It's Not Failure Until You Quit

Bismillah asalam allayikum. Welcome to the baraka blueprint podcast. I'm your host Ibrahim Sharif and I'm a brand strategist. I'm a project manager and alhamdulillah I am of the Quran. I believe that I am far from my best self and I believe that every Muslim man and woman should strive to become the best version of themselves because Allah subhana t has written on everything. God has prescribed excellence on every Muslim man and woman. So I started this podcast to document my journey of how I am trying to become my best self. I believe I'm doing poorly and that is why I am taking help with my audience. I'm presenting the journey to my audience so that hopefully I can get the motivation and support that I need and at the same time hoping that I can inspire some change. You're listening to this on Spotify. You will find me on Apple Podcasts. You can watch this even on YouTube. And if you're not driving, you can watch it on Spotify as well. I am active on almost every social media and alhamdulillah, I feel like this podcast is starting to affect and inspire positivity and inspire value with more people. and in more countries as well. So before I start, I want to thank each and every one of you for your contributions to this podcast, for your support. And I will kindly ask you if you can please help me by subscribing to my channel, by following the podcast on Spotify or on your podcast player of choice and also by reviewing the podcast so that we can reach more people and so that I know what I am doing that is beneficial or what I can do to further develop this crucial message and the delivery of it. In today's episode, I want to share my updates. I want to share some things that have happened recently in my journey. Starting off with my rebranding. I'm no longer Hedra Hacks. The channels are all called Sharifico. Everything from YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, even Twitter. Yes, I happened to get a Twitter. Not because I want to be a Twitter content creator, but mainly because I wanted to reserve the name. So also got a domain sharifi.co and uh hopefully I will be able to um launch my website very soon and also I think I will keep the baraka blueprint podcast uh website for this sake. Now, the update specifically that I wanted to share about the rebranding is I have I have a lot to say about it. By the way, first thing I want to say about this is those of you who have followed my journey, especially if you followed my journey from Sweden, we're talking like back when I was more active and visible with my graphic design, you'll realize that I've done a lot more, alhamdulillah, I've done a lot more this year alone than I've done my entire career. and in terms of my deliverable in graphic design. So why am I saying this? Well, mainly the reason why I am sharing this with you is because I want to share the a lesson that I have learned. The lesson that I have learned, subhan Allah, is I've learned the importance of not caring what obstacles you have in just starting. Yes, I know this is this is this has been mentioned many many many times in all of the episodes and even the like short clips that you guys are watching. I've said this multiple times, but allow me to elaborate. For a very long time, I felt very demotivated. Why? Because I see people in my network, graphic designers and brand strategists and brand identity builders and whatever nomenclature you want to add to this same title, which is the creative work. I see people excelling. I see people developing. I see people do a lot like well, I'm talking a lot of high value work. And I felt stuck because I haven't really refined my skill set and I haven't really refined my skill passport for a very long time specifically when it comes to the creative work. So I never dared to start. But the problem is I was putting myself in this dis at this disadvantage because the more time I spent not doing anything, the worse I got in my skill and also at the same time I was very dis disadvantageous because I didn't realize that I actually possessed the skill, alhamdulillah, that people paid to borrow from me in terms of the clients that I was able to land, alhamdulillah, earlier on. And this was actually my eye for detail. Alhamdulillah. Allah subhana t has blessed me with a certain skill that I was able to, you know, spend time to acquire and to you learn from other people that are more skilled and more experienced than myself. And I was able, alhamdulillah, to execute a product or a strategy or a be it a website, a brand profile, whatever it is that I'm able to communicate something visually that many people couldn't do. And the the ironic thing here or the funny thing is that I learned it all through YouTube. Mostly YouTube and LinkedIn learning, but mostly YouTube if I'm going to be honest. So that being said, I how am I going to say this? I forgot about that skill because I was so busy comparing myself with other people that I forgot what I was able to produce. So when I started to get back to my designs this year and the first thing I designed actually was the very first logo of the Baraka blueprint which is the bold Latin text in and Kenyan coffee bold font and then the Arabic intertwined fonts or intertwining between the Latin letters. This for me was something huge. I mean now looking back at it is I'm happy that I pivoted from that