Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: The podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney and I'm your host. Today's guest is Hussein Halleck. Hussein Halleck is a founder, entrepreneur and strategist dedicated to helping people and organizations find clarity in complexity and build lasting impact.
As CEO of NEXT Decentrum, he guides teams and leaders worldwide through digital transformation, innovation and values driven growth. He is the author of the Dark Art of Life, a guide for living fearlessly, second guessing less, and embracing true purpose.
Enjoy the show, Hussein. It's good to see you, my friend.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Good to see you, too. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: It's my pleasure. So I always thank the person who introduced me to my guest. And recently my guests are coming to me via Pod Pitch and via somebody who found out, you know, started working with Pod Pitch and. And in this case, it's. It's Rama, who happens to be your beautiful wife and partner, Correct? Yes, I got it right. All right. See, See, Rama, she tells me what to do. There we are. And she tells him what to do. And believe it or not, he does listen. So I want to thank Rama and Pod Pitch for bringing me Hussein. We had a great first talk, and I'm definitely looking forward to this one.
So, folks, you guys know in the beginning, I always talk about how when we're young, we're taught that life is linear. That if we do A plus B plus C in that order, then D is going to happen, that straight path. And for the most part, life is linear until it's not.
Ultimately, there's an external circumstance or adversity that gets in between one of those letters and derails our path from one that was a straight one to. To more circuitous root. Now, when adversity rears its ugly head, there are three types of men. And these men are either going to notice the adversity or they're not. And they're either going to take advantage of it or they're not.
Man number one is the man who has a ton of blind spots. He doesn't even see the adversity. He just figures he's living life the way he's told to live it, and he changes nothing. All right, then there's man number two. Man number two has a heightened self awareness, much more so than man number one. He sees the adversity, yet he says he's the victim and that everybody else is to blame. Life is doing it to him. And that adversity is a barrier, and life is what it is, and I can't change anything. And on that DeathBed, man number two has a ton of regrets.
Well, on this show, I bring on man number three. That's Hussein Halleck. Man number three has a much more heightened self awareness than the other two men. Yet he looks at that adversity and he says, you know what? I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. That adversity is not a barrier. It's an opportunity for me to take massive action and become stronger on the other side.
So, Hussein, for the audience and for me, reach back as far as you need to for that defining moment, Whether it was the tap on the shoulder, the. The whisper in the ear, or like what I needed, a 2x4 upside my head, that transformed you from the man you used to be to the strong man you are now, and how that change and that transformation changed you personally and professionally. You want to share that?
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think the moment that. That most defined, let's say, or the most transformational moment was something I didn't think about before. And thanks for that elaborate I would say intro.
It's when my uncle died in my arms. Oh, okay. So I would say that is the moment where. Because up until then my uncle was. Was a really. I would say someone that.
I thought, everything will be fine because he's in our world. He's. He was kind of like a second father to me.
He didn't have any children. He was the oldest son. There were two, him and my. My father.
And he was like a. A mountain of a man. Very well respected, very well known, had had the. One of the top publishing companies in the Middle east and published for the who's who, if you wish so kind of Nizar Kobani, Mahmoud Darwish, which are like the. The defining poets and literature, literary giants of. Of our time at that time, if you wish. So he was visiting with us and I was bringing him tea, and suddenly he starts spitting blood and. And within, basically within like 30, 40 minutes, he's gone.
Before we got. Before we got him to the. To the hospital, and that completely changed my world because he was like. He was this person that was always in my life in the sense that an ongoing presence.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: And I looked up to him and whenever like anything that I need, he would be the person any. Anything our family needed, he would be the person we would reach out to. With him gone, that was gone. So it was a moment of like, okay, uncertainty of epic proportions. Like, what is next? And that was the moment where I realized that I have no idea what's next. The person I depended on the most, he lived abroad. It's like, okay, I'll travel to him or anything, anything that I wanted. Even when I wanted to discuss or I wanted ideas that are different, he would be my out. He would be the person I would discuss, he would be the person I would reach out to.
