Mastering Your Passion With Moustafa Hamwi

Passionpreneur empowering leaders to work & live passionately. AKA The Passion Guy – Moustafa Hamwi

The weird reason why people don’t care about their “calling” but will bend over backwards for their “passions”. Two questions to ask yourself right now that will get you closer to your mission. Ever wondered how to “manifest” $1Billion dollars?! Mustafa shows you how? This one tiny change in your thinking can instantly cure your low self-worth. What is the “Tiger Woods Syndrome” and why it is killing your motivation. How to stay focused on your purpose when your day-to-day life feels like a never ending rut.

Mastering Passion – This Book Will Make You Master Your Passion.

Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript: Download

Jaime:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Masters and today on the show - I'm already laughing, so this is a good thing - I have Moustafa Hamwi. Now you can check him out on Moustafa.com. He is known as The Passion Guy, which I can tell in the first two minutes of meeting him. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

[00:08:01]

Moustafa:	Thank you, Jaime.

Jaime:	Literally I told him that my face was going to hurt by the end of this interview and I think it already does just from laughing in the five minutes that we've been chatting beforehand. So can you please - because we were just talking about this a little bit - can you please define passion and why passion - why you're The Passion Guy?

Moustafa:	Wow, I love that. So let me start by telling you why I became The Passion Guy because people are very skeptical about like, "Who called you the -?" I didn't call myself The Passion Guy, okay? So after I came back - well, let me rewind actually a little bit. I used to be in a totally different business. I used to be in events, entertainment, nightlife. I had an agency and I got fed up with my lifestyle and I bought a one-way ticket to India.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime:	Right? That's the thing you did?

Moustafa:	Yeah, I was just like, "Listen, whatever." I woke up one day and I'm like, "I'm going to India." I just bought a one-way ticket. I remember my mom asking me, "What are you gonna do in India?" I said, "I don't know. I'm going to get lost. Don't ask me. I've got no clue." For a Middle Eastern, Arab male to do that, that's like they're like, okay they thought I lost it. 

[00:09:01]	And then in India, a few things happened to me. One of them was I met a swami or a guru who's been in the caves for 13 years and I'm writing a book around it. It's called Kavali to Manali, so that's the whole journey, but one incident with him he'd always sit there playing with his beard - he had a long beard - and I'd be coming to him in tears confused and he goes, "Do you know what you are thirsty for because if you do not know what you are thirsty for, you cannot quench your thirst." 

	That was pretty much the trigger point for me to go, "You know what? I actually don't know what I want out of life. I know I'm searching for something, but I don't know even what I'm searching for." I'm like, "Now I want to know what I'm thirsty for." Throughout my journey in India, I had a medical condition that I discovered by coincidence, and I healed from naturally. 

[00:10:00] 	But that moment for me was like, "Hold on. What if this was a cancer? What if I didn't discover it now and it would have become a cancer later? What if I literally had only ten days to -?" It was so strong of a realization, not conceptually. It was literally I'm like, "Oh my God, did my life really matter?" The key questions I was asking myself was, "Did I do the best I have with everything I was given?" 

	When you say the best, it doesn't mean like work hard. No, no, no, like really your best. "Did I do something that was truly meaningful to me? Was my life about me or was my life about impressing others?" because I was in the agency world and events and all of this so everybody's thinking, "Oh my God, he's so cool." "Did I leave any positive impact on this planet?" 

	The answer to all three was a no and that hurt. That really hurt and since then, I became vicious about, "I want to make something impactful to the world, but I didn't know what it is." So I started doing this Kavali to Manali talk because I was talking about the transformational journey and then I didn't know what to do. 

[00:11:01]	I wanted to take people on retreats and that business did not take off, as you know. As entrepreneurs, you think you're gonna come up with an idea. That business did not pick up. Probably 20 ideas later, a few months later, I had to go back to do some consulting because I ran out of funds and I'm sitting in a hotel in Dubai, on a terrace on the street, and then a random person I don't know was walking by, looks at me and walks straight to me. He goes, "Hey, you're that speaker guy." 

	I said, "Yeah." He goes,"You did your talk about India." I said, "Yeah." He goes, "You changed my life." I was like, "Wow, like what did I do?" He goes, "I've been trying to quit smoking for 20 years and I never smoked after your talk." I'm like, "Smoking? I said nothing about -" I mean fine, smoking was one thing, but the journey was not about smoking. Then I realized that the Kavali to Manali story and my journey of transformation was just the story of A to B and the way I went became an inspiration to people to define what's their A and what's their B and how they would go on that A to B. 

[00:12:00]	I started doing these "discover your calling? talks and workshops and guess what? They didn't fly. Nobody wanted to discover their calling. I'm like, "What happened? I just quit my job to pursue this and, for a year I'm struggling." 

	I couldn't even pay the bills. I ended up sleeping on the floor in my friend's house. I'm like, "What am I doing to myself?" Then I go, "Let me call it passion" and to me passion is purpose. So I'm like, "Oh, they started doing better." So slowly I got better and I started meeting people and a friend of a friend of a friend, on a Saturday evening - and for us a Saturday evening is like a Sunday for you - so it's the end of the week and the beginning; Sunday is the first day of the week - and they introduced me as this guy who's doing these passion workshops. 

	One of the guys sitting there he goes, "Oh God man, I'm going back to work tomorrow. I need some of your passion." This is how the idea of Passion Sundays was born because I thought Sunday was the pivotal point, whether you were ending a week or starting a week, that's the actual point that you want to be doing the work, the passion workout. 

[00:13:01]	During this is where I met Brian Tracy, I met all of the Marshall Goldsmith, and then I interviewed Tony Buzan, the inventor of mind mapping. Then while I'm interviewing Tony Buzan, at the end of interview, he calls me Mr. Passion. He literally just goes, "Thank you. You're doing phenomenal work Mr. Passion." I'm like, "That's an honor," but that's not how it came because that video still had not come out, but the same day we go back to a private event and he'd done the same talk in the morning and I've just interviewed him. I've kind of overdosed on the content. I know what he's gonna say. 

