Have you ever felt like you're living a life that no longer fits you, but you keep on going because it's what you've always done?
In today's conversation, I sit down with Hussein Halak, a serial entrepreneur and author of The Dark Art of Life Mastery, to explore how our past decisions quietly shape our present and how reclaiming the power to choose can change everything.
We also dive into the future of artificial intelligence, what it means to lead innovation inside resistant systems, and how humanity might be holding on to a spaceship without knowing how to fly it.
If you're navigating change, craving clarity, or trying to lead in a world that is moving faster than ever, this episode is for you.
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Let's make a deal. I am, Hussein, I'm fascinated here because you have such an incredible business record. And now we look at your next book, The Dark Art of Life Mastery, and it doesn't, at least on its surface, appear to be aligned with the things that you've done in the past. So tell us what prompted you to write this.
Yeah. What prompted me actually is I wanted to leave my kids with something.
It was a selfish, selfless act at the same time.
So in the past decade, I've been involved in the startup ecosystem here in Vancouver, over Canada since I moved here.
And I've been blown away by the desire and how people are willing to give up their time to help and to mentor these upcoming entrepreneurs.
And I've gave my time to mentor and help as much as possible.
And what that led to is that it really gave me this idea that I wanted to do more, but my time is limited and who I can help means that it's limited.
So I thought, well, what if I can leave them with something?
If I could leave them with something, I wrote some articles about how to do startups, how to pitch, all of that.
And I recorded as much as possible and spoke at conferences.
But I felt that I could, just like those who helped me, for me, books were my mentors throughout my life and the people who read books, who wrote books.
So for me, I said, what if I leave that book?
And I wanted, of course, my kids to if I go right now well what what have I left them with aside from you know learning about me from other people so I wanted to leave them with something that will encapsulate all of my kind of life journeys learnings and I didn't think I could do it but I managed to put it in a book and let's see let's see Hussain if you were to try to encapsulate the the payoff for of this book like the promise of this book.
So let's say, if the person who is listening today, if they read the book and listen to our conversation today and they take everything that they've learned and put it into action, what changes for them?
I would say that they will live life more meaningfully and in the present.
See, our biggest challenge right now is that we live either in the past or controlled by the the past. And I don't mean like, you know, philosophically or like, you know, esoterically.
No, we're always hunted by what have we done or the kind of studies that we did or, you know, what was said about us in the past. We're always hunted by that or completely dedicating the current moment towards building a future that we may or may not experience.
And what we're missing is the power of the moment.
It's in the moment that we get to build our lives.
It's the choice that we do right now.
It's not the choice we made like a moment ago.
For example, I made the choice a moment ago to be on this podcast. But let's say if at this moment I have to make a choice and there is something, let's say, you know, something, an emergency calling my attention, I can make that choice in this moment.
I don't have to be beholden to the choice that I made a moment ago.
But most people don't live like that.
If you ask anyone, why you're doing this job?
Well, I studied this, or they define themselves by the choices that they made.
I'm a writer, I'm a lawyer.
Well, why are you a lawyer?
Because I studied, or because I've been a lawyer for 10 years.
Why are you a lawyer right now, for example?
Very few people can answer that.
And that is, I think, a major issue with how we live our lives.
And I want to give people the freedom, but with it comes the accountability of our choices.
See, most people don't want that.
Most people want to, well, you know, I studied all this time and I spent 10, 20 years and therefore that justifies my decision.
And they don't like to make decisions based on, you know, the moment because it means that you're completely in free fall and you don't know where it's going going to go?
There is so much profundity wrapped up into such a short period of time.
I don't know if you've thought about this, Hussein, but you should consider writing a book on what you just because this is great.
And you know, what's really interesting is that the humans, I feel like we fail as animals to do that which every animal does innately, which is live in the present moment.
You know, I think we would be quite shocked if we find that cows are pondering the mistakes of their past, you know, and we struggle with this so much. I know when you look at the research, there is the default state of thinking.
And the default state of thinking, like you described, is just not in the moment.
We're concerned about the past. We're worried about the future.
and I really never really considered the fact of decision making and choice being linked to accountability in the way that you described.
And tell me if this is a fair way of conceptualizing all of this, because it seems like, in general, humans struggle with accountability.
We like to be able to blame circumstances.
We like to be able to blame other people.
We're in a bad situation, situation, but it's never our fault.
And it sounds like we almost think of ourselves as different people, where in the moment I'm in this situation, not because of any choice I am currently making, but because of a choice that a previous version of myself, who I no longer am, has made.
And so we are almost outsourcing accountability to the previous version of ourselves for being in a situation that is suboptimal, but not being willing to make a choice to make it better for ourselves in the future.
