Hussein Hallak |NFTs, Podcasting, Writing and Journalism

This is the 50th episode of the Publishing for Profit Podcast.

In a special episode, Hussein and Joel have an in-depth conversation where each took turns asking questions of each other. We talk about NFTs, (Non-fungible tokens) our different writing processes and journalism.

Hussein has been building startups and products all his life. He started his adventures in the tech world by co-founding Xina in 2002, an online gaming startup that was acquired within 3 months by Spacetoon Group (The Disney of the Middle East).

Next, in 2006, he launched CreativeArab, the world’s first and largest marketplace for Middle Eastern art focused on connecting artists across the Arab world with global audiences for their art.

After that came The Content People in 2010, an award-winning content marketing agency. HIs clients included Virgin Mobile, Pfizer, and Starbucks.

He joined 3 tier logic as VP of Products & Strategy, he worked with the world’s most valuable brands including Universal Studios, P&G, Kimberly Clark, and DreamWorks.

In 2016 he Joined Launch, one of North America’s top tech hubs and startup incubators, helping 3500+ founders and 500+ startups raise over $1 billion.

Next he co-founded Next Decentrum, a blockchain technology and education startup.

Transcription of Show

The publishing for profit podcast is brought to you by Ghostwriters & Co. Earn more money by publishing better content and learn how do we increase your thought leadership so you can build your brand head over to ghostwritersandco.com for more information. That’s ghostwritersandco.com and now your host, Joel Mark Harris.

Joel: Hello and welcome to a very special edition of the publishing for profit podcast. This is the fifth year episode, and this is your host George Mark Harris. Today we are interviewing. one of my really good friends who stay saying how black, and we’re doing something a little bit different where we’re alternating questions.

So he gets into view me a little bit. I get to interview him a little bit saying is a very interesting serial entrepreneur. He helps startups, small businesses. His main company is called Unleashed Adventures. So we talk a lot about podcasts and we talked about tech. We talk about startups and we even talk about a subject that is very close to my heart, which is journalism. So hopefully you enjoy this episode without further ado, here is Hussein, How lack we saying welcome to the 50th episode of publishing for profit. How are you today?

Hussein: I’m doing very well. I was just fixing my face to make sure, to make sure where are those wrinkles? Can I hide those wrinkles? That’s what I was doing there in case you’re wondering, thanks for having me.

Joel: I want to, to do something a little bit different. Normally my usual process is send you questions beforehand and you get some time to think about it, but this is a bit of a hot seat issue. So how I want to structure this and this and we may fall flat on our faces and this, and I may need to re edit everything, but we’ll try it out.

See how it goes is I’ll ask you a question and then you can re you can answer and then ask me a question. It can be anything you like. So now is your chance. If there is some burning thing that you wanted to know about me, That you wanted to get out into the world and on record now is your chance.

Hussein: Yeah. That’s, that sounds interesting and exciting.

Joel: I I’ve been doing this podcast for a year now. It’s been a year. I guess this week. And I’ve learned a ton a lot and I thought I’d do something a little bit special. And one of the things is like, who do I want back on my podcast?

And I couldn’t think of a better guest than my good friend Hussein who, have known, you know, for, I think it’s been five years and I’ve been pestering him ever since. And, I want, you know, you’ve, you’re a serial entrepreneur and I want to talk about one of your latest, projects that you’re working on.

And that’s with an NFTs, which are non-fungible tokens, and you are partnering with daily hive to, produce like a arts, marketplace. so can you tell us a little bit about that?

Hussein:  Cool, like go into the, going to the hot stuff right away. Hopefully you’re not publishing that before we announced it. But, so, there, I would say, so I’ve been fascinated with the world of blockchain for a while right now.

And at NFTs is one of these innovations that are made possible with blockchain. People collect all the time. We collect all kinds of stuff. we like to hold on to stuff I think have Valley for us, whether it’s fun, whether it’s for. It’s the cool thing to do because everybody else is doing it, stuff like that.

From baseball cards, we were just talking about stamps. Like I never thought of myself as a collector, but when I come back, like I’ve always collected stuff like stamps or coins as well. I was fascinated with history and, and, I remember like being excited about getting stamped. I can’t imagine how geeky that was.

I think the biggest thing is people like to collect and what blockchain technology has brought with NFTs or non-fungible tokens is the ability to authenticate that thing that you have. So in that time we used to rely on, it’s very hard to, I think at that time to fake stamps, maybe, I don’t know if somebody will fake stamps because it’s, but we rely on the person selling it to us to tell us a story and where we got it from and kind of.

Achieve to this is authentic or old, or, I mean, it’s not like historic or, but at the time it was like that right now, with technology, we can rely on blockchain technology so that the certificates that is there is there for everyone to see. And when you, it enables you to exchange it and give somebody that certificate in the real world, you would have to kind of assign it to somebody and create another certificate and probably go to a governing body that verifies that in a blockchain space, you can look at the chain of custody and see who, who owned this and who sold it to whom and who sold it to them until you get to today where you’re actually buying it.

So you can verify all of that. And that’s made possible with technology and with the marketplaces, it made it possible to exchange it between people. So now you can sell it to anyone in the world. You don’t, you’re not limited by vicinity or who’s around you, and you’re not limited. To, well, you have to exchange that.

Plus there are a lot of stuff that are digital, that we’re talking about physical stuff. Now you have stuff that are digital, that it’s very hard to prove authenticity or, or owner ownership. You can, somebody would say, Hey, I created this meme or I created this, you know, this thing, but, and you might be allowed to use it free online, but how do you prove that now you own it, let’s say you want your name attached to it in some shape or form.

That is also what the NFT makes possible as an innovation because of the blockchain technology, because of the ability of, to save data in a database that is ledger based, basically just like a paper where you write down every transaction that happened. That’s like my spiel on the empty. So which brings us to the kind of what we’re doing with it.

And the exciting thing here is that it is because of this possibility. It gives creators artists, which one of my early startups in 2006, was helping artists be online at the time, from the middle East, which was something very novel at the time I built the largest marketplace for Arabic art. And I love helping artists love working with creators.

They are kind of the people that are that create, but not a lot of them have business savvy in the sense that  they are focused completely on the art of the act of creation. They, and they rely on other people in, in, in the community to take care of their, their let’s say sales, you know, how much percentage they make.

And then a lot of times they have no way to track that. So if you sold something, when you were just a starting artist and then it becomes, as you continue to raise your reputation becomes more, more, let’s say expensive and people want to own it. You get nothing out of that. I think there are a few cities around the world.

Maybe I’ve mistaken London and New York, where you get 10% if it’s sold there. But it’s very hard to track now as a digital artist. And there are a lot of them you can track, who’s selling your, where, where your sales are, and you can make money off of secondary sales, which is huge because that actually may end up be more than the first sale that you sold it.

So that’s offers new opportunities for artists and what we want to do. A, we were talking, I published my guide on, on, NFTs on daily hive. We had a conversation, the founders there are awesome. We, we, we know each other we’re friends and they reached out and said, Well, what do you think, like, can, can we do something with, with this NFT thing?

We and they’re a big art advocates. So I said, yeah, we can do that. And we structured a deal where the artists can get most of the revenue. And, and we’re planning for launch that, the helps local artists in Canada in many different cities. So that, especially because I think they were the one of the most impacted by this, COVID kind of, thing that, that took, took our world by surprise. Now, still a year onwards, we started like, can we get rid of it? So, yeah. That’s so what’s happening so much information?

Joel: Not at all. Now, do you have a question?

Hussein: Why do you still do this? Like you said, you were doing it for, for a, for a year. Is it just momentum? What are you getting out of? Let’s say doing these, these podcast?

Joel: That’s a good question. So I would say it’s not a financial incentive to do the podcast. I’m not making tons of money off doing a myth. I think for me, It’s the joy and the fun of actually doing them. I, you know, back I graduated from journalism school and part of the reason I love journalism is just being able to interview different people and to understand their perspective, get their stories.

And that’s really what I able to get from this podcast. I get to connect with you. I get to meet new people who are up to some really cool stuff. you know, I interviewed a find like a money and money coach or money therapist. She called us out, but I’d never even heard of that term before.

and so I got to learn a little bit about money therapy and, and. Really get to listen to why she does what she does and how she helps people. And I’ve heard so many amazing stories about people who have been in depression, who people who’ve had weight problems and have managed to climb their way out of whatever problem or issue they’ve had and to live live a very impactful, meaningful life through what they’re doing now and sharing their story.

And so I am able to, you know, I guess take what they have, what their, their learnings are, and I can help them spread their message through, you know, through the medium of podcasts in which is really cool. And yeah, I’ve met some really great entrepreneurs, who I haven’t been able or would not be able to connect with.

Sometimes like even deepen relationships. So, you and I, we did a TEDx event where we did all the marketing for it. And I basically just went back through the list of people who, who were speakers and I got to interview them.  I talked to people who I haven’t talked to and I don’t know, like five years, I would say, and, and reconnect with them and learn what they’re up to now and learn how they’re doing and how they’re coping with COVID. So, it’s been a really great experience, to be able to yeah. Reconnect with old people, old friends or colleagues and meet some new people.