	So I go backstage. I'm sending some emails and the next thing I hear he's on stage and he goes, "The Passion Guy. Where's The Passion Guy?" Somebody had said to him something, "We're passionate about our business" and he goes, "Passion. I know you have to talk to. Where is he? What's his name?" He couldn't remember my name and, because he couldn't remember my name, he goes, "What's his name? The Passion Guy, The Passion Guy." I come on stage at that moment and everybody goes, "Oh, The Passion Guy" and ta-da, I became The Passion Guy. So, that's the story of how I became The Passion Guy.

[00:14:01]	It wasn't planned. It was just luck to say. I mean there was a lot persistence in what I'm doing because I'm talking to you about a one-way ticket, healing condition, and probably a couple of years. So this Passion Guy nickname only started somewhere mid-2016. 

Jaime:	Oh, really?

Moustafa:	Yeah, so I'm talking about only 2016. So my whole brand name and the whole Passion Guy thing is only less than a year old when this whole boom about Passion Guy happens.

Jaime:	Okay, I have so many questions for you. So before we get into the definition of passion, right? Because I asked you that too and I will definitely circle back around, but what you said in there was you tried talking about your true calling and nobody cared about that when you talked about passion "Why does somebody not care about true calling and they do care about passion"

Moustafa:	So basically, a calling sounds like a lot of work.

Jaime:	Oh, that makes sense.

Moustafa:	Then it sounds like commitment because you see I was excited in searching for my calling. I bought a one-way ticket to India.

[00:15:00]	But you really come and talk to people and say, "Come and discover your calling. Come and discover your purpose." and it was in the?

Jaime:	You can only pick one forever and never change. Yeah, I get it.

Moustafa:	And I learned that on one of the "discover your calling" workshops where I'd been in an evening where I just walked to a table. I knew one guy, but about 10 people there, the topic of the evening was how frustrated these people were with their lives. I'm like, "Perfect guys. Tomorrow I'm running this workshop. Don't pay me anything." I come from a promoter background so I know you just get people hooked up on it and then they're gonna ask for more. 

	So I said, "Guys pay me nothing. You just cover the hotel costs. It's a five-star hotel." I just want you to cover the hotel costs. I'm gonna do the work for you for free' because anyway I was running the workshop, so extra seats did not cost me anything extra. I want a full room. The next morning out of 10, only my friend shows up and he shows up late and I'm like, "Dude, what happened?" He goes, "Well, I don't know." I called them all in the morning and] all of them, bar none, said, "Listen, we know we're frustrated with our life, but we're okay with it." 

[00:16:05]	That's the problem is people got okay being, "Okay, yeah whatever." So it's easier to complain than to take action. Even now I was just, as I told you, I was just having dinner with Brian Tracy and he said to me, "People are lazy. They don't want to do the work." Everybody wants to win the lottery. 

	So when you say a calling, everybody thinks a calling means work. It's not a lottery ticket. Passion, everybody thinks, "Oh, it's eternally, happily ever after" which is not the reality, nowhere near the reality, because here's the funny thing. Do you know what is the definition of the word passion? I mean dictionary was any compelling feeling and doing what you love, which was a useful definition for me but, when I searched deeper, passion comes from the Latin word passio and passio means to - take a guess - to suffer and endure.

Jaime:	Are you kidding? Ew.

Moustafa:	Well, let me give you an example, Passion of the Christ. 

[00:17:00] 	That's passion. Now that's real passion.

Jaime:	Yeah, I guess so. Wow, okay.

Moustafa:	Exactly and nobody paid attention to it, the Passion of the Christ. Yeah, got crucified for passion. That's true passion. That's, in my definition, passion because that's what I call a life to die for and that's what I've been adamant since I came back from India is to have a life to die for, but then the challenge was, "Hold on. If I'm gonna talk about a life to die for, people are like,"Listen dude. I'm going out for a drink. You go die by yourself."" Okay' Everybody's like, "Listen -" 

	I used to be fun, running all these events, all these parties and all these things and they're like, "Dude, I don't know what happened to you in India, but I don't want the same to happen to me. Okay? So you stay away from me. Do your thing. I still love you, but you're cool to hang around. Everybody tells -" I mean they started calling me guru. Everybody from my friends goes, "Yeah, come and let's see guru? but then they see me for early evening and matinee and everybody goes out partying after that. 

	So I started thinking, "Hold on, if I want to be able to transfer the knowledge of passion -" 

[00:18:00] 	Because for me, passion is purpose. So now you see the correlation. Passion is purpose. Passion is what you were born for. It's that what I call one in 500 million. Usually, I have a picture with a lot of little things swimming towards an egg, one in 500 million.

Jaime:	That makes sense, okay.

Moustafa:	Yeah, so I'm saying, "You're one in 500 million other possibilities. What is it that you wanted so bad that made you-you, not any other possibility?" Now if that's not passion, I don't know what is.

Jaime:	Do you think that that's - do you think whatever this thing is, is innate or is it something that is evolved as you grow or what?

Moustafa:	That's a very valuable question because for me, I mean at the deepest level, the calling is innate. That's nothing that?

Jaime:	I feel like that's hard to be like, "Oh, I was born with this. Now I have to flush out what it is? instead of being like, "I'm just gonna play around and try things."

Moustafa:	Yeah, but here's the thing. Life is a journey of self-discovery. You see life is not I always say -

[00:19:00]	I put this in my courses. I say, "Life is not about discovering yourself. Life is about creating yourself and the creation role is up to you." That being said, the mind likes games. So if it was up in your face and if it smacked you right in your face, you would still want to go on a journey of looking for it because life would be boring otherwise. 

	You see this is where the adventure comes in and this is where also you make your passion very unique to you because, as you continue with that, you start saying, "Okay, well no I don't think this is." So you basically become like a bee going from one flower to the other and the passion honey that would come out of that is very unique to you. 

	So let's say, in my workshops and in my courses, I do passion discovery process that's unique - like it's guaranteed it will help people find their passion - but somebody says, two people say, "We are passionate about wellness. We're passionate about speaking and we're passionate about books and we're passionate about travel." So, each of them would end up manifesting their passion differently because somebody wants to turn it into a business. 

