Human beings are complex creatures. Every person has their own set of beliefs and their own perception of life that cannot be understood with a binary mindset.
Keeping this in my mind, I try to operate in the grey area where I try to hear the other person out even though I might disagree. I have a keen interest in philosophy and spend quite a bit of my time pondering over where we are and where we should be while striving to learn and understand people better. I believe that leadership is all about empowering others, making them believe, and getting them to fulfill their potential which you can’t do unless you identify what is truly holding someone back. To identify these barriers, one needs to constantly put themselves in the other person’s shoes.
My life has turned out very different from what I thought it would be. After I graduated, I worked at a bank in Boston for a year. During my time there, I felt like a pawn on a chessboard. Eventually, I decided to move back to Pakistan.
Moving back to Pakistan was also not easy for me, it took some time getting used to. What’s more surprising was my decision to join a start-up. It was my interview at one of the most promising start-ups that made it clear to me that this is where I wanted to be. With start-ups, one has the room to grow holistically and be disruptive, which was and is important to me. It also forced me to learn how to make quick decisions. Today, I am a very decisive person. I rationalize things, weigh the pros and cons, make a decision, and then never look back. Having a keen interest in literature, I often find myself inspired by quotes and living by them. In this particular case, a quote by Quaid e Azam has been my inspiration “Think a 100 times before you take a decision, but once that decision is taken, stand by it as one man”.
Much of my time is spent consuming knowledge. I get curious about the most random things. In my free time, I generally like to read and discuss psychology, philosophy, music, politics, and history. However, nothing beats my passion for sports. I like watching sports, playing sports, following sports as well as debating sports. My passion for it started at a very young age and was instilled throughout my childhood. In 11th grade, I was the captain of the volleyball, basketball, tennis, and cricket team simultaneously. I also won first place in my school’s tennis tournaments for three consecutive years. There was a point where I dreamt of playing professionally but back then I didn’t know how much it really took to make it. There’s a book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell where the author says you need 10,000 hours to perfect anything in life and safe to say I was not putting in the required amount of time. Thus, I believe that no matter how talented you are, if you don’t work hard, you’re never going to get there.
My favorite sports have to be Football and Tennis. I’m a big Roger Federer fan. Not just because of how good he is at Tennis but also because of the kind of person he is and how much he does for different communities.
There are millions of people who’ve lived but it is essential to dream big and do something bigger than yourself to leave a legacy. I believe that in Pakistan, we have a lot of raw talent in sports. Someday, I’d love to start a scholarship program for underprivileged kids who are athletically gifted and groom them for the global stage.
