 First and foremost is the topic of emotional intelligence. Again, we may have heard this term, but I do think it's important to define it. So let's give a little bit of history first. Back in 1990, there were two psychologists named John Mayer and Peter Salovey. And they introduced the term emotional intelligence into the community, into the community of mental health. And so this challenged the way we understood intelligence, right, this concept of what is this other form of intelligence. Prior to that, it had always been measured through IQ, right? And so Daniel Goldman comes along a few years later, sees their work and is like, this is pretty powerful stuff. He writes about it and he writes this book. So he's considered a pioneer of this whole concept. And he writes this book called Emotional Intelligence. Why it can matter more than IQ? It instantly becomes a Miracle Time bestseller, five million copies sold, printed in 40 languages. So it's a pretty big deal because, again, it's revolutionary according to these people on the field. Now, what exactly is it? It refers to the ability to first identify and manage one's own emotions as well as the emotions of others. So it's a pretty simplistic definition. There's a lot more to it, but it is important to understand why this is so relevant for us as Muslims. And I'll get to that in a moment. But this idea that emotions actually precede thoughts, right? It's something that we should know because it does explain why sometimes we don't think rationally through things because we're in heightened states of emotions and those things take over us. And so our rational mind takes a backseat. And that's why it is so critical to have this ability to regulate your emotions because a lot of horrible things happen when people do not regulate their emotions or can't regulate the emotions of other people, right? And we have clearly seen many examples of that even through this past year and a half, right? People becoming almost unhinged, right? At the beginning of COVID, you remember what happened when we would go to Costco or some other store to get basic supplies and it's all running out because people are just out of control almost, right? Fear, right? Fear sets in. And so we're seeing a lot of that, unfortunately unfolding different ways, but this idea of how can I control myself and how can I be useful when controlling other people's emotions is something again, very, very central to our faith. And so we wanted to explore that today. Now just a little bit more context here. The skills that you acquire being emotionally intelligent, this acronym is pretty helpful. So remember, first you become emotionally aware, right? So this is again the ability to name and identify emotions. Then you can regulate so that A, R, right? The ability to harness those emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking problems. So I think this can apply in your personal lives at home where a problem arises at a professional setting in a community setting like this. How do you respond, right? And then managing. So the ability to manage emotions. So that arm is what you wanna think about when you think of emotional intelligence. Am I, are my arms strong, right? Do I have strong arms, right? Can I, am I aware? Can I regulate and can I manage? And so just remember that. And then this is also important because it again ties into the whole talk. When I learned about Daniel Bowman's work and started looking more into what the community was responding to, how they were responding to his work, this quote really caught my eye. A revolutionary paradigm shattering idea. That's a pretty powerful quote to give to anything, right? This is the Harvard Business Review. That's a pretty solid review, right? And then they also heavily encouraged people to read Daniel Bowman's work called What Makes a Leader. So they're letting us know that this concept of emotional intelligence is quite, again paradigm shattering, it's so revolutionary. And it indicates the qualities of strong leadership. So you can see where we're going with this, right? The fact that again people not that long ago, relatively speaking, were so impressed by this idea of being emotional intelligent and identifying that these are poor qualities of leadership or something that I just became aware of. And then, so this is the question we have to ask, right? If this framework is considered so revolutionary, so paradigm shattering, then it has to be used, and it's useful in identifying the qualities of an effective leader, then it must have some merit for us as Muslims, right? We should explore this concept and the answer is absolutely yes. And so this hadith, I actually just learned of this hadith very recently when Sheikh Hamza pointed this hadith out to me. We were talking about emotional intelligence and how this was so paradigm shattering. And I was just sharing this stuff with him. And he said, this is the process I was teaching us. And he actually already spoke about how emotional intelligence is more important than any other form of intelligence in this hadith. So when I looked it up and I just was mesmerized, right? Subhanallah, here we go. So the hadith is about the basis of reasoning. So intelligence, he's tying intelligence with what? After the faith in Allah, like that's, you're an intelligent person if you believe in Allah and after that, how is your intelligence measured in loving kindness towards people? You cannot be, you can't pride yourself on intelligence if you are devoid of this is what he's saying, right? If you want to be measured as an intelligent person often, you first believe in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and then you know how to basically be with other people in that prophetic, beautiful way. 1400 plus years ago, he's telling us this is emotional intelligence matters, right? And here, fast forward, how many centuries later, paradigm has shattered, right? It's just amazing Subhanallah. So why, you know, I decided to explore this topic further because as I was reading the qualities of emotional intelligence, it literally was like, this is the, they're describing our Prophet's own lives. Every single quality, they're describing him, he has taught us this, it's in our being, it's in the Quran, it's in the Sita, you can find example after example, we need to start teaching our youth this because let's be frank, we live in a time where unfortunately, this is just the time that we live in, a lot of our community members are more impressed by modern frameworks, right? They find this stuff dazzling and they'll eat it up. Whereas if you were to teach them, of course, on the Sita and let's look at the false lives of them, you know, beautiful virtues, but this will get them. So this is why I feel that it's incredibly useful to learn this as Marshal Brother Hassan mentioned, right? This is useful for us in every relationship. If you're married, it will be absolutely useful for you in your marriage, if you have children, if you're, again, you're taking care of your elderly parents, whatever relationships you have, if you can master this concept of emotional intelligence, it will become essentially a better person, a better human being that's able to cope with a lot of what life presents you. And so what I appreciated too about it is the structure it offers you. The very first quality of emotional intelligence is self-awareness, right? So let's look at what that means, okay? And there's quite a few different ways we can look at this, but the first thing that came to mind when I heard this definition of what self-awareness is, right? The realization of oneself as an individual entity or personality is the popular maxim in Islam and I know myself, I know God, right? It's in the transliterations up here so anybody can read it, which means what? The one who knows him or herself knows their Lord. So this is a maxim, it's oftentimes misquoted as a hadith, it's not according to many scholars, it's not a hadith, it's just a quote that many of our ulama have used to emphasize the importance of becoming self-aware, right? And then when we look at the Prophet Salaam's life itself, he, can you, just looking at his life even before prophecy, right? How more self-aware could a person be than to remove himself from his community, go to the cave, right? You know, why was he going there? What was he doing there? He did not want to be a part of the toxic elements of his society, he couldn't