Last Neanderthals Podcast
Stories that shape futures. Last Neanderthals is a podcast dedicated to learning, evolving and becoming our best selves. Evolve with us!
Last Neanderthals Podcast
How We Nearly Messed Up Our Podcast With Adam Grant (World's Leading Organisational Psychologist)
Have you ever taken a leap of faith so big that it seemed impossible? Our nail-biting journey to score an interview with the legendary Adam Grant. Thanks to a fortunate connection through my father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, we took a million-to-one shot by booking a studio in London without even having his confirmation. The ordeal of juggling schedules and our insistence on an in-person interview added to the drama. Yet, our tireless effort paid off, resulting in an invaluable conversation with one of the world's leading organisational psychologists.
Fear is often seen as a barrier, but what if it could be a driving force? Inspired by our chat with Adam Grant, we learned how fear can enhance our preparation and performance when harnessed correctly. This revelation aligns perfectly with the ethos of our podcast, "Last Neanderthals," symbolising untapped potential waiting to be unlocked. Our discussion serves as a powerful reminder that anyone, with the right mindset and effort, can achieve remarkable things. The episode highlights the importance of not underestimating oneself and transforming negative thoughts into positive action.
Resilience and determination are at the heart of Seb's inspiring story. From a childhood marked by his mother's five marriages to facing the aftermath of a military career, Seb's journey from rock bottom to the brink of an investment banking career is nothing short of extraordinary. His story is a testament to how personal trauma can be turned into motivation. Additionally, we address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the complexities of radicalisation, and how small positive actions can create a broader impact. Tune in as we tackle these pressing global issues while advocating for hope and positive change in our communities.
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We recorded a podcast with the world's leading organizational psychologist, adam Grant. Welcome to Lasting Underthroats podcast. Today, wally and I are going to share our journey on how we almost messed up and how it almost didn't happen. Wally, would you like to start off?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we're also going to just talk about what we learned from the experience, what it was like speaking to Adam, how grateful we are for that opportunity he gave us. But, yeah, so at the time, we had, I think, less than 100 subscribers when he came on. Just to put things into perspective, we had less than 100 subscribers and we had we got the world's leading organizational psychologist on our podcast with millions of followers across social media 8 million in total. So how did we do this? We got lucky. We got very lucky.
Speaker 1:So my dad, ziauddin Yousafzai, aka father of Malala, as many know him he was emailing someone and he was like, oh, you know. I was like who are you emailing? He was like, oh, adam Grant. I was like you know. I was like who you email he goes? Oh, adam grant. I was like I recognize that name and he's written a book called the originals. I was like, oh wow, like I actually know about his work.
Speaker 1:So I was like you know, why not ask him? Like you know, if we can do a podcast? Um, or like let me get in touch with him and I'll tell him on my podcast. Worst, worst case scenario, he says no, but why not shoot my shot? And, anyways, my dad gets me in touch, I shoot, we shoot our shot. We had to, like, draft it together so we don't, like you know, come across as insensitive because we were asking for a big favor and we needed to make him feel comfortable that you know he can say no to us because it is a big favor. I mean, we're less than 100 subscribers at the time. Um, but yeah, he ended up saying yes, but, but the schedule was, his schedule was so tight. Wally said would you like to go into that Because you've got a better memory than me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Adam asked if we could do an online podcast and we at the time we just weren't doing any online podcasts. We wanted to do every podcast in person. We thought that was a good idea, which I think it was. I think you can have a better conversation with someone when you're face-to-face with them, you know, like greet them beforehand, speak to them a little bit before you actually start filming. So we said it would be possible, but if you're ever in the uk, like for us, it would be ideal to do an in-person podcast. Again, a huge favor to ask, like massive favor to ask. And it turned out adam would be in the uk. Um, I forgot what exact date it was, but it was a couple weeks after we asked him. He was going to be in the uk. Uh, let's just say the date was like the 18th of january, something like that. He was going to be in the uk, um, but the thing is he was coming from america on that day to film.
