
How To Shift Your Money Mindset To Unlock Financial Freedom | Anas Bukhash
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I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy.
And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life,
you want abundance in your life,
and you want to stop making money hard in your life,
but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow,
you want to feel abundant,
then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now
and get yourself a copy.
I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money
this moment moving forward.
We have a big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to this episode on the School of Greatness.
Thank you so much for being here on the School of Greatness. I want to remind you that you are a blessed human being.
And if anyone ever tries to discount you, I want you to remember that you are worthier than you think. You have more value than you think.
You are deserving of love and peace more than you think. And sometimes we forget that.
I know for most of my life, I didn't believe I had worth based on the experiences I went through and based on the meaning that I interpreted around those events in my life. And in fact, for many years, I thought I was unworthy and unlovable.
And so I had to prove myself. I had to over-accomplish.
I had to overcompensate.
I had to, you know, boost my ego to feel like I mattered.
And for whatever reason, the more I chased accomplishments and success from a place of a wound, and the more I ran away from my past pain instead of healing and creating
integrating relationship with myself, creating boundaries in life with others, making sure I was going away from people pleasing and living in true alignment service rather than trying to please to try to be accepted or seen. That's when everything shifted.
And I just want to remind you before we jump in today's episode with my friend Anas, that you are loved and you are worthy beyond measure. It is immeasurable on how worthy and loved you are, but sometimes you just need that constant reminder.
And I'm so grateful that you're here, part of the School of Greatness community, because this is a place where you can be constantly reminded of your worst. You matter, you are loved, you are accepted, but it starts with you.
And if you're not willing to create that inner harmony and inner abundance within yourself by taking yourself on that journey of healing, peace, and prosperity, then you'll always feel stuck. You'll always feel like something's off and like you're never enough.
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You live in Dubai, a city of wealth and of extreme luxury, but you also grew up in America. so you have a mixture of American values and Dubai culture that you live in and you are surrounded by and have interviewed some of the wealthiest people in the world and I'm curious what is the difference that you've learned from Americans and those who live in America who think about money versus business and those who think about money in Dubai? What is the difference in the mindset? What I think, and these are all just perspectives.
I don't know how accurate they are, but I feel in the U.S. it's a bit siloed, like each to their own.
Like you don't have this unity in between each other and you're a go getter and you want to just make as much as you can and i don't know i don't find that cooperative feeling as much maybe now versus 50 years ago it's different it's more like single-minded competitive i'm gonna get mine i'm gonna compete against you that type of thing probably and then in Dubai specifically, because also each place in the region is different, in Dubai there's a crazy level of entrepreneurship. If you actually, if whatever anybody now is watching, whatever you Google, can you believe that the UAE has done all of this in 50 years, which is younger than our parents? People sometimes criticize the uae or dubai and they say ah it's this or that it's fake or no no that do you actually realize how many years we've built all of that it's very short so it's a very entrepreneurial city in dubai a lot of people come there whether from the u.s from the uk from europe from Asia.
That's where they start their careers because they create a business. And don't forget, it's like raw.
So when Lewis has an idea and you come and pitch it in the UAE or in Dubai, you probably are the first one. It's not like it's a thousand years old and many people thought and built those businesses.
No, you might be. So all of my startups are technically the first of this kind.
Really?
Not because I'm a genius.
It's because it's a young country.
So I have an idea.
I started and it does well.
So very entrepreneurial.
What is the, for a lot of people who've never been there,
they think of like, it's maybe a superficial
or maybe those who have visited, it's very superficial.
There's luxury everywhere. It's an excess of money.
It just seems like it's superficial or maybe those who have visited it's very superficial there's luxury everywhere it's an excess of money it just seems like it's just unlimited like it just keeps coming um does that help or hurt values within the communities there by having that much money or what does that do to values or communities i think it's a inaccurate perception um Do a lot of rich people move to Dubai? Absolutely, because Dubai has provided so much. Like it's, you know, you leave your car keys in the car.
Yeah. Your doors are generally open.
And it doesn't happen by coincidence. It happens because the level of security and the level of effort that the government is putting is immense like the other day I was walking with somebody who was just coming for a week and she goes can we walk here and I'm like yeah and for her it was shocking because she's like in Europe I can't do this walk at the end of the alone idea and no way for me it's a no-brainer but for her it's a brainer so i think the level of safety and the level of logistics and the level of ease to build your business and all of that and the network you build in dubai it's well if you think the world has six degrees of separation between any two people i think in dubai it's two really between you and anybody it's
probably two max so your network there is crazy so that's why the rich people that are moving the schooling is great the logistics is good quality of life is good safety which is quite undervalued is so important so that's why you see a lot of rich people there but it doesn't mean there are no middle class and low-income people everybody there are all kinds. Now, to the second part of your question, how has it affected maybe culture? The interesting thing about Dubai has always been a trading city.
Even my grandfather, when he was there, it's where people used to go to the port, sell carpets, sell spices, sell gold. So it's always had a lot of people different nationalities so we're quite accustomed
to that but you still feel a sense of value and togetherness which i love like i don't want to lose that so what is the what is the mindset about how to generate wealth how is it different with people in dubai then versus in america from your experience how do they think about money differently hmm Is it scary? Is it something they're anxious about? Are they holding on to it? Are they thinking, I'll spend it, invest it, because I'm going to create more of it? That's also a good question. I've lived in the U.S., and in the U.S., I feel, I do feel, and I hope nobody gets bothered with don't the American dream is is quite just a dream like I do think 1% make it and they make it big probably the best in the world if you make it in the US as the 1% yeah but the 99% to come with the American dream I don't know if they ever achieve their dream because I see them hustling so much just to live okay not even wow not even really comfortable it's like I'm doing two jobs and a part-time and my wife is doing this and my son and you're like all of you are working for this level so I always found that the marketing wise is great you know you think I'm gonna come and build this life but I do think that has shifted now you come to region.
I've seen a lot of expats come to the UAE and Dubai, and they actually live the dream. They come, they build a business.
It could be a chocolate business. It could be a specialty coffee.
It could be whatever, textile. And suddenly they have 16 branches.
So how we look at money is not out of fear because it's contagious when you live in a very entrepreneurial city if you go to New York is a bit different than going maybe to Dallas or to Wisconsin it's it's very contagious in Dubai that everybody's coming up with an idea so it's competitive but if you're entrepreneurial it's pretty a good place to be and I've seen people like even my best friend is from Boston so a few years ago I kept telling him come with your wife come to Dubai trust me trust me and I had to nag for years eventually he did and it's for him you can ask him it's the best decision he's ever made his kids all go to a good school he has a beautiful villa has a nice car has a great family and it's safe and he's built a business as a consultant now so it's not like i'm selling something i've seen it happen he's making more money in dubai now than america for sure really yeah is there do people talk about money differently though is it like an open conversation because i feel like a lot of people live in fear around money or it's taboo to talk about sometimes or it's hard to get in america sometimes they see a few people the one percent getting it and they're like okay maybe it's possible for them but not for me how's the conversation around abundance and money different in dubai um i think when you live lewis in a city where you see people make it and when when I say make it, it doesn't mean you have to be a millionaire. You could just have $10,000, $20,000, but you're happy with it.
