How to Be An Emotionally Intelligent Muslim | Episode 372

**e all right guys we are live.**

Um, it's a completely unscheduled, impromptu live, but I thought, why not? Heck, let me blow the dust off of this YouTube channel and just go live.

So, if absolutely nobody is watching, I absolutely don't mind because we had put out no communication that we're going to do a live right now.

But I'm also going to just try and turn the comments on. There we are. Now I can see what's going on. Let's do that. Show all utility windows. There we are. So I can make sure that I see what you guys are saying, if indeed you say anything at all.

Oh, there we are! Oh look, we've got at least one viewer because we've got a Salam from Sabr.

Oh, that is way too large. How do we change this? How on Earth do we change these settings? Oh, there we are. Oh no, that's just your icon. There we are.

Okay, and how do we set that to being timed, one might ask? Oh, here we are. Shadow border width text. No, it doesn't say anything about timer. It's a shame.

Okay, um, am alikum guys. Thank you so much for tuning in to this completely impromptu live. But there's people here!

I just got back from Malaysia last weekend, and I was doing a lot of reflecting while I was there. We were there for a company offsite, and I got loads of reflections actually on Malaysia itself.

But I thought, why not jump on stream, have a little bit of an hour with the chat, and let you guys know a bit about Malaysia? Let you know a bit about some of the stuff that you guys might be asking me.

Maybe even delving into a topic that I had prepared for another podcast, which was that of emotional intelligence. So let's see what ends up happening.

I did read a book most recently on emotional intelligence, so I am actually now an expert on said topic. Ask me anything about emotional intelligence, and I can answer it, if I’ve read this book correctly.

And I also have not ironed my t-shirt, as you can tell. I haven't ironed a t-shirt in 10 years, maybe probably since high school. That was probably the last time I remember ironing a t-shirt.

Okay, let's have a look at the chat. First, chat takes priority. Yeah, golden rule! If we end up doing these streams more often, heck, if Freshly Grounded becomes a live stream platform, then golden rule number one of FG live streams is that chat takes priority.

So, we'll go with Dil Ruba. Wow, who asks, "How's your health now?"

Alhamdulillah, my health is a lot better. I've been off track since traveling and then coming back with diet and stuff, so I kind of feel like I've wasted all that time and effort that I put into it.

But I need to get back onto that. You know, changing diet has been absolutely life-changing, and adding cardio to my life has been absolutely life-changing, as you guys know.

So, I'm just going to stick to it and try and get back in the groove. But thank you for asking.

Um, Salam, tell us a journey about your newest child.

I don't know where to start. Can't let me... So, um, only the man who broke this very finger right here has just commented on the stream.

But it's completely fine now. It's not even bent. Initially, I was worried, I was like, "Is it going to be bent forever?" But no, I have a working hand, alhamdulillah.

Actually, having said that, only, it's not completely fine. I don't think it ever will be 100% fine. I have a feeling because it's been such a long time.

But every now and again, when I'm doing something that requires pulling or opening something, yeah, the finger is still weak.

So for that, really, back to the question about my journey with my newest child.

By the way, also, if anybody wants to call into these live streams, call in. You may be asking how. Well, if you know me, then message me, and I can figure it out with you.

And to be honest, I don't know how confident I am bringing on someone into the live stream that I don't know. So for now, if you know me, message me and jump in, just so I can control the controllables because it is live.

Um, sa for asking that question.

[Music]

Um, I don't know where to begin with the child thing. It's been a roller coaster. It's been amazing. We have our third child now, alhamdulillah, three boys, which is just, you know, a whole thing.

I remember when I genuinely have memories from when I was five and six years old. So to have memories from when you were six and now to be 30 and have kids, you just feel like, "What is happening?"

But so ever so grateful. So if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

Alright, so let's talk about Malaysia. Malaysia, Malaysia, Asia.

Okay, preface: I really struggle with traveling. I don't like traveling. I'm not a huge fan of traveling.

I don't understand why people enjoy traveling. I don't understand people who are backpackers.

I can understand because it's a command from Allah, and only because it's a command from Allah, the idea of traveling and seeing Allah's creation. I get that. I can understand it. I can appreciate it because it's commanded of me as a Muslim.

But outside of that, I mean, I don't understand you guys. I do not understand you guys.

Okay, um, you have to go out of routine. You don't know what you're going to eat, when you're going to eat. You get out of your diet, you get out of your exercise routine, you miss your family, you miss your home, you miss what's normal for you—your room, your bed.

I cannot understand those of you who enjoy traveling.

Now, with that said, I absolutely loved Malaysia.

So, I think I'm going to take my family to Malaysia on our next holiday.

I say our next holiday, but I don't think we've ever been on a holiday, like an official holiday, with the kids and stuff. We obviously moved to Dubai, but that was anything but a holiday.

I'm hearing sounds. I don't know what that sound is. I don't know if you guys heard that sound.

Oh, there's another thing that could happen is that because I'm in Dubai, something new has happened that didn't used to happen as much in the UK, which is that the cameras overheat.

So if this stream has to end because the camera overheats, then I'm sorry.

Okay, let's talk about Malaysia.

So why did I love Malaysia? First of all, it's a Muslim country. If you haven't been, by the way, go! And if you're thinking about planning your next holiday, make it Malaysia.

I'm going to hit you guys with the wise.

Okay, number one, it's a Muslim country. So that just instantly puts you at ease. You know, you're around your people.

But by the way, even though you're in a Muslim country, it's so beautiful to see a whole new culture that you're not used to, that is not like the culture that you know you've been born or raised around.

Even if you have dual cultures, like you know, you're born and raised in the UK but you're Pakistani, and therefore you have a strong Pakistani or Bengali culture, whatever, right?

