Courage to Face New Beginnings

Amjed: 0:00

Beginnings can be a scary place, whether it's starting something new, beginning a new year, moving to a new place, meeting a new friend, whatever that is that beginnings for me can be a really scary thing, and so, in today's episode, I reflect a little bit on three things One, the future of this podcast. Two, the idea of New Year's resolutions. And three, how fear weaves and drives through all of that. Hi, this is Amjad, a simple, beautifully broken man living in a complex world. Join me as I navigate the dark and bright spots of life, sharing vulnerably and reflecting deeply along the way. May you find some benefit here that is through me, not from me. I must warn you to enter at your own risk, for in this room, my humanity is showing. Welcome, my fellow humans, to episode 55 of my Humanity is Showing, and also welcome back to me for the first episode of 2024. So the last episode I published was on December 24, 2023.

Amjed: 1:23

So Christmas Eve, if you are familiar with that holiday, and it was shortly after that I think it was a day or two after that that I was having a conversation with someone that I really trust, who said something that I felt really was accurate and decided to take a brief pause and I thought it might be like a week or two pause and ended up being two months, because it's much harder to get back into a habit for me than than maybe other people. I don't know, but just restarting a habit can be really challenging for me, especially like once I break that cycle. So what the feedback I got was that, you know, until now I've had this idea with this podcast that you know I don't, I do minimal to no prep. I just pick a topic and then share about it and I try not to script out what I'm going to say. I, you know, like I said, don't, don't really develop an outline and I don't edit. So whatever gets gets captured in the take, that's what ends up being published. I don't, and there's a couple reasons for that one. I wanted to keep it as authentic as possible and not make it this highly polished, publicized, you know, like kind of professional. Hopefully it sounds okay and it's not like uncomfortable to listen to for anyone but at the same time, like not doesn't sound like something you, you know, like your standard doctored up. You know they always there's.

Amjed: 3:12

I've heard come, you know like well, I've seen and heard things that talk about how social media or media in general really isn't reality. It's what people want. People want others to see or hear, and so there's a lot of work that goes into making it this. You know, making things seem different than they really are, and if you've seen some of those memes where they'll have a picture of someone that looks just amazing and then they'll say here's what the rest of that story looks like, and you know the reality version is much different than the filtered version. Or in fact, when I was younger we used to call that the Photoshopped version, and now I think it's like the filtered version.

Amjed: 3:59

So you know, in many ways I have tried very hard with this podcast to keep it real and to keep it authentic and to not script it out and come in and just share from the heart, asked to be led to, you know, whatever message needs to be shared that day and let it be as genuine and real as possible.

Amjed: 4:23

Trying to be true to the name of this podcast, you know that, bringing my humanity forward here in a very real way rather than a published way I guess I don't know what's the right word there, but the feedback I got was that because it's so stream of consciousness it can feel a little bit like just difficult to follow in the sense that, you know, maybe bouncing from topic to topic, it may feel like the topics are not necessarily interconnected and it may be difficult for people to really resonate with the message and connect to the message because it is so stream of consciousness. It's like accidentally stepping into someone's dream and saying, okay, I have no idea what's going on here and some of the value may be lost. And my, you know, during this time that I took off, I spent a lot of time reflecting on that and asking the question number one why am I doing this, why am I doing this podcast? And went back to the original purpose, which is, I believe, that I have a story to share and, based on my own struggles and how you know, after years of work and all kinds of stuff, that changes in me, I feel like I'm a completely different person than I was in my 20s or 30s, and it was shortly after my 50th birthday that I started this podcast and you know it was an opportunity to say okay, now that I'm in my 50s, what can I share about my journey that might be helpful to others? And I noticed in a lot of the conversations that I was having with people, that I do have with people, that they find value and resonate with my story and really benefit from it, and I thought, okay, I've been given this gift, it's time to pass it forward.