That is such a great way of putting it, not just for a previous version, but to a version that we basically want to be in the future.
So that's why we're doing what we're doing today.
So either or. So I agree.
I completely agree with what you're saying.
So yeah, we are beholden to that.
And the reason is, I think, comes to to several things.
Number one, our fear of danger and death.
So if you think about how our brain works for tens of thousands of years, what our brain was developed for is to sophisticated strategies to help us avoid death and avoid danger.
So we've collaborated, we've built those tools and built shelters and basically designed our lives, if we think of it, for complete safety.
And the other thing is comfort and laziness, which is not bad.
I'm not saying it in a bad way.
That's what we're designed for, to save our energy so that we don't have to look for so much food and to protect ourselves, which is great when it's actually working towards that.
But when it doesn't have something to do, it considers everything a danger.
So if somebody, you know, doesn't be unfriends you on Facebook, it's, you know, the worst thing that ever happened to you in life.
It's like, it's like as close to death as possible.
We sometimes left them off and say like, you know, first world problems, we call them that, but it's our brain doesn't distinguish between what like the levels of danger I mean, it does but to a certain extent, a lot of times, based on how much weight we give something, it becomes the most kind of imperative problem that governs our world.
And these are the things that drive us.
And if we don't actively look at the thoughts and look at what drive us, we don't kind of distinguish and we are governed by feelings and we don't channel them.
And that is mainly what I try.
I don't try when I work with people to blame anything or, you know, accountability is not blame and it's not, you know, doing what's wrong, what's right.
It's just looking at things and looking at the impact of the things that we're doing, the decisions, the choices, and then deciding for ourselves, is that truly what we want or not.
This is actually what I tell my son or my daughter and say, listen, you have the choice to make everything.
I won't be there to do everything for you or to guide you.
But just make sure that the choice that you're making is not because you're blindly following someone.
If you're going to go drink with your friends, don't just go drinking with your friends because they're drinking.
Drink because you want to drink and because you want to deal with the outcomes of that, whether it's the joy or the pain that comes with that.
As long as it's your choice, you learn and you grow.
But when you say, I did this choice because this and because that, you become reasonable, basically full of reasons of why you did something.
And then it's the reasons that led you to this.
And there's no accountability, which means there is no true living.
And I want people to live a true life that they get to experience it fully.
And you can only do that with accountability because that's where joy comes from wow yeah you're this is this is such an interesting perspective on on choice and and autonomy too because really it sounds like there's a nexus between what you're talking about and just freedom the ability to live life on your terms but that but true ownership and what i love about your approach especially as you talked about your kids too, because I have two young kids as well.
And you're saying, listen, you make whatever decision you want within reason, of course, but at least own it, at least own it.
I think that's so different.
But what you're doing is you're giving them the power of choice.
And I think one of the things that's so fascinating about this is the fact that humans oddly seem to need to be empowered to choose even when they do have the power to choose and and so what is it that you feel holds people back from truly taking ownership of over their choices and decisions as they navigate life well we would never we we were never trained to do that remember that human beings are born of course we we carry something in our genes on our on our let's say what we were born with to survive but most of what we learn we learn from a young age from our parents so everything we know
regardless of school everything because most of school is not nothing they don't teach us about listening accountability decision making none of that everything that is taught there is about shoving knowledge in our heads and i don't i don't mean i don't mean to like be uh you know schools are very important i don't mean to demean education I'm a very big believer in education, but I think that it's missing a ton of things.
We don't learn anything about working together, collaborating, about ethics, about morals, about what makes us survive and thrive as human beings.
We learn everything about what makes us good workers in the current system.
And whether you agree with it or not, it's still missing a ton of things.
So we don't learn that and we don't learn it from our parents.
it's kind of a lot of things are assumed it's like you invite just like you learn walking you see somebody walking and you try to walk like them but there's a certain point where these things need to be taught to kids all of our lives as kids we do something we break something we either get yelled at or somebody cleans after us so that's kind of what we carry with us until we have to face the first time we have to face the consequences of our work and we're trying to look to a father figure or a mother figure or somebody to clean up after our mess?
And what have we learned through school or through, let's say, upbringing?
If we hide our mess well, we survive, right?
If we lie our way through something or do that.
So we never learned really accountability.
I mean, I'm generalizing here, but really how many of us have went through, I mean, I had great parents, But never did my parents sit down and say, listen, when you do something wrong, come to us first, tell us, and we'll work together through it.
It was never like that.
It was like, no, you have to be honest. That's what they told us.
You have to be honest. But never is like the teaching of accountability really and what it means, and how important it is for every word, for every thought, for every action.
It's a heavy thing to say like, listen, your words, actions, and thoughts have impact in reality.
reality. How many conversations have you had or seen people having those conversations?