So you're in a culture that you don't recognize but a religion that you recognize as well.

And it's such a beautiful mix because you get to appreciate religion, you get to appreciate culture, and you also get to appreciate that Islam really was made for mankind and for all cultures.

So that was like a beautiful reflection.

Um, point number one: Muslim country. You hear the adhan a lot.

A lot of the food is halal, although I did notice in Malaysia you still have to ask if the food is halal because there are some restaurants where they're not halal.

But by and large, the food is halal, and most restaurants are halal. I think they say non-halal.

But yeah, it's worth asking. But from my experience, pretty much all restaurants are halal.

So food is halal. You know, you hear the adhan out loud. It's a Muslim country.

So that's point number one.

And by the way, I'll make that a separate point. I'll make that point number two.

Point number two is it's a very modest country, just in general. It just felt very modest.

I don't know why, just something about it felt very respectful, felt very respectable.

There's a level of, there's just like an undertone of modesty, which is just beautiful.

And um, point number three: the people. People are so lovely in Malaysia. So soft, so kind.

Um, so the people are great. I didn't have one bad interaction with a person.

It's very modern, which is important to me. I say important to me, but what I mean is like from a familiarity perspective, I guess.

Like it makes you feel like you're, you know, like when you're somewhere where you're not familiar, any kind of comfort feels familiar.

And so when you go to, like, this sounds silly, but you know, you might go to the mall, and the mall feels very modern or something like that, and you kind of just feel like there's a level of comfort in that, right?

And um, so there's like loads of modern kind of pieces, but then there's also a lot of historical culture to it.

It feels like a very culturally rich place.

So it just like hits like every single box.

So I had a really good time in Malaysia, and I think they were the points.

So, Muslim country, great people, modest, halal.

Oh no, I missed a point! Cheap! Oh my goodness!

Oh my goodness! It was like, it was like 17—what am I talking about?

It was like, you know why I said 17? Because I saw the number 17 at the top on the chat.

It was like, you go there, and even if you eat at a nice restaurant, you pay about £5 a meal.

And a normal restaurant, which also is very nice, a normal restaurant, £2.50, £2 per meal.

And it's just the best food!

Personally, by the way, I am a huge fan of Pan-Asian food.

So for me, it was really nice because rice dishes, like sweet and sour chicken, there was, there's a lot of, obviously, there's like, I know of nasi goreng.

I've probably really pronounced that wrong, but there was like, there's another big dish that seems to be huge there, which seems like it was like the national dish because it was on every single poster called nasi lemak, I think it was.

Yeah, nasi lemak.

But yeah, a lot of it's like rice, but the flavoring of the chicken and stuff—beautiful!

One observation I did make was that a lot of the food is fried.

I don't know if that was just at the restaurants that I went to. If you guys can help me out here, are there any Malaysian people in the chat?

If there are, let me know.

So one observation I made was that a lot of the food was fried, right?

But the people seem really healthy. The people seemed young.

I really didn't see much obesity, if any at all.

So it seems like a really healthy culture as well.

So anyway, I really loved Malaysia, really enjoyed it, and I'm planning to take the family there next year, inshallah.

Oh, by the way, also very kid-friendly.

So there you go! That's my analysis of Malaysia. Really enjoyed it. We'll go again, inshallah.

**Umam alikum!**

Are there any episode plans for, are there any plans for another episode with Adam Afghan from Jacob?

The answer to that is there's no actual scheduled episodes because Adam lives in the UK, I live in Dubai, and so it's not always ideal.

It's not always possible, and it's not ideal to do virtual episodes.

We've done a few virtual episodes, but I'm glad you asked because Adam Afghan is hands down, as you know, my favorite guest of all time on Freshly Grounded.

And I'm getting my phone out because I messaged him recently. I said, "How's your job going, bro? I really want you to be full-time FG and move you here to Dubai."

Doing everything I can to get you. And then he just laughed.

And then we were like, I was like sending, I was just sending him figures, like salary figures, all in jest.

But I would love nothing more than to have Adam on the podcast full-time. He's the absolute best man.

But no, no plans right now.

Um, Dil Ruba says, "Glad to know you're doing okay. How has the child experience been different in Dubai compared to the UK?"

Okay, so good question.

First of all, as you can see here, we got a rocking chair.

When we were shopping for the kid, we went to Home Center, and there was like a section of rocking chairs.

And we were thinking, should we grab a rocking chair?

And the minimum they were were like 750 dirhams or something, so like £150 minimum.

And they were the bad ones.

And so you're looking at like 200, 300, 400 for a rocking chair.

So I was like, that's just ridiculous.

And it's definitely a want and not a need.

We're having a baby, paying for it privately. This is not the time to buy a rocking chair.

So I didn't get a rocking chair for my office.

But then on this WhatsApp group from the community, there was a lady who put a picture of this chair and was like she was selling it.

And I picked it up for 60 quid, and it's mint condition.

And it rocks and it reclines. It's the dream rocking chair.

It's the dream armchair for any man, man or woman, actually.

But it's actually also been a lifesaver in terms of putting our baby to sleep.

We named our son La—controversial actually in my family, but I stuck with it.

Turns out it's not a very Pakistani name.

But man, it's a lifesaver when it comes to putting him to sleep because at this age, like they need rocking and stuff.

And so at least you're not rocking; the chair is doing the rocking for you.

And also, it's a great thinking chair.

And so, absolute bargain! Picked up for 50, 60 quid. Just had to arrange the delivery, and now it's in my house.

What was the question?

Oh, um, how was your experience? How's your experience been in Dubai compared to the UK?

So, WS apart, absolutely WS apart. Would recommend it to anybody.

It was the best.