So even the idea of wealth and abundance is a subjective thing. Some people don't want a million dollars.
They just want a quality life where when he wants to buy a T-shirt, he buys it, and he doesn't need to do three jobs to do that. Right.
And I think that's the difference. Here, it feels they put so much effort just to live okay.
Just to survive, just to keep up in the rent and payments and bills. There, there's more of a direct correlation as, okay, Lewis came to Dubai, he worked this much, he will get the return on investment.
Here, I feel you work this much, your return on investment is like, ah. Really? I don't know, i don't know maybe i'm wrong yeah but that's the perception i get i haven't lived here for a while how did you i mean when you grew up here though what was your perspective around money growing up in the states did you got did your parents talk about it openly was it a free-flowing conversation was it hey we don't have a lot of it so don't go spend this we can't buy this what was that conversation like and did it shift when you started to go to to buy more so on on a tangent the idea of discussing money i do think is quite taboo in arab and asian like you don't sit on a lunch table and talk about it if you read the book rich dad poor dad he had that contrast
one of the fathers like oh it's the devil talk you don't talk about money on this table and then
another father's like no we talk about money so i never came from a culture where you talked about
investments and oh we should invest in stocks and we should do this and don't put it in this account
never so financial literacy was extremely poor for me and for a lot of my generation you just don't't talk about it. You just put your money in the saving and get your 1% per year, which is probably the most silly thing you could do with your money.
If now today we are more educated, we're like, no, move your money. Keep something, but move it.
Put a bit here, put a bit there. Get some, make your money work.
Don't let it just stay in a bank. So that was never discussed.
That's the it's and when i lived in boston that was that was when you were in boston no that was ever always yeah your parents never did never yeah and i don't think they had the idea the financial literacy to teach us and if you don't have the conversation you never improve you never debate you never discuss which stock you should go to so we didn't. But in Boston, I was on a scholarship, and Boston is expensive.
Very. So I was just trying to manage.
I've been independent since I was 17. So, yeah, just how to...
I remember Louis. We didn't have nice clothes when we were students, and my roommate was chunky.
He was big, and I was so skinny. I was like half of this.
And I was like, man, there's this store we need to go. I don't even promote them, but it's just a designer.
And I'm like, we need to get a t-shirt, but it was expensive for us to soak. Now it's not, but you look at it and we're like, we can't buy anything from there there so like you know why don't we buy one t-shirt like in the middle the size somewhere where it looks like you're wearing spandex and for me it looks like i'm and we literally share like he's this big and i'm this small but we both paid for it and it was really nice to have but it just didn't look good on any of us right but that was how I think it's beautiful that you work towards then earning your money that so you can live well when did you start to think about money differently because it sounds like you grew up where it wasn't talked about your parents didn't talk about it and you weren't allowed to have open conversations so when did the shift happen for you where you said I need to learn about money differently to be able to run my business or to be able to raise the kids i have or whatever it might be what year is that and when did it start to unlock where money flowed to you the problem is i'm very ignorant when it comes to investments and i'm teaching myself so real state is something that my grandfather did very well god rest his soul and we never learned how he did it he didn't teach you guys no and and i think with me because i'm a purist when it comes to my entrepreneurship i follow my passion and when money comes it comes and the good thing is if you're usually good at what you do, it eventually does come.
But it doesn't mean you're being smart. Because you could, let's say, you suddenly make the first time you open the podcast in six months, make $10,000.
Buy new cameras. Get the sound engineer.
And suddenly, you're back to zero. So you need to realize, okay, if I'm ill, how am I making money? If you're sleeping aswis are people purchasing my book are people purchasing a course and that's who i think i started to think more like that in the last five years or so really where how can i have passive income and even i was i was talking to my brother the other day and he's like yeah this year's been challenging we need to restructure blah blah blah and i told him you know what his name is harath i'm like harath even if you take out a thousand dollars five thousand dollars whatever every month just put two thousand dollars somewhere put it in crypto put it in realist anything one of those are gonna hit but i don't want it in the bank so let's start and he's good with crypto and we're good with
stocks so like listen it doesn't have to be a big one so this is something also for the audience we don't have to feel crippled you could put a hundred dollars you could put five hundred dollars but that times 12 months is something yeah and that in five years is something else and i think we need to do that more we're so afraid and we keep things in their saving because we're like oh rainy day yeah but keep something as security what will make you live maybe for three months after that move everything let it move sure and that's what i'm trying to do now i mean you've interviewed a lot of i think you've interviewed some people in the royal family right i'm sorry have you interviewed some people in the royal family, right? I'm sorry? Have you interviewed some people in the royal family? Yeah. In Dubai? Correct.
And what is the difference between those who grow up in wealth versus those that don't grow up with money? That's a great question. Because a lot of people in the royal family or the children of the royal family, they grew up in wealth.
It's just around them. Is there a difference in the way they think the way they act the way they move do they have an entitlement are they more humble what is the difference between growing up in wealth versus not it's a very good question and of course you have all kinds of people you know some rich families the kids take it for granted they don't feel the value of money and some they suddenly have a business acumen and a finance acumen and the ones I was lucky to befriend it's we they don't feel inferior to money I think a lot of us that we came from a modest background or a simple background it's like it's a taboo it's like how can i get it you know but when you when you think it's just a tool and like it's a mindset it's kind of a confident mindset you know when you feel you can't get the girl or you're already losing so you walk up to the girl you're already feeling inferior or insecure or you're trembling.
That energy doesn't welcome the best looking or the smartest girl, for example. But if you're like, I think it's worth a try.
You know what? I think I have the right confidence. Let me have a conversation.
Very different response. And I think their confidence towards money because they've lived it is a bit different for somebody who's like, I don't know.
And I really believe law of attraction only works not by what you write down or what you say out loud. I think law of attraction is based on conviction, inner conviction.
And if your inner conviction is clear that you actually, Lewis actually inside believes he will have the bestselling book next year. For example you truly think no my book i wrote it so well it has a definite chance a chance for it then you have a chance but if you're like it's not that good well you say it's good to everybody but internally and the same goes to how we look and same goes to how we feel about our brain our self-esteem and what we think we're.
So if you look at your relationship with money and you truly think, I'm talented, I'm working hard and I'm pretty sure I can one day have, if you like a private jet, I think I can have a private jet or I think I can have a million dollars or, or, or. You truly believe it.
