Extra In The Ordinary, Chat With Farhan Ali Jamali

Yasi: Welcome to the Fast Track podcast, Farhan.

Farhan Ali: Hi, thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be with you.

Yasi: Me too here, and you are a certified coach or trainer, and you are also a business growth coach, and you have so many roles, but they’re all around the same theme that is about personal growth and personal horn skills. And I want to ask you more questions on this topic, but let’s start with the first question. Can you give us a little bit of background about yourself? How did you start your career? How did you get into this domain in your profession?

Farhan Ali: Thank you so much, Yasi. Definitely, personal growth or personal development is a very good topic to talk about, especially with the young and millennials who are entering into the corporate sector or are already part of it.

So my name is Farhan, and I’m from Karachi, Pakistan, and I’m in this field of personal development or training or learning for the last decade. And I’ve been working with multiple organizations, heading their learning and development functions. Right now, I’m leading my own training and consulting firm in Karachi, and we are offering solutions based on learning and development employee engagement and personal growth and that coaching area for personal development.

So I’m really excited. And I am on a mission that you can say is, and that mission is to enable and empower individuals, teams, and organizations to fill their gap of performance and to achieve the results that they are seeking.

Yasi: And were you always working in this area, or did you make a career switch later on?

Farhan Ali: Yasi, this is the only area that I started my career in my university days when I was graduating from my bachelor’s degree, I got into training. And from that day, I decided, okay, this is the field that I built my career. It’s been almost 11 years since I’m into this. And it has been a very satisfying journey so far.

Yasi: Yeah, I’m sure it is because when it comes to helping individuals to become better versions of themselves, it’s more rewarding. I mean, personally speaking, then helping a business achieve top line growth. I mean, a personal platform it’s more rewarding when you help individuals, I feel. You are a certified coach. Cause you mentioned that you know, you’re on a mission to enable and empower individuals, team organizations. Let’s talk about it. What area of empowerment that you do? Is it more like for professionals, or it’s also personal growth?

Farhan Ali: Yeah. Yasi, to me, I have to approach is to talk about that. One is the outside-in approach, and that outside-in approach is what’s your designation. We are doing work. How, how much capital do you have and all of the things that you know, your appearance, and all of these things that people can see about you or people can judge you on, but there is also another area. That is an inside-out approach to the world. What about your belief system?

What about your thought process? What are your behaviors? How do you control your negative emotions? That’s the area that I have been working on for the last decade. So my core area of expertise is about delivering that inside-out approach and, you know, meeting with people and telling them about building strong, emotional, and psychological muscles and it’s trained rather than your appearance or other than your outside-in approach thing.

Yasi: And how can someone discover the inside strength?

Farhan Ali: You know, that’s the area that we need to talk about. You know, we have been spending hundreds and thousands of bucks on appearances, right. On the things that we want people to be impressed by a personality, but we hardly focus on our internal things, like behavior, as I mentioned before, our thought process, our value system.

So there are a few techniques, or there are a few tools that I want to discuss with you for your audience, any of this helps, so then they can build their strong emotional and psychological muscles.

Yasi: Right. You mentioned earlier that a majority or most of us if we are not aware of building our inner power or the things that you mentioned, the inside, the psychological side, the strength, the focus on the materialistic stuff, that life is not so fulfilling.

When you focus on your own mind, your own spirit, and emotional strength, it makes a person stronger. Let’s say this way because I had a while ago interviewed Julian, and he talks about physical training, but also emotional and spiritual training. I think it’s Something related to what you’re doing, and people, or in general, need to focus more on that area, which might be ignored usually.

Farhan Ali: As I mentioned, we have been all so focusing on external things, just trying to please others, gaining those materialistic things. But in the end, your inner pain or your strength is the only parameter of success for you.

No matter how wealthy you are, no matter how many materialist things do you possess, but if you’re not satisfied from your own personality or your own behavior, Something will there always be on you, and you will always be in a state of regret to put into a context. My only job is to talk about your illness, how you can be more resilient, how you can be more positive, how you can look at things from a very different perspective, which might be a better positive perspective.