Hussein: Did you just say old people, old people, friends. That’s why you’re connecting with me. I know I have some wrinkles, but I’m not that old yet. Okay. So, do I follow up or are you like, it’s my turn now. Okay. Darn it. So many questions.

Joel: You talk a little bit about the founding of your company, unleashed ventures, why you decided to start it and what is the, what is the meaning behind the name?

Hussein: Oh, okay. Good question. So, the reason why I started unleash ventures is there was me and there was the, there was my team.

We are the team that so it’s a bunch of people that I met throughout the last, since 2016, and, and enjoyed working with them on several projects. I have a philosophy when I work with people is that you work with people by working with people. So it doesn’t work for everyone.

So because I’ve had the challenge, the challenges of trying to work with people based on their resume or their history, and what ends up happening is while that speaks, may speak to their, professional, ability and may speak to the what they’re capable of doing it. Doesn’t speak to who they are as a person.

So, it doesn’t say is if we’re going to enjoy working together or are we going to, you know, have a, have a good time or a horrible time. So I ended up kind of one thing to the biggest desire is I want to work with people that I like working with. I realized that I can do a ton of stuff and I have a high opinion of myself.

So, I was like, I can do anything. So why don’t what is the thing that I want to do? Life is too short to have drama and drama usually comes from people and you can’t prevent against problems, but there are certain problems that are really dramatic. For example, a breakdown of a relationship.

Like you can have disagreements, the people I work with, my friends and my co-founders. We have disagreements all the time but it’s not dramatic in the way, like, Oh my God, this is like the end of our relationship. Or, you know, can’t believe you’re doing this kind of thing. I hate those. Like whenever I see them on TV, I think those, Those dramatic like drama, drama series.

I was like, why the heck did they do that? I don’t know if you get into that. Like, how do they stupid? Why are they doing this? So I don’t want that in life. Like, it’s good to see it on TV. Maybe sometimes it’s annoying even on TV, honestly. Cause it’s, I hate stupid people and, and people acting stupid.

But, so I didn’t want that. I think that’s the crux of everything that I do. So I had, I had around me, a group of people that I really enjoyed their presence, enjoyed their company and enjoyed building stuff with them. So we had some fun. And the good thing about that is you would recognize that there’s a great thing where the success or the failure doesn’t matter.

And what I, what I mean by that is we understand that. Certain things will be successful. And certain things will not just, just, and luck has to do a lot with it. Like you can do the best of your ability and then things may not work out. So I wanted people who are in tune with the, with kind of the flow of life, in the sense that you make mistakes, you try things, you throw shit at the wall, something will stick someone up.

Like it’s as simple as that. Anybody who tells you, I think I’m happy to sit with anyone from the, from the ones that we dubbed the smartest people in the world to the least smart people in the world, who have money who have status, who have achieved a lot of things. I would dare them to say, this is not hugely dependent on luck.

There is a luck element in it. You, you do something and it’s at the right time, right? You, you meet the right people and it works. Of course, you have to work your ass off in certain element, but there’s still an element of luck. And if you don’t have that a certain times, it may not work. So I think that is, that is where it comes from.

And I had those people around me. So we started a company called next to Centrum together. We raised funding. and then we realized there is something we, we love doing, which is always creating new products, always building something new. And we didn’t want to create 10 companies all the same team like that doesn’t work.

So we said, can we create a company that’s more like a playground where we allows us the flexibility of building our own stuff and working with others that we like to help them because most of the time we will enter and build something to a certain point and then it’s off to somebody else.

And I learned that as well from my work with launch Academy and my work in the tech community is there are different players in the community that would help accompany at different stages of that company. So it’s never yours to control as kind of like your, your kind of like my, my, my kids where I can do a part, but the school has to do a part.

Their friends have to do a part like you can never control fully, even if you want to, I’m a control freak. So I want to, so, I think that is where it started and that’s why we did it. And the reason between the world behind the world unleash were the leash has been with me, I think for over 12, 15 years now, I don’t know where it started, but there’s something about, I think.

I have an idea where it started it’s it has to do with coaching and working with others. So what I found is people have amazing capabilities. Like I’ve met people who most of the great things in the world are done by great, like ordinary people who do great things. That’s that’s the principle. So it’s the, the theory of the great person.

For example, it doesn’t apply here. Like it’s bullshit. I think there are definitely people who are super smart people like there are, but they’re very, very rare. And, aside from that, all the grades stuff that I’d done in the world that we use every day are done by ordinary people. Like Steve Jobs is great, but he doesn’t design, you know, the chip in the, in the, in the Mac, he didn’t, he or he kind of paved division, but there had to be a ton of brilliant engineers who have to do the work, right.

Then they have to come together and we have a piece of kind of thing, ecology, technological, Marvel in our hand. So I think that a lot of ordinary people now, the thing is we’re always leashed. Or caught in our own thinking and our own beliefs. So unleash be kind of removing yourself or removing all these chains or all, all the things that are keeping you, holding you back from realizing your full potential.

So, and that’s what we do at unleash ventures. And everything that I do in life is really about working with others, friends, people, I run into anybody who ran into me and had a conversation that they didn’t expect. Like I would ask deep questions, like what is going on in your life and why you’re not doing well with your girlfriend?

Because like somebody I met like I would, I would not afraid to go into deep topics. My intention is to unleash that person from whatever’s holding them back. I just see brilliance all around and I want people to be able to experience that. So that is where it comes from. And that’s what only French was all about is really helping ventures and startups to remove all kinds of things that holding them back from realizing their full potential and adding value to the customers, the market that they’re targeting. You asked me kind of, what is it that, What was the second part of the question.

Joel: So who do you serve? Like who would your ideal client be?

Hussein: We work with startups that are early stage. So we’d like to work with early stage. It’s the most difficult stage in, in the, in the life of a startup, because there’s no guarantee of success.

Like there’s less of a guarantee of success. Startups and businesses have a lot of chances to, for things to go wrong. The early you are in the process, the more likely things are going to go wrong or you’re likely not to succeed. So we like to work with startups at that stage because it offers the biggest problems and the biggest challenges.

And we like, we get excited about that. So we work with entrepreneurs at that stage and we help them, Figure out stuff. We jump in as co-founders, so them, we help them figure out stuff. So these are the companies that we like to work with and, and help. And that’s the kind of value we start adding and building ourselves, the project and jumping on joint venture.

So it’s a flexible entity that allows our team to be flexible in pursuing whatever thing, whatever, anything that we think, Hey, this is cool. Let’s go after it. That’s awesome.

Joel: All right. Now your turn.

Hussein: All right. So you’ve been, I’ve always been fascinated about your, your ability to, to write. And I think we spoke about that in previous.

When I interviewed you, I think, but right now, while you’re writing a new book, I think it’s a, it’s a huge, it’s like a massive Epic of, of things. what are some of the things that you were expecting to go. Smooth compared to your experience like, Oh, I got this, you know, you had that feeling like I got this, this is like easy.

These are, the things are going to be hard that turned out to be extremely hard and kind of frustrated you and drove you out of your mind, kind of was like, I can’t believe this is difficult. is there such a thing, have you faced something like that? What are they?

Joel: Yeah, so, just to, I guess kind of recap what I’m doing, I’m writing a historical fiction book. It is about the second Punic war. And so that is when Carthage invaded Rome, Hannibal, he’s one of the most famous generals in history. He actually marched his troops over the Alps and into Italy, surprising Rome, and he won several very decisive victories and he basically defeated a much superior Roman army.

Hannibal’s army was made up of mercenaries and different tribes and there, it was really basically their kind of path worked together. and it wasn’t a. Wasn’t a professional army, like roam head. They were one very  unit and they were very organized, but Hannibal through his ingenious and through his just leadership skills was able to defeat Rome, at least at the beginning.

And then they base the Rome, basically war Hannibal down and his army. And eventually they won the war. But, as for me as a very, Interesting time period. And not a lot of books, there’s not a lot of, fiction around that time period. I would say when you think of Rome like Roman literature or Roman, fiction, you think of Cesar around the time when the Roman empire was founded, you think about Sparta guests, party guests was the famous, gladiator who basically sparked a revolt.

When you think about the Roman empire what’s that, that movie with, Russell Crowe, Gladiator, you think about those movies, but you don’t really think about Hannibal they often. So I was really interested in, in that. And, so basically what I did as. It actually turned out to be a lot longer than I anticipated.

I thought it would be, I knew it was going to be a long book, but it turned out to be a lot longer than I initially anticipated. And I thought that, you know, this was, this is like the, this is the seventh fiction book I have written. So I thought, you know, I have all the tropes down pretty well. I knew how to write characters.

I knew how to write scenes. I knew how to follow a story structure. And especially since it’s based on historical fact. So I knew that, like I knew the story going in. So I thought plot, I would not have a trouble with cause I just followed the historical facts and what happened after this, after this and this.