handle it, it was too much for him. So he knew what he needed, he needed that retreat. This is before prophecy, so he paid attention to what was going on within him and he listened to that and he honored it and he was able to self-soothe in his own way. So his self-awareness is immense and of course throughout his life you find example after example of that. Here's this hadith and remember, in order to be self-aware, you have to start with that pursuit of knowledge, right? You can't just all of a sudden wake up and suddenly think that you'll understand everything. You have to explore, you have to ask questions like the way the Quran asks us to, right? Even in the Quran, Allah SWT asks us those questions so that we are self-reflective. One of my favorite verses is, Fa'ayn atnaf-shaboon, right? Think about that. Allah SWT is asking us to ask ourselves, where are you going? Right? Do you even know? How did you? And then that should make you ask, where did I come from? Because that, just that thought process gets you exploring. So knowledge is the principle for this. You have to be in pursuit of knowledge. And in this hadith the Quran also says, oh people, knowledge only comes by learning and understanding only comes by seeking understanding. So nea, intentionality, all of these words that we may have heard, this is how we begin the pursuit of becoming more self-aware. For whomever Allah SWT intends good, he gives him or her understanding of the religion, barely only those with knowledge hear Allah on his servant. So self-awareness is built upon this pursuit of knowledge, right? And then the Quran also, of course, tells us, wa ilama wa nitsum wa adima, right? I was sent as a teacher. So he is, of course, teaching us this knowledge and he is relaying it to us but all of our self-discovery starts in this pursuit, right? Then knowing your value, this is also one of my favorite hadith, right? The Quran was witnessed by the Sahaba in the Haram and he's walking around looking at the Kaaba and he says, how pure you are, how pure is your fragrance, how great you are and how great is your sanctity by the one in whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, the sanctity of the believer is greater to Allah than your sanctity in his wealth, his life and to assume nothing of him but good. Such an affirming hadith, this we should all internalize that our souls, our being, our existence when we believe in Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala when we follow his commands is more sacred, more sanctified than the Kaaba itself and how many of us see the Kaaba and we're like, just imagining the Kaaba, right? So bring that back to yourself to know you were built with value, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala each and every one of us value by the mere fact that we are in existence. All of this is the beginning part of this process of becoming self aware. Then we go into knowing more depth, right? You have to know the foundations of your faith. If you don't know your Al-Pida, like what does it, what is the creed of a Muslim? What do Muslims believe, right? We know the six articles but we have to penetrate deeper. Who is our creator? Who is Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala? Because in the absence of true knowledge then you will be affected by people's view of God, right? And there's a lot of messages that people have a lot of new age concepts, a lot of things that are flowing around and online and social circles and media and songs about who God is, you know? And so a lot of Muslims when they don't know their Al-Pida, they don't know the attributes of Allah they start to assume things about Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala and then that affects their understanding of the world. Why did God make this and that? And they start questioning, who are we to question the creator? He is, this is all his, this is entirely his and it's amazing how this double standard to me things have because this is my property and if someone tells me what to do with it, why take great offense, right? You shouldn't put your phone here. You shouldn't put it in this case. Why do you dress this way? Why do you dress that way? When we are questioned in our personhood in our material possessions, we take great offense even for the parents in the room. If someone sees how you are as a parent and corrects your parenting style, how offended do you become, right? You better watch out because most people don't take well to be corrected that way, right? So we have a lot of double standards as human beings because we think take great offense but then Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala we turn around and we ask Allah why? Why are you allowing COVID to spread? Why did this person have to die? Why did it stop for the law? We are nobody to question our creator. His decree we accepted and that's where it ends, right? But if you don't know that and you don't have that education then unfortunately you're gonna be affected by all the negative messages that are everywhere else. So you have to know your creed. Then you have to know what your responsibilities are to Allah. What does he expect of you? Why did he create you? What for? Just so you can eat and drink and go on YouTube and watch random videos all day. That's why he created you? No, he created you to worship him. That is literally the only point of your existence is to worship Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. Everything else is from his father, from his generosity, from his Rahmah that he gives us relationships and beautiful people and our life, he gives us delicious food, right? Think of all that, the drinks that we eat and the clothing and all the beautiful adorments of this life are just added but the purpose of our existence is of course to worship him. You have to know that. Then you have to know your temperament. All of us are different. There are people here who are what we would refer to as introverted temperaments, right? They're not the type of people that like loud noises. You know, I'm sure a few minutes ago when I got around all the introverts I was like, where are the parents? Send them in there and get their kids under control, right? The extroverts might not be affected that much because extroverts like sounds, they like lights, they get excited, they're excitable by stimuli. This you should know about yourself because I'll tell you, it can absolutely affect the way you are with other people, especially if you're a parent. I once did a whole talk on temperaments and afterwards this mother came to me. She said, oh my God, she was crying. She said, I wish I'd learned this. I never knew this difference. And I had two sons, one was extroverted. Now she got the language. The other was introverted and I spent my whole, their whole life measuring one against the other because in this society extroverted people are celebrated, right? Extroverted people are hailed as the example. Oh, they're so outgoing, they can go speak, they can go do this, they can go do that. So all the introverts feel like, I guess I'm nothing, I have no good problems and you start to feel depressed and down. No, it's not for a lot. When you study mizad, you study temperament and you study that the problems I said him, he was the most perfectly balanced of all human beings and he had all four temperaments when you study the theory of temperaments. It gives you definitions, it gives you meanings and that he was in perfect balance and our goal should be like him, not this celebrity or this famous person, forget that. We don't measure ourselves to the people around us, we measure ourselves to him. So just by again knowing that science, it can be very affirming. So you know that, you know other things too that are helpful, love languages, right? This is self-awareness. Every single person in this room should know what your love language is and if you don't know what that even means, I have something to help you with. So the five love languages, okay? This is Gary Chapman, he wrote on what? How people give and receive love. Everybody's different and I can't tell you I've worked with many couples. This is usually the root problem of why so much miscommunication because one is loving a certain way and receiving a certain way, the other is a different way and they're just, it's like, you know, trying to get a PC to communicate with a Mac and there's just iOS's are different and there's nothing