Amjed: 6:30

And, you know, in a spirit of transparency and this is the one thing that I've, you know I hesitate to even mention there's been this thought that if this podcast gains enough followership, there may be an opportunity to do this full time and just kind of make this the new, my new job quote unquote and and if that happens, you know, there might be like I may be able to spread the message to even more people and and with whatever proceeds I get from it, I may be able to do other things to help others. Like my wife and I have this dream of opening an orphanage and that's been, you know, or maybe a school, and we just like have all these thoughts and prayers and hopes of ways that we'd love to help people, but just have never had the finances to do that. And so you know, I don't like talking about finance as a matter of fact, when I hear podcasts or YouTube channel or anything else that sort of talks about like, you know, here's a way to make fast money, or, you know, become successful, become a millionaire, and you know it just makes me really uncomfortable. As a matter of fact, there's a few that I don't follow as much anymore because I feel like, okay, that's just me putting more money in your pocket and what are you doing with that money that you're, you're gathering from this experience? Like, how is that benefiting the planet? And that's just my own biases and my own judgment that's at play. But you know, so I haven't, I've been very hesitant to even mention that on this podcast, that that is part of the motive that you know, not only to spread the message, but you know, if I'm honest, you know this could be a source of secondary income for us.

Amjed: 8:22

And so you know I don't know something about that has felt like a wrong. I don't know what the right word is, but it's just kind of felt like like there's something wrong with it, it takes the nobleness out of it, and but I want to be authentic and I don't. You know, that's like I said. That's a piece of this podcast that I've really tried to stick to. Is that authenticity and saying this is really what's going on. And you know, instead of doctoring up and like, oh, I'm so altruistic, I care about the world, which I believe, I like to believe that, that's, you know, a large part of my motive, but there is a part of me, that's, you know, hoping that this will help benefit my family and possibly even put us in a position to help others as well. So, just getting that, I'm ripping that bandaid off. I've been putting that off for a year to even mention that here on this podcast.

Amjed: 9:21

So, but you know, going back to that original setting and thinking, okay, well, if that is true, if my true intent is to reach as many people as possible that may benefit from this message and to also potentially make some secondary income for me and my family, then I feel like maybe I need to rethink those boundaries that I put in place. And you know, in a lot of ways this conversation actually, you know it started at the beginning of the year with this whole concept of resolutions like what's my New Year's resolution? And this has turned into sort of a New Year's resolution type concept for me related to the podcast. It was a time for reflection and really thinking about okay, well, I'm still not comfortable editing. I feel like that one that's gonna create a need for me to spend a lot more time on this that I don't have, which will diminish the probability that I'll actually do record the podcast and post them. So I you know I'm very hesitant to do that, like any editing or deleting out or removing or retakes, or I'm also still very reluctant to do any kind of scripting and actually script out what I'm gonna talk about verbatim, or even, you know, have a detailed script of any kind, even if it's not verbatim. If I'm gonna talk about this, then I'm gonna talk about this, then I'm gonna talk about this.

Amjed: 10:55

But I have settled on the idea that perhaps I can have, for every episode, a topic identified and at least an outline, like three or four bullet points that I'd like to hit on that particular podcast, that I'd like to share about in that podcast. And how I've reconciled that with myself is this idea that you know, I can perhaps take that reflection time and just front load it. So, in other words, instead of counting on the recording time as the only time to receive any inspiration, perhaps when I sit down to do that outline I can seek some inspiration as well, and so that you know I don't have to make it about me being in control again, but rather taking that as an opportunity for some inspiration, jotting down my bullet points and then having something at least that I can share about. And maybe you know I've been aiming for about 30 minutes per podcast, so maybe 10 minutes per topic might be a good, you know, and if I had three topics, about eight to 10 minutes per each topic, that might be a good structure. That at least might create some clarity with the message and then maybe at the beginning of the episode I can just share what those three topics are, those three bullet points, and then go from there. And then also, I've been thinking about starting, in the next month or so, a podcast, youtube channel where you know, a video podcast where I record myself while I'm recording and use that and post that on YouTube so that maybe there's another way to reach an audience through that venue. So that, you know, we're kind of, at that 10, 11 minute mark, coming up on 12 minutes here.

