Clarity and Resilience with Hussein Al-Baiaty of Rising Authors

Kim Allchurch Flick: Hello everyone. This is Kim Allchurch Flick. I’m delighted to have you all listening to the podcast and today I have a dear friend, Hussein Al Baiaty, whose business is rising authors. Hussein Al Baiaty is a speaker, author, and marketing strategist who founded Rising Authors to help nonfiction writers turn their books into platforms that actually grow their impact.

His podcast runs out of a 1985 Vanagon built for rising author voices and stories. His book, the Art of Resilience, which I have read and highly recommend, shares his journey from a war torn childhood and refugee camp to building businesses, writing books, and teaching others how to amplify their message and clarify with purpose.

Today’s topic is clarity and resilience. Welcome, it’s so nice to see you. 

Hussein Al Baiaty: Kim, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate this and thanks for the time that you spent with my book. I’m so grateful to just pop in today and just hang out with you. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Indeed. And we were talking before about how we had met in the Portland, Oregon area long before COVID through the benefit corporations world and.

Good community of people and now you are not in Portland anymore. And Yeah. How life is expanding 

Hussein Al Baiaty: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: For both of us in different ways. And it’s so good to be in the same room together

Hussein Al Baiaty: thing. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for making this happen. This is so good. Yeah. And it was our work before all of this and pre COVID and all this stuff, you were such a great connector and communicator. I remember you invited me to like your LinkedIn community thing and you just have this beautiful spirit about how you can further connect people and listen to their voices, and listen to their, and pain points and solutions. So I always just wanted to say, I always appreciated that about how you go out in the community and do your work.

So thank you. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Oh, thank you. I think I appreciate that. I find that stories resonate and remind me that I’m not the only worldview around. And yeah it broadens so much to hear people have been through different things and bring so much kindness and value to the world. And I definitely see that in you, a beautiful, kind heart.

So thank you. What has been your journey to this point and how has it shaped some of your values to where you are today? 

Hussein Al Baiaty: Yeah, we, I guess we’re all on a journey to discover things in our world, and I think for me what my journey has taught me coming from Iraq, then refugee camp and getting the blessing of growing up in America is.

I realize there’s a lot of self-discovery through good times and bad times. Times just teach us a lot about ourself and if we can just raise our awareness just enough to where you can anticipate that you’re going to learn something from what’s in front of you and to pay attention to that.

I think my journey has helped me. Yeah, just really cultivate like an awareness of how I can learn from the past and present and apply it to the future as best I can and know confidently that it’s in a lot of ways it wants to work out for me and, not to plan too much, but plan enough not to try to control everything but control what you can.

Not to. Overanalyze, but just lean into your own philosophy and develop that philosophy and like you said, learn from others. Whether it’s reading, whether it’s meeting people, whether it’s having conversations and just remembering like how, I think for me specifically, just remembering how lucky I get to.

The how lucky I am to one be alive, two, experience, what it means to experience being a human. Three, connect my values and spiritual understanding to that experience. 

And then lastly, it’s just like in enjoy what is in front of you. Because if you’re overthinking the past, and if you’re overthinking, like I’m talking about me, right?

I’m overthinking the past or overthinking the future. I’m not really living right now. I’m living in those other worlds that don’t necessarily exist right now. So I try to remind myself of that. And there’s been many teachers and many amazing people. And whether they’re here now or in the past, or hopefully come in the future, that in a lot of ways, if you’re paying attention, they’ll remind you of that.

And it’s cool. It’s beautiful. So I think the thing about my journey personally. That I’ve come to realize is that it’s teaching me something about myself and I, it’s all about the interior, in my opinion. And ’cause your exterior begins to reflect what’s on the inside. I’m just looking for ways to learn and relearn what my journey is trying to teach me and.

Through my actions, I hope to teach, right? I hope to teach again, reteach myself, teach now my son, who’s eight months old, which is crazy. And teach the people I get to work with by being, I think the best teachers are themselves, right? It’s like they’re not even really teaching they are or advising you.