And then it would be an easy, easy way to write it, but turned out that was not the case. And so I actually had to stop several times cause I was just like, I just can’t, I can’t figure out what happens next. And. I was like, I thought that I was very strange first off, because I’ve done this, you know, several times before.

And I thought that, you know, I had had the plot down, down packed, and secondly, because it’s based on historical facts. So I knew like, what, what should come next? This should, this bowel should come next. And this event should come after that and so forth. Right. but that wasn’t the case. And I I’ve, I’ve sort of like, I’ve not rewritten history, but I’ve changed things around to make it more, make the story flow a little bit better.

and to make it more succinct. I’m still, I’m just, I would say like, I’m on like the final lap, the first draft. And so I’m pretty close to finishing. a good, I would say pretty solid first draft and it’s clocking in over 600,000 words. So I mean, that’s, yeah, that’s longer than a war and peace.

That’s longer than Laura. The rings it’s longer than the stand by Stephen King. what I think I’m going to do is to break it up into three separate novels and do it and release it that way. And that will make it a little bit more, easily digestible, I would say. but I think the child, like, just go back to your question.

I think the challenge is, you know, I, I plot everything out before I write it. So I have a nice structure and I have a nice outline of how things should go. and, but it’s, it’s interesting as you write things come up and you kind of follow where the character takes you. So. It doesn’t quite always follow the structure that you had anticipated and you have to, like, that’s part of creativity I believe is, is really going with the flow a little bit and seeing where, where the characters take you, where the storyline takes you and things have definitely shifted.

And characters have sort of surprised me and done things that I didn’t really think that they were capable of doing. And I know that kind of sounds surprising or it’s kind of interesting because you’re like, well, don’t you make them happen, Joel? And like, and then says, yes, but, you know, I think that’s kind of, you know, that gets down to the very heart of creativity is, is that you can plan things out as much as possible, but really you need to let your creativity take over and go with the flow and not be so rigid in the storyline or in how things should turn out.

And. You know, I think definitely the story is better for it and it is, it’s more interesting the way that it is now opposed to the way that I had initially planned it. So hopefully that answers your question.

Hussein: Yeah. I have so many more questions. Do you want to ask them what? Go ahead and ask. Well, how much would you, would you want to be paid to put me at the center of the story?

I would have not never expected now. And suddenly he was saying her luck came and saved and became emperor and got a lot of money. Hey, I, I’m not sure that I can get that in life. So why not get into the story at least?

Joel: So it’s not about the thing with creativity. It’s not about the money. It’s not about being paid to do it.

I am not getting paid. Hopefully. No, honestly, I hope the book does well and I can make some money off, you know, and I hope that it will be turned into a mini series. That’s my, my goals, but it’s really about the. Just the fun and being in the playground and, you know, having the freedom to do what you want.

So I don’t think there, you can’t put a price tag on that. I’m sorry to say it. Sorry. Yeah.

Hussein: Yeah. I, I had hopes. Okay. Okay. Your turn. All right.

Joel: Should I ask? Okay. So with your, with all your different ventures, I know that you, you do a lot of content marketing. I’m going to bring it back to business a little bit.

you do a lot of, articles on medium and you’re writing a book. And so this obviously takes time and effort and resources. How do you think about content marketing and where does that. where is that placed in the overall structure of even your, your life or your business or your marketing?

Hussein: Yeah, it’s for me, it’s, it’s a very, like, it’s a topic that I’ve thought about and, and it’s.

It’s strange for me. That’s how I would put it. The reason is for me, writing is a form of expression and I love to write, so, I love to write and express, like I get an idea. I don’t want to, I want to get it out there. and the challenge is if I, like a lot of the stuff that moved me has to do with a lot of political contentious stuff.

So I like to write, and I like to basically curse and swear at people for the stupidity and the DRC idiocy that I, that I see. especially right now with the vaccines and the anti-science kind of rhetoric and, yeah, it just drives me crazy. And I, and I, and I can’t stand, there are people who are genuinely, let’s say, Don’t understand that let’s put it this way or their Intel level of intelligence cannot.

They cannot comprehend certain elements, which I understand. And these are not the people I’ve talked about. I’m talking about people who are, they have the level of intelligence and choose to, to basically, act like idiots. These people drive me crazy. So that is mostly, my drive to writing is usually an emotional one.

I I feel about something I even been in business. Like this is not, has to do just with political stuff, but Philip Paul political stuff has become like, intertwined as well sometimes with business. And, because I’m in the, in, let’s say in a first world country where I can express my opinions even more freely than anywhere else in the world.

it’s kind of a, what I, what I ended up doing. So that is, that is what drives me towards writing is I see an idea. I see something and I’ll be compassionate. For example, one of my writings is about, one of the entrepreneurs that I mentored took her own life. When I heard the news I had to write.

So I wrote, and that article kind of talk about the, the, the, challenges that entrepreneurs face. And I’ve literally told people to fuck off, who, who actually want to want to come in and tell entrepreneurs, like they act as supporters for entrepreneurs, but they, they’re not from family members to whatever.

Like, Oh, it was very, I was writing and I’m usually emotional when I’m writing. Like, there’s a lot that I pour there. there are stuff that I write because I want to inform and educate. So there’s a purpose for my writing. It’s never, whenever I try to write, because I need to write, for example, well, my business need, you know, I need to have an article every week that never worked out.

Like it never worked out for me. So I think I’m a big believer of, being driven by passion because it shows it’s kind of like. Talking, because you have to talk, like, for example, saying I have to have, you know, an episode. That’s why I don’t do as much YouTube videos. For example, like I’ve been asked by, my, my team, other people to say, you know what, like, why don’t you do YouTube videos?

Why don’t you, why do, why are you just doing, just articles for, sorry, just interviews with others. And my answer is like, if I have nothing to say, I don’t want to just create a video for the sake of it. I tried it. It just seems so like so many dub. I just can’t, I have huge respect for people who can let’s say produce content every everyday but it’s not like I like to have a conversation.

So for me, the way I produce content is usually has to do with others. I tried being myself and talking to myself, but I love the question. I like the, the. I think what I like is the unexpectedness and the joy of discovery and the joy of not knowing what’s going on. Like in this conversation, I have no idea what you’re going to ask.

So I like that. And I like the art or the ability to create in the moment, the answer thinking and creating that. That’s what brings me joy. Like I light up when I try, like, Oh, how do you figure that out? But to have a specific script or a specific idea to talk about, I ended up, I ended up rambling and, I don’t like it.

Like, there is no joy. If there is no kind of interaction, there’s no joy for me. It’s it has to be on stage teaching. One of the hardest thing is to create, is to create courses. Like I have a lot to say, as you can sell. I talk a lot. I have a lot to say, and I have a lot to educate people and I do believe that I add enormous amount of value, but unless there’s a question and unless there’s a purpose, there’s nothing driving me.

So, when I’m doing a course, that is kind of the questions. Like there’s somebody who’s needing to advance and I’m doing that. But when there’s a video, what am I doing? Like, what am I talking about? So I think that it has to be a question. I think, for me it’s about the conversation. So that is what my approach is with content marketing.

Is, is there, if there’s an open question, if there’s an, let’s say somebody has a challenge that I can help them with. That’s my entrepreneurial thinking, going into content marketing. And I know that limits me, because I can definitely produce 10 times more content. The other challenge is time. and I know like you’re, you’re asking me how I do that.

time is definitely an aspect because, certain pieces of content, like sometimes I sit down and the piece of content just is there, like in half an hour, an hour, like bang, like I can’t believe I wrote that sometimes a piece of content may take two months to be written sometimes more. There’s an article I was writing since, since I think six months now about Trump and, America and stuff like that.

And it’s not finishing, like, I, I stopped, I was stuck. It’s not finishing just like a book. so, Because I know what I want to say, but it’s not coming out. I don’t know how to explain it otherwise. So I think with content marketing, I think what people need to ask themselves, if you are like, if my philosophy and the way I think of things apply to you and you resonate with it is first ask yourself, what is it that you want to say, not the content itself, but after someone reading that content, what are they getting?

So looking at content like a product and that product needs to create and deliver value in some way. And what is the value you get out of it? Like for me, when writing an article, it’s a, sometimes an act of Catholicism where you actually kind of letting go of something or saying something and putting it out there.

There’s a reason why. and, for some, if you’re looking for how many clicks, I mean, I care about that. I care how many people saw it. But the reason I look at engagement is, is kind of a feedback loop to tell me, have I communicated something and value, but if you’re looking at it as like, okay, that would mean business.

I think that’s a wrong reason to do content marketing. Content is just another product that you put out there to help people and to show them how to give them a taste of the help they would get if they use their product. That’s how I think about it. And if that’s not the case, I would recommend that you shut up.