Amjed: 12:59

The first topic that I wanted to talk about was that I want to talk about you know what these last couple of months, some of the reflections and what has come from that and the transition in this new calendar year of moving in 2024 to a little bit more structure and just trying that on for size and seeing what happens. So, shifting to my second topic, and that is I wanted to talk a little bit more about that resolution thing. So my whole life since I was a kid not my whole life, but you know, since I can remember actually being able to write and sit down every year I would sit down and write out some new year's resolutions and I've done that for years. And I noticed a trend this year. Maybe it started a few years ago and I just never noticed it.

Amjed: 13:48

I'm not sure when that shift happened, but I noticed a trend of a lot of posts and different things in different places talking about how resolutions are a bad idea, that doing a New Year's resolution list is just basically another way of creating a way to shame myself that here's all the things I say I'm gonna do in this new year and then I maybe do one of them for a month and don't touch any of the other ones. And then I feel terrible when the next year rolls around and I realize that I haven't done any of those things and I can relate to that. It's not like I entirely don't relate to that. I mean I do. I see that that's exactly what I've done over the years is I've made my list. I've not done anything that was on the list, or very little that was on the list. And then the following year when I sit down I pull up the list from the previous year, I look at it and go, yeah, you, bozo, you didn't do any of these things. And it becomes another opportunity to shame myself.

Amjed: 14:51

You know, as I reflected on that, I do believe for me, I do believe that there is value in pausing and thinking about how is this new year going to be different? Is there anything that I wanna aspire toward or do different, as I did with this podcast? You know I took a couple of months. I didn't do it in a night, I didn't do it on New Year's Eve, but I took a couple of months to really think about related to this one topic of this podcast, like what would I like to do differently in this upcoming year. And you know that's a start for me.

Amjed: 15:28

The other thing is it reminds me of just related to this whole idea of resolutions. It reminds me of strategic planning. So, you know, in my work setting, I have many times facilitated and done strategic planning, even for my own departments, and what I have found most helpful is, you know, coming up with a plan or a list let's say in this case of resolutions that doesn't have actual timeline and actions associated with it I find as far less likely to be successful or implemented. You know, so sorry, I'm starting to talk like I do at work. I just realized I'm using all the terminology that I do from work. But in other words, like you know, if I sit down and I say, okay, here's what I'd like to do different this year, and I make a list, if that's all I do, then there's a very low chance that I'll actually do those things. But if, instead, if I sit down and actually pull out a calendar and say, okay, here's what I'm gonna do I mean, here's what I'd like to do different or focus on this year and here's when I'm going to do what and actually write out like, okay, in March, I'm going to do this in, you know, july, I'm gonna focus on this and actually put some things in place and put those on the calendar and build it in in a way that when that calendar reminder pops up, it's like oh yeah, I said that on such and such date I was gonna try this and then actually do that during that timeframe. I find that having that structure is very helpful to me, not just in strategic planning things, but in anything that I wanna do.

Amjed: 17:17

I'm self-diagnosed with some form of ADD and just this attention deficit where I can't focus or I can't do anything. So I live and breathe by checklists and I also live and breathe by routine. So one of the reasons why I believe I was able to make it through 54 episodes of this podcast, which you know rewind a couple of years, even before that most of my life I have not been consistent in anything, anything that I've said I'm gonna set out to do. I just haven't done it. But with this podcast, what I did is I said, okay, on Sunday evenings I'm gonna sit down and I'm going to record a 30 minute episode and post it. And you know, just having that on the schedule and saying, okay, every Sunday I'm gonna do X, and in some weekends like this one, I might record on Saturday, if I know my Sunday is gonna be relatively busy, and that was one way for me to really maintain that consistency. I noticed that. You know. So I do a learning language app that I've been doing for the last couple of years and I do five minutes every day. That's it. But I love my streak, I just love that learning streak. You know that I also do a couple of games on my phone every morning that just to help myself wake up. Some, you know, like mind games that I play and I just do the daily game. You know, like whatever that one daily game is, like the, you know, figure out the words or make the connections Just a couple of those games just to keep the brain capacity flowing and just wake myself up a little bit in the mornings. And in those I have maintained streaks for like forever. I mean, I just have these like really long streaks and I noticed that I love the. It brings me a lot of joy to be able to say that I have.

