Utkarsh Narang (00:01.085) Welcome to another episode of the IgnitedNeurons podcast. Today, my hypothesis is that we're going to talk about the dark art of life mastery. The person who joins us is from Canada and Hussein has written a book that's called The Dark Art of Life Mastery. And so I thought it'll be a great idea for us to explore this topic because our listeners are always interested in personal growth. Welcome to the conversation Hussein. Hussein Hallak (00:24.578) Thank you for having me, I'm looking forward to it. Utkarsh Narang (00:26.717) Absolutely. And we'll definitely talk about why you've used the word the dark art. We'll come to that. But to push us into the deep end, as soon as we kick off the podcast, the first question that we start our conversation with Hussein is that if that eight year old little boy, wherever that little boy Hussein was growing up at eight years old, if that boy were to come to and meet you right now, what kind of a conversation will emerge between the two of you? Hussein Hallak (00:54.44) eight year old. I'm wondering what I'm doing at eight year old. I would probably ask. Hmm. I would probably ask about what do I think about my Lego collection because I used to love Lego and I used to kind of love to hear conversations of adults. So I didn't. Utkarsh Narang (01:08.917) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (01:21.344) talk a lot when I was eight year old. become more talkative, I think, after. But I used to listen a lot to my uncle and the kind of the old men of the family talking to each other. I loved being around them. I don't know why, but I loved all kind of adult conversations. So I would be asking or maybe sometimes trying to participate, trying to share my opinion. So that's That's what I would say. But I would never ever imagine that I would be this old. And I would probably think this is a very old dude. Utkarsh Narang (02:00.309) Fascinating. And if I do dig a little deeper, where were you when you were eight years old? give me like a view into that eight year old's life. Hussein Hallak (02:13.975) I was growing up in Damascus, Syria, the oldest capital in the world. i was at eight year olds. was, we, I was just starting or I was probably second or third grade. I would be because I was ahead one year in the private school that brought Armenians and Syrians together. It's an Armenian school. So my parents put me there because they wanted English language to Utkarsh Narang (02:27.355) Mm. Mm. Hussein Hallak (02:42.285) for me to train on it. And it was kind of the most I would say the the highest school that they could actually afford to put me in. And they wanted the best education. And I think I was fascinated with Gameboy. I saw like a lot of people buying these Gameboys and playing with them. And I was I was fascinated with that. And I just wanted one. And I remember talking to my mom and telling her, can I get one? Utkarsh Narang (02:53.268) Mm. Utkarsh Narang (03:00.853) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (03:12.145) And she said, yeah, of course you can get one. If you graduate from elementary school, the first kind of to be the first in that school. And I did two years or three years later, I graduated first of my school and my mom bought me one of the most amazing gameboys that I could. It look like a robot thing. And it cost her two months salary. And my father was furious that she did. Utkarsh Narang (03:21.973) Mm. Hussein Hallak (03:41.655) did that. Utkarsh Narang (03:41.749) That's fascinating because every time I ask this question, know, deep memories emerge for the guests, but also for the listeners. And you spoke about hearing conversations of adults and maybe also thinking about participating. What was intriguing or what was fascinating to that eight-year-old boy that he wanted to listen to these adult conversations? Because to me, it'll also feel like, I don't know, bored by these conversations so let me do my own thing. Hussein Hallak (04:12.161) Hmm. Well, if you remember at that time, there wasn't a lot of TV. You didn't have social media. All you had is what I remember, like one hour of TV you know series that we would watch. In fact, at eight year old, think TV was still black and white, probably for us in Syria. Utkarsh Narang (04:35.572) Mmm Hussein Hallak (04:39.371) The only entertainment is either playing with kids or what people are talking about. my parents and especially my uncle were having conversations about world politics. That's how you got the news actually, because they were discussing. My uncle was very entrenched in politics. He's actually one of the people that he's kind of like the Che Guevara of the Arab world. Utkarsh Narang (04:56.212) Mmm. Hussein Hallak (05:09.517) I actually carry his name that was named after him and he participated in every colonial or every revolution against the colonial power in every state in the Arab world. Like I think there were like 20 or 22 or 23 of them and he had pictures with everybody. Now I didn't know all of that but when he came and visited Utkarsh Narang (05:13.31) Hmm. Hmm. Hussein Hallak (05:33.231) a lot of interesting people would come around and those were the conversations. So it was like learning about these things. Like you would hear names of countries, you would hear, you know, people and what's their motivations or what's happening. These things you never hear anywhere else. So for me, it was I was learning. Plus, whenever I play with other kids, I get bullied. this with adults, I was and my uncle and my parents always treated me with Utkarsh Narang (05:54.988) you Hussein Hallak (06:01.746) not with kids, kind of, you know, like go away or go play with other kids. My uncle would welcome me, would sit me among them. They actually said I was the oldest and I was the oldest kind of my my grandfather had six, eight kids. Six of them were women, girls and two boys. And my uncle was the oldest, but he didn't have any kids. So I was the oldest kind of the Utkarsh Narang (06:07.529) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (06:20.36) Hmm. Hmm. Hussein Hallak (06:30.196) lineage of the family. So I was treated with a little bit of respect or celebration. So I loved that. I loved to be the center of attention and they would kind of, you know, celebrate me and everybody would show me, would be nice to me because they're kind of trying to be nice to my uncle. So I loved that attention. Utkarsh Narang (06:31.7) Mmm. Utkarsh Narang (06:38.964) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (06:51.886) And