35 Lessons For My 35th Birthday

Life

1. You have no idea how lucky you are. For almost 6 months, I spent many nights of the week sitting on a couch in the ICU room, tending to my grandmother. She was central to our very big family and this was an extremely tough time for us.

   I watched her slowly deteriorate in real-time: from being able to move, to only being able to speak, to barely being able to be awake. I can’t shake the image of Respirator machine and it’s constant beeping, the heart sinking feeling every time the vitals dropped. The seriousness, the sterile coldness, the silence of the ICU ward.

   At 93, She passed peacefully with all of us around her. A great woman – an Senior Educator in Pakistan, went through TWO migrations in her life. Raised 7 children, all doctors and engineers who went on to do great things. And then raised the grandchildren too (including me). Built a huge family, and kept them all together. Lived selflessly, always.

   Just like that. Gone.
   So remember: Death is Guaranteed.  It is coming.
   But not yet.

   You are here. You can do things.
   You’re LUCKY.
   Remember that while you can.

2. Health is EVERYTHING. One of my favourite quotes is that “A healthy man wants many things, a sick man wants one.”

   Take care of your body now, or else you will be forced to later. Pay the toll of prevention or pay the ransom of the cure. The little habits that seem harmless all add up. So do the good ones.

3. Everything has it’s time. Things that appealed to me many years ago – maybe don’t now. I don’t care about certain things like I did maybe when I was 20. The newest song, the coolest new spot. Wearing big logo designer brands. Meh.

   Structure, travel, value-creation. These things actually pique my interest. Work is actually…fun. I love building things. Interests change. Life is more expansive.. if you will learn to evolve and level up gracefully. 

4. Experience is worth way more than money. There is a Wall Street adage that goes: “When a fool with money meets a person with experience, the experienced person walks away with the money, and the fool walks away with experience.”

   Money is abundant, there is $3,000,000,000,000  printed daily. 3 Trillion.  Experience is unique, invaluable because that situation cannot be recreated. Those lessons cannot be bought.

5. Everything in your 20s is just learning. You try shit, you fail, you learn.
   You trade the one resource that you have (Time) for experiences and skill.

   All that starts to compound and those results start showing in your 30s – whether good or bad.

   Every year that passes, I find business feels easier. It comes more naturally, the intuition gets sharper. Body feels better. Social circle gets stronger, relationships are deeper.

   Experience compounds. It’s an amazing and exciting feeling – you really ‘sit’ into your shots. You make less mistakes. Your confidence comes from being hardened through sheer testing and iterating over the years.

6. Don’t fall for the doomer shit. Everyone crying, oh the world is ending, oh war this, everything is done, blah blah blah. Yeeaaah …no.

   This is one of the best times to be alive.

   You saw the advent of the internet, and now AI.
   Unlimited information in the PALM OF YOUR HAND.
   Communicate with ANYONE in the world – ON DEMAND.
   You can press a button and a car arrives. Food arrives.
   You press another button, sit in a cushion seat in a metal tube, eat some peanuts, and in a few hours you magically teleport to ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.
   You have modern healthcare. You have the tastiest dishes from around the globe, at your service.
   You can change your body and be in superhero shape in a matter of months.
   You can build a business and never have to work again in the matter of a few years. 

   Unlimited opportunity.

   Wtf are you complaining about?

   You can build anything now – robots (AI) will build it for you. The bar has never been lower to live your dream life. It’s an amazing time to be live. Be grateful.

7. There will always be ups and downs. Sometimes, life requires you to collapse a previous life structure, to set you up for the next one. Every 5-7 years you’ll see a change of life structure. The friends you have, your personality, career/business, your health/body. Could be anything.

   Generally (if you’re actually trying in life) you’ll see these transitional periods in life where doors seems to naturally shut, and others seem to open.

   There are blessings in these transitional times if you’ll look for them.
    Some years are the roots, some years are the fruits.

8. Winter sucks. Lol. That’s it. Plain and simple. Toronto is TWO cities. One thriving, vibrant city in the summer, and a cold, dark depressing place in the winter. Quality Of Life (QOL) is the the metric you should optimize or.