Yasi: Can you give us an example of how to be more resilient, how to look at things from a different perspective?

Farhan Ali: Good question. You know what the default state of mind is? It tends to put you in a negative state, right? For example, your favorite personality or your favorite influencer. If you want to Google about their games or scandals, you will get millions of views.

But if you want to search for their plan topic work, their good things, you will hardly find, you know, a couple of views because our mind tends to focus on negative thoughts. That’s why the world got up in that mindset of stress and anxiety and all that to put into a different context. And to answer your question, it’s all about judging your thoughts or being self-aware of what you are inhaling in terms of content.

We both agree that we are living in a state or economy of content. We consume so much fun and on a daily basis on a weekly basis and monthly basis, we have like videos after videos. We have content logs and everything. We are in a state of abundance when it comes to content. Now to put a perspective to that content, then we need to figure out which content do we allow for our own selves? If we allow negative content to be consumed, it definitely impacts our mental health. But if we allow only positive, if we filter that content, whatever coming to your screen in the form of videos and form of blogs or of any sort of like in content, you need to figure out your filter of which content are you aligned for yourself to be consumed.

If you are consuming positive content, if you’re consuming positive thoughts, it can definitely result in positive action and positive behavior. To answer your question briefly, it’s all about what are your filters? What are you inhaling? What are you consuming? If you’re consuming negativity all around you, definitely your mind will be caught up in a negative state of mind.

Your mind will get negative thoughts, but if you have filters, when you are only consuming positive content, that will help. Become a more positive person and look at the brighter side of it or the positive side of the picture.

Yasi: Yeah. So if you surround yourself with positive vibes and then naturally, that transpires within yourself. Yeah, I heard the sentence is not related to this, but I think it can be using this situation once the interpreter said trash in trash out. Yeah.

Farhan Ali: That’s exactly my philosophy of inhaling and exhaling. If you are inhaling trash all day, all the week, definitely what do you expect to exhale? So you need to inhale positivity.

You need to inhale positive content so that you can exhale that. That’s the basic philosophy of what we are talking about, changing that mindset or developing that mental strength that we just discussed.

Yasi: And besides content consumption in your training program, how have you observed common problems or frustrations that are faced by professionals in the work workplace and how you help them to, you know, achieve personal development or look at things from a different angle?

Farhan Ali: Yeah. So the second topic that I really want to talk about is, you know what, I call the average living or the mediocre living or the routine based living. For example, if you’re in a job, you have a certain routine, you wake up at a certain time, you go to an office, you come back, you have dinner, you have your family.

And then you repeat the same process for months or years. Now, that routine or that average living puts you into a context of, again, negative thinking because you are repeating the same thing for many days, for many months, in many years. In my training program, I encouraged people to change their routines. How? By allowing themselves to expose themselves to different types of scenarios.

For example, having frequent hangouts with friends or reading a book or going to a place for vacation, or try things that are out of your routine activities that will somehow fuel your positive thoughts. If you are caught up in a routine environment, definitely you’ll get negative thoughts, and you will again, got up into a state of this stress, then that is very easy, you know, achieved.

Yasi: Yeah. I like incorporating new habits into daily life, but it’s not so easy, right. If you’re used to, you know, watch TV, Netflix after work, go to the couch. How can people change and incorporate new behaviors in their daily life?

Farhan Ali: Look, if you don’t do that, you will be part of that routine life that I just discussed.

And it’ll somehow put you into a stress zone, and that is stress zone will create panic, will create anxiety in your life. So now you have two options: either to deal with that stress or that anxiety caused by that daily routine or that average and mediocre living, and you have another option. And that option is to find out solutions, find out alternative data around you, and they’re up in your comfort zone.

All data are somehow in your control. So you can sign those alternatives just to change your mind from your routine activities and just to gauge yourself in the non-routine set of an environment so that you can refill yourself. And you can somehow gain positive energy.

Yasi: Yeah. This is also where you talk about like in your non-routine environment, it’s the same as, you know, this book Atomic Habit.

And it also described that when someone is in your new setting, new environment, they tend to forget about the old habits. So it’s an opportunity to reset a new habit, a new routine.