These are conversations we usually learn in coaching courses or in advanced leadership courses.
These are essential things that every human being needs to understand.
I mean, look at the world, our impact on the environment, our impact on people around us, the way we understand freedom, the way we understand society and how we work together.
Most of it is erroneous and we have to face crises in order for us to come together or understand how we come together and how important it is it's so true and i it's it's i love the the exploration of education whether it's formalized or informal but a lot of times we focus on just the acquisition of knowledge but we never really talk about how we operationalize that and actually turn it into wisdom which is knowledge applied in in the right circumstances, in the right type of way.
And in life, we live life decision to decision.
So the quality of our life is going to be contingent upon the quality of our decisions.
So decision -making is a fundamental part of our lives.
Maybe the quintessential element of what it takes to live a good life.
And we're not taught how to do that.
We're not even taught that there's a process or that there's a choice in how we can go about making a decision.
decision. And I remember one of the scariest realizations for me was going through school, getting this education, and I was always trying to find the right answer.
And I was saying, if I do enough research, I can find the right answer as if life is just a big test all the time.
But a lot of times we have to create the right answer.
But especially when you think about it through the lens of entrepreneurship, we're making choices and we're often going to make mistakes and fail not because we did something stupid but just because that's the way that life happens and we have to iterate and adjust and so when i think about this and and the wisdom that you've packed into this book and i think about young hussein if if you got this book at age 18 how would have how would it have changed your life that's a great question um i would say I would have probably an easier, let's say, or calmer approach to life.
At 18, I was still trying to discover who I am, but through, I would say, not the wrong ways, but like through trying to discover, I thought that reality or my truth existed outside of me.
So I was searching.
at the time, I remember one of my searches were for the right religion.
I was a small minority in the Islamic religion that I was like reading and reading and reading.
And the outcome was good because I ended up reading about Christianity, Judaism.
I ended up reading about all kinds of religions I got access to because I was searching for the truth outside of me.
It's like, okay, I was trying to prove that whatever I belonged to, whatever was the right sect.
So that's basically my, in my desire to do that, I ended up kind of seeing like, oh, they all kind of preach similar things.
So it was good from that perspective, but it was trying to, instead of looking within, which is a really important thing that we need to, a lot of times our lack of understanding of the outside world stems from a lack of understanding of who we are and what we want want to bring to the world rather than what the world wants from us.
So I think I would probably spend a little bit more time kind of concerned about what I want really.
And kind of thinking about the gravity of my choices.
And I would have definitely made some choices that were different.
But looking back, I would say most of my choices were, and that's the essence of the book.
If I I look backwards and now they make sense.
A lot of my choices were kind of very powerful choices.
For example, choosing to be with the person I love the most. And regardless of whoever was opposing, parents did not approve of that, for example.
Choosing to pursue, even though I graduated as an engineer, I chose to pursue a career or let's say chose, actually, I didn't have a career.
I chose to pursue everything that was put in front of me.
I had this, I say I'm I'm always, I'm a yes man.
Like anybody who says, how about we do this?
I was like, yeah, let's do it.
And I'll go into doing it.
And that's how I ended up doing like a gazillion things.
And I wouldn't take it back, if anything.
Like I wouldn't take it back at all.
I would do probably a lot of the choices the same.
I would avoid the mistakes for sure.
And to your point, you said something about failure.
Failure is part of the process.
We never learned that because all of our learning is about getting things right.
Why? Why? Because it's important when you work in a company to do the right things according to their manual or however they do things.
They don't afford, what is it?
We can't afford mistakes or failure is something that we don't allow.
When actually, if you think of anything in life that we learn, any kind of venture, if you look at the best sports people, the best people who achieve something, their path to that is through failure, not outside of failure.
By avoiding failure, you are actually avoiding the biggest success.
Yes. Oh, I love this.
I love this. And I think this is one of those tough situations where I know there's the person listening is probably saying, Kwame, I don't love this.
I don't love failure.
Why are you saying that?
And I think there's there's a difference between loving something and necessarily liking it.
And failure is a great teacher.
And when you can embrace it and give it the attention it needs and use it as the tool that it is, then you are not just learning and discovering, but also putting yourself on the path to creating the life that you want to live and the person that you want to be.
And I think this mindset, I'd like to transition a bit to the future, because you are somebody who is incredibly tech savvy.
And I mean, I shouldn't even say tech savvy.
That's insulting. Tech savvy is somebody who likes new people.
I love tech. Yeah, that's fine.
You are. You're a serial entrepreneur.
You've had massive success.
You coach thousands of entrepreneurs and founders as well.
And I want you to just shamelessly paint the picture of what the next five to 10 years look like if the promise of AI is fulfilled.