Speaker 2:Uh, um, not to film sorry to do a book book tour because he had just released his new book, hidden potential, uh, so it was like in some sold out arena or something. He was doing this talk busy day for him. Um, so he was doing that on the day that he arrived. The next day he then had a podcast with uh, stephen bartlett from the diary of the ceo podcast, or also the guy who's on dragon's den, as many of you will know him very successful podcaster. And then that same day he was flying back to america. So now we're just thinking like how are we gonna fit into this? So he lets us know like, yeah, I'm coming, it will be tight. I'm not sure if I can do it. I can't give you guys a yes yet, but if I can, this will be the date.
Speaker 2:So it gets to like the 10th of January and we're sat here thinking we haven't received another response for Adam from Adam yet, any sort of conversation. It's like the 10th or 11th of January. Uh, adam's going to be in London and our studio was in Birmingham. So we thought like we're gonna have to take this risk. We're gonna have to book a studio in london, pay the money. We're two students, we don't have a lot of money um it was 250 pounds.
Speaker 2:We were skinned, yeah it's a lot of money, um. So we take the risk. We booked the studio even though we have no confirmation at all, against to the 16th january, two days before we're meant to film the podcast. Still no confirmation from adam. But we're like, oh well, like we're gonna have to book train tickets as well, but just in case it does happen. Uh, we got in contact with adam again. He was again like I just I can't give you any guarantee still like, sorry, guys. Um, so we're like, oh well, like let's book it, let's go there. We're not too optimistic at this point and you know what's weird.
Speaker 1:Can I just touch on something because it was? There are a lot of pressures. Like you know, this guy is a leading psychologist with eight million following across social media. There was a bit of us where we were like we would have been somewhat relieved if it didn't happen, because you have to imagine, we have to mentally prepare ourselves to have a conversation with this guy reading his books, everything right, Like it comes with. Like you, if you're going to have this conversation, you want it to be good. So there was a lot of mental pressure as well leading up to this that day and you were like yo, if it doesn't happen, at least you know we're not gonna look stupid. Let's say in the podcast, we do something stupid, at least we avoid that. So we tried to like make it a win-win situation, which was very weird yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So then I live in liverpool, uh, we've booked the train ticket. I go over to birmingham and at this point we're still not sure if we're going to do the podcast. I think at this point Adam told us, like I think I will be able to do it. He said, uh, he gave us some sort of like inkling that, okay, this might go ahead. So we, we get a little bit excited, we're going over, but there's still like that little feeling like what if this doesn't happen? Like when, when we're going on the way we were thinking what if this doesn't happen? Like when, when we're going on the way, we were thinking what if this doesn't happen? But before that, so I'm in Birmingham now we've booked our train. Uh, this is the 17th, uh, the day before we're meant to do the podcast. The evening before we we got a very late train, um, and somehow we ended up running a little bit late as well, like we, with things like this, you should get there like 10, 20 it was the last train.
Speaker 1:It was the last train and it was due in like 20 minutes, so we're running a little bit late.
Speaker 2:The train station is 15 minutes away and we've got 20 minutes left, um, so we started to panic a little bit. But we're like, okay, never mind 15 minutes, we get in the car, we're ready to go, we start driving, we're making good progress. We're about five minutes away. We've left khushal's house. We're five minutes into our journey now, um, so like we really need to get there and get going. But I I start feeling my pockets Like, oh no, I've not got my phone. And yeah, we panicked because there was notes on my phone. Sometimes we use phones to record and things like that. So we panicked and straight away Baijan turns around. Baijan helps Khushal and his family with a lot of things and he was dropping us off at the train station. So he turns around straight away, takes us home. My phone had slipped out of my pocket while I was sitting down waiting to go. Um, we get the phone. Then we get to the train station. So we're like, oh never, we've saved it somehow.
Speaker 1:We got very lucky, by the way. It was green lights through there. Yeah, we got. We got there very like and this is the last. We got really lucky, by the way. It was green lights through there, yeah, we got. We got there very like. And this is the last train as well, by the way. Otherwise we would have had to like If we missed this train.