Obviously, I understand that there's a blessing that we have in the sense that we were able to afford it because it comes at a cost.

But it was really, really—maybe I'll do a breakdown of the costs of that at some point if that's useful.

If anybody thinks that's useful, but man, it's like, so obviously healthcare is private, right?

And so the experience was like going into a hotel, like a five-star hotel.

And just, you know, at every single point, my wife had her own room.

They had always like a really comfortable sofa bed for me in all the rooms as well.

And you have your own ensuite. It's got a shower in it.

And literally, the shower looks like the bathroom in general just looks like you're in a five-star hotel.

And then you get a lot of attention because you get, basically, there's not a lot of people giving birth at any one point.

And so actually, on this specific day, my wife was the only person giving birth in that hospital.

So the entire midwife staff were just, you know, at her beck and call, which is like a completely different experience to what we had in the NHS.

Umm, so because our first two children were born at the NHS, and actually, we didn't necessarily have like a bad experience at the NHS.

But one thing that really did bug me was just the fact that in a ward, there were like eight women.

There were four beds, and you're separated by a paper-thin curtain.

And I just felt from like a izzah perspective or from a, even from a gear perspective that like, you know, it just, it just, it's just like really not ideal.

I really dislike that in my heart, to be honest.

And so, um, on the first baby, I was able to get a private room in the NHS.

I think it was like £80, but there's only two in the whole hospital.

And so on the second, with the second baby, I tried again, and it wasn't available.

So, you know, I think a lot of brothers who are listening to this will understand who have children and who've had, who, who, I think the majority of you guys, obviously our audience is from the UK, right?

So a lot of you guys will have been in a similar boat.

It's not ideal from those kind of angles.

Um, so yeah, really good experience.

You know, unlimited, um, unlimited, uh, what is it called? Visitors.

Although, you know, we don't live with family, right?

So we didn't have any visitors, but you could, in theory, have unlimited visitors and stuff.

No waiting visiting times and just incredible experience.

Again, if you have any questions, just throw them in the chat.

Um, Jacob goes, "Would be cool if Adam moved to Dubai."

Once in a while, I go back to your old episodes with him, and it lightens my mood.

Yeah, it lightens my mood as well. I absolutely love Adam.

So I would love to have him on, man.

I think the goal in the vision really is with Freshly Grounded to go back to an office in a studio, so like not in my house.

And then ideally have Adam, K, Sam, everyone, and just do it live.

Just do daily live streams with the boys talking about everything.

I think that's like, that would be the dream.

Um, okay, so I'm going to go into that discussion about emotional intelligence I had planned like weeks ago.

When did I plan this? Is it dated? These notes? No, these notes are not dated. That's annoying.

You could argue that I wrote these notes about two weeks ago or three weeks ago for this episode, and then I never wrote, I never ended up going into it.

But I basically was reading this book called The Highly Sensitive Person.

And I think there's a few books called The Highly Sensitive Person, so I’ll have to check which author this one was from.

But it really benefited me, and then I started writing notes on emotional intelligence, and I was like, I'm going to do an episode on emotional intelligence, and then I never did it.

So now we're live, and I have nothing to talk about, so we're going to talk about my notes on emotional intelligence.

Okay, let's pull them up and get this party started.

Kind of feels weird doing a live stream. It feels good in the sense of, in some ways, you don't feel any pressure because it's live.

And the nature of live streams are that kind of like you could just take your time, right?

Like if people are watching a live stream, they're watching it in the background.

But then the pressure from the live stream comes from the angle of you have to think on the spot.

You have to think on your feet. You have the pressure of being live.

But I think that is what you make of it, isn't it?

Oh, actually, I think one of the issues, one of the challenges is that really it's a man sitting by himself in his room talking to a wall, right?

Talking to the camera.

Uh, like it's not very, it doesn't feel very human.

Whereas when I'm interviewing somebody, it feels very human.

You don't have to back and forth, a back and forth.

But I suppose that's why chat is so important for a live stream.

So it's all kind of making sense. It's all adding up.

Let me actually just check the live stream settings for a second, make sure that everything's good with us.

First of all, even that live stream is working.

Oh, it's working! It's there. Okay, that's fine. That's good.

Okay, and guess what? You can send a Super Chat! I'm just saying it's there.

Okay, um, at least everything's working fine.

By the way, let me know later in the comments, if you're watching this post live stream, let me know in the comments if you want me to do more live streams on Freshly Grounded because they will be a lot more slow, but they'll probably be longer.

Um, it's actually 9:26 p.m. for me right now, and I imagine for you guys it's 8:76, 5.

It's 5:26 p.m.

Okay, let's get back on track.

Let's track it back. Someone's messaging me.

I'm hearing, you know when you're on your laptop and you can hear a ding from somewhere, but you don't know where?

And after, essentially, I open up all my tabs.

Okay, we can close that. We can close that.

Oh, we can definitely close that. Close that.

Oh my gosh, I had so many programs open.

Notion, Discord, right?

We've simplified.

So where is the ding coming from?

Do I have WhatsApp open? No.

Are you guys chatting? No?

Okay, I don't know. It's fine.

I should actually probably put on the Instagram on Fresh's Instagram that I'm live, shouldn't I?

Oh, it was Instagram, by the way. I mean, sorry, it was Discord. I was getting dinged from Discord.

Um, okay, just going to go on the Freshly Grounded Instagram.

I'm going to let them know that we're live on the story.

Take a snap, add a caption: "Live on YouTube ATM."

ATM is a bit boomer language I'm going with right now.

Live on YouTube right now.

Then I have to find the link.

Okay, okay, then I'm just going to say "Watch now."

And that is how you post an Instagram story.

Live on YouTube right now. Watch now.

11 viewers!