brand or from that design but it was huge for me at the time because I was able to craft this brand and this brand identity for the Baraka blueprint and later for Hydra Hacks that would help me stay consistent or have a consistent brand identity and have a consistent presentation in all of my artifacts. So when I was presenting myself or presenting my brand to the other content creators that I was collaborating with, uh, many people didn't many people didn't realize that this was something that was curated by a one-person team up until I introduced myself as a graphic designer, in which case many things started to make sense. So, and I still have a long way to go, by the way. I I'm still considering different ways of how I can rebrand or redesign the uh the artwork. That's going to be a very interesting uh piece as well. So, if you have any advice, definitely do shoot a message to myself wherever you're seeing this. Be it a comment to Spotify because I would see them uh YouTube, my Instagram, my Tik Tok, whatever. Just send it my way or Ibraimsharifi.co. So, what did I even want to build on? Yeah. So, um having a better habit with this. Alhamdulillah, I was able to then design more stuff. I've I've designed more brands, alhamdulillah, recently. Those of you that are part of my school community, you you you'll know that I've designed uh the brand for Nova Creative Agency. uh I've designed the one for my own creative agency as well that and more things are going to be made official very very soon as well and alhamdulillah after consulting with many stakeholders among which our brother Ibrahim from the freshly grounded team I was given the advice to refocus my brand because there was there was a big inconsistency here For example, those of you that have watched the the episode with u our brotherh from Medina Project because we had an episode together and I'll link to it as well. There was a moment in that episode where the brother Abu Abdullah mentioned that he was unsure about something which was particularly my brand because he he he thought that Baraka blueprint was one thing and hedro hacks was something else and I actually don't blame him for it because the presentation of my brand was very inconsistent. Yes, I was and I have experience in brand identity and designing the brand and crafting the brand and executing all of these artifacts. But one thing that I didn't have experience in was content creation and having a personal brand. This is something that this is still new a new area for me. Now why am I saying all of this to you is because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in the Quran uh Allah subhana wa ta'ala tells us to ask the people of knowledge when we are unsure and when we don't know. So alhamdulillah I'm very grateful that Allah subhana wa ta'ala allowed me to have this consultation or this interaction with with brother Ibraim and I I'll link to his socials as well. I re definitely recommend following him if you want to learn marketing specifically if you want to learn marketing within the realms of content creation and personal branding. Allah he has very very very valuable insights. Ibrahim from the freshly grounded team. I highly recommend checking him out. And those of you who like football by the way he does have a football podcast together with a part of the uh freshly grounded team. Now Ibrahim if you're listening to this again I'm very very sorry that you're a Liverpool fan. Although congrats on the win against Real Madrid. Uh as a Barcelona fan, I am happy to see this. No, but um back to the topic at hand, what I was trying to say is I alhamdulillah sought to consult the brother uh specifically when it comes to the personal branding because I realized that something was missing and something was wrong, but I couldn't really tell what it was. So this helped me alhamdulillah to refocus my brand and to re sh and to pivot the direction that this brand was going. So the reason why I changed from hedra hacks to sharifico is not really because I don't want to talk about the hijra content that much. Of course I still want to do that but the the plan was never that this would be the center of my content. And at many times I've communicated like this not so purposefully. So I still want to talk about it but it's not the only thing that I want to talk about. I don't want to limit myself to that particular content or that particular theme. What I do want to talk about however is the hijra mindset. This is something that I have emphasized a lot on every single podcast that I've been a guest in all the way from American in Dubai, brother Abd to brother Abu Bakr wrote to Hijra with brother Abdraim from the Medina project and inshallah the future podcast as well even raising humans the collab that we had there. So I have talked about the hijra mindset which is I believe that it is important for every single Muslim man and woman to understand and remind themselves that they are travelers. We are travelers in this world. We are on this consistent ongoing journey where we are we're moving to our end goal which is we're moving to our end goal which is a life of paradise. May Allah grant every single listener and hope myself as well a place in. what am I saying with this? Uh our direction is a destination of excellence. Jenna Jenna is excellence. It's an excellent destination. So our path towards Jenna which is