   Why live 6 months of the year sad and depressed? It’s literally painful to go outside – that is wild.

    I’m lucky enough to travel for winters – but when I am here it’s a great time to lock in. No distractions.

   Find the positives in all things yes, but also remember that your environment is the biggest determinant of your QOL.

   You’re not a tree. You can get up and go wherever is best for you.
   You’re not stuck.

   “You have brains in your head.
   You have feet in your shoes.
   You can steer yourself
   any direction you choose.”
   -Dr.Seuss.

9. Relax. make stupid jokes, go do dumb shit. Get embarassed, fail. It’s all part of the Human experience. Stop trying to be so uptight. You don’t need to be perfect all the time. You don’t need to have permanent “aura” non-stop. It’s cool. Calm down.

10. It’s never smooth-sailing. There will be great times. They will end. There will be Tough, tough times. They will also end. Be grateful for them all. The great times will have amazing memories, stories, laughs. The tough times, will have amazing lessons, teachings, polishing and gifts for you. Be grateful for them all.

11. Sometimes a lot of Transitions happen at once. I felt that this year. Grandma passing. Business changes. Injuries. Family members moving away. New relationships emerging. If you’re in a season of transition – remember: with every closed door, a new one opens. Just stick with it.

12. Freedom is a currency. To be able to move freely. To get up and leave. To not be tied down to any one place – there is a real value to that. In times of war, in times of economic decay (e.g Canada is official in a recession as of yesterday). Mobility is a huge asset. Always seek to have stability yes, but also retain your freedom.

    Business.

     

13. Always put evreything on paper. Handshake deals are great, but even those just mark it down. It’s very key.

14. The Devil is in the details. Any deal, anything at all. It’s not about the initial impact of it. IF I said “Hey – here is a deal for a million dollar property, you can have it for $100k. AND you get first 6 months no payments. You down?” 

    People would be like yo amazing, sign me up. But fine-print, site is radioactive – and it’ll cost you $2M in fines, legal, costs to clean up. You taking it? I hope not. The same deal can be super solid, or super shit, with some small little changes in the details.

15. Acquisition is a Superpower. In the age of AI – where production becomes easier – it’s about who has marketing knowledge and ability to capture audience.

    This is increasingly a superpower. Can you effectively create DEMAND? I think Marketers increasingly hop over to the production side and start to dominate. Understanding the customer is #1.

    I am glad to have spent the last 15 years acquiring that skillset. Marketing, customer acquisition becomes a moat. I’m excited.

16. AI is changing the landscape rapidly. Everyone is afraid of AI taking their jobs – and they should be.

    But they should be grateful. If you’re doing basic ‘grunt work’ on a computer – you’re likely going to be replaced. Excel sheets, basic graphic design, etc. 

     This is the industrialization of the white collar knowledge worker. 

    Jobs will go, yes.But a MASSIVE TIDAL WAVE of opportunities to become self-employed open up.

     Look you get paid to solve problems for a market. There are unlimited problems. And now you have massive tools to go and solve problems.

    You get paid to the degree of problem to solve. People with jobs will now be FORCED to become self-employed. Either you develop business skills or you’re dead. I’ll write more on this later.

17. You’re probably doing too much. Here – do this exercise. List out all the things that you are doing in life. All the things that require your focus. All those little side projects you opened up, all those little things unanswered, problems you haven’t addressed yet – yes, all of them. Those are all taking up BRAINSPACE. You need to ruthlessly solve/cut and get rid of the things that are not serving, and create FOCUS onto the things that matter. LESS is MORE.

    Going faster is not about more horsepower, it’s more about reducing drag. DROP things. You only have so much brainspace. Focus is the finite resource. You are one person. When we feel like we’re not progressing enough, we think of adding. This is a mistake. Add this project, add this thing, that thing.
    Before you know it, you have several things going, all competing for focus and attention.