happening, right? But once you start to get well read and love languages, it starts making sense. For example, if your love language is the first one which is words of affirmation, you like compliments. You need someone to acknowledge you when you do something for them. Thank you, male, bless you, make God for you. Just show you with words, okay? And even beyond that, maybe you like to receive cards on your birthday or love letters. If you're married and your spouse is thinking of you, it makes a big difference, right? Text messages, emails, that is your love language. Tell your spouse, I need you to compliment me to make me feel better about myself. If your love language is not that but acts of service matter, maybe you're juggling. You are doing so much, you work full time, you're taking care of this, you're taking care of that and you just need help. You need someone to come and say, I got this, you don't worry about this. Then your love language is acts of service, gifts. Maybe you like to receive and give gifts. Maybe you feel so loved when someone goes out of their way to buy you something or make you something. It doesn't even have to be something of purchase, right? So you have to know what your love language is. Quality time, if you don't even need any of those things you just want someone to sit right next to you. I know people like this. In fact, I told my husband, I think this is his love language because he could be zoned out, reading, doing his own thing but as long as I'm in the periphery and he can see me, that's good enough. We don't have to have too many interactions but he likes that I'm there. I'm not out somewhere else. So for some people this could be their love language and then the last one is physical touch. So if you're affectionate, if you do feel more bonded to your children, to your spouse, to the people in your life, your siblings, with this, that's your love language. So communicate that but first become self-aware because if you're not, it can really hinder your relationships and I've seen this play out but this is just one tiny piece of the puzzle of every single one of us. So we can see how long this topic of self-awareness can go and you can keep going. And so this is from sort of the shams, right? Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala tells us Wa nafsim wa maas al-waha Fa'alha maha fujuraha wa taqwaha Ha'da aftah ha'man zaqqaha Wa qadha khadha man ba'sa'a What is this? This is putting the onus back on us, right? That we, to become self-aware, you have to start paying attention to yourself and seeing what you're taking in, what you're consuming, whether it's good for you, whether it's not, right? If you're purifying yourself, you're working on yourself, that's also part of really having a accurate image of who you are. And so this is essential again to your spiritual health or spiritual wellbeing is to have this type of awareness, right? And the onus is on us. And he who has failed, who instills it with corruption, what's it, the soul? If you're putting in all that evil, then you're gonna be held accountable. Know that, know that, take accountability. So that's just the first quality of emotional intelligence. And there's so much more to talk about, but strength, weaknesses, talents, potential. And then all of those other things that, in terms of emotions, needs, there's a lot when we talk about self-worthiness. So that's the first topic. Then we get into self-regulation. Again, I want you to connect the dots with how much this is central to our deans because we've covered all those things that are foundational principles of our deans. Know yourself, know all those things. Now we move into control yourself, right? Big part of our deans is chisky at the nuts, right? Which is the ability to purify our soul. We just read the verse, right? And how do we do this? We look at the diseases of the heart, the spiritual diseases, the diseases of the tongue, and we start to regulate. We start to literally control ourselves. This is why fasting is also essential. Fasting isn't just about food and water. We know this. We've heard many put pleasant lectures on this topic, but it all puts it all back in this, you know, umbrella term of regulation. A lot of time that expects us to work on control. We're supposed to practice abstinence in many different ways and forms so that we can control those things, those impulses that if we don't control them, they can be weaponized very easily, right? So if we're not controlling our food intake, we're not controlling the words that we say nowadays, a huge problem for the youth in this room, pay attention to it because it's very normalized is cursing as if it's no big deal, right? You see all these people dropping F-bongs and saying horrible words. This is now their language. It's just the way they speak because they cannot control themselves. They've lost important, they lost adab etiquette of being in public spaces. Usually, you know, if you had, for example, someone call you on the phone and there was maybe some tension, people would get up and go to a private place. You see that happening anymore? Right in the restaurant, on the bus, wherever you are in public, they're now fighting. They don't care. They don't care that you're there to listen to them because the whole social, again, etiquette's out the door, but there's no control. And then, you know, there's so many other iterations of that. That's just a language, but what about the food that people eat and the other behaviors that they're doing? A lot of it is indicative of what a total loss of control in their body and their actions and their words, right? And here we are called constantly. How to be, what is the process of how to be? What are we all as parents and teachers as educators, community members, so focused on raising our children, right? What is how to be? It's to instill in them these values of, you know, control yourself, regulate yourself, right? And so we have this concept, mojahed and nas, struggle. And it is a lifelong. Until we take our last breath, we are in a struggle against ourselves. And it's really important to get that because, you know, if I ask you now, for example, what is the greatest enemy of the human being? What's the answer? Shaitan. I heard Shaitan. What is the greatest enemy of the human being? Your nefs, right? We have to have that clear. It is, the Shaitan is, I do not believe it's clear, right? But the greatest enemy according to our scholars is the nefs. It's that voice within you. So if you externalize your threats, this is now a huge blind spot you have, right? You're too trusting of yourself. And so you think, and how many times has this happened to you? Zohar comes in, you're reminded to pray. Oh, pray in a few minutes, right? You trusted who? Yourself. And yourself is, the nefs is lazy. It's indulgent. It doesn't want to do anything that requires work. So it's going to come and distract you and say, you know, later, later, later. So that's why procrastination is a sign of what a nefs that has been, that's under attack. So we should know these things because who just enough is a, like I said, a life on com. All of this falls under this umbrella term of self-regulation. So much of our being, the process of direct teachings when he teaches us about emotional regulation, specifically, right? When the man came to his process and asked him, he, and he said to him, do not become angry. Now let's unpack that because sometimes there's a confusion here. Anger is a human emotion. We all feel angry for different reasons, but there are certain reasons where it's justified. We should be angry for the sake of a lot of stuff. What the process of this saying really in that Hadith is do not become anger, right? Don't let anger, Lord over you, take over you, where you lose yourself and you're not even visible anymore. So when he saw the man who became very angry, he said that he looked like, you know, he was red in the face, he looked like a shaitan. And that's what happens when people lose their cool, they say, right? And then that can lead to so many other horrible things. Primes of passion are from a person usually who has no control, but based on some high emotional state, they lose it and then got, you know, they do terrible things. So that's one direct command. And then the other one is not what I did on, which is do not harm, right? And do not reciprocate harm. So don't be a person who is out there harming people, whether