I didn't experience it with other kids. Other kids didn't care about me and they would bully me. was like, okay, I prefer to be around these people who celebrate me and think I'm a big deal. I didn't understand why. Obviously when I'm older, I understood why, but I enjoyed it. Utkarsh Narang (06:51.956) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (07:08.532) So, so, so fascinating how, how our minds work and it's easier when you're, when you're, when you're grown up and you can connect those dots backwards. so I understand this journey from Syria to now you're in Canada would have had its own twists and turns and it never is a linear journey. But what was it growing up and then what made you kind of end up in Canada? Like give me like a brief or something that you feel like. Hussein Hallak (07:33.065) Hmm. wow, that's a Utkarsh Narang (07:36.852) That was like the turning point in my existence. Hussein Hallak (07:38.627) That was a winding point in a winding journey, I would say it. did want I remember being, I think, in my second year of university and wanting to go to Canada just because I wanted to get out of Syria anyway. Throughout my life, all of everything I watched, I was fascinating with, fascinated with movies, fascinated with music and the cultural hub, if you wish, the the center where everything emanated from was the US. Utkarsh Narang (07:42.194) Mmm. Hussein Hallak (08:08.534) right? America. So I knew more about New York probably than I knew about Damascus. Aside from me walking, I would say like, because remember at that time, there was no internet. So all you received is from the media and the media, you would see those movies and I loved movies. And there wasn't like that much, I would say, media industry coming out of Syria. There was of course, series and there were actors. Utkarsh Narang (08:08.67) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (08:14.344) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (08:38.306) But the massive production and the amount of production was all coming from the US. I thought I saw more of New York than I saw of Damascus because remember, I was a kid. So I wouldn't go around and see Damascus and visited everything. I would see, I knew kind of the famous buildings in New York. I knew LA. Utkarsh Narang (08:49.758) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (09:04.622) And I was fascinated. wanted to go there. I knew about jazz, blues. I loved Michael Jackson. So I wanted to be there so badly. So Canada at the time, I didn't know anything about Canada, but I remember there was, I don't remember how it came up, but the possibility of traveling to Canada and studying there, I was like, yes, I want to go. So that's the first time that I thought of Canada when I was like second year, but it never happened. I studied in Syria. I ended up working. Utkarsh Narang (09:23.7) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (09:28.66) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (09:34.159) in the creative industry as a means to generating kind of some income for me. And while I was studying engineering, I studied electronic engineering. And by the time I graduated, I already had a partnership with someone doing a company. And the second company that I did was a gaming company, an online gaming company. We built websites like games. And the first website we built was for the Disney of the Middle East. The company was called Space Tune. It was one of the largest media kids media company in that region. And we built their website. They loved it so much. They acquired all of our company gave me a position in Dubai. And that was my ticket out. Even though I had a contract with another company to sell computers, I was like, this is it. I get I get a position here and I traveled there. And that was my first kind of ticket out of Syria. And then from there, after 11 years, me and my wife and our kids, we immigrated to Canada and 2014 landed in Vancouver. So that's kind of the journey that led me there, but it was a very, very winding journey. And I would never expect that I would end up in such a beautiful city like Vancouver. If you'd asked me, I think at any point in my life until I was here, it was very, very hard to imagine. Utkarsh Narang (10:57.554) Yeah, the story that you're sharing, hits home in so many ways because I mean, I, with my wife and kids came to Australia only a few years ago. So, 2023 is when we landed here. And so, I understand like how that is like a massive shift and carrying your family with you to almost like a land unknown is a journey of its own. And then from where did from that moment to now 11 years in Canada? this idea about a personal mastery and then the dark art of life mastery, like where did that emerge from? Hussein Hallak (11:34.585) Well, throughout my life, I think one of the key things that I gone through is the idea of reading about how to become better and learning how to become better as I lived life. In the sense that different than all of my peers, let's say around the world, you grow up, you go to university, and that's kind of the start of your career. Utkarsh Narang (11:52.852) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (12:02.004) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (12:04.27) You start, go to university, that's let's say you learn and then you work in that field or field adjacent and then you build your career so that you know, you reach a point where you earn more, life rewards you, let's say, or the market rewards you. And there is no such thing while I was growing up in Syria. Growing up in Syria, everything that I ever wanted, I didn't have access to in the sense that I wanted to be in music. Utkarsh Narang (12:21.928) Mm. Hussein Hallak (12:33.9) There is no point. I mean, outside of LA or New York or London probably, there's no chance that you will become big in music as in like you see a path to that, especially in Western music. I was in Arab country. There's no path. I was fascinated with processors in my engineering. I studied integrated circuits. The only factories that were like Intel had a factory in the US and one in Israel. And there was a factory, I think, for AMD in the US as well. That's it. Unless you're in the US, you're never going to work in that field that I was fascinated with. I was so fascinated with it that my pastime when we got Internet in 1998, my pastime was reading the processor specification, the Intel processor specification at the time, Xeon. off the Intel