Choosing Your Shovel - Useful Fear vs Useless Anxiety
Jan 17, 2023Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Adventures of a Real Estate Investor. I'm Suzy. And I'm Michael. And we're excited you joined us for this adventure. So, today's guest is a very special guest. Our guest is Faisal Ensaun; thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you for having me here. I'm excited.
Yeah, and I just want to let everybody know, that the way that I met Faisal is that he is my high-performance coach. And so, I know this is a little bit deviated from The Adventures of a Real Estate Investor, but he has truly impacted my life as a real estate investor. You know, it was crazy to me how much I didn't know I needed him until I met him.
And you have just brought so much awareness to my life and I know that your journey, for me, has been helping me realize those things. You asked those deeper questions; you are definitely a huge advisor and just a huge piece of my life. So, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you. I didn't know you were going to tear me up. That really did make me emotional.
That's awesome. And Faisal, so, would you mind sharing with our audience just a little bit about your background?
Okay. How far back do you want me to go?
You share what you want to share.
So, I'll start with a bit of… why don't I just share the story that I share with my clients. That will make it… I've shared that enough so it'll be more clear.
So, for me, this whole thing goes back to a memory in my early twenties as I was coming out of this subway station in the Toronto region, Canada. And as I was coming out, I felt like I was in my early twenties, but I felt like I had the body of a 90-year-old man.
And I look around, it looked like a busy day and everybody was going about their business. And as I was coming out of the subway station, I had to go to the corner. I felt sick; and I felt like my life was passing me by. I had just come out of multiple nights of having fun partying. But the reality was that I was actually running away from a lot of things internally and externally in my life.
And I had to kneel down because I felt so weak, and I threw up, and I saw blood on the floor. And I know that's graphic, but that moment, I wasn't even surprised by that because I had been abusing my body for a long time. And in that moment, I felt this huge amount of physical and emotional pain.
That didn't surprise me either; but what surprised me was right after that, I felt this level of joy and peace that I had never felt or remembered that I felt. And it was such an odd situation to feel; and I didn't know much of what to make out of that. It was like my mind was kind of shut out.
So, I stopped thinking but I felt really great. And for some reason that month I started to make a lot of changes in my life, and I'll take you back a little bit. I was born in a third-world country. My family and I, we had to leave the place because of war and other challenges. And we had to go to the neighboring third-world country where the conditions weren't much better.
In fact, some of the worst conditions in the world. Somehow my parents found a way to make a living there, and we created a life with a lot of good memories; but also a lot of challenges as you can imagine. And when I was around 17 years old, my extended family, they sponsored us to come over to Canada, Toronto region.
That's my home base now. I love this place. My children were born here. A lot of my family's here, friends are here. But when I came over here at 17, it was probably one of the lowest points in my life, even considering my childhood a lot of times. And a lot of that was probably related to the trauma in my childhood. But also a huge part of that was coming into this whole new world, realizing at 17 that almost everything that I had been taught was a complete opposite of fear, and in my mind I was thinking, “wow, that's real.” That's true. and at 17 I felt lost. I felt disconnected. I didn't know who I was, I didn't know where I belonged, whoever I talked to, if you have lived in any kind of city like Toronto region, it's a very multicultural city. One of two things happens. Either, people go into their own culture and they go in their own corner and they don't deal much with other people because the culture is very accepting in that sense. So that's okay. Or the other opposite is, completely get kind of mixed into the culture here; and they just accept it whether they like it or not. So for me, I didn't know what to do either way. So, I’m kind of just feeling lost and disconnected. I pushed myself towards all sorts of things from alcohol addiction, to drug addiction, to even depression for a number of years leading up to that moment in front of that subway station.
And that month, like I mentioned, a lot of changes happened. I enrolled back into college because I had taken a year or so off. And I became curious about a lot of things. I started becoming curious about well, is there a better way? I didn't know the answer to that because I'd gone through so much pain and I didn't get any answers. And I started looking into all sorts of things from psychology to philosophy, spirituality, history, sciences related to human behavior and natural systems. The more I looked into it, the more I realized how much we think we know, we take for granted. And I realize almost all of what I was taught, whether back home or here, was complete garbage.