it's with your words, your actions, your intentions, be a good person that puts good energy out there and don't ever let your nerves justify harming for the sake of your, you know, out of spite. People are very vindictive now, very vengeful, very spiteful, and they don't see that that's a total lack of control and a lack of, you know, weakness and faith. Because if an injustice happens to you, you have to go back to your al-Qaeda, right? And know that no injustices are lost in the sight of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And all debts will be collected with God at some point. So I don't need to take matters into my own hands and go and exact my own justice and try to get, you know, my, you know, what do they call it, just desserts, as they say. I don't need to do that, because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has full knowledge and whether I'm in the right or the other person's in the right or whatever the case may be, in his court it will all be squared away so I let go of the need to go and retaliate. But this is not taught in this culture in society. You see a lot of, you know, terrible things that people do out of relationships, divorces. I mean, I have a family who are attorney and they say the ugliest sides of a Q and D comes out in a divorce. Like you will see evil beyond your wildest imagination, total lack of control, right? And a very weak faith when you think that you need to punish someone for what they did to you. Leave them to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Trust me, you will never do yourself justice by taking justice into your own hands because his justice will always be superior, right? So just be aware of that. So all of these are teachings that we are taught in terms of self-regulation, motivation. Our entire, again, existence is right here in chapter 51 verse 56. And I did not create the genuine mankind except for worshiping, right? وَمَا خَلَطُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنْسَئِلَّ الْيَعْهُرَةَ That's it. No other reason for us. And then beyond that, we are motivated with what messages of this beautiful, I mean, اِنَّ مَنَ عَمَانَ بِنْيَاتَ is one of, I mean, it's very, again, one of the first how do people learn? But this is central to our belief because it really should be something, when we teach our children or even for ourselves, just to constantly judge our actions, not on the outcome, because it's never really going to be good enough. We'll always be short somewhere, right? We're distracted, our intentions, maybe this or that. I mean, our thoughts, maybe this or that. But our intentions, if they're pure, we should take a great solid sentence that almost kind of is judging our intentions, right? And that's what matters the most. And then looking at how the Prophet ﷺ, I mean, there's nobody in any other faith tradition or historical figure that there is in recorded history with as much detail about their life as the Prophet ﷺ. We know everything he did, right? And this was witnessed by countless people that, you know, these are confirmed things and he woke up and he had routines. So this is where, Alhamdulillah, we should be so grateful if you've ever had a negative thought about your prayers, make yoga because your prayers are an incredible gift that align you with a sense of purpose. And so I'm not a mental health expert by any means, I'm an advocate, but I can tell you from many of the people I've spoken to, one of the crises of our time is that there's, you know, a lot of people who don't have a sense of purpose. They're walking around aimless because nobody told them they were important, nobody gave them any value. You have a lot of, you know, nihilism, a lot of just cynicism, a lot of atheism, that is everywhere. And so what it is, is it's the byproduct is a whole generation of people who think that they don't have any value whatsoever in their life. And here, Subhanallah, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala gave us not only value by telling us why he created us, but every minute of our day, he said to measure it and to put value in it to be mindful of him, right? To do constant remembrance of Allah. And then he spread out these prayers so that we can do it without really much, if you think about it, it's so simplified for us. Because had he told us to do five prayers and they weren't spread out because of our own nature, we're such, we're our own worst enemies, guaranteed some of us would have this mindset of like, okay, let me get it all down in the beginning of the day so that I can just go have the rest of the day to do whatever I want to do, right? That would be the nefcy response. I'll just get the duty out of the way so that I can like homework, right? How many kids, I have kids, I'm a teacher. There are some kids that are like that. Let me just get it all down really fast so that I can go play for the rest of the day. That's our nature. But he knows that that would harm us tremendously because we would be more open to sinning. We would be more forgetful. We would fall into the huff and we would harm ourselves and maybe harm other people. So he spread those five prayers out so that we protect ourselves from ourselves. So be grateful for that and be grateful for the schedule of a believer because we should be scheduled people. And that's why I'm looking at the world so I said of every point of his day, he had a dua. Every point of his day, he had something to remind us of all that. All of that is to motivate us, to get us to be self-motivated individuals so that we're not walking around aimless, right? And then in addition to that, I love, I mean, these are such powerful hadith we should take solace in. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, whoever comes to his carpet intending to stand for prayer at night, yet his eyes are overcome with sleep until morning, his intention is recorded for him. And his sleep is charity for him with his Lord Almighty. Allahu Akbar, how generous is our Lord? Just from the Nia. So make Nia every night that you wake up with a hajj. Make it. Ya Allah, please wake me up. Because guess what? Just by having that intention, even if you don't and you're so exhausted because you didn't, you know, whatever the case may be, SubhanAllah, he rewards you with the reward of doing the hajj. This is our Lord. And then if a servant falls ill or travels the likes of what he used to do when he was settled and healthy will be recorded for him. Again, Allahu Akbar. That's, I mean, this is all to keep us motivated. Your Lord is generous. Don't let, you know, don't fall into despair. Don't start to, you know, measure yourself with impossible standards. Just do your best and know that intentions matter, right? And then this last one, again, such a beautiful hadith, the Prophets of Islam. This was reported by the Salafi bin Sayed. He said, the Prophets of Islam sent us on an expedition. In the morning we attacked al-Quraqat al-Juhaynah. I caught hold of a man and he said, there is no God but Allah, but I stabbed him. So this is in the middle of battle, right? He stabbed this guy. Then it occurred to me that I should mention that to the Prophets of Islam. His guilty conscience, right? So the Prophets of Islam said, did this man that you killed actually say that there is no God but Allah? And then you killed him? And he said, oh, messenger of Allah. He only said it, fearing the weapon, right? He said it just because I had this weapon over him. That's why he said it. And look at the beautiful answer the Prophets of Islam tells him. Did you tear open his heart to know if he meant it or not, right? So this is a good reminder for all of us, not to assume anyone's that else's intentions because the outward reality doesn't always match the inward, right? So it's humbling and it's to check us, right? Work on having pure intentions, be motivated and don't fall into this habit of looking at other people presuming anything about anybody because you don't know. You don't know what's in their hearts. That's for all lessons out of that. All of these are powerful reminders to keep us again in that third quality of motivation. Then we get into empathy. Fourth out of five, so two more. The entire life of the Prophets of Islam you will find so many beautiful examples of his empathy towards the creation of Allah. Right here, I mean, one of the most, again, foundational hadith is that you have not completed, right? You have not