Farhan Ali: Yeah, exactly. That’s the best thought. If you’re in the same environment, if you follow the same routine, you will get the same results.

So the chain that it does, you have to give input in a different way so that you can have different results. So if you are doing the same things, you will have the same results. So you need to change your actions. You need to go into a non-routine zone where you can find different results.

Yasi: Right. And have you observed, you know, training, especially in incorporates that, I want to talk about this, the fulfillment of job satisfaction at the workplace?

What is observation?

Farhan Ali: To be very honest, that’s like, sort of like a dream thing. If you really find your true calling or your purpose aligned with your corporate, that’s the only way you can be fulfilled about your job. And a majority of young professionals that I need around and in my circle are just, you know, doing their jobs to pay their bills or just doing their job because they want to be in the zone, they want to be in that marketplace so that they can not feel empty of left out, but that’s fulfillment comes when you have your purpose aligned with your profession. And that’s the sweet spot that we need to figure out.

Yasi: Like where you are right now.

Farhan Ali: Yeah, I’m following my dream. I have my own training consultancy every day is way fulfilling when it comes to what I am doing with my life, I’m living my dream. And my dream is simply to enable and empower individuals. So wherever I go with whom I am, I’m just spreading these positive thoughts. And I’m trying to create that environment where people can feel motivated and positive about themselves and about their life. And somehow, that gives me a very positive vibe and positive energy.

Yasi: I can totally understand. And even when you were talking about living our dream and all this, when we chatted before we started this podcast, I already feel the energy coming from your side, even though for you, it’s like a late afternoon dinner time.

Farhan Ali: That’s so kind of you.

Yasi: Yeah. But I feel that you know, you feel the other person’s energy through their voices, their tonality.

My last question to you. Do you conduct training for individuals as well? Like remote training or how can people get in touch with you if they like to, you know, push their boundaries and then change their routines and be better in life.

Farhan Ali: As you mentioned in my introduction, I’m a certified coach, right.

And coaching is all about personalizing one to an experience. So if anyone wants to connect to me, I can assure you that that particular meeting will all be about developing that person’s mental and emotional is spent. So I’ll be working along with that particular person to build their emotional and mental wellbeing by applying those coaching models and techniques that I learned during my experience and certification.

And yes, that is very personal in that it’s a very personalized and individualistic experience.

Yasi: I think that is it for a particular area or just in general. If that’s, that does not have to be around the profession or a life fulfillment, et cetera. Right?

Farhan Ali: Yeah. But to be very honest, coaching is all about helping someone.

So it can be about life coaching, about growth coaching, like it can be about success. Coaching is there. So if someone is stuck in a thought process that he or she is not able to get out of, I can sort of help by using that coaching model with him being a professional, be it, person, be it related to their life or their growth or their even career progression.

Yasi: I’m sure some of the audience might be interested in, you know, get to know you or even try out coaching sessions with you. Where can they find you?

Farhan Ali: I will share my details with you. You can post on your podcast, but they can easily find out by typing Farhan Ali Jamali, so I’m easily accessible. I can share my contact details, et cetera, that you can put out on your podcast.

Yasi: Yeah. Okay. Then I will put them in the show notes. The audience can find all the information there. And do you have any other last words for the audience or that, you know, just take the stage?

Farhan Ali: Yeah, so, you know, my only message is to build your emotional and psychological muscle rather than your appearances and your physical muscles, because your emotional and psychological muscle will define the quality of your life, will define the fulfillment of your life that you are seeking for.

Yasi: At the ending note, I still want to ask an add-on question. Thank you so much for the last call to action to all the audience. Is there a book that you can recommend us to start reading, understand a little bit more about this psychological stuff?

Farhan Ali: Yeah, but to give it in perspective, a book by Simon Sinek that I really adore a lot is Start With Why. That is all about what do you really want to do. So once you figure out your purpose, it will somehow give you enough history and psychological intention that I just mention.

Yasi: Yeah. Lovely. Thank you so much for being here, Farhan.

Farhan Ali: Thank you so much, Yasi. It was a pleasure talking to you.