They’re just being, and you’re like, oh man, I want that. I want that habit. I want that demeanor. I want that calm, but they just embody it. They’re not telling you how to do it. You gotta come to it yourself. I think that’s beautiful. I think that’s something my, ’cause when you’re young, you want to learn and do and reenact and want to be taught to where I think at some point I learned.

I can just be myself and, and pay attention. And by just by being attentive, my behavior will change. And from behavior, that’s what we seek in leaders, in people around us and whatever. It’s like we seek an attribute that they may be carrying, but in order to practice that attribute, you gotta see where it can apply in your life. Where do you go practice that? So I don’t know. I think that’s what my personally, I think that’s what my journey has taught me and how it shaped me. And yeah, I don’t know if that’s a good answer or not. That’s just where I’m at. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Oh, when you were saying that, it also strikes me that as a teacher and a young parent, that also becomes a two-way street.

It’s gonna be a new, 

Hussein Al Baiaty: very much, 

Kim Allchurch Flick: a new part of the journey. Beautiful. Making impressions on someone that’s young, but How much they can teach us too. 

Hussein Al Baiaty: Exactly. I look at it like, oh my God, I’m relearning. What it, because it’s a part of, obviously when they’re, when you’re babies, when they’re babies, it’s a part of you that you didn’t know ex almost existed.

You don’t remember being a two month old. And, but it’s like, oh, this is interesting, this how, this is how I must have been. Or they’re, like it’s things that like, oh, this is how my father must have felt, or my mother must have felt, or whatever. And it’s closes the loop on things you didn’t realize.

And I and that is such a beautiful learning journey, but what, guess what, he’s not teaching me anything. He’s just being, and that is, is teaching. It’s just the being the innocence of, they’re not trying to do anything. They’re just trying to exist and learn and look around and they’re paying attention, obviously, like him just.

Looking at the room and like looking at the little thing and falling over to it and I realized oh wow, like that is the most powerful way to teach. It’s just to, you yourself has have to be in awe of the world that you’re in. And that’s so inspiring to other people because everyone I’ve ever looked up to or wanted to be, they’re just.

They’re beautifully in awe of the world that they’re in, and they’re trying to investigate, figure out, solve and I don’t think there’s a better teacher right now than my little one. So yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Be beautifully in awe of the world you’re in. That 

Hussein Al Baiaty: makes, yeah. Obviously there’s a naive, hey, right?

There’s a Yes, absolutely. There’s a pause and disbelief 

Of the things that are completely and utterly out of our control. But there is a beautiful thing when you’re just in your environment and everything is interesting and beautiful, like the pen that you hold the fact that you get to do, just like remembering how beautiful our built in natural world is and just being in it and we just forget because we.

Are consumed by so many other things that are completely and utterly out of our control. And I, yeah, I think that is what I’m insanely grateful for these days, is how my son is reminding me to just be in this moment. Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: I am so happy for you. I’m excited. 

Hussein Al Baiaty: Thank you. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: So we have a friend who uses a word that I love, multipotentialite.

And I think you can guess who that is. As a multipotentialite, how has it been to create new ideas? Because I’ve known you through four or five different companies. You still live here now you’re in the desert, and what has that been like? 

Hussein Al Baiaty: Yeah, so I guess we could walk through them, right? So I went to school for architecture.

I, I was in the graphic, so at first. I was a, I’ve always been an artist a creative, a drawing and painting, big part of my life. And then I wove that and got into architecture school, got an architecture degree, but also got a business mine. I’ve always been interested in how I can utilize my skills to earn some income because, I didn’t.

Become very affluent, co, family or anything like we were on welfare and Medicaid and all that stuff. So I always wanted to figure out how I can, not only grow my business or grow a business, but I was also surrounded by some business owners. So I used to work at the Saturday market, flipping euros and, whatever it was to just earn some extra income to help myself and my family.

But I learned at a very young age. That you can take if you’re good at something or if you can get good at something, you can offer it to someone else. So that started for me. I was like hand painting t-shirts for my friends and selling ’em on eBay. That was my first spark. Actually, even before that, I offered to paint the wall of the bowling alley.

