Join us for an inspiring episode of The Breaking Point Podcast with guest Hussein Halak, an author, investor, businessman, and entrepreneur with a fascinating journey. In this heartfelt conversation, Hussein shares how his wife’s unwavering support and commitment to pushing him to be his best self shaped his life and career. From risking relationships to foster growth to the power of community in personal development, we dive deep into what it means to truly be there for someone.

Hussein reflects on the importance of surrounding yourself with people who challenge you to grow, drawing from his experiences growing up in Syria and the lessons learned from a tight-knit community. We also explore the deeper meaning of love, vulnerability, and the courage to demand more from ourselves and others, with references to thought-provoking ideas from Alex Hormozi, Carl Rogers, and existentialist philosophy.

KEY TOPICS:

1. Supportive Partnerships: Hussein’s wife’s tough feedback and belief in him drove his success, showing the value of a partner who pushes you to excel.

2. Love as Growth: True love involves risking the relationship to demand better, balancing compassion with high standards.

3. Vulnerability in Relationships: Committed partnerships foster vulnerability and growth, unlike fleeting relationships that limit connection.

4. Accountability for Growth: Surrounding yourself with people who set high standards builds confidence and shapes identity, as inspired by Alex Hormozi.

5. Social Environment and Mental Health: Communities regulate well-being, unlike modern isolation, aligning with existentialist views.

6. Learning from Diversity: Exposure to adults with varied perspectives taught Hussein conversation and ambition, beyond what peers offer.

7. Resilience and Adaptation: Hussein’s journey from Syria to Canada highlights fearless choices and overcoming challenges like starting over.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Alex Hormozi
• Tony Robbins

That is what it means to be there for someone is to step all out and to risk the relationship in the effort of helping that person become a better person.

That's how much you need to be committed.

I think Alex Hormozi speaks about this.

He says the reason you do difficult things is so that you can say that you've done the difficult things and then they live in, like, your conception of yourself.

And you can take them with you forward and say, this is who I am, this is what I've achieved.

When you grew up surrounded by many people other than your parents, because your parents are important, but there is a wider community that is more important.

And right now you're growing up around your peers and your peers, let's put it this way, are idiots.

Not about pretending to be better, it's about being better.

Always demanding best of yourself.

And what that does, it becomes.

It becomes natural to you.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to another episode of the Breaking Point podcast.

Today we are here with Hussein Halak.

Hussain is an author, an investor, a businessman, an entrepreneur, and he's, as we've already been speaking before the podcast, before the podcast, he's got his fingers in many pies at the moment.

He's up to many different things and we're gonna just delve into what he's up to, what he's been up to, and see what curious ideas we can explore together.

So thank you for being here.

Hussain, how are you doing today?

I'm doing great.

Thank you for having me, Ollie.

And that's a great introduction, actually.

It's a very simple human and kind of perfect description of me.

I'm going to use it.

Yes, no, you.

And, you know, from our small interactions, you're clearly a very smiley, happy person.

So I'm sure that this is going to be a very nice and pleasant episode.

So, Hussein, let's go back to.

I've looked at a little bit of your book, read a bit of it.

You grew up in Syria, is that correct?

Yeah.

Yes, correct.

And now you're in Canada.

So how did you end up from Syria to Canada within the context of, like, what you're interested in at the moment?

Maybe if.

If that was.

If they're connected.

Yeah, that's a.

That's a great question.

It's not about my life.

How did I end up there?

Actually, I don't know.

And.

And a lot of.

If I am to answer honestly about everything in my life, a lot of times the answer I don't know is probably the most honest answer.

When I was growing up in Syria.

I had no clue that this is how my life will unfold.

If you had told me, I was like, I would say, not in a million years.

Growing up, I wanted to be a rock star.

I wanted to lead a rock band, play the guitar, sing, and be very famous for it.

But in Syria, you don't have pathways to those dreams.

So what ends up happening is me taking, I guess, the next step, whatever that next step is.

I look at my.

My options, I make a choice and I move forward.

And I started doing it more fearlessly, if you wish, throughout life.

And one thing led to the other, as they say.

And I find myself in Canada mainly because my wife decided that we should be here.

If I be very honest, she said, like, okay, we're going to Canada.

I was like, okay.

And we had to up and leave from Dubai.

I lived in Dubai for 11 before moving to Canada.