I do think if you, then you add that with the work, it will will equal manifestation for for someone though watching or listening that's saying well it's easy to have conviction when your parents are wealthy and you grew up in wealth but if I didn't grow up in wealth or I have a more of a modest upbringing like us how do I create a conviction inside of me that I feel comfortable around money and I feel comfortable money is coming to me if I don't know how to handle it on the first part I will contradict it to so some let's say a wealthy kid who his parents pass away he inherits all the money how many blow blow out all the money a lot of of them. Because that, you see, so it doesn't guarantee sustainability.
It doesn't guarantee profitability for the long run. A lot of wealthy kids, they just don't know the value of money or they're not financially literate to know how to keep it.
Dad had a lot of money. He's the one that made it.
And now I don't know how to make money. I lose it all.
I throw it all away in five years a lot of even professional athletes or whatever as soon as they stop all the money goes so it's never a guarantee if you were born into wealthier stay wealthy who made you wealthy you need to learn from that person yeah now with with us to for for somebody that comes from a more modest background i do believe believe in small wins. You know, it's like confidence is a muscle.
And if you train it, it's going to get strong. And if you stop training, it's going to wither away.
And then you have to retrain it. Maybe the second time you retrain it, it's quicker to build because you have the body memory.
And I think the same confidence for me has always been departments in your brain. So when we say somebody is confident, it's a very blanket statement.
It's quite inaccurate. Yeah, but he's confident in what? Oh, he's a great public speaker, so he's very confident in public speaking.
But maybe he's very not confident in relationships. Maybe he's very insecure as a father.
So we cannot just say somebody's just confident. It's a very delusional way of giving that sticker away.
So I like to see it as departments. And how do you build these departments? It's by practice, a bicycle.
The first time we tried to get on a bicycle, we were so insecure, we were so fearful. We put those two small training wheels on the side, Then you remove one.
But eventually, you even do it without even holding the handle. You're so good at it.
And even if you stop for a year, the next time, you quickly pick it up. So I believe that's my advice is trial.
So when you try, you're like, man, Anas, I invested in five stock. They all flopped except one.
It's not bad, you know. I think this is why when i did the research on this one kind of worked more and suddenly you're getting one percent confidence two percent confidence three percent and suddenly you're at 70 confident and now you know your you know how to yeah and i think that's so important it's interesting because i was i was looking at an office building a couple months ago and one of And one of the units I was looking at to rent out, the broker, I was like, I feel like I need some upgrades or whatever.
Would the owner put money to invest to upgrade it? And she was like, whatever you need done, she will do. Because she has owner's guilt.
And I go, what do you mean? She goes, well, goes well she got handed this building this big building and she's got a portfolio of like massive real estate portfolio that she didn't create it was like her father passed away and and gave her all the properties so the broker is like whatever you need she's going to do it because she feels guilty and so she'll invest in like just making it nice for you not trying to make the most money from it but just like i'm already making so much that i didn't create it's imposter syndrome it's kind of just like yeah i'll do whatever just to make people happy type of thing too many people stay in relationships that no longer serve them and the moment they choose to walk away they wonder why they didn't do it. The best things in life come when you don't settle.
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Now that was a helpful commercial. Do you notice that as well in Dubai with like children of the royal family who've been handed a lot of money? Do they have this kind of guilt for receiving it or they have a different level of confidence? I don't know many in the royal family, but the ones I've met are really impressive.
Really? I swear. How so? Just the level of sophistication, the level of knowledge and well-traveling, that's huge, you know, when you're well-traveled or when you're well-educated.
And when you, Lewis, when you're born, and I hope I don't sound too biased, but I'm a big fan of my own country. And the writing is in the pudding.
Like you can see, it's actually a great country. So when I see how the leadership that made the country a united Arab Emirates, how they were visionaries, like literally, Lewis, with everybody watching, can we, if anybody told us 60 years ago that this piece of desert is going to be one of the most sought-out countries in the world and best cities to live in in the world, nobody would have believed it.
Not you, not me.
Nobody, nobody.
But you had visionaries.
And if somebody is going to watch this and say, yeah, of course, you had oil money.
How many countries in the world have oil money?
A lot.
Where are they?
Not too well.
That's my point.
Some of them have corruption. Some of them, they just don't know how to use it or invest it in their people you know that one of our leaders uh god rest his soul he's the founder of the ua his name is so sheikh zayed when he was taking the leadership i'm told that he went to families telling them And listen to this he telling them i'll pay you if you send your children your boys and girls to school not you pay to go to school no i will pay you i will reward you if you send our children to school and they we call him baba zayed which is like father zayed because he was literally
a father to a lot of people in the country and outside wow like i've been to comoros islands which nobody probably knows where it is and i saw i was in the car because i was with unicef and we're going across this island and i see a small school and it's written sheikh zayed school for children i'm like he even has a school here so he was very even in the u.s he did a lot by the way a lot for the hospitals and for a lot of the charity so coming back to the idea if you have a leader who's investing in these people and paying them like please send them to school please because he knows in 20 years those those kids are the next wave so i think when you say say petrol money, it's one thing. But what are you doing with it? For example, Dubai doesn't have petrol.
But look at Dubai. Number one, income tourism.
Look at that. That's a huge achievement.
People might think Dubai is still running on oil. No.
Dubai is about tourism. Really? Absolutely.
How much does it bring in a year with tourism? I don know i can't make up those i'm sure we can find them on chat gpt but just in the last two years i was talking to somebody in the tourism in the last two years we have increased only dubai 400 000 new people wow so and they're not low income these are families that are bringing money and investments in the city i know miami i heard miami is doing very well also in the u.s and there are certain cities that are providing a good place for families to come and just settle so that takes extreme vision for someone like that to say okay we are in a you know a plot of sand there's nothing here there's no infrastructure there's no plumbing there's no roads there's no nothing it's just sand desert and heat and dubai is hot man it's hard to freaking live in the summer yeah it is who it penetrates your soul that type of heat it's just so different louis even the the ruler of dubai he decided to build a port when nobody they're like why you want to build such a big port? And he's like, we should build it. And everybody didn't agree or didn't see it.
That is one of the most important ports in the region today. Like when you think of it, it's easy not to say, of course you should build a port.
No, no. Like back then, why would you? Right.
No one was going there. Yeah.
But you know, when you have, that's beautiful. Like I would love to to sit on a dinner table and listen to people like that that had and we have them across the world, whether it's a Muhammad Ali or a Gandhi or a Mandela.
You have visionaries and they saw something that they didn't need to do because some of them are already wealthy. They're OK.
They don't need to do it. But there is a passion in the people.
And I think if you invest in the people you never go wrong never that's true and notice all the names that i just said they all invested in their people so how is the conversation around money today there are people talking about it openly or is it still taboo in conversation not taboo at all really yeah yeah now people talk they do i think the internet also helped a lot you know yeah investments and people how they use their money it's in my family it wasn't but i know even in asian families yeah usually money won't be discussed much so when you're around the royal family or you see them they're very sophisticated they're very well traveled what
else do they have they're very well educated very and again because we have this lineage right if you start from sheikh zayed and rashid who are the founders and then you you take that teaching and how they approach the country and how it was so important that the people are happy for example as an Emirati, we get land for free.