Speaker 2:It was like a six hour bus journey or something. I don't know what was going on. But there was a six hour bus journey. So we get to the train station. We're like Finally we're ready to go. We run up to the gate or wherever it's called. Scan the ticket Doesn't work. What the hell. Scan the ticket again Doesn't work. We speak to the guy.
Speaker 1:He's like these are train tickets for tomorrow.
Speaker 2:That was my fault. And then we were like, oh no, no, we booked train tickets for the wrong day. So then khashoggi starts absolutely sprinting. I didn't even have like time to look at him or anything. I turned to the side and he was gone. He's run to the ticket station, he's bought new tickets and he's come back already, scans the tickets we get in and we just about get onto the train.
Speaker 2:So just imagine like this is a stressful period anyway because we don't know, is the podcast happening? Is it not happening? Should we book the studio? Should we not book the studio? We're doing all this prep. Beforehand. I had exams as well. I had exams during this period for university, so it's all a very stressful period. And then we nearly missed the train for such a big opportunity. But eventually we got on the train and we're like, oh, thank god, hopefully nothing goes wrong after this. And luckily nothing did go wrong after that. Um, we went to sleep that night. The next morning, woke up really early, got to the studio, we booked really early and they were really helpful the people at the studio. Do you remember what the studio was called?
Speaker 1:for sure, it was in shoreditch. Um, I forgot. I should give them a shout out. But yeah, continue telling the story. I'll just look at it okay.
Speaker 2:So, uh, yeah, early we get to the studio, we get hi, sarah comes who helps us with filming sometimes she comes over to help and the people at the studio help as well and then we're just waiting for Adam to turn up and then eventually he comes straight from filming the Diary of a CEO podcast. He arrives at our studio I'm not going to lie that point. I was still not sure. Like, oh, he's got such a busy schedule like maybe he just won't turn up, he won't be able to do it, because doing all that flying, doing the book tour, speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast, he had a flight in 2-3 hours, like he had a flight in two, three hours like he yeah, he had another flight that day, so he had to go back to america yeah.
Speaker 2:So even when it was like 10 minutes before he turned up, I was in the mindset like maybe this won't happen, like maybe this just won't happen, um, but eventually he turns up, greet him very kind, obviously, show him into the studio, blah, blah, blah. We talk he has his lunch in our studio because he's had no time to eat, uh, while we're getting everything set up, um, and yeah, then we just had a fantastic conversation, which some of you may have seen if you haven't got watched that, because I was a really interesting conversation. It's. It's amazing speaking to someone who is like the number one in their field, and psychology is something that impacts everyone. It's really important to understand human behavior, um, and he understands it really well. So, even just having questions about, like, our everyday lives and our behavior, why we do things, it was really great to get his insight on that, and I think people of all ages will find that podcast really interesting, just because of how, uh, knowledgeable and intelligent adam is. But, yeah, I think for us it's really important to like show our gratitude because he didn't have to do all of that. That's that's a crazy level of just being kind that he took that much time out of such a packed schedule to do that for us?
Speaker 2:And we were talking on the, on the. Was it on the way there, on the way back? Would you do that for someone if you were adam grant? And we both thought like, probably not. Not because we're mean, but because we'd think like, oh, my schedule is so busy I just don't have time to do. I've got fly back the same day, like. So it's truly impressive and admirable that he actually did come on the podcast when we had less than 100 subscribers. He didn't stand to gain anything from it. So, yeah, shout out to him.
Speaker 1:But big shout out to you. Outset studio in in Shoreditch.
Speaker 2:What was that?
Speaker 1:Outset Studio in Shoreditch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, shout out to them. It was a really great studio and great people as well. To be, honest 100%. What was your key takeaway from the podcast with Adam Grant?
Speaker 1:My key takeaway was that fear can be used. With Adam Grant, my key takeaway was that fear can be used to like. You can use fear as an advantage. So you know we try to like.