Oh gosh, you know we hit 100K on Instagram, and basically stopped posting, right?

And so then we like, we're now at 99.2.

So we've, in the last like, you know, two months or something, lost 800 followers.

But what's really funny is that my wife, I came home from wherever I went out, and my wife had surprised me.

No, she went out, sorry. She went to the mall with the kids, came back.

I went out, I came home, and she had put on this display in the house.

I'm trying to find you guys a picture that said 100, like for me to reach 100K.

And I put out this really funny Instagram.

I never put it out. I was about, I was going to post this Instagram post because then I went back down to 99.9, and I was like, the caption was like, "To the evil soul who unfollowed me to ruin my wife's surprise, where are my..."

Where's my photos app?

I seem to have photos up.

Oh, there I am.

This date here.

Oh, I can't get it because I can find the picture of the balloon.

But anyway, she got this balloon.

She got these balloons, and it said 100 at the back and got me K, said congrats on 100K.

And then on our Instagram, we had gone out to 99.9, and now we're at 99.2.

So, alright, let's start talking emotional intelligence.

Emotional...

I'm still getting Discord messages.

I've reopened Discord.

I'm just going to check the messages because now I can see that the messages are coming in, and it's making me want to check.

Okay, we're closing it because now I can't see the messages.

Alright, emotional tangents, right?

So I read this book, and it was by, it was called The Highly Sensitive Person.

Oh, now we're going to get into it.

Oh, we're about to get into it!

So basically, the premise of the book, if I remember correctly, because it's a bit long—sorry, it was a bit long ago.

When I say a bit long ago, it was literally the last book I read, and it was maybe a month ago.

So for me, that's a long time.

The book basically says that, okay, let me, no, I have to give you guys context, full context.

So a few years ago, I was at the doctor's, and do you guys remember I had really bad eczema?

The OGs will remember I had like, my knuckle was like just, and people used to be like, "Oh, like what's wrong with your hand?" and stuff.

Um, so thanks for that, gu, is making me feel really insecure about myself.

But I used to have really bad eczema when I—and I've always had, like not always, but like in periods of my life, seasons of my life, I've had eczema in different parts of my body.

Right now, alhamdulillah, eczema-free, yeah.

But you never know, it always seems to come back at some point.

Now, you might be thinking, "What on Earth has this got to do with the book that you read?"

Well, so basically, at one time, years ago, at the doctor, I was like, "Why do I keep getting eczema and stuff?"

And the doctor was like, "Well, you are what we call a highly sensitive person."

And I kind of ignored it.

Actually, I was kind of offended.

That's so offensive! I was obviously jokingly offended, but I did find it interesting that a doctor would say that.

He or she, I can't remember who it was.

I can't remember if it was a male or female doctor, was like, "Yeah, we would consider you a highly sensitive person because you have asthma, and you are prone to eczema.

So you have eczema and asthma, and you have allergies like hay fever, and so you fall in this category of a highly sensitive person."

Anyway, I moved on with my life, but I never really forgot it because it was just funny.

It was a funny moment. It was a funny story I would tell people.

Then I came across this book the other day called The Highly Sensitive Person, and the opening chapter spoke to me, man.

And the premise of the book is if you're the type of person that is prone to allergies, prone to asthma, and things like this, there is data to back the idea that you are what is known as a highly sensitive person.

And that actually correlates to your physical well-being—in the physical sense, no, sorry, in the emotional sense.

Because allergies, eczema, asthma, these are all physical, right?

But actually, there's a correlation between a person who has those kind of things and actually has them in the physical—in the emotional sense.

Um, so I've got some notes on it here.

So basically, what it says is that 15 to 20% of the world's population have a heightened sensitivity to stimuli, emotions, subtleties in the environment.

I should also, like, sidebar and say it sounds a bit woke. I'm aware of that.

Um, and there's like, it sounds a bit like, "Oh, I'm like highly sensitive to things."

So I'm like, you know, take it with a pinch of salt.

I'm not like sitting here going, "Woe is me," because I also understand I'm super, like, not with the whole woke stuff, right?

But I'm also not on the side where I'm like, "Oh, mental health doesn't even exist."

Right?

Like, for example, there's people in my family who have bipolar, so I very much so understand and agree that mental health is a big thing—anxieties and so on and so forth.

However, I think I have a fairly balanced perspective, which I would say if you're a Freshly Grounded listener, you probably think in a very similar way.

I digress.

So, HSPs, highly sensitive people, make up for 15 to 20% of the population and have a heightened sensitivity to stimuli, emotions, and subtleties in the environment.

This trait is not, the book basically says that if this sounds like you, this is not a flaw.

This is not a disorder. You're not a broken person.

It's just part of human diversity.

And a lot of it is rooted in, I was about to say rooted in digestives.

This is the problem with the live stream, is that for some reason, my brain just goes off on different things.

Is often rooted in genetics, not in digestives.

Great biscuit!

But not where highly sensitive people are rooted.

Um, HSPs process information more deeply.

They need to be more empathetic.

Okay, I'm going to now come sidetrack again, and I'm going to read you guys some notes on, you know, you might be thinking to yourself at this point in the stream, "Hey, am I a HSP?"

Well, guess what? You don't have to worry because I'm about to hit you with some of the notes I wrote on someone, the typical HSP person.

So you can have a think to yourself, "Is that me? Is this who I am?"

So here's some of the stuff I wrote.

I am scrolling, trying to find it.

Here we go.

Okay, um, you're prone to allergies, hay fever, asthma, eczema, dust, that kind of thing.

Um, you have strong communication skills and the ability to adapt to people's emotions.

You're funny!

I mean, if there was ever a signifier that I am a highly sensitive person, I'm just saying being funny is one of the signs.