website. That was my pastime. That's how much of a geek I am. What else? I worked in the graphic, like as a graphic designer, and I didn't work in any agency. And at that time as well, there's no freelance, know, like freelancer, these websites where you can actually generate business, all of that, that didn't exist. And you grew and you become, let's say, you grow as a career, become a creative director or art director and so on by working for a massive agency. And most of the people who work there graduated from art school, communication, these kind of things. So anything that I wanted, anything that I was fascinated with, I had no path to. So the way I did it is I did what I could and whatever I wanted to master, I would pick up a book and do it and try and see what I can do about it. And at the time it was a means of survival. It wasn't like a way that I was intelligent or like this is the path to mastery. I didn't know any better. This is what was possible for me. And I made the choices within what's possible in the moment. In fact, I always felt that I was missing something. Like my peers were progressing in their creative career and I would Hussein Hallak (14:55.375) print this card and I would put creative director and they would laugh at me. I my friend. I remember a dear friend of mine who was in the creative industry and would say, how do you call yourself a creative director? I said, well, you know, I just printed it on the cards. Like, no, you have to be in an agency and you have to graduate from a, you know, a creative designer to a senior creative designer to an art director. He had this path. I was like, I have no access to this, but I will, I will see what I can do. So everything that I did, Utkarsh Narang (15:18.26) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (15:24.783) was something, a choice that is available in the moment that I took advantage of and looking backwards or looking back at it when I think around 2009, 2010, I owned my progress. I owned that all of these things led to where I am. And I started actually working with some of the largest creative agencies in the world, largest branding agencies, the largest brands, some of the most well-known. Utkarsh Narang (15:45.47) Mm-hmm. Hussein Hallak (15:54.984) And I saw that people looked at me and saw me bigger than I saw myself. And I started to own that. And that's when I started to realize, this is the path to mastery, which is making choices in the moment. And that led, I didn't know that I'm going to write this book. I didn't articulate it that way until when COVID came around and I decided to write a book that combines all of the wisdom and all of the knowledge and all of the experience that I put together so I can mentor my kids, future generations, other entrepreneurs. And so it came to this book, which gave me this. Utkarsh Narang (16:34.804) Hmm. Amazing. So many, so many things that I want to kind of double click on. So you said somewhere that you made choices within what you had. Can you, and where I'm coming from here was saying is that there might be others who are listening to this right now where they feel that I don't have any choices. I don't know where to go. I'm feeling stuck. I'm feeling helpless. I'm feeling that this is what life's all about. Hussein Hallak (16:45.839) Mm-hmm. Hussein Hallak (16:52.975) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (17:04.134) And so it seems from our conversation that we have maybe taken a few extra steps forward. And so if you were to now carry someone from where they are right now to where we think they can be, what does this mean? Make choices within what you had. Hussein Hallak (17:10.574) Yes. Hussein Hallak (17:20.931) Yeah, absolutely. See, a lot of times I felt I was lost probably most of like for every moment that I felt I'm on the path. There are like, you know, a hundred moments that I felt lost and I have I had no clue what I was doing. So I can definitely relate to that. I would say what helped me is because I needed to deliver. So I had a family. I there was no chance that I could, let's say, give up. Now, that doesn't mean I didn't give up and I didn't think of, you know, know, giving up. I think I thought of giving up every probably every day once at least. But number one, I carried this name of my uncle and everybody had high expectations of me. So I kind of had to figure it out. So and because I didn't have a big goal in the sense that nothing that I did, like when I actually worked as a creative designer, there was never a chance of like one day I'll become a creative director to, you know, and I'll lead my agency. had no aspirations like that. All I had in front of me is like, you know what, can I find work today? And if I couldn't find work today, I wake up the other day, can I find work today and that is better? Or so it's, it's mostly, I looked at the current moment and said, what can I do with what I have right now? And I did it. So if I could design a business card and print it and give it to someone and try to get business, that's what I would do. If I could search around. Sometimes I couldn't do anything, so I go attend a movie to get inspired. So I made choices that were possible in the moment by living in the moment. A lot of times what I noticed, and I noticed it in myself, and I noticed it in hundreds of entrepreneurs that I worked with, that what we do is our minds are stuck in what we want to happen. Ten months down the line, a year, ten years down the line, this is where our our minds are stuck and we can't comprehend the current moment. I'll give you an example. Let's say this book, I'm writing this book. So while writing this book, if my mind was stuck into, you know, what will the book be like when it's complete? What how can I publish it? Hussein Hallak (19:47.952) Who's gonna help me publish it? How will people buy it? All of those. I will not do anything in the moment. I will not write a word because I will be stuck in that and there's no solution in the future because I'm not living in the future. The only solution I can make is in the moment. And what that looked like is let me write one word. And in fact, I actually did that when I landed in Vancouver. When I landed in Vancouver, six months, I was searching for a job. I applied to 200. opportunities and I got one lousy interview for a sales. I remember like a sales job not nothing wrong with sales but a sales for a software company and I had 20 years experience I was I had my creative agencies and when I arrived in Vancouver and I've worked with some of the largest brands some of the top name agencies in the world Landor Segal and Gale the best names in ever and everybody told me well you don't have Canadian experience Well, what can I do with that? I can't change that. So here I am stuck six months running out of money. 