. That has ripple effects all across your life. There's no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5am and works out. Now, I want to add to this two or three things. First of all, wake up for the Hajjud, not at 5am Wake up for the Hajjud, which is wake up about maybe 45 minutes to an hour before the time of Salat al Fajr starts. Pray Tahajjud, make dua, connect with Allah, then read Quran. Ideally, if you wake up an hour before you have time to read about a juz of Quran before you are ready for Salatul Fajr then go to the Masjid place of the Fajr by Jamaa and that's how your day begins. Now imagine if you do that, you roughly get in about two hours of worship of Allah subhanahu wa ta'. Ala, two hours of peace, peaceful meditation, two hours of reflection, introspection, connecting with Allah subhanahu wa ta', ala, reaping in the rewards of the tilawat of the Quran, the reading of the Quran and so on. And this is an absolutely fabulous way to begin the day and then of course work out and so on and so forth. Another second point as I said, I said I've got two things. One was this second one is when you wake up, make your bed. This is a very important thing. It seems like, like, like something that most people don't do, but they should do. This was standard in our, in, in the boarding school environment that I went to make your bed. Our beds would be exact, would be the, the dorms would be examined, inspected by the housemaster. And if we, if the bed was not made properly, which means that absolutely rigid sheet on top, completely smooth, then we had to do it again. So it's very important to make sure that you wake you when you wake up, make your bed. Because you know, like somebody said, if you have a bad day when you come back home, at least you come back to a beautiful room which is a, with a made up bed and that does wonders for you overall which might have taken a beating during the day while you were out there working. So make your bed, pray Tahajjud, read a juz of Quran, go to the Masjid, pray Salat al Fajr and then come back and start your day and then do your workout and so on and so forth. Point number eight, dive through cracked doors. You know, people talk about opportunity, knocking and so on. Point. People who succeed are not people who wait for opportunity to come and knock. People who succeed are people who open the door before the opportunity comes to knock. People who win are those who go chasing after the opportunity, hunt it down, bring it down, hold it down and you know, use that opportunity to open their doors in their lives. Sahid Blum says, I recently had an experience to bring this to life. A young boy, a young guy saw on my story that I was at a coffee shop working. He messaged me asking if he could come by and ask a question. I said okay. He got there an hour later and we hit it off. Turns out he lived far away and made it work. I'd always bet on People with that kind of energy. If someone cracks open a door, that may present an opportunity, drive through it. It's very important to, in this context of cracking open doors and meeting people, it's very important to take that first step. Many times we hesitate because we are afraid of rejection. If I ask you, can I have a word with you? Can I ask you a question? Can I talk to you? Then I am, I don't do that because I'm afraid of what will happen to me if you say no, sorry, I'm not interested, or I'm busy, or you know, I don't have. What will happen? You won't die. Nothing will happen, right? Absolutely nothing will happen. Your self esteem does not depend on whether somebody has time for you or not. So just do it. Ask that question, meet that person. And you will find that on the average, rejection is not even 1% of the time. It's much less than that. But don't go doing this all over the place for all kinds of reasons. Do it for the right reasons. Meet the right people. And when you meet those people, know beforehand what you want to ask them about. Be prepared to take notes. Show your seriousness for that meeting. It's not a social meeting, right? So don't meet the person and say, okay, so how, how was your day? What are you doing? No, no, no, no, sorry, I'm not here to tell you about my day. You wanted to ask a question. Ask the question. So be clear in your mind about the question. What is that question? Construct that question in your mind. Talk that question to yourself in front of a mirror. Talk it to somebody who knows you. Tell them, look, how does it sound when I say this, right? And then when you talk to the actual person, you want to ask this question to be clear about and be, be serious and show that you're serious by taking notes. That is very important. It shows that you are serious. It shows that you are interested in your developer. And then you would be surprised perhaps at how much time people are willing to invest in your benefit in your welfare. Point number nine. Show up early, stay late. Showing up early and staying late is a free way to to materially increase your luck surface area. The most interesting side conversations come up before meetings or after the end. When you are in the room, you're more like more likely to get pulled into a follow up call, coffee or discussion. It pays off handsomely in the long run. This applies across the world, not only to meetings, but everywhere. Show up early, stay late, show up. Be the first person on the job. Be the one who opens the shop and be the one who locks the shop. Right. Opening the shop and locking the shop are ownership behaviors. If you do that, you will find that you are privy to good information. You are. You will have the last say in whatever happens and you will become trusted. So show up early and stay late. Finally, and by no means the least, do the old fashioned things well. Look people in the eye. Do what you say you will do. I cannot possibly overemphasize this. This is the root and this is the heart of reliability. And reliability is trust. So look people in the eye. Look people in the eye. Do what you say you will do. Be early, practice good posture, have a confident handshake. It sounds silly, but these things are all free and will never go out of style. Amazing. Such wonderful advice. All these things are free and they will never go out of style. So I wish you all the very best. And as the man says, Sahil Bloom says, none of this is difficult. It's all easy. All that remains is for you to do it. We ask Allah to help us to do that which is pleasing to him and to save us from that which does not please him.