Actually, the first few months when I landed in Canada, I wanted to go back because I left a very illustrious, let's say, career and societal, let's say position in Dubai.

I had my community there and I moved to Canada.

And Canada, they never even acknowledged all of the accomplishment, all the 20 years of work.

They said, no, you don't have Canadian experience.

You're starting from zero.

So I didn't like that and I wanted to go back, but I ended up staying.

So it was your wife's.

Okay, so it was your wife's idea to move to Canada.

And obviously, happy wife, happy life.

Here we are.

Let's go to Canada.

Absolutely.

She's the, she's the best partner.

She.

She's the reason.

Actually a lot of my successes, I take credit in front of the world.

But if I am like to be honesty, the.

The main success, probably the one decision that completely changed my life.

I was talking with her a couple of weeks back and I said, it's funny how one decision, me deciding that choosing her as the, as the life partner 30 years ago and sticking with that choice kind of made my life a gazillion times better.

A lot of the decisions, I mean, sometimes you have those people in your life that just being around them kind of doors open, things become better.

And she's that kind of person.

Yeah, no, that, that's a.

That's the correct.

That's a good husband comment to make.

But I absolutely believe you and I can concur.

I think that the person there's.

Who is it?

I think it's Tony Robbins who says, I mean, it's pretty obvious nothing really revolutionary thing to say.

But the two most important decisions you'll make in your life are who you decide to have as a life part life partner and which career path you go down.

And obviously career paths a bit different because people swap and change careers all the time.

But absolutely, I agree that the person that you choose to tether your life to and potentially build a family with can make or break everything.

And you're obviously exceptionally fortunate that you a made the right decision and that it's continued to pay off sort of into the future.

And so in what ways?

This is not how I thought we'd start the podcast, but we'll go with it.

Let's carry on.

In what ways do you think she helps you make the decisions?

Do you think she helps you?

Does she regulate you sort of emotionally and psychologically?

In what ways do you think she's been a great influence on your life?

That is a great question.

I think the main thing is by being a partner there.

Definitely she has great ideas, she gives me incredible feedback.

But I think the most consequential thing that she did and she continues to do is that being there.

A lot of times, I think in life we.

We have people around us that.

Which.

Which is actually why I wrote the book.

I wanted the feeling of me being there with the person.

A lot of times, you know, we have.

We have a crisis of loneliness.

A lot of people talk about that we feel lonely.

But what does that really mean?

Because we end up.

I mean, if we work, we talk with people, if we have, if we're coming, you know, we're getting an Uber or on the public transport, we say, hi, hello.

We're surrounded by people.

So what does loneliness really mean for me is that having that person who's committed to you, which means that they are willing to risk their relationship and what you think of them and then being nice to step in and say no.

I think the most consequential thing that she did is she was there.

And I mean, I mean, she gives me great feedback, definitely some of the harshest feedback that I get from her, but she was there.

What I mean by that is that when I needed my first computer, she stepped in and invested.

She actually paid for part of that computer.

She didn't have to.

We were just early in our relationship and she stepped in and said, no, I believe in you.

I think this is best for your career.

Here, let me, let me contribute.

She was ahead of me in university, so she actually was already working and she's far better with money.

Than I am.

When we had troubles in the business, she stepped in and she said, I will help and I will do the work without even me asking.

And whenever I'm working on something, even though it might be something for me, she'll step in and she says, change this, do that.

And that put her.

What I mean by being there is that puts her at risk.

What I mean is that it will.

When you.

When you step in and declare something or say something to someone that is uncomfortable, you give feedback.

You risk the relationship because it's annoying.

I was like, why are you, you know, interfering in my stuff?

And her excuse is that, I want you to be better.

That's how much I love you.

Her way of expressing love is by uplifting me in whatever way possible.

Even what I say is a kicking and screaming.

She pushes me up and she moves me forward.

And I think we miss that in today's life.

We have that in older communities, especially in Syrian communities.

Everybody interferes in your life, sometimes negatively.

They come in and say, what are you doing?

And they hold you to a higher standard.

And I think we lost that.

We're like, you know, you have the freedom to be whatever you want, even if you are someone who's not, well, principled, or it's okay to be whatever you want to be because you're not my friend.

And I think that is what it means to be there for someone is to step all out and to risk the relationship in the effort of helping that person become a better person.

That's how much you need to be committed.