It wasn't a reality. In fact, I didn't even know what reality was. But It helped me become more and more curious, and it helped me learn more about who we are. So, it started the journey around who are we at our core? And I started studying more and more as I was going through school.
My interests became self-awareness more than anything else. And some point started connecting with people who were deep thinkers. They wanted to know themselves more. They wanted to create a bigger impact in the world. And started getting around people who were successful and seemingly fulfilled and happy as well.
I got a lot of help, support and coaching and therapy and all sorts of things. After a little while of all that, to my shock, my life had taken 180 degree turn. And I didn't expect that cuz I was just on a journey. But what I did realize in that moment was that I wasn't the only one. There were so many other people struggling with so many answers, just because none of us have been trained to look within.
We've been trained to look without, to find all sorts of external things to look at and to improve. But we've just, in all the schooling that I went through, I was never taught like how to be happy, how to have a better life, how to be connected, how to create a bigger impact. None of that was part of my education or wasn't amplified.
But in any case, a big part of my purpose became coaching and training. Helping people go deeper than the surface and really look at who are they really? And where does their potential lie and how is that connected to the rest of humanity and our path forward.
So that's kind of what led me to where I am right now.
Yeah. And thank you so much for sharing that because that’s like a huge, I guess, limiting factor for people, right? Is that like a lot of people have the background or the past that you have, but then they don't actually move forward, right?
Like having that aha moment, like maybe people experience it; but then they continue to go back into the habits that they did. So, my mind is blown that you now are a coach, right? Because you just took the opportunity to look within, like you said, and truly take that vulnerable part of you and, I guess like, rip it all apart, right?
Because you have to figure out like, where did that deepness come from? How do I get that deepness to, I guess calm down a bit, but how do I move forward with that deepness still there because it never, well -- maybe for some people it never truly goes away, but you learn to live with it in the right way.
And so, I love that you shared that because like real estate investing or not, in order to move forward with something new, like you do need to look within and dig deep. And ask yourself those questions like, “What do I really want in life?” And so, what I am wanting to know from you is like -- I know through your classes and everything, you learned a lot. But how did you finally figure out your main passion?
Like what was that moment for you?
Oh, that's a cool story. As I kept going on this journey, like it was mostly about me. Like I was learning. And it wasn't until I started talking to a friend. One of my closest friends who got laid off at that time and I didn't think of it ever in that way. Just I went to visit him, and I just got him to like, think about some things and just, he started looking at his life completely differently. He's like, “You really helped me with this.” I'm like, really? I didn't realize what I was doing to begin with, but anyway, it just kind of sparked this thing. I felt really amazing that I was able to, I didn't believe it, but as he started thinking differently, doing things differently, I was like, oh, shoot. Maybe that did make an impact, because most of it, I used it for myself. Wasn't like for other people. I didn't go around giving people advice.
I considered myself an extreme introvert. I barely talked to people about those kind of things. But anyway, at the time after I left engineering school and I worked in the field a couple of years, I realized pretty quickly that wasn't the path for me. I was becoming more and more miserable.
And at some point, I made a decision. I was like, I need to find out what, I really connect with. And that moment with my friend really gave me a clue that what I connect, who I connect to is people. I've been doing a lot of my work internally with myself for years.
Like how do I support people on that? But I didn't know I could make anything out of that. But then that's when my mentor, Brendan Burchard, I came across him and it was just like, it was one YouTube video. Oh, he's speaking my language! And no wonder I'm in that space now. So that really helped me think about it.
It's like, oh, there is a possibility. And he was offering Experts Academy that helps you, kind of take whatever you know, and create something out of it. Whether it's a business or nonprofit organization, whatever it is. And he shows you the path. So that was around the time I was thinking about quitting completely; and I told my wife about it.