200 applications. Like, what can I do? And I did this framework which I use all the time, which is I asked myself, if I had all the time and money in the world, what would I do? And the answer was I would become a bestselling author. I would spend all my time, you know, writing books and until I become one of the bestselling authors in the world, because I respected authors a lot. I learned a lot from books. I said, okay, but I don't have all the time money in the world. I barely have a few minutes because I would commute to downtown. We lived in West Van. So I would actually commute to downtown, do my job search and I commute back. But I said, what do I have? Well, I have 20 minutes on the bus going down and 20 minutes going back. So in why can't I write while I'm commuting there? Utkarsh Narang (21:27.892) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (21:37.745) whatever is on my mind, whatever is from my experience, let me showcase my experience and I write. And I started writing articles. And at the time, 2014, LinkedIn has just started to allow content on its platform. So I would write articles and I would publish them on LinkedIn on the way to downtown. And on the way back at the time, LinkedIn app would allow you to research, to search and to add people without asking you to send a note. Utkarsh Narang (21:47.625) Mm. Utkarsh Narang (22:05.684) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (22:06.05) And there was no limit on adding people. So on the way back, I will search, let's say, investors. I will search entrepreneurs. And what I would do is I would it will list all of these entrepreneurs. I would like and I will add, add, add, And within three months, I added six thousand people at the time I had two thousand. started. So I added six thousand people in Vancouver and and Canada. Utkarsh Narang (22:21.031) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (22:33.88) And I wrote several articles on LinkedIn. And because people, I would add them on LinkedIn, they would go to my profile, they would see a complete profile, rich with, with positions and they will see me writing. So I wasn't like searching for a job or anything. And I had a hundred coffees as a result and five job offers without even asking for a job. So what did I do? I didn't, you know, I wasn't stuck in the job I wanted. Utkarsh Narang (22:46.43) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (22:56.692) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (23:03.202) I wasn't stuck with, you know, what would happen in several months. Where I was is here is what I have as options today. I can add people and connect with people and ask for a coffee and I can write articles in the little time that I have. And I executed based on the options that I had in front of me instead of being stuck. Well, I'm going to write a book someday when I have the time, when I have the energy, someday when all the Utkarsh Narang (23:27.806) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (23:30.884) the things line up when all the stars line up when, you know, everything falls into place, which never going to happen. So this is what I call this someday doctrine, which I recommend and preach highly against. Utkarsh Narang (23:33.491) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (23:37.778) you Utkarsh Narang (23:43.701) Hmm. Someday doctrine, I'm going to make a note of that. There are so many lessons that people can actually put into practice like right now. And what you're saying is that if you're stuck and if you feel that you don't have all the resources in the world, what's the smallest choice you can make? What's the smallest? And LinkedIn today will not allow add, add, add, add to 200 people. it's still exactly. Hussein Hallak (24:07.364) But it's still, can add hundred people and you can also create, let's say some posts and create some articles to attract people to you. Utkarsh Narang (24:15.7) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what are you doing to come out of that? I think, I think where I'm seeing this and I like think a lot of visually, uh, Hussein. So if, someone who's sensing that they're stuck, think, and this comes back from my NLP training as well. The one idea that I want to kind of give them is like, just step out of that stuck space and move to another physical space, which you might call, you can give it a word, right? I might call it unstuck or I might call it. Hussein Hallak (24:38.288) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (24:43.124) thriving or I might call it abundant, whatever that word might be. And from that space, now you can network with people is what you're saying, Hussein, you did. You can write articles, you can have hundred coffees. When I came to Australia and so many things are like in parallel, I'm just like loving this conversation we're having. I went for lunches with strangers and so I kept meeting someone and the same restaurant, I opened my calendar that every Friday afternoon I'll have like Hussein Hallak (25:04.016) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (25:10.128) lunch with two people, one at a.m., then another one coffee and lunch at 12. Such fascinating conversations happen throughout those conversations and those people are still connected with me and we talk business, we talk work, we talk life, all of that. So your 100 coffees gave you five to eight job interviews, job without even asking for it. job offers, not interviews. Yeah. Hussein Hallak (25:29.892) Yeah, job offers, not job interviews, actually. Yeah, like people just, I had five job offers from people that I met. Some of them, because obviously they see that. The other thing is that it's really not about doing those things. It's mostly about in anything that you're doing, think of the smallest thing, because a lot of times we want to do bigger. You we want to do the biggest thing. Like I want to write a book. Okay, great. Can you write a page? Can you write two words? Utkarsh Narang (25:40.169) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (25:48.19) Mm. Hussein Hallak (25:59.601) Can you come up with a title? Like don't get stuck into the thing that you wanna do that is bigger. Make it as small as possible so that it's easy to