We get a loan to build.
We get an interest free we get um education for free we get um what else there is a loan to build and loan for weddings alone for weddings yeah so you can actually get married and really so they set you up how like it's so, they will set you up, they'll support you where it's really important to set you for life. How important is marriage and family in Dubai or in the UAE? It's huge.
Why? Why are they investing in people getting married? Because one, you want your people to grow and you want to build family units that are really strong and i think maybe we're generally in the modern world we're undermining the value of strong families it's so beautiful like i work with my brother he's my business partner in all of and my mother brought us up so well we have such a solid unit like me and my brothers are all buddies and we all trust each other you can't beat that like you can't find a business partner if he's also competent and your brother's competent you always wanted the brother right he's your blood he's not competent and someone else is then you don't use him like i do think to be a great entrepreneur you should be ready to fire your mother wow that's so it's tough yeah but that's that's what it takes you can't be like, oh, but that's my buddy, that's my mother, that's my brother.
No, you have to, as an entrepreneur.
Of course.
You have to be very objective.
You've got to put the best person in the position to help you grow.
Yeah.
So I'm lucky with them.
And coming back to your point, marriage and good units and good families build a society.
And if the society is built on ethical, good-valued people, good-mannered people, good units, you have a very strong society. In Europe today, maybe in America, a lot of places in the world is very disintegrated.
Like when you said, Anas, I live both. I live the American life and I live the UAE life.
And I love some things in both. And I don't like some things in both.
So I try to merge the most of everything. What are the things you loved about both and things you don't love about both? Okay.
So in America, I really liked just the people are really nice. I love that.
And I loved my college years.
And it was just really good formative years for me.
What I didn't like is the family values
where I felt were very weak compared to where I come from.
Like if you just see your family once a year
or Christmas or Thanksgiving,
for me that was sad.
Like I'm like, you're missing out guys.
Like this is so important.
We go once a week to our families or we talk to them it's such a strong unit with your brothers your siblings so that i didn't like and like i said in the beginning of the interview like there's not much unity between people now back home uh i think we moved so fast maybe before it was more rigid now we're so open to the world so now we're great but a lot of topics like the money was taboo culture openness to the world now Dubai is one of the most modern cities but one of the beautiful things for me that I don't want it to change is the good mannerism I don't think Louis you've been to the UAE you've been to Dubai it's very difficult to find an Emirati who wouldn't treat you with good hospitality, good mannerism, and just be nice to you. So that's really nice, and how you're warm with people.
If you just say, oh, guys, I'm hungry, they'll all invite you. Wow.
Whether he has money or not, he will invite you. Really? Yeah, it's in our culture.
And I remember, for example, in a neighboring country, my dad was in Oman. So he went to the mosque to pray, and he went to the small town in Oman.
Very, very, like a farming town, maybe. And he just went for prayer, like, let's say, afternoon prayer.
And at least three guys in the mosque, they're like, your lunch is with us. And he's like, no, no, with me.
And they're like, competing, who would invite my dad? And I found that quite sweet quite sweet like you don't see it in a lot of places in the world they truly mean it's not like they're just being nice they really want to take care of you and he's like listen if you don't have a place to stay our house we have a guest room and it's why is that you're brought up like that you're brought up to be nice to other people and hospitable and you you represent your culture, your religion, and your country that way. And I love that.
And I think the world generally needs a bit more of that. Yeah.
Yeah. Hmm.
What are the values you've learned through prayer that have allowed you to create more prosperity? Do you pray frequently?
I do.
I used to do it much better.
You're a bad prayer.
No, I don't think there's such a thing as a bad prayer.
I was brought up in a very conservative family.
My dad is religious, my mom.
And I think there's a lot of beauty to prayer Louis it's that let's talk about it from an objective point of view when you're a busy person mm-hmm and in Islam there are five prayers and I think Christianity I think you can pray five a day right yeah yeah at different times and I think in flexible. I think on Sunday, you go to the church, and different religions have different practices.
But the idea of prayer that you have to pause, I think that's really important. Like today, we talk about meditation.
We talk about leave your phones. So imagine you're in a religion where five times a day day you need to take a five-minute break.
It doesn't take long.
And you go and you pray and you take a spiritual connection or literally a pause.
I think there's a beauty to that.
It teaches you time management.
It teaches you prioritization.
It teaches you to take time for yourself. And it's also our prayer is a bit of movement.
So there's a bit of stretching.
It's like yoga.
So I think there are a lot of pros and discipline.
One of the things I love about the five times a day prayer, it's probably a lot easier to let go of the past. If someone, if you got into an argument with someone and you're feeling frustrated or resentful about something, if you're praying about it five different times a day, you might be able to let that go quicker.
You know, from one prayer to the next, hopefully you could let it go.
I'm not saying everyone can, but that type of practice of forgiveness, of reflection of, okay, how do I want to show up with these next five hours or next four hours until the next moment i didn't show up well i reacted to my neighbor i screamed i honked uh in the in the car okay how do i be better these next few hours i think that five times a day gives you hopefully a moment to reflect and say i got to be better let me go apologize to the person i just did this too that's you know, in our prayer, we have something called wudu, which is like you have to just wash your face and your hands. Just that interesting practice calms you.
Imagine like literally you're really pissed off, you're stressed at work, and you're like, okay, guys, let me just go pray and come back. And you have to go wash, and you wash your face.
Just that interesting practice calms you down by the way you cleanse yourself yeah so you then you go and pray and now you're forced to be good and nice and pray because you need to disconnect from the stress you just had in the meeting or an argument with your partner or so suddenly you're pausing now and i think that that's where i agree with you when you pause you regulate i remember by the way your answer in a b talks i i asked you a question i said lewis if you could teach every child in the world one thing only what would you teach your answer is one of the best answers i've ever had on the show truly yeah he said emotional regulation yeah and i think a prayer or a disconnect allows you to regulate before you just fight and cause something that... It's like when you're arguing, you go for a walk and then come back.
So there is a lot of blessings to that. What season of life were you making the most money? What year did you bring in the most money from your businesses? I have four businesses at them.
I used to have six. I have four now.
But the funny thing is each one does better in different years. This year, the hair salon is like...
Hair salon? Woo! It's doing well. Oh, man.
I'm happy. I got to come and get a haircut in Dubai.
For sure. It's a good one.
And I got inspired by New York loft style salons. Oh, they're nice.
Yeah. They're nice.
So a lot of your business idea is you just visit America, you see what's working, and you say, oh, we don't have this in Dubai. Let me bring this over, and it's going to crush.