I was like, okay, this is not working out. Yeah, we're like, it was creating problems for us in our relationship; so many other things. Then as we were having these conversations the opportunity came. I actually got laid off from my job. I still remember that day. I show up at my wife's work and I have a big smile on my face,
She's like, “You got laid off, didn't you?” And then, as I remember, everybody else was depressed, but I was so excited because this just gave me an opportunity to reorient. So, I spent the next four months, because I had some time and resources to like really look within, and go full towards it. And as I remember those days, my wife would come from work and she was like, “What did you do?”
I cried for three hours.
Right? Cause you learned yourself.
It's like, oh, that must be nice but anyway, I had to do a lot of deep work to figure out really who I was and who I wanted to be. What did I want to do? And then that took us towards finally making a decision that if we continue on this path: just go to work, come home, go to work, do something for somebody else.Then this could go on forever.
And I, remember when we made our decisions. Like, okay, let's do this. We'll sign up for Experts Academy and a couple other seminars there. We'll take a big vacation. This would probably be one of the last vacations for a while, until we figure out what to do. Yeah. And we weren't that smart about it.
We're like, just, I don't care what happens. We need to figure this out. I still remember her grandfather-in-law, my mentor, asked me this question before. So, he asked me “What if this doesn't work out? What are you going to do?” Then I was like, I better have the right answer. And I looked at him, I'm like, “Well, we'll go back to the miserable life that we had that's waiting for me. Nobody's taking that.” He's like, “Okay.” So, he just wanted to make sure I was committed to it. I guess, yeah. But anyway, that took us on a journey. When I started, we started connecting with other people on a similar path. And there are thousands of people.
So, when I went to Experts Academy, 46 people from 46 different countries coming there to try to make an impact. And for the first time, I stopped feeling like we were alone. To really create a different concept of life, but also in the process creating an impact in the world too; in the way that connects to our heart.
And that really blew my mind, and that's what got me involved. And I became an event junkie at that point. I loved meeting people, going to different events. And, I'm itching for that with this whole covid stuff going on. But that took me to this whole world and I didn't realize, but that's when Brenden Burchard offered his coaching program, which is through High Performance Institute, the High-Performance Coaching.
We jumped into this just because it felt so connected to what I was doing already, and it just gave me a framework to support people. And on top of that, basically this was a way into the influencer world, which you guys are right now. So that's it, that world is like how do we connect with people and help them connect to their potential and who they are in the process where they make a true difference.
Right, because that's really like what I want deep down is how do I connect to other people so that they can figure out their true difference or how they can make their true impact. Like, and figure out that passion in the world, right? Because when we're all like in a position where we can start to think about who our best selves are, or how we can complete our life's work, that's when everything, you know, like in your mind can open up.
Like yes, there is definitely fear that is associated with that, you know? Some people don't get laid off. Like some people have to take the leap to leave that job that they're miserable at. And the people who do get laid off, like they can still have a lot of fear, right? Because it's like, “Oh no, what do I have next?”
Like, what am I gonna do? But to be able to reflect truly and be like, “Okay, what actually makes me happy?” Right? Because if I go back into a miserable job again, am I anywhere closer to like the impact that I want to make on the world? Am I any closer to my passions that I'm gonna get to, or am I just there helping somebody else accomplish their goals?
And so, with your initial, I guess, being laid off, you know, and having that fear; well, or lack of fear, but like when you started.
Oh, I had fear. Okay, I just focused on excitement. But fear has been a constant companion. It's it still there, it's just a matter of, and we can talk about that, but fear was definitely there.
So, yeah, just wanted to point that out. I wasn't without fear.
Yeah, but so like with that though, even to go into coaching, right? Like you go into coaching, but then after that, like what happens next for you? Because it too, from what I understand, it's not like you just get a whole bunch of clients that come your way, right?
Like you have to start over again. And that's another level of being, trying to be your biggest cheerleader and saying, “This is something I can do.” Like, once you allow your fear to take over, like you become silent, you know? And once you start to speak up, that's when you're serving everybody beyond who you are.
So, like how did you get past that next step?
Yeah, that was definitely tough because, I mean, coming in from the background, I didn't have entrepreneurs in my family. My brother is, and he lives in Virginia, so I mean, he was a little bit of an inspiration there. But I didn't come from an entrepreneurship kind of model, like we focused on my parents who just wanted me to get a great job. I still remember like, “Why are you leaving that comfortable job?”
