Find a problem to solve – #3

Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah, Rabbil Alameen, wassalatu wassalamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen, Muhammadu rasulullahi sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahibu sallam, tasliman kathiran kathira. Fammabadu, my brothers and sisters, somebody asked me a question, I've been, last two further reminders, we've been talking about, of secret of success, and I said find a problem, solve it, scale it, monetize it, and one of our listeners, he said, how do I find a problem? Now, on the face of it, that looks like a trick question, so I'm sure he's trying to trick me. But seriously, if you think about it, how do you find a problem? That reminds me of a story. I was, many years ago, I was walking in Nizamabad with a friend of mine, and we went down, we were going to some place, and we went down a lane, and this lane was absolutely stinking. It was the foulest smelling thing that you can imagine. So my friend obviously expressed his disgust, and he said, what a horrible smell. So I said to him. That is the smell of money. So he thought I was speaking hypothetically, you know, that like money is dirty kind of thing. Of course, I don't believe money is dirty, money is money. What you do with it makes it dirty or good. So he said, do you mean, what do you mean? So I said, I'm not speaking hypothetically. This is the smell of money. So he said, I didn't understand. I said, what are you smelling? He said, garbage. I said, okay. So if you apply to the city and say that I want to remove this garbage, do you think the city will agree? And I said, apply to the city. I want to remove the garbage. He said, yeah, I'm sure they'll agree. So he said, if you apply to remove this garbage, who will pay you for that? He said, the city will pay. He said, yes. The garbage itself, you get. And the city is paying you to remove the garbage. Now you take this garbage and then you take it to a place and you separate it. You recycle it. Plastic separate, inflammable separate and so on. And you make a plastic melting factory. You make, you create a factory to make briquettes, fuel briquettes, for example. You take other garbage which can be converted into vermicompost. So you have fertilizer. So I said, there's three different revenue streams. Now you can upscale the plastics into making different kinds of consumer products. So that is a revenue stream that can be scaled up some more. So he said, fantastic. I never thought of that. I said, okay, then I'm not finished. So I said, here you have got three revenue streams. The raw material for which you are getting. Not only are you getting it free because garbage is garbage. People just throw it. But you are also being paid to bring it to your place from wherever it is. Right? So here is raw material being donated to you free of cost. And somebody is paying you to move that raw material from wherever it is to your factories. Right? He said, fantastic. I said, okay, I haven't finished yet. He said, what more? What is there? I said, I'll tell you. The real punchline is to come. So the punchline is to remove this garbage, you need labor. To separate the garbage into different, you know, basic raw material products for your different factories, you need labor. Who are the people that you are going to employ? He said, well, people who are very poor, people who have really no options in life, people who are completely uneducated. And since we are talking about India, we'll, we'll probably employ people of lower castes who are already oppressed and so on. So I said, there you go. Now you are providing employment for all of these people. And all of them, all of them are people in need, people who are, you know, who have, who have serious life difficulties. So I said, now think about this. So when you are doing this, you are getting Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will reward you because you are helping all of these people. At the same time, you are cleaning the streets. So now your city, instead of smelling like a garbage dump, now start smelling like a rose garden because the whole place is cleaned up. Plus you have provided employment for all these people. Now you being a good Muslim, inshaAllah, and you being, the purpose being to please Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you will not exploit these people who you are employing. You will employ them. You will maybe start schools for their small children. Maybe you will start and you should start, you know, you should start a free medical facility for them to, you know, to give them, provide them medical aid. And then you expand the schools, employ, you know, make them absolutely top class schools and then open them. So now you've got a fourth revenue stream, which is schools. And it's a very, very popular and a very lucrative revenue stream. You have your hospitals. Now again, in the hospitals, that's a fifth revenue stream, right? And again, I'm not saying do it like the corporate hospitals do make it into an absolute profit center. Don't do that, but have it, have it in a way where you are breaking even. And you're also making some profit because at the end of the day, there's nothing wrong with profit and you need the profit to be able to plow it back into the system. So you're doing it ethically and we're doing it morally and you're doing it in a way which is beneficial. So you've got five revenue streams from what? From garbage, right? Five different revenue streams. From garbage. I said, but I haven't finished yet. He said, what, what more is there? I said, I'll tell you. Punchline is still to come. I said, the punchline is that now, thanks to your effort, thousands of people are employed. You have got schools there, which people know you run those schools and you and the world class schools, fantastic schools. You've done a great job doing that. You've got a great hospitals there, which are, which are also, you know, a big asset for the community. The streets are clean. Place smells nice. Now what do you do? I said, I will stand for election for mayor of town and you get elected. So now you also have power. So this garbage, which was garbage, which was there, it was just stinking and everyone was complaining and you were complaining and so on and so forth. It's breeding mosquitoes and all sorts of stuff has turned into five separate revenue streams for you will make you humongously wealthy and it will give you political power. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. course you will be the most popular man in town because or man or woman in town because you have done so much for the community so much for the people and so on so forth right and i told him that's exactly almost exactly not all the all the elements of it but more the overall story is exactly like the story of the guy who started exactly the same thing in south africa now people have done exactly that you have for example in south africa uh shepo mazibu mazibu ko k1 recycling the man started as a waste picker and he built a successful company that sorts processes and recycles plastic employing over a thousand people and then there's dr vini magodi her company processes waste into new products like squirtle brags and so on so on uh highlighting what she calls the waste is wealth uh concept then you have in um in canada uh another one who we we call them you know garbage billionaire for example um which is patrick dovigi uh canadian businessman and founder of gfl environmental inc a major north american environmentalist services he's called the waste mogul or the garbage billionaire and so on and you can look up um look up his doings uh he's done lots of stuff there's another billionaire in ghana who's transforming plastic waste into sustainable building materials and so on so the whole bunch of people so the point i'm making is that what i'm saying here even though i must say that whatever i've said which is the organic waste, inorganic waste, plastic waste, and so on. And of course, this would depend from country to country, society to society, depending on people's lifestyle and what they use. Therefore, if you say, where can I find a problem? I will say that the only person who probably can't find a problem is somebody who cannot see, who cannot hear, who cannot think. But if you can do these things, then just go walk around in your neighborhood and you will see problems, not one problem, you will see many problems. Pick the one which you think is usually the best thing to do is to try to solve the easiest one. Or the alternative is to pick the one which is causing the most pain. Because if you solve that one, you will get the best return on your investment of time, energy, and effort. So pick the one which is the most painful problem and go solve it. And do it in a way where you can turn that, once you have the solution, you can scale it, and then you can monetize it, and you are on to a great thing. So I hope I have inspired you to go and solve the problems of the world in a way where you benefit and everybody else also benefits. May Allah bless you.