Actually, two. Two of the six were because of an American idea.
That's smart. Yeah.
If it's not there, but you know it does well somewhere else, then hopefully the... The first one was artificial grass football or soccer field you didn't have i played it in boston we played and it was air conditioned i'm like oh yeah in dubai with our weather air conditioned but turf with cleats yeah with soft turf with like rubber exactly and i brought it and we were the first in the uae and it went from one or two pitches i think i think 26 28 pitches wow yeah indoor indoor indoor it was ac i was gonna say because you can't have grass there you know people watering all day long it's like it's not a smart thing to do yeah well that's cool so it depends each year some of the businesses do well some not what was the year that you made the most you don't have to say how much but what year what year i think maybe two years ago three years ago we did great and all so how much were you praying leading into that year i don't pray for money i'm not talking about money i'm just saying how much were you praying spiritually yes not like give me more money but how much do you just have to be prayer in your life every day I think it's important were you doing it were you doing it more before that that no no I've just been I'm a consistent guy like even every night I will journal and in my journal you'll see my gratitude what I what I did today the kind of like a diary and what I'm happy that I did and what was quite cool and part of my this is like it's not a secret but I don't usually share this but part of it at the end I will write like they call it affirmations I don't like the word affirmations I think it over trendy.
But I think it's important to write things that you want to do or get. So I do that every day.
And you know that was the funny part, Louis. If any of you watching do this, go back at the end of the year.
And you'll see, you'll be shocked at how much of it actually happened. Of what you write down, what you want to create.
What actually happened. Like you said, you're going to do all of this in the beginning of the year you'll be shocked what happens at the end of the year yeah like i do that and i'm like check check yeah yeah it's pretty cool you you were you got married young 24 correct married for nine years then divorced been separated for the last 10 years nine 10 years yeah what did you learn about yourself through getting married in your early 20s getting divorced in your early 30s and being not married for the last 10 years but co-parenting what have you learned about yourself from the whole process i learned that i don't advise people to get married young because it's very formative years in the modern age maybe back in your dad's time my dad's emissary was a bit different expectations and criteria my parents they got young too but yeah i don't know maybe if it worked because maybe the expectations and criteria of marriage was different 50 years ago or 80 years ago today i think because you want them to be a proper companion and really get you like we were talking also about your relationship you need that proper partnership because they they kind of wear more than one hat not not just the mother of your kids or just your wife it's your go-to your advisor so i young marriage, in my opinion, young marriage has two advantages.
I used to say one, it's two.
One, that if you have kids,
the difference in age between you and your kids is small.
So you become buddies, which is pretty cool.
Other than that, I never had anything.
I didn't think it was positive.
But the second one that I recently added is you're ignorant.
And when you're ignorant, you don't overthink things. So for example for example today at this age i know how expensive it is to have children and now if i get married i'll be i'll really be careful how many kids you would i would have right but when you're 24 you figure it out like you have kids and you're not over you just do the bungee jump you know you know, you're not so scared.
So I think there is some advantage to that, not recklessness, but that like, I don't know, but I'm going to find out. We'll make it work.
Yeah, we'll make it work. So that's what young marriage.
And I think that's what I learned. And I think it's such formative years.
When you're in your 20s, you think you kind of know, but we were different people at the end of the marriage like literally it's like you become another human so for me especially the 20s if your trajectory is 10 degrees to the right and hers is five degrees to the left you multiply that by five years and that's just trajectory i didn't even talk about speed imagine it's at some point one of you is looking at the other in the rear view mirror.
At another point, you don't even see them anymore.
So I do think we change a lot.
And I always imagine the dolphins.
You need to swim like the dolphins.
Sometimes you're a bit front, they're a bit behind, but you're kind of still in harmony.
And if there's no harmony, you just grow apart and you fall out of love and you just change. Uh-oh.
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Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Shev and as many. You marry the family.
You don't marry only the person. Marriage.
you marry the family you don't marry only the person marriage you marry the family because your children Louis will also be brought up in their household right with their with her mother with her father with her siblings with her auntie her cousin especially the children gravity to the mother also so it's not like only your wife is bringing him up or her up. So I knew the value also even more of my in-laws when I divorced because they're till today, they're great.
And till today, I speak to my stepmom. I speak to my ex-wife and they're lovely people.
They speak highly of me. I speak highly of them.
And I realized how important and one of the best decisions I've made was to marry into their family. Really? Because when you're divorced, then it's like when you let somebody go in your business.
A lot of them are not nice because the benefit is gone. The contract or the agreement is gone.
So now they don't have anything with Louis. They can say he was a bad boss.
I can't believe that. They can do everything.
Just blame you. But if they leave and say and say man louis one of the best periods of my life great leader i learned a lot from him now i always say judge people on how they leave and and i think when i left that family they've been class wow so that's helped us a lot in co-parenting and we have two beautiful boys so we're always in touch about them um and what what was your third question about now you said you're yeah you've been you've been not married for 10 years now what do you learn about being divorced and then single essentially for for the last decade yet it's been i don't know if i'd get married again why not now i'm more open to it if marriage is the fabric of your culture and your country you're getting me now why would you not want to be in alignment with the values of your country and culture now i am more okay and to be honest i wasn't so much maybe Maybe it is a trauma.
Maybe it is just trying.
I was so focused on my businesses and it actually paid off.
You got results.
Yeah.
And I think now I'm more open to the idea that, you know,
in the last stretch of your 30, 40 years of your life, I'm 43 now.
Let's say another 40 years if we live healthily, hopefully.
You start to think, okay, companionship is actually nice intimacy is actually nice and that's what i'm trying to teach also my son so with my son i told him when we talk to our children we say also baba and said it's funny i don't know how in certain cultures we also say to our so they say baba to you but you also say baba right it's weird but it's it's in our culture so i was like uh majad his name i'm like baba listen i don't want you to be brought up like the pop pop culture that we were brought up in we were brought up with music videos and so many women and masculinity was defined by the quantity not the intimacy and i said that's how that's how we were brought up in school, in high school, in college. That's what we thought.
You see movies, you see videos, you see music, and that's what you're taught as a man. You have a lot of women, you're a really masculine guy.
And I told him, I had to uninstall a lot of that programming from my brain, which still today is a process. But but i told him i don't want you i i would love for you to have lived a life where you come and tell me dad i fell in love three times in my life the fourth one was my my love of my life and i married her i'll be so proud of you rather than you telling me i went out with 40 girls right like okay what does that even mean does that even mean? Like, do you want me to clap? Because if you're charming, you'll probably go on.
