 As-Salaamu Alaykum. My name is Sayyid Javed Hussain and I'm the Chief Growth Director at MediaReach Advertising. MediaReach Advertising is an advertising agency and when we talk about advertising agency, it's about communication. Communication is about anything which we are looking at, either brands or services or even government institutions who want to talk to an audience and look at how they want to change the behavior or they want a brand to talk to the actual audience. So our job is to look at a brand or a service and see how effectively or efficiently we can actually translate the message which the brand wants or the organization wants and is delivered to its audience. To be effective and making a behavioral change or people to buy a product and consume a product, so that's what we really do. We started MediaReach Advertising and I'm one of the co-founders in setting up MediaReach somewhere in 1985, early 86. The mission what we really created this advertising agency is about we feel it needs to have ethics, advertising needs to have ethics and we need to talk to an audience from an ethical point of view. So when we set up the advertising agency, it was looking at targeting at consumers, especially consumers in the West who come from an ethnic background. So people coming in from India, Pakistan, Iraq, the Caribbean, the Chinese and how can we communicate to this diverse audience which lives in London or which lives in the metropolitan towns of UK and the same thing in Europe. And you can see worldwide as well there's a diverse audience who has their own language, who has their own culture, who has their own behavior and who have different products which need to be targeted them and that's where we really set up as an agency to address the needs of a diverse audience anywhere in the world. So when we set up as an advertising agency, we are people coming from different backgrounds. I have a colleague of mine who comes from Iraq and myself coming from India. We set up this agency so we make sure that we will be able to communicate to this diverse audience and that's what we have been doing for the last 28, 29 years. At the agency I am the Chief Growth Director so really looking at how do we expand our business. Also looking at strategy because strategy is a key factor in any advertising or any message which needs to be put out for a brand there has to be a strategy and a strategy could be is that how does the brand or the organization wants to do and what does it want the achievement or what do they want to actually get out when they do an advertising campaign. So we look at and I look at from a point of view of strategy and make sure that when we create the communication it's on strategy and the strategy actually helps the brand to all the organization or the message to actually touch the audience and when it touches the audience it inspires them to take action and that is a very important factor so you need to identify and that's what my role is to make sure that we create the right strategy and then the client to make sure that he understands that that's what we are doing as an agency so it grows his business and it grows our business and that's what we already do and that's what I do at the agency. It's interesting to see this this is our first Macintosh you know yeah which we in the agency we use a lot of advertising work and this is the one where we spend the most amount of money it used to be early I would say late early 90s is when we had this and it's really interesting because when we used to produce on this Macintosh produce or write a presentation and we used to leave it overnight and it used to print in the morning but every time we used to present with it people used to sort of be smacked and thinking we have actually printed or sent it to a printers to print the presentation and it was coming out because it has better typefaces and stuff and it's actually up till now the most expensive Mac we have bought. The awards which we have is here obviously we are the Institute of Practitioners of Advertising so we are 10 years so this is for recognition of being part of the Practitioners of Advertising so we are on that list. Award which we won for the most effective advertising agency in the EMEA region for a campaign in that. This is for the Jules Award given by Lloyds TSB for our work within the industry. This is an award given by a brand called Elephant Arta which is one of the leading chapati brands or the bread brand in the UK for our services in building their brand from a 11 million pound business to bringing them all the way to 20 something million pounds business. The award on the top is an award given for the best advertising campaign which we did for one of our clients which is the Elephant Arta and I think this was presented to us by the Chinese Associations of marketeers who visited our agency recently from the Chinese who by advertising association who visited us so it's their support for us. Our philosophy, Masha'Allah, comes from our hell-bath and our teachings and I think both me and our partners growing up you are taught certain values and those values need to be implemented in your business as well because we have to live a wholesome complete life and what we've really done is that how do we create campaigns which can give back to our community because if we don't give back to our community we are actually there's something missing inside our lives and this is so important that whatever we do if we can change it to something which will serve our community that really gives us I would say satisfaction fulfillment inside us you know and I think it's important like when we looked at the government campaigns we looked at how can the government communicate to say the Muslim community or the Asian community in terms of health because health is such an important factor and especially when we look at women's health women are the core of if you think of a family and it really comes from our deep thinking of how if you look at our family of our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, family of our Imam, Imam Ali Alaihissalam, Bibi