Yeah, like you'll have a desk, you're gonna be an engineer, you're gonna be distant. Like that was what I grew up in. But when I went towards this whole new path -- okay, first the fear was jumping into it. Okay. I made a decision because there was so much pain in there on the other side of it. But when I went in there that's when the actual fear came in because we realized that, holy shoot, there's so much to learn.
And then on top of that, the learning part is not, I mean, we can all learn. Like if we spend time focusing on something that we care about, we're gonna learn. At some point, we're gonna figure it out, we're gonna apply it. The biggest problem was the internal self-doubt about yourself. Can I do this?
Am I good enough to do this? What if I fail? What if this? What if that? What if the other? And then on top of that, what you hear on the outside is like for the first four years I was actually, even to this day, I don't think anybody knows what I actually do in my family. They think I just give advice. That I just do training, but that's not what, as you know, it's not just that part of it.
But the external and internal resistance to that was the hardest to manage. And that took work, and this is why I stuck to this path because I work with a lot of entrepreneurs. It's not that like entrepreneurs, if you get to a point where you're ready to start a business, you've had a certain level of success, or you believe in certain ability in yourself to go towards there.
But what they struggle with most is their internal resistance and how to deal with the social context that they're in and what's gonna happen. Worst case scenarios and all sorts of things that come up that in our day-to-day life, we are not taught to manage those things. We're not taught to look at the bigger picture.
We're taught to look at practical goals, not big vision. And this is a work. When I, work with my clients, it helps them open up to possibilities. It helps them to connect to a deeper part of themselves that's connected to their potential. That in a turn, the effect of that is that they start to naturally go towards contribution, making a difference that just naturally happens out of that.
No, and like what I love is that like you don't just say like coaches, right? It's like entrepreneurs in general, right? So, like this pertains to people like Michael and I. It pertains to people like you. It pertains to anyone who's like going out and doing something on their own. Like this parallel relates to a lot of people and it's like great that you touch on having it be beyond yourself, you know? Because that's when your true, I guess for me it's like that's when you truly wake up; and it's like no, there is more to this, you know? Like there's more to life than just waking up, going to bed and then being miserable sometime in between there.
So like, I really liked that you touch on that, but then, I know just from like knowing you that you are a coach for Real Estate Mastermind, so something for investors, like what is a big limiting belief for them? Like do you often hear the same thing? Like, “Oh, this is something I can't do.”
It's like that self-doubt.
How long do you have for that? This is it, it's crazy. So what people think is the problem is actually not the problem. So, most people think that, and yes, I shared it as that. Is that okay, I have self-doubt. I fear this, I fear that, but that's an effect. That's an effect.
It's not the cause. What is the cause? Why do people even think like that? Like you jump into something that's exciting, that's awesome. And yeah, you have some people might, there might be naysayers on the outside, but why is there so much internal resistance? Why is there so much fear? And this requires a level of exploration into our own psyche and consciousness that we literally are not equipped with in our life.
Some people learn it as they go on this journey. A lot of entrepreneurs, they find different ways to cope, but when you go deep down into it, people are scared. Like they are so scared to move forward. They're doing it and they're courageous, but they're so scared, and what makes them scared is nothing real.
We think that there is all the economy is gonna crash, this is gonna happen, that's gonna happen. None of those things. It's not like a real tangible possibility or probability kind of thing that they're looking at. It's just fears that they don't even know exist. And it comes from a part of their life.
It comes from a part of their training. And so what happens, and whether you talk about investors or coaches or any type of entrepreneurs, especially if they're new to this world as soon as they come in, because you are not relying on a regular certainty paycheck that we've been fed most of our life.
And we've been taught that that's your security. That's your security. That's the only thing that makes you secure. Well, until Covid happens, half the people lose their job. Right? Even then, we start to believe that we can still stay there. But the idea is that we've been trained to think that there's a certain level of security that comes with jobs or even business.
