One Of My Favourite Shows I Have Done. #MirMak

One Of My Favourite Shows I Have Done. #MirMak

CPEC. Financial Literacy. Financial Inclusion Of Pakistan Into The World. Rarely does it happen that you do a program and right after you finish you realise that the discussion truly was the most engaging one. And this one was that show.

In Focus Host Dr Athar Ahmed (27th December 2016)

On A Lighter Note: #MirMak

On A Lighter Note: #MirMak

 

A man receives a message from his neighbor.

" Sorry sir that i have been using your WIFE every time that you are not home. As a matter of fact, i only use your wife in your absence due to the fear of getting caught, never when you are home. But today i feel very guilty and i finally wanted to Confess and Come clean . I hope you accept my apology."

Man has a heart attack and drops on the floor. He immediately receives another message from the same neighbor.....

" Sorry sir, Typo. I meant to say your "WiFi"... Not your "WIFE"....

Keep Moving Through Your Pain..#MirMak

Keep Moving Through Your Pain..#MirMak

Everything i know today i know because i did not give up in my worst periods of pain. The pain you go through is temporary no matter how prolonged it seems while you are going through it. But if you quit while you are facing problems, then the pain of quitting will last forever. It will make you into a bitter person. It will turn your willpower into a defeating attitude forever. Once you get your mind used to quitting, every time a problem comes your mind will suggest for you to quit. It will convince you to quit. It will give you logical reasons to quit and once you get used to quitting, you will only feel good in quitting and you will give a million reasons to others that why you quit. You will blame the government, the society, the people who put hurdles in your way, your socioeconomic background, heck, you will even find a way to blame the pollution in your city for you giving up. And the next step will be that you will become such a negative person that you will encourage others to quit while facing problems. You will not out rightly tell them to quit because you do not want to look bad in front of them but you will discourage them in a million different ways in subtle manners. How many of you know people like this in your life ? Almost all of us do.

Face your pain and keep moving it will make you stronger. Face your fear and keep moving it will make you braver. Face your failures and keep moving it will make you successful. Face your disappointments and keep moving it will make you wiser. The secret of all of this is in the words "Keep Moving". Keep moving because life is in motion and for you to go with life you have to be in motion as well. You can not be standing still while time moves on. You will be left behind. You will be broken forever. Its ok to break but its not ok to stay broken.
There is no glory in pain. There is no triumph in difficulties but there is no triumph and glory without going through pain and difficulties either. When the fire inside you to keep moving through your pain and succeed is higher than the fire outside you which is trying to burn you down, you will move through pain with ease and come out a winner. Create endurance in you. Create endurance in your mind more than your body because your body can go through any level of pain. Its your mind that gives up easily not your body.
So become stronger. Become resilient. Become tough. Become focused. Become positive. Become fearless. Become thankful during painful times. Become a believer in "HIS" mercy. And once you become all of the above during your painful times, you will become what Allah intends for you to become.....SUCCESSFUL.

How Driving A Taxi Prepared Me To Run An Investment Bank... ‪#MirMak

How Driving A Taxi Prepared Me To Run An Investment Bank... ‪#MirMak

(Yes Its A Long Article, but If you are young and want to change yourself to prepare for success, I suggest you read it.) Re-posted From My LinkedIn Articles.

If something in life does not challenge your inner self, it will not change your life outwardly. Success comes when your inner ego breaks into pieces. The " I " in you has to shatter before you rebuild your new you. Its like a wall of bricks, each brick put together in totality makes an entire wall. Consider your character made up of bricks. Each habit, each trait you develop consciously or unconsciously over your lifetime from birth makes you who you are. You walk a certain way. you talk a certain way, you think in a particular manner, your likes your dislikes, your approach towards life, your thought process towards a certain situation...they are all like individual bricks, when put together, they make a wall of your personality called " I " or "ME"... And this I or ME is not by conscious effort that it has been developed. You look at other people and learn subconsciously, you witness events in life and you unknowingly develop a liking and start reacting a certain way towards those events when they appear in your life. You have no choice as to where each brick should have been placed, the wall of your personality Just developed over a period of time and you inherited it. You like it or not, It has become you. If each brick is considered a habit, for example, confidence is one brick, laziness is another, positivity is another, optimism is another, and all bricks together make your personality. But you dont have a choice by the time you are in your late teenage years, to rearrange the bricks as per your liking. Maybe you want to have more bricks of confidence in your wall of personality, you cant add or delete a brick because if you try to, then the entire wall will come trembling down.