take. So for example, you wanna run a marathon, run 10 meters. So when you make them smaller, what ends up happening, it becomes so doable that it will be ridiculous not to do. that is the problem. The problem is when we think of the things that we wanna do. Utkarsh Narang (26:13.275) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (26:20.894) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (26:26.926) they sound bigger. They usually always sound bigger, which is great. That's that's an objective. That's a goal you want to go after. And then what you need to do is like, what can you do now in this moment? Because what ends up happening if it's bigger? We'll see it. I'll do it tomorrow. I'll dedicate, you know, two hours tomorrow and then this never happens. So when you postpone and and guess what? We all do it. I do it all the time. I when I have some big task, I find myself as I'll do it in two hours. I'll do it. You know, I'll Utkarsh Narang (26:37.001) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (26:54.704) I'll let me go get some sleep. I'm tired right now. I'll do it. But it's a habit where you actually, if you really want to progress, I look at my emails like, I have 200 emails. Well, answer two. You don't have to answer the 200. We always think about completion and doing things completely and perfectly to the point that we prevent ourselves from doing anything. Utkarsh Narang (27:17.64) Yeah, yeah. And so to our listeners, seek progress, not perfection. Hussein Hallak (27:23.492) Yes, that's a great way of saying it. Utkarsh Narang (27:25.2) Love it, love it. And this someday doctrine, know, everyone's in some way going through it, right? Whether someone who wants to lose weight, someone who wants to start a business, someone who wants to quit a job, someone who wants to start a family and have kids. And we all keep saying that there'll be a right. And even I'll simplify it further and let's see what you feel about this. I will be happy when something happens. Hussein Hallak (27:39.961) Mmm. Hussein Hallak (27:53.739) yes. Utkarsh Narang (27:56.082) How does one overcome that? Hussein Hallak (27:59.409) I've been like, I remember every time I did that, it was like, I lost so much of life trying to pursue the someday approach where, know, I'll be happy once my company reaches that level. And once I sell it for this much, and once we reach that revenue and listen, it's important to have great objectives, things you pursue, that is important. That's goal setting, that's having objectives, having a trajectory, something you reach out to. And that's great. However, you do not have to postpone joy and postpone happiness until you get that. That's one. The second thing is you need to ask yourself those measurements of success and happiness, are they based on what you value? Or are they based on what society has trained us and what we've been trained by the media? Not that they're bad or anything. But for example, we read a lot about the success of these entrepreneurs and we think, well, that's success. Look at the Ferrari that they have. Look at the position that they have. Look at the exit. Look at how much money. All of these things. And they may be great. And maybe you do want them. There is nothing wrong with that. But are you sure you want them or are you sure that this is something that you are conditioned to want. So when you ask yourself, what does really bring you joy, you need to allow the answers to come to you. I always in my book, I write like, you know, screw answers. I say it in a different way. I don't know to what extent I'm allowed to say on your. So, yeah, so I say I say fuck answers. Questions are the shit. So questions, what they do is they open our minds. Utkarsh Narang (29:46.546) you are allowed to say whatever you want to. Utkarsh Narang (29:52.297) Yeah. Hussein Hallak (29:56.858) When we when we get stuck to answers and we say this is the answer, you know, I have to make this company a success. We don't allow for other opportunities to happen. You know, sometimes you have to see that something you're working on is never going to work out and you need to move to something else and you have to open your mind to that opportunity. What we do is we get stuck to an answer and we never progress to a different answer that might be even better. and even grander and it will open up the world for us. We do that with other entrepreneurs where entrepreneurs, know, we say love the problem, not the solution. If you are stuck to a certain product and you think your product is the shit and it's like the most amazing product, you miss out on finding other opportunities to solve the problem in a better way where you get to build better products. So what you need to do is first talk to your customers, ask them. Utkarsh Narang (30:35.604) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (30:53.189) Find out if they are looking for a different solution than the one you have in mind. So if you are truly, if you truly want to live a better life, stick to the questions, stick to, you know, to exploring rather than trying to fit whatever you your perception of whatever needs to happen into your life. If you stick to the questions like what do I really want? What does really matter to me? What is and you ask yourself that every day and regularly because who you are today is not the same person that was yesterday. And if you allow yourself to be this new person, to be anchored in the moment today, you get to reinvent yourself with the choices you make. And that is incredibly powerful because imagine Every day you get to reinvent yourself. Every moment you get to reinvent yourself, you get to live multiple lifetimes within one life. And that is what I would like for people to have. And that is what I've been gifted. In fact, I didn't think of it this way, by the way, until I think I was, it was 2009 or 2010 when I looked back at my life and say, wow, I'm lucky that I've been able to live all these lives. And when people started like, When did you manage to do all of this? Like when people hear that I started 22 companies or that I've trained hundreds of entrepreneurs, that I've been involved in all of these things, they say, well, when did you get the time to do that? I was like, well, because every moment I make a choice and if a ship is sinking, I jump ship. It's as simple as that. Utkarsh Narang (32:14.9) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (32:29.096) Yeah. I don't know. Double click on so many of these ideas. one thing that, yeah, to