#028 Getting What You Want Faster

In this article, we’re focusing on something real, something that you and I need, it’s a must. 

Having a mentor in life. Having role models. Call it a coach, a teacher, call it a mentor.

The purpose of this person is to help you compound your success, grow your success, and compound the effects of what you and I do on a daily basis. 

We’re talking about having good role models. And a good role model is someone that you can emulate.

Someone that you can watch and you can figure out how to get the best out of yourself, out of your mind, out of your life. 

And of course, for many of us, out of our careers and businesses. 

I train coaches on how to set up their coaching practice.

I train them on how to manage their minds, I train people on emotional mastery, and I help people to create the changes that they want in their lives.

Whether it’s in their psychological mind, in their spirituality, in their business, in their relationships,  whatever it may be. 

This is life coaching. In the Islamic sciences, we call this Tarbiyah. 

The Tarbiyah and Life Coaching Link

Nowadays, Tarbiyah is translated as education, but it’s not education. 

Tarbiyah is nurturing, and it’s taking that knowledge and applying it in life. And that’s what role modelling is all about. 

That’s what mentoring, leadership and coaching are all about.

I look at all of these as synonyms for the same thing. Essentially, we’re looking for a good example. 

Someone that we can follow, someone that will help us to shortcut our journey, so that we can avoid the pitfalls and achieve the dreams that we want in this life and in the Akhirah.

We want to create the perfect masterpiece of life. Not something for others to look at but something for us to experience.

I spent many years of my life trying to find a mentor, a leader, a teacher, a Murabbi, someone who would nurture me and show me the way. 

How is it Possible to Live the Most Amazing Life?

This was my question. How is it possible to achieve the most amazing dreams in life?

How can we become so ambitious, that we can create lives that we could never have even imagined a few years back, a few months back, a few days back?

Creating wonderful relationships, creating beautiful connections. 

Getting yourself to a happy place in life, so that you can be happy today and not when you achieve your goals.

You can be happy today and not when you attain your achievements, attain your dreams. 

You can make today, living the dream. That’s what life coaching is really about.

When I talk about life coaching, I’m talking about living with Revelation. Because it’s the guide.

We all look for mentors and role models so that we can find an easy route to get to where we want.

We try so hard and for so long to get to that place. Every time you try something and it doesn’t work out, you get frustrated, maybe you feel sad, maybe you feel angry.

But what seems like a failure is actually you being set up.

Failure sets you up for your path. 

That’s the honest truth. Failure sets you up for your path in life. 

But none of us like failure. We resist failure, we resist falling into error. 

But the fact is, no matter how much you resist, you still fall into it, every human being does. It’s normal.

If only I could find someone who could just show me how. That’s the thought that was running through my mind for years. 

And it’s natural to have that thought. Because we want a shortcut, we want a surefire way of getting what we want. 

The sooner you can get what you want, the sooner you’ll find your dreams. Your goals in life will come to fruition. 

So we get desperate to make it happen. 

We get anxious and worried, we get fearful, and all of these things happen. Because we just want that route. 

And when you can find someone to help you make it happen, to help you along your journey, it just makes life easier. It’s normal. 

This is why we’ve always had the teacher and the student. 

In the Islamic traditions, we have the one who is nurtured, the one who is receiving the Tarbiyah, the nurturing, the mentoring, the coaching. 

And the one doing it is the Murabbi; the nurturer, the coach, the leader, the guide. 

That’s what we all need. And that’s why, I spent much of my life looking for that. 

Mentorship, Guidance and My Experience 

I’ve always taken on role models, teachers, and mentors.

The truth is that I’ve also been disappointed with what I found. No one ever lived up to my expectations. 

I realised that on one level, they met all of my expectations. They’d show me how to do what I wanted to do.

They taught me what I needed to learn. They helped me get to where I wanted to get to. But on the other hand, there were always areas where they didn’t meet my expectations.

Why?

Because it’s as if I was looking for perfection in one person.

The reality of the world is that we’re all good at some things, and not good at other things. 

So what I learned to do, is that I learned to become my own leader and mentor.

I would lead and mentor myself, but I’m always finding new mentors, coaches, and teachers.

I’ve done it for years and years and I never actually realised I was doing that. 

But that’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve always looked for people that specialised in one area, and the reason they didn’t meet my expectations is that people are people. 

But where they did meet my expectations was in their specialism. And that’s what I needed from them. But when I started depending on those people for everything, then I struggled. 

So it wasn’t them.

The Mirror of Expectations 

They weren’t the challenge. They weren’t the problem. 

The problem was my expectations were wrong. 

So I changed them when I realised what was going on.

And I could only realise what was going on by learning, by having mentors, by having coaches to help me through those processes.

They would help me to put my mind together with theirs for a better solution. Two minds can always come up with something exponentially better than one mind can.