THEN

Comes a time in your life when you know that the wall is about to break down and all the bricks will be falling before your eyes. It will be the most scariest event in your life and the most beneficial if you handle it right. Because now you can rebuild the life as per your liking. Take out the bricks of negativity and pessimism or the bricks of fear and impatience and replace them all with the bricks of your liking. But it scares you when you know that the wall will break down soon and you dont know how many ugly bricks of your personality will appear that you will not like. And the process of rebuilding the wall will be the most painful process you have ever gone through. My wall of personality was shaken when i landed in America and my first job as a teenager was to Mop floors and wash bathrooms at Burger King on Easton Ave, Somerset, New Jersey. I had so many bricks of ego. My entire wall was bricks of ego, pride, thinking of myself highly, considering mopping floors a derogatory job and everything else you can think of. I had two choices, either not to do it and keep looking for another job making excuses or rise to the occasion and break the wall quicker so i can rebuild it quicker. The thoughts that would come to my mind were many, A person with my family background will wash bathrooms and mop floors ? " I " Mir Mohammad Alikhan will be seen with a mop in my hands cleaning floors at a restaurant ?

But when I decided that as a student i will do everything that all others do in America. I will blend in. Leave my old habits aside. Will have no ego. Will work harder than even the Americans. All of a sudden the wall started to break and there were so many bricks in my wall of personality that i did not like or know that they were there. Then began the process of rearranging the entire brick formation and rebuild the wall one brick at a time. But at least this time around i began to put the bricks in places that i wanted in my personality. positivity, optimism, humility, confidence, pleasantness, and whatever else i wanted. I realized that very soon this process will become my past and it will be the most beneficial thing i would have ever done for myself. Because past is where you learn your lessons, future is where you apply them and its the middle where you should not give up.

Then came a time when i started driving a taxi in summer time. Taking passengers from all over somerset county to Newark airport. Every time without fail i would get a different personality of people. Angry, pissed off, talkative, happy, pessimist, overly confident, you name it and i would have to deal with them. Never could i have guessed what the next passenger will be like. I started having a conversation with each passenger. I would drive the cab for 16 hours a day, from 7am till 11pm at night. Seven days a week trying to save up for my next semester's fee. I realized that all my hardships were coming from outside but if i failed, my failure will only come from inside because i gave up. I decided never to give up. I started to learn from such diversified group of people with such varied personalities. It developed an interest in me for human behavior which till this day i am fascinated with the subject. Learning about situations, personalities, events and many many more things from my dear teachers, my passengers, prepared me for Wall Street.
yes, driving a taxi prepared me for success. Wall Street is the same, you never know the next move of the market, if its in a good mood, bad mood, confused or whatever. The same is with the clients. you never know what he is thinking. You never know if the deal will work out or not. You have to leave your ego aside and deal with every situation at its own merit. Without per-proposed expectations. Be ready for anything. Any Hardship. Use the new arrangements of your personality wall of bricks to your advantage. No point in stressing over something you cant change, rather, change yourself and grow stronger. People say you only live once. They are wrong. Very wrong. You live everyday. You only die once. So live everyday and get closer to your dreams. Live your dreams. Dont let your dreams die before you. Your death should come before your dream's death. Thats called die trying. And thats the only thing you have in your favor, trying. All the hardships of today will look easy if you believe in your deepest part of your subconscious that tomorrow will be a better day.