I was working at like the two big walls that run across the the sides of the bowling alley. That was my first taste of oh, I can use my skill to earn extra income. And that was really powerful. And so anyway, I went to school for architecture. I came out of that. I could not get a job like my life, like I just could not get something going.

I had an a brief internship, but it didn’t go anywhere. I started t-shirt printing again just to make extra income because I was like maybe this is like intermediary so that I can eventually get a job in the architecture world. And the t-shirt business started growing and growing some more, and then I started doing like, marketing stuff and like websites and just learning how to market my own business.

And I started taking it really serious. Eventually you and I met and then I started saying, okay, how can this turn into a mission so I could be a little bit different than all these other print shops, which led to refugees giving back to refugee communities. And then, at some point I just was like, I didn’t really set out in life to be a t-shirt printing business owner.

There’s, there was something else bigger for me but I was really good at consulting and coaching other people and like doing and telling stories and speaking. I was getting hired to speak, which was so fun and I loved every minute I spoke for 10 years to like high schools and colleges and so I was like, oh, maybe there’s something there for me where I can do like more consulting, more speaking.

I really wanted to write a book and I, and there was a moment. That made the flip for everything, which was unfortunately when my father passed away, which was in 2016, and I knew, like at the end of 2016. So I knew I, I wanted to do something more fulfilling and change the trajectory, and so I went on this path for the next like few.

It took a while, it took all the way to 2020 to sell my shop and sell that business and then start something new. I wasn’t new to starting something new but I also moved and I completely just shed I don’t wanna say older version of myself, but like a, an exterior version of myself that felt like I needed to hustle and bustle and just go outta my way to over please people.

And there was a lot of layered things. I needed to break out of, to enter this new version of myself, which was this kind of getting back to being a creative and, but what does that mean? For me, it was, I wanted to write, I wanted to paint, and I wanted to build something around helping pe other people understand how they can clarify and spread their message.

And that was my like resilience thing. The resilience thing came from how many times I like tripped up and started over. Tripped up and started over. Or built something after something not so good happened. Which was again, my father passing, or like before that it was like the NBA suing me.

Before that it was, I didn’t get into architecture school. It was, like there was so many sort of dips in. Before it became somewhat successful, there was like a huge, this is not gonna work, I gotta make it work. And so I learned a lot from those times and I think that’s what helped me build the courage.

When my wife and I decided to move down to Tucson and start over. And not really start over, right? It’s just starting a new chapter. And I think that’s the realization I, I’m like, I’m not starting over. I have all of this amazing life experience and I know what not to do. I know how my financials better.

I know all of these things, and now I can apply them to a new trajectory, which is gonna make it that much better and more potent. Rising authors didn’t just come outta nowhere. I went and worked for the company that published my book, scribe Media for almost three and a half years, or a little bit more.

And I worked with some of the best, writers and editors, and I worked with Tucker Max and this woman, Emily Gidel Barger and Chaz Hoppy and Charlie Hoen. Someone like I worked with some. Amazing people to, and I learned so much about the publishing world. That and then there was like a missing element that I felt like I could eventually fulfill, which was the sort of marketing and brand element that I was good at from all these previous things that I’ve done.

But now I could bring them to this sort of specific niche and I can deploy all my creativity, all my. Ideologies, my learnings and everything to this niche. And so unfortunately I got laid off along with a hundred other people in 2023, like May of 2023, and that stung. But immediately, literally within two weeks, I had rising authors up and going, I had a website, I had people signing up for my coaching programs and my, brand programs.

And I just knew I like. I was, at the time too, I built this other little community of everyone that got laid off and all the authors that were impacted because I rec, I know a refugee when I see them, right? And so we developed this whole thing where they can still connect and like work with each other.

So that was really cool. And so it was just a moment of like, I know what to do when chaos happens. In that moment, I never felt more calm. I never felt more oh, and again, it was just all of the, my previous experiences had led to, okay, this isn’t here anymore. What am I gonna do now? And it’s, and honestly even months before I was prepping that I was eventually going to leave this job and go do my own thing, this just sped it up.