And there's a huge hole in this. I'll give you this in terms of his story. So, I had a client's an entrepreneur, and well established business, million plus. And I was having a conversation with him around this, around his fear of losing his money and business. And it's very common fear for a lot of entrepreneurs and even investors.
And he was an investor or he is an investor. So, he is like, “Yeah, I'm always afraid of like losing my business or money, whatever I've built so far.” So, I asked him this question, what would happen if I just took the key to your empire, so to say? Just hand it to an average guy and just don't give him anything?
Just tell him to run what you've created in the past few years. Like, and he thought about it. He is like, I don't know if he'll know what to do. It could crash pretty fast. So, then I had to ask him, “What have you built here?” And our focus natural, not naturally conditionally, we’re conditioned to think -- it goes on the external. That, “oh, I've built a business, I have this much money in my bank account, I've built this that and the other.”
But if you look at it a little bit deeper, you find out there's that the business and the money and all that is an expression of who you are in that moment. and I asked him this question. I'm like, let me ask you this. “If I took away everything from you, like all your bank balance, business, everything else, how long would it take you to rebuild that?” Thought about it. About three years.
Very confident. Like, why are you so sure about that? He's like, well, I've built skill sets, I have experience, I have knowledge, I have connections. I'm pretty confident in my ability. I'm like, “So then what exactly are you afraid of? What are people gonna take away from you?”
And then the key here is that we forget that this process, whether you go into investing or coaching or any kind of entrepreneurship or any kind of life, you are building yourself up. If the focus is that you can take away things on the outside, but you can build it back up in one way or another because you're building internal competencies.
That, people can take away from you for the most part. And just going back to that whole fear thing is because we've all been conditioned to think that we should rely on this, that, and the other job, this system, the government, the businesses. And yes, we naturally rely on these things because we live in this world.
But what it has taken away is that internal confidence in who we are, and that doesn't just go into who we are as an individual. We are a very successful species from an evolutionary perspective. I did a video the other day on Facebook like most people feel average because you are part of a species that's incredibly successful.
Like, even if you are living the worst part of the world, you're the smartest species there is, and at least in terms of building things and surviving and thriving. So you feel pretty average. , but track your history back. You will know that you're incredibly smart, you're intelligent, you can survive, you can connect, you can build and create things that other species haven't been able to do.
This is not to say that there are lower species in that sense, but what I'm saying is that there's a reason why human beings are here. Yes, there's a collective power there, and yes, we need to be around people who will help us move forward, but once we realize how incredibly powerful we are internally then we stop doubting ourselves.
And even if you doubt yourself, even if we doubt a part of ourselves, we're gonna be like, “Okay, I'll figure this out.” And the most common trait for people who become successful in the business world is that I have faith in my ability to figure this out somehow.
Yeah. I love that. That's great stuff. And coming back to the fear, right? So when I experience fear it is something that I know that I'm, I need to educate myself more on, right? It's like when I hit a roadblock or I experience like, holy crap, I don't know how to do this. This is really scary. What I find then when I hit that, when I get the fear, then I know I need to educate myself a little bit more about what I'm facing in order to overcome that fear.
Like, I guess my question to you is, how do you differentiate that fear and then the fear you're talking about; like what the gentleman had about losing his entire net worth and everything like that. Like, is that the same fear? Is it just based on limiting beliefs and things like that?
Or is it different fear?
So let me put it in this way. Som if we take a child who hasn't ridden a bicycle yet, or who hasn't done anything, forget bicycle. Let's we take a child who has never drawn or anything, put up pen and paper in front of them and tell them that, give them that painting; draw it.
Do you think that child will be scared to do that? No.
Why isn't there any fear there?
I don't know if they've ever experienced fear, right? It's just something new. And…
They've experienced fear. Why not? Children by that age, let's say if they're under an age to draw, they've fallen, they have been hurt, they've felt rejected by them.
Why wouldn't they feel that much fear around doing something new? And the reason I ask this is because a lot of times we think our fears are natural. That this is how I react. And, I love how you're approaching it, Michael, that you need to learn more because there is, we hear this all the time, fear of uncertainty or fear of the unknown.