And I think if there is one thing that I'm thankful for all my life is that she was committed to me to the point that she would not even accept that I play it small.

She would always push me to play big.

She would always push me to be better.

And she never accepts even an ounce less of what my potential can be.

And I think that has made me the person I am.

And in that way, I think I was telling her that I'm extremely thankful, and I don't think I would ever become the person that I am, which I am very proud of being myself, if it wasn't for her.

And I think we miss that in today's world.

We miss those kind of friends, those kind of relationships that commit themselves to us and to making us better.

Yeah, I mean, I think you hit on a really interesting point there when you spoke about love.

I think the ultimate sort of expression of love is wanting the best thing for someone there is.

There was a famous Psychologist, I think it was Rogers, it might not have been.

And he proposed this idea of unconditional positive regard.

And he believed that in order for someone to feel, to feel truly loved, they have to be unconditionally accepted for every aspect of themselves.

And there's, there's an interesting sort of root to that idea and ideology behind it.

But I think that a more advanced form of love is what you said there, wanting the best for someone, truly wanting the best for someone.

Because it's very easy to want what's best for someone.

There are two ways of.

No, there are two.

What you just say working out what's best for someone on a macro level is different from a micro level.

So someone's in a media, someone is scared of doing something in the immediacy of something.

Then you would say that an act of love would be to take them out of the situation.

And that is a compassionate, kind thing to do.

But a deeper, more elongated form of love would be to say if this is beneficial for you to do in the long run, obviously you have to balance it and you know, there's nuance behind everything.

But your wife could have said, okay, if this is stressing you out, I love you, don't worry, we'll just, you know, let's just do something else.

You will just let's play it safe.

The more courageous and more self, potentially even self sacrificing on their part because as you said, there's risk for them involved, is to act in a way that endeavors to draw the best from someone and the best possible version they could be.

And I agree that that is missing in society for many reasons.

And I think that not only is that missing, but the idea of a long term committed relationship is also being sort of slowly desecrated, particularly in Western society.

The negative impacts of that could be, well, that they're sort of limitless to some degree.

But I think with the context of what we're talking about, you were saying how you said something and it.

I watched a video of this guy and he was talking about the purpose of marriage.

The idea behind marriage, or the original idea behind marriage at least, was unless you tie yourself to someone, you can never be truly vulnerable with them because if you're not committed and you almost can't leave, then you're going to hide parts of yourself and the only way you can be truly.

Maybe this comes back to what I mentioned earlier about the unconditional positive guard.

Maybe if I know it does, it loops back in.

Maybe someone needs to be truly Accepting of all your flaws, all your negative and positive aspects, but try and lure out the positive ones more.

And if you can't show someone the negative side of yourself, that your weakness is your flaws, you can never be truly vulnerable.

And therefore, true love, true partnership can never manifest itself because you haven't exposed yourself to that degree.

And obviously, that's why all these.

What's the word?

Ephemeral.

But that's a less wordy version of ephemeral.

Fleeting, transient.

Transient relationships that are almost, I think, antithetical to human psychology because usually psychological flourishing.

So I think that's a great topic, and I think.

Yeah, absolutely.

How.

Do you have anything to say on that?

My little wordy spiel?

Absolutely.

I think.

I think you sparked a few things that are very.

So, first of all, I'll start with a funny story about her.

I remember when we first were in our.

In our relationship, I wrote poetry for her.

So I would write poetry, sometimes in English, sometimes in Arabic, and she would send me back the poetry with corrections.

What, as in grammatical?

Or so imagine here?

Yeah, Grammatical.

Yeah.

It's like, you missed an e here.

You missed.

So.

Because I wasn't too good with.

Even though I'm a writer, I'm not too good with grammar.

I'm good with the grammar of sentences.

Sentences.

But like.

Or the spelling.

Not.

Not grammar.

That's the correct word.

So the spelling.

Sometimes I'm writing and I'm in the heat of the emotion, and I'm writing poetry for her.

So whatever the word writes, especially it's a draft.

I'll give it to her and she'll send it back and say, okay, you missed an e here.

And she, like, underline it, like a teacher.

So.

And.

And that if there is.

I mean, that's one thing that is funny, but also because otherwise, any other person, I mean, even me, I was like, oh, that's great.

And we would like to coddle people and be so grateful for them for doing something like this.

And we would withhold the criticism or the feedback because we think that negates the emotion or the love.

For her, it was equal.