this ongoing life that we're having and the path that we're taking and the decisions that we're making along this journey. It needs to be a journey of excellence. You can't arrive at an excellent destination without an excellent path without an excellent journey. So the the excellence like we mentioned is not perfection. Many people conflate perfection with excellence. Like for example uh actually no before I dive into the example excellence is about perfecting not perfection. Okay you keep perfecting your knowledge uh book or knowledge base. You keep perfecting your your recitation. You keep perfecting your linguistic abilities or your physique. You keep perfecting those artifacts. But one thing that you need to be reminded of, one thing you need to remember here, my beloved listener, my dear brother and sister, you need to remind yourself that nobody is perfect except Allah. No one is perfect. Okay? None of God's creation is perfect. Everyone has a limitation. And the prophetat was who was the best of creation, this is this is the standard that we're striving for. And we need to realize that we'll never achieve that standard. The best we could achieve is companionship with the prophetic standard. So we need to have a mindset of perfecting and realize that we will never reach perfection. This is why like when we establish that mindset, when we establish this particular approach, the results and the lack of achievement will never phase us honestly people because I'm going to I'm going to be very honest again. I I I've I've promised myself that when when I was to enter content creation, this was like more than a year ago. If I was to enter content creation, I promise myself that I will do this with full transparency and that I am responsible in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that I if if I if I was to speak about anything, it will be done purely with honesty. I'll be honest about my challenges that I faced. So many times I wanted to quit. So many times I wanted to just forget everything. Let's just hydrate ourselves for a little bit. The the blessing of water is something that we are not so grateful for. Subhan Allah. May Allahh protect us from being ungrateful. Many times I wanted to give up because Barely anyone watches the YouTube video. And though from those that watch the YouTube video, not so many people watch it until the end. And this is this is not a sub story by the way. This is this is me being transparent with you guys that yes, even though I am perfecting my studio as much as I possibly can, uh my visibility is a lacking artifact. my engagement the engagement with my content is a lacking artifact and I know that very very well I have high standards of myself or for myself so ideally this is not a problem that I want to have but what I'm saying is if I didn't pivot my thinking and my mindset from perfection to perfecting I would have given up a long time ago because I would look at the numbers and I'll say dude I'm spending so much time and so much money and so many so much effort to produce something that gets 100 views on YouTube even if only sometimes like it I get I get below 50 but literally what I mean this is just a part of the journey I'm going to be very honest I I know for a fact I know for a fact with the help and will of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala I will look back at this and say was this even possible was this even real because I will be at a different level which makes sense I mean again referencing the conversation that I've had with Murad or our brother tech with Murad it's about putting in as much work and as much effort in perfecting your skill so that the probability of failure is highly unlikely. that pro that failure is an unreasonable outcome and I can confidently say that I am not there. I can confidently say that I haven't put that much work in. Yeah, I work every single day. I work every single day with my personal brand and with my content, but I also realize that I have a long way to go. So the fact that I have the low-level results makes sense but it shouldn't demotivate me from continuing the journey. Just like we tell like when we used to do a lot of street dawa as well we told the people subhan Allah that weren't practicing like for example uh sisters that weren't wearing hijab this was this was a very very common encounter. Okay. And this is also something that I've advised many uh many of the brothers that were uh there in the in in our dawa team also sisters. Subhan Allah. One piece of advice that I try to give people and this is something that I learned from more learned sh I'm not I'm nowhere near the person that would author advice but one thing that I was able to imitate the advice that I used to give is focus on salah like of course yes hijab is an artifact of our faith let's be very clear hijab is an artifact of faith or an artifact of our dean. I'm not I don't mean like it's from that's not what I'm referring to. I mean it's it's from the um crucial steps or parts of the faithful Muslim woman or the image of the faithful faithful Muslim woman. Does it mean that you can be Muslim woman and not have hijab? It's it's a possibility. Yes, I'm not saying against that. But I'm still saying that to attain the level of righteousness if you were to belong to the feminine gender then there is a certain standard of coverage that is going to be