[00:20:00]	Somebody wants to keep it as a hobby. Somebody uses the hobby to make them be in a good mood so they can actually go and perform better in their banking job, for example. So you see it's not - I mean the best example I can give is a diamond. There's a raw diamond. That's the passion itself. That's the calling, okay? So my calling is to help people find their passion and maybe your calling is, but you can cut the diamond. As a lady, you know there are a million cuts, which I don't know the differences. I don't know princess whatever, whatever, whatever it is you know.

Jaime:	I'm not sure about diamonds. I'm not very girly, but yes go ahead.

Moustafa:	Yeah. So every diamond can be cut in many ways. So the same diamond can be cut in many ways and even then the same cut diamond can be put on a ring, on an earring, on a necklace, on a bracelet. So you see everybody can take that core value and core passion and manifest it in a totally different way.

Jaime:	Question. So do we only have one?

Moustafa:	Well, its' not really one. The reality is it's not - I mean it's like asking is it only one diamond? You've got a necklace and maybe your necklace has one masterpiece to it, with a lot of little things.

[00:21:02]	Lots of people have little things. The reality is they're somehow interrelated, even if we don't see the connection between it. So it's not that you have to wake up and say, "Well, I am passionate about passion" or "I'm passionate about blogging." Along the way, you will play with things because remember, I mean there wasn't internet. I remember when I was at school, it was a dial-up. So you really couldn't have said, "I wanted to be a blogger." 

	However, your innate calling knows the closest next step to get you there and then, as you go along the journey, you pick up things and then slowly as you look back you go, "Ah, now I can use whatever I've gathered before, along with whatever I liked since I was a child, along with what I would like to do now, plus what I'd like to do in the future." And this is the journey element of it and that's the beauty. People are like, "No, there's no one way to find a passion." I'm like, "No, there is a discovery process and there's a living it process and they are clearly distinct, but the discovery process is dependent on history and history doesn't change. 

[00:22:00] 	You just don't look at it the right way. So you gotta go dig deep inside to do the discovery part. Then you go do the living part."

Jaime:	Okay, so of course we're gonna have to go into that. So first tell us about the discovery because I remember when I quit my job and I was like, "I can do -" There's actually a book. I can't remember who it's by. "I can do anything if I just knew what it was." I hated being uncertain and not knowing what that thing was because I'm impatient, right? So there's probably a lot of people sitting here going like, "I don't know how to discover this." So give us your tips that you said guarantees you to figure it out.

Moustafa:	Oh, right. Well, there are two questions that I give people and those questions I can guarantee if you'd answer it will get you as close as possible directionally. It might not give you the details, but it will give you the abstract picture and then, in the passion journey - which is my online course that's launching in a couple of months - I'm psychotic so it's been in the making for already three years and I'm still obsessing about maybe I need to change this word and maybe - 

[00:23:00] 	Because I'm adamant on the impact of every word I'm saying throughout that thing. So I ask about 40, 50 questions that's in only one module. So there's ten modules. You can imagine how deep I dive, but there?s one question which is I call the billion dollar question?

[Crosstalk]

Jaime:	Exactly.

Moustafa:	Yeah, perfect. It's the billion dollar question and the question goes as follows. I usually get people to go and grab their checkbooks. So if the listeners now are at home, pose this. Please do me a favor, do the exercise with me. Grab your checkbook and, if you don't have a checkbook, grab a pen and paper in front of you. You know how a check looks like. Just draw a check real size, yeah? Do it.

Jaime:	I'm gonna get paper. No, I like it. Okay, go ahead.

Moustafa:	Alright. Now in the name space, write your name. So write Jaime, to Jaime yeah. Whatever that person's name is, write your name. In the date write today's date, whatever the day is today. You write today. Then in the number space write $1 billion. 

[00:24:00] 	That is one?

Jaime:	I was gonna say a million. You're going - you're leveling this thing up. Okay, continue.

Moustafa:	I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. A billion dollars, that's one and nine zeros, alright' Then write in the letters one billion dollars. Go ahead and sign that check. Take it out. Lift it up. Look at it. You've actually got a check in your hand for a billion dollars, alright? See just even every time I say it I get a big smile on my face. 

	It's a billion dollars. That's crazy. Fold that check, kiss it, and put it close to your heart. Now here's the thing. Money is no longer an object and when I mean no longer an object, I mean no longer an object. A million - You could probably end up buying a car for a million dollars. A billion, it doesn't matter what you want to do in life can get you even to space. You want to go to space? You got a billion today, you'll go to space.

Jaime:	I want to go there. Perfect, okay done.

Moustafa:	Yeah, you see? So now you've got a billion dollars. Number two, you don't have any financial worries for anybody you love; children, grandchildren. 

[00:25:02]	You got enough money for everybody, everybody - your family, your children, your children's children, your neighbor, your car, your dog, the offspring of your dog, everybody that you even want to use as an excuse, by the way. Everybody uses excuses. Whatever excuse you've got, there's enough money there. Now ask the question. What do you want to do for a living? How do you want to spend your time? How do you want to be of value to the world? What do you want to wake up every morning doing? 

	Now I know a lot of people would say, "I want to travel the world." Well, guess what? I bought my one-way ticket and, after a while, I had to - you know I went 2012. 2013 I woke up one day and I'm like, "Listen, I'm going back to Dubai. I feel I've got so much in me I've been recharged." So after that travel. I mean maybe your purpose is just travel, but what are you gonna do when you're traveling? Because you see as humans, we are born to bring results and we love bringing results and if you're not producing and adding value, you will feel lower self-worth and you would actually start dying on the inside. 

[00:26:01]	Now that is the billion dollar question. Now some people have an immediate aha moment. A lot of people have to go thinking about it, but I promise you if they keep asking that question day in day out, day in day out, it's going to shift something deep inside them. It's gonna really go digging deep inside them. So imagine this is one. I ask about 40 questions at the same depth in the work that I do, 40. So there's no way people walk out of that place without an answer.

Jaime:	Okay, this is crazy. So it's funny because I have the million dollar check in my wallet, but I need to change it. What the heck? Why am I thinking small? This is just silly. I know.