And that disappeared. And that's, that was, I think, the moment that I come back to, to say that is the moment that, where I became a completely different person. I had to. And I didn't see it at the moment. It's not like I chose to do that. It's just that the absence of, of that big presence in my life did impact me significantly. And I was kind of, My trajectory was very different after that.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. My gosh, I'm so sorry that happened when, when he was gone. Do you recall the first time that you wanted to reach out to him and realized that he wasn't around? Do you recall that time?
[00:06:47] Speaker A: I think after that, I, I didn't, it was, it was like, No, I don't actually, to be honest, I, I didn't because I, I, it was just a matter of fact, like, you know, I never even thought of him like that. It was, it was mostly thinking of the past and what he would have wanted, let's say, for me to become.
It was like, I think at the moment it was. It's very interesting, like, very interesting question, because I should have, let's say, oh, I wanted this or I wanted that. And I think at the moment I felt like I'm alone. I am the person that needs to take, to take, to take kind of control of my life. I am leading. There's nobody else I can count on.
And in fact, that was, to a certain extent, it, it took me around a decade before I started reaching out for people to help. Like, I considered, I considered myself that I'm the only person responsible right now. I'm the one that has a future. Because he lived abroad and my, my family was stuck in Syria. Like, my, my father already went and worked outside and, and came back and there was no other, let's say, outlet for our family except me.
So it, so it was immediate. Like, I, I have the burden. And I didn't, I didn't think of asking of, for help until, I think, 2008, 2009, when I started attending a coaching workshop where I was like, oh, it's okay to ask for help. It doesn't make Me less of a man or less of a person. And that is, that is something I didn't notice about myself until I started doing it.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: I. Unbelievable. And you know what? That, that happens to a lot of men. That, that we feel it's a weakness to ask for help, that we should know it all. And I don't know where we get that from because it's, I mean, obviously it's from the outside society has, has put that upon us, but for some reason we, we listen to that. Very, very many men listen to that and, and believe it's a weakness to ask for help. Obviously, we now know it's not.
So let's go to 2008 with that coaching and you started asking for help. How did.
Do you have in one, an instance where you felt you grew from asking for help?
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think one of the, one of the key insights at the time was, first of all, being at home with myself. It was more. 2008 was like when the financial crisis happened. 2009, when it hit, when it hit Dubai. I had, I had a very successful business at the time that, that I had to let go of. My partner was heavily invested in property and he lost everything.
So we had, we had to start all over again. So it was like another loss.
And. But this time, instead of, instead of, let's say, going into, you know, mode, hyper mode that, that I will take care of things, I actually stepped into what I really wanted. It was the first time that I really asked, what do I really want here? And I completely changed trajectory from, from being into the creative industry because we used to. I used to be more like a creative director and running a creative agency. And I shifted completely to writing, which is the thing I enjoyed the most.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Okay, good.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: So I used to write all my life, but I never thought of it as a. As a trajectory like a, a business approach.
So I, I did that. And I had only $5,000 on me. Okay. And no prospects whatsoever. And I'm starting this new direct trajectory and I went and spent it on a, on a coaching workshop.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: And.
And it was the best thing that I've ever done because what I. What I did is I connected to who I am as a person as opposed to.
I've always seen myself at that times, like, here's the business Hussein.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: I.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: And here's the person that is Hussein.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: And in 2009, after attending that workshop, I decided to fuse them all together. I was like, no, I'm all of. I'm all of them.
And I. And I became the idea of choice. And what I choose in life, being something that comes from inside and being something that is driven by what matters most to me, not what the world offers.
That, that was born there, and it was shaped starting from that aspect. So that was a very, very important one. And that fusion of, yeah, who I am with all of my. Let's say that I am, was born at that time.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: I love that you mentioned the fusion, because I think too many of us try to find that, what they call that work, life, balance, which I don't believe exists.
You know, we got 24 hours in the day, let's pretend we're asleep for eight hours. You got 16 hours of being awake. To separate work and life is very challenging because we, we can take strengths from each one and bring it to the other and, and we can grow our weaknesses in both too. And, and we are who we are at the core, whether we're in life or in business. So to separate the two, to me seems counterintuitive.