So that’s part of my journey that I feel like. Was important to me. And again, level of awareness and paying attention to what’s going on and the paying attention. I saw the problem and then I started investigating a solution. And in that solution there was skills, skills that I can apply.

And so when I started rising authors it just, it felt almost natural. It felt like a. Duh, next step. And yeah. And then, there’s a component of rising authors that we’re still developing and working on, which is going to be like the Garden of Wisdom Publishing. I have two more books in me that I wanna publish.

There’s where we, the idea is where we can, grab onto and help. People of color stories resonate and publish as well and help build their brands. And I dipped my toes in podcasting in my van before the rising author stuff, and. Today it’s oh, this is a no-brainer to use the van and travel around.

Obviously I put it on a back burner ’cause I had a son this last year and a half, right? But when we bring it back and do the travel tour to interview authors and things like that’s something I’m very passionate about. And like I love meeting people and there’s something about the immigrant, this idea of movement.

And then like settling for a moment and then moving again, and then investigating and learning. I think for me, the van is a metaphor to that. And now we can utilize it to highlight other people’s stories, but also to bring awareness and attention to my work as a marketer. And it’s like you can do all kinds of different things.

That can align with who you are and how they help your business. So I’m not a, I’m not a fool. Like I want to grow my business and grow what I’m good at, but I need clients for that. And it’s like, well, how can I use the van, the, this, the, that, my marketing abilities do something for that person and in return, get some kind of work out of it.

But do it in a very authentic and clean way. So I’m not like. One, I’m not like begging for work or whatever, but I’m actually giving more than I’m receiving. So yeah, that’s the journey of, I think being multi, you can use your multi-pass, multi-dimensions and apply it to a I don’t wanna say narrow field, but apply it to something you are really passionate and trying to obsess over.

And for me, I learned that. All of these things. I just, I love the idea of marketing, and marketing is sharing a clear message so that other people can resonate with it. And I didn’t realize that for a long time that all of these things fit under that umbrella, but that’s where I ended up going.

It was like, you know what? I’m gonna try to become a really good marketing expert for authors so that they can learn from me and then I can meet them and help them. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: I love that and marketing is sharing a clear message and emphasis on that. ’cause marketing can be clear a lot of things. But I, I know from that history that you’ve been a benefit corporations for good company owner and the clarity of message fits into vision and values, which resonate through you so much.

And I also wanna tell you unintentionally. You gave me a gift more than one. But there’s one that stands out and it triggered my memory when you said about being sued by the MBA because I am a business generalist and coach and was also in the small business development center for five years.

As a business advisor and working with companies that come up with names or wanna have taglines or do things. And in the back of my mind, there’s always been a few stories about. Danger. Danger. You don’t wanna cross a trademark, you don’t wanna do copyright infringement. And people’s gut response, even if they think about checking something, is to go straight to Google.

And I’m like, Nope. That is not a way to, 

It’s okay for a little bit, but do the due diligence to check copyrights. And part of it was when you were. I’ve been to several, few lectures, but one of them, you told that story and it really helped me bring home to other people’s people cautionary tales of don’t go the way you wanna go without some due diligence.

Because it’s very painful to get expensive to, to get caught. And we have ways to search and look and that story taught me so much about helping people anticipate. And helping people forecast a little bit what could be down the road. And to be cautious and because it’s great to have a, it’s feels, you know how it is, it feels so good to have a good name for a product or a service.

It’s, it feels great to think you’ve nailed it and then find out, oh, that might get a cease and desist letter down the road. How to anticipate that and shift beforehand and have some disappointment beforehand because I have seen, unfortunately, several really sweet, wonderful entrepreneurs almost go bankrupt because of things that they didn’t anticipate.

And it’s it, 

Hussein Al Baiaty: right? It’s, 

Kim Allchurch Flick: it is brutal. A cruel world out there. But knowledge is power and being able to anticipate and learn how to do due diligence can be part of that. And your stories resonate with me. Constantly about, these other parts of business ownership as well and, I don’t wanna overuse the word pivot, so I’m not going to here, but sometimes to sidestep or move in a different direction or be observant and see that there’s something even more important to others out there. Yeah. If you just take an off ramp and a slightly different journey, it can lead to beautiful things.