Okay, uh, you're very good at picking up on people's subtle changes in their facial expressions.

Um, you're very good at picking up on subtleties in a room, like a change in vibe, a change in energy.

Um, you're more likely to impulse buy when you're feeling hyped and happy.

Uh, you worry a lot about the future or the past.

You cry a lot, but you laugh a lot, and that can often happen in a very short time frame.

You can experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows in a very short time frame.

Uh, this is interesting because this is my wife always says about me: you have a very good sense of smell.

I have a very good sense of smell.

I was like, "What?"

When I was reading this book, you have an acute sense of hearing.

Um, you can get anxious about your health.

I think that's anybody.

You're very self-aware.

Um, and one of the other notes was in the book was that you don't like horror movies.

But obviously, you don't like horror movies because you're a Muslim, so horror movies are not good.

Okay, so that was my notes on like what you, if you're thinking, "Am I a highly sensitive person?"

You should now know if you are or not.

Now, according to statistics, because this only makes up for about 20% of society, the majority of you might be thinking, "That doesn't relate to me. I'm not a HSP."

However, you will most definitely know somebody that is probably, maybe a spouse, maybe a sibling, maybe a parent, maybe a friend.

And so this book basically is actually about how to deal with if you know somebody who is a highly sensitive person or if you yourself are one, how to deal with it.

Again, I'm not necessarily saying, by the way, that this is subjectively fact, like the fact that this exists.

I'm just giving you guys a breakdown of the book that I read.

Okay, as I'm giving that breakdown, it's going to sound like I'm giving fact, but I'm just giving from the book.

Um, so, okay, now some of the challenges of being a highly sensitive person: overstimulation.

You feel overwhelmed in noisy, chaotic, or high-pressure environments.

Um, people often misunderstand your sensitivity as being weak or being too emotional.

Uh, you can criticize yourself.

You can have a lot of self-criticism.

Those are the negatives or the challenges.

The strength of this personality trait is you're incredibly creative, and you have a lot of insight, deep thinking.

You're very empathetic.

You're sensitive to what makes your friends excel.

You're a caregiver.

You're a problem solver.

HSPs actually make for really good PAs.

Um, intuition: you have a great intuition.

You can pick up on emotions and unspoken dynamics.

This can be a powerful tool in personal and professional relationships.

Um, you're self-aware.

You got a lot of self-care.

You're good at setting boundaries.

Um, no, you should be good at saying, as in, it's important that you try and set boundaries.

Um, okay, anyway, the point that I wanted to make in the episode that I had planned was not about the book, but what I was going to talk about, which is emotional intelligence, was sparked by me reading this book.

And so it was an important preface for me to tell you about that book.

Now I'm going to go into emotional intelligence and my notes on that.

I don't know if it would be beneficial to you, but guess what? We're on a live stream. Who cares? We're just chilling.

By the way, preface: a really funny, fun, interesting, actually none of the above story about that is I used to say that I used to read that as preface, the preface of a book, which actually now sounds just so stupid.

Um, but all my life, I called it a preface until we interviewed Hamza Zor on the podcast, and then he was talking about his book, and he was like, "I actually mentioned in the preface."

And I was like, "Oh my goodness, of course it's preface! Like you're prefacing it! Why would I ever think there is preface?"

Anyway, okay, now I've lost my notes. They've gone.

Oh, here it is.

No, it's not.

By the way, if I do have any Malaysian people in the chat, Malaysian brothers or sisters, what is pandan?

Because I would go to restaurants, like bougie coffee shops, and they would have like cheesecake, but it would be green, and it would say pandan cheesecake.

And I said to the guy, "What's pandan?"

I've seen this a few times, or it would be like a pandan cake.

And he was like, "Basically, yes, it's like a flower."

But I didn't quite understand it because it looks like matcha or pistachio flavor, but it's not.

And then you taste it, and I couldn't quite understand the taste.

I guess it was like a, I was going to say herbal.

It's like a flowery taste, but it was nice.

But I do want to know what it is, so if anybody knows what pandan is and if I'm pronouncing it right, let me know.

Okay, let's find these darn notes on emotional intelligence.

Oh gosh, I did tell you guys I get tired in the evening.

I was trying to figure out when should I do a live stream because of the time difference, and everyone that listens to Freshly Grounded is in the UK, basically.

So I'll do it at night.

The problem with that is that my dream bedtime is 8:17 p.m.

So what do you do in those scenarios? What do you do in those situations?

So I've taken one for the team. I'm up at night for you guys, but I am struggling, as you can see from my eyes.

What I might do is if we do do streams, yes, be mature, I did say do do, maybe do it on the weekends.

And then that way I can do it, that way you guys are not at, you know, work or whatever.

Or I just do it whenever, and whoever's there is there, whoever's not is not.

Because right now, let's be honest, there's 16 people watching right now.

It's not exactly a groundbreaking stream.

Let's see what we do then.

I was thinking, what if I stream every day?

Then we can't choose a time.

It can't be at, it can't be at the dream time.

It has to be, quite frankly, be at my dream time.

Alright, I found the notes on emotional intelligence.

We're going to hit it.

We're going to hit that topic, and we might end the stream and say, "Hey, we tried. It wasn't 5 hours, it wasn't 4 hours, it wasn't 9 hours. It was an hour."

It's a failure, essentially.

But maybe we start with an hour stream, and tomorrow we go for a 5-hour stream, or next week, or one day, or never.

My background looks so good.

I'm just calling a spade a spade and not a big spoon, as um, man would say.

It is a great background.

It's so great that it looks fake, but she's real.

How nice is that?

That's like, that is the dream.

That was my dream.

And sometimes you have to appreciate that you're living your dream.