Speaker 1:I have history of self-sabotage and thinking negatively, but he said that can be a fuel. Some people can use that as motivation. If it works for you, then it works for you, right? Is it like? Some people can use that as motivation? If it works for you, then it works for you, right? Is it like some people? They just need to like? They use that, that fear, as a fuel.
Speaker 1:They work extremely hard and as, as you get closer to your deadline, then you naturally feel more confident. So I don't try to like kill that part of me anymore. I embrace the fear, or you know, the the of what can go wrong, so it makes me more prepared and then it goes away. I actually goes away. I think me trying to like always have this delusional optimism. I don't like. Yes, to an extent, optic optimism is important, but I think fear is such a powerful tool and using that to my advantage um is something that he emphasized on and I think it's been working very well for me, because when you stop using seeing fear as a negative thing, but instead you can make your friend, then you feel even more powerful fear can definitely be a great motivator.
Speaker 2:For me it was. The key takeaway was just being a part of that experience. Talking to having this conversation in this format like an interview, podcast format with the world's leading organizational psychologist, someone who has millions of views on his ted talks, is one is one of the most sought-after podcast guests. He's been on the Diary of a CEO, like we said. He's been on the Jay Shetty podcast. He's been on Huberman Lab. He's on TED a lot of the time. He's on podcasts with Simon Sinek as well.
Speaker 2:It really made me reflect on how people don't think they're capable of what other people are like. A lot of people will think, oh, only Stephen Bartlett can do that or only these high profile podcasters can keep up with him or have these conversations with him. But I think we did quite a good job. To be honest, you shouldn't pat yourself on the back too much, but I think we did. We did hold our own, even though we were nervous. It was our biggest podcast, like if we, if we thought, if we play this properly, this could be a huge breakthrough for us. Um, and despite all of that, despite, like, all the stresses of the day before, despite exam period we came through and we delivered a good podcast and we were able to give him something from it as well, like he was able to use some of the clips on his social media, which is, I guess, a bit of a positive for us that we could at least give him something in return even though that is very minuscule yeah relatively.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was just this thing of like every person is capable of something if they set their mind to it. Like people need to stop doubting themselves, uh, and think there's only special people or a few special gifted people in the world who are capable of doing amazing things. That's really not the case. Anyone can be in any room and hold their own, as long as they prepare and they take time to actually learn things and get comfortable, and uh yeah, I think it's all about learning communication skills and things like that yeah, and I would highly recommend everyone checks out his book hidden potential because it dives into the that.
Speaker 1:You know that everyone's got hidden potential. They just need to learn how to bring it out. And you know, when you meet people like adam and other great people, you, you just you see, they're just human like you, but they just put the hard work over and they have certain system and certain knowledge which you can find in their book. And you can also, if, if not their level, you can achieve something that's something that you can be proud of, you know unlock your hidden potential in some ways. So, yeah, I think it's just like because so many of us are like you know, if you see someone talented or someone sees your talent, some people will assume that, oh, you're just born that way, when that's not the case.
Speaker 1:Like he says, the things he's most proud of, for the things he has been most inspiring at, is the things he was better, and I can relate to that. I did a talk with with the Oxford Scholar students and the things they where they respected me the most and where they were the most inspired, is where I told them about the things I was bad at or the things I did wrong and how I corrected them, because that's more human. Who likes a story where the hero is winning all the time? That's not real.
Speaker 2:And even for yourself, you just feel more, uh, validation for something where you've actually had to work hard at it to become better, as opposed to like just being good at something. Naturally it doesn't feel as good. I don't think. Um, and just on that hidden potential point, the the book. This is one of the reasons why adam grant was such a like, um, great guest for us to have on the podcast, because that book aligns perfectly with the idea behind this podcast.
Speaker 2:So the reason we called this podcast the last neanderthals podcast is because they were an archaic human species, so basically our ancestors, but everyone considers them dumb. It's almost used as a slur in modern societies, especially in the west, to call someone a neanderthal, but it turns out they may have been as smart as us, if not smarter than us, and we believe that there's these types of people in society today as well. Last neanderthals like us, like millions of other people, billions of other people out there, who are underestimated. People just consider them dumb just because of surface level knowledge. People underestimate them and count them out.