completed, right? You will not complete the perfection of your faith until you love for your brother or sister what you love for yourself. So that right there to empathize to that degree that you even want them to have, you know, more, better than you, right? Or the same as you at least. And then we move into actual examples, right? The Prophets of Islam, when he would do Jama'at prayer, we know this, if he heard a child crying or wailing, he would shorten his prayer. And the beauty of this hadith is it wasn't just for the Rahmah towards the child. It was for the mother. Because mothers know, right? It's very hard when our children are crying, we want so desperately to break the prayer, to tend to them, we're worried about them, or if they run off God forbid, it's panic sets in, right? So out of his mercy, he is teaching all of us to empathize with the experience of another person, to not be so self-involved because you love your own Farah that you're going to do sort of the Rahmah, right? When a child is crying, don't do that. Shorten the prayer. Be mindful, pay attention to your congregants, right? And then when Abu Jahl, this is also a powerful example. Abu Jahl, he was killed in Badr. So his son, Ikramah, wanted to speak to the Prophet, so I said him. And when the Sahaba were kind of vetting this out, the Prophet said him, warned them. He said, listen, his father just got killed. Do not refer to him as the son of Abu Jahl. They don't refer to his father as Abu Jahl. Have empathy, because his father just died, even though this was a great enemy, and he did so much against the Muslims, and against the Muslims instead of, but even towards him and his son, he's showing empathy. So how do we receive people that we don't like, right? There's within family, I mean, this is an extreme case, but there's people who lack basic empathy with someone they just don't like even in their family. So these are reminders for us. Is it to this degree that you don't like someone? It's not, ever. So practice empathy, follow the Prophet's example. And then he forbade us talking secretly, right? If I speak a language that someone else speaks and someone is around us, we don't speak in that language, that's it. And then, or just like come a little closer and alienate someone else. If there's multiple people, that's different. Now you're, this is a private conversation between two people, you're okay with that. We're speaking about specifically in numbers of three or what have you, don't do that because it's going to hurt the other person, even if you're not speaking about them at all, it doesn't matter. All of this is teaches adab. And then here, a man came to the Prophet's life setup and he said, I've come to make you a pledge that we'll do a hint or not, although I've left my parents in tears, right? So he wanted to come with the Prophet's life setup while his parents were in this state and what did the Prophet's life setup tell him? Go back to them, right? And make them laugh as you made them cry. So he did not, even though he wanted to make picture with the Prophet's life setup, he's teaching him, empathize with your parents. Don't just, you know, abandon them, neglect them, prioritize them. So countless other examples, this is the fourth quality of emotional intelligence. So if you don't have empathy, you have to really think about this. Like, I need to start increasing my empathy because this is a quality of the Prophet's life. It's a Hallmark quality. If you, I mean, he empathize with the palm tree. He empathize with animals, with the bird, with the camel. So many countless examples. The woman who came to him, right? There was a woman who was known to have mental health issues and he was sitting in his jamaah. She came and interrupted that circle and he received her so beautifully. She was kind of in a hysterical moment because you know, Brooke is having a gathering and she said, I need to speak to you. And how did you receive her? So beautifully, you pick any street in Medina and I will come and sit with you. He honored her so that she doesn't feel bad or, you know, nobody else can say anything to her. And then he sat with her and she basically unburdened whatever was in her heart. That is our Prophet's soul, I understand. Empathizing always with people for poor. For how many poor to be helped. I mean, there are just so many examples. So when we see a deficiency of these qualities in ourselves, we have to go back to the drawing board and say, I need to work on this. I can't just be like, oh, this is who I am. No, it should bother you. That's more generally than enough. But it's not good enough unless it's like or at least trying to be like the folks I said. And until I'm there, I'm not gonna accept it. That's what this struggle is, right? And then we get into the last quality of emotional which is social skills. And this is also critical. A lot of us, because of COVID, this may have dipped, right? We're not seeing each other. So it's a little bit awkward, you know? Even now, I'm the only one who's showing her face. It's kind of weird, right? But we do, we do. But this is, you know, we have to really revisit our social skills here because we're seeing through the roof in COVID and even prior to that, but especially in COVID, social anxiety has gone up a lot. A lot of people are just feeling so, there's just so much trepidation, so much fear. There's just a lot of anxiety in our world. So, Alhamdulillah, we go back to our D and we remember, just recalibrate. Like what is my responsibility as a Muslim to my fellow believers, my fellow brothers and sisters and faith and my fellow brothers and sisters in humanity? How should I engage with them? How should I connect with them, right? And so here, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala of course clears it all up in Surah al-Fajrat, verse 13. O mankind, indeed we have created you from male and female and major peoples and tribes that you may know one another. So we should be open. So when we see each other, you know, we have to open conversations, at least the salam, you know, do the afshasalaam abaynukum, we spread the peace, smile. I mean, now with the mask, it's hard unless you get those masks that have, you know, a big smile on your face. Those are quite important. Or your own people who make their own faces. That's like, I don't know if you've seen those. They're actually seeing those. They're kind of scary actually. But, you know, but smiling, it's essential. So if you're not a smiley person, work on it. Do better. Like really, you know, you have to because it's a sunnah, the promise line is that he smiled, even when he was heartbroken, he would push beyond that because he wanted to welcome people and make them feel good and make them feel special. Why? Because he preferred other people over himself. So if you're having a bad day at work, you're just not feeling good, think it. You know, do it because the agenda you get by forcing that smile, we have no way of measuring it. But it's far greater than being, you know, like pouty and negative energy, or just rude and mean. So we have to do better in terms of our energy towards one another, right? And then here in the world's lesson is now getting very specific. A Muslim is a brother to another Muslim or sister. He does not wrong him or surrender him. Whoever fulfills the needs of his brother, Allah will fulfill his needs. Whoever relieves a Muslim from distress, Allah will relieve him from distress on a day of resurrection. And covering faults, so important. People don't do this anymore. They're quick to unveil everybody. Now with cancel culture, it's like, you know, no big deal. Oh, did you hear that? So, oh no, we'll have it. And stuff like the grapevine is so active because people are busy bodies. We've lost, you know, sense of what's important. And we just want to spread gossip. Cover the faults of people. This is part of a right that we have on one another. So if you see someone, you know, out and about doing something that you consider a little shady, don't come and pick up the phone and go, oh my God. Guess what? Guess who I saw? Getting in a car with you. You know what I mean? Stuff for a lot. We should just be like, I didn't see it. Leave them to Allah and ask Allah to veil you because guess what? There may be a time in your life where you're doing something or it's somehow you're unveiled and you beg Allah to veil you. Please don't let anybody know this, you know? I'm so ashamed of