You're living your, you're living things that you used to make dua for.

Simple thing, "Hey, would love a real good background."

Okay, let's look at this emotional notes.

B said, "Topic from Algeria."

Unfortunately, there's no topic.

Um, we did an impromptu live stream, brother, but I'm about to go in on emotional intelligence.

So anyway, I read this book about highly sensitive people.

It led to me going, "Hmm."

Um, this book touches so much on emotional intelligence.

I'm so intrigued by it.

I want to learn more.

So some notes that I have from some research plus this book, I hope you're ready for it.

It's very short.

There's one thing that was mentioned in the book that hit me.

Um, it hit me like a train.

It hit me like a high-speed cargo train.

And that thing was that in the book, the author said that people tend to think that IQ is the leading factor for success in life.

But actually, the metric that is much more of a realistic or much more likely to lead you to a successful life is actually EQ, not IQ—emotional intelligence, not intelligence intelligence.

Uh, I was actually, this actually also led me down a path of what does a Q mean in EQ and IQ?

Uh, for those who care, it's, I don't know how to pronounce it, quotient.

But anyway, that is the quote from the book that led me to looking, going down this rabbit hole because I thought, so what the author is basically saying is that people who have high IQ, essentially they do so in school, and they even themselves believe that they're going to make it in life.

And they can, they tend to get so far, right?

But the problem and the reason that people with EQ have a much higher level of success is because all around, holistically in life—relationships, marriage, work—it's about how you interact with people.

It's about being empathetic, especially in marriage, right?

You have to have a lot of emotional intelligence, right?

In marriage, it doesn't really matter how great you are at maths.

Um, so that also works in the work life.

And so if you feel like you're not that intelligent, you should work on it.

But also, at the same time, good news!

A much better factor for success is actually if you're emotionally intelligent.

And if you think, "Well, I'm not even emotionally intelligent," well guess what?

You're in luck because we're about to talk about it.

Um, so that was it really, actually.

That was a quote.

Um, and then I found basically these pillars of emotional intelligence.

You might say, "What is emotional intelligence?"

Well, um, Daniel Goleman—I know nothing about this guy, so if he turns out he was a bad guy, I'm sorry—but he had these five components of emotional intelligence, and I thought they were quite cool components.

And so I listed them down.

I thought, "Oh, let's do an official episode one day about these five components about emotional intelligence."

And that never happened.

It never actualized, so we're doing it now.

Um, so basically, um, what are the five components of emotional intelligence?

Component one: self-awareness.

Actually, let's just go back a step and talk about why EQ matters.

So we said that EQ matters more than IQ because it's actually the primary metric for success over IQ.

Um, and while IQ measures cognitive abilities, it doesn't account for interpersonal skills, and it doesn't account for emotional resilience.

And so the power of emotional intelligence is that you're able to manage stress.

If you have good emotional intelligence, you can resolve conflicts.

You can build meaningful relationships, um, as opposed to those things that you kind of may struggle with if you don't have emotional intelligence, but you are very intelligent.

Um, and then I was like, "Well, how does this relate to Islam?"

Right? The big question, the big cue, because our life is governed by Islam.

Um, and there's a hadith that says, "Truly, the most beloved of you to Allah is the one who is best in character."

I think there's different renditions of this, um, translations of this.

But character, we know, is so important in Islam, right?

And so emotional intelligence, actually, if you look at the life of the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam), many different times, you’ll notice emotional intelligence throughout his life.

You know, the thing that always comes to mind is when the young man came to the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) and said, "Can I kiss my wife when I'm fasting?"

And he said, "No."

And then another man came to the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) and said, "Can I kiss my wife when I'm fasting?"

And he said, "Yes."

And the sahabi said to him, "Why did you give one ruling to one man and another to another?"

And the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said, "The young man, if he kisses his wife when he's pregnant, he's young, he's exuberant, he's energetic, and it might lead to him breaking his fast with his wife.

Whereas if the old man kisses his wife, his desires are much less, right, because of his age."

And so that's a perfect example of emotional intelligence and knowing people.

Um, so, okay, so the five components: component part, component, uh, for the one Arabic listener or Freshly Grounded is self-awareness.

Self-awareness is understanding your own emotions, but also—and I would argue more importantly—it's about understanding your weaknesses and knowing them and being aware of them.

[Music]

Um, and the importance of recognizing your emotional triggers and then the ability to avoid those triggers or those impulses.

And so, um, I suppose like if you, if you, I don't know how one would know if they're not self-aware, right?

Because if you know that you're not self-aware, well, that's a very self-aware thing to know.

That's a very self-aware action.

So I don't know how, but if you do know that you are self-aware, then props to you.

I would like to think that I'm quite self-aware.

I've been doing this podcast for, I've been on public social media for 10 years.

Um, and so you can imagine I've seen pretty much all the comments there are to see when people comment about you.

And you know what, alhamdulillah, any of the comments that are true have never really got to me.

Even if they're negative, if they're true, they've not really gotten to me because I feel like I know them.

I beat you to it.

Um, so sometimes I would have seen comments like, "Oh, this guy on the interview, like he's like the interviewer is mumbling or speaking too fast or butting the guest in or whatever."

And I'm like, "Ah, do you know? I see that by myself. I should have bought the guest in less."

So, um, hey, your boy's self-aware.

Um, component two of emotional intelligence, if you want to be an emotionally intelligent person, is self-regulation.

Being self-aware is one thing, but to self-regulate, my brother, is a whole other thing.

And I don't think I'm good at that, actually.

Um, self-regulation is the ability to control your own emotions and behavior.

Oh, I really do wish I could do that, but I can't.

Um, so that's self-regulation.