Speaker 2:However, these people have the potential within them to do great things. They are intelligent, they are talented, but no one sees that, and this is why we created this podcast with those types of people like the last Neanderthals, people who have so much potential but no one sees it yet, and hopefully, through sharing these conversations, we can kind of cultivate a community which encourages each, everyone, to pursue their potential, their hidden potential, like adam grant says. So, yeah, it was just really ideal for us to have him on the podcast, because our messages align so well and everyone tells us to change the name, because no one can say last neanderthals is too long, it's too hard to say, especially for, like our family members and stuff, because a lot of them are in pakistan. Um, they struggle with the word neanderthals. However, we want to keep it because it means, uh, the meaning behind it is so important to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and hopefully the meaning and the purpose we have will transcend the name and the difficulty of it. You can't say this all as LN Podcast.
Speaker 2:There you go, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Shall, we move on to the next guest.
Speaker 2:So the next podcast we're going to talk about is one with a former uh marine, seb o'callaghan, who failed his gcc's, not after a great start, but then it got worse. He got kicked out of college um. From there he went on to join the marines, uh, because he was spiraling into depression depression and he decided he needed to do something drastic to change his life, and that was incredibly drastic. The? Um likelihood of actually getting into the marines is incredibly low, and he was in a very bad place as well. He was playing video games all day. He was not very physically fit, so it was uh incredible like feat for him to take on, but he managed to do it. He got into the marines. He was stationed in the middle east during the time where the us uh assassinated the iranian leader. I think his name was. What was his name?
Speaker 1:I don't remember there was very. There were talks of world war three after that yeah, exactly, there was talks of world war three.
Speaker 2:I can't remember the, the general's name as well, but, um, he was stationed there at the time. Uh, luckily, world war three didn't happen. Um, and at some point, seb decided that instead, instead of pursuing the Marines for longer, he was going to do his A-levels. Because, well, how it started Actually, I'll let you guys watch the podcast and see how it started but he decided to pursue his A-levels and he ended up actually getting into a Russell Group University, the University of Liverpool, to study economics. And, yeah, he's getting a first. Now he's on his way to get a first at university. So it's just an incredible story because he went from failing his GCSEs everyone calling him a failure, massive struggles in his personal life as well in his family life, to now he's on his way to becoming an investment banker. So, yeah, that's a very like inspiring underdog story and again, it shows that anyone can do whatever they set their mind to. Um, so, yeah, what was your key takeaway from the seb podcast?
Speaker 1:my key takeaway. His story resonated a lot with mine. I mean, what he has done is incredibly inspiring. My key takeaway was again just being reminded about the power of mind that if you set your mind to something, if you truly want it right, and using that dark place to advantage, like he, hit rock bottom I also, rick, hit rock bottom. And reminding yourself of you know, I don't want to end up there and as you slowly get out of that dark pit, you can use your past trauma as a fuel of motivation and discipline, like, for example, I think probably the most key thing I learned from him is, whenever I doubt myself, I look at my past results.
Speaker 1:I'm like you know what, if I've gone through those hard things, I can do this, and that's something I didn't really know until. Like, I learned it from him. There were so many key See with stories like that. It's hard to like pinpoint. Oh, I learned it from him. There were so many key See with stories like that. It's hard to like pinpoint. Oh, I learned this. It's like you learn on such a deeper level Because you don't even you change, but you don't even realize In what ways you've changed.
Speaker 1:But overall, since talking to that guy. I've been more disciplined, I have been more grateful and I want to that guy. I've been more disciplined, I have been more grateful and I want to meet people like him more Like I feel like to be surrounded with that kind of energy. It just makes you want to do bigger things in life, because he's so unapologetically himself. And another great thing was that I really admire about seb is that he truly says what he thinks. There are very few people who truly say what they think and he's one of those people and I think if he did like podcasting or had a youtube channel, I think he will smash it.
Speaker 2:So if you want give it.