required from you. Now similarly to you who belongs to the masculine gender or the man there are certain standards that you need to adhere to so that you you approach righteousness. Both genders for example have a similarity in the level of hay or modesty in terms of rhetorical modesty, mindset, emotional, psychological modesty, clothing, physical modesty as well. But in each and every one of them there is a different slider. There are different levels. Why? Because Allahh says since men and women are not the same. They are different creatures and they are they they are they have different psychological dispositions. Therefore there are different requirements set for each of the genders. Okay. So one thing uh relating it back to the point one thing that I kept advising people is that hey don't press so much on the hijab or the clothing or the other parts or even the music or whatever people decided to stick to like makeup for example like this was usually something that people talked about advising people to or advising girls sisters to not wear makeup or whatever. Anyway, this is not even the topic of the conversation. What I was trying to get to is that I I we what we used to focus on again from advice of is that we focus on salah because salah will purify the person always the remembrance of God Almighty is greater than anything that happens. A person that sticks to salah is a person that is on that that is going through this ongoing program of purification. The first thing that we need to realize or the first thing that we need to understand if we're trying to help assist our counterpart even our family member the first thing that we need to assess is their level and relationship with salah. Is it good? Is it is it working? If not, this would be the focus of our and the focus of our advice and the focus of our dawa. Everything else is secondary. If it works, if if if the salah is accepted by Allahh, everything else is going to be fine or is going to be, you know, prone to acceptance. But if the salah is not accepted or if the salah is incomplete, all the other good deeds are prone for failure and rejection. So, we're playing a very dangerous game here. meaning that we can't just just with the same mindset that we don't force this down people's throats that we expect perfection from everybody from day one. No, that's not going to work. This mindset is applicable from a marriage point of view as well between husband and wife. the beginning of the journey there's always going to be a rocky road is not a dance on roses even though the honeymoon phase tends to blind people or you know distract from that ongoing situation that a people are going through a purification journey or or a development journey it's a school marriage is a school dawa is a school Islam is a school it's a dojo right you you You you you you you start with the with the first easy simple kata, but your mind or your focus is on that black belt or whatever end point you want to reach and the kata and the movements and the uh combinations that are required and the pattern that is required to achieve that standard or that quality. The black belt, right? Those of you who are more recently in tune with kar karate, please do forgive me. Uh or if you have a different med of karate, some people have some people have kyokushin. Maybe there is more in karate. I don't know. But so this is it could be that this is the reason why some of the analogies are weird to some of y'all if you guys are into karate. But anyway, [sighs] some people have tech and karate only as well and that is fine. That is okay [laughter] as long as we understand our limitations, right? No, but this is this is a journey and many a times and relating it back to the original point that I talked about which is my personal brand. Many of times I forgot that I'm actually going through a journey. I can't expect perfection. So the reminder here or the lesson that I've learned is or there are many many lessons that I've learned. So let's start with the first one. Number one, pivot your mindset. Pivot your mindset from perfection to perfecting. Perfecting is an ongoing action and it takes time. Okay? As long as you're bettering, you know, a part even if it's a tiny percentage. Sometimes you feel like you're regressing as well. I need to be very very clear. Sometimes you feel like you're regressing. Like for example, I'll I'll relate this to the the other the other company called that I'm building. Again, news coming soon inshallah. I don't know if my business partners are going to hear this. If so, if you happen to be one of the 50 views, then uh maybe you'll like this, maybe you won't like this. I don't know. We'll see. Um we've I felt like we've had progress for some time. up until we hit this bottleneck that was very detrimental, which was the fact that we had difficulties opening up a bank account. And I'll take I'll take the ownership for this because I'm I'm the CEO of the company and the main responsibility is on myself. So I'll take I'll take ownership of the fact that I was ignorant of the process. Really don't know how it works. I don't know. I I I I assume that this it's going to be as simple as opening up a bank account or a corporate account in Sweden. I thought so at least. I was very mistaken. Uh and I paid the price for it. So for a very long time I felt that we weren't just not improving, we were