So I love that, that you talked about fusion and you really got to learn who you are.
What was the difference between who you realized you were versus the old Hussein?
[00:12:10] Speaker A: The old Hussein was. I would say I was more interested in the appearance of things I was pursuing.
I had, I had a massive imposter syndrome where I was pursuing validation from outside.
So for me to become really a creative director, somebody had to look at me as a creative director. To become somebody who's successful, somebody had to, you know, call me successful. And I actually, at that time was the, the startup that I had before 2008, 2006, was extremely successful. I was featured in Forbes, I was featured on BBC, and still I didn't feel successful.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: So. So I had, I had this thing where I needed acknowledgment from the outside.
And what, what shifted completely is it's. It wasn't more about acknowledgment. It wasn't like, oh, I have acknowledgement from the inside. It was like, what do I really want to pursue? And life became to me more of a.
Of choosing paths and, and experimenting and seeing what I, what I, what I would really want, right. And pursue that and then gave myself permission to make the mistakes and fail as part of life rather than before. I saw failures as mistakes to be avoided.
And I, and I became more, I would say, in harmony with the cycle of life, which is, you know, you try something, you fall, you pick yourself up, you try again, and so on and so forth. I didn't see that as the nature of things I saw, like, there's success and. Which is what I should be all the time, and then there is failure where I should avoid all the time, which, if anybody, you know, knows this, the more things you avoid, the more you're going to find them.
So instead of avoiding or doing that, it's like, okay, what is it that I want here?
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Right?
[00:14:04] Speaker A: What does. What are the implications of that? If I want to pursue, like I pursued writing, the implications I may not find work with writing, or I may, you know, or I may fail at certain things or I will lose, let's say, the access to certain other things, let's say that are available to me. In this case, there was a demand on the creative skills.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: So choosing to focus on writing means that I will lose that business that is available to me. So everything had. There is no choice. There is no better choice from a perspective of measurement like this is a better choice than the other, because every choice has consequences. True. There's a. So I learned to look at choices like that, that I make a choice and it comes with its own consequences. Am I willing to pay the price for that? Am I willing to take care, you know, handle the consequences and the implications of this choice? And is it. Do I really want it? And that became the driver for that transition in my life.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: I love that. And you probably started to embrace taking a calculated risk because you knew that if you failed, it wasn't, it wasn't a loss. It was something you learned and makes you stronger.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I started to learn what entrepreneurship was really, because up until then I was doing business and I was. There were many successes in my, in the businesses that I did, but it was more luck than, than, than, you know, of course there are certain things that I did right. Don't get me wrong. But it wasn't.
There's a certain elements of entrepreneurship, just like any discipline.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: That I started to learn by 2008. Also, the, the startup culture was being shaped around the world with the, with the release of Lean Startup as a book. So I read that. I read the business model canvas. These things gave me the language of business that are, that are suitable for, for the time that we were living.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Sure, absolutely.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: That's. That's what helped me.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Got it. So what do you, what are we doing now? Are we in, Are we writing right now? Are you a writer? Writer in what, your professional life now?
[00:16:12] Speaker A: I am. I, I think the, the one thing that truly defines me as a person is being an entrepreneur.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: And what that means is that an entrepreneur is. Is what human beings are. It's basically someone who wants to. Who has an idea, who wants to. To achieve it or make it happen, and pursues it with all their power. And that. That was what human beings were. We wake up, we. We. We pursue, you know, finding food for our family, you know, building safety, all of that. That's what we always did. And it's an uncertain environment. That's what we are as people. So entrepreneurship, I believe, aside from how we define it in business, it's the natural state of being human. So I'm always and always will be, always was, always will be an entrepreneur, someone who has a lot of ideas and who pursues them with vigor and discovery and joy.
I. I will always be that. Now, the. The places where I pursue that and the skills that I use, definitely writing is one of my most favorite activities to do because it helps me think, it helps me grow, it helps me articulate stuff. So I definitely love writing more than anything else, and I still use my creative talents as well.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Good.