I think we are getting more into – I was actually talking about the same topic today.
You're amazing at this.
So no wonder you're good at negotiation because your questions are very, very poignant.
So I would say the biggest thing, if we look at the trajectory of things, what we did before we had to spend enormous amount of time, let's say before even books for printing, we had to learn from people.
So people were the gateways to knowledge.
You know, they would have studied.
They were the philosophers, the scientists, the people even before science, like the people who basically played around with things.
the Da Vinci's, let's say, the polymaths that used to spend time studying, reflecting on the world.
And they were the source of knowledge.
And after that came printing press and knowledge was a little bit democratized and you could access them through books and then libraries, but still there were custodians of knowledge and you had to spend an enormous amount of time to read and get that.
Then when the internet came about, you had, it gave you access to an enormous amount of knowledge based on what you want.
And then it allowed people, whoever they they were, to write and contribute to that knowledge, then you could learn not just from the experts, you could learn from anyone who has an experience in that topic.
And you can learn from peers, which is how we learn as people.
But then came the algorithms. And the algorithms, based on your level of interest, they reflected the world back to you.
So that's how our world is right now.
And now we have a certain kind of AI, because AI has been around for a while, but we have a certain kind of AI which crunched or ingested not all of existing knowledge, but the knowledge that we have access to over the internet, crunched it and said, I can give you the answers to your questions in any topic that you want.
You can learn, you can basically have access.
It's kind of like we moved from being on a bicycle to now having a spaceship.
So in a bicycle, you're very connected to your path.
path. You turn a little bit, you have almost enormous amount of control.
In a car, you have a similar kind of control, but to a certain extent it does a lot of the work.
But in a spaceship, there's the computer sitting between you and control.
And depending on how erroneous or how well -done or let's say well -programmed that computer, you get your answers or you get to chart your trajectory.
But what it means is that consider what it takes to learn how to drive a bike or how to ride a bike, how to drive a car, and how long you need to learn how to drive a spaceship.
So that is how you need to think about it.
So what it demands of us is now all of us have to be astronauts.
So think how long an astronaut has to go, know the kind of not just mental, but physical ability.
So you need to go, you need to be tested across all of these things in order to lead the spaceship.
But if you give the spaceship to someone who doesn't do anything with it, they'll do pictures of cats, you know, like that's what they do with ChatGPT.
They'll do pictures of cats.
They write a few articles, but that's imagine, it's like, it's like saying I'll have, I have a spaceship and now I can get faster cluster from, let's say, my house to the supermarket.
But what ends up happening, imagine literally, I want you to imagine riding a spaceship from your home to the supermarket.
How much destruction and how much you leave in your trail.
And that is what we have in our hands.
This is what AI models are right now.
We can do the small things.
You can do a to -do list. You You can do the small things on it.
Of course, it's very capable, but that's the path of destruction that you leave. Whereas you can do something massive with it, but you have to have the mental acuity.
You have to raise yourself in order to raise what you can get out of the tools that you're using.
And that is how I want people to think about.
So for the future, we can get far because of the technology that we have in front of us.
We can definitely get far better on medical.
We can get far better in education.
We can democratize right now.
But that means everything that we have, schools, doctors, hospitals, this fabric of society itself has to evolve in order to deal with us and demand of us for all of us to be astronauts or people who work around astronauts and that kind of level.
i want you to think about we need to evolve every institution to become like nasa as capable and as as as i would say well organized as nasa that's what we need to grow and and think of us all of us right now are living on a farm it's not enough yeah so so that's that's kind of the the the way that that we need to do so we can be all the world can become all like nasa because of of the tools that we have, the question is, are we all willing to take that?
Because it requires effort, learning.
I mean, to deal with AI and to really harness AI, you have to be very well -learned and very well -read and very well -experienced.
You can't just harness AI by being someone who's dumb and don't know anything about the topic.
Of course, if it answers you, anything you're going to accept.
Yes. How do you... What do you think about that?
I love your answer.
I agree 100%. And I think because I love especially the analogy, we're thinking about library to internet to algorithms, and then also the bike to the car to the spaceship.
And when I think about the evolution of the human brain, it really hasn't evolved since, you know, in the past few hundred years or a couple thousand years.
Our operating system has stayed the same, while everything around us has changed.
And we have gotten to this point where life for a lot of us, if we're fortunate enough to live in a more advanced, developed country, our brains naturally orient towards comfort and the reservation of effort, which is a nice way of saying laziness.
And so what you're talking about would require a hearty dose of effort.
And I question whether or not people have it in them to put that forward. And so, because I know you've consulted with a lot of companies talking about AI and what changes they need to make, and there's still a lot of reluctance to make those changes.