me, to me, like, you know, we can scratch the surface on everything and that's great. But until let's be like really double click, I don't think a shift is going to happen. And, and I think what you spoke about that how we get this opportunity of reinventing ourselves every single day. Hussein Hallak (32:36.761) I love the double click thing by the way. Hussein Hallak (32:45.915) Mm-hmm. Hussein Hallak (32:51.013) Yes. Utkarsh Narang (32:57.5) Even this one hour is reinvention, you and I, when we get out of this conversation, we'll be slightly different, right? Slightly reinvented in certain ways. I learned something new. answers. Questions are the... I think you said shit or shift. I was contemplating between the two. Hussein Hallak (33:08.557) 100%, 100%. Hussein Hallak (33:15.982) Questions are the shit. The shit. Utkarsh Narang (33:18.804) Yeah, all this shit. They can be the shift also. Absolutely. Reinvention. Making these choices. I love this idea from Viktor Frankl, right? That between the stimuli and how you respond to something is a choice and that freedom to choose is completely ours. But I was talking to someone just yesterday and I'm going to send this podcast to them because I'm hoping that you and I will break through the answer. Sometimes even making that small choice, Hussein. Hussein Hallak (33:20.623) And they can be the shift, of course. Questions actually do open up. Yeah, definitely. Utkarsh Narang (33:48.711) is such a struggle. I know that it's 3am and I should switch off my television. I should stop watching Netflix because I have work the next day. I know I'm eating this tub of ice cream. I should stop because I'm on a path of losing weight. I know I hate my job. It's not the right job for me. It's a toxic culture, but I'm afraid to do anything else because I feel like that gives me certainty. And so what I was talking to them was that sometimes our values don't serve us right. And so they tell us Utkash, you want safety, stay in the job. Don't try and take too many risks. So for that person who's listening to both of us, still unable to make a shift, how do you push them forward? How do you ask them to like take that small step? Because to me and you, seems like that's fucking simple, man. Why can't you take a step? Hussein Hallak (34:36.589) I love this question because I'll answer it in the way I would always answer something like this real, real answer. The real answer is you are making a choice. You're just not owning it. And when you actually own that choice, you get used to the idea of it is your choice. So what do I mean by that? Let's say you, I'm watching Netflix. I do that all the time. I have work to do, but I want to watch Netflix. And instead of being there watching Netflix and say, I should do something else. I own the choice. No fucking I'm watching Netflix. I don't give a shit. I am now choosing to watch Netflix. And what happens is in that mind shift of owning my choice, I am owning the responsibility of it because what's happening is we're escaping responsibilities. Like, you know, I'm not, it's not my choice. It's like, what's, you know, what what I can or I can't do it like you're saying, I can't change the job so it's not my choice. No, it is my choice to stay in that job because I do want safety and that's perfectly fine. We spend a lot of time putting, I would say, putting value judgments over our choices and our choices are simply just choices and If you understand that with every moment you get to make a different choice and you own your choices, then the world starts shifting from a world that is imposed on you to a world where you own the choice. So I'll go back to when I when I was here in Vancouver, I could have said, you know what? It's not it's not up to me. You know, I've been I tried for six months and I couldn't get a job, you know. What can I do? I did my part. It's now the Canadian market, you know, part to do. I did my part, but I owned the choice. You know, I chose to come to come to Canada. I chose to apply to those jobs and these are the results I got. Then I asked myself, what is my next choice? Because I own these choices and I perceive them as choices. Then I'm in control. Hussein Hallak (36:58.36) I am not in control of the results. I'm in control of my choice. So I could choose to stop or I could choose to continue or I can choose to continue in a different way. So when you do that and you will you get used to small choices like from the cologne you you put to the to how you take care of your body to the food you eat. You know, when I eat McDonald's, I don't feel guilty. Well, today I don't eat McDonald's. I'm boycotting it. But if If I choose to eat McDonald's, I enjoy the fucking McDonald's. I'm not blaming myself. I should eat something healthy. No, I'm eating McDonald's and I'm enjoying McDonald's and I enjoy that choice. And then when I choose something else, when I haven't the choice again, since I own the choice and it is my choice, I am empowered to make whatever choice I can do. And I actually make the choice that I want. It's those choices again and again because all of our lives what we what we've trained to Is that there is the choice and everything else is what life chooses for us So, for example, we think of a choice when we think of choice, we think choosing a career So it's a choice that will impact us for 10 years. So we don't think of everyday decisions as choices We don't think of you know Utkarsh Narang (38:03.764) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (38:09.555) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (38:16.756) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (38:19.174) Let's say even small things like what we read or where we spend our time or listening to this podcast or whether you act on this podcast and let's say, hear something and act on it or forget about it. We don't think of those as choices. We think of them as, you know, it's just life. But when we start realizing that everything in life is a choice and even small choices, we treat them with Just responsibility. We don't have to make them bigger than they are. You know, it's my responsibility. If I bought something and it turned out to be not good, then what does it mean to own the responsibility? What it means is the next time I'm going to choose, I'm going to choose based on certain parameters that I didn't, I didn't acknowledge the first time. So when you do that, you train yourself to make better choices because you are owning the choices that you have. It's just like