Amjed: 19:18

I've done this for this amount of time and even though I broke my streak here with the podcast, I've broken it twice. I took a break last summer. Things got really hectic with travel schedules for work and I ended up taking a few weeks off and I think it was like five or six weeks that I didn't record anything and then I got back into it and you know, I'm still really happy that I came back to this, even though I had that break in the middle. And then this particular pause, the two months pause, was actually thoughtful. I mean, it was I, like I said, I had planned to at least take a couple of weeks off and think about what is the future of this podcast, what does it look like, rather than just jump in and start recording again. And I didn't want, you know, after the feedback I got, I didn't want to necessarily turn the podcast into my reflection spot where I come in, I record an episode and I'm reflecting live on the podcast, because then again, that stream of consciousness and it's more like you've stumbled into my dream or my daydream, and so, you know, just keeping that, taking some time to step away and do that and then revisit, has been really important for me. So, yeah, I don't know that there's a whole lot more to say about that. So I, you know, in terms of and I've noticed my time I'm kind of at the next 20 minute. The 20 minute marks are the next 10 minutes, and you know that gives me an opportunity to say okay, I think I've covered the topic of resolutions and planning and moving forward.

Amjed: 20:56

And then, for this final topic, I had thought about just mentioning the impact of fear on all of this, and so those were the three things that came to mind. So one, the future of the podcast and my reflections there. Two, resolutions and planning. And then three, fear, because I feel like fear is an important aspect in this, in any of this stuff. For me, fear is a major theme in my life, it's a thread that permeates most of my life and you know I'm just driven by 100 forms of fear in some way. And in this particular case, you know, if I stop and say okay, well, what fears have I been experiencing about this podcast, like what's you know, like what stopped me from recording for two months, or what's you know, what could potentially stop me from doing it at all and what's keeping me going. And it's kind of interesting because it's all fear-based, right.

Amjed: 22:04

So my fear whenever I there's been several times where I'm sitting here at 11 30 at night on Sunday recording a podcast, because I have this fear that if I miss that week's episode, I'm gonna break my streak and I'm gonna lose, like I'm gonna end up stepping away for several weeks again, and so that has been a fear that has driven me to continue. The fear that tugs at me in the other direction is this fear that I will. I'll spend all this time and here I'll be, here like five years later, recording podcasts and still getting a couple of listens every week, a couple of downloads, and feeling like all of that time and energy that I spent on it may have been better used in a different way, to help people in a different way, and maybe it was not a wise investment of my time. So that's my fear. My fear is that, and also a fear of judgment.

Amjed: 23:05

So when I put this out there, you know initially, if you go back and listen to some of the earlier episodes, they're really, really choppy, and it's because I was so scared of doing this. You know, I mean who creates a podcast? That's like a public diary. I mean, wow, that's like nuts. And so here I was doing this really bold thing, more bold than I've ever done in my life to create this public space for me to just bring my inside out and share it with you and the world and who knows who will hear it? I mean, who knows? I mean it may only be 20 people, but they may be 10 of those, might be people that I know or that I respect and they might hear this and think, wow, that guy, wow, I had no idea he thought like that. I had no idea those kinds of things were going on in his head.