And if for us to do this well, we all have to become astronauts and our organizations and systems need to become NASA, recognizing that that may not occur, what happens if we have this spaceship level technology distributed throughout the world, but we have not upskilled and improved our systems to be able to handle it?
I think what's going to happen is we're going to face this issue where there's a big divide in the world And it will increase, unfortunately And not everyone needs to be an astronaut I mean, somebody can be a janitor in NASA and still be helping towards a mission What I mean is that as a species, we have to be on a mission, all of us for the survival of the species and the thrive of the species.
And I don't mean that as a species to isolate.
Basically, as humans, we've always worked when we were in younger groups or smaller groups, sorry, for the betterment of the group.
Everybody had a role, and nobody was forced in to do something, but we knew that we had to take care of certain things for us to be able to live together.
And we kind of forgotten that because now we are such a big group and we relegated that to the structure of society and said, okay, you know, everybody does a job and we do it in a certain way.
We have to grow and say, listen, the planet is struggling.
We have all this capability, but we don't have a mission.
Human beings don't have a mission right now.
We're missing that sense of purpose.
I don't mean like in our everyday life.
I mean, As a group, as a massive group that are responsible for this planet, how can we not take care of this planet so that it's survivable and we can live through it?
I mean, we're seeing things coming our way.
And it's like, oh, let's sip some margaritas and what's the worst that can happen?
Well, it's happening already.
already and I think that and we have all the I mean almost we created almost an enormous amount of tools and and Technologies that enables to dominate the planet and we're not real custodians which brings us back to the accountability most of our most of our thing is like okay the future is going to take care of it well now we have the Generation Generation Z and their scenes like hang on guys you're actually destroying the planet for us you're not going to be here but we're going to to have to live through scorching heat you know water dominant you know can't can't live next to the beach and we
have to struggle through this why and they're asking those questions and they don't see the reasoning because we are the ones who lived through the past and we are saying to them you don't know what we've survived and you don't know how great you have it and they're looking to the future and say no we don't have a great because we're going to live through all this mayhem that you're leaving to us.
So this is this is one divide and the other divide is between the have and have not people who have access and i don't just just mean money it's like access even and people who don't have access and i think unless we remedy these or we take i mean i would say steps that are effective to towards resolving this um it's gonna be really really hard time for for uh humanity and everyone even even the the richest people and even people with the most ability they may be able to kind of divert it for a little bit you know but um the climate doesn't distinguish between anything the planet that distinguishes
we have one planet and uh good luck going to mars yeah well it's it's it's a far way away both temporally and uh you know in terms of distance technological yes and it's and and these are really great points and it shows that there there has to be some shifts that need to make that we need to make as a species but also it demonstrates the difficulty in making those shifts because i mean it kind of goes back to what we're talking about as a whole like you said with accountability and then also choice and we're also recognizing that even beyond choice it's almost like we are caught in the biggest
game of geopolitical game theory there is because we're saying okay we're great um we can recognize that we might be doing harm to the planet fantastic well i'm not going to do anything until they stop because why would i stop if they don't right and so they just everybody is saying well i'm going to assume that my partner in this game of game theory is going to cheat so i'm going going to cheat as well.
And now we just keep on spiraling downward. And going back to your point about the discrepancy or the distinction between the haves and have nots, I recognize that.
And I think that's one of the scariest elements of it as well.
And it seems like we are kind of careening toward every Hollywood dystopian future movie ever written, where we get to a point where where it's pretty clear, and you're more in this space than I am.
So I'd love to see how legitimate this is and how much is just AI hype to raise stock prices.
It seems like... It is.
There's a lot of hype.
There's a lot of hype there.
Yeah. Because think about the replacement.
So we understand we're trying to bring manufacturing jobs back to the States.
But we also understand at the same time, we have like different companies trying to create humanoid robots to replace the humans that would have been getting those jobs that are reshored here.
We understand that even white collar workers, the people who are making the most in companies, they've got targets on their backs because they're the most expensive people in the companies.
And so if we can replace them, then we save a lot of money.
So how much of this is AI hype and realistic?
And how much of it is overblown?
Well, I'm not an economist, but I would say it's unrealistic at all.
I mean, just logically, if you fire all people, who's going to have the money to buy these products?
I mean, the companies exist not in a vacuum.
It's not like they're going to create cars for nobody.
Yes, you're going to fire all the people, and then nobody's left to have a job to buy the freaking product.
I mean, like, it doesn't make any sense at all.
I mean, even even Ford, who you may think of him, whatever you want to think.
But he understood that you have to pay your workers a living wage in order for them to buy the freaking cards or else.
But I think there is this this this kind of thinking that, oh, don't worry about the people in our in our in over here.
We, you know, sell to another market.