[00:17:26] Speaker A: And I bring technology to it. So if you think I'm an entrepreneur that brings creativity and technology together to make ideas happen. And the focus right now is to help entrepreneurs grow and become something more than they are.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: All right, well, let's talk about that. How are you. How are you doing that? Have you become that coach?
[00:17:50] Speaker A: I've become more. I like the word mentor rather than coach. Yeah. Because mentor really leads people and help them grow and.
And direct them as well. It's not, you know, I don't come to a person and say, what's your agenda? Right. There is. There are certain principles that exist in entrepreneurship and in life, and my role as a mentor is to make them clear for the people I mentor and to help them master it and then pursue what they want.
So for me, that's. That's mentorship.
Not that it's better than coaching. I don't do well with coaching. I love coaching. I love being coached. But I'm not. I'm not. I'm not a very good coach, which is interesting.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: That's an interesting distinction. And. And I understand exactly what you're talking about. The mentor can walk side by side with his mentee and. And guide him and have a emotional, invested interest in their success. And I love that. So, so what. What are you specifically doing now professionally, where you can mentor somebody?
[00:18:58] Speaker A: We're running what we call a growth education business. So what we do, we do growth teams where we joining a successful business. Business are Generating some money. Entrepreneurs are generating some money, and we help them with this transition period from where they are to scale. And that's a transition to growth, I would say period where there's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of things to figure out.
And because we've worked across hundreds of businesses with hundreds of entrepreneurs, and because of our background and our ability and our interest in growth as well, we bring, we help them save time. It's. Every entrepreneur figures it out at the end, but instead of taking, you know, several years to figure out how to get there, we make them do it in months. So we bring that to every business we. We do it through. We're running a few programs and workshops, and we also do it like done for you, where we join with the, with the entrepreneurs, certain select entrepreneurs. We join with them, we help them grow their business, and we share in the returns together.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: I love that. I love, I love that you have, you have a variety of different approaches based on what the entrepreneur needs. And, and I love in either. In all of your offers, you're. You're helping the entrepreneur build a solid foundation, because if you have a very solid foundation, you can put something heavier on it to. Very many entrepreneurs don't understand business, and so they have a very weak foundation. So when you start putting heavy stuff on it, it can collapse. And so I like, I love your approach. I could have used you when I started up.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: That's, that's the intention. Entrepreneurs are, are great in the sense that they are, you know, they're driven, they're motivated, they come from different backgrounds.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: So it's after, after teaching a lot of them and mentoring a lot of them, I found that if there are certain things that if you help them do and if you help them understand, give them the shared language of business, you help them understand how certain things function and how they connect with each other. They're on a roll. Like they.
So it's kind of like fixing a few things where they can run. So we're like the pit stop for the formula drivers that are entrepreneurs.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: I love that because more often than not, it's a little tweak here and there.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: Just kind of a course correction rather than revamping something that, that the entrepreneur needs.
Because we do have a lot of stuff in common. We've got that drive, the will to succeed, and sometimes we're just a little all over the place. And you're helping us kind of get focused and, and go in the right direction. And I love what you do. Can you tell me one, one of your best successes for one of your clients?
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Sure. So one of our clients is based in Dubai. They, they, they do comics, trading cards.
As you can see from my background, I do like these kind of things. So they are, they are a top brand in, in, in Dubai and in the Middle East. And the challenge was they just like any entrepreneur, it's like the things that they want to do and the opportunities are bigger than, let's say they can take advantage of.
And we joined forces and one of the things that we first did is look at when we join with our partners and entrepreneurs, we look at what are the areas where focused on growth. So we don't change everything, but we change the things that can make the biggest difference on their growth. In this case, we were, we reworked the brand so that it represents what they actually promised. This is the first we look at these gaps. So that was a gap where what they actually stand for for their customers and their community. The brand didn't communicate that. So that's the first thing. So that, that immediately communicates the message. The second thing we did is we streamlined their technology background. That's what we do because we have, we have a wide array of expertise so we can look at and find out these, these different challenges in a business. So we saw that there is, there is a break in the technology background. Like when they announce an event, certain ticketing, you know, like if there is no ticketing platform that you can use that can be tracked, that you can connect it to Facebook ads.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: You, you can't tweak certain things. So we connected all of this and that way we, we could know that when we run ads, which ones work, which one leads to actual purchase, which one doesn't. So it's not guessing.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: So we did that and then we, we, we, we started testing different channels which are the best channels for reaching their audience. And within three months their, their revenue 2x.