playing basketball. You throw, you throw the ball into the hoop. Utkarsh Narang (38:45.652) Mm. Hussein Hallak (39:11.76) And you don't say, well, you know, it's like it didn't know. threw it. I wasn't trained. If I want to get it, I make the choice to throw it again and I make the choice to throw it better. And I analyze what I I chose the first time and the second time. I don't wait until the championship to throw the hoop. You know, I'm always throwing hoops. So choices are about always making choices. The more choices you make and the more choices you make consciously and the more choices you make with accountability. Utkarsh Narang (39:28.734) Hmm. Hmm. Hussein Hallak (39:39.748) the better you are at making choices. That's as simple as it goes. Utkarsh Narang (39:43.934) as simple as that. Yeah, I'm just processing everything because so what we are coming down to is that everything, this conversation that you and I are having, it's a choice. We both showed up to this link. It's a choice. We decided to record it and reach out to each other. That was also a choice. And so everything, it's a choice. Hussein Hallak (39:57.683) 100%. Hussein Hallak (40:05.126) Yeah, what I say right now is a choice. How I answer the question is a choice. And what that means is that, you know, like you see it all the time. People have a conversation that I didn't mean it. I didn't know. No, I take ownership. And what happens is you grow as a person. You grow up. You're not a kid anymore. You know, when you're a kid, you don't know what choices are. You're still growing. You can't control your brain. You can't. You don't know anything of the world. But when you're an adult, you own your choices. That's how you grow up. That's how you grow. Utkarsh Narang (40:20.082) Hmm. Hussein Hallak (40:34.191) you grow as a person. That's the growth mindset. It needs ownership. It needs that accountability. And if you don't do it, you're never going to be better at this life game. Utkarsh Narang (40:36.808) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (40:43.646) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're okay with that, then maybe make choices that are not based on that intentionality that you and I, that consciousness that you and I are speaking about. if, but then what's the point, right? To me, like it's as simple as this, that this human life is a freaking gift. And if we don't live it to the best of our abilities, if we don't find meaning, find growth, find whatever you want to choose to be, if we don't find joy in that, then what's the whole point of this game? Hussein Hallak (40:54.61) Mm-hmm. Hussein Hallak (41:14.325) I think of it in a different way and I do respect what you said. I think of it like a game. You know, I'm a gamer. I play games a lot whenever I get the chance. Whenever my life partner is not at home, as I'm telling me, go work, make us some money. I was like, yeah, let's run to my PS5. So no, she's awesome. She let me play. So what I would do, but it's funnier to say it this way. So Utkarsh Narang (41:16.264) Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Utkarsh Narang (41:27.816) hmm yes hmm Utkarsh Narang (41:38.291) huh Hussein Hallak (41:42.335) I would say, if you think about it like a game, you you make a choice in a game and you get killed along the way. So you go to play it again and you play it again and that's how you learn. And that's how life goes. We put so much over something. Let's say I go into this conversation. That's why I love having conversations because conversations are very educational about us as human beings. I say something and I regret it or I say something and I stumble. What we do usually, and I used to do that myself as well, we get stuck into, shouldn't have said that. I could have done it. And now we're not in the moment and we're all in our heads trying to analyze. And why do we do that? Because thousands of years ago, tens of thousands, 20,000, 100,000, how our brains evolved, because evolution takes a long, long time. We evolved to live in tribes and it was very, very important that we remain among that tribe because that meant safety, that meant food, that meant, you know, our families taking care of all of that. And if we say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, we get, you know, kicked out. And that meant death. You know, we have to face the saber-toothed tiger or whatever the elements are on our own. that's, we won't survive probably, most likely. Utkarsh Narang (42:59.476) Yeah. Hussein Hallak (43:10.362) So right now, any mistake, any bad feedback, anything that happens, our brain doesn't have the capacity to perceive it in any other way than a threat on our lives. So we treat it like that. And if you notice, notice it among yourself. Notice how when somebody says, you you did something wrong or gives you feedback, or you say something and is not received the right way, notice what happens with you and notice your defenses and notice how you're like, You want just we seek the approval and we seek people to like us who don't have any presence in our lives and don't mean anything to us. mean, we spend our lives trying to look good on Instagram, build, you know, like build up a life and build up a facade. And we miss on the most important things in life. Why do we do that? Because this is what our brain is geared towards. So you need management. Utkarsh Narang (43:58.324) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (44:08.766) Yeah. Yeah. Hussein Hallak (44:09.883) of those feelings, not to eliminate them. They will never go away. You'll always have that fear. What you need is you need to channel it. If I made a mistake in this conversation, what I will do is I will jump in and say, hey, I'm sorry. And I take accountability. I made that choice. But now it's a different moment. I'll make a different choice, which is to apologize, to acknowledge, to fix it. And when you do that, it's better. Now, it may not work out. Like that person may not accept your apology. Utkarsh Narang (44:13.556) Correct. Hussein Hallak (44:38.343) But you've done what you can. And that is all that life asks of you, is that you do what you can, is that you bring all of you to the next moment and you bring all of you to the moment after that. And you bring all of you to the moment after that. Whatever that means, wherever you are, whatever that... You might not be in your full 100%. You might be in 80 % or 50%. But bring that to that moment, be genuine and make that choice. You will learn and grow. Because when