We open another market.
Well, all markets are almost saturated.
How far are you going to go before you run out of markets?
And the kind of collapse doesn't, at the end of the day, the American, especially America, being the most, I would say, the largest market in the world in regards to spending compared to the number of people.
When that collapse, when the buying power collapse, and we see a lot of indications towards that, when you fire everyone and you hire all robots and everything, and you hire people to take care of the robots.
I remember somebody was saying that, you know, like, you know, well, we're not going to hire people to fix those little screws.
We're going to hire robots to do that.
And then we hire people to take care of the robots.
OK, good luck with that.
But let's say you're able to do this and people's salaries go right to the dirt.
Who's going to buy all those products?
Because if this is the biggest market and that's what you're doing to it, what do you think is going to happen to the rest of the world?
And it's like it's it's like a game of, you know, don't worry about it.
That's the other things that we're not owning.
That's choices that are not anchored in the accountability of what those choices produce.
So there is one thing like that.
But the other thing as well is that something I think that relates to a thing that is you, I think, hold dear to you, which is negotiation.
We've never learned to go into a conversation and understand how to get what we want and how to let the other get what they want as well.
it's like we giving up i think the world has given up on the win -win scenario yeah i was like it's it's either way i win or you win and it's about how much power and leverage i have over you and you forget that at the end of the day it's not like you're leaving and you're completely in different universes you're in the same world and you're so interconnected we've built a world right now that is so interconnected that if somebody hurts here everybody's going to feel one way or the other on the other side of the world.
And unless we learn how to negotiate win -win scenarios and learn how to talk to each other in a way that collaboratively build something bigger than all of us, which is something that we successfully have been able to do.
I mean, if you look at our economies, we've been experiencing so much growth, so much expansion.
And we can do even more.
We have more food than we can eat.
all of the 8 billion.
We have more money and still billionaires can have their billions.
So if you want to be a billionaire, you can have that.
And still other people, everyone can live at a suitable way of living.
And we have systems and technologies that can serve everyone, but somehow we're unable to navigate all of this.
And I refuse to say that it's a lack of imagination or capability.
It's the lack of will, I would say, and the lack of education, education understanding what kind of world or having a vision to the world that is actually constructive.
And that's the first thing that I think you learn in negotiation.
I mean, I've heard you talk about that.
And I think it's something that you can talk about even more than me, even.
Yeah, it's a great point because you're 100 % right.
I think especially at the higher levels, even the desire to even articulate a potential win -win solution seems to be frowned upon.
on. The people who have the most power, they are concerned about winning, but also concerned about making sure somebody else does not win at the same time.
And I think it's one of those situations where they understand how they think, and they recognize that other people at the top level might think that way.
So if I give a win -win, then I might just be empowering my enemy to dominate me me in return.
It's a really scary thing.
And I'm wondering how to kind of break free from that on some of the largest levels.
Because when we think about negotiation, one of the tools of negotiation is we have persuasion and influence.
And when you think about the concepts of power and leverage as applied to negotiation at the end of the day, those are tools of influence as well.
Because I I don't even need to be persuasive if I have power and I can hurt you and I can just lean on you with that weight.
It seems as though the people who are making the biggest decisions have recognized that, yeah, I could move forward my agenda with a win -win solution or I could make my whole strategy based on power acquisition and then I don't even need to be concerned about the cares of other people.
and I can still just lean on my power to get the agenda passed.
And it's a tough situation.
And my concern is, how do we kind of unring that bell?
Because the people who have the power, one of the main concerns about power is the perpetual retention of power.
And I don't know, Hussein, and this is me, my audience is like, oh my gosh, Kwame is usually so positive.
i just try to figure out how to go about doing it i'm i'm stuck and yeah yeah i think i think the i mean in the entrepreneurship space i would say one of the uh biggest thing that we we teach entrepreneurs is that first the idea of uh the idea of let's say don't try to compete compete in the sense that try to innovate and create something to create value.
The competition is not about taking something from someone.
It's more about, can I create something more valuable?
And by creating something more valuable, you drive the market forward. And the idea of value is something that I think people forget about.
They think business is about money.
Business is is about value.
It's at the essence of it, it's the one word that summarizes all business.
Business is the creation, the delivery, and the extraction of value.
You create value, you deliver that value through different methods, and you extract value from, let's say, your customers.
And unless there is an exchange of value, there's no business.
No business will survive without the exchange of value.
Now, if you go out in life and you do that, the idea is not, when you're competing about the same thing, then there is no exchange.
When you create an exchange, you now have, I produce this, you produce that, and we do an exchange.
And that is how the world for the previous period of time, and in fact, actually, even the US have managed to do that, where the way they kind of stop, let's say, certain countries of pursuing, let's say, nuclear weapons and stuff like that is by giving them a place in the world.