Because I love you, I care enough.

So I'll push you to be better, and I will always expect more from you.

We were having this very interesting conversation.

I can't remember when.

Yeah, she said.

She said something like, I was talking about, I get to be myself around you, and I get to be my worst self.

I'm not afraid to do that.

And she said, no, you should be your best self here, because then it's not about being exhausted.

It's not about showing.

It's not about pretending to be better.

It's about being better, always demanding best of yourself and what that does.

It becomes natural to you.

You're kind of like, you know how elite athletes are, they're, they train so much so that it becomes second nature for them to perform at a mastery level.

So what happens is when we are surrounded by people who let us, you know, act or behave less than what we should, which is what's happening with the, let's say, breakdown of communities.

We're not surrounded usually by friends and communities and different people.

Like, while I was growing up, I was always surrounded by older people.

So you couldn't behave.

If you behave, let's say, in a way that is not.

Not well, let's say.

And doesn't.

It doesn't.

It's not appropriate.

Let's put it this way.

It doesn't matter if your parents are not there.

Somebody else, your aunt, even your neighbor will discipline you, will tell you off and will tell you no, you can't do that.

And that kind of holds you accountable and, and, and teaches you that there's certain, I mean, there is of course, negatives for it because that, that means you can't.

In certain, let's say, areas you can't express yourself.

But in need that social kind of boundaries, and you need to know them so you know, you know how to behave when there are no social boundaries and everything is acceptable and there's no feedback, you don't know how to behave, you don't know how to measure, you don't know what works and what doesn't.

And that is how.

That is, I think, how, how it ended up being in our relationship where she steps in and she always demands better.

So I, I'm not worried.

I have very, a lot of confidence when I step out into the market because I've already had the harshest critic internally.

She ended up becoming a partner in the last five ventures that we're doing.

So I always have a lot of confidence.

In fact, she's the harshest critic.

And I've never received critic that is as harsh as the criticism I received from her.

And that's why I go out to the world and I'm completely confident.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I guess if you've, if you've tolerated the, the hydra, then you can tolerate any, anything else.

Yeah, just, just a couple of things that you, you broke up on there.

You were talking about like having standards and elevating and demanding More.

I've always.

I don't know if this is my saying or if I've just stolen someone, forgotten where I heard it from, but I've always say it's easier to.

Was it's easier to.

Oh, no, was it.

It's harder to raise your standards to the, the level of the, of the demand than it is to fall back to your base level.

In other words, let me put this in a.

In a tangible example.

Do you know.

Do you.

Do you know football?

Are you interested in football?

Yes.

Okay, so I'm a Tottenham Hotspur fan.

Without knowing the names.

Yes, I love football.

I love football.

But.

But I'm not, like, familiar with the names, but go ahead.

That's fine.

This is easier to embody this analysis analogy than it is to explain it.

Tottenham Hospital.

Ange Post was our manager and he.

There was a game where we went down to nine men.

And the logic.

The.

The usual thing you do when you lose a player in football is you sit back because you don't want to run the risk of losing goal, you play more defensive.

If you lose two men, then you definitely do that because then you really are running a risk.

He saw this as an opportunity to do the complete opposite.

And he actually said, we're going to go all out, attack.

And he.

Instead of reverting, he doubled down on his principles.

And I always.

Everyone had sort of like pillaged him and took him to pieces, took him to town over it.

And ironically, he has been fired now.

So they were right.

But I always saw the principle behind that was he was using that as an opportunity to instill a message into the players of, this is who we are, this is what we do.

And even in our dark, even in our weakest, most vulnerable moments, we can.

We will play like this, because this is who we are, this is our identity.

And that is.

That just reminded me of what you were saying, because it's a.

It is easier if you set high standards.

I think Alex Hormozi speaks about this.

He says the reason you do difficult things is so that you can say that you've done the difficult things and then they live.

They.

They exist in, like, your conception of yourself.

And you can take them with you forward and say, this is what.

Who I am, this is what I've achieved, this is what I'm capable of.

So, absolutely.

And then.

And then the other thing that you were.

Absolutely, yeah.

Is that you were talking about the importance of community and having people basically keeping you in check.

So earlier I mentioned Carl Rogers, who was A psychoanalysis.

And so like Freud and Jung, they were all psychoanalysis and their view of the world was that our sanity was an internal thing.

So the way that we mental health was a purely in internal mirroring or internal manifestation of what was going on.