Yeah. And, and right now they, they've just launched another company as well, which is, which has raised investment already.
And that was like six months ago or eight months ago that we started working with them.
So we don't, one of the key things is that we don't claim that we are the ones. Of course the entrepreneurs need to continue to push their company and they're the reason for its success. What we do is we come from outside and we identify these areas where sometimes the smallest tweaks will have the biggest difference. Sometimes, sometimes some things require more work.
So we start with the Smallest tweaks that make the biggest difference streamline the business and we and the entrepreneur can focus on what they do best. And then what we do is we set it up as a system so that it always works for the entrepreneur. So we look for sustainability.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I love what you just mentioned because when you walk away, the true test to whether you did a good job was if the providing the entrepreneur does what you know was, was improving the organization. They keep doing it and they maintain that improvement and that's the best testament to somebody like you. So I know that happens. So kudos to you.
I would say the audience is certain capture the essence of Hussein Halleck and they're going to want to get in touch with you, Hussein. So folks, Hussein's website's the best way place to go. So it's H u S S e I n H-A-L-L-A-K.com. i get that right. Hussein.com.
so Hussein, I can talk with you for, for a long time but we gotta, I guess there always everything has to end.
But I want to ask you two final questions. All right, So I want to give you the opportunity to. You're sitting in your happy place and you're sitting down with 7 to 10 year old Hussein and you want to give him advice about life. What are you going to tell him?
[00:25:56] Speaker A: I would say don't worry about those who are bullying you, just have more fun.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: There we go. Oh, he's mentioned bullying. I have a sense that that was one of the things that you wanted you overcame as a, as a youth is that.
[00:26:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I was always bullied a lot when I was younger for sure.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: Those darn bullies. I can't stand them. Well, you know what, you're in a better place than they are right now.
All right, let's switch hats. Now you're sitting down with young Hussein, the young businessman entrepreneur and you want to give him advice about business. What are you going to tell him?
[00:26:28] Speaker A: Well, first of all, I will tell him about 2008 not to invest in property. For sure.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Oh my goodness.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: And for sure, I would say don't rely, don't think of your success as, as the, as the key.
Look at your learning, how much you're learning, how much you're growing as a person because success is not dependent on you build up what's inside of you that you can always count on.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: So I think that that is the, the key to consistently living a life of joy and success when you build up yourself because you know things can fall apart on the outside.
Outcomes may not come out as you want them to be. But what you always can rely on is how much you've grown and how much you've learned, how much of a better person you've become towards who you want to be. So I think that's. That's what I would advise them to.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Do, to focus on that it all. Yeah. That strength comes from within, and you can measure success based on how much you grow with inside. I love that. That's wonderful. Well, Hussein, I want to. I want to thank you and thank Rama, of course, for introducing us indirectly.
You're a wonderful man. You're doing some wonderful, wonderful things. And.
And I want to thank you for being who you are, sir.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: Thank you very much for having me. Drew, I. I love what you're doing. I think it's a very important area to focus on, to focus on this segment of people that need all the help and support, and I love that you had me here. Thank you very much for the great questions, and I'm happy to come back whenever you want me.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, you guys, you and I are going to build a. Build a relationship, man. This is not a one and done.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: You.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: You're a good man, and you're the type of person I want to surround myself with. So thank you. Thank you very much, everybody out there. Please take care of yourselves.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it.
I'd like you to answer this question.
Are you living the life you want to live, or are you living the life others will want you to live? I'd like you to think about that for a second, because I strongly suggest you live the life you want to live. If you want to learn more about what I stand for and my services and how I'm able to help many men get out of their own way, please go to my website at www.prophetcompassion.com.
feel free to also email me at drewrophetcompassion.com I'd love to have a conversation with you.
Take care of yourself and choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it for you.