    What creates results is consistent, high ROI actions, over a looong period of time. But you can’t if you have too many distractions. Get rid of things. You will accomplish way more.

18. Money is just numbers on a screen. Do not let that affect your judgement or character, either up or down. I remember when coming up – being deeply negative. The extreme stress with it. Eventually, as life does, situation changed and I was up. Then down again. Then up again. It’s just numbers on a screen. The real concept is called ‘rizq’ in arabic.

    Provision/Sustenance/blessings. It’s more than just numbers. It’s waking up healthy. It’s having your parents smiling. It’s eating amazing food. It’s EVERYTHING. If you look for it, you’ll find the blessings. Aim to find your ‘rizq’ daily. The more you seek it, the more you find it. Feeling wealthy is just the state of being able t see your blessings, your ‘rizq’ and being grateful for it

19. Be a PRODUCER in life, and not a CONSUMER – and you’ll always be OK. Create value, even if you get taken advantage of, because that is who you are. Be a creator of value. In any way, shape or form. Help someone unload their car. Pick a rock off the road. Connect someone with a contact they might need. You never know how it will come back. The world needs more producers.

20. You’re only as good as your team. Think of a chain. A metal chain. The chain will break at it’s weakest link. Your team is only as good as the worst person on it. This may sound rough – but look at sports. Look at a relay race – a team of people race together. They are always only as fast as the slowest person on the team. Business is no different, business is a team sport.

21. Business is EASY now. It’s never been easier than now. We are entering a golden age of business → there is UNLIMITED opportunity with AI. Let’s go back to the basics.

    What is business? Solving a problem and getting paid for it – that’s called creating value. An exchange of currency for value.

    The thing is, there are unlimited problems in the world. And now with AI, you can solve problems rapidly, and create solutions faster than ever before.

    “Yeah Bilal but it’s going to get saturated, everyone has AI”. OK yeah, but do you have any idea how far we are from that? Why are you worried about saturation when you haven’t even hit 1% of the market share yet? Get to work. Either you are part of this Golden Era or you will regret it.

    Health

     

22. Lifting isn’t just about muscles. It’s also about tendons/joints. Lifting super heavy worked in my 20s, 30s is about going to failure, but in reps. Progressive overload is key – but it’s not just weights. I was doing low reps but my joints hurt. Lower weight, higher reps to failure did way better.

23. Stability work is non negotiable. Creating stability in your knees, hips, joints is super key. You know where it all stems from? Your feet.

     Feet arches are super important – who would’ve thought Id be hitting ‘foot day’. But it literally changes your entire Kinetic Chain of movement. 

    I spent time this year to rebuild my body from the ground up. Had tons of pain/stability imbalances from Muay Thai, wrestling and jiu jitsu. 

    Backward sled walks for knees. Single leg RDLs for hip stability. Single leg squats. Slow back extensions. All that started to transform my structural integrity. Highly recommended.

24. The difference between those who take care of themselves and those who don’t starts to become noticeable. If you train, you’ll be well primed and look/feel great well into your 60s. I feel great, stronger now that I ever did in my 20s even.

    Your habits compound. And either you keep improving, or you keep getting worse.

    My personal belief is that I look like Mr Steal Your Grandma at 80.  ; )

25. For MMA (and in life)- you have to adapt your game. Be smarter, use your brain. Sheer force/energy usage is dumb.

    Apply a better gameplan and strategy. Find your strengths and their weaknesses. Get to your strong spots.

    Just like in life, It’s all about set up. About your strategy. Use your experience to your advantage – stop trying to brute force things. Let the game come to you. 

26. Everyone is on peptides as of writing of this. I believe the body has homeostatis for a reason. A perfect balance. Anytime you artificially force the balance out, then body compensates somewhere else. I think we see some crazy stuff later on in the long-term with this many people on these drugs. Maybe I’m wrong – if it works for you, it works for you. Just saying I’m always a bit skepitcal with these things.

27. Guys… FOOD IS FUEL. Not FUN. When you start to see food as the fuel you put in the machine (your body) – you start to put in better.