Hussein Al Baiaty: Yeah, I think a lot of people get, this has happened to me and it happens to a lot of people, is that we get stuck, especially if you’re like, oh man, that name is taken, or whatever, and then they like don’t move past it and they just like get frustrated or irritable and it’s like, no, try a hundred different names, try it.

I think as, as much as I’ve been able to narrow and concentrate my energies on what I’m doing now, I think. There’s one thing that really helped me with that and it might help you and other people, and that is to realize, like for me it was what do I want to be known for?

I think this is like a the black smith back in the day can make knives and swords and make your shoes or whatever. And then it became shoe making is like a completely different thing. And then. Even in shoemaking, there’s like the leather and there’s different types, right?

There’s subcategories to almost every category, right? And so I’m not a marketer for, I can do marketing for plumbers and electricians, but that’s not what I want to do. That’s not what excites me. Nothing wrong with them or what they do. I think it’s a very necessary thing in our world, clearly. Can I do that?

Yes, of course I can apply what I know to that world. However, for me, I just, I love the world of books. I just attribute so much of who I’ve become from learning from books that I was like and working with authors who have wild stories and experiences and all these things, and I feel like it’s another way to experience the world.

So wait, why don’t I take what I know and say, and this is, I know this is really corny, but it’s a really good practice. You say something like, I am the most sought after X, Y, Z, right? So for me it was, I am the most sought after author marketing expert in the world. So if you can take that sentence and say, I am the most sought after X, but that X needs to be specific.

So for me, it’s author marketing expert, right? Everything else lines up right behind that. So what does that mean? I, so the three definitive things that I have is I help an author with clarity. I help an author build an online presence, like their website and all this stuff, and then I help an author with how to get their message out into the world using their online presence.

So once you define what is. Author, marketing expert, like what do they do? What is the daily thing? It’s like a shoemaker takes leather and turns it into a, a pair of really cool shoes. So it’s like that is the thing. And I think people need to visually see that for themself and visually recognize what it is that they’re actually providing.

So for me, once I like wrote that sentence. Slowly, like really leaned into believing it. So I’m like, okay, if I am the most sought after X, what does the most sought after X do? What does this person do to be that the most sought after? So then you have to live up to this identity and it creates a little bit of pressure and it creates a little bit of uncomfort and it creates a little bit of excitement.

And for me. Duh. I’m not the most, like from the world perspective, I’m not the most sought after author, marketing person, whatever. But for me, I am that and that’s all that matters. And I need to live up to that for myself. I need to not fool myself. ’cause if I am that person, then I need to wake up in the morning.

I need to show up like this. I need to read the right books or the books that will help inform this knowledge so that when I teach or work with people that I’m delivering things that matter. Practicing it myself. So speaking and going out there and getting work and marketing myself and marketing my brand.

And that is, there’s so many people who will tell you like, oh, I know how to help market you, but they don’t market themself. That doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m gonna give you the best shoes on earth to wear for basketball. But we actually make soccer shoes. What? You know what I mean?

It’s the. Do you live up to that thing? Does do your action. Are your actions the byproduct of what you’re doing? Is it visual? Is it, is there proof? That’s the biggest thing. Is there proof? So as a business owner, but more so as a person this, when I decided that I am the world’s most sought after X, then.

Everything lined up behind that to make that as powerful as it can be and as true as it can be for me and hopefully for other people, when they get to experience working together with me. So I’m not here to try to promote my thing. I’m just saying that was a one-liner that really like is very uncomfortable, because a lot of people will just say I don’t wanna be the most sought after thing. It’s okay, now you’re playing it safe, right? Because saying I’m the world’s most whatever, is very bold. It’s very big, right? It’s scary. But also if you just want to say, I just need a few clients and I just want to be a marketing, whatever.