Don’t put that. I mean, we have a ton of content is worthless. I’ve had to sift through that to find, you know, An article about a topic that adds value and an article about a topic that adds value is amazing. Like that’s you, you kind of hold reverence. So for me, the act of writing is somehow, just like the act of conversation.

you have to add value. You ha it has to be about the other person, even though it’s writing. And it’s one way you have to have sound that you’ve listened. So that’s why if it’s coming from a question or you’re solving problem, or you’re addressing something that people would want addressed, that’s where it becomes well, and that’s why I’m sporadic in my writing.

I don’t care. Like I don’t have to. And I think the best thing that I’ve ever done. And if you’re someone like me, the best thing that you can ever do is have conversations with people and record those and turn those into pieces of content. So when I launched my podcast, I didn’t think about it, but within like a couple of months, it recorded around 40 episodes, which is a lot so that I have now content for the next three months of like, just releasing those.

and, I, I can have conversations all day. So I would say, do something that comes naturally and easy for you. Don’t confine it. Don’t confine yourself to the forms of content. Tik, TOK didn’t work for me. Like I tried a couple of videos, even one of them without the audio, I was like, I didn’t even care about removing that.

Like, honestly, it’s for someone, I think that’s a big no-no for someone who’s a marketer who cares about their personal brand, but it’s like, you know what? I couldn’t give a shit, honestly, like I’m not a tech talker. I don’t, I don’t like Tech-Talk, like the, the whole culture of it, all of that. Good. If you, if that’s the place for you.

Great. If it works for you, but even if some of my audiences are there, no, I want to, I want a place where I can communicate in a form that works for me. And for me, the one that works is law Enform, a YouTube kind of a podcast. I want to people to see us. I want the people to do like, that’s what works for me so far.

And it’s an, also a one last thing I want to say. It’s also the defined that it’s an art of discovery, so try different things and then find where you find yourself best. and don’t overdo it. Just start, like at the end of the day, you’re talking to people. So how would you do it naturally without the platform, without the form?

How do you do it in everyday life and try to find a way to transform that to something, that fits in online.

Joel: Does I think those are great, great points.

Hussein: Phil Back right back at you. you are someone who help a lot of people with their, with their content. I know you, you go straight, you go straight for me as well.

What is it? and there’s a reason I think for, for sometimes using ghost writing for me, it’s time and also the play. Like I love working with you on the book because not because I don’t know how to write. I think I’m, I think actually I’m a very good writer, actually. I think I’m an excellent writer, honestly, not to be too full of myself, but I think one of the biggest challenges for me is not having a conversation when I’m writing, what I’m writing is just me and the paper.

And that stops me. So especially on projects that require a lot of work, like a book. I enjoy that. What is it for you that you’ve seen? why, why should people like, why some people that you’ve worked with that, produce great results should come to a ghostwriter and work with somebody like you, what’s the added value and I’m not talking just about the business.

I’m talking about like the whole process and what they, what they can gain from it, aside from a piece of content they can publish.

Joel:  That’s a great question. I think first off. Yeah, I do think you’re a great writer and a lot of my clients are actually, they are great writers. It’s not that they can’t great.

I think it’s, I think you really hit the nail on the head that it’s, it’s having that conversation and having somebody to bounce ideas off of. And then, you know, I’m obviously not an expert in all fields, but what I am really good at is, critical thinking and to really. Come at it from a critical eye and see things, you know, let’s take, let’s take the, you know, blockchain, for example, I’m not an expert in blockchain.

You are. And so having, like, I guess maybe that filter or somebody who can think about blockchain in a different way, from somebody who has had your experience with blockchain is very valuable because it allows you to better communicate with your audience who are not experts. They haven’t spent the time that you have in learning the ins and outs of blockchain.

And so I think having, I kind of look at myself as, as a filter or amplifier and I do both. And so I think it’s, it’s a combination of those two key skills that. allow somebody who is an entrepreneur who has a message that they want to tell to an audience, to the tribe, whatever you want to call it. it really allows them to clarify that message and to make it better.

I think though that’s the real skill. And also sometimes they, they know exactly what they want to say, but they don’t know how to say it. And, and they haven’t quite figured out what the best way of saying it is or how to. To like, kind of hit the key points that they need to. I think, you know, apart from that, there’s obviously, like saving the time you, you referenced that earlier, for somebody who’s busy helping their clients, who has.

You know, they’re running the business, they’re doing a ton of other things. so they don’t necessarily have the time to sit down and write, even though like, like yourself, they’re great writers. It’s not that they can’t do it. It’s just, it’s a time factor for them. And, and so I’m able to help them that way as well.

So just to kind of recap, I think it’s the ability to clarify the message and, and put it out there in an easy, digestible way to understand for people who are not experts or haven’t been following a topic as closely as the actual author. so I think that’s. Really the benefit of a real like, and this is an, we’re not talking about ghost writers, you find on Fiverr or Upwork or whatever, you know, those, those people.

Yeah. And they don’t, I mean, they will say they might save you time. They might save you money.

Hussein: them because it challenges and I know the word quality gets thrown around, but it’s not really that like quality of writing is the eyes of the beholder, but there’s a certain richness, I think, depth in, in writing an article that drives for me, drives every word that I write. So they’re not the same. Yeah,

Joel: No, for sure. And I would agree with that. so find a I’m going to I’ll save it quality again and find, I think it it’s important to find a native English speaker, probably somebody in North America or I, you count as a native, I you’re an honorary native American native English speaker.

Hussein: I said, I studied somewhere in the States or like an American school somehow.

Joel: Yeah, I can, I can totally see that. I can see why they would say that a lot of sessions. And that’s what, that’s how a lot of people learn English.

Hussein: calms and music songs, because you think of it, poetry and, and jokes give you the spirit of the language, right?

More so than reading somewhere. Because when you read the long form is. There’s something else like you can read and you have time to think, but a poetry, you have to understand the kind of image behind that and the meat. So there’s so much in depth. So there’s, the description where like somebody describing when you’re reading a book, they’re describing something.

So they’re taking you to a place, but, but in poetry or in music in that case, you’re, you have to understand what they mean by like, say, my back’s against the wall, for example, that’s not a description. Like what does it mean your backs against the wall? You know? And especially that comes from a lot of history and culture in that, in that language.

So it was like my back’s against it. I don’t have that. For example, in Arabic, it might be all your coordinate me. No, like it’s a different description and something like that creates like, Oh, so now, and the thing is when you, when you hear it the first time you, like, you don’t know what it is, and it’s not like there was, there was internet at the time, but when you hear it used in different contexts, it’s like I had to learn English.

How. Yeah, how babies learn English because, I’ve actually refused to use, throughout my life. I refuse to use, I don’t know if I ever told you that and maybe that’s kind of your question, but anyway, I’ll just digress and talk about that. So what happened is I learned English, way before my peers, because I was in a private school and we learned English.

So I learned English from Oxford English, but that was it. That was the structure that was structured. English was never spoken around me. All of that. However, I loved. Movies. I loved movies, loved cartoons and watch watching those, at a time before we had just one channel, in, in Syria watching those and going to the movies.

My mom used to take me to the movies. I hated translation because I’d look at translation and translation. Obviously a lot of it is censored. For example, like, fuck you is like, it was like, God damn you. That’s how they, they kind of say, okay, that’s not what they’re saying. So anyway, so it’s like, I don’t pay attention.

I actually go out of my way to get movies that are not translated. So I like to watch movies without translation, because I think they take away from the spirit of the movie. But a lot of these, what ended up happening, a lot of the things I don’t understand, but you, when you hear them again and again, and again, for example, the word contemplate.

I remember hearing that word a lot of times and I never really understood what it means. But then a certain point, it clicked for me, it was like, Oh, contemplate. so I never had to look what that means in Arabic. And that’s why a lot of times, I, when I, actually, one of the companies that I opened is a company that does translation.

My translation was different and my translation, I helped him business. I would not translate literally I would translate the meaning and I was very different and we were very successful when I did that. It’s because of that, because I don’t care about what the real, what the actual translation is. And I’m actually discovering that even though I can, I understand what you mean, but I can’t translate it.

So that is how I did and what I used. I read the book, what is it, the conversations with God, for example, a difference. Other people will read it and they will look for every word and what it means because it had some. God explaining for him that it has some very, very, complex, I would say architected, like things that they mean, like there was a lot of play on meanings of words.

And what I did is even though there are sentences of words, I didn’t understand, I just plowed through it. And what ends up happening. It will click for you at certain point. So that is my journey with language. And that’s why I think there are a lot of times when I can ex I really, there are areas where I can express myself in Arabic that I can express myself in English, especially with business because in Arabic, I never read Arabic in business, Arabic business books, all so I can write poetry in Arabic.

And I do. I love poetry in Arabic. I love, I love the Arabic language. poetry’s amazing because we are, that’s how our history we are. A nation of poets. That’s how we started. so it like Arabic language was not even written. It was transferred through poetry and through like long poems that people kind of pride themselves on how they memorized it.