Moustafa:	Yeah because you know why, you know why. I call it the Tiger Woods syndrome. I mean Tiger Woods got so big that he became a legend in golf that there's no motivation for him anymore. Look at him today. I mean when you think about it like, "Where is he today?" He's suddenly fizzled off. He doesn't have that drive. Your goals have to be way bigger than your means and this is when you've got that much passion and purpose that you would go crazy seeing how the world will manifest 

[00:27:01]	Because when you've got the guts to express goals that are so big - and by the way you have to write them down, not type them because you know when you're writing you use up to 2,000 neural connections. When you're typing you use about 200, 20 to 200. So write it. I wrote that I want to inspire 7.7 million people to pursue their passion by 21st December 2020, 8:00 p.m. Dubai time. Okay, this is how specific I am.

Jaime:	7.7 million, okay.

Moustafa:	Now here's the thing. It was crazy. It was crazy when I wrote it considering where I was when I wrote that target. Tony Buzan comes in. You know he's with mind mapping he's impacted about 250 million people and he goes - I tell him my goal and I'm saying it with a shaky voice. "'You know I want to inspire 7.7 million people and you know -" He goes, "Seven million?" I'm like, "Oh, my God, he's gonna tell me I'm being ambitious and whatever." He goes, "How many people on the planet?" I said, "Oh my God, there's about seven billion plus people, but I can't inspire them all." 

[00:28:01]	He goes, "No, but how about 700?" I'm like, "700 what exactly?" He goes, "700 million." I'm like, "700 million?" I was shaking at seven and he went 700 million. I said, "On my own, that's like I don't see that happening." He said, "No, we'll do it together." I'm like, "Oh my god. He's a Nobel Prize nominee, inventor of mind mapping. He's the Leonardo da Vinci of this age. He offers me to work with him to - Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. "

	So when you're truly passionate, truly, and ready to die for that dream that you've got, which is beyond you, because you see if your passion and your dream is only about you, it's not gonna go far because the mind - Look, the mind is smart. Being smart is about being efficient. Why should the mind put so much energy and effort into something that is not needed more than that much? So what happens your mind goes, "Well, I want my million."

[00:29:00]	"I'm gonna get the million maybe in five, ten years." But when you say, "I want the billion" the energy you're gonna have to put now will go crazy because you're gonna go run, run, run, run, run and you start ? This is where the passion generates more passion and then you become a magnet because you start attracting all the things that need to happen because remember what? You become an employee of the universe, you know? 

	Whatever ultimate power that is, whether you call it God, you call it Jesus, you call it Allah, you call it the universe, in whichever format you want to believe in it, you start becoming an employee and the chairman up there wants that vision manifested. The only difference is do you want to be the person who manifests this or are you willing to let somebody else to do it? I decided I'm gonna be the passion messenger and that's it.

Jaime:	Oh my gosh, okay. So, so many questions because especially once start - because seeing your A to B, we see your B, right? So it's easy for us to go, "Oh, that's an awesome journey." Then if we're stuck at A, we look at that and it seems so far off. So even if we can start to piece together what we think might be this passion thing, we can write the answer to the question that you have, and then we go back to our day job. 

[00:30:07]	Do you know what I mean? Not that -

Moustafa:	Yes, yeah.

Jaime:	We then go back to our little hole that we are so used to and habitually stuck in. So what do we do then?

Moustafa:	Do you want the long answer or the short answer?

Jaime:	Oh, I want the - give me the short. Yeah, give me the short first.

Moustafa:	Short, straight like injection?

Jaime:	Oh, yeah.

Moustafa:	[Inaudible] [00:30:22] to the heart?

Jaime:	Yup.

Moustafa:	Can I ask you a question?

Jaime:	Oh no, what?

Moustafa:	That question is to you and anybody who's listening. Can you guarantee me you're gonna live another year?

Jaime:	No, of course not.

Moustafa:	A month?

Jaime:	Nope.

Moustafa:	A week?

Jaime:	Nope.

Moustafa:	Day?

Jaime:	Nope. Let?s hope, but nope.

Moustafa:	Past the next five minutes?

Jaime:	Yeah.

Moustafa:	Well, with that realization, what are you afraid of? Failure? What are you afraid of? Losing money, losing face? We all do honestly. I mean I don't want to swear on the show. I don't know what's the rules here, but?

Jaime:	We'll beep you.

[00:31:00]

Moustafa:	It's a beep you know. You're gonna die. I'm sorry for saying it this way, but you're gonna die. Yeah, you're gonna die and you know what' When you die, none of this is gonna matter and when you're on your deathbed - the last moments of your life - you're gonna look back and you know what you're gonna regret? You're gonna regret what you did not do. You rarely will regret pissing off somebody, losing a million, not getting the house, not getting the car. But you're gonna look back and say, "Did my life really matter?"  

	So when you answer the billion-dollar question, the other, the yin and the yang which is the positive and negative, my negative motivation for you is that you run away from is just remember every day when it gets way too tough and I remind myself when it gets way too tough and I'm about to break down I'm like, "Yeah, I'm gonna die. Who cares? I might as well die with my head up."

Jaime:	Oh, I feel the exact same. So it's funny. I always do a meditation on how big the universe and how puny I am because that makes all my fears or whatever those things are ridiculously silly. 

[00:32:00]	But it's one of those things where you have to have that awareness, which it sounds like you've cultivated after a long time. What advice do you have for people to bring that up during those times because it's different to be like, "Oh, this is the thing." So when everybody heard that, they felt it. They're not gonna do that on their own most of the time. So what do we do to make sure that it continues?

Moustafa:	Of course, of course. What I've done with these two questions is I've gone on the two extremes. I've given you extreme inspiration and I've equally balanced it with extreme fear of because now I've given you the motivation of running to and running away from. Now that, if people keeps being stuck in a way, that's a good way to be stuck because they're gonna be stuck and something is - They're gonna wake up one day and go, "Either screw this job, screw this project, screw this thing. I'm gonna go and make things happen." 

	When we get so uncomfortable with being uncomfortable, we're gonna get out of bed and make things happen. Now, this is beautiful, as you said, on extreme cases, but I can't wake up every day saying, "I'm gonna die." That becomes a  little bit too much to the energy also.

[00:33:02]	And, when the billion dollars seems so far away, there's a technique that I learned from - the beauty as you're doing. When you interview so many people on a single topic, you understand the common, golden thread. My interview was about passion and I've just actually interviewed today a lady called Raha. 