But that's not the goal. The goal is, can you be intimate? Can you be vulnerable? Can you build an honest, clean, not cheating or fighting or toxic? Can you build something healthy? I'll be so proud of you if you do that that and I want to instill that in my sons yeah did you feel shame or some type of trauma when you went through the divorce based on cultural norms was there anything there or did you feel at peace about it divorce is not as scary as when my mother got divorced when my mother got divorced it was difficult for her
really tough she went through a hard time in the society now it's way more open but now i feel also some people are just too easy with it like they don't even wait i don't like when people give up too easy like in six months you're divorced what does that even mean what did do? Right. So I didn't face backlash from my society.
But I'm sure there is some trauma somewhere. You know, when you build, when you invest nine years of your life with someone and you build a family with them, you can't be a robot and just think everything is fine.
It's not. And I think somewhere in your subconscious, you're like, okay, anti-vulnerability, anti-commitment.
Anti-intimacy, yeah, all that stuff. And because I'm also a control guy.
And control is you stay on the surface. Yeah, you don't go deep.
You don't go deep. And that's not great.
You have to, and vulnerability is bravery. Vulnerability is courage.
And to say, I'm going to try. If it works, it works it works that's scary have you started to tap into your vulnerability and open your heart more since then yeah in the latest years in the last two years maybe the first eight years no no all service all control make sure everything's safe for you really yeah how did that feel versus opening your heart more in the last couple years the thing is look people talk about it like it's black or white we're very binary as humans and not everything there is a beauty to everything if you don't have anything serious and you're a person who's working a lot and you're working hard and you're enjoying your work and when you meet someone you meet someone but maybe it's surface there's a beauty to it let's also not be foolish and say that oh no that's so sad and depressing it doesn't have to be and also if you decide to be intimate there's another richness to it the surface level relationship let's not call it ugly or, because it's just hating on something that maybe somebody's not too excited about.
Maybe we'll call it a very light sweetness to it. Light, but it's not rich, it's not enriching, it's not full of good ingredients.
Maybe it doesn't feed the soul as much as, maybe it will quench your thirst, thirst but not proper now intimacy if done properly and i think you're one day we need to sit and learn about your intimacy i think once you hit that correctly that's a different flavor that is like you're like you can't go back to being casual or surface so hard yeah because hard, yeah. Because you just experienced companionship.
You experienced pure love. That's beautiful, but not common.
What do you think it will take for you to fully be intimate and allow for yourself to open your heart and be deeply in love? I think inner work, I don't think it has much to do. I do believe there are certain, like you met Martha, right? She was a key to Lewis.
She was one of the keys to your heart. I do believe we have keys around the world.
I don't believe one soulmate. I believe soulmates.
I'm a probability guy. But is the probability that you're going to meet more than one in a lifetime? I don't know.
Even if it's 100,000 around the world the world yeah it's you and your fortune right so when you meet one of those keys i think you need to invest in that one at least now there is a key to to louis's heart but also louis if he doesn't work on himself he's going to throw that key out he will not know how to deal with it so to answer you i think a lot of it has to be inner work if your inner're inner work and you're inner awareness, and I don't want to sound like too TikTok-y. No, when I mean inner work, I mean proper.
Like you talk to a proper therapist, you learn about yourself, you see your patterns, you see how you deal with people. Who are you actually attracted to? I was talking to my therapist about something very interesting, and it's, I think, a Carl Jung Jung teaching and the idea is each of us has an inner image of the gender that you're attracted to so I have an inner image of the girls that I'm attracted to that I'm not consciously aware of so if you ask me as Louis Anastas which kind of woman is the ideal woman I'll give you the the shepil like one two three job description I'm so clear I know what they want and she's this she's sophisticated well-traveled I'll say everything all the perfect things that probably anybody would say but then you come and x-ray my track record then you're like Anas you usually are attracted to somebody not exactly like what you just said maybe it's like 30 percent but 70% is not what you've been preaching.
And then Anas, as me, I have to actually see, I'm like, oh, my inner image of a woman, what is it?
Is it aligned with what I'm telling Lewis verbally and consciously?
And as long as they're very different, you're going to be screwed. We talked about how also you were attracted to certain women that are not good for you no so that's a pattern that's your inner image of the girl that lewis likes and it's like a velcro so girl after girl is passing you but one of them sticks and you wonder why that one why of that age and that personality and that look and that person you you start to see what what's going on and then you have to understand why so that's the inner work i'm talking about when you understand your inner image of the person or the the woman that you like should be actually aligned with what you would actually say on yeah on paper what's the inner work you've been looking at that you've been most afraid to address i'm not afraid that's the cool thing i actually i'm not i'm a trier i'm a curious human so i i went this the funny thing is in my show ab talks we talk a lot about mental health and and all of that and i never had a therapist although i talk about a lot of a lot about it but i because we were, like we talked earlier, in a very reactive way.
Like when you're in depression, you should get a doctor. No, you should see therapy as preventative maintenance, not reactive maintenance.
Like going to the gym, even if you're in great shape, you have to maintain it. Keep going.
So I'm like, okay, I did first therapist, didn first therapist didn't work second it felt like homework third one third one clicked that i look for he's in new york and we just met recently in person finally and i'll bring out my notes lewis and i'll be like oh really okay and it's so fun to talk to him because he has a great mind and i told him listen i don't want to vent i'll vent for a bit but i need a brain i don't want to lie down on a sofa and i talk already i'm not a guy who is like introverted with my feelings so i've done that i need the brain that challenges me ask me the right questions so with him i haven't been afraid i'm just curious and i can talk about man i don't know how to build culture at work and we'll talk about that that week the next week i can say you know i really miss love you miss love yeah and we'll talk about that so it's beautiful to you don't have to be in a very bad place just to talk to somebody and you start and if some an outsider looks at lewis or an and says, let's look at your pattern.
What's going on?
You're like, man, I'm so frustrated every day.
Why are you frustrated, Lewis?
Business, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, why?
Let's dig in.
And you start to see.
And he compared my approach to business and how I approach relationships.
I never combined that. Wow.
He compared it.
Yeah.
He showed me the symmetry.
What's the similarities of how you approach business and relationships?
One of it is the control.
You know, I'm not a controlling person like where are you, who are you.
I don't care about all of that.
I love giving freedom because I also appreciate it for myself.
So I can't preach what I don't practice but surface level relationships control you know treating it like it's another meeting in your day it's not a meeting relax relax you don't have to go see them if you're feeling bad you don't need to be a pleaser sometimes and you're not a pleaser at work so don't be a pleaser as when you start to see and you build your childhood also because a lot of how we are is our relationship with our mother our relationship with our father they say that you replicate the love language of the same gender parent and you want the same love language as the opposite gender parent and you when you think of it like okay louis's mom even if let's say your mom wasn't expressive but you're finally attracted to non-expressive woman because it's familiar it's your comfort zone but that doesn't mean that's what you need right so if you start to backtrack your childhood your parenth, your good relationship, you start to see what's going on.
What are you attracted to?
And what are you doing wrong?
What's the biggest lesson that you've learned about yourself in therapy?
Wow.
Wow.