That’s okay. That’s you and the rest of everyone else because. And they’re not gonna stand out. They’re not. So when you say, I’m the world’s most sought after whatever, that must mean everything you do, all the bold statements, it means you own a contrarian way of doing something. It means you are going to, like, when a basketball player decides that they’re gonna be the best basketball player in the world, it means they’re gonna show up to the gym differently.

They’re gonna wear their shoes, they’re gonna put their socks on a specific way. They’re going to all of these, they’re gonna drink the right things. Their diet is gonna be a specific way, right? So that, that’s literally going from amateur to being a pro. When you make a decision that you’re going to be the best at the thing that you’re gonna do.

Right now, again, that’s a leap and that’s the leap I help people make, is that when you build a personal brand as an author, as a person who wants to share a message of any kind, even a small business owner of any kind, if you have a salon, if you have a radio station, if you have whatever, an app, just decide you’re the best at it in the world because it’s not the business that’s gonna be the best at it in the world.

It’s you have to rise up to that occasion. And that’s the rising up, which is literally why rising authors exists. It’s the rising up to that occasion that differentiates what you can offer and put on the table. You’re gonna do things differently. It’s gonna force you to yeah, think differently, think in a ways that really empower you and others.

Sorry I went off on a tangent there, but I think that’s really important. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: You gave me a lot of quotes though. You have to rise to that occasion. And it, what I also means to me is particularly for people who are trying to do too much and wearing several different hats and things of that nature, is we can’t be the best at one thing if we’re doing a lot of different things and 

Hussein Al Baiaty: oh my God, 

Kim Allchurch Flick: to be able to, I have so much 

Hussein Al Baiaty: to say about 

Kim Allchurch Flick: this, focus it in oh and guilty trying to do too many things, and yet what?

As you were saying those words, I felt relief. Oh, if I can just say that, I can shed 

Hussein Al Baiaty: a lot. Tell me about that relief. Why? Why did you feel a relief? 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Because trying to do too many things and be too broad is a lot of extraneous work that doesn’t feel very fulfilling. And to be able to tell ourselves, this is a very specific niche that I someone else.

Can, the specific part speaks to niche, which speaks to, okay, if it doesn’t fit in the niche, you don’t have to worry about it to really create something that resonates. And if it resonates inside, it resonates with others. And as this through the SBDC, there’s this story I’m, I may have told you before, but just take a couple of seconds about niche and what you’re speaking to.

One of my friends was teaching a class at a new entrepreneur. Was very good at repairing windows, and the niche was repairing windows. That could be Home Depot to anybody. It’s like the homework was be more specific, create a niche, and after some time this person came back and said, the niche is to repair windows with sash windows that were created.

Before, I think it was 1887 and the teacher who’s my friend was saying, I’ve never met a niche. That may be too specific, but there’s something about that. That was the end of hand tools and hand repair and hand creation of windows. And there, after that we got into, machine age. And the reason this person is so successful is in fixing windows like Mount Vernon and historic registry buildings is because they’re one of the few people in the world that knows that specific, 

Hussein Al Baiaty: that’s it.

Kim Allchurch Flick: Talk about success. It’s not about fixing every window out there. And so when you were talking about I am the most sought after specific in the world. It wasn’t about windows, it was about history. And I think what you’ve, if everyone listening can take this and think, oh wow, this is really something.

Hussein Al Baiaty: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And it makes a difference. It resonates. And anyone searching for that or wanting to find something, it really resonates. And then the marketer in you also knows searching for a window repair. It’s gonna be a lot broader in crazy making than I have a historic building who can help me.

Hussein Al Baiaty: Exactly. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And knows it a whole bunch. 

Hussein Al Baiaty: Yeah. Because let’s say there is a million historic windows that need to be repaired. You probably can’t do them all in your lifetime, and you’re gonna make an amazing living doing that and doing what you love. Because you know those historical, you know the frames, you know the wood and the brick around them, and so much that even if it takes you five minutes, you can still charge $10,000 because you are the only one in the entire state that could probably do that, right? Or you are one of five great. That means someone else can fix all the other windows that I can’t, and even in my niche, right? So people are terrified of niching down.