	She is the first Saudi woman to climb Everest and I have another friend who was a refugee. His name is Moustafa actually. He was a Palestinian refugee and today he climbed Everest, all seven summits, and North and South Pole. I have at least five or six friends who have done Everest, who have done all world records and stuff and one common answer when I asked all of them, "How did you do it?" Do you know what was the answer? "One step at a time." I'm like, "No, no, no. There must be something. I need something bigger." 

	He goes, "Moustafa, when you're up there and you haven't showered for so many days and you're barely eating and it's cold and it's whatever and you're asking yourself why am I doing this and all of that?

[00:34:01]	The only thing you can think about is lift the right foot up, put the right foot down. Lift the left foot up, put the left foot down." So when we get so overwhelmed and it even happens to me, by the way, because you see the bigger the purpose and the bigger the goal also the bigger the challenge. So people think, "Yeah, if I've got money all my troubles will go away." No, guess what? When you've got more money, you've got bigger problems. 

	Unless you want to live like a hippie and then keep all the money in the bank, but the reality is when you get that, that's the normal cycle. You get the money. The yin and the yang have to balance in your life. You get more opportunities, you get more challenges. Otherwise, it's not fair you know? People say it's not fair. No, actually it is as fair as can be. It's not equal. I don't believe in equality, by the way. People talk about equality. I don't believe in equality. 

	Equality is not fair. I believe in fairness. Fairness means somebody who gets off their butt every day and works hard deserves to get something at the end of it. Somebody who thinks they deserve something shouldn't get something. They should buy a lottery ticket and wait. Maybe they win, maybe they don't. Hopefully, they win before they die.

[00:35:00] 	And realistically, everybody who's ever won a lottery ticket has lost the money because they don't know what to do with it. They don't have the billion dollar question in their head. So one thing at a time. So what I do when I get overwhelmed with the billion dollar questions I go, "Okay, how can I get the next dollar? How can I close the next lead? How can I handle the next project?" This is one of the strongest efficiency productivity and anxiety handling whatever you want to call it handling.

	If you know nothing in life about productivity, if you know nothing in life about project planning, if you know nothing in life about anything, all you gotta know is, "How do I move the project that's at hand in front of me now - only this project, only one thing - and how do I move it to the next step?" Now that might take longer, but you know what? You're guaranteed to get there and then you're guaranteed to not have that overwhelm. You end up dealing with things one at a time because you break it down into chunks because imagine seven million people, okay? When I wrote that target, I couldn't fill a room of ten people. 

[00:36:02]	Can you imagine if I'm thinking seven million people? I am getting out of bed. Forget the dying. I'm like, "I'd rather die probably. I don't care. I'm gonna die a loser and all of this." I just said, "Listen, next person, God -" If you might have seen Hacksaw Ridge, phenomenal movie. Go watch that movie. It's a guy who refused to carry a gun I think in World War in the American Army and he refused to carry a gun and he actually saved 70 plus people. 

	Go watch the movie, a phenomenal - and they put a clip with him at the end of the movie and they asked him, "How did you do that?" He goes, "After every time I saved -" He basically ran into the battlefield. He was a medic. He would pick up somebody on his shoulder or pull them and pull them to safety. 

	He says, "After I finish each one, I said God help me save one more. God help me save one more." He didn't start and say, "God give me 70 people to save." He just said, "God, one more, just one more." You just keep getting at it one more, one more, one more and you know what? You know it. I know it. 

[00:37:00] 	All entrepreneurs know it and especially if you've got listeners that are just starting off the journey, the journey looks like this. You do your thing and then God sends you like a Ferrari. You get in and you think, "Oh my God, the first client has been landed. This is phenomenal. I love it. This is a sign. I'm gonna quit my job and I'm gonna do my business." Suddenly, that Ferrari transforms into an old, broken four-wheel, probably without two wheels and the road starts getting bumpy and you're like, "Oh my God, what happened? Did I take the right decision? What is this? What's happening?" 

	That problem you can think is for a few years and every time you're about to quit, you get another sign that keeps you going. Do you know why?

Jaime:	Why?

Moustafa:	Because there are so many people wanting to do what you want to do and there isn't enough spaces on the magical, beautiful passion journey that's happening. So the universe wants to know who's real and who's not real. It's been written in every spiritual book. It's been written. I've studied theology. I've studied all religions. I've studied. It's been there. You shall be tested. 

[00:38:00] 	You say you want something. You want to be an inspiration to the world just because you think it's cool to stand on a stage? You know what? You're gonna get beaten up so bad, so bad. Why? Because that's a responsibility. With authority comes responsibility and if you want a big vision and you want a big dream and I want to inspire seven million people. Guess what? I'm gonna get knocked down seven million times and I'm gonna get up every single time, one more time, one more time, one more time until I die. 

	This is my belief about that motivation answer that you're asking about. Just one. Don't be worried about the whole thing. When it gets too much say, "God, I don't know if I've got it in me to do the whole thing, but I know I can do one more. Help me do one more."

Jaime:	I love this because that's the one thing, especially when people are just starting and haven't - and maybe seen only a little bit of success, they go, "Why is this so hard? Maybe this isn't meant for me? and yet every single entrepreneur has gone through that probably a thousand times and then they get to another point and they're like, "Ah, again. I thought it was gonna be easier now? because there's always something and thank goodness we are humans that love solving problems. 

[00:39:02]	Well, most entrepreneurs love solving problems, so we just keep getting them thrown at us, but when you're looking at moving through your life and you get hit on this really, really bumpy road. Right?

Moustafa:	Mm-hmm.

Jaime:	What if somebody has taken just too much risk and it got ridiculously bumpy and they're like, "Okay. I've got this passion. Maybe it's seven million people, but I'm not sure that this is what I'm supposed to be doing right now." Because that's different than one step, if you don't even know that you want to take that one step. Do you know what I mean?

Moustafa:	Yeah, well I always say you never know until you try. So you can think about it as much as you want, but you ain't gonna know until you go out and test it. It's like theorizing about a product and saying, "Well, is this product gonna fly?" I mean there's only so much research and analysis before it becomes paralysis by analysis and you're gonna have to go out there and throw it. So I've put a deadline for me to put my passion journey out now because I said, "It's gonna come out in 2016." 