Fatima and the contribution they've had so it's so important that we look at the health of women so campaigns which we looked at is that how do we talk to them in terms of food, diet, diabetes, health, heart because if women can actually be a contributor in changing behavior then inshallah we will have a better society we look at campaigns where it has come to there's a campaign at present we're working on it's called DKMS and it's about deleting blood cancer cancer is becoming a major issue within our communities we are sometimes denying the fact or hiding it because we think it's shameful but we have to address it and there are certain things is that if you are a donor you have to come from a similar community because your DNA needs to match up and if we don't have enough the right DNA you will have our people suffering because the donor doesn't match up so we have actually this year given our time at a very reasonable cost to this charity or the government initiative to actually support them and look at what can we do because what we will be doing is like encouraging people from our community to become donors so if they become donors they will be only helping our own community and there are cases where they are young children or sometimes breadwinners of the family who are suffering from cancer and if we have more contribution or people on the register from our community then it will help our community so this is something which we feel it's passionate it comes from our teachings of Ahlebeth that we should actually whatever we do we should serve I was born in India in a town called Lucknow Lucknow we are very fortunate was a principality which was the Nawabs of Lucknow-Vashya so the impact in Lucknow itself is a lot from the Ahlebeth and obviously there was a Marjai at one point in Lucknow so there are institutions which are there and I'm fortunate that my upbringing from Majalis mixing with people there was really there and I think sometimes we don't think but it is actually present inside of yourself when you grow up the conversations the Majalis you've been to tend to actually shape you and starting in Lucknow at that period of time sort of late 60s to early 70s was when partition of India happened people's wealth had actually gone a lot of sheer either migrated to Pakistan or had lost a lot of because they were state owners or people who had a lot of properties and other things and there was a state of I would say a turmoil within the Shia community or the Muslim community in India at that time a lot of people and my father was one of the fortunate people who actually was a hardworking person whose family was in properties and other things then he started his own business and I would say I was at the age of fortunate person because we were sent to a private school studied in English because that was a something of to be looked at to send your children to an English school so studied at a I would say a protestant school which is a Christian school which is called Lamartia in Lucknow it's a good school gave me a good grounding in terms of how it is but at the same time I remembered my father always had an Islamic teacher coming at home for us to learn Quran to learn Iqlaq to learn other things which were there so while we were studying in the morning in English but coming back home learning Quran and I sometimes feel that I didn't put enough time to learn Quran did not learn Arabic as what I should have been or even learn Urdu instead of things because you concentrated more on English so that's where I really grew up and I spent my first 21 years there and then did my degree in commerce and economics so that's my start of my journey well as a child my father wanted me to at one time he wanted me to join the army in India that's very strange but I think circumstances in India started changing and he felt that it was time for me to either leave India and go abroad to get educated and then find myself abroad and he wanted like all parents are that either they want you to be a doctor or an engineer or an accountant and I was sent fortunate that I was sent to England to study accountancy and that was the direction which he wanted me to go and I really didn't feel that accountancy was something for me because I felt I could not sit there and calculate where the five pens has gone and I'm probably coming from a creative person who wants to do not want to put that time and effort in looking where the five pens want but to look at how can I create something different and that took me away from what his thought was and to an extent he was not very happy because he felt that advertising or marketing cannot be a future and for him people in advertising were like the artist who came and did some work to put an ad in the local newspaper so for him was that would I be feeding my child all my life or would he be living a life which will not be successful and I understand where his thought was coming from and I think but then again he was very futuristic in thinking to send me abroad and thinking that the future is there that even if I learn whatever I learn if I even I come back to India I would be able to look at things in a very different fashion so that's where it is yeah so I arrived as a young man, 21, finished my degree to London I'm fortunate that my brother was here so I lived with him and I want to always thank him and his wife looking after me and then I'm sort of giving me the hot food and the chapatis at home which I missed here also I always want to acknowledge them for doing that and actually because when you're a young person you've left home and you've left a lot of comforts at home and then suddenly you come here you're thrown into the midst of it it's a new country you know language though I spoke fluently but again I think there are certain behaviors and certain things which are existing within us to see how we can beat that sort of early 80s was a difficult period of time Thatcher's government was in there was a change I remember students fees was being increased by Thatcher at the time and I think you know we had to pay it was from 300 to 