So, that is, that is, that is how, that is how it progressed. But there was no literature in English while I was learning, sorry, in business when I was learning a business. So most of my readings in business are in Arabic, in English. So what ends up happening is what I want to express myself in business.

It’s easier for me to express myself in English. I don’t even think like right now, I’m not thinking what I want to say. That’s I think another thing is, I don’t think in Arabic, what I want to say translated to English, and then I do it. I’m completely like thinking and take and talking to English. Even at home, we speak in English more than Arabic.

So I think that’s, that’s kind of how I got here. cause a lot of people ask me like, how come you seem like you grew up in Canada or grew up in America or something like that? Sitcoms. I love sitcoms by the way. They they’re incredible.

Joel: The nuances of a language are very interesting. The example you gave with, being cornered or being up against the wall. Right? So if I said, who say in you, you put my back up against the wall. Yeah. That would be almost a positive because that means that I am, I have only to go forward. Right. But if you, if I said, who’s saying you cornered me, that’s a very aggressive saying.

Right. And so it’s interesting that there. They they’re very similar, but they are also very different and the tone and the way that you say them is also different. So, yeah, no, I think that’s, that’s very interesting.

Hussein: Okay. Yeah. It’s and that’s why I love these kinds of conversations because it, for example, in this moment, I’m discovering how I see these things.

Cause I, I never had this conversation, the question, I don’t ask myself that question. Right. And that’s why I, like, if somebody were to ask me, tell me, let’s say, let’s do a video about how you can become, let’s say fluent in the English language. For example, if there’s no question, I was like, Oh, you know, do this, do that, read books, you know, like, but I would not tell these stories, but having conversations with someone there’s something about it that I, that I absolutely love.

And that’s why I think, I hated COVID a lot of, obviously, aside from being a disease that kills people, it’s a disease that, that stopped me from being able to have coffees with people where I’m enjoying the most, but that produced a podcast. So

Joel: now I want to talk about why do people. Decide to start a company and you referenced, the person that you mentored, who unfortunately took their own life and startups and starting a business is very hard.

And there’s, you know, I think it’s one in 10 businesses actually succeed after the first year or something, you know, there’s the odds seem insurmountable and insurmountable sometimes, you know, and it’s, there seemed very challenging, but yet there’s this drive to do it. And you help people create their companies and to help them succeed.

So what do you, what do you think it is about human nature that makes people want to create a company?

Hussein: I think it’s the natural included inclination to create stuff and to do stuff in real life. Like it has. I think we, there are two. Or a couple of things there. Number one, we make it more harder than it is.

It’s just a natural kind of thing. If you look at everything you do in life, like how many things you’ve attempted. A lot of things, not only include failure, as, as yeah. Mistakes as part of them, but a lot of things you can kind of leave and they fail and you kind of, you know, it, it blows over. It’s just, you take them as natural because that’s how you learn.

that’s a lot of the stuff you learned in life, like what do you use? Do you use like 1% of what you learned? Like a temporary 10% maybe? we, the nature of it is that we do a ton of stuff. In life, because that’s how we do that. We exploring and businesses just like that. The only thing in business is that the, I think the only reason why, or one of the key reasons why, in business, we, we don’t, we, we look at it this way.

It’s number one, it’s happening in our adult life, in adult life. You, you care about how you see how you’re seeing. And when you care about how you’re seeing you don’t want to, you don’t want to do, you don’t want to look like you’re a failure, whatever that means. Whereas when you’re a kid, you do a ton of stuff and you don’t care.

You break, you break shit. You like, you just be a kid. Right. And you are, you’re sometimes celebrated by people, sometimes punished, but you know, most of the time celebrated as like, Oh, you’re just being a kid. And I think. I that’s how I approach doing business. I approach doing business as it’s just me being somebody who loves building products.

That’s, that’s what I love doing. And that’s what I’ll always do. And, that’s, there is no other way I can be. And I think one of the things that, that we created is that no, you have another life where you can be an employee where, that’s not true. You you’ve always for tens of thousands of years, what we’ve done is we wake up, we go.

See what life has to offer. Maybe get some food and go back to our home and eat it with our family and our community. That’s what we’ve always done. It’s within our nature. And that doesn’t mean there’s a dichotomy between being employed and, and building a business. I think the way that employment happens has a lot of errors in it.

And there are companies are trying to, to fix it where creating an environment for people to remain creative. So you can have an entrepreneurial mindset, which every, I think everyone has it. It’s kind of like Picasa saying everybody is an artist. We just kind of educate them out of being an artist.

Everybody loves to create, everybody loves to do it. All. Everybody loves to create new ideas. Everybody has an idea. What we want is to create a channel for it. Unfortunately right now, the only, the, one of the biggest challenges is to create a company. Not everyone is meant to do that. I don’t mean by nature.

I mean like anything that is hard, do you need training for it? You need to persistence for it and you need the environment for it. And not everyone has that. Not everyone has the training, not everyone has the persistence and that everyone has the environment around them. And that’s what I mean, you need all of those elements in order to help you need education.

You need the persistence and the understanding that this thing will take time. And, and then, you need, you need the, the environment, think of learning anything, playing the guitar, you know, you want to play the guitar, you need the education, you can’t just hold the guitar and play like you can, but that will take you longer because the positioning of your fingers, the kind of way, knowing where to start will definitely accelerate your journey.

So training, and then you need to have the persistence. You need to know that somebody will tell you, Hey, playing the guitar. It will take you like a few years before you can play a song comfortably or stuff like that, depending on what you apply, let’s say classical guitar. It will take time. It’s just because it’s established, but nobody tells you that when you’re doing a company, it’s like, yeah, this company made it.

That’s what you’re here. This company reached a billion dollars in five months. I was like, I can do that. And that desire and that kind of a belief that you can do that is great. It gets to get you started. But then somebody has to educate is like, listen, that’s one out of millions of companies that are out there and not every company is meant to do that because the market has to be there.

Then the environment around you, and when you’re playing guitar, you need environment. Like you can’t train. If there’s no space to train, you need, let’s say people can encourage you. And somebody’s listening to your feedback, stuff like that. That is hard when you’re doing business, especially the more rural you are, the more you’re not connected to a startup community.

These are the challenges that exist in startup because we don’t talk about them. Like we talk about, let’s say learning the guitar or stuff like that. We think there’s something magical about that. We’ve convinced ourselves that entrepreneurs are something unique, something rare. No. It’s not, I’ve met thousands.

I had the privilege of meeting thousands of entrepreneurs. If there’s anything in common with, with between them is there’s nothing in common. They’re just like every other person you meet, everybody can offer something. And I’ve seen all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds, building companies and failing, and equally failing and equally succeeding without no reason or rhyme.

these are just like, you know, you can give the guitar to everyone. So then we’ll make great music. Some of them will make, you know, average music. Some of them will fail. It’s just, just for similar kind of reasons. and so removing the fact of these outliers that don’t belong again, like the exception doesn’t disprove the rule, right?

We’re all human capable of doing that. So I think that’s the way. So I would say there are reasons why not to start a startup. Don’t do a startup. If you are a reason, it’s like, Hey, this is a great way to make money. No, Everybody who didn’t did a startup will tell you, you can’t make money doing a startup and will take you a long time to do that.

There’s faster ways to make money. Don’t do it for the money. Don’t do it for the status. Don’t do it because you, you, you choose to do it in the sense that you choose to go into and you choose to the kind of value you want to create an app to the world. Doesn’t exist. You want to create, deliver and capture value in unique ways that are, do not exist in the world.

I mean, not happy with the ways that exist in the world, and you think you can offer something better. That’s a great reason to start get the education, have the perseverance, and Cree if either positioning yourself in an environment or create the environment to support yourself and support others.

Launch Academy started by Ray while trying to create the environment for himself and other entrepreneurs ended up creating launch Academy and helped thousands of entrepreneurs. So that’s what I would think, how people should look at a startup. Hmm, it’s a topic I’m very passionate about then. Thanks for asking. All right. Your turn, final question, I think because, how much time do we have?

Joel: It’s up to you? How much time do you have?

Hussein: I have a two minutes and two questions. I was falling to one of the, can we like, if we want, we can pick it up or I can just cancel the meeting after, what do you think that’s given me a 20 minute challenge.

All right. Let’s do this question. And then, w I would love to come back another for another episode. How about, okay. Sounds good. All right. So, what is it that let’s say, what is it that you want for. This is like granular going. If you were to shape the world, if you were to write something and that writing becomes reality, what would be the story of the world that you would tell in the future,

Joel: be around the importance of journalism and communication?

So I believe that I don’t know how this exactly would look like, but something I would like to convince the world that journalism is worth, worth spending money on it’s worth. Cause right now we look at journalism as something free that we find on Facebook, on, social media, on apps and it actually. It takes a lot of money to create this content where somebody has to be paid to go interview people, craft it, put together, it needs to be edited and then put out into the world.