When you actually have a place, You don't need to fight for that place.
And so in a world where one entity or a few entities want to dominate everything, everybody else will fight and everybody will fight for that place no matter how weak they are.
See, the challenge with us as human beings is unless we have a chip in our mind that kind of subdued who we are and our natural, let's say, tendencies, tendencies, we will most likely try to, even if we know we're going to fail, we're going to fight till the end.
Nobody stays in their place.
If you look at history, that's never been our history.
People would revolt.
Now, after 50 years, after 100 years, people will revolt no matter how weak, no matter how minimal resources they have. So if you have an understanding of history, what you do is to be able to be successful in negotiation, in my opinion, what you do is you You come in and immediately understand that the other person has demands and you try to find a place where their demands and your demands can be met.
That is the innovation in, that's how you bring innovation to business, to life, to negotiation.
When you understand the other person, not ignore the demands of the other person, because that's a recipe for disaster.
And that is what I think is missing.
And that ignoring somebody else comes from ignorance, which is kind of pretend or not knowing.
Whereas what you should come in is like knowing that human beings have demands, have desires, have passions, have missions, have things that drive them.
Understanding it is the first thing for a real negotiation because that's how you establish win -win.
But when you ignore someone and say, I'm all powerful, who cares about the other person?
You're setting yourself up to fail no matter how powerful you are.
Yes. And that's the thing that a lot of times people don't recognize is that power is dynamic.
It's not static. And so you might have the power now.
And if you wield that power in a way that is hurtful unnecessarily to other people, once they get the momentum, once they get the power, they're going to remember that.
And so it's important to keep that in mind, especially when we are in situations where we do have the power.
It's still important for us to use that power ethically and with a little bit of restraint.
aimed. So we've got something interesting today, and I think we'll have some fun with this.
We received a letter from a listener who's dealing with a tough situation, and I think it's one that a lot of people can relate to.
Ashley from our team is going to read the letter for us, and then you and I will break it down together.
And also, by the way, if you, yes, you, listener, I'm talking to you, if you're ever in a tricky situation or have a workplace dilemma or just have a story you want to share with us, we'd love to hear from you.
You can send your story to our producer, producer Simone spelled like Simon at negotiateanything .com.
So that's S -I -M -O -N at negotiateanything .com because we're always looking for real situations to dive into.
All right, let's get into it.
Here's Sarah's letter.
Hi, Hussein. I work for a mid -sized cultural institution.
Think museum meets learning hub.
We've been exploring how to use AI and immersive tech to attract new audiences, especially younger ones.
The challenge? Leadership is split.
Half the team is excited and curious.
The other half thinks it's a gimmick or that it undermines the integrity of what we do.
I've tried to show examples, explain benefits, even bring in experts.
But resistance remains.
It feels like I'm constantly having to sell the future to people who are clinging to the past. And it's exhausting.
I know we'll fall behind if we don't evolve, but I'm also worried about pushing too hard and losing credibility internally.
So how do I lead this change without burning out or burning bridges?
Thanks, Avery. Brilliant question.
So I would say three things.
Number one is establishing a criteria.
What it means is that you remove the thing that you're talking about.
It's kind of like if we were to come back to the bike, the car, and the spaceship, some people believe it's like this car is the best thing.
Some people are like, what's wrong with the bike?
The other is like, but we can get a spaceship.
So, this is basically what's happening.
So, instead of debating the method of how to get there, debate what's the criteria that you want to establish.
This is something that everybody can agree on.
It's like, okay, we want to reach there with comfort.
We want to reach there fast. we want to...
So you establish a criteria that everyone agrees on and you decide that whatever tool that achieves that criteria, the best and the most effective way is the tool that everyone's going to agree on.
Why? Because they agreed on the criteria.
They shouldn't care about the method.
So the first thing I always, when you want to bring people together that have different opinions about the things that you use or about these strategies that you can use is agree on the criteria because mostly you would find you can establish consensus there.
So start with the criteria.
The second thing you do is do experiments.
This is something we do a lot with entrepreneurs.
Do experiments that are very minimal in their impact, but show you the way.
So instead of being someone who's for something before the result, which is a criteria, and then before experimentation.
So what you do is you bring in and say, okay, what is an experiment that we are comfortable with?
So some people will say, we're comfortable in spending, let's say, a thousand dollars to do or let's say 10 ,000 or let's say if you can get a grant to do that especially if you're a cultural institution you may be able to get a grant to do this so you say okay we'll get a grant or we get let's say a thousand dollars to test this what are the experiments what do we want to establish that will guide us to the next step and usually if you ask people to make a leap of faith most of most of them will not what you want to do is you want to take them step by step you know it's like okay what if we take
one step forward to see what's going to happen.