3000 pounds was the increase for foreign students to pay at that time so there was suddenly a jump and paying for my father to pay from India sending money abroad was also a really big issue in doing that and it was a struggle for me to look at that I make sure that I find a job finding jobs were very difficult at that time because you know your name was very odd and if you had a name like Javed Hussein I recall a very interesting conversation when I did the advertising course and I was talking to the media director to find a job in advertising and he said to me that if you change your name to Javed Hussein or create a three-barrel name then people will respond to you because I wrote so many CVs out and after even getting a first in that I did not get a job so it was a real struggle finding a job in marketing and advertising and especially for somebody coming from India or coming from a Muslim background has been a real struggle I obviously did my first degree in commerce and economics and my father wanted to me to be a chartered accountant or certified accountant which I started studying here finding it very difficult because I felt that I wouldn't be the right person in that space I spoke to one of my elder brothers who ran an advertising agency in India and I always felt that he had that futuristic thinking about marketing and during my sort of the OAA levels the level of studying at that period or doing my degree I used to go and sit with him in his advertising agency and write copy for his ads and it was something which really fascinated me I mean though there were ads for very small little ads for government recruitment advertising in newspapers but it still fascinated me that you could write a good headline and people will make a difference so I thought I really need a career change I really need something which will inspire me something which will make me happy something which will really touch me rather than just doing a job so I went in a completely different direction and at that point in 84 to find an Asian person or an Indian person or a Muslim person and advertising was a very rare occasion but what I thought was the best thing was to look at something which would be different so I did a post-graduation in advertising from Watford College and I found it really gave me what I wanted and I felt that there is so much in marketing and in communication that if we have and I always encourage now young people from my family that if you can get into communications because the era of communication is here and the more we are now thinking the more this changing all the time people want people are living on their mobiles it's literally on your lap everything it is a mode of communications you are all the time in a I would say a communication world and this communication is not that you are creating it's coming towards you and it's so important that we adapt to this we can have people who can talk in the same fashion because if we don't talk in the same fashion we would be given information from everywhere else and then we will have really a lack of information coming out we will find that our children will become more target of other people's communications and their agendas and not our agenda I really love the coat of Walt Disney's coat which is laughter is timeless imagination has no age and dreams are forever in advertising it's all about I would say who's coming up with the idea and I think you need to have fun and if you don't have fun it's very boring and in advertising it's all about going deeper and thinking outside the box coming up with ideas which are outside the box it's very much still true to the core of the brand but it has to be outside the box so it makes it interesting all the way well as I said it's not about ideas it's about making ideas happen because people tend to have a lot of ideas but I think creating them and making sure that they actually happen that's the biggest part of it a friend of mine or my colleague always says that you can be pregnant it's all about delivery because a lot of people are pregnant with ideas but it's all about how do you make sure you deliver and then making it successful because success is the really key part because you can launch a campaign but you need to make sure it's successful it delivers what the client wants with anything when you're looking at a campaign you need to think big because if you want to launch an idea you need to think big for me if you want to create a revolution you have to think that bigger way of thinking and then you can create a revolution and revolutions are fought by people who have a big idea and that big idea creates a movement and it's really important wherever you are in advertising to create a movement and if you can create a movement it's always thinking big being a young person at that time following Islam was a real challenge for us and even I remember finding Halal food was a really important thing I was lucky that at home my brother was buying but when I started living outside it was very difficult where do I go for my Juma prayers or where do I go for Majalis there was also a concern and sometimes when you are in an industry working in advertising you are so busy but I recall that remembering my teachings of my parents the teaching which has been sitting inside so there was always an urge from inside of me that if Muharram is coming I'll make sure that I'll find out where I'll go so I turned up finding that it was central London where would I go so I knew Hammersmith used to do Majalis so I would make sure that during the 10 days of Muharram I would attend the Majalis there in terms of Juma we had central London mosque because that's where the place at the time everybody who was in central London went and did the Juma prayers in there so it was interesting that I could whenever I could find time where I was closer to there I would go for the Juma Namaz there Advertising is a tough business and especially coming from an ethnic background and being a Muslim it's very difficult people have been established here for generations they don't have a triple barrel name it's