Right. And it used to be that you’d have to have a subscription to a newspaper. You used to pay money to, you know, for the TV channel, whatever, however it was sent to you. Right. And now we just expect it for free. And that has created a huge deficit and the journalism world where, and I think this, you know, you’re, you were talking earlier about political issues and how, you know, you’re very passionate about it.

And the world we live in is very divided. And it’s not only to do how journalism is communicated to us, but I think a large part of that is that the, we don’t have that really high quality journalism that we used to have. We have people like people trying to do quick and dirty news stories that are not fact checked properly that are not in depth.

And. They are then sent out into the world as reality, and it’s not. And then people start to believe them and then they, they take sides and then they start fighting with other people on other sides. And it’s just, it doesn’t create a very good environment. So how I’d like to create the world is where we have a strong, like a very strong journalism center and that, you know, and it doesn’t, you know, it’s, it’s a very hard thing to create first off because there’s never like an ultimate truth or there’s never a one side to story and people will always take what they want and leave other things.

And so, but if we could have as unbiased journalism as possible, then. I think that would create a way better world where we are listening to the other side, we are learning from them and we may not always believe what they say, or we may never take what they say to be true, but we can, we can understand them.

And I think that is what is missing in journalism today is that we’re just piping out this rhetoric of, you know, this side did this, this side, did that, and that’s not bring us together. And I think with the challenges we’re facing with climate change, with COVID with a whole myriad of different things that are happening in the world today, we cannot afford to be, to be this divided.

We need to come together to solve them. we can’t just, you know, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, I think they’re doing some really. Amazing work, especially Elon Musk in terms of, fighting climate change with Tesla, but we cannot rely on these people to, you know, solve our problems for us. We need to come together as a community and we’re just not doing that.

And I think the way we do that is through quality journalism. And I don’t think a lot of people realize that and how much journalism plays a huge part in the, in our world today. Right. And I think, Facebook has kind of, you know, we’ve had this conversation, but it’s take, it’s kind of filled that vacuum.

it’s kind of taken over that role of journalism. And I think that’s extremely, extremely dangerous because general cause Hey, Facebook doesn’t care about journalism limit. Doesn’t really like my personal opinion. It doesn’t really care about truth. they’re not a very ethical company and we need all that in a journalism company and that’s not Facebook.

And I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but I know that we are desperately in need of them. So I think, you know, if I could change the world and, and have a singular story, it would be that we need a company that produces ethical, unbiased journalism that we can consume.

Hussein: Oh, boy, you opened the can of worms. Okay. So I canceled my meetings. I can, I can continue that. I have a take on this that, I think number one, when it comes to journalism, I think the challenge with, I think the story is missing something. So let’s say let’s take journalism and divide it into. and speaking from someone who is speaking from outside, obviously, and speaking from someone who was in a co in a country where all the major papers were controlled by the government, an authoritarian government.

So. I think journalism, you have the journalists who are, kind of, that’s where the journalists journalism is decentralized. You have journalists who, people who can write. Okay. and then there is the medium itself. So whether it’s video written and then there is the journalistic bodies, let’s say, in this case, New York times, Washington post let’s say journals basically as part of the channels.

I think what used to happen is you had a lot of gr, let’s say journalistic bodies, but they were, they were highly decentralized. So there is, let’s say there’s the local newspaper. There’s an, and the competition for, for breaking a story. obviously let’s say if somebody suppressed because listen powers, let’s say the people who are powerful in the world, what’d you call them a lead powerful corporations, government, people who have power, do not want, let’s say to do, to have that power be diminished and having a bad story written about you is some form of diminishing that power.

So they will seek to kind of suppress that. There’s no conspiracy. It’s just natural. How people always done that throughout our lives. Like that’s how people do people with power will always want to maintain power. And I think as threat to that, they will strive to suppress it. That’s how it is, that before the, you know, the first amendment and the freedom of speech, people will always done that.

It’s not because we have freedom of speech or we don’t, that’s like people try to make it like that. A historical kind of story. People with power will always suppress people. other, other stories about them to maintain that power and, keep people who are under them under them. So. I think that always happened, but journalists had different, like if you were suppressed here, they will go somewhere else.

And of course, journalists kind of put their life on the line, journalists who are doing that. Not every journalist, there are journalists, do you know? Right. Kstories about the community, whatever, like fine. That’s what you want to do. It’s like there are different levels and there’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s, that’s what it’s not journalist in general.

It’s important to have that kind of, we’re talking about reporting journalism or investigative journalism that kind of really uncovered the things that otherwise would not be possible. I think they’re essential to our world. Do I really want to know about what Kim Kardashian meant? No, I think that’s stupid.

Kind of. It’s not journalism. That’s not, when we talk about journalism, that’s kind of saying the news, like you have the ability to write and you kind of write about the news, like your news kind of thing. Not really interesting for me. so I think that is still there because people are still there.

People have different interests, like. Like in everything people still have. We have still great journalists. So I think journalism is not a, Triscuit what a tryst right now is how the power structures are just like, so for example, I would say the, the medium within which you, you communicate are now just like before.

So, so for example, it happened with journalistic entities. Digital did eating up those small journalism, or the, these guys would go out of business because of the business model was threatened and they don’t evolve enough and there’s no support from the community. So we started getting more and more concentration, just like what happened with TV channels and stuff like that.

And that is where it starts because now people with power do not have to control a lot of people, just like it’s the opposite of blockchain. Blockchain comes about and distributes. The power that exists in, let’s say several computers, which you can control. But now tens of thousands of computers is very, very hard to control and hack similar way.

Think of it as hacking people with money that will use that money to hack the, the journalistic and come down on them. Because also there are people with power there and say, listen, if you threaten my power here, here’s how I’ll threaten your power. So they end up suppressing the stories and they never come out.

All right. Or they, if they come out in a different way, they lose their, their leverage a story coming out that New York times have, obviously whether people like it or not, it just have more resonance. It has have more authenticity, perceived of course. So, and then there are the mediums, the mediums right now just became like that, but there are different things like YouTube, YouTube suppresses Facebook is another medium.

Also controlled by people of power. So I think journalism itself from, from journalists themselves, haven’t changed in the sense that people would want to investigate and write. I think the medium has changed significantly, whereas multiples, Childs of medium, but still the same level of control of people who do art want you to do that?

And that’s in addition to having the algorithms control that. So it gives more resonance to things that are more sensational. What drives people to sensationalize, because what happens is part of those journalists, there are still people who are in any field. There are people who are kind of, true to the, to the essence and the spirit of the, of the profession that they’re in.

But there are people who are no shitheads, you know, like they don’t give a shit, even though they have the skillset, but you know, like, Oh, I can sensationalize this and I can earn more money. Great. Let’s do it. And what ends up happening is all of these things ends up taking away from the field and you get people saying, Oh, journalists, there’s no point or journalists.

Journalism has lost his credibility, which is bullshit. You know, there are some people who lost credibility. So just like in everything, it’s kind of like saying all politicians are bad or all lawyers are assholes. Okay. It’s just the same bullshit generalization. There are people that are good and bad in every profession.

It’s what the, what the environment is amplifying. And right now we live in a, in a, in a world where whatever we’re amplifying are the worst of us. The world is structured to amplify. The worst of us like Elon Musk is a shithead. Okay. He’s might be very smart, but it’s a big fucking shithead. The same thing with Jeff Bezos.

Somebody’s sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars. Okay. Should not exist, honestly. Like it’s just insane. He doesn’t need it. He can’t use it. And he has enormous amount of power over hundreds of millions of people that should not exist. And aside from that, he’s a shithead. Like everything he does is actually bad, like suppressing his workers, having his workers, you know, piss in bottles like that should not be that person should not be revered for anything.

Okay. That person should be kind of diminished and Dimi. What is it? The demeanor. Is that a word like, you know, like you, you should look at him with disgust. aside from any, because of the way that he’s creating. And then that’s even like, if you look at someone who forces someone else to live in horrible conditions and forces them to like, have the conditions that these workers have, if they have one worker, you would look at discuss upon them.

How about somebody who is capable, but unwilling to kind of elevate that. And it will not hurt Tim by the slightest. Like it would not even like, even like scratch, is that like that’s even more disgusting. So I think somebody like him is completely disgusting. I think the same thing of Elon Musk he’s completely like as a person, he’s absolutely disgusting for me.

I would never even want to put them on a pedestal at all. Like they don’t even shine a light. Listen, Steve jobs was all kind of horrible things. Heart. Let’s say, people say he’s horrible boss or whatever, but he had a philosophy, had something to add and he never. Ever used his, his money to kind of suppress people.

He, when he fired people, he fired them because they did not align with his vision of the company. Not because he wanted more money. So that, to me, why he’s like, he’s not even at a level of those. Yes. He was a billionaire, but he’s never used his power that way. These guys are using all their power to make society worse.

And, and in, in, especially Elon Musk, when he did with what he did and believe yet, like he supported the coup in Bolivia. I don’t know how anybody in their right mind can think of anything other than this disgusting person. So these are, these are my thinking. And I think those people have, have enormous amount of power and definitely ruining journalism because they are using, you can bet they’re using that power to suppress all kinds of stories about them to go after.

