On Sunday, May 12th, Torch invited Life Coach and Motivational Speaker Mr. Saif Al Falasi for an interview at our school. Reem Hazim, Marina Markarian, Shahd Jamal and Jomana Abdelfatah had a conversation with Mr. Al Falasi about his career and his life philosophy.
Why did you take the career path you have taken? What made you decide to become a radio host and a motivational speaker?
First of all, I’ve decided to become many things, Radio host is one of them; motivational speaker is one of them; life coach is one of them; a trainer – international trainer- is one of them; and an athlete in different sports is one of them. You see, I’m trying to expand as much as I can because life is all about expansion. Not a lot of people know how good they are at something until they do it. This is how I figured out that a human being goes through stages I call wisdom stages. The wise have been through a lot, and they know a lot, and they have the answer to a lot of questions. That’s why stages of wisdom is how you become who you want to be.If someone could share with you their experience, kind of like to-go wisdom, if you can sit with a lot of people that are wise and intelligent, that’s a lot of to-go experience, to-go wisdom. This is the answer to my question, which is: first of all, before doing anything outside of your world, try to dig in to your world, your inside. Try to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. Why are we feeling very emotional when it comes to specific things? Why are we becoming very thoughtful when we encounter something? So you have to really study yourself before you try to be someone else for the world.
Question: Out of all the careers that you’ve tried, which one was your favorite? Which one did you find yourself in the most?
I like to cook. I told you, I’ve tried everything. Actually, cooking really presents your personality. You want to know if someone likes you? Let them taste your food and look at their reactions. To be honest, the best thing I ever found out that I fit into is making people’s dream come to reality. It’s hard to find people who tell you to do that, and growing up, I didn’t have a life coach. I didn’t have a motivational speaker whom I would take as an idol. I didn’t have any of that. I grew up, and I decided that I will become a life coach, I will become a motivational speaker for myself first. This is how you do life. Life will always demand you. Life is like parents. They want you to do everything, but what do you get in return? Good job. Well done. No, no, no. I want more. I’ll do more, and I want more. This is how you treat life.
You’ve mentioned so many aspects of your career, but do you ever feel stressed? Do you ever feel like you can’t balance all of them?
Sometimes, you do feel out of control, and it’s normal. Being human is being out of control. If you have to control everything that you encounter, then you’re a control freak. You know how we always have that one fried who tries to control everything, even their breathing? What do they get? Nothing but stress. Being stressed out- and this is a tip- being stressed out is trying to control something that is uncontrollable. Trying to control the traffic? You can’t. Try to control the wind, try to control the rain, try to control whatever you can’t control and you’ll be stressed. That;s why some parents- when we try to control our parents, forget it. And when we try to control our closest friends to change, that is stressful. When you see something so good but not in a good way; you want to make them good but you can’t.
Marina: I think it’s like going from control to convince.
Persuasion? Yeah, like that. But imagine, throughout my career, if I tried to dedicate my life to trying to persuade, it’s not going to work. Your own family? Forget it. You can change the whole world, but your family? Not really.
Shahd: But isn’t part of your job as a life coach to persuade people to act in a certain way or to decide certain things?
Life coaching is not about making people change; it’s about inspiring them. When you inspire someone, they do it voluntarily. They will love it. They will like it. But when you try to force them, you lose them. Letting go is one of the golden rules I’ve ever had trouble with. It was a big issue for me to let go, you know. Sometimes, I would say, it’s hard for me to let go. I’m a failure. But then, I thnk about it: Did I really fail, or did I do something that did not work? You have to really ask the right questions.
Right now, as high schoolers, many of us are somewhat confused about the career path they should take. Sometimes, they are convinced that a certain path is what they are best at, but when they go into that career path they find that it wasn’t their destination. How did you know that what you’re going through, from different career paths, are what you’re best at?