[00:40:00]	Now it didn't come out in Jan because, as usual, there are always delays here and there and there are opportunities and you start thinking of different things that you're working on. Everybody thinks I'm sitting on a lot of gold, but you know what? Every penny I make is I keep reinvesting in the research that I'm doing. So I'm probably going for a crowdfunding campaign for the whole course now to be able to produce it properly at a high quality. 

	Then when you start building up these things, you start finding solutions along the way and sometimes it's okay. Along the way, when you're going somewhere, you go, "Oh, I actually like this thing more." That's okay. However, I'm saying it with a careful tone. Why? Because people use that as an excuse to run away from challenges.

Jaime:	Yes.

Moustafa:	Yeah? So in that case, your check is a billion dollar question again. So what you do in that moment.

Jaime:	Again? Yeah, I get it. I get it.

Moustafa:	What you do in that moment is you say, "kay, I've got a billion dollars now. Would I pursue that or would I still stay on track" 

[00:41:00]	That's the acid test because or the opposite you go back into the, "Well, today's the last day of my life. Which one would I regret not doing?" These two questions stay with me and I say these are the best tools for anybody to keep checking themselves on, "What am I doing?" Then you'd go, "You know what? Nah, this looks like what I call a shiny object syndrome because if life gets tough, what are you gonna do? 

	You're gonna look for - and this is normal but it's too complicated; it's another talk but - your mind starts getting - You're anticipating negative outcomes out of what you're doing now so your mind is seeking pleasure. It doesn't want pain. So naturally what it sees as a shiny object, which is the next car that's gonna transform into a rough four-wheel ride probably two days after that but, in that moment, all you can see is that shiny object. So you jump on it. 

	The problem if you get on a cycle like that, you're destroyed for the rest of your life because all that's gonna keep happening,"No, no, no, that's not for me. No, no, no, that's not for me." Guess what you develop? You develop the habit of just switching and digging what I call -

[00:42:03]	I don't know what do you call it? I'm not sure of the word in English - is that little animal that digs little holes. There's an animal that just digs holes. I can't remember what's it called. So yeah, anyway?

Jaime:	I don't know either. I'm like, which animal just digs holes? All day digs holes? That's funny, okay.

Moustafa:	Yeah, digs holes, digs little holes because it's looking for food. So you dig holes, you dig holes, but you're not digging foundation and people don't want to have foundation and if you do not work hard at it - You know there was a research that majority of the successful Everest climbers- and this was I can't remember which book - but it says majority of those who spent longer time in base camp had higher success rate at finishing the climb because they acclimatize. They get used to it. They get familiar. They find a center. They train more. 

	Everybody wants a quick win today. Everybody wants a quick win. Quick wins are good on the journey to keep you moving one step at a time, but you have to remember to ask yourself, "Am I on the right track Stay.

[00:43:00]	If I'm not and I get confused, I'll just say to God, you know what' This is getting too much for me. I honestly can't do it. I'm quitting." Something appears. Something happens. I'm not kidding you. 

	I mean like that guy that just appeared to me. I was lost and I'm like, "God, you've sent me on this one-way ticket. I've gone this. I've came back. I'm twice as miserable. I'm not happy and I thought I'm helping the world. Nothing is happening. What's happening?" Less than 48 hours, this guy walks up to me like out of the blue.

Jaime:	Okay. I have so many questions on that then too. Okay, so to me after all these interviews - I've interviewed almost 400 - and it's the commitment to the goal that counts. So I agree with you 1000 percent. People run into a wall and then they're like, "Oh, maybe this road is easier." No, they're all the same hardness pretty much. 

	There's always gonna be something that comes up. It's the commitment to whatever that is to keep moving forward. Otherwise, you're spinning around in circles. So that being said, do we in those moments that you feel like I've done, I've had it and usually thank goodness, as human beings, we ebb and flow, right? So sometimes we're like, "I've had it" and other times you can come back and you're energized later.

Moustafa:	That's normal.

Jaime:	Exactly. 

[00:44:00] 	Should we be asking for help? Should we be tapping into our spirituality? What do you think they should do specifically, especially if they're not really tapped in like it sounds like you are?

Moustafa:	Well, I mean spirituality in my personal opinion as a Muslim. I believe we?re spiritual beings, just having a human experience, but not to get into the metaphysical and spiritual element of it. Even if people don't believe in a God, don't believe in a spiritual thing, tap into your inner self. Tap into your inner being. Tap into your - I mean Simon Sinek calls it the Why. Many people have spoken about it. Call it whatever you want to call it. I mean there's nothing new under the sun. 

	Simon Sinek recently talked about and it picked up, but it's something that's always been there. What is that purpose? What is that calling? What is it that you want? What are you - that is my swami's question. What are you thirsty for? You know you gotta know what you are thirsty for to go quench that thirst. Now sometimes life gets tough and you know what? We all need a break every now and then. So go find something that helps you get a break. 

[00:45:01]	I say to people, "Not necessary for you to turn your passion into a business immediately." People rush for that. If you've got listeners that are still employed and thinking, "Oh, now I found the billion dollar question and I'm ready and tomorrow I'm gonna quit my job." No, no, no, no. Relax, relax and I'll tell you why. Actually, I think it's a good time for me to actually give the proper definition of passion, what I call "true passion."

Jaime:	Perfect.

Moustafa:	So as I said, I started first with the passion suffering all of this and on doing what you love. Then in my interview with Brian Tracy he goes, "You will never be passionate about something that you are not good at because as humans we love results. So if you're not good at it - So let's imagine this. I'm passionate about singing because I think I sound great when I'm in the shower, but when I get on stage, I sound like a goat. 

	Yeah, people will boo me and all of this and then you talk about persistence and passion, but if I don't invest the time to get good at it and I just go there, then that's not good. 

[00:46:03]	So I have to get good at it and that takes persistence and hard work and continuous work. That could take you anywhere - I mean there's the 10,000-hour theory. There's the three, five, ten years theory, whatever it is. All I know it's a lifetime commitment." 