In fact, I even saw. A post today that I completely disagreed with, which was you don’t have to, you don’t have to niche down. Don’t take that advice. And I’m like, yeah, cool. Keep being a generalist because that’s fine. You can be a gen, like in, in reality, I’m a generalist. I’m, I love painting, drawing, writing, copywriting, websites, marketing.

I’m interested in Arabic music I’m in. You know what I’m saying? Yeah. Like I have a ton of interest. Here’s where it gets strong is that it’s all forged, right? It’s all forged into a beautiful sword so that I can cut through the noise and deliver one thing that I’m remarkable at, right? And that is how you build a garden.

You walk by somebody’s house and their garden is beautiful, front yard, back yard, whatever. You can see it and you pause and you look and you appreciate, and you see the birds and the bees and the person there, gardening and all of these beautiful things, and you appreciate that home, right? That’s what it means to build our thing.

Literally my next book, it’s called The Garden Warrior, which literally means how do you cultivate and build something so unique, so beautiful, right? And so you, right? If you’re if you just grew roses in front of your house, just grew roses, imagine how many people will come and stop and take pictures of those roses, right?

Just imagine. So it’s the same thing with your business. I always I love like a good taco truck that serves like not a bunch of different types of tacos, just the biggest and best chicken taco in the world, right? Like it’s just the one thing and they just pour all their energy into that.

I met, those are the ones that have lines. The best sushi place doesn’t serve burgers. It’s evident all of everywhere, like Michael Jordan to the little kid who decides not to play every sport but just run track and he becomes great at running track, whatever it is. When we decide that I want to, I wanna obsess over this thing, then the world becomes your library.

This is a quote from Kobe Bryant. The world becomes your library on how you become the greatest thing at that thing, right? So it’s like Kobe Bryant used to take ballet classes to improve his feet and legs, right? So yes, you can be multidisciplinary and learn a bunch, but the key is how do I apply this to the world?

How does it make me the world expert at that thing? Or my business at that thing. And so people think they need to spread their, so that comes also from fear and insecurity, where we spread ourselves thin. ’cause we’re trying to people please. How do I know? Because I’ve done this, when we are saying like, I’m good at this and I’m good at that and I don’t know where to go and I have so many good things and I don’t wanna decide on what type of business.

My business does everything. And it’s if you’re everything for everyone, you’re for no one. It’s just the way it is. I’m sorry to say it. Why? Because we love when people put a lot of effort. Look at these Olympians that we were just watching. The, in the, whether they’re skiing or snowboarding or whatever, they spent years just perfecting that one thing, that one, ten second thing that they’re working on like after life.

But we’re all watching all around the world to see who’s gonna get the microsecond win, something unique about that. So when we think about that and apply it to our work, and I say I am the now, here’s the key part, sought after, which means people are looking for me for this thing as opposed to me going to find people for my thing.

So the problem with a lot of marketing and marketing advice is that we go out there and do outreach. Which is, so somebody goes and comes back and says, oh, I want a website, but I need it for my plumbing service. And I’m like, yeah, I can do that. And then I need a website for my thing. I can do that.

Now I’m a generalist website developer and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s people who make a good living doing that. But I’ll never be the go-to plumbing website builder person on earth because that’s not my world. Because I wouldn’t, I would build a plumbing podcast. I would build a plumbing newsletter.

I would build like a plumbing community. I would build a plumbing conference. I would build all of these things for the plumbing people to show them that I love them and guess what’s gonna happen. They’re gonna show me that they love me too. ’cause I provide things and services and community and all those things for them, right?

It goes back and forth. So everyone I feel like I’ve ever admired in business or whatever, and at least their niche, they’re not only good at that thing that they’re really seeing, but their business is a reflection of this whole thing. They lead that conversation and people look to them for what they’re doing or not doing to build their own thing.

So that’s just really powerful. So the word sought after, before the X is just as important as the X because it’s cool. You don’t have to go out there and look for work. People are referring you. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Words of wisdom. And this is so awesome. And I feel so upbeat about it. I’m just wondering what makes you optimistic?