regressing, we were going backwards. It's like taking one step forward and five steps back in certain levels. So what I'm trying to say is a perfecting journey, a journey towards perfection, which means that you're ongoing perfecting. Okay? You're perfecting towards that path towards excellence. Sometimes it feels like you're going backwards. Sometimes it feels like you're scoring more own goals. What I'm trying to tell you is that this is actually a part of the journey. Let's unlock the computer here. This is actually a part of the journey, right? As long as you don't give up. The journey is only over when you give up. Dr. in a very very very inspirational video clip. It's in Arabic by the way. He talked about what is failure. When I watched that clip, Subhan Allah, it's it inspired something within me. He said failure, let's say for example, you're you're trying to ride a bicycle. I don't remember if this was the analogy that he used, but I'll I'll paraphrase. I'll paraphrase Victoria. So he was saying that you're riding the I'm giving let's give the example. You're you're attempting to do something. You're falling. You're a little bit upset and then you get up and try again. You haven't failed yet. So far you haven't failed. You're learning. You fall again. You pick up the bike again and you continue. You haven't failed yet. The moment you say, "Oh, I can't deal with this anymore. Screw this. I'm out. throw the bike and whatever and just storm off and be pouty. That's when you failed. Until then, you're learning. You're gaining experience. You're gaining knowledge. You're you're acquiring intel and data. You're gathering intel. You're learning what not to do. You're I think Thomas Edison said something about that he learned or he was taught during his experimentation. It's not that he failed a thousand times or something like this. He learned a thousand ways to not invent the light bulb. Something like this, he said. Again, I may be heavily paraphrasing. What I'm trying to say is that everything has to do with mindset. Remember, people usually say like you're either a glass half full or a glass half empty type of person. It's literally like this. It's everything is about perspective. the so-called failures or the backtracking or the um what what what is a better word that you can say anyway the lack of progress you know or the um uh or the the regression right when you're regressing in your journey. You can see it as a failure or you can see it as lessons learned. Also something that I'm trying to uh in the in in in the in the 90-day roadmap course in the school community. I talked a I talked a little bit about this when we were talking about the the weekly review or the the muhasaba part of our blueprint. So everything is about perspective. That is the first lesson that I have learned is that you realize that you're not going through perfection. It's not about perfection. It's about perfecting. What changes everything after it means that you're not failing, you're learning. You're you you have you are only considered to have failed when you stop and you give up. Then this certain attempt is considered a failure. That's it. The second lesson that I have learned is to consult with people. Something that I have learned during this and the past week. Ask the people of knowledge when you are when you are unsure. This was not only an instruction given to the wider Muslim persona. This was given to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and the companions. If they are given that strict instruction, then why why why would we think that we're exempt from it? We don't have to do everything alone. We can consult with people. We can consult with subject matter experts in whichever field we're learning in. Be it graphic design, be it marketing, be it ad spend, whatever. Literally, consult with someone who's gone through that journey before. And again quoting our brother Abu Bakr um a smart man learns from his own mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others and the fool never learns. Learn from others mistakes. Take take the lessons from other people's journey. This honestly one of one of the intentions that I have with the barak blueprint is to share my journey and share the mistakes and share what I have learned. So that with that through that door of transparency, you as a listener who inshallah is intending to do similar things. Maybe you're intending to start your own company. Maybe you're intending to become a content creator. Maybe you're not intending to become a content creator and just or just want to do a podcast. Maybe you're intending to learn graphic design or whatever you want to learn. Maybe you want to gain confidence in public speaking. I believe with this journey that I'm sharing, I'm able to share what I have learned, what mistakes I have taken. So that whatever journey you're on, if there is a slight overlap with what I am going through or what I have gone through or if there is something that I possess which you want, I'm hoping that you're able to execute it better than me. This is this this is this is my intention of the podcast that I share the value so that we together contribute to a better um because like I said the the the mission statement of the Baraka Blueprint podcast is to inspire growth change and value within the Muslim um so that we are building a nation we're building an