Dissecting why I am the way I am that's been your biggest lesson learning how to dissect why you are the way you are because if I ask you Louis why are you such a go-getter why are you so competitive why are you such a you're like I've been this way that's me but why what happened in at home what happened in school you know where you bullied were you not were you the popular guy were you a person that identifies your value just with how good looking or how strong you are at in a game in a football game is that your worth where's your brain what are you attracted to why do you need people to like your images and pictures and comment too much you start to understand for example i am were eight boys and one girl but my parents divorced and married and had more kids but from my mom and dad were three and we're so different louis and. And I told David, the doctor, I told him, I don't come from a really poor background.
I come from a comfortable background. Modest and comfortable.
But I behave like somebody who came from nothing. Like I know I have the drive of somebody that is so driven, so passionate.
But my brothers don't. And I don't mean it as I'm making fun no it's maybe it's better I don't know yeah but why am I wired this way what happened so that's that's a good question what did you learn we just started this like two weeks ago but it's it's interesting I'm the eldest so that we started.
I'm the eldest. And he said something along the lines.
I don't want to quote because I don't want to say it wrong.
But something along the lines that when you're the eldest, I was alone in Syracuse with my mother.
And maybe I started to, maybe, we still didn't reach there.
But maybe I started to connect achievements and good deeds and good actions with pleasing my parents like oh they're happy now
i need to do more oh they feel i'm a good guy good boy and maybe this is just one theory we still started so but you see it's pretty cool wow and i think being the eldest has a lot to do with it. What do you think is your biggest block from allowing you to love deeper and feel freer that you haven't yet figured out through therapy? The kids are still at practice and I have no idea what's for dinner.
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Vulnerability. I think it's hard.
It's hard for you? But you have a show that's all about vulnerability. It's easy to listen to vulnerability to vulnerability not be it it's easy to ask the questions and hear someone else but not be it interesting of course it's easy for you to tell me to go to the gym 10 times but you go 10 times right it's much easier and i do respect vulnerable people i do appreciate and admire and that's what we need to push ourselves especially as men louis when you really do I've seen a lot of research and studies on men versus women for example there is this I shot an episode with a psychotherapist about this did you know that parents tend to be much more loving to daughters than sons so when the daughter falls and scratches her knee like oh darling are you okay yeah your son goes dad he's like it's okay it's okay get up you're fine look at that yeah they could be six each six years six years you're training and conditioning you're telling him stop crying keep your emotions down stop yapping and the daughter like come here, let me clean it.
And I'm not saying all families are like that, but it's a quite typical approach. Even if I was a dad, probably I would have done that by default.
But then you think about it, like if he wants to cry, let him cry. If he feels hurt, treat it like you would treat your daughter.
And I understand the world can be tough and you need the the men to be men and strong and responsive but they don't have to be suppressing emotions and getting angry or becoming toxic eventually so do you still suppress your emotions less because being a father makes it makes your heart softer like you sit you sit me on a plane with a nice movie i'll probably tear up for sure especially on airplanes because of the altitude there's a whole research on it by the way really because i always used to tear up on planes and i'm like there's something with planes and i actually researched the high altitude really the oxygen yeah there's you could watch an ad and be like i know i watched uh i watched a movie i don't know a few months ago and i cried like three times and i'm like people next to me must be thinking i'm crazy you know man that's interesting and i will look forward to you being at that i know i'm excited yeah i think you'll be a great dad i feel like i would have been terrified in my 20s i think i would i just don't think i would have done a good job i mean maybe i would have stepped to the occasion but i don't have any money i didn't have a job i think i would have just been terrified i wouldn't have been a good husband maybe i'd have been a good dad but i wouldn't have been a good husband i think because i'd be out trying to make money and then coming home and thinking about the kids yeah i wouldn't have known where to put priorities into priority needs to be with your partner i believe before the kids 100 and because they're going to grow up and leave exactly which they call an empty nest exactly and you're with the partner who you probably neglected for the last few years yeah exactly and they're going to resent you and be frustrated the whole time yeah you know so i think that the key and finding a now I know what it is like do you know who Cesar Millan is the dog whisperer no he's at a big TV show in America where he trains he's a dog trainer but his whole thing is he doesn't train dogs he trains humans so it's all about kind of rehabilitating humans on how to be a better leader in their
life so they can lead
their dog, right? Because most
dogs lead the human.
They're leading the way,
they're pulling them. The guy I got to
train my dogs, trained me.
That's what he does.
He got to train you on how to be more confident,
more assertive, all these things, right?
Better relationship with yourself so that the dogs will look up to you and say, oh, he's a leader, not me.
Yes.
Anyways, he said, you know, in America, we have it all wrong.
In American families, when he's training mothers and fathers, right?
And he said he usually goes, the priority is, you know then dog then kids then husband and the husband is like you know what what's in this for me if I'm the last person here and I'm always and I'm out hunting and provider I'm working my butt for this family and she put the dog ahead of me you know it's, it's like, so, and I'm sure the woman probably feels last in some cases too, but he was explaining how you've got to have the parents, you know, first priority, then the children, then the dog. If we're competitive as people and as men, the competition, the true competition competition should be how can i win over my woman consistently on a long run rather than jump to 20 women why if we really again we're probably competitive me and you we really think about it if you're charismatic you're well spoken we're good looking, you're charismatic, you're well-spoken, you're good-looking, you're healthy, you're well-off, anybody, you'd be pretty good at probably any first date.
Probably the 10th date. Because you're an impressive human, you worked on yourself.
But is that really an achievement? Or is it that when you find somebody really good and you keep her loving you and not going routine and boring or neglecting or no keeping her really loving you even after six years she's like man this guy is just unbelievable that's way harder by the way way harder than winning over 10 random people and at surface level what do you think it's going to take from you to be able to create that in a relationship in your life in the future because you've lived a life now of 10 years of singleness of you know is in a way selfishness of not having to obviously show up for your ex-wife in certain ways but it's not as invested in a a partnership that you would have right now correct you're not so you show for your kids all these things but you're not in an intimate relationship where you're committed what do you think it's going to take from you to be able to fully commit in a relationship and go all in and keep winning her over every day for years man i like your questions louis because it's probably been a pretty good life over the last decade freedom it's i don't have to surface level i can have fun with people i don't have to fully commit i don't have to open my heart i don't get hurt i'm in control i end it when i'm done like i said there's a beauty to all scenarios of course but there is also delusion so when you don't know otherwise you think that's it you know there are a lot of nice quotes on this but none of them are popping in my mind but it's it's like when you haven't been on the other side of the hill you think that's the hill that's the world right um it's what is that saying about the fish like the fish thinks this is like something it's i would i need to search this one it's the only it's the only amount of water in the world yeah something like that you know that you think this is it so when you have been used to diet relationships or lightweight you think this life and it's nice and whatever and because you don't know elsewhere we have no contrast or no benchmark but when you try intimacy which I have tried once in ten years you realize the beauty of intimacy and once you know you can't undo it's like you It's let's go back it's literally in anything in life you could go on a certain airlines and you think that's the airlines all of your life you're going that this is the standard you don't even feel bad the moment you try a really good airlines good service everything like oh now you can't go back so the thing with intimacy is similar the moment you have a serious relationship or a healthy one or pure love it's very difficult to go back to superficial love or superficial liking so to answer you what would and it's a bit different for me Lois because thank god i was blessed to have a good ex-wife i was blessed to have children so i don't have the have the peer pressure now. I have to just try this marriage thing.