	Now I stuck with that so it was doing what you love, what you're good at, and then I'm interviewing Fonz Trompenaars. He's voted one of the top ten influential management thinkers alive. He wrote the book Riding the Wave of Culture and he told me, "Watch out for the wrong kind of passion." I'm like, "What do you mean wrong kind of passion? I'm The Passion Guy. There's nothing called wrong kind of passion." 

	He goes, "Really? Think about Hitler." I'm like, "Ooh. He was loving what he was doing and he was very good at it. So what was missing there was a value to the world." You see? So you have to be doing something that you love, you're good at, and is of value and service to the world and that is a twofold thing also.
[00:47:00]	Because this is where the purpose element comes. But look at it this way, if it is of no value to the world, you've got no people queuing at your door, knocking at your door, giving you the dollar - and you see this is how I'm looping all of - I know we're talking on a business show. 

	People want to be millionaires, but you see now I'll talk to you about money because when you're serving a purpose, when you're serving that big purpose, you're gonna be making the money as a byproduct of the service that you're doing. People don't come to you to pay you money to make you rich. Nobody wakes up in the morning, "I want to make Jaime rich. Hey, Jaime here's all the money that I've made."

Jaime:	I've been waiting this whole time for that, man.

Moustafa:	I know. I think I was waiting for a while and I realized it ain't gonna happen. So if somebody's listening and they're still delusional about it, please wake up. Okay? People pay you money for what you believe you add value to their life. So what you gotta do is figure, "How can I be of service to the world?" and then put a dollar sign to the service unit. 

[00:48:00] 	Here's the mistake, yeah? Some people talk about say no, yeah it's still about profit. No, I'm sorry. Business should not be about profit. Business that is about profit is not sustainable for a simple reason. You've got two businesses today; business A and business B. Business A tells you nothing about the service they're doing. All they tell you we're the best product, we're the best-selling, we're this, we're that. That's the old school companies, yeah? 

	You got company B, same offering, same price dollar for dollar, but the other company says I'm doing a one-for-one. You buy a shoes - Tom's - you buy shoes, I'm gonna put a shoes there. Pending the designs are the same, pending I'm taking everything holding all other factors constant. Which one would you buy?

Jaime:	Yeah, no brainer.

Moustafa:	It's a no-brainer. So you see with that and then I get question, "No, how can you make money?" I'm like, "Hey listen, I want to inspire seven million people to pursue - 7.7 million people to pursue - their passion. Can I ask you a question? If I really dedicated my life towards serving you and I asked you for a dollar, just one dollar, would you give me a dollar if I help you find your passion?" 

[00:49:00] 	I've just given you a business plan for $7 million net profit in my pocket. Show me one person that could give you a business plan that intricate, that easy, that clear?

Jaime:	That intricate, that easy, that clear. I like it.

Moustafa:	Getting there is a different story. I mean figuring out the business model and all of this and it's gonna take me a lifetime, but you see now I've got that element of my head also not worried. "Am I gonna make money' I know I'm gonna make money." So now my focus is on the service. Now my focus is on making what I'm offering so good, so good that people are willing to give me a dollar at least of profit. So basically, I have to cover all the costs and I'm gonna be honest and open. 

	I'm gonna say, "Listen, I'm making a dollar. That's all I want from this for me. To my pocket, a dollar, everything else is a cost direct or indirect." If you start business modeling in that manner, "How can I serve the people?" and then put the dollar sign, not start with the dollar sign. So you see this is the third element. I stuck with that for a while and again talking with Brian Tracy and I'm getting tired of people quitting. 

[00:50:00] 	You're coaching yeah and I'm sure you get a lot of people you're like you're doing everything by the book. You've all these interviews, all the knowledge, all the things you're working with. My interviews probably has not been as much as yours, but there have been a lot with what I call the Grand Masters, the Brian Tracys, the Marshall Goldsmith. So there's a lot of distillation of knowledge. When they talk I'm listening and taking notes and I'm like using every trick in the book and I realize people are not delivering. 

	I'm like, "Why? I'm getting frustrated. I'm taking it personal" and he says people are lazy. People want an easy win. People want to win a lottery ticket and this is when I added a fourth element to the definition and it become consistently doing what you love, what you are good at, and is of value to the world. So the differentiating factor, and where 99 percent of the failure, is not in the talent. It's not in the good at. It's not in deep service to the world because people have great ideas. "I'm gonna do this. It's gonna be a social enterprise." It's inconsistently. They try it out. 

[00:51:00] 	Three, six months later, one year, two years, three years, they quit on it. But when, as a business owner, you have answered that billion dollar question, whatever business you're gonna create I promise you is gonna bring you whatever money you're willing to work for by providing service and then you will be an eventual millionaire. But then that's what I call a passionpreneur because I got a lot of entrepreneurs coming to me before and they're like, "Oh, can you help me do this?" 

	I"m like, "Why do you want to?" He says, "Because I want to be rich and I want to make a lot of money." I?m like, "Nah, I'm not excited in helping you. I'm sorry. I didn't invest this time of my life to come and help you be rich. If you ain't got no role to play in this world, you're not the kind of a person I want to serve. There's other people that will serve you. If you want me to serve you, I want to know what's your passion and purpose." And this is where the term where I came up with the term a passionpreneur, an entrepreneur of passion and purpose who are making money serving the world and making the world a better place.

Jaime:	I love this especially because the consistency thing, when you look at -

[00:52:00] 	I only work with six and seven figure entrepreneurs - and when you look at that, they are freaking amazing at that piece and also the strength piece like you were talking about, to see what you're really good at. That serves you and fuels you so, therefore, it's not this energy drain because that's the other piece. I feel like, which is interesting about the passion word in general because to me passion is like an ever-evolving sense of energy, not dying, which was very interesting that you said earlier. 

	So I know we have to start wrapping up in a second. Before I get to my last question, I have one more thing because, with your definition, one of the things that I think is really critical is that strength side. Yet, most of the people that are listening that have businesses are like, "Well, I don't have enough revenue or whatever to be able to hire out all the things that I'm not good at. So I have to do the things that I don't like in order to keep going? and yet the things that their strengths are just aren't as much. Of course, they'd love to live in that every second and they can't. So what advice do you have for them?

Moustafa:	Well, here it's a twofold answer because we all, and until today, everybody you depend on without fail will fail you. 

