Islamic Life Coach School Podcast

Your Earning Capacity

January 09, 2024 Kanwal Akhtar Episode 163
Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Your Earning Capacity
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Unleash the financial powerhouse within you, as we journey through the uncharted territories of wealth creation for Muslim women. 

This episode is a  call to all sisters who feel trapped  by societal norms or self-doubt; it's time to realize that your earning capacity is not just immense—it's infinite.  Because it is directly related to your Value Capacity. Your income reflects the unique value you contribute, transcending the constraints of physical limitations or societal expectations. 


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast. Apply tools that you learn in this podcast and your life will be unrecognisably successful. Now your host, dr Kamal Uthar. Hello, hello, hello everyone. Peace and blessings be upon all of you.

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Today's podcast is dedicated to women in Islam who want to earn financial independence. Or, if you are a woman in Islam and you already have a good income stream, then how to optimize your income and think about it in a way where it's more mentally healthy. You are capable of earning as much as your mind allows you to, and your mind's capacity to offer value and earn income is unlimited. This is going to be the focus of this podcast. An objection I get is all provisions are from Allah and, yes, I do agree with that and I believe in that. But your capacity to earn comes from your ability to create value. That is the vehicle that Allah has allowed for you. The provision is, of course, written for you, but if you are not optimizing your ability to receive it, you will continue to limit it just because of your mind, Not because Allah has not written it for you. You are capable of earning higher and higher provisions just through the capacity of your mind. So we limit our capacity to earn by believing a lot of limiting beliefs about ourselves, about money and about our capabilities. And then we say that all provisions are from Allah, all risk is from Allah. Like we know what this risk is. They are. All risk is from Allah. But not for a second should you pretend to even know what those provisions are. You have no idea what is written for you.

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Some other objections that I get is but what about physical limitations? Okay, but if you have a petite physique, you may not make it as an Olympic level runner. But the beautiful part is that you are generally attracted to do things where you have had a positive feedback all of your life. So if you are born with a petite height, your positive feedback from your life is not going to come from having run a marathon. Your positive feedback is going to come from your creativity, your art painting, your business or math aptitude or solving people's problems. And when growing up, you receive these positive feedbacks, your natural interests will grow in these fields. If you are an introvert, you are not going to have natural inclinations of being a public speaker, an outspoken activist in the spotlight, but you might have inclinations towards maths or becoming masterful at computer sciences or becoming an activist, that does not gain a lot of spotlight. Your value capacity has the maximizing potential in areas where you have natural interests and physical abilities and what we call natural interests developed by the subconscious, positive feedback from humans close to us, and that we are able to see our internal strengths and we reflect them in their voices.

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Your value capacity is what you can offer the world with your skills and talents in exchange of money, and this value capacity strictly comes from your mind. It does not come from anything external. And this value capacity is directly correlated to your earning capability, which never comes from the world. It does not come from certifications, it does not come from connections or the lack thereof. It comes from your mind.

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Another common objection I get in this case is that people don't want to believe they can earn more than the amount of hours they can work, meaning if you have maximized the amount of hours, that's the only amount of money you can make. Or you can tell me you already worked so many hours. You pay your employees and you might not have anything left to pay yourself, and that's how the business is being run. And all of this is because of low quality thoughts about your employee job or about your business. None of these sentences are factual. Your earning capacity is limiting itself in these cases because your mind's capacity to think outside of the box is limited. Because of these low quality thoughts, you can remain an under-earner in any industry and you're endangering yourself of remaining at the lower end of the spectrum of the value capacity that you can potentially offer the world.

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Your value capacity is independent of generational wealth. It is independent of your current net worth. Just to be clear, if it's not already, when I say value capacity, I mean your ability to contribute to the world in a way where people will exchange their money with you for what you have to offer them. And I want you to set aside any facts about your income or any debt that you might be in, because when you worry about your income being low or you're dealing with debt, then you cloud your judgment about your value capacity, about what you can offer the world. In that case, you don't think clearly about how much value you have the potential of offering the world, because then you are in fear and scarcity about how much you don't have, how much you don't earn and how much you owe the bank or your friends.