Amjed: 23:56

So there was a lot of fear there initially in particular about that, about, you know, I've shared about biological issues, I've shared about mental health issues, I've shared about all kinds of things, embarrassing incidences that have happened. So there's been a lot of, you know, things that I've shared, even in this, that I remember, like saying it and then thinking, oh my gosh, I can't believe. I just said that into a microphone, recorded it and since I don't edit, I can't delete it out and I'm going to put it out there for the world. So this fear of one, of being seen for who I really am, but more so than that, it's that fear that once people hear that I will be rejected, that I will be shunned, that people will listen to that and say I, you know, I don't want to have anything to do with that person after hearing what he just shared.

Amjed: 24:53

But then lately, in the last several months and this is, I think, where this reflection piece really came into piece it's the fear that I'm just maybe I'm not helpful and I'm not interesting and I'm not as clear and communicating as I hoped or thought that I was. And so it's this fear that you know that folks will stumble across this podcast, listen to one episode and think, yeah, that was really boring, that was difficult to follow, there wasn't really any value in that, and part of me tells myself that that's okay, because I know my story is not going to resonate with everybody. It may only resonate with 0.5% of the people on the earth. The question for me has always been like, how do I get to those 0.5% of the people and is there some way to help spread the message, to get it to them, so that I can be helpful to those that it might be helpful to, and for everybody else? Okay, you know I'll just need to be okay with that, but fear is such a big driver and it's helpful for me to like keep that in the light and keep it, you know, keep it in forefront of mind so that I don't lose sight of the fact that I'm being pulled by these strings of fear, because I think I'm operating on free will, but I don't realize that I'm actually, in many cases, subject to that and I can't change that and do something different until I see that. So for me to see that, oh, it's my fear that's holding me back, and that's kind of what brought me to record this episode, because I realized for the last two months, I've just been having a significant amount of fear about getting back in front of the microphone, and so this episode was really about okay, let's set that fear aside and let's, let's use that, you know, let's, let's actually just move forward and move no-transcript. So thanks for letting me share. Those were my three, three topics that I wanted to cover today, and so with that, let's move to the random message of the day. So for those of you who are new to the podcast, if this is the first time you're listening, I have a box full of and it's gotten bigger because we've gone back to that restaurant a few times a fortune cookie, fortune messages, and I usually reach in here and mix it up really nicely. So I'm mixing it and I pull out a random message, and let's see what today's message is so.

Amjed: 27:34

So this one is if you wish to see the best in others, show the best of yourself. So that's an interesting, interesting quote. If you wish to see the best in others, show the best in yourself. So that tells me like. So I'm trying to decide.

Amjed: 27:52

So I don't always agree with these and I don't. They don't always resonate for me, but I'm just trying to decide is this one that I resonate with or not? And I'm kind of torn on this one. So part of me feels like what it's saying is that in order to be able to see the best, and I need to be able to put my best foot forward, and then that somehow is going to position me to see better what other people are doing. And I don't know, I guess I'm challenged to see that connection and I'm also I don't know, I feel like if I were to rewrite this quote this is just me if I were to rewrite the quote, it says if you wish to see the best in others, I think what the second half of that would say for me is practice some empathy.

Amjed: 28:41

You know, think about what, where they're coming from and what I, you know, it's that there's a beautiful quote from Renee Brown that says that any given moment I don't know the exact quote, but I've heard her say it multiple times that you know, at any given moment, a person is showing up with the best they have to offer in that moment and even if, though, it may not be the overall best or it may not be the best thing for me, it's the best they have to offer in that moment and so it's helpful for me to see, to see the best in others, to start with that empathy and say, okay, I wonder what's going on.

Amjed: 29:24

And it actually ties in well to the fear topic for me, because what I have found in the is that, in a lot of ways, I believe that human dysfunction is the product of fear and that, you know, if I take a moment to try to understand what might be driving other people's fear, that that becomes an opportunity for me to show some compassion. And anyway, more on that in a future episode. But thanks for listening and I'm grateful if you are listening. I'm grateful that you've joined me here today, even if it's only a handful of people that hear this episode. If you find something of value here, I hope you come back and if you think it's something that may benefit others, help spread the word. You know that's. That's my kind request. Alright, thanks, and take care.