very difficult to get the big boys of advertising but we've been fortunate that we've had a very I would say tough time but at the same time success in terms of achieving it we've worked with the government departments we've been on the government to do their campaigns for the last about 20-21 years delivering their campaigns from Department of Health the taxes the British Army recruitment campaign or the RAF and other things and we have sometimes we've been challenged by other advertising agencies and marketing who wanted to take the business niche which we had but Alhamdulillah we've been successful to fight against J. Walter Thompson or Ogilvy or other big agencies or even Sachi's and Sachi's in winning business from them to for global money transfers an account which we won over from them because we understand the market and we are very passionate in terms of delivering so as a niche boutique agency we are passionate and I think clients love passion and that has bring us business when we worked with Tesco or BT there's another interesting thing when we worked with BT we won the campaign because we did a campaign with BT the Cricket World Cup and in the Cricket World Cup we created something very interesting we created BT at that time Cricket World Cup was sponsored by Vodafone and our job was to see how do we make sure that our communication of BT's messaging reaches the Indians the Pakistanis the Caribbean's the South Africans, the Australians and what we developed was a technique and that's where we come in as a strategy agency of sending people inside who went in with placards and the placards was every time anybody scored a run we had a four showing you know and then it had bottom of BT's branding in it it was so successful Vodafone was supported by Cricket England and they couldn't stop us because we created a strategy it was covered in the Sunday Times or in the evening standards so the guerrilla strategies and we were so lucky that we got a campaign with the the Rugby World Cup so we were the BT sponsored the Rugby World Cup and we became the agency to come up with strategic thoughts so that's where you are in marketing if you have the passion and if you have ideas and you are really passionate to present it then you can challenge them and touch what we've been considered within the industry as a leading in the industry we were given sort of two years ago as we could say the number one spot in terms of our turnover in the way we work in terms of ROI and our specialism so that's what we were recognized for. I'm thankful for the success I've been I've had as a company as myself personally in marketing and being in such a tough environment to have our achievement being recognized from the Sunday Times the independent the trade publications and other media who have actually interviewed or have asked us for any support and we've actually done that a lot you know yeah so that has been sort of thing and I think it led to me thinking myself personally that I need to whatever I have learned my struggles in the journey in advertising and marketing how can I give it back to my community my thought was that how can I whatever I have learned myself in my experience in marketing and advertising in running an advertising agency or from the experience of working with so many communities or in campaigns or working with charities giving them behavioral change campaign because that's a really key part of what we do is that how can I input that and how can I be of service to our community so it's important that I can come and give it back to my community and it's so good that we can actually share those thoughts because if our communities can employ it in any fashion and if I can be of service to make a difference in one person's life and that's what I thought that I need to do that a community where I live in I felt my children go to Hussaini Islamic Mission what can I do my father-in-law was the president at the Hussaini Islamic Mission before and his contribution because I could see my wife grew up at the madrasah at Hussaini Islamic Mission and my children were going at Hussaini Islamic Mission I felt what can I give back because it's my experiences of running and advertising and how can I connect with the younger generation who is now and I think this is the biggest challenge which we have is that how do we communicate because the elders who have come from India sometimes or Pakistan or from the Middle East have there's a major gap between the generation I would say the millennials or even if I talk about the generation X or the Y they're pretty far off from there you know so there is there has to be a bridging gap and I think for me it was like how can I be a conduit so I can then communicate to this younger generation who doesn't understand my peers who doesn't understand people who have come from that generation and who want to pass on the legacy who wants to pass on the voice or the messages available to our younger generation and I think that's a key and important factor for me going back into the community and thinking how can I help them or not help them but even providing the services for my children because my children also need the same thing so I need to really immerse myself back in there to understand what's happening so I need to go back into people who are from the house to understand what are the challenges and how can I pass that message over to them I joined and I was fortunate they asked me to become the secretary and I felt that first I need to evaluate and see what is missing what can I really go and provide because there was beautiful work which has been done by my peers and you don't need to demolish something because they have created structures they have created these beautiful buildings they have created a community which comes in for Majalis and other things what is missing is that how can we now communicate to the younger generation because they are present were forced by their parents to come in there isn't anything available so my first job was to look at that how do I bring in somebody who can speak their language somebody who