um of high performing high value individuals high value performers Brothers and sisters, men and women, boys and girls, this is only made possible if we have the mindset of continuous development and learning. Otherwise, thought it was muted. Otherwise, it's not going to be possible. This was the second lesson that I learned, which is to consult and to learn from other people of their niche of expertise and scope of expertise. what else can I add to this? Subhan Allah. One one more thing that I can add honestly is I think I I talked about this before. Um, one thing, subhan Allah, that speaking of which, my one of my business partners just just wrote to me. Uh, let's see what he has to say. Uh, one thing that I learned, like I mentioned before, I I again want to emphasize this. Okay, there's going to be some drama for me to listen to after the after the podcast. Okay, again, so sorry. Let's let's get back on track and let's actually again sorry business partner. We're going to have to mute you because I have something more important which is a blueprint podcast to my audience. But he subh is one of the people that I know listens to listens to these podcasts. let's see what he has to say when when he listens to this part of the podcast. [laughter] Uh one thing that I wanted to again emphasize on is to not consider certain what's it called? To not consider mistakes or mishaps or regressions as failures. They're only failures when you give up. So even so this this journey of excelling or this journey of perfecting will have moments where it's no it's no longer you becoming better by 0.0000001%. It's actually by you going back a few steps. And I'm relating this subhan allah to to the bottlenecks that I faced in my company but also actually in my content creation. There's been a couple of days, I think two days in total where I haven't posted anything. Uh sometimes in my stories, I'm not posting very much as well. And even subhan Allah, my pipeline for the episodes that I'm releasing now, I've had a few solo episodes. So, I'm very sorry for that. Inshallah, I will be releasing the guest episodes again or the collaborational episodes soon. Um I've had a few in the pipeline, subhan Allah, and not just only the one. Like for example, we met with Gabriel again for a second time. We had the um uh we had we had a collaboration with Raising Humans. I've had a few collaborations in Sweden. I've had another campfire. A campfire edition is something that I haven't released for a very long time. So, I I was in the intention of this very podcast episode was more of a more of an update to my community, an update my Spotify, YouTube, uh my long form family, those of those of you who have the patience to listen to me for a very long time. In which case, I'm very grateful by the way for you guys. And I'll end with this. When I first started the journey with the Baraka blueprints, I had something in mind and only one goal, which is to create something valuable and something purposeful, something that adds value and something that contributes to every single listener hearing this and taking action to become the best version of themselves. today. Alhamdulillah, with all the messages that I have received, with the change that we have been able to inspire, the testimonials even that we have been given, the collaboration and the consultations that I've had and these collaborations that we were able to lock in with not even completing the first year of the Baka blueprint is truly something magnificent. So that is why today I am opening the doors for further collaboration. If you want to sponsor an episode, if you want to sponsor a creative campaign or a new series or if you want to invest in this journey because I promise you this is not just content. This is a mission. This is an ongoing mission that is only going to grow inshallah. and has seen exponential growth in while not even completing a year. That is why I am very confident that this journey inshallah is going to be something magnificent and I'm going to look back at this one year from now and again say alhamdulillah mult in multitude of times. So if you want to be part of this journey, if you want to explore different ways of sponsoring the podcast or investing in this production studio, simply write to me an email at ibraimsharifi.co or DM me at sharifico any of the platforms and I'm looking forward to connect with you inshallah. Now, that being said, thank you so much for tuning in to yet another episode of the Balaka Blueprint podcast in the Sharifico channel. If you like what you've seen, make sure to subscribe to my socials at Shariefico. All of the socials have the very same handle, Sharifico. Uh, soon a website is coming out, shari.co. H. At the same time, you can uh follow the uh podcast in all of the podcast platforms and leave a review, leave a rating for the podcast so that I know what I am doing that is beneficial and good or what I can do to further develop the delivery of this crucial message. Until next time, my dear listener, remember to remember to pivot your thinking from perfection to perfecting. You're not supposed to be perfect. Perfection is reserved to Allah subhana wa ta'ala. But God Almighty who is perfect and who is the excellent is expecting excellence from you. So excel, better your performance, keep growing, keep pushing, keep learning, and keep developing in baraka style.