Realize Mortality: You Only Live Twice
YES, I START (THIS NEWSLETTER)
I struggled to publish this edition #1 (yay!) of The Faith-Conscious Leader newsletter, intended to be launched on the 1st Tuesday of this month. Today is already Saturday. Better late than never, so here goes. 😌
After partially drafting edition #1 on Tuesday, my next 3 days were sad days of two deaths of loved ones: my brother-in-law, Zainuddin Zaini (Abang Din) and my cousin Faizal Sohaimi‘s wife, Emily Cheong.
The common epitaph I heard from most people at the two funerals was a simple phrase. “Abang Din was a good person.” “Emily was a good person.” Masha Allah, that to me is a pinnacle of having lived: to be remembered as a “good person”! Within that phrase lies layers upon layers of virtues, achievements and impact to others and impact to the world, unique to who says it.
I can’t go back to finishing the original draft of the newsletter edition (will keep it for a later edition). I feel compelled to write anew, on living this life in this world, dying, and then living again the second time in the hereafter.
REALIZE MORTALITY
In a previous article, I wrote:
I was spared.
It made me confront a difficult yet liberating reality: I am mortal, and I don’t control the clock.
This realization exploded into clarity. What truly matters? What am I really here for?
Self-leadership begins by remembering the end. Mortality isn’t morbid, it’s motivational. Leaders must see time as amanah, a trust we will account for.
Let that guide how we live, lead, and love.
In my coaching, I now need to help clients see this moment not as a threat, but a call to action. What would you do differently if you knew your time was limited?
Realizing mortality clarifies priorities, strengthens purpose, and shifts leadership from performance to amanah: the sacred trust of time, health (physical or otherwise), and influence.
Living is twice (ditch YOLO, okay?): in this world and in the eternal afterlife, the true “end.”
Since the 1980’s I’d embraced Stephen R. Covey‘s “Begin with end in mind,” while trying to make sure it is for this “life” and also for the eternal Paradise (pray that I not fumble to Hellfire). So the “end in mind” has many horizons while I live out this world, toward the ultimate end.
Ultimately God decides where He places me and all of us, “but time as amanah (trust)” includes the need for me to strive to be good persons like Abang Din and Emily.
What should we do in our personal and professional lives on this planet since we know our time is limited? (Abang Din lived a long life to his 80’s but Emily left without alarming symptoms in her 50’s).
Time is limited for us to fulfill the mission and amanah given, to be good. At Emily’s funeral, Johan Irwan Kamarozaman and I were talking about examples of being good all the time, because we can never know how a seemingly small good deed (often one that we’ve forgotten) can create a great impact that continues for many years after!
“The best people are those who are beneficial to other people” – Hadith
MAP TO THE REAL GOOD
Be it Covey’s 7 Habits which I adapt and adopt in especially my professional life, or be it generating and regenerating effective business models together with my startup and growing clients, or be it simply songs and poetry that I love, the challenge I find is for me to map the knowledge around me so that I can be good and do good.
Mapping means for me first hearing, reading or viewing what I expose myself to and what I experience, then determining the real truth and the real good. Mapping means not being lazy with my captive mind that does not critique what is out there.
Earlier this year I did a sharing session on my recent lessons in life (and near-death). In the following excerpt from it, I lamented how in my younger days I failed to (or innocently avoided?) connecting what I discovered and enjoyed to real truth.
After viewing the video, let’s see the implications of what I need to do.
I KEEP LEARNING
I am no guru on leadership, management and strategy, nor a holder of a degree in Islamic studies. Yet, knowing my time in this world is limited, I strive to be a student of faith, a good coach who helps leaders to goodness, for themselves, and more so for their companies and people they touch.
Learning includes learning what is good, and distinguishing what is not good. Breaking through my captive mind is not easy, because of me having taken for granted the decades of programming I’ve been through.
As examples, colonisation (I was born in the year that Malaysia became Merdeka [!] from colonial rule), and the ensuing coloniality (lasting structures of power, culture and knowledge that continue to shape the world and human societies long after direct colonial rule has ended) have shaken or upended our traditions.
Other examples do not have to be from outside. Local flavours (or disflavours, really) of ethno-nationalism, nepotism, cronyism or even outright corruption have become “calcified” like my heart arteries that needed major bypass surgery. Reform feels daunting.
Yet there is hope.
Find moments and movements toward reform. For example, conscious capitalism, ethical capitalism and human governance: can we take participative, influencing or leadership roles in these, to create change from within the established systems?
What autonomous knowledge can we produce that are faith-conscious and faith-based frameworks for the Muslim ummah and for mankind?
On the individual and self-initiated levels, I do find strategies during my conversations with other faith-conscious leaders, and am inspired by them.
- George Bohlender and Hanie Razaif-Bohlender, “The Career Doctor” publish on their company website the company values of I.B.A.D.A.H. (integrity, balance, accountability, diligence, appreciation, honesty), ibadah meaning worship.
“And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me” – Quran 51:56
Worship is an all-encompassing concept that includes ritualistic acts as well as every sincere action and intention done to please Allah.
- Latifa Mak 🌱 founded Workship Labs (“helping Muslim entrepreneurs thrive in their businesses and their faith”), coining “workship” from “work” and “worship.” I participated in their 2024 pilot workshop on workship. I encourage you to subscribe to their newsletter.
- I also participated in Nurhayati Sabandi‘s Barakah Productivity Masterclass, also last year, after reading Mohammed A. Faris‘s book, The Productive Muslim in 2021 and now reading his second book, The Barakah Effect.
- Talking about the barakah effect, not related to Mohammed Faris is The Barakah Effect Podcast started in 2021 by the team of Ir. Faisal Abdul Latif (PMP, CEng, MIChemE, PEng) and 4 other working professionsls (where they “dissect the Qur’an and sunnah and turn it to our unfair advantage to achieve extraordinary success Here and Hereafter”) which I follow (you should, too) and in which I was interviewed in 2024.
- Last but certainly not least, Annie Yahaya founded The Conscious Muslim with the three pillars of MWC (Muslim Women Coaching), Ra’ei and Deen Dive. I have been privileged to be trained by them, in 2024, too, as a Certified Conscious Conversation™ Coach & Certified Essence of Life™ Practitioner. Go check them out.
We don’t know when we are going to go. Still:
“Even if the Resurrection were established and a sapling were in the hand of one of you, and if he were capable of planting it, then he should do so.” – Hadith