myself. So don't be that type of person that's quick to unveil people. This is all part of our developing those interpersonal skills and the social skills that we need. And then do not hate each other. I mean, now it's like, so hollow out the fact that it's, I mean, I don't know, I just feel sometimes shame on us that we have to have such very specific, you know, things just laid out for us. Don't hate each other because, you know, is that we can be filled with these emotions when we don't have what? Self-regulation. We're not working on testia. And so we allow our emotions to get the best of us. And now you see people saying to each other, I hate you. You know, stuff called in the one household, you'll see people saying this to each other. Spouses say to each other, children saying it to parents, parents saying it to children. It's just a mess, right? The word hate is very strong. I taught my kids very early, don't say hate for anybody, but who? Who can you say it for? I don't want to be shamed on. That's someone who deserves their hatred, right? But to say I hate this and I hate that, it's charged words, we should be better at the language that we teach our children and what we accept for ourselves. So don't use that word so quickly, right? Don't hate each other, don't envy each other because the hasa is another problem with social media now. Most of the people who are on it are there just inviting hasa into their heart. They're not there to champion a cause or spread good words, they're not there for that. They want to see who's doing what where, who's wearing what how. They're just there to spy, to cry, and then what does that do to the heart? It just invites all this hasa, why did she get that? Why did he get that? Ooh, I wish I had that. I hear it all the time. Literally I hear this from people, one sister once reached out to me, she's like, I don't know what to do. My sister-in-law has a social media presence and every time I see her stuff, I just feel so much hasa for her. And my answer was, why do you watch your social media? Like don't watch your social media, what are you doing? If you know that you have hasa for her, why are you allowing that, right? But we have to be reminded, don't do that, right? And then if you have a dispute, mean word, human beings, things happen, three days, that's your limit, work it out. So that is the process of directly telling you, work on your skills, regulate your emotions, do what you need to do in those three days, do not pass that limit, right? All of these are to help us help ourselves, because if we don't have this type of instruction, then what our greatest enemy, our nefs, will take over and we justify, we justify all of our behavior, only deserve it, she shouldn't have done this, she shouldn't have done that, and we allow the worst of our nature to come forward. When the message that we're always told is, this is Dunya, this is Darul iqtila, this is a place, it's a low place, don't sink in it, rise above, right? Rise above it, this isn't our final abode, this isn't ephemeral world, it's fleeting, we have, we're going to a better place inshallah, after all this is said and done, don't sink with the Dunya. So rise above, be a greater person, be the greater person, right? And then here, these are the last two reminders that we should really, really again, think about when it comes to our own behavior. The believer who mixes with the people and endures their heart, has a greater reward than one who does not mix with people or endures their heart. Why is this relevant? Because as I mentioned earlier, you're gonna be people in your life, you have no choice, they're your family, you're married into them, maybe they're your in-laws, maybe they're your cousins, maybe they're someone in your family, you have to deal with them, you cannot run away from them. If you take the modern idea about these things, which is like, how long time for that? And I'm cancelling people and I'm cutting people off and I'll never go to their house again. You know, good for you, maybe you're proud of yourself with that, but look at this hadith. This is not saying by the way, we want to clarify that to be a target for abuse, okay? We draw the line at abuse, but if someone, an elder for example, is just a little nit-picky, maybe they're not very nice, maybe they're flat out, sometimes rude, or someone in your family, not necessarily elderly, sometimes youth can be the same. But you, for the sake of, oh, I'll also talk about that, but the sake of keeping your spouse happy, for the sake of keeping the family bond happy, right? You subject yourself to being, enduring them, okay, fine, let's just go to their home. I don't want to be here, right? But I'm gonna be here because the family bond is important, and I don't want to be a person who causes fitna. Then remember, you're gonna be rewarded for that. Just you sitting there and enduring their, you know, sometimes you have family to tell you the same story like 100 times, you know? And if you're internally going, oh, no, here we go again, but you're still sitting there. Yeah. Oh, you know, and you're doing the whole act, but you get immense reward for that because you don't have to, you can be rude and be like, I have to go, I don't have time for this. Like you already told me 10, 10, 20 times, you can do that, but you're not, you have edad, this is edad, it's basic edad. So take a, you know, pleasure in the fact that the most part is witnessing you fighting your nuts for his sake, but just do it, okay? And then the problems I said, this is also for anybody who feels like people walk all over you and take advantage of your niceness, there's a lot of very good people who are like, oh, you know, feeling just like oppressed over in their situations. And they may very well be oppressed, but this is also an incredibly powerful reminder where he tells us whoever is kind, affable and easygoing, then what? The fire is forbidden from touching you. So just be like, how good is that? I'm not that angry mean person always giving me an easygoing temperament. If that's what it takes to be away from the fire, I will accept it, right? And just again, find solace in that. And so, you know, these are all again, there's so many reminders, but this framework of emotional intelligence, I highly encourage all of us to look into it more and to really structure our understanding of our practice as Muslims, according to it, because it does make things, it makes things easy and it makes sense, right? Because each one builds upon the other. If I am a self-aware person, I know my purpose, I know who Allah is, I know all those things, then I can control my behavior, right? Because I have a clarity about my own nature, right? I can start to regulate myself. And if I'm doing that enough, I'm gonna find this rhythm, which is where the motivation comes, right? That motivation to just pick up every day to just keep going because I have a greater purpose, the intentionality of our existence, all of it is clear for us. We know why we're here, we know what we're supposed to do, the formula is very clear. So it gives us a sense that it's dry, right? And then from that, we inculcate empathy towards other people because Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala softens our hearts, because we start to see and understand people have different natures and we start to appreciate the differences in others, right? Reflecting our own differences in them, right? This is the, it adds to the movement, right? The believer is a mirror for the believer. So you start to see, oh, you know, my temperament is this way, so that person's this way. So let me just be more empathic, let me be more gentle. I lower my expectations, I don't, I'm not so rigid. And then from there, your social skills improve. You just become easier to be around because the more prophetic like we are, the more welcoming, open, a compassionate, merciful, people will gravitate towards us. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, this is when we prioritize, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala and we follow our Prophet Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, all of that Tophia will come to us. The doors will begin to open and our relationships and our professional lives are all these things will happen because we're pleasing Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala before we're thinking about His creation, right? So always prefer that. And it's just a formula that works, right? And so quickly, because I know we're all over, but I wanted to leave you with this last slide so that you can check yourself to see where you fall in the spectrum of emotional intelligence. If you're doing any of these behaviors on the left side, I'm sorry, but you need to work on your emotional intelligence, okay? If you argue a lot, you're argumentative, you just want to pick heights 24-7 or all day if you could, whether it's online or with your family, with your children, with your spouse, you just pick up the poll and you just argue, okay? Or you like to just argue politics and this person and that person, just, okay? And then the hadith on the right are just reminders for us, but insensitivity. If you walk by someone crying and weeping and your attitude is like, get over it. It's not for the law, you know? We have to do better because that's not the focus license way, right? When he found Umair crying over his bird that died, the focus license didn't say, get over it, top it up, Umair. So what, it's just a bird. He showed him compassion and he was playful with him in a way where he wanted him to know, I understand your pain. That was our focus license. So be sensitive towards people when they're going through things. If you're a stoic person, and this is where temperament also makes a difference, some temperaments are stoic. So you have an advantage, you're thick skin, but maybe not everybody that you know. So in sibling households, you might have someone who's very strong and then their sibling isn't, but there's usually this dynamic where the stronger one is always picking on the little one. So teach your children not to do that. Be sensitive because the focus license is the most sensitive to people, right? Self-righteous. If you went to Hajj 10 times and you've been wearing the hijab since you were, you know, a newborn, okay? Some people are like, they take it to that level and your beard is beautiful and long, and you know, you do all the sudden as you put, put it on, you do it all. Don't ever get ahead of yourself and judge other people. Don't be the religious authority that walks around judging how, oh, why are you praying this way? You should do this. You can't stop them a lot. Don't be self-righteous because just as a most primate guide to you, he can take the guidance away from you. And the quickest way to do that is to become arrogant and self-righteous. So always remember, right? That it's from a law that I am this way. It's not because I did anything to be this way. It's from literally a lot you can take it away. Displeasure with blame. If someone is correcting you and your nuts starts to boil up and you really don't like it and you retaliate and you snap back and you cut them down because you can't stand that they corrected you, you lack emotional intelligence because everybody makes mistakes, right? Everybody makes mistakes. Who do I add them? The public. Okay, the public, the public, right? So all of us make mistakes and the best of those who make mistakes are those who recognize their mistake because in order to make Kova, we recognize your mistakes, right? So be open to being called out and to being corrected. Poor coping skills. If something happens and you fall apart, we need to go back to the drawing board. You have to study what is this world? What is this life, the temporality of this life? How, you know, the design of the world who almost behind that is, what is justice? Death, you know, grief, whatever it is that made you fall apart, you need to revisit it so you have a sound understanding, right? That this isn't it. This is just a part of the journey of the human being, what travels, right? So work on our coping skills in terms of how to process things that we're not happy with. And then emotional outbursts, if you have, you know, you get riled up very quickly, easily and you can't help yourself, you know, this is also a sign. With the exception and I will mention this because I write about this as well, we also have to factor in hormonal, you know, influences here because they are true. Some people are actually impacted by hormones and they can find themselves to be more agitated or irritable and, you know, a little bit more snippy during certain times of the, especially for women in the case of women with menstrual cycle. So this is a valid reality. It's medically proven it exists. So we need to be sensitive to also those things but still work on ourselves and then abusive and toxic relationships. If you have a history of having really negative relationships, you wanna go back and say, am I the common denominator? Am I bringing attention to that type of, you know, am I inviting that type of energy into my life? Why? And work through them, you know? But all of these are just good indicators for us to see where we need to work on so that we become more emotionally intelligent, more aligned with the global systems example, inshallah. And, you know, build those skills that will help us deal with all the stuff that we're dealing with right now. Like a lot of us COVID and quarantine and just everything that's happening financially and politically, it's rattling so many people because they haven't done this internal process of really getting clarity about their beliefs who they are, what their relationship is with the world. Like all those things matter and that's why we should be using our time really wisely as we are still in this lockdown. If you're watching again videos and Netflix and just wasting a lot of time on entertainment to cope and to escape from all of it, you're doing yourself a disservice. Use this time to read, to study, to become a better person. So when you emerge, you're like, you know what, I got a windfall of time. Many of us are working from home whereas even my husband brings up, he works in the tech field. Before his schedule was hours, literally on a bus, two hours there, two hours back. Four hours on a bus, lost every day, having to work crammed in this tight space and then out of the house for how many hours based on his schedule. So now he's home, we're able to pray as a family together, eat our meals together. What a gift from Allah. So if you're in that situation, see it as an immense miracle, but use the time wisely to learn, to read the Quran, to improve on your prayers, to strengthen your relationships with one another, right? And inshallah, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala takes us out of this situation, you will have to use that time wisely but if you just grope, I mean, gripe and complain and negative, it's a waste. So, alhamdulillah, I just have to look ahead and forgive me, I know I went over by a few minutes, but if there are any questions or comments or there hasn't much left, again, this is the subject that he is very familiar with. Thank you for being so patient to sit here throughout this. You could have, I'm sure, given the same talk, but I would love to hear from anybody who has maybe some thoughts to share. I think it's recorded, right? There's a project log. Okay, so I have this exact, like these talks already on YouTube. If you go to YouTube and just do emotional intelligence with my name, you'll see talks that I've done on this topic. So all the slides are right here. Yes? I think there's a lot of it, a little bit more on, I guess, the old period that thoughts could see emotions, I mean, you mentioned earlier on that it's actually emotions that can see thoughts. But they are kind of new, itch. You know, I think that this, if you could do a few more, that's a lot of things to talk about. Very, great question. So this idea that what comes first, are thoughts or emotions, right? So if you think about, I mean, again, this could go to temperament too, because some people are based on their temperament more emotional, right? So they actually feel things first and then the thoughts and awareness, right? That rational mind kicks in afterwards. Other people are more rational, right? So it's like you can compartmentalize your feelings in a way. So a lot of it does have to do with nature, but you know, again, that little blurb that I put in there is explaining that, in fact, according to the research that we do actually feel first. And I mean, I'm trying to think of a good example of how this could apply. Fighter flight. Yeah, that's a good point, yeah. Fighter flight is definitely one. Yeah, in a panic situation, right? When you are especially