Hussein Al Baiaty: You can see my energy go through the roof when I talk about this stuff, right? 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Yes. 

Hussein Al Baiaty: I think optimism is a practice. It’s like patience. It’s gratitude. It’s health and wellness and taking a break and it’s work. I look at everything that we are trying to be as we gotta work at it.

You can’t just be optimistic, right? But being optimistic requires paying attention. So that’s a practice that you can do to the, and the byproduct of paying attention. Can be opportunity prospects, solutions, optimism. Kindness, generosity, when you’re paying attention and looking for the thing, right? You gotta look for the thing.

It starts with intention. So I look for ways to be optimistic. I look for ways to create opportunity for myself and others. I look for ways to grow my business. I look for ways to be happy. Happiness is not a, a state, it’s a, it’s an inten. It starts with an intention. I can look at my baby and be happy as whatever, right?

Because how can you not? I can look at my wife and feel the same way. I can look at my work and feel the same way. So just as much as you can feel bad or sad or shitty about the world, you can also choose to be happy, excited, optimistic, and prosperous about your world. Happiness, optimism, patience, kindness.

All of those things are a practice. They are not something you receive because you are privileged. They are not something you receive because you’re white, black, Asian, Jamaican, whatever. They are a privilege that you get to practice and it is a choice and I strongly believe that now do things.

It’s again, because it’s a byproduct. I believe what makes for Optum optimism is to generate luck. And the way you generate luck is you create it by working hard at the thing that you’re doing and sharing about it and being excited about it. And there’s not gonna be, you’re not gonna be excited about it every day.

So just put that away. You’re probably not gonna be excited for about it for a month, maybe two, but, all of these things that we expect are a reflection. They are a mirror. So if I’m optimistic, the world is gonna come back with optimism. If I’m happy, the world is gonna come back to me with happy things to see.

So I want to pay attention, take your attention and direct it towards something in your life that is positive. And you guess what? Literally the byproduct of that attention is optimism, piece, love, happiness, all the things that we want are there, but they’re hidden behind your attention, your intention.

That’s how I feel about that stuff. So optimism is not something I have, it’s something I work on. It’s something that I practice, something that I go out there and look for. It’s, it requires me just as much as I require it. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Wow. I, that’s the most profound answer to that question. I just, I love that. As we wrap up, I’m curious how can people reach you and then we’ll go to our final question.

Hussein Al Baiaty: Yeah. Just HusseinAlBaiaty.com or rising-authors.com. Or you can find me on LinkedIn. That’s where I love to hang out. LinkedIn community. Reach me there, Hussein Al dash B-A-I-A-T-Y. Yeah, I’d love to connect with you there. You wanna reach out, message me, whatever. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: I love that. And if you could have dinner with up to three people living or deceased, who would they be and why?

Hussein Al Baiaty: Yeah, I think that one for me is pretty easy. I would, I just there’s, I don’t have a pedestal anymore. I knocked that down a long time ago. There’s no one on a pedestal. I don’t really care about that world anymore. I just, I would love to have dinner with my father again and I would love to have dinner with my father and my son and all three of us can hang out and have a beautiful dinner together.

And 

Kim Allchurch Flick: yes, 

Hussein Al Baiaty: and most of the conversation would just be.

Thank you. 

Yeah, it’ll just be, thank you. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: You are amazing. I really wish I could give you a hug. 

Hussein Al Baiaty: Thank you. I 

Kim Allchurch Flick: appreciate 

Hussein Al Baiaty: your time. I’ll be back in Portland soon, so we’ll make it happen. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Oh, fantastic. This resonates so deeply. Thank you. Thank you everyone for listening. So many messages to take forth and that’s where wisdom lies.

I think it’s learning, sharing, spreading those things. I’ve learned a lot today and carry it close to heart. Thank you so much, everyone. Have a wonderful day. Take care. 

Hussein Al Baiaty: Appreciate 

Kim Allchurch Flick: it. Bye-bye.