[00:53:05]	That's the only guarantee I can give you, you know?

Jaime:	Harsh, man.

Moustafa:	You know why? Because sometimes they don't mean it; sometimes accidents happen and sometimes shit hits the fan, sometimes the world changes. People get married. People have kids. People get sick. People get into car accidents. That's the nature of life. Change is the only constant. So when you acknowledge that and you stop acting out of expectation and you start acting out of a place like civility and dealing with what is, not what I would like to be, and plan accordingly. 

	Now that's gonna take a plan. Remember, I'm not saying it's all dreamy. You know a lot of times, even when I was in the events business, I had to mop the floor when I was the owner of a company turning over $15 million and I had 45 employees and I had a circus similar to Cirque de Soleil. Funny enough, I even got Cirque de Soleil and I did the work for them when they came to Dubai.

Jaime:	Oh, really?

Moustafa:	Through the government, I was the subcontractor, but that was one of my first projects. 

[00:54:01]	I took off my jacket and because there were no cleaners and you know as a circus performer, if they jump and there's sand, they will slip. So that was the only thought in my head as a business owner, the impact on the business and all of this and then people getting hurt and if you see all of this. No cleaners. I didn't want to ask anybody to clean. I took off my jacket. I got the mop and I started mopping the floor. Then everybody chipped in. 

	So you see sometimes you gotta do things by yourself and the challenge a lot of successful people have, because they're in businesses for opportunity not out of passion, they will not do the little minor jobs. They will feel that it's beneath them and my suggestion to you, if you ever feel the work you're doing - any, any part of the work you're doing - is beneath you, you are in the wrong business. Go and answer the billion dollar question. You never see a chef saying, "It's beneath me to cut a chicken." No matter how you look at a Gordon Ramsey, you look at the A-list, the Michelin stars, tell me one of them that will tell you, "No, no, no. I don't cut anymore."

[00:55:00]	"Somebody else cuts for me." On the contrary, they enjoy using their hand with the work that they're doing. They enjoy the feeling of the work they're doing. So these people, if they fit in the category of, "No, it's beneath me? honestly they're gonna vanish out of the business very soon. 

	Outsourcing, business models, the work keeps on changing, all of these things, I was just talking to Brian Tracy these things. The business models in the world are changing faster than you can even think them, especially with the disruptive innovation. Look at Uber, look at Airbnb. If you think something is beneath you, you know what?s gonna hit you is the smallest task in the project that you don't know about and an employee quits on you and suddenly you're like, "What the heck happened?" and the whole thing falls apart. That's why I'm saying people will fail you, not because they want to fail you, because they also have their agenda. 

	The same way we're talking about this, you're a business owner. Guess what? One of your employees is sitting today where you sat before dreaming of becoming his own boss and you have to respect him for that and you have to give him that opportunity and support him. Whenever somebody left my company, I would turn around to say, "Listen, if you're ever leaving, you come and tell me and I will do my best to help you and if you want another job, I'll talk to somebody else to put you in that other job." 

[00:56:01]	If they're gonna leave, they're gonna leave. I'd rather they leave and we're still friends and they look up to me as a mentor rather than they go cursing me.

Jaime:	Oh, I've had that happen many times. You're like, "I downloaded your brain. Now I can go." I'm like, "Okay, be free. Have fun." Yeah.

Moustafa:	If it wasn't for Brian Tracy sharing what he knows literally just now in the dinner. He goes, "Listen, go transcribe whatever I'm talking about. Don't even refer to me. Don't say my name. Just go do it." I say you see if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be me and if it wasn't for me and you, there wouldn't be the next generation and then the knowledge would die. We have to transfer and transmit. Let me be clear. There's nothing called copyright, okay? 

	There's nothing called copyright because whatever I'm saying, somebody else said before me. It's just that I'm repackaging it and I'm sharing it in a different way and, in the process, I'm getting my own passion. You don't think I love it when I've got 2,000 - I mean my signature thing is I say three to one passion and everybody goes "passion". Imagine 2,000 people in a hall going "passion". You don't think I get high on this? I'm getting also my pay separate from the money. I'm loving what I'm doing. So there's a price to pay. I have to wake up. I have to work hard. 

[00:57:01]	Imagine that last year about the same time November, December 2015, I was sleeping on the floor of my friend's place and I had to go on stage at the same time and speak with passion genuinely from my heart, not faking it, because I believe that I'm gonna bring that passion and I'm gonna make it manifest. Now as we're saying that, by the way, it is his birthday and I know your birthday's coming up soon; so a very happy, passionate birthday.

Jaime:	Oh, thank you. You're amazing. I know we have to start wrapping up because I told you it was gonna be this much time and it's way longer because we're passionate about all of this, but what's one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of a million?

Moustafa:	Go grab your checkbook, go write the billion dollar question. Sit with yourself. Turn off the phone because when we were doing it now, go turn off the phone. Sit with a pen and paper, Stone Age, no phone, no internet, no distraction, and the more you want to be distracted, it means the answer is deep inside you. 

[00:58:00]	The only advice I would give you when you're doing that, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and the first answer that comes is the real answer. Now one thing I would love to do for your listeners and your viewers is I'm gonna ask my team to set up a landing page where they can download a copy of my eBook, which is called Mastering Passion. It actually tells my story of India in a little bit more details. It talks about the billion dollar question. It talks about three or four key steps that you can do to pursue your passion and stay motivated. 

	And you know what? I?m gonna throw in a few infographics that I've just designed that will help people also stay passionate. So they can actually print the billion dollar question. They can print the definition of passion and put it up there. So I'm gonna put all of this on a landing page for your listeners.

Jaime:	Perfect and we'll make sure to link it all up in the show notes so everybody can take a look at that. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Moustafa:	Jaime, thank you very much.

Jaime:	I so appreciate it. You're awesome.

Moustafa:	I loved it. Awesome, thank you.

Summary

Title

Mastering Your Passion With Moustafa Hamwi

Description

Ever wondered how to "manifest" $1Billion dollars?! Mustafa shows you how? This one tiny change in your thinking can instantly cure your low self-worth.

Categories: All, Featured Millionaire Interview, Millionaire Interviews, Visioning

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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