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The cleanest way to tap into your value capacity is to come to it with a mindset of exploration and curiosity. What do I have to offer the world? What have I kept myself from exploring? That is my strength. What is it that I'm limiting myself in? How am I limiting it? Who's limiting thoughts am I internalizing? For a lot of working Muslim women, they're internalizing other men's opinions Opinions like a woman's role is only in the house or she shouldn't out-earn her husband. And, believe it or not, I was always internalizing other people's beliefs about me, but with mind management and conscious thinking about my brain. Now I'm extremely selective about what beliefs I internalize, and these selections nowadays is from what made other people successful, regardless of if they're men or women, muslim or non-Muslim.

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Being selective about what you internalize about yourself is a success strategy. I'm always putting other people's opinions through an extremely refined filter of does this serve me or not? Somebody else's opinion of you can only affect you if you allow it. So then the next question becomes how do you know if you are at your value capacity or what it even is? The answer is you're never at your full level of value capacity, because if that had a ceiling, then you would stop growing, and you actually never stop growing. Maybe your value capacity is optimized in domestic duties and it could be optimized in crafting. Or maybe it's optimized in working outside, in the home, and you have grown enough in your professional life, but it can be optimized within the home.

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There's always room for improvement in what value you give to the world, because chances are, at any given moment you're playing multiple roles. Maybe you need to refocus on your marriage. Maybe your value capacity needs to be revamped in your friendship or when it comes to memorizing and studying the Quran. The beautiful thing about optimizing your value capacity in different roles is that you become a better person. All of this is work for you to become the most refined, efficient and upgraded version of yourself, because this has to happen before you can offer value to somebody else in the world.

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In that regard, limiting your value capacity comes from you not having advanced yourself. With some restructuring, re-engineering, upgrading yourself, comes maximization of the value you can provide the world. It brings you to your best potential. It increases your value capacity. Because if you don't do that, if you don't advance yourself, if you don't work on time management, stress management, relationship connections, then you will have a tendency to have a limiting value capacity. And that's the space where I find most people are at when they're seeking coaching with me and, unfortunately, the mindset is that all risk is from Allah and I can't change anything. My capacity of earning money, which correlates with my capacity to offer value to the world, is unlimited. Since value comes from my brain and since I don't know what risk is written for me, what you offer the world is unlimited and, by extension, the amount of money you can make is unlimited. And since you don't know how much risk or provision is actually written for you, the amount of risk or provisions you can create through the power of your mind is also unlimited.

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Sometimes, when I say this and your mind goes to hustle, that's actually not what I mean. Maximizing your value capacity does not mean that you're always hustling, stressing, always stretching yourself thin in the name of resilience and hard work. That is not what I mean here at all. I absolutely refuse to hustle, I refuse to work with high stress energy, but I produce at a very high level, alhamdulillah, and I'm always trying to optimize my value capacity. This is where the creativity of an open heart and an open mind lies. You innovate in a way where you stay away from hustle culture and optimize your value that comes from your brain and you offer it to the world without sacrificing your peace of mind.

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Maximizing your value capacity has a lot to do with aligning yourself with the people who need that value. If you have a master's in computer science or a high degree in IT and you're trying to earn a living in food industry, they will never be able to match your value. They will never understand what you have is truly remarkable and they will never be able to match it with the money they pay you. Or if you have certifications in coding languages and you apply for a new job as a front desk person in an office, they will never be able to match with their money the value you can offer them, simply because of the fact that there is a mismatch. But let's say you're an extrovert and you have a special way of remembering people and making people feel special, then you're a perfect match to work as a front desk staff for an office and they will see that value of how much people love interacting with you, how much customers, clients, patients feel understood, how much they feel heard and valued. The management, the employment will see your value as a staff member. The employer will see how valuable you are to their company and will give you money that matches that value that you offer, because they have the maximum understanding of the value you're giving them while at the same time you're maximizing your value capacity based on your skills and talents.