Um, simple ways to self-regulate: pause before you react, practice gratitude, or one thing that I found helpful—again, which I struggle with in general self-regulation—but anytime I have got a win in it, this has been helpful, which is to reframe your thought.

See things through a different lens. Change your perception.

Um, there were times in Malaysia where I was just missing home, and I was like, "Oh, I just want to be home."

And it's like, change your perception to, "If I was always at home, I wouldn't miss it."

And it actually made me appreciate kind of being away because it's like then I come back to my family with like a lot more love.

Okay, anyway, con, um, the second, the second important component of EQ is self-regulation.

So we've got self-awareness, self-regulation.

You better be self-aware, and you better self-regulate.

Um, the strong person is not the one who overcomes others by strength, but the one who controls himself while in anger.

Okay, component three, or for our audience, or TW for our French audience, or Spanish, is it?

I'm not even going to try, but for our Germans, Dr.

Um, is motivation.

Emotional intelligence people have intrinsic motivation.

Um, and intrinsic motivation drives a highly, a highly, um, a high EQ individual to persevere and achieve their goals.

Um, this kind of relates a bit to like Nia in Islam, right?

Um, and how it kind of aligns with motivation.

Um, you have to set meaningful goals.

You have to have meaningful Nia.

Um, actions are judged by their intentions.

Um, so if you want to have high EQ, you need to have an intrinsic level of motivation.

And I think arguably that starts at the intention.

So that is component three, as listed out of emotional intelligence.

I hope you're with me because I am not with me.

So if you guys are with me, then at least somebody's with me, you know?

Um, component four is empathy.

This is the big one.

This is the, this is the, uh, the main character of emotional intelligence.

Empathy takes all the credit for emotional intelligence.

Um, empathy is understanding and sharing the feelings of others.

That's all it is.

When HST on the podcast, he was like, you know, it's one thing to like hear someone, but it's another thing to really take, like walk in their shoes.

Um, is that the saying? Walk a mile in their shoes?

And um, I think that's really difficult.

It's difficult for me to do.

It's very easy when somebody's talking to me for me to relate it to myself.

So they're like, "Oh, you know, I've had a really bad day."

I instantly go, "Oh, you know, I've had a bad day as well."

So that's not good because it's like, well, you're making it by yourself.

But actually to go, "You know what? I would have had a bad day if I had the kind of day you had as well."

Um, no, I don't think I'm good at this empathy thing, am I?

Um, the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) was very empathetic.

He would console others in their times of distress.

Um, famously, what comes to mind is the story about, um, is about the young sahabi whose bird died.

And the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam), with all the things that he had to do, you know, he was a leader of the ummah, he gave time to that boy.

He visited him, and he, um, I think I can hear my son crying.

Um, not only did he go to console him, but even, which is empathy, but also he was so beautiful with his words (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) and emotionally intelligent and used beautiful words to cheer him up.

And he said to, um, the, I'm going to get this wrong, so I kind of don't want to say it, but it was like, was it, it's live, so I may have just embarrassed myself.

So let's check it.

Um, oh no, I was wrong, but it was, he said, "Of course, I'm strong."

To read it now, that's how I'm reading it.

I think itari 6129, book 78, hadith 156.

The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) used to mix with, to the extent that he would say to a young brother of mine, "What happened to, um, what did the, what did the sparrow do?"

Essentially, um, so he rhymed it.

He used the, he used the, um, sahabis.

Um, SubhanAllah, um, what's the word?

Help me out here, chat.

Um, what's the word when he, he, he used, he uses k—um, anyway, that's what came to mind when I just thought about empathy.

But the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) was very empathetic.

Um, to be empathetic, you must practice active listening.

You must withhold judgment because that enhances empathy.

And finally, number five, the fifth way—oh, by the way, for empathy, just to round off that point, the ayah in the Quran that says, "Repel evil with that which is better. The one who was your enemy will become as a dear friend."

Repel evil with that which is better, then the one who is your enemy will become a dear friend.

That's [Music] from which ayah?

Is that Quran 4134? Ayah 34?

There you go! I done the research for you.

Um, let me give you guys number five before I leave at the one-hour mark.

Dare I say, not bad.

Um, number five is social skills.

High EQ people understand the importance of social skills for building and maintaining their relationships.

Um, they have effective communication.

They're good at conflict resolution.

They're good at collaboration.

I'm not good at collaboration, as you can see.

There's nobody else here.

What more of a sign do you need that a man has failed at collaboration?

Um, so that's, uh, so that's that.

That is that.

Um, the example is, uh, um, that the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) had this ability to unite the companions despite their differences.

That is social skills.

And they're the five components of emotional intelligence.

To be quite frank with you, I can't really be more frank.

That's as frank as I can get.

Let's go over them again: self-awareness, number one.

Number two, self-regulation.

Number three, motivation.

Number four, empathy.

And number five, social skills.

You can see emotional intelligence.

I was going to kind of, I'm just going over my notes now.

I was going to then go over into the episode about how you can see emotional intelligence from the Islamic perspective, which I've kind of like tried to, uh, weed in to this discussion already.

Um, but ultimately, the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) exemplified emotional intelligence in his dealings with others.

He had patience with Bedouins.

He had an understanding of the companions' individual needs, and he had an ability (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) to inspire and to motivate.

That's just pure facts.

Um, the other thing about emotional intelligence is, of course, we said self-regulation, right?

And emotional control is super important in Islam.

Um, Islam talks a lot about anger management.

I remember one hadith.

There's one hadith that I remember, right?

I don't know why, but I remember where I was when I heard it.

Um, I was walking up the stairs in university, in the business building, and I was going upstairs to revise, and I had my headphones in, and I heard this hadith for the first time.

And it was a hadith where a man came to the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) and said, "Give me some advice."