I don't have that peer pressure, which a lot of societies and cultures give you. Secondly, a lot of them get married for kids.
I don't, if I have kids, great. If I don't, it's okay.
So suddenly, in my subconscious, I don't have these drivers that a lot of people don't admit. Like today, even Gen Z, if I they're getting married earlier than some other yeah because i do think it's the social media like oh he proposed and i posted it on tiktok and it flew and they love that fantasizing idea of it so um my point is that i don't have those peer pressures so now the criteria is only proper compatibility and companionship.
And to answer you, you need the key that we talked about, a really good key, that when Louis or Anas is vulnerable and he's giving his love language, there is a ROI. You feel love too.
So your love tank is also filling. If you always just give and you feel their love language is just not translating or vice versa, it's not a good relationship.
And I think that's when you're like, let's say I give you a bit of me and I get a nice hug back or like a really good love language that I love. I'm like, ooh, that's cool.
Okay, one more. Now I'm becoming more vulnerable because there's a return.
You know what I mean? And then you're like, okay, now actually it's safe. And I think this is where you'd be willing.
With the right partner and the right intention internally, you can, especially if the love languages are compatible. I think that's so important.
This is fun, man. I've got two final questions for you.
for you. Okay okay but i want to make sure people go follow you over on instagram you got millions of followers on instagram you've got a massive youtube show as well um where where should we connect with you the most where are you the most is it youtube is an instagram is it instagram i use personally i like that platform YouTube is my main hub for hub for the interviews.
Okay. It's the same name, Anas Bokash, on YouTube and Instagram.
We'll have that linked up. We'll check that out there.
How else can we be of service to you today? How can you be of service to me? Yeah. I just appreciate you, Louis, as a person.
You're a good person thanks brother from what i feel as well i can't x-ray you but i do feel that and i'm happy for you and i'm happy when i see your partnership and i see how you're such a student louis i love that you're curious. You wanna learn.
You wanna be a better human. And I like people like that.
Yeah. Very similar.
Yeah, we are. So I don't want anything.
I think your company is nice and you're a good person. So it's nice to bugger.
Good to see you, brother. I got two final questions for you.
10. Before I ask them, I want to acknowledge you also for your evolution.
I think being a successful business entrepreneur, leader, you know, you have a massive following. I think you talking about, hey, I've lived a pretty good life, but I've also been holding back in my heart in certain ways that could expand me emotionally and help me evolve as a human I think it's powerful for people to hear because living in Dubai you could have anything you wanted any time you know with whether girls or whether it be food or what you know opportunities like you can have it all it seems like which can be fun and tempting but also is it always fulfilling is it gonna allow you to fully dive in and expand your inner world in that lifestyle so you talking about this and you diving in with a therapist finally it's a good thing i acknowledge you for taking that on and i'm excited to see what you create with your heart moving forward you deserve to feel the expansive love of feeling fully emotionally safe within a relationship.
And I think you've reached that in your personal life.
I feel like I wouldn't get married if I didn't feel that way at this age.
I would just stay single forever unless I felt emotional safety.
I learned something recently.
A friend taught me this.
She said, do you want to know if you're in a good relationship it's when your nervous system is at ease around that person yeah that's how i feel and that's why i'm telling you never said before i've never had this much peace of mind and i was talking to another friend recently about her relationship and her love life and she was confused and all of that. And I told her, you want one way to measure if you're in a good serious relationship and anybody can do this,
watch how many times per week do you lose your peace of mind.
If it's once a week, it's too expensive.
If it's once, maybe a month, once every two months, that's normal.
We're human. We argue.
But if you're losing your peace of mind often, there's something off. Something's off.
So I really believe that you... And the video that always tends to go viral is when I talk about...
And probably you can relate now because it seems like you're in a good relationship I say when when a woman or a man is truly in love and feeling safe they turn into a young child a kid the girl no matter how strong she is on the outside and how independent and a leader she is outside her home she wants to come home and be a princess.
The boy, being tough and this decision maker and whatnot,
he wants to come home and just be a little naughty,
mischievous little boy,
and he can be silly with his girl.
And we all have to monitor
which relationship made us feel that way,
because that's true vulnerability.
You're you. You can be silly silly sarcastic you you're not judged you're not shamed you're not trying to be the specific image that they want you to be yeah so bad relationships have a lot of shaming you know good relationships have celebration harder to set yeah that's beautiful I want that for you.
Final question, my man. What's your definition of greatness? Oh, that's your question every episode? Yeah, yeah.
Yours is how are you really, right? How are you really doing, yeah. My definition of greatness.
I think success is a very subjective thing. People think it's one.
It's money, cars, life, family, kids. People think success has one definition.
It's very wrong because some person just loves to bake cakes in a small cafe and he has his two kids and he finishes and that's his that's his best success that's his greatness and we have no right to say oh that's not great he should have a tower but he doesn't want a tower he's okay with his small coffee shop he's happy so then we have to decide for each person that success is subjective what is yours what is yours is very different for me my only i don't know if it's a fear i don't think it's a fear it's a concern is i i'm not afraid of death but i always hope not to die before achieving a good level of my potential at least 80 percent then i can go but i i'm my greatness is that feel, of course, other than being blessed with my great family and my health and my country and the life I've built for myself, other than that, I do want to elevate mindsets. That's my goal, is to provoke thought, to make people consider, to make people think twice.
Maybe they'll still disagree with me, but I made you think. I made you consider something else.
And if I can do that and you can do that and people can do that, we're elevating the next hundred years. Even after this little interview that we're doing and yours or mine, 0.1%, you did something.
You changed somebody's way of thinking thinking and imagine we multiply those kind of conversations
across years
we are elevating
the next generation
of our kids
to have different ways
of looking at life
and hopefully
a much better advantage
than we did
so
that's greatness
my man
thank you man
appreciate it bro
you too
thank you man
I hope you enjoyed
today's episode
and it inspired you
on your journey
towards greatness
make sure to check out
the show notes
in the description
for a full rundown
I'm not going to be a good one. You too.
Thanks, man. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's
episode with all the important links.
And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening,
then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts.
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I'll see you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
And now it's time to go out there and do something great. The kids are still at practice and I have no idea what's for dinner.
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