And I always get my clients to ask them self so let's go back to how human beings have evolved. If we were afraid of the unknown, we wouldn't be where we are as a species. We wouldn't try anything there because most of the things that we do is completely unknown in the field of science, technology, philosophy, spirituality, psychology.
Any field you go into -- art, it's completely unknown. In fact, that's the thing that excites us. That's the thing that triggers areas of our mind that makes us more curious. Human beings are generally more curious than they're afraid. So then why does fear win for a lot of people? Because again, it goes back to how they're taught to deal with fear.
They take fear seriously because they're told, and I mean this is a common thing, I mess with the younger people in my family or any younger people that I meet who are about to go into college. And they're like, “Let me guess, you're afraid of the real world?” And they almost are like, “How do you know that they're told that?”
I hear that all the time by adults who are afraid – “Watch until you go to the real world.” I was told that over and over in, high school by all sorts of people. Well-meaning people, but they're afraid they haven't been able to deal with their own fears yet, and then they prime these young people to be afraid of the world.
Now, what kind of intention do you go into a world that you're afraid of? You're constantly protecting yourself when you're in that mode, and there's a biological name for that, that fight or flight mode. you don't look for possibilities. You find a way to protect yourself. You will stay in your corner.
You will not engage with people. You limit curiosity. That is not where possibilities come in. So, when we're triggered, we have it, it's not a, like, fear is an emotion. Where does it come from? How do we process it? First of all, we don't know how to process it because we're not taught that, because it's a skillset.
And second, we make it mean a certain thing. We, we give it more importance than it actually has. Most people who are successful, they'll say they still have fear doing a lot of things. But what do they say? They choose faith over fear or possibility over fear. They'll say it in different ways.
But their fear is there. They're just giving it less significance. In fact, for me, I'll tell you this, my fears are there. Any new thing that I do, like I have multiple companies now. I gauge how much I'm progressing by how afraid and excited I feel because if there's fear, I'm doing something out of the norm.
Comfort zone. You've probably heard that. So is there a difference between, if you like, look at it from a natural perspective, we don't actually have fear in the way that we understand fear? We have an awareness, so our natural fears might be based on a couple experiments that we've done as human beings. Is that children, if they walk over an area where there's like a ledge, they will be careful naturally because their biology has told them that, “Okay, if you fall over here, if it's a few feet deep, you're gonna break something and you're gonna have to survive that.” If you hear loud noises, it reminds us of wild predators. So kids, if you watch them, they're afraid of predators, like loud voices.
If it's a blender, it will sound like a predator to them until they watch it and see what it is. Or one other secondary awareness we have is like, if we watch something that looks like a snake, we'll be much more aware in the wild because we're aware of it biological. Other than that, we don't actually have fears, natural fears around these kind of things.
We are as curious and open and excited as any other thing. That's what has given us the ability to build civilization. Discover things that we could never imagine. I mean, right now people are going deep underwater to go into the deepest parts of the earth and to places that are inhabitable.
People like Elon Musk is thinking about going to Mars. Like why would we think that if we were afraid? Yeah, like you're gonna go to a place nobody's gonna be able to rescue you, and you have no plans whatsoever. You're gonna put yourself in another planet; but, to a lot of us, even when we hear it, we are excited.
We're curious. Like, what is that gonna bring? Why, where is the fear here? Until we're put in that situation, what do we do? We doubt ourselves and we're taught to doubt ourselves. It's not a natural behavior. We have learned to doubt ourselves. And the whole process of achievement. The whole process of fulfillment, the whole process of creating a new life requires us to, kind of, peel layers of conditioning, over conditioning. There's so many layers. I'm still doing that. I'm still in that process. And at some point, and this is the, a Cartoli would say that is f you, once you begin to see, hear the voice of your ego, at some point you're gonna just laugh because it will sound so ridiculous that you're afraid of something that you haven't even seen.
No. And that totally, like, I totally resonate with that. Like, because there are a lot of things, you know, a great example too for me is oh, I was nervous about moving to the UK and potentially not finding a job like it hadn't even happened yet and I was already like afraid of it. You know? And something that I've learned, through real estate investing and even through my journey with you is that, some, the way I need to look at situations is like challenge versus opportunity, right?