I think the Arabic was, I might be wrong again.

I should stop with the live Arabic because it's always going to, I'm going to, it's going to backtrack.

It's going to cause me an issue.

Uh, and the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said, again, am I right in that?

Because now I'm quoting a hadith.

You got to be careful.

Uh, but I think, uh, let's read it in Arabic.

Uh, is how I'm reading that.

Um, the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said, which means, "Don't get angry."

Okay, I was right.

Um, so anyway, how I heard the hadith for the first time, yes, if you are still with me, was in my headphones.

And basically, it said, um, and, um, the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said, and then the man said again, "Advise me."

And the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said, and the man said again, "Advise me."

The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said—now, as I was listening to this lecture, right, what was really incredible was a few benefits that the lecturer took from this hadith.

One benefit was that the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam), if he repeated something numerous times, that was to show the importance.

One of the benefits was to show the importance of that thing.

Um, even Allah repeats in the Quran to show its importance, right?

Repeats things in the Quran to show its importance.

So that shows the importance in and of itself.

That was one benefit.

Another benefit that the lecturer gave was that the man who came to the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam), he said, "Give me advice."

He didn't say, "Give me advice on how to be a better husband."

He didn't say, "Give me advice on how to get more money."

He said, "Give me advice."

The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) could have said anything, could have given any advice, but he said, "Don't get angry."

Meaning that this is general good advice for life.

Like it's almost like the usul of all advice, almost.

This is what the lecturer was kind of like getting at, right?

Um, so emotional control, yeah, you want to be emotionally intelligent?

Have emotional control.

Remember that hadith.

Um, then the other note that I had was, um, the fact that emotional intelligence involves gratitude or a positive outlook.

Um, this is also something that's very Islamic, right?

Um, so we have to have a positive outlook on life.

So the point in order of it was my reflection as I was thinking about this was, "Huh."

Um, one conversation about my eczema led to me reading this book, which led to me looking into emotional intelligence, which ultimately strengthened my faith.

Because all, there's not a thought process or anything in this world that Islam does not have an answer for or has not considered.

The deen is complete, and it just, my faith, I was like, everything that we're learning here about emotional intelligence is something that we've been taught in our religion as it is.

Ultimately, if you just follow the religion at 100%, you would be an emotionally intelligent person and get the benefits that come with it.

Um, so what's the call to action here?

What are the, what's the parting decision that we're going to make?

What are the action points at the end of this call, one could ask?

Um, it's, um, guys, try and be more high EQ.

And the way to do that, I would say, is the five components that we spoke about: self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, um, social skills, and what was the last one?

Who wants to hit me with it?

Motivation!

Um, pick one of those areas, one of the five, to try and improve in.

So for me, I'm going to say self-regulation.

Control my emotions.

Pause before I talk.

Pause before I think.

Think before I think before I talk.

Um, that would be beneficial for me.

But you guys pick one as well, one area to improve in, and try and improve on it.

And that's it! That's all I've got.

That's my tank emptied.

My tank is well and truly empty.

It was empty, in fact, to be honest, before we started.

Um, so what do you say, guys?

So we do an 8 a.m. episode one next time, or 6 a.m. episode?

I'm so down for that.

9:00 a.m. I can go, I can stretch it to as late as 9:00 a.m.

Okay, so if I do a 9:00 a.m. stream regularly, like let's say, for example, every Saturday and Sunday, that's 6:00 a.m. for you guys.

No, that's 5:00 a.m.

Ain't no one turning up for a 5:00 a.m. stream ever.

Is that ever going to happen?

Highly doubt it.

Let me know in the comments.

Uh, inshallah, how we figure this thing out, how we hash out how you found the stream.

Was it just incredibly boring?

Um, if it was, let me know.

Um, or if you enjoyed just backing, uh, uh, uh, having this as your background, great!

Let me know that too.

And in the meantime, I'm going to try and figure out how to have the setting so that when you guys comment and it comes on screen, that the comments go away after a time.

Like, I love you guys' comments, but you see Sloth has made a comment here, but it's not leaving.

Um, Fade Out when finish video, show become no stream.

Here we go.

No general play app sounds.

No show animated reactions.

Yes, show camera switcher.

Show program window.

Keep utility windows.

Automatic alignment.

Automatically hide comment overlay.

Guys, we have well and truly found the setting.

Automatically hide comment overlay after X amount of seconds.

Let's say 15 seconds.

Okay, let's see.

Let's try it.

Let's bring up a comment.

Benra said, "LOL never to a 5:00 a.m. stream."

Let's wait 15 seconds and see if the comment disappears.

Oh, my throat is hurting now.

It surely has been—oh, it's gone!

It disappeared!

It's gone and disappeared!

ATR said, "I liked having this one in the background. It's nice thoughts."

Okay, I appreciate that.

That's appreciated.

Alright, guys, I'm going to go sleep.

It's Friday night.

My dad's landing in the morning in Dubai.

Hey, a bit of father-son bonding is going to be going down.

My brother is also here; obviously, he lives here.

So father-son-son-son.

It's going to be father-son-son-grandson-grandson-grandson-grandson.

There's going to be—I'm tired now.

But let's finish this thought.

There's going to be eight of the male progeny in the same space once my dad arrives in the morning, inshallah.

Alright, guys, goodbye!

See you!

I hope this benefited.

Do give me feedback, please.

I'm going to be breathing in the feedback on this episode, on this stream, so I know what to do and what not to do.

Um, so give me feedback if it's positive.

If it's negative, if it's negative, maybe just send it to me privately because I'm a highly sensitive person.

Okay, regardless, I'll be reading the comments.

May Allah bless you.

I hope you guys have a great, fantastic weekend.

**Alum!**