The people who’s who let’s say in their words, smear them. So we don’t hear about their stories. So these are some of the, some of the challenges as well, but, people with power have more power and they’re suppressing and hurting journalism. That’s my, my take. That’s my rant.

Joel: You mentioned blockchain. Do you think that can help journalism? I mentioned that one of the problems with journalism is very biased. So with using blockchain technology, can we get closer to the truth? Is that something that’s even possible?

Hussein: I think there has never been a, I think a time where. We had some like objective truth is objective truth. You can verify it with facts, whatever, but even that has been challenged and it’s been challenged all over the world, but now more aggressively on a wider scale. But we know throughout life, like nothing is like, you know, people have been able to lie the people at the time. It was, if you had a printing press and you can print more, you could be, you could, you’re, you’re able to lie and you spread your lies.

hence the church or any religion, if you wish, give any religion. I don’t know if we want to get them to that waters, but you know, like you can, you can publish whatever you want to publish and if you have the power. So, I think what, maybe there’s a chance with blockchain, to come back to a world where things don’t spread.

So what blockchain does as a technology is decentralized things, takes the center and decentralized. So think of Facebook becoming 10,000 Facebooks. Okay. And what that does. It eliminates the power of the certain group of people like Mark Zuckerberg and the people there in the name of profit. And I want to name them like notice.

I said, for example, Elon Musk or whatever, I named him disgusting people. I didn’t name them evil. Okay because it’s not about them being evil, it’s about the ability to do harm. So with centralization, you have higher ability to, to do harm centralization of finance, centralization of computing power.

And that’s what those people are able to do because of the centralization of their power. They have, they can do that. There are certain people that board, the directors, or the senior executives who are making decisions that impact billions of people. And that is the challenge with decentralization. You don’t have that.

You don’t have a billion, like a group of people that I can impact billions of people you have, it’s decentralized to tens of thousands of people. If not hundreds of thousands of people now have a vote, have a say. And usually when you have groups of people like we saw, like for example, yeah. We saw the rise of let’s say shit, heads in these, in the States and people who want to.

And, but a lot of those people are sometimes misinformed and, and, and tricked into doing stuff. So if you want to really talk about like people who are pure shitheads, okay. They’re few, these are genuinely more progressive. Why? Because progress helps most of them. So, all they can do is kind of, like trick them and centralization enables them to do that.

Decentralization gives people the ability to lead again, to democratize kind of the decision-making. And with that, the hope if we, if we democratize decision-making and people still choose worst stuff, then we deserve what’s coming our way. Let’s face it, you know, but if we democratize the way and, and I think there’s a lot of in the past few years, there’s a lot of blame on people.

Like how can people be? And I’ve been like, guilty with that, but thinking about it and adopting more of the blockchain way of thinking is that if we think about it, people generally are more progressive. If you look at every kind of decision in the U S. Let’s take us because us Americans are usually kind of ostracized and like, you know, talked about as being like, Oh, these stupid people.

But if you look, actually, that’s not true. If you look at all the decisions like Medicare for all like, education, canceling the debt, you know, Wars, the general consensus like, Oh, it’s 70%, 80% are all against, let’s say Wars for helping people for like, they afford that. But the politicians are disconnected from what they’re  are, are, are asking for.

So it’s not the American people, it’s those empowered. So by decentralizing the power by decentralizing, the ability to make decisions, you give way to those groups of people to control their destiny. So you can do that with finance, which is very powerful. You can do that as well with, let’s say decentralizing, Facebook, you Sentra.

Now, whether are we going to get there because you have enormous amount of powerful people or a few. Powerful people with enormous amount of resources fighting against that. Co-opting, let’s say blockchain and blockchain is a very powerful technology to co-opt when you co-opt it, you have even more control.

So Facebook, which is trying right now with Libra is trying to kind of co-op let’s say decentralization, everybody’s trying to do that. what ends up happening is you have even more control because you, you, you have, you have, for example, if you have, if you have a decentralized, central currency that works on blockchain, you can literally shut down.

Let’s say you have a hundred thousand dollars today. Tomorrow the government doesn’t like you or somebody. It doesn’t like you who’s well-connected they can shut down your money. You can’t use your money anymore. You don’t have it. That is. Not possible today, as fast as let’s say, there are, let’s say certain gateways still let’s say not in a, in an ideal society, but there is that.

So there are these things who knows what’s going to happen. So can blockchain help? Absolutely. The right blockchain again, blockchain is just like any other technologies, how it’s used. There are different kinds of implementations of blockchain. So can it help in the, in a, in a, hopeful, correct implementation?

Yes. Blockchain can be a huge force to democratize. Decision-making democratize access to different things, democratize power, and democratize kind of a wealth and equality between people, which I think is, is very, very helpful. imagine people, you know, voting right now. If you look at, if you look at, let’s say, This, the thing that’s happening with, black lives matter, for example, or stuff like that.

Like imagine people having a say in those policemen that actually commit that are supposed to protect the community and don’t, or having a say in the, in the trials and, and, and people that say what they did have access to the, to the facts and can actually vote on something. If somebody used with, you know, wanting to work or, or stuff like that should work, what’s what’s happening right now.

People are fired from a one police department and then they go work in another police department and do the same thing. So stuff like that becomes even harder when you have access to two facts, access to democratize access and democratize our ability to participate in governing self-governance is very powerful.

Awesome. Too much information. No, my question. Now your question. Why the heck are you always in a kitchen? Is it because of the sound, sound, kind of quality? My studio, your studio is a kitchen. Do you cook?

Joel: I do. Not very well but I do.

Hussein: So what are the things of life that you enjoy doing that are not, you know, the work or whatever, like stuff that you enjoy doing when you’re not working and when you’re not like busy, busy being the professional you

Joel: is, is it’s all intertwined and love stories. Stories are so much a part of my life. And I think they’re super important. So, I mean, storytelling is always. Whether it’s work-related or personal, I just like good stories. So, I mean, I love reading, I love movies. I love Netflix. you know, I mean, I think, you know, I’m watching star Trek right now and that’s, I mean, it’s not great storytelling, but it’s good enough in it.

Hussein: Which one are you watching?

Joel: I’m watching Voyager. Oh, okay. I’ve gone through the reason I was watching star Trek was because I wanted to watch the card, which came out and I went through all of next generation and then watch the card and I just kind of continue. But yeah, I think storytelling is so important and it’s such a necessary part of life.

And if you can. We’ve a good story. Then you can actually do so much. I think it’s, you can succeed in so many different, avenues of life. You can get jobs, you can, you know, persuade, convince, you can sell stuff you can market with good stories. yeah. I think the fact that we remember stories is so super important, so, I’m always up for a good story.

I’m always up for, you know, learning through storytelling. It’s, it’s a way that I learn, you know, I don’t, I’m not very good with, with learning facts, figures, dates, that sort of thing. But you tell me a good story. I don’t remember it. And, so I think that is, is key. And so, yeah, even though. I’m not working.

I’m always, yeah, I’m always up for a good start. I don’t know if that answers your question, but yeah.

Hussein: Yeah. So did you see the latest kind of, what does it start tech galactic or what is it?

Joel: There is, discovery this discovery now I haven’t seen it yet.

Hussein: That’s good. The visual storytelling is I can’t stand looking at old stuff when it’s old. I can’t go back. There is no, I don’t have a sense of nostalgia, I think because I like, I like new stuff and I’m a techie. So at the time they’re like, Oh my God, they’re amazing. But now it’s like, this is, this is really like, I’m noticing, like I can see this is the green screen here. Yeah, no,

Joel: I did that too, but okay. Let’s do one more question each and then we’ll wrap it up. Okay. My question is. So you’ve done 40 podcasts, 40 plus podcasts interviewed 40 amazing entrepreneurs. What has your biggest takeaway from that experience? Been

Hussein: my biggest takeaway from it is that we, first of all, there’s so much to people that, every time I have a conversation, a lot of those people I knew and I’ve had conversations with.

So there’s a ton too. To learn and to glean from every conversation, which was why it’s great to have those conversations again and again and again. So I think that’s a, that’s pretty cool. And I would want to do it again, every time actually. So, yeah, I thought that I, that it’s great to have a conversation with them.

It’s great to have another conversation as well. Like it’s always kind of, Oh wow. I, I wanna, I wanna have that conversation with them. so that is, that is one of the biggest takeaway. The other thing is, We are all somehow the same. So I spoken from the president of, the, Capilano university, for example, to an entrepreneur that is just starting to, you know, someone who’s heading the community ahead of, you know, in, innovate BC, for example.

so different people, different backgrounds, working on different things, but somehow there’s, all of them, all of us get challenges regardless of where our level in life. There are. There’s a challenge when you are there. It’s kind of like if you think of my metaphor of always climbing Mount Everest, I always think of anything like climate verse, like the people who are at the bottom, having challenged that has to do with where they are at the bottom, the people in the middle are facing challenges that has to do with middle.