Alright, hold your hands like this, all of you [holds fists tightly together]. Do you know what this means? You hold yourself. Whatever you do, you’re holding yourself. Whatever you do, you’re holding yourself, you’re backing up yourself. Because whatever you do, any career path you take, if you don’t like it, move out. Change it. Try something else. You’re not a seed in the ground that has to grow somewhere. No, you can change. I do personality tests, and that helps a lot with knowing what you should do as a career. Scientists have created so many that will help us, but maybe because we are lazy, maybe because we like Instagram more than science, and we read anything that pops out on Instagram, we’re not who we are. We’re just horoscopes.
You know, many people would disagree with horoscopes. They would think that it’s bad or taboo, but they forgot that many people have studied it for a long, long time. This is a short overview about how you should choose your career. You can never tell what’s best for you until you try everything you have in mind.
Shahd: But what if you can’t try everything? What if it’s not available for you to try everything? How do you heighten the chance of you choosing the right path?
Volunteer. Nobody says no to a volunteer. When you try to volunteer everywhere, they will like you. They will want you to try a lot of things. But if you’re trying to go there as a career, as an internship, as something, they will think about it twice. This is one way. Go for volunteering. Volunteering is the best remedy nowadays if you want to try something for one week, two weeks. Let me tell you a secret: I follow my guts wherever I go. This is how I know that I’m in the right place. Sometimes, I feel like I’m in the bad place, like I’m in the wrong place, but I still feel like I’m in the right place no matter what they do. No matter what they change, no matter what they try to tell me, if I feel like I’m in the right place, I stick with it.
Shahd: Do you feel like you’re in the right place now in your life?
Yeah.. and I want to be more. If you are looking to progress in your life, you have to read a lot. You have to read not just books but also people. You will deal with people eventually. You read books to deal with people, right? If you’re going to a bank, you have to read a lot of books so you can deal with numbers that people need, like your manager. Everything starts with reading; reading books, reading people, reading signs. I can read body language, but the thing is, what you need essentially, there are some primary needs, we all know it. If you have that all set, look for the next one.
Is there a moment where someone inspired you to do what you want to do right now?
Yes… I had a few. Among them are my parents. They treated me as a business man as a young age. At school, I had to take care of my own self. I remember I had an accident, so I called my father. I said, “dad, I went through a car accident”.
He told me, “you’re a man, right?”
“Yes.”
“Deal with it.”
You see, he was trying to teach me responsibility, and when people are trying to teach you responsibility, they’re teaching you to live your life the right way.
You know, I traveled alone at a young age to the US, at 17, a very young age. It is illegal to travel alone without a guardian. I though a guardian meant something like a power ranger, but once I reached there, the police officer asked me where’s my guardian.
Shahd: So you studied in the U.S.?
Yes, in Ohio. I stayed there for a year, then I moved to Arizona State University.
Shahd: What did you study?
I studied a lot of things. I changed my major around 5 to 6 times.
Shahd: So you practice what you preach, you’ve actually tried everything.
I’m just saying, and we’re not talking about stages of wisdom. That’s the name of my book. I would say parents and some of my amazing teachers that I had in my lifetime [inspired me]. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Jim Rohn? I read a lot about him. You know Ibrahim al Faki? He’s an Egyptian speaker. He passed away. But anyway, I always like to say that I inspired myself. I like to give myself credit. I had to find the people close to my personality. Don’t try to reinvent the way you are; you’ll waste a lot of years.
So, in your opinion, what is more important, living in the moment or planning ahead for the future?
Both. Never try to do one, because when you’re living in the moment, you’re missing out on the future plans. It’s like you have no plans but will base it off whoever does, such as family or friends.
Shahd: So someone else would plan for you.
Like when you plan to be an employee, it’s different than when you plan to be the CEO.
Marina: That’s an interesting way of looking at it, in like the opposite direction.
I mean, I’m living it. I used to be an employee. I worked for one year of my life then resigned. Now, I’m the CEO of a company. I can tell you. I got rejected from high school three times because I didn’t have English skills, didn’t have Arabic skills, didn’t have math skills. The same guy, he’s a CEO and trains professors now. Who would have known? It’s about being committed to yourself, to your goals and dreams. I had a big sign like the one here [points at “We Are Al Mawakeb” sign], maybe smaller, with my triangle of dreams. I wanted to be a doctor, etc… I’ve done it all except for that. I studied pre-med but didn’t continue. It wasn’t me. I didn’t want to be sitting in a room treating patients… How patient could I be? It’s not who I am when I imagine repeating myself; I’m not a routine guy.