understands them somebody who will be able to give them guidance and that's why I feel is that it's so important that our programs need to address in language because until and less the language is present the children will not be motivated to listen they won't be able to get the message because you're not talking to them in the language if you don't talk to them in a language they understand they won't get the message so you might have the most knowledgeable person sitting there but if the language isn't right they haven't understood it you know or it's lost inside translation so that is why it is so important that the younger generation which has grown up in England who understands the culture of the millennials learns and has understood Islam from the Ehle-Bed and then hands it over so these people can understand and they can actually become I would say stronger much more solid in faith and have an understanding so they can be proud to go out in the community and be proud when they're working in the city or they're working in fashion, they're working in advertising they're working in any other area even when they're at school to become the role models because it's about how they behave how they talk will inshallah grow our community further and that is what is so important and I felt that we need to do that we need to actually hand back our Idairas to a younger generation who understands and that will only give us and it is probably my time is just a bridge because if I have to pass it on because for instance the limitation of my knowledge or my understanding is limited because and I think the younger generation have much more deeper understanding they will have much more patience and they will have much better technique to pass it on being at the secretary of the mission I felt is that we need to forward think we need to think is that how do we inshallah bring our mosque outside of where we were because it's so important I really took up and said the key things missing inside here is that we are not engaging with our young youth and it's so important that if we introduced English programs we did which were interactive stuff which were things where kids would get involved in it the fun day was the idea that people were all meeting up in a park so the families came together we had cricket sort of I would say nets with the cricket so young people playing cricket together so you bring in the old and the young who love cricket to play together we had a circuit run in terms of having all the people run the circuit so it was more or less running and then food is a really great space to keep all of us together and I think food is where women become really active in our community and I think when women bring in all together and they are fantastic communicators our women and our families and that's what really brought us the fun day because really it did so it took us out from the mosque and took our mosque community outside into a cricket pitch and that was really good because then you could see people in a different way a lot of people started talking to each other because you come into the mosque you do your Juma prayers and you leave or you come from Majalis you come in, you sit and listen to the Majalis and then you've left nobody even doesn't know what your next door somebody who sits next to you what does he do, where is he from you have no idea and I think it's so important that it happens because if our young don't meet each other what will happen, they'll go and marry outside you know if they will meet in good premises you know where it's part of the community they will be able to see each other and if they see each other, I can see my daughters and stuff if they won't interact in the community with them how would they like each other you know they will start to like at universities and they won't be and I think this is a big issue for us is that how would our younger generation marry within our community and so it's important to do that and I think it gives us access that we need to bring them outside and bring them outside within the confines and the teachings of Ahlul Baith you know it's not being told that you have to be locked up in one place this is not the teachings and I think the other things which I really introduced was a health day I used my communication skills or my clients which are like the British Heart Foundation to actually sponsor a health day inside the community that health day is so interesting because what I engaged with is Masha Allah we have so many medical doctors in our community they need to give time to our community so they can come and tell about diabetes they need to talk about that so we brought in a dietician who comes and then teaches the women at our mosque what food do you need to do little changes can actually save and increase your health or your life for a year or two years small little changes if you can make if you can change your oil you can change a lifestyle you know so this is very important that we make small changes in there and that's what I introduced a health day then bringing it away from health day is I introduced peace day and this was an international the UN initiative which is the peace day and it was interesting because what we did was we opened the mosque and we opened the mosque for every person from every other religious faith to come in and we invited our neighbors to come and see inside it was surprising because the priest from the catholic church who always walked past our mosque never knew what was inside and the first time he walked in he walked in and he said oh you have actually kept everything it looks like it's a church because it's an old church building but the only thing we have is that we said yeah you had you could walk in but now it's carpeted we're just praying in here so he also got to know that it was so surprising that we had neighbors who had walked past never knowing what's inside and suddenly we started connecting with them you know and that was gives us a chance we introduced things like we send them a Christmas card and a box of chocolate to all our neighbors and what we