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So I was teaching this concept to my son recently. He had no idea what value he could offer the world. It turns out that he loves solving Rubik's cube and I asked him if he'd be willing to teach other people how to do that. His first subjection was that nobody wants to learn how to solve a Rubik's cube. And I asked him what proof do you have? And he answered with that whenever he solved a Rubik's cube in front of his friends, they were very excited, but they never wanted to learn. So I said, okay, maybe they're not the right people, maybe they don't understand the value you're offering them because they are not interested in learning how to solve it. Then you have to match your offer to people who want to learn and who want to take the value you have to give. After this mutual understanding, we approached our local library and we offered a course on how to solve a 3x3 Rubik's cube to kids ages 8 and above, and it was a hit. Kids loved how to be able to solve one of the most complex puzzles, and my son was finally able to see that he does have value to give.

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The other hurdle his mind had to cross from the experience of the library is that he didn't get paid for this. So in his mind, the objection was that he can never make money because he had not made money so far offering this value. So then my job as a coach parent was to show him that the return on investment is not always money. Maybe he starts with making a name for himself, maybe he refines the teaching method, maybe he condenses it, maybe he adds an FAQ session, maybe he can offer a different class for advanced students and a simpler class for younger students. And all of these ideas intrigued him because he just thought that he has no value to offer because nobody has given him money for it so far, and this was severely limiting his growth.

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But what I helped him understand was that you have to offer value to the right people at the right time who need exactly what you're offering. Then, when all of this is correctly aligned, then they will offer you money for it. And in this day of social media and internet, this search and alignment process is a lot easier than before. And this, I see, is the way to do it in the most halal and spiritual and uplifted way. What you do is you offer pure value and people see it, and if they don't see it, then you keep offering value to others until there is an alignment. Other people's rejection of your value has no bearing on your skills or your value capacity. It just means that you have to offer your talent to others.

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Now I want to tell you about my experience and how I was in an extreme amount of pain, even while I was one of the top earners as a category as a physician in internal medicine. Physicians are compensated at a very competitive rate, but I was not at my value capacity. So the questions I was coming up against was why aren't I grateful for what I have in my life? Why am I not feeling fulfilled, having worked so hard, having respect from colleagues, family members, having a great work environment? Why am I not happy with what I have? And the answer came to me in terms of value capacity, I love offering the maximum amount of value I can offer in any of my roles and identities. So I started optimizing it as a parent, as a daughter, as a Musa, as a mindset coach, as a volunteer, and my life has never been more fulfilling, alhamdulillah, even with all of these roles, my efficiency as a physician increased.

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Reaching value capacity has nothing to do with the amount of money you might be already making. It has to do with living a life of Ihsan, a life of growth, contribution, a life of always improving, learning, focusing on advancing and enhancing yourself and always being mindful of the watchful eye of Allah swt. Reaching value capacity does not mean hustling and not resting. Some of you might be making money, some of you might have inherited money, some of you might have husbands or families and other income streams that you depend on and are well provided for. It does not mean that you've reached your value capacity, because that is always expanding and that is only dependent on your mind's ability to expand. If you apply the right mindset and you refuse to drop into hustle energy, you will create a life far more fulfilling than you ever envisioned. Since your value capacity is always expanding, your money making capacity is also always expanding.

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I pray that you find this message helpful and then you apply it in your life and you filter through your ideas and see where you're under, serving either yourself or others. The mind's inefficiency will show up as your limitations of value contribution, which will show up as financial scarcity, which sadly gets labeled as the risk or provision that is assigned to you by Allah. May Allah's upon all our protect us from such limitations of our mind. With that, I pray to Allah. O Allah, I seek your guidance and blessings as I strive to maximize my earning potential. I ask that you help me and all of us to achieve financial freedom without hustle or stress.

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I pray that you guide me in utilizing strengths and skills to contribute value in the world and earn a livelihood that brings me financial stability and abundance. I ask for your help in creating a mindset of Irsana, o Allah, the most merciful. I trust in your divine plan, your provisions, the risk that you've written for me. I pray that you expand it through my mind and I pray that you bless me with financial success and abundance in a way that aligns with your will. I ask for your mercy and guidance as I strive to fulfill my purpose on this earth and live a life of gratitude and generosity. I thank you, o Allah, for all of the blessings that you've already given me, and I ask that you continue to bless me with your grace and mercy. Ameen Ya Rabul Alameen, please keep me in your dharas. I will talk to you guys next time.

Maximizing Value Capacity in Islam
Expanding Value Capacity and Financial Fulfillment
Prayer for Financial Success and Abundance