Excellence is a choice

Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wasalaatu wasalaamu ala ash-sharafeel anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasoolullahi Sallallahu Alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam, tasliman kathiran kathira. Fumma badhu. My brothers and sisters, one of the courses I teach is called the elevator speech. Now the scenario of the elevator speech is that we say, we tell the people imagine you are CEO or imagine some very powerful person who has the ability to do something that can change your life positively, right? Now imagine that you are in the Trump Tower and on the 80th floor and as you are in the elevator and as the doors are about to close, you hear a shout, hold the door and you hold the door and Mr. Donald Trump walks into the elevator. The door shuts and the elevator is going down, right? You can change the name of Donald Trump to whoever you want to change, meaning this powerful person who can do something for you. Now those elevators, they travel pretty fast, right? It's not a slow train to Kokomo. So you have maybe, I would say, 20 seconds or so, or 25 seconds before you come to the first floor, doors open, the man is gone. So now you have this person with you exclusively for 20 seconds. The question I ask people is, what will you say to that person which has the potential to change your life? Obviously positively. What will you say? Most people will say, my name is so-and-so. Your name might be the most interesting thing for you, maybe it was for your mom, but for anybody else, makes no sense. Why is he interested in your name? Now you have 20 seconds. Out of the 20 seconds, mine is so-and-so. How much time? And obviously you can't ask the man, what is your name? Because if you didn't even know who he is, then what are you talking about? So you are supposed to know his name. Then most people will say, I'm a businessman. So you are a businessman. We are in the United States of America. They are like three and a half zillion businessman and you are one of them. Very nice. I'm an IT programmer. That's fantastic. 80% of the IT companies in the world have Indian IT programmers. I'm a doctor or even better. So what would you say that sticks in the mind of the person? That's the question. So I'm not going to give you any answer. Answer it for yourself. The point I want to make here is this. The principle I'm talking about here is what I call differentiation. What differentiates you? What makes you different from everybody else? What makes you stand out? Because differentiation creates brand. Brand inspires loyalty. Loyalty enables influence. Memorize this. Differentiation creates brand. Brand inspires loyalty. Loyalty enables influence. When you go to a grocery store to buy toothpaste, you don't say, give me toothpaste. You name a brand that you use. Right? If I tell you I'm going to go out of here and I'm going to buy a car, what's the first question you're going to ask me? What's the question? Which car? Exactly. I said, Nabil, what do you mean which car? I'm going to buy a car. You tell me, Sheikh, what is a car? There's no such thing as a car. Is there something called a car in the market? Tell me seriously, is there something called a car in the market? There's no car. There's a Mercedes, there's a BMW, there's a Tesla if your brain has fried. There is a, you know, there is a Maserati, there is a Bugatti, there is a this and that. What's a car? What's this thing in the car? Differentiation. Branding is all about differentiation. What makes you different in a positive way? Which touches the heart of your customer? Without brand, you are one grain of rice in a sack. You're still rice, but you're one grain in a sack. Nobody knows you live, nobody knows you died, nobody cares. Differentiate. How do you differentiate? You differentiate by surrounding yourself with people who are better than you, who will push you, who will stretch you,