Because something that is very challenging and scary to someone like might be very exciting and an opportunity to another person. And it's like making that big mindset shift to almost see like the positive side. And I don't know if positive is the right word, but. more of the creating side, right?
Like, what am I gonna get out of this if I do it? Rather than, what can I potentially lose if I do it? And so like, explaining it the way that you did makes a lot of sense. Or even why people do or do not, you know, take that leap to something new that could definitely be way more fulfilling for their life.
So, thank you for explaining it that way. Like that was very, I really enjoyed that.
Yeah, no problem. There, there's so much in there, but I think that just touches at least the surface of what most people deal with. And whether, you, it doesn't actually matter whether we're an investor, whether we're an entrepreneur or influencer or even somebody who wants to be in the work field.
I don't necessarily think that working for somebody is a negative thing. It's how you're approaching it, because at the end of the day, we're gonna. We're gonna, it's an opportunity. Whatever you do is an opportunity. How does this fit into the bigger vision for you and, and that that is a key. This is why I actually, I mean, the last two trainings were around what do we do?
We did vision, building your vision, and then strategic goal setting. Yeah, we're all taught to set goals. And goals are positive in the sense that if you don't set any goals, you will randomly go through life and you won't know what you're doing for the most part. But we know through studies that even if you just set goals, it'll take you in a certain direction because you're setting a direction for yourself.
The problem is that most people are following other people's vision for life and it's become such a cliche that everybody wants to have a certain type of life. is that really connected to your heart, that that requires you to actually work on building a vision? Unfortunately, most of us don't even know what vision means, let alone know how to build a vision or connect with our vision for life. And it encompasses all aspects of our life. It's not a goal. It's what are those experiences? I mean, as an investor, what are those experiences that you truly want?
Like investing is a vehicle. Yeah, it's a medium for you to create a world for yourself internally and externally. It's not just externally. You're gonna build that maybe freedom, maybe that the time to do what you truly want to do, but internally you're also wanting to grow a certain way.
What does that mean? How do you want to feel in this life? How do you want to contribute? How do you want to connect with others? And really walking yourself through that in your mind and connecting to it at a deeper emotional level and spiritual level makes the biggest difference because then that becomes your vision, not somebody else's.
And then your goals become milestones towards that vision. And this is why I actually do that monthly training for people. I kept hearing this every time I would ask investors. “So tell me a little bit about your,” let's say if it was five years down the road, “tell me a little bit about your vision for a life.”
And I hear things like, well, I want 10,000 doors. I want a house on the beach. I want this that and the other like, okay, those are great goals. What's your vision? They wouldn't even know how to process it. So I had to learn like I had to develop a way to kind of walk them through it. Not because people are not intelligent enough, but because we're not taught to do this.
It's a skill set that, actually I believe we lose it because it requires us to use our imagination, it requires us to use our -- the creative side of our mind. So when I walk them through, almost always, this is the most amazing experience. When I'm on this webinar with complete strangers from different parts of the world, at the end of it, they're completely emotional.
What happened? Oh, I saw myself. I saw my life. I saw what I'm creating. It's, it felt like it was here right now. do you need the motivation to go towards that now? Like, no, that's, that's what I want. Yeah. Now they're clear about what they want, and why it's important to them, and then they can set goals towards it.
And if you don't have that bigger vision, fears amplify, they become bigger and bigger and bigger when you have that bigger vision. Fears take their place. They have a function. They do their function in terms of helping you become aware of certain things, but they won't stop you from moving toward that bigger vision.
Yeah, I love it. And we could chat with you all day.
Me too, Faisal.
This is great and I really appreciate all the insight and unfortunately, we're coming to the end of the show, which brings us to the adventurous four. These are four exploratory questions that we ask every guest. So the first question is, where is one place you wish to travel and why?
You sent me the question. I still didn't think about it. I wanna travel to a lot of places, but one place, if I were to think of one place for some reason, I have a deep connection with the mountains. I mean, I was born in Afghanistan and, within the Himalayas, so definitely to a place like in Nepal.