Maybe there's benefit.
Maybe we can achieve that criteria.
We all agree that is important to our institution.
So you make a small experiment and then based on the results of that experiment, you make a bigger experiment and the bigger, and slowly you move towards that direction.
And the good thing about this is you will discover several things.
Number one, you may not be right.
Basically the solution may be a combination of what they're bringing and what you're bringing.
And that is what collaborative innovation looks like.
And the The other thing is that you've got, you now have a criteria that is clear to where you want to go.
Everybody's clear on.
And so you give the opportunity for other people to bring their opinions and their ideas of how to achieve that, which means as a result, you advance the organization forward, not about whether we are technologically savvy or not, or whether we apply the latest technology or not, or we, as an organization, we're moving towards our goal.
Who cares how? So these are kind of the things that I usually work with institutions and with entrepreneurs and with organizations on achieving.
I hope this is helpful for you.
Yes, it's incredibly helpful.
And I love the three steps here too.
And I really, I think that this approach is not just great for this scenario.
This is great for the tough situations that we have in our everyday lives too.
I think this is something that people don't have conversations about enough, which is debating the criteria, having a conversation about the criteria.
We always focus on the conclusion.
What's the decision that needs to be made?
What is the what's the outcome that we're driving toward instead of just saying, all right, let's align on the underlying principles of what a good decision would be in this situation.
And what you'll find is that you most more often than not are going to be pretty much aligned on the majority of the criteria that are that stated in order to determine what a good decision is.
Now, we just need to determine what that decision actually needs to be.
But being incremental is incredibly powerful.
And I think this kind of microwave mentality that people have when they're not willing to put in work over time hurts us in this situation because we try to persuade and get too much too soon.
Where you have somebody who wants to ride a bike and you're taking them to a spaceship and you want them to decide in four minutes and you only have four minutes of patience in this process.
It's simply not possible.
A hundred percent. May I add one thing on this, actually?
Actually, a couple of things.
Number one, yes, you're right.
we're so driven by, we see the future and we see the path to it.
And we want just everybody, if they only agree, we'll get there.
And we're so sure of it.
And I think at that moment is when we should stop and include everybody.
And what I would recommend is to go check a TEDx talk or TED talk that's called the Marshmallow Challenge.
There's a book called the Marshmallow Challenge, they're two different, but the Marshmallow Challenge talks about collaboration.
And it's It's a fun, very fun game that you can do with the organization so that people understand how they collaborate, watch the video or actually do the challenge, watch the video, let people work together.
It's a brilliant, brilliant, it's an old talk, but it's a brilliant kind of approach to how people collaborate and how they work together.
And it's a true kind of illustration of why we fail to work together and how we can come together to succeed.
seat listen who's saying if marshmallows are involved i'm in so that's a lot of fun that sounds great um fantastic okay so this is this is one of the this is the hardest part of the conversation for me because i've really enjoyed this but we have to land the plane somewhere or land the spaceship maybe maybe i should say so for the the person who's listening to this if there is one idea or takeaway from this conversation, something that could shift how they approach innovation, leadership, difficult change, or just the way that they think in general, what would you say is that one idea that you
want folks to leave with?
Oh, that's a challenge.
I would say look at three people.
The one -year -old who's trying to walk and see how they get to walk, they fall their way into walking.
That is the human way to learn and to grow in this world.
Look at the five -year -old and how they have zero blame when they play with Legos for two hours and then they leave it in an instant and they go play with a fire truck or something and they have no blame.
It's like, oh, but you spent two hours building this.
they leave it they are driven by what what gives them joy at the moment and the last thing i would say is look at the future you that you want to be and what's stopping you from making the choices today to enjoy what that future you will enjoy not to become because a lot of times we think about it like oh i want to become a doctor or but what is it that it gives you so if you go go through life and reach the thing that you want to reach you know like you want to work and and get a good company, you end up as like, Oh, I want to sit on the beach and enjoy relaxing.
Well, why don't you go right now and experience what that like?
Kind of a good way of saying it.
If you really want to get the Ferrari, go do a test Ferrari test drive and see what that feels like instead of working 20 years only to find out that it's not all it comes out to be that kind of thing.
So that's what I leave you with.
That is so good. And the Ferrari Ferrari dealerships will be flooded today because of you, my friend.
This is so great. And for the folks who want to connect with you more, get in touch with you, learn about the books and the other programs that you're doing, what's the best way for them to get in touch?
HussainHalak .com or search my name, Hussain Halak on Google, and you'll find me.
Perfect. Thank you very much. Hussain, I really appreciate it, brother.
Thanks for coming on the show.
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