"Impossible" .......Never Believe It For A Second. #MirMak

"Impossible" .......Never Believe It For A Second. #MirMak

"Impossible" is not a fact. Its just an opinion. Always remember that right from the beginning of this year. And on top of it remember that it is an opinion of a person who does not have the courage to live his dreams. Its an opinion of someone who does not want to come out of his comfort zone and change the landscape of his life. What seems impossible to you will become a reality over a period of time if you do not give up. Yes it is difficult, yes it would look like it can not be achieved, yes there will be an immense pressure on your mind trying to pursue your goal, yes there will be people who will not only laugh at you but also create hurdles for you, but your competition is not them. Your competition is YOU versus YOUR THOUGHTS. If you believe the thought that comes into your mind that what you are pursuing is not possible, soon enough by the repetition of thinking the same thought, you will begin to believe it as well, like others do.

You reading this article was an impossibility a few years ago, like many other impossibilities of my life. 3 years ago when I decided to come onto Facebook, I only wanted to join a social network if I could play a positive role in the lives of other people. I never had a single account on social media prior to that. And in the beginning when I used to write articles like these, I would not get a single like for days upon days. That never discouraged me even for a second. My goal was not likes. My goal was to dispense whatever knowledge and positivity I had gathered over the years to the youth. My friends told me that it was impossible to put positivity in the minds of Pakistani people. I was told that I was too “Amreeki” in my approach. I was told everything under the sun to make me think that I was chasing a mirage. But I kept telling myself, like I have always done throughout my life that its fun to purse the impossible because impossible becomes possible only with your determination.

Life sometimes is nothing more than going after a dream, risking all you have for a goal that nobody believes in and nobody can see except you. Everything in life you know today and every successful person that you read about, in the beginning was ridiculed, laughed at, his character assassinated, his goals pitied, until the day came that he stopped listening to them and they gave up discouraging him and from that moment onwards began the journey of his success. A lonely road, a road full of hurdles, a road where you cry alone, laugh in solitare, doubt yourself like others, sometimes, but you keep moving on. Its like walking through a desert where the public is at the oasis, your walk through the desert will be lonely but your goal of reaching the oasis will be greeted by many and cheered by a lot of people.

If you want to accomplish the impossible. First start by doing what you need to do. Stick to it like your life depends on it. Stay positive. Stay focused. Stay passionate about it. And once you have become used to doing the things that you need to do, then go and do what is possible to do in pursuit of your dream of doing the impossible. Once you do the possible and become good at it, within no time you will come to a point where you will be doing the impossible. And if you face any hurdles at any stage, repeat the same process again from the beginning.

Success is not impossible. Reaching success without having failed is impossible. Its that simple.

I Apologize Publicly For The First And Last Time....#MirMak

I Apologize Publicly For The First And Last Time....#MirMak

After my article about the incubation centers and wrong startup culture being promoted went viral and i started to receive calls and messages from all around i realized that i needed to apologize...

I needed to apologize that i tried to shake the status quo and shaking the status quo in Pakistan is wrong. I needed to apologize for lifting the curtains on a drama being played while the unsuspecting youth sits in the audience waiting for a script that would give them a role but their role never comes. I apologize for not owning an incubation center, or having anything to gain from the article because if i had owned one i would have kept my mouth shut and let the games continue. I also apologize for being sincere to Pakistan like 199 million other Pakistanis while 1 million hold us all hostages through their self interest. I apologize for not giving a damn about what others think when i speak the truth and friends warn me not to. I sincerely and deeply apologize for being a thorn in many eyes who are sitting on their laurels while Pakistan needs improvement.

And lastly, let me apologize in advance for not apologizing in the future because i will continue to write such articles, unveiling the truth and contributing to our great Pakistan's brilliant future. And i apologize to the ones who really think i would apologize under pressure, EVER. Lol.

P.S. For further clarification refer to my picture below on my timeline which i posted in response to Israel.

The Only Creation Of Allah Who Has Been Given The Ability To Smile Is A Human Being. No Bird No Animal No Fish No Reptile Can Smile. They Can Show Teeth But Not Smile. Smile Involves A Chemical In The Brain Called SEROTONIN And SEROTONIN Is Only Found In Human Beings.
So Use Your Gift Of SMILE More Often. Smiling Is A Way Of Being Thankful To Allah And A Way Of Making Others Happy Around You. #MirMak