Sometimes the coach, the mentor, and the teacher, just act as a mirror, especially for me. 

You must have these people in your life, otherwise, how can you fast-track yourself to your potential? Not where you want to get to, but to your potential.

The potential that you can live into today.

Having these people in my life helps me, or helps you to see what you can’t see. 

It’s almost like a soundboard, they help you to clear out all the mess in your mind. And to see what’s really going on. 

Even though it has always been there without the need for another person to show you, the thing is you’ve not been able to see it. 

When you have another person who’s able to take an objective look at what you’re looking at, they can help you to see something that you can’t see.

It’s the most powerful thing I’ve ever done. Taking on a mentor, a coach, or a teacher. It magnified the effects of my mind and my work exponentially. 

And there’s no exaggeration in that Alhamdulillah. 

The best examples are, of course, those that Allah (swt) has approved of and sent to us. The Ambiyaa,the Sahaba(ra).

They’re the best examples. And we’ve got their life stories. 

We’ve also got examples in the classical texts, and in the contemporary texts. However, it’s difficult to see any of that without a teacher, a guide, or a mentor, who can coach you through the process. 

I’m a teacher. I fulfil different functions. I train coaches by teaching them how to coach themselves and how to coach other people. 

I’m teaching them how to build what they want in life, build their practices, and build their relationships.

But a different role that I would play within that is acting as the Murabbi. The one who helps to nurture them with that knowledge because knowledge is not enough.

At times, I call myself a transformational coach. 

A transformational coach is not a teacher. It’s not someone who only gives the information, it’s someone who helps the client to transform their lives using the information they have.

Sometimes, you already have the information, but you don’t know how to use it.

And this is what I’ve done. So I’ve gone out and I’ve looked to find people that can help me do the same. 

And, it’s the most powerful thing in your life.

It’s a very simple equation. When two great minds come together,

they can create something exponentially greater than they could do by themselves. 

This is common sense but sometimes common sense isn’t what we think about.

So, a role model to look at, but more than a role model, a mentor, a leader, a coach, a teacher, whatever it is that you need,  you’ll find it. 

But you need to go out and look for it. When humans work together, we create such great advances in each other’s lives.

We’re blown away by the life transformation and the experience from that collective mind work that we do. And it truly is life-transforming.

And without any shadow of a doubt, investing in growing my mind has been the best investment of my life. 

READ

There’s no coincidence that the first revelation in the Quran, was Iqra; Read. 

Because reading opens your mind with that knowledge.

But it’s not enough. Because when Allah(swt) talks about the good news in the Quran, Allah says: 

وَبَشِّرِ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ

‘Give glad tidings, give good news to those who are believing.’ 

It’s all about the beliefs, and what we believe. And the verse doesn’t just stop there. 

It continues,

‘And they take action.’

So, we need the information, we need to believe it, and we need to live it.

Taking action is living it. That’s the living part. Collecting the information, that’s the education part. 

Believing it, that’s what your mind does. 

That’s what your heart does. And then you have to live according to it. 

And that creates exponential results. 

I’ve committed myself to being a lifelong learner, a shaper of my own mind, and my own life, and creating my own life, with the God-given power of the mind and the body. 

Take Action

The body is how you exert the effort and make it happen. It’s the best investment you can ever make. 

It’s the best investment I’ve ever made.

To develop my mind, my understanding of how life works, and how I work. Because that’s how we live into the most optimum versions of ourselves. 

We don’t do it in the future, we do it in the present. It’s all within your reach. Anyone can create such a life.

When we talk about role models, that’s what we’re talking about. 

We’re talking about you becoming the best version of yourself. This is the only thing that Allah expects of us, that we live into the blessings that He’s given us. 

We’re grateful for that. And we show gratitude by living according to it. 

Understand that you have the power to shape your own life. If you feel like things aren’t working out the way you wanted them to work out or like there’s a gap in your life, you’re succeeding in all areas of life, but there’s one area where you’re struggling, then all you need to do is look at what’s going on in your mind. 

What’s going on in that area of life? Have you looked to understand that area? 

Have you looked to develop that? Have you found yourself a teacher who can show you what you can’t see?

Because that’s exactly what I would do. 

That’s exactly what we do. When you don’t know how to do something, you go to those people who know.

When we were kids, we went to our parents because we assumed parents know everything. When we’re adults, we find ourselves teachers and people who have done it already.

And if you want more help with this, how to do this, don’t just read these articles. You need to act on them.

The quicker you act, the quicker things change.

The slower you act, the slower you change. 

And the slower you act, the quicker you forget. Because naturally, we’re human beings forget things.

If we’re not living according to them, we’re not thinking about them.

If we’re not doing anything about them, we forget. 

The only thing that stands between you and action is your thoughts. If your thoughts aren’t helping you to take action, ignore your thoughts and just move straight through to action.