And the people at the top are facing challenges. When they’re at the top, there’s never a time where you stop facing challenges. Even the people at the summit. Like if you know anything about. Everest, which I know quite a bit. Cause I keep reading about it. you’re at the, at the summit, you can only stay for us for a while before you die.

Basically you have to, you have to go down and also it’s equally, some people die. We down, not necessarily on the way up. So in a similar fashion, we have our perceptions about what people are dealing like you, you come into the conversation and that’s, I think one of also my learnings is I have to come into those conversations without perceptions, what, but with complete.

And I usually do that with conversations with, I think, makes it more fun. You can have, of course I have perceptions about people and where they are, but I come into those conversations with doubt, those perceptions. I come in thinking. Well, what do I want to really learn? And I just follow what the conversation tells me.

Like sometimes I even have some prepared questions, very few, but then I jump in and it’s like, Oh, tell me about that. That’s exciting. And then, and sometimes people like, I know my wife said, you say the same things every time in the sense like, Oh, this is a really interesting, I said, because it is so, so I think that’s, that’s also interesting where you come in and you have your perceptions about people, and then you completely discovered that, those perceptions are not accurate.

Like they are. Just like you in a sense. And they facing just different kinds of challenges because they are, they’re living a different life. And it’s so thrilling, exciting to do that. And the purpose of that, of those meetings was to provide people with stories that they can relate to rather than me telling them.

And that’s, I think one of the key things for me is that my team is always pushing me. Like say stuff. Cause I like to talk. I can go on YouTube and do that. And my biggest challenges, I’d rather you hear it from somebody else. I don’t want to become the person you go to. I don’t want you to become, think of me like, Oh, I’m saying it’s the guru to go to us instead.

Let me be the facilitator to learn from others and their story. That’s I think where, where I stand not to say that I don’t want to be your guru. Of course I want, and I want more money, but this is, this is better. Feels better. Well, one question for you. Final question. Silent. Why is he not saying anything?

Like why is he jumped, but I’m forgetting the, where we are. Okay. Last question for you. what has been the biggest, let’s say the biggest thing that you can take away from our relationship, like from our interactions, throughout like to you regardless, this is not a, you can obviously spend the next 15 minutes.

Tell me how awesome I am, but that’s not what I’m saying is that from a relationship where we, we met in a certain way, we, we had our interactions. What was, what was like for you? Like something that you got that you think, Oh, you know what you would, you would want to get more even or something like that. I’m curious.

Joel: That’s a very good question. I think I. I know we spoke about this when you interviewed me on your podcast. But one of, I would say, and I’m not verbalizing this because it’s actually true. But I think one of the defining moments in my life was I was working at Starbucks and just not getting where I want it to be.

I was writing, I was producing movies, but they weren’t as successful as I wanted them to be. I felt like I wasn’t getting where I want it to be fast enough. And I was making ends meet at Starbucks and not like financially, not doing all that great, but not, I, you know, I was okay too, but I met you because I wanted to expand my horizon.

I wanted more and I wanted to be better. And. I remember kind of just being at a very low point and funny enough, we were, I remember this very distinctly. We are in the Starbucks in westbound. I basically told you all this and saying how I was not. Yeah, I just was not happy. I was not succeeding and the things I wanted to succeed in and I was not doing the things I wanted to do and I was not enjoying life.

And a lot of people would have just patted me on the back and say, they’re there, you know, it’ll get better. And, and give me a whole bunch of like tropes of how, you know, how life should be. But I think the way, the thing that I appreciate the most about you is the way that you cut through the bullshit and you get to the heart of the matter.

And I remember you said. they said, okay, so if you want to improve things, you need to do exactly what I say. And I’m like, Oh, sure. Like, cause I was just at, it’s such a low point. I would have done anything for practically. but I think it was the faith and trust that put in a friendship at that point.

And I, I see, honestly, it hadn’t known you for that long, but I could see the authenticity of you and I could see the willingness to help. And just the person that you are, this is the, the, the Pat on the back part of Hussein. but the other, I guess the other part of her saying is like, yeah, it’s just the way that you cut through everything.

You don’t, you don’t give this fluffy advice. You don’t spend time saying, well, Joel it’s okay. You know, you’re you’re okay. And you’re doing fine, but you. You’re able to get to the, like I said, the heart of the problem and give impactful advice straight away, the no bullshit, advice I like to say. And so you said you need to do exactly what I, what you need to do.

Exactly what I say. And I was like, yes, I’ll do exactly. Anything, anything you say I’ll do. And then, so you said join landmark. And at that point you had, you’d invited me a couple of times and I’d Hammond hard. I’m like, I don’t really want to do this. Self-help kind of stuff. And it seems like a lot of work and I have to take an entire weekend and there are 12 hour, 18 hour days.

It’s a lot of work. And I felt, I remember I felt trapped. I was like, shit. He had got me. Cause I had said, yes, I’m like fine. And so I signed up for landmark. And went through that, the forum, which is the, what is it? The three and a half-day, intensive program and got so much out of that. And ever since that moment, life has just gone up and up enough.

I felt like that was definitely like a low point in my, my life. And so being able to continually climb higher and higher and reach higher objectives and reach new things. And now, like, you know, two companies I’m doing fairly well. I get to work on great projects. I get to do this podcast. I think a lot of that honestly has to do with that moment in time.

And so. I think that if anybody could get somebody in the life that is, and you just did this recently, right through, you asked me, do you want the fluffy answer? Or do you want the no bullshit answer? Right. And I said, no bullshit. And you, you, you just like, it’s like an arrow. Like you just went rightful a bullseye and you just hit it straight on.

Right. And, and so I really appreciate that about you because not it’s, it’s actually, it’s a real difficult skill to have because you do it with such empathy and such compassion. Most, if most people did it like that, that you’d be like, Oh, this person’s just an asshole. But just trying to like, I mean, I think Tony Robbins, he has some good stuff, but sometimes he comes off as an asshole.

Right. Whereas I’d never get that from you. I never get that impression that you’re this cocky asshole that just knows what to do. And life is a whole grand and peaches and roses. So it a difficult balance where you give me the hard truth, but yet do it with such love and knowledge and compassion that I know that you actually have my best interests at heart.

And that the fact that you don’t give me the fluffy answer, is actually, cause I know it’s a lot, it’s a lot harder for some people to give that ultimate truth. Because it can be hurtful. It can be, it can be hard and it can put the relationship are at risk. Right. But you never do that. You, you always are willing to put that risk out there and, and are able to impact people in ways that a lot of people aren’t because you have that, that hard truth about you. So thank you. I think we will end it there.

Hussein: that’s a good way. That’s a good way to give you a good way to answer it. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, I think, I think, one of the biggest things, if I may say before I let you go, is. The ability. I’ve always appreciated people who put themselves out there and risk their selves themselves to give me something that is worthwhile.

I know my wife has done that. She’s always been like my toughest critic. And while everybody else was like around me kissing my ass and like, it’s hard, right?

Joel: It’s not, it’s not always easy, especially with the people that you care about most?

Hussein: And I hated that when she did it like that. Exactly. I wanted to hear compliments.

I wanted like why you’re not, you know, accomplice. I mean, to me, and like I realized that that’s what I needed at the moment I needed the hard, the hard truth. And, and I think these are people that are rare. And I, and I’ve asked myself, who do I want to be for the people in? And it’s not always this, like, it doesn’t always, the other thing is that you sometimes.

Fall flat on your face kind of thing. So, so it’s, it’s, it includes a lot of risks because we, we want to be liked. We want to maintain the relationship. We want to maintain that people are under, so like us, but my question is I want somebody around me who likes me, but they’re like, life is shit. Or do I want to, you know, to enjoy people kind of flourishing in my presence.

And, and I thought, and I, and I. Once you taste that as well. It’s honestly, one of the things I want to add, it’s a very, very selfish thing to do because surrounding yourself with people that are, that are kind of succeeding in your life and around you and kind of achieving stuff around you is very addictive and very kind of fulfilling.

So, so that’s why I do it. Thanks for, thanks for sharing that. That’s great feedback. Great answer. Thanks for having me. This was a lot of fun. It was

Joel: a lot of fun and I think it was super helpful to people listening and watching, for people who want to reach out to you, where can they find you?

Hussein: LinkedIn? My new name is dark art mentor because, because my, my book has the dark art of, of life mastery. So, LinkedIn that can search my name. I think there’s only two Hussein hillocks in the world. One is a scientist in Israel. So he’s done, he’s done more than I do, like science and stuff and whatever, and the other compete.

So, so yeah, so you’ll find me very easy search for saying, and you’ll find this bold head, hopefully don’t search for earlier. Photos of me with hair, please. so yeah, search for me on, on Google. You’ll find me. I have my. That’s a, that’s my email. Very easy to find.

Joel: Thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom and all your knowledge and have a great rest of the day.

Hussein: Thanks buddy. I love the conversation.