According to this CEO, You Should Only Pray for One Thing
And it’s just one word — نصيب
I recently heard something highly interesting from a top businessman / entrepreneur / multimillionaire / you-name-it of today. His success-story wasn’t so fun. The 44 year old CEO, Sunny Ali has gone bankrupt thrice and has been millions in debt. He spends quite a lot of time giving advice, but there’s just this one thing he cannot stop emphasizing on.
And it’s a very oddly simple advice. The advice? — Pray for a good naseeb.
Naseeb is an Arabic word found in many other languages too. It roughly translates to destiny. Not fate. Destiny — that which you can change.
“The difference between fate and destiny is one decision.” — Sunny Ali
So when you ask for naseeb, you are asking for something very interesting: to be making the right decisions. According to Sunny, it takes one wrong decision to take you back 5 years, and one right decision can take you forward 5 years. Do the math, then you realize only about 9 decisions will take your life either 30 years forward or back. This is also why CEOs are paid enormously despite technically having the “least” amount of physical work. Their only job is to make a very few key decisions. And these very decisions which end up either taking the company forwards or backwards many years.
You can test out the theory yourself: look at how all your past colleagues are doing right now. You all went to the same school for 8 hours a day, lived in the same country, had the same teachers, same environment, and so on. How come one is living comfortably earning top figures, and someone else, in the very same batch, is struggling in debt? How can you justify that? Their naseeb. Their decisions.
“Pray for Naseeb. I’ve seen the most clever/intellectual people far, far beyond a person with nothing but Naseeb.” — Imam Ali
This. This quote above (very roughly translated) is what changed Sunny’s life when he heard, from his father, in 2015. Keep in mind — this was during his third bankruptcy. He says it took him 3 bankruptcies to realize that none of his ‘intelligence’, ‘intellect’, or ‘hard work’ had ever earned him a single penny.
“I realized my intelligence did not earn me anything. I realized wealth had nothing to do with my intelligence or hard work. It had everything to do with my Naseeb.”
It’s not surprising therefore why the wealthiest men on earth today all have different, often conflicting reasons for their success. It’s crazy to think that there isn’t really anything special about Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, or Jeff Bezos outside of the fact that they made a few good decisions. So if you’re struggling financially, or are just in a bad place — it’s not your fate that’s holding you back. Neither is it your lack of hard work or intellect.
…It’s your decisions, and the resulting destiny. Your naseeb.
“From humble beginnings in the slums of Karachi to becoming a multimillionaire, Sunny Ali is on a mission to transform the digital landscape of Pakistan through digital skills, personal development and capacity building.” — Read more about Sunny, who inspired this article, here!