And even back home, but also the Rocky Mountains. I mean, I've gone there a couple of times, but for some reason I have a deep connection to mountains, rivers take me there and I'm in a good place.
That's awesome. That's how we are too, with mountains. So the second question is, what is the number one thing on your bucket list and how are you leveraging real estate investing to achieve it?
So this will be an interesting answer. So the reason why I even went towards real estate, and I might have shared that with you, Suzy. That, so I went into this whole influencer world because I wanted to kind of create a different path for my community family, but also connect to what mattered to me and my own potential and make a difference in the world.
But what I realized pretty quickly, most people don't even know what I'm doing and they don't care to know what I'm doing unless they're involved in some of my programs. And, but I did realize pretty quickly that well, not quickly a little bit later that people are very much interested in real estate.
Everybody can relate to it. So right now I'm actually using real estate as leverage to kind of help them create a common vision. and that's passive cash flow to, to what would happen if in three-to-five years you created that passive cash flow and you're free to do what you truly want. And they don't, they might not even know what that is, but just presenting the idea of that it really like lights up; people are like, I can do what I want. People seek that freedom. And they're like, I have the permission to that. Yes, you do. And real estate is one of those mediums. If we can free up people and give them time to connect with who they are and help them explore that they can, they can really make a difference in the world.
Yeah, I love that. So the third question is, what is one piece of advice for someone who wants to start passively investing in real estate?
Go for it. I've seen both sides of this. I've seen people who've read more about and listened to more podcasts than the experts themselves, and then they get to the spaces like, I need to go for a deal.
Then they hesitate. They doubt themselves. What if this goes wrong? What if that goes wrong? But then I've also seen the other side of it. Somebody just hears about it two, two weeks ago and they're like, this looks awesome. They go towards it. They're afraid, but I'm like, how? Well let me get these people to help me, and they do within then a few months or a year, they have a deal. . It's like, where did it go wrong? This person has the knowledge and expertise, but they're not able to move forward. It's not the, you don't need a lot of expertise in real estate. What you need is the courage piece and consistency. Keep going. What, what matters more so is your dreams.
What matters is who you are, your family, and the impact you're gonna create in the process, whether it's in your family, community, or the world.
Absolutely right. The impact is huge. And then the fourth and final question is, if you had unlimited resources available to you, how would you leave an impact?
I think I would do what I'm doing right now. To be honest. I don't know what I would accelerate. Some of the things, like one of my big visions down the road 10 years is to, to build a community, like a human community for human beings, a model community so we can not only learn to live together, but also learn to grow together and research and, explore ideas externally, scientific ideas, but internal philosophical and spiritual questions.
There are a few communities out there, but I wanted to go towards that for some reason, I'm attracted towards that. So potential through community. I would definitely accelerate that process.
I love that. That's great. So before we end the show would you mind sharing with our listeners, like how can they get in touch with you or find out more about you?
Yes, so my main website is FaisalEnsaun.com and I mentioned that once a month I do this training to help people, and it's completely free for two hours. For some reason people hang out with me for three hours after
But it's FaisalEnsaun.com/buildvision. I actually really help you walk through what you really want and help you get connected to your vision, and help you set up a path. How you can move forward so you don't have to guess to go towards whatever you're doing. You have a set of tools and awareness to help you move forward.
No, yeah, and I'll definitely put that into show notes because I am a strong advocator for you. Like if you listen to this whole entire podcast, you know, and something inside you is like, I need to meet this guy. I'm telling you right now, you need to meet him. Like he is great to talk to. He is great to work with.
You know, the Thursdays that we don't meet are the Thursdays that I'm like I want to meet, you know? Like every week what you, and even the group brings, like just brings so much joy to my life and my heart. So, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for, I mean, even being my coach, right?
Because I could easily been the one of the ones to boot, bye-bye. So yeah, thank you.
Thank you for the kind words and thank you for having me, both of you, Michael, and, so great to meet Michael for the first time too.
Absolutely. Great. Thank you so much. Until next time, explore more. Adventure awaits.
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