did was we started engaging with them you know today our neighbors know who we are they know the message of Albaith we sent them a box or during 10th of Muharram we sent them a little bit of food and a little writing about Imam Hussein and we said who is Imam Hussein what is his sacrifice and it was just a one sheet of paper but it actually started to tell them why are we wearing the clothes black clothes for the 10 days of Muharram and that is what is so important is that the message of Albaith does not need to stay inside the Idairas or the mosque it needs to go out Imam Hussein's message his sacrifice is not for only for us to do that but his sacrifice is for the society it's for the world it's for every human being to make a difference it's really important that we sometimes get lost that we are working in a corporate environment or we are working in an industry which is sometimes all driven not by ethics and it's important that you apply your ethics because people will only recognize you when you apply your ethics and ethics is so important I mean learning for me is from our Albaith we need to be ethical how do we need to make sure that integrity is a key important factor honesty, integrity is part of how you need to be for me what we actually have done within our staff is that we have a praying area so if somebody wants to pray we have a praying area where they can go and pray also the other important thing is that we have a lot of women staff who come and work and they are from all different communities and they are under advertising agencies so you find at one time we were thinking we had 14 different nationalities or 15 different nationalities from Europeans to Indians to Pakistani for Arabs people from Iran and other places what we actually did was as a mother you need to give them the opportunity to have a good family life because they shouldn't be treated as slaves because employees are part of you they create what the advertising agency is about so we need to be partners with them we need to understand what's happening at home if they come and work and they work day and night and they don't have a good family life it's going to impact their work it will impact their lives we have made money but what about them so we have to care for them so we have actually introduced you can come in later because they can drop their children especially for women in our business and those who have children and also to leave early because then they can pick up their children and what we get is that we are getting women to come out and work for us and if they are having good family values they come and give the same family values in our business because values is very important and that's why we feel is that we have created an advertising agency which has ethics in it which have ethics from the little bit in there purity is there we don't take up anything which we feel is not halal which we feel that that money which we earn from there is not good for our children it's so important and you are tempted in the corporate environment you will be tempted by people coming and giving you a lot of money and I'll give you an example that we were given an advertising campaign at one time to do and it was a hidden pitch and we couldn't tell you who the client is and they invited us and we thought wow they've invited us they've shortlisted us and they want to do a campaign with us so when we arrived at the place we suddenly realized that it's a campaign for Diageo and Diageo as you will know is the drinks company and we said we don't want to work with you Diageo even if you want to give us a million pounds advertising campaign with you and it's sorry that whoever gave you the advice that we are the best agency to use they should read the first page of our website because it tells there that we do not handle alcohol we do not handle gambling we do not handle clients which will impact the social community and when we resigned or did not take up the campaign within 15 days I was invited to a pitch for the British Heart Foundation and we were sitting and they had actually given up the pitch to somebody else and then suddenly we talked about that we are an advertising agency which doesn't handle drinks and other things and I shared with him that we didn't do Diageo they gave the business to us straight away so I lost a million pounds but Masha Allah with our thought somewhere about 850,000 pounds business from British Heart Foundation and again the campaign was all about saving lives and I can share with you something very interesting is that after saving the campaign which we did for 999 for the British Heart Foundation about whenever you have a heart attack you call the 999 the interesting thing is that I am sitting at home in India and I realize that my mother is having a heart attack and my brother said no she's eaten something at night and I think give her something for digestion I said no brother she is having a heart attack and I realize that me giving up something Haram that day saved my mother's life and Masha Allah she lived for another 3 years after that and that's such an important thing that you have to decide and every time the thought of Ahlul Bait will come into your mind whenever shaitan is coming in and it'll let you stop and then you can work inside a corporate environment but still it's about you and your integrity Insha Allah will take you forward for all of you young people my advice always is that who wants to come into a marketing career or anything career is or even starting your life into any business is to believe in yourself because having a belief that insha Allah whatever you do and if you're committed to doing something you will actually achieve it you will find things which will barrier things which will block you but you know never give up get up and stand up and this is the teaching of the Ahlul Bait because in the most worst of time their commitment and their mission never changed their mission was always the same mission you know they suffered all of that but they had a commitment and that's what we learn from it and one thing is very important