you're postponing that choice, when you have the opportunity to apologize and acknowledge and take responsibility for what you've done and you don't, that's also a choice. But we don't perceive it that way. In our minds, we postpone it, but life doesn't postpone anything. It's a choice. Utkarsh Narang (45:22.918) It's a choice. Love it. I love everything about this idea. And I think my nudge to the listeners is pause this podcast or come back to it again, maybe in a few hours or a few days and think about what are some of the choices that you're making right now that will take you to a certain default future. And if you could, based on the conversation that Hussein and I had, if you could change and own those choices and maybe make make different choices, I'm not even going to say better choices, make different choices in service of that future self, then where would you want to go? But as we're talking about that, Hussein, imagine a few decades from now, as we get to the end of the conversation, that 80 year old, 80 year old Hussein, if that Hussein were to come to you right now and had one piece of advice for you, what would that 80 year old Hussein tell you to do? Hussein Hallak (46:16.433) live wilder, go even more out of your way, I would say. I am always exploring and I want to comment on what you said. Like I love that you said it's better choices. There is no such thing as a better choice. There is only a different choice or a choice you make in the moment. That's a choice. What makes it better? Because we think we always have to make better and life today needs to be better than yesterday. And that may not be possible because it's not up to you. You make Utkarsh Narang (46:30.036) Correct. Yeah. Hussein Hallak (46:44.987) Again, if we come back to the basketball example, you can have, you know, if you look at, let's say, Michael Jordan, he, let's say the best athlete in the world, and he still missed 70 % of the shots he took. And some of these shots were championship shots, you know, and you should have said, like, he's Michael Jordan, he should have gotten that in. Utkarsh Narang (47:10.036) Correct. Hussein Hallak (47:11.333) It's not up to you. What's up to you is to make the choice to throw, is to make the choice to take a chance on yourself, is to make the choice to take the step forward. And the rest is up to life. You you may take that chance and break your leg. And it's totally not up to you. How do you know? How can you control the elements? You don't. What you control is the choice to move forward. And if you come back to yourself and say, I shouldn't have made that step. Well, based on what? Is it based on like, you know, And I don't believe in blame. That's why my approach to making choices is to explore. What is it? I ask myself not what do I want to make better as opposed to what do I really want to explore? What is an area I want to venture into? And that makes life more enjoyable. I'm kind of exploring this concept of joy. And the best way I could explain it is when I was a young kid, that eight year old that you spoke about. One of the things that I experienced, we didn't have that much money. for me, a Mars bar was like something I could experience once every two months. So when we went to friends of my parents and I would go and they had a lot of money. So I would go in and their kitchen was stacked with Pepsi and they had boxes of Snickers and Mars and as an eight-year-old I never thought like wouldn't be funny It wouldn't be nice to have money I didn't I didn't have the concept of money even all I all I knew is What would it be? I think about what would it be like to have access to endless amount of Mars? You know chocolate I just it was an idea of what would that be like what the experience would be like so and when I experienced that Utkarsh Narang (48:54.164) Yeah. Hussein Hallak (49:03.843) as an older me, you know, when I first went to Dubai and I had access to everything, I was paid $2,000 per month, which was more like four times more than what I've ever made or two times more than I've ever made at the highest level. I could I had access to everything and Dubai because in Syria we didn't have neither none of the none of let's say Syria was opening up at the early 2000s, but nothing like what was in Dubai and Dubai had I could go to two movies every day. could, you know, there are malls everywhere and all of the Western, you know, restaurants and everything. So I had access to everything and it was not, I'd never thought like, my God, I have money and I'm privileged. I didn't think about that. It's like, my God, it's so nice to experience. This is an interesting experience. So it was, I was more looking for experiences like the eight year old. That was what joy was. It's the experience of something new. And that purity of experience is what I refer joy to. It's not in our heads. It's not like, my God, I have this money, so I should be happy. No, it's a moment of joy and pleasure that you can't really explain. Utkarsh Narang (50:10.216) Yeah, love it. Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (50:20.724) Yeah. Correct. Love it. Love it. I just loved our conversation. Thank you, Hussein, for the honesty and just the openness that this conversation had. I think I felt that warmth that from Canada to Melbourne, I could sense that warmth. To our listeners who are still here and have spent an hour understanding, made a choice of going this path, go live wilder. Rest is up to life, but you make the shot. because that's what's important. And if you like this episode, then make the choice of clicking on the subscribe button or sending this to someone who you feel needs to have this idea of making these choices. Hussein, I don't know where our journeys will take us, but maybe there'll be a day when we will be in the same room together physically and have more conversations. Looking forward to that coffee and thank you for the time that you spent with us today. Hussein Hallak (51:13.213) Thank you for having me. This was such a joy. can't believe it's been an hour. my God, this is so joyful. And you're in Melbourne, which is the twin city of Vancouver, right? We're always competing on the most livable city. I'm definitely one of the cities I want to visit. So I look forward to that coffee for sure. Thank you for having me. Utkarsh Narang (51:16.02) It's been an hour. Yeah. Love it. Utkarsh Narang (51:23.91) Yes, Yes. Absolutely. Thank you for being here. To everyone, go make a choice. Go be your wildest self. Thank you so much.