    If you bought a $500k car – would you put canola oil in the gas tank? Or the 94 premium it requires? Ok. So let me ask you – is your body worth more than $500k?

     I hope you said yes, lol. So why treat it like dirt?

    Look, I’m all for enjoying life and I definitely like my desserts. That’s fine!
    Go enjoy once in a while. Just figure out your daily calorie budget, save up the cals for it and spend them on whatever you like. Easy.

    Social

     

28. Having 1 ride or die person in your corner is worth a 1000 random superficial ones. Having a close circle of quality people is worth so much more than a million fly-by-the-night ones. Curate depth over breadth over the long term.

    To the people that are in my corner – thank you. Truly.

    You know who you are.

29. There are 8 billion people out there. You will meet EVERY kind of person. So many belief systems, behaviors, massive amout of variance.

     You’re going to meet tortured artists, autistic mathemeticians, smooth-talking sales guys to sociopathic con artists that can conjure up an entire fake reality. Some people will be absolute gems and saints, others you may find abhorrent and sickening.

    Learn to understand human behaviour. Alot of the time it has nothing to do with you. Despite the bad ones – the world is a good place. Try to play your part and do good as best as you can.

30. Invest in people. As I get older, I make it a point to try to help those people younger than me, or less-experienced. This writing is a form of that. You never know what small piece of advice you casually gave someone – could alter the entire trajectory of their life.

31. Is it just me or is everything getting dumber? It comes down to the bell-curve theory. What often goes viral, what goes mainstream, what gets the most views is what appeals and is palatable to the masses.

    What is in the middle of the bell curve rises to the top. What appeals is the easy to process, the superficial, the easy to consume.

    Why? because to truly sit and think and process complex thoughts takes effort. It takes time, it takes energy. But it creates lasting growth.

    With our constant erosion of focus, of ability to truly think deeply, we’ve created a negative cycle of
     short attention span → dumber content, more emotional spikes (dopamine/fear/shocking/ love/hate) → desensitization of content → even more emotional spikes required → even shorter attention span.

    This is super toxic. Way more novel content, way dumber, way more shocking stuff required to get the same views. And people are being conditioned slowly over time. Terrible for the mass overall trajectory of the populus.

32. Social media is two things: An ENVY and HATE machine. It can become an all-consuming envy machine. People artificially cultivating and marketing an avatar that most likely does not reflect the real them.

    You may be envying someone, and the actual reality may be completely off.

    The person with 50k+ likes per post may be a complete loner and depressed. The person with 1 like may have a thriving life of real, loving and strong relationships. The guy with the lambo is $500k in debt, meanwhile the guy with the camry has a $5M funded questrade account. 

    Reality is not often what you see on a curated highlight reel.

    Don’t confuse marketing with reality. 

    You’re doing fine. Nobody’s life is perfect. It’s not supposed to be.

33. Your Algorithm amplifies hate. The a big cause of today’s division in society, rise in racism, hatred really is social media.

    A great watch is the “Social Dilemma” on Netflix.

    You see, none of us get the same feed.

     None of us get the same content. The person you hate? he get’s hateful content about YOU. And you get hateful content about them. The real cause of this is the algorithm. It’s designed to give you the biggest emotional spikes, to get reaction from your limbic/reptilian brain. To trigger fear/lust/pain/pleasure. To get the most reaction.

     “Hate” and rage-bait are fantastic drivers of engagement. But in the search of optimizing engagement, these companies are pitting groups of people against each other.

34. Social media addiction is also a real thing. Look I’m a marketer. I know. I get it. It’s an amazing tool for us. But also – it’s just an app some guy made. Imagine you spent $5k and built an app.

    Then all of a sudden 3 Billion people are on it. Basing their entire lives, self-worth, status in society, relationships on that app? That’s literally Zuckerberg. It’s crazy.

    Remember, it’s just an app. Life doesn’t end without it. I usually keep it deleted, will access here and there. Be a PRODUCER not a CONSUMER.

And Lastly,

35. Tell the people you love, that you love them. Tomorrow is not promised.