scared, you're fearful, like terrorite, like any type of a crisis, people don't usually remember what to do, right? You almost lose rational thinking. This is why you'll see, again, like in those crisis situations, there's few people who can kind of step up and know what to do, but they're usually trained, right? It's like they have some military background, some background where they went through a training to know how to respond to those situations. I know for myself, I consider myself pretty rational, but I absolutely freeze when there's like a crisis. I don't, I like lose, I don't know what to do. And it's like I'm trying to, you know, think about like how to fix it in a moment, but I know I'm quite dangerous, especially God forbid, like around water, because I don't know how to swim. So I think if anybody ever, don't ever go anywhere swimming with me, because I can't help you. I'll just like, I don't know what to do, because if I jump in, now we're both gonna die, right? So I think there's certain scenarios that again push us to that point where we feel intense emotions, but our mind doesn't quite kick in. And things, yeah, the butterfly is a perfect example. So a mask has a few of that, like paramedics. Yeah. And then some of them never recover. So no, no, no. And some of them have to do triage, so they're trained. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They can't see the pain and suffering and pain. My brother's a ER doctor, so my brother in law. So he had to have been trained. Right. That's amazing. Some people, and that's what can't do it. It has to be internal, a certain thing. Yeah, it's too much. There's some people, yeah, that have a very visceral response to those types of intense states. Or I know people who, like in a conflict situation, for example, like road rage, right? There's some people with road rage, they're very reactive, right? So they're reactive and they can honk and they'll do it all. You see these two cars speeding alongside each other, fighting between, you know, on the road. And then there's other people who just don't, they can't, they get, they literally will freeze up because the fear of that honking sound, you know, got them and they're not even realizing what just happened and they'll like, be so confused or disoriented, right? So a lot of it does have to do with the way that, you know, our temperaments are and how we process, whether reactive or not. But I think generally speaking, that the fight, for example, is a really good explanation of how to do it. Yes. In terms of self-regulation, how do you explain addiction at a time of the struggle or hunger? Very good question, Marshala. You know, again, addictions are real and we would definitely defer to a more medical, psychological explanation on how that forms to some addictions can be hereditary as far as, you know, certain, for example, I mean, I remember reading with drug addiction or even alcoholism, it can run in the family, right? So you can have certain genetic predispositions to certain addictions that all has to factor in, but if it comes to your own behavior, right, where you were doing something that without any regulation of yourself, then you are ultimately responsible for those choices. And from an Islamic perspective, you would need to, of course, tend to that and likely go into a program. And there are now programs for, you know, run by Muslims that will deal with different addictive behaviors to help people from a spiritual, because, you know, a psychological and even medical perspective how they can address those addictions. But, you know, this comes usually because there's no regulation, right? If you're not accountable for yourself and you allow yourself to do certain things, you will fall into those types of behaviors because, again, the nuffs and the police, they work in concert with each other. So your nuffs will tell you, you know, to continue doing whatever it is, whether it's drugs, gambling, alcohol, it could be a myriad of things that people find to be addictive. But then, Shaitan is gonna push you even further into that so that you become habituated to it. So the reversal of that is to, again, have to take a multi-pronged, maybe approach to fighting those urges. So there may be medical intervention, there may be therapy, maybe therapy. There could be different ways of approaching it based on what the addiction is, but you would be ultimately responsible for yourself in that scenario. I mean, and it's very real. That's why, alhamdulillah, for increased awareness, especially when it comes to mental health, there are a lot of people who may not know that this is something that they may have, for example, through this position too, or there's some other component there. So when you have a proper evaluation, proper experts helping you, I think it can really make things clear. So the brother was asking about recommendations to help with procrastination, and just a general lack of desire to feel motivated. So it's a very good question. Procrastination is a huge problem, and that's why the Shadeeth, when we study them and internalize their meanings, they can start to really make sense. One of the Hadeeth that really helps me is the reminder that a person is not promised the night in the morning, more they promise the morning and the evening, right? For me, that makes a lot of sense in that if I want to do something, and my mind tells me do it later, right? That I have to check myself and say, but later isn't guaranteed, right? I don't even know, I mean, that's a pretty broad amount of time, but even the hour, the next hour is not guaranteed because people pass away instantly all the time without any explanation. And this happens with youth, it happens with children, and the reason why I think those things happen, it may well protect us, it may well kick off all the loved ones, is to humble us to say, don't let this idea that you have, you know, one of the diseases of the hearts that is the school of the almond, right? That you have like false hopes, because false hope is a disease. Who told you that you are going to be able to do this, right? So prioritize the now, right? And the believer lives in the now because the past is done, right? So we don't live in the past. Like, so that's why that we're taught, like, low minutes, shake on, if you what if, I shouldn't have, why did I, these are the thoughts that people who are stuck in the past and in this depressive state are being bombarded with because they think that they could have done things differently. That's a shaconic impulse because he just wants you to be stuck there. And then anxiety is about the future, right? So a lot of people are crippled by, you know, fear of what's to come and they don't feel motivated to do anything. Whereas the believer realizes the now matters and I don't, I need to use everyone the now because if I die in this state that I'm in now, where will I end up, right? And that hypervigilance about the now is a motivating factor. And then in terms of just general motivation, your sohba matters, you know, who we keep our company with. So if you don't have good company that reminds you to be better and that you can, like, you know, right, we're a sovereign court, right? We're supposed to compete with one another. So if we're not vying with one another and our friendships, then we may lose the drive. So you should have people that challenge you. Like if you have friends who you know are, for example, right now, you know, doing hips and they're your age, they work full-time like you or they're doing, they're aspiring to something great. You should be like, what is it that they have that I don't have? Why, you know, they have a family, they have a job, they're doing some, why am I not doing it? And it starts to push yourself to a higher standard instead of the stagnation. The stagnation is just like you're just coasting, right? But we are encouraged to always be better, right? To aspire for better. And look at your trajectory. If you're the same person you were last year and the year before and two or three years ago, that means your nuts is driving the car. If your nuts is just cruise control, minimal effort, mediocre. And that shouldn't be good enough for you because we're not a mediocre people, right? We have the best of creation as our example. So we have to challenge ourselves. Is there another hand? I'm sorry, I thought I saw it in my hand. It's a lot of data and thank you so much, everyone.