Our past, et cetera, our parents, our childhood.

And then, but then the converse to that or the opposite were a group of philosophers called the existentialists and they believe the complete opposite.

They believe that actually our mental well being was a product of our place in life.

So I mean you could say they're sort of, they're connected.

They obviously are connected, but they believe that.

I think what they believe was that the social world was a way of.

If you imagine we're like all ice sculptures and every single time we interact with someone they're like chopping us like, and they're keep everyone's, keeping everyone in check.

We're all regulating and we're organizing each other.

And I think that actually makes more sense.

I think human beings, when they're embedded in a proper community with proper values, if even if they have a natural proclivity for mental health conditions, they will do better than not being in that situation.

Because I think the brain is so complex that it's hard to get a grip on it.

Whereas human culture and community isn't as complex and it's more tangible and it's more, it's real life.

So I completely agree.

I think that's why the reason so many young people, people in general are struggling because of that lack of community.

How do you think being engrossed in that sort of environment helped you growing up to the man that you've become with what you've achieved and how you see the world?

I think the biggest thing, and thanks for sharing that.

I think it's funny, I'm like listening and these are really good nuggets.

I want to take notes.

Really good conversation.

So the biggest thing for me is that number one, when you grow up surrounded by many people other than your parents, because your parents are important, but there is a wider community that is more important.

And right now you're growing up around your peers and your peers, let's put it this way, are idiots.

You know, like, I mean this is natural.

And I don't mean idiots as in like you know, non intelligent, but you know, they are the same intelligence level as you are.

You know, you're not going to learn that it's helpful to interact with socially with someone of your age, but you're not going to learn from them.

And what you learn from them is actually quite bad, sometimes not necessarily good, because everyone is dealing.

I mean, so you have these single families with their kids, and they have the culture of their family, only their parents, and that's the interaction.

Whereas when I was growing up, we had, I mean, just my cousins and we always travel to our hometown.

And you're surrounded by many people, you know, like we're talking hundreds of people.

And you sit in conversations where adults are talking to each other.

And you learn how conversations happen, because you can't learn that from people who are your peers.

They're still learning.

You have to learn from people that are ahead of you.

It's the same thing that we do when I led an incubator here in Vancouver.

In an incubator, the way it works, you put people from different levels.

You put investors with entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs that are a little bit ahead, entrepreneurs that are the same.

If everyone is the same level as you, you're not learning from each other.

You're not learning enough.

You learn, of course, but not enough.

You need to have diverse, let's say, views from.

From advanced people, people that are, let's say, less.

And that's how you complete the cycle.

So when I was growing up, I was always enjoying the conversations that my father would have with his friends, my uncle having with his friends.

And they talk politics, literature, all kind of things.

And that was what I.

What I learned from.

Not from TV or just from.

From those people.

And.

And that influenced me extensively because I wanted to be those people.

There was something to look up to, and it wasn't some celebrity somewhere, you know, that I don't have a connection to.

These people have a connection to.

And they meant someone to me, something to me.

And I experienced them in many different levels of life.

But I think we miss that right now with, in societies that we don't have that interaction of adults with young people.

And I think that is important to have that kind of engagement and to have a cycle where you see different levels of interaction.

It's the same thing when you're trying to walk.

To put it simply, when you're trying to walk, the reason why trying to walk is you look at your parents, if you're always surrounded by kids, and none of them are trying to walk, you're never going to want to walk.

You never want to want to speak, because all of you are speaking the same thing.

There's nothing more for you to learn.

But when you're surrounded with, let's say, your parents, and they're walking, you want to walk like them.

If they're talking, you want to talk like them.

And in fact, the words that you first learn are usually the words that they repeat the most.

So.

So these are, these are I think, the things that we missed today.

And I think with that, the idea of, you know, we have this idea, surround yourself with people that are more successful than you.

And unfortunately, we linked learning to only success.

We didn't learn it to other things.

Like, I don't have to be around a successful person to learn poetry or the love of art.

I have to be around an artist to learn that.

Being around a successful person will not teach me that.

If I want to learn how to become more sporty, I need to surround myself with people that are.

That are interested in that space.

So instead of people more successful than you, because depends how you define success, you need to surround yourself with people who you want to learn from, who engage aspects of you and help you discover something more.

And coming back to something you said, what we're missing today is the safety of discovery.