is to be honest honesty is the best policy and that honesty will give you success insha Allah in any area of your life because you know what because when you're honest you will go home and sleep whatever you have 100 million pounds job you know what honesty is there you will sleep with peace as a Muslim who wants to work in a corporate environment or you want to go for any other job be committed to Islam because it's so important that you you pray five times a day you make sure that you deliver those aspects in it and you know what you ask for it if you are in any organization you ask for it you shouldn't be shy of sharing your identity because if you go and ask for them and be honest and clear with them they will provide services for you they will provide a prayer place for you and we are you know I think it's asking for it and being proud of what you are gives us much more power and anytime when you are in that space you know whenever something is running in your space go and sit just do your prayers and sit for two minutes and then just think you know you will always have the answer because Allah SWT will connect you once you connect to Him and you get back to Him you have always the answer and insha'Allah you will do the right thing in life my inspiration is my father and I think a lot of people will have that but I feel that my father was a very hard working man and he created his business when everybody was saying that he wouldn't survive he started an advertising sorry advertising business I am saying he started a laundry business and in India at the time coming from a family who has been known to start a business of laundry where you have to touch dirty clothes was considered to be a low down thing to be done you know you will be called if a lot of people know the word Urdu word will be called a Dhobi or a washer man but it was about his hard work and Mashallah say in his hard work one thing he had is that honestly deliver the best product and what he did was that he was always so if he took money or any product from you to wash he did the best in it and that's what he did and that's what he created was that people had a trust on him whatever you give him he'll give the best out of it and that really gives me is that every time a client gives me anything I have to feel and see that it is my money I'm spending my father's money and in that fashion it really gives me and I think it's really inspiring seeing how my father did and he died two days before he was still working till his death you know we need to be still working and we need to keep on you know there's nothing called retirement retirement is only when you are put into a box and you go from this place but you're still not retired because you have much more work still to do four years ago I traveled to Iraq to visit Imam Hussein and it was Arbaeen time and I made a decision that I'm going to travel and I will actually go from Najaf and do the humble walk and go and see my mom you know walking and though it was very scary people were talking about that there's so much happening and there's so much fear I made up my decision that I'm going to walk and see my mom and it's very humbling it's really humbling for me to sort of walk from there and I really saw something very interesting is that I spent only two dollars from Najaf to Karbala and that two dollars was spent because of my arrogance that I went and bought shoes from Timbal and thinking they will save my walk you know yeah and I will not have in the walk I'll need my good boots and stuff you know and I realized that those were the wrong boots you know I need to be humble I need to walk in slippers you know my mom walked barefoot and I feel that we need to do that you know in our life to actually be present to our moms and their sacrifices and walking to and I thinking my age and thinking that you know I won't be able to do it but I had a belief that if I walk and I go and see my mom and I was really humbled by seeing that thousands and millions of people walking nobody pushed you nobody shouted at you nobody you know they were all zayrs and the welcome you get in Iraq is just touching you know they open their houses they massage your feet they clean you they do everything they provide everything and it's I feel that you know it's an opportunity for all of us to get in touch with our strengths which is inside and I feel I became so strong you know all my doubts and my other things have actually evaporated you know when I feel that I can be with my mom and being inarbaeen with my mom was just amazing was a feeling I can't describe it I can't describe that it sort of lets you get to who you are and if you can understand who you are you can do a lot in society because you can come and then give out because this is what they have told us and that's what actually provides me to provide for my children that inshallah they go and go and do the walk they go and see their Imam and inshallah that is what my thinking is and inshallah they will do it you know I feel that I don't have words to talk about my Imam his sacrifice has has given us the strength to be human beings because in life when you are in this rut of making money you actually forget you forget what he sacrificed 1400 years ago because he sacrificed his entire family you know he sacrificed so much so that we can today be good human beings and I think it is his sacrifice that has actually given us to be who we are today because if he hadn't sacrificed his entire life and his children we would be living in a society where we would be more animals and we would behave like animals and he has given us the strength you know and I should say the belief that if you stand up for your principles in life there would be a lot of barriers a lot of you know I would say it would come in your life but I think it gives us the strength to inshallah get up his sacrifice is for our children to sort of understand that you can actually stand up in any society you are living in the west or you are living in the east he is our core and his sacrifice is the core on which we are built yeah that's what I would say