Jomana: How do you control situations in life that you don’t have complete control over?
I observe, you know, because if I wasn’t able to deal with it this time, I’d be able to next time. I have to ask people that have been through it. An example (not a happy one) wass I received a call when I was in Ohio while I was studying my ESL. The call said, “Do you know this guy? He passed away.”
I said, “Okay, thank you,” and closed the call. He was a close friend. I didn’t know how to react or how to deal with it. I just sat on a chair, TV closed, at my apartment. I stayed there for a couple of hours and did nothing. I’d never encountered one of my friends passing away. I had to see others reacting to this news to be able to mimic them, but there was no one there. Next day, I felt so bad that I lost a friend who isn’t coming back. Then I had to catch up to my feelings. Day after day, you know when you get hurt so much but then the days keep passing by and the pain kind of fades away. You know you have got to accept it because this is life.
Shahd: It’s part of the grieving process.
Then it happened naturally, so this is why I was able to explore how I react to things. I don’t ask people everything, because some people would say that they’d cry day and night. They don’t mean it.
Marina: Do you ever feel like you have an obligation to something specific or you feel obligated or pressured to do something?
I used to… People’s expectations used to kill me. I used to be a comedian. A really funny comedian. I used to be funny to the point where I would laugh at myself. Keep that in mind: law of attraction. But then, I noticed that I’m making fun of other people to laugh. Then I stopped being a comedian because I didn’t want to hurt people to make others laugh. So I decided to make fun of myself instead, and that’s the right way of doing it. When you see a comedian make fun of someone else, they’re not comedians. They’re just negative people who try to take credit that they don’t deserve. I learned this the hard way when I received a call from the Philippines from a young girl. She said, “When are you going to visit us? We laugh at what you do!” I travelled to the Philippines and had my vacation there and went to visit her. She is the wisest person I have ever met! She looked very weird to a point where if anyone would see her, they’d make fun of her. But you know when you’re holding yourself, and you’re a comedian saying that “I’m going to use this to make people laugh”. But I told myself, “No Saif. Stop. You could learn from her. This is the story: it was her birthday. I met her in person when I went there, and they were all playing musical chairs. Usually, they would make the birthday girl win, right? But she lost. It was weird. She came and sat right next to me. I told her, “Oh, you lost. Why aren’t you sad?”
She said, “It’s just a game!” It struck me. I thought about it as life or death!
What is a concept that you have spoken about in your motivational speeches that truly influenced your audience?
The concept of embracing your identity. If you accept yourself and embrace it, people are going to come to you; you do not have to change for people. Humans are no shapeshifters; they cannot change from one personality to the other to satisfy the people around. Many people believe that they have to change in order to be loved. Stereotypes presented in the media about people from certain countries create an image in people’s mind that is full of hate, which leads to guilt and shame from people of that ethnicity. Therefore, it is important to remember that you do not need to change for anyone and no one should change for you.
What do you think should be really taught in school?
That is a frequently asked question, but I believe that the concept of “Self Efficacy” should be taught in schools, which is a concept that combines self-love, self-confidence, self-reliance and many more. Because if you do not love and accept yourself, you will not attempt to do anything for it.
What do you love most about yourself?
I consider myself a risk-taking, intelligent, and adventurous individual. When you are able to find who you are and what you do best, that is when you will find true happiness. I remember when I was in university in the US; I was labelled as the “Dubai guy”. People did not know me and did not attempt to do so. However, one day one of my mentors put up a difficult equation on the board, but no one attempted to solve. I thought to myself “there’s no harm in solving it”, so I stood up and solved it, then I left. Since that day, people would ask me to tutor them in the library. I turned from being unknown to being very well known, and the reason for that is my passion for what I did and staying humble