Speaker 2:He should definitely pursue something like that, I think. And, uh, he's also doing like djing and things like that, so he's a very capable guy, not just in like one aspect, but he can multitask as well. Um, and yeah, I think, uh, his story was really impressing, impressive. Something I found really interesting was so he spoke about his relationship with his family and he said how his mother had five divorces. But he viewed that almost as a positive thing, he said, because it showed that if she felt she wasn't being valued, she was strong enough to just leave, which is interesting, because the uh, common belief or common idea is that divorces have a really negative impact on the kids particularly. So it was genuinely interesting, very interesting to hear that because, to be honest, I've always thought the same as well that if a mother and father get divorced, the kids are really negatively impacted, but for him he seemed to cope with it, which was amazing because it was five times wonderful yeah, I, I assumed I thought he was gonna say that it's really messed up his relationship.
Speaker 1:He doesn't know how to bond with people, he's angry towards his mom, but it was complete opposite. He actually said that he learned that unless he's got, unless he isn't fully certain about a woman that he meets, he's not going to get into a relationship. So he actually got like he's using it as a strength rather than a weakness, that you'd rather be alone than to be with someone toxic. But if his, if, if his mother had stayed in those toxic relationships right and she didn't divorce, then it might have. It might have had a negative effect on him. But knowing Seb, he would have also used that to his advantage, because the guy's just built up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but, like you said, it would have set a very bad precedent. But yeah, again, it's really interesting. Seb's podcast reminded me of the podcast with James, not the podcast with James Mooney that's coming out soon, who's a strength and conditioning coach Again, interesting podcast, but James the African wilderness.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because, again, it's these people at university who you wouldn't suspect that they'd have these incredible stories. But, uh, they do and they're just like normal people walking around. They don't have this inflated ego which most people at university do and they've not been through these incredible things like these two guys have, like james, just like uh, almost been attacked by a lion. He's, um, caught sharks. And seb's been through incredible things, as we mentioned previously. So I think it goes to show that, as human beings experience more things and they actually have more of a personality and they've built their character up more, there's less of this like overcompensating type of behavior where they have to be like the main man in the room and the main guy, um, which you see a lot with people this age and particularly a little bit younger, like in the teenage years yeah, those guys have no insecurity like they.
Speaker 1:They weren't self-centered, they didn't make the conversation fully about themselves. I really enjoy, I really like that, you know? Um, yeah, it's, it's one thing having great achievements, but also to be nice people.
Speaker 1:I think that's ultimately the most important thing and I think that's the greatest success anyone can have it's being a continue to being a good human being because life will test you, life will chuck shortcuts at you where you can't take the easier way out, where you can't sell yourself for money or fame or social status whatever. But you know keeping those principles and those guys have incredible principles, um. One another thing I learned from um seb was that you can. You can really learn things just by yourself. Of course, teaching teachers and all that stuff help, but he was self-taught for those a-level subjects that he did.
Speaker 2:I didn't even mention that in the story. That's such a big oversight for me. He taught himself his own A-levels while he was deployed in the Middle East and he ended up getting into a Russell group man worked through every single question in those AQA or edit cellbooks.
Speaker 1:He went step by step and figured it out. That is incredible and also like I didn't. I didn't really do. I would always like try to like do the harder questions right away, but that guy just didn't take any shortcuts. He did all the boring things, you know. Do all the questions in step. He never missed a step and you know, I think he got extreme. I think he got 87, which is it shouldn't mean a nice style, but they gave him a name for some odd reason. He was one of those prediction years. Um, yeah, what a guy. I wish him all the best. He's going to do incredible things, I have no doubt, um, but may god give him longer life so he can continue to do great stuff yeah, but just speaking on that podcast, that was our first podcast in the new studio.
Speaker 2:We did so. Unfortunately, we had some audio issues, which was so annoying because it was such a great podcast. It's actually our most, uh, our highest viewed podcast so far and one of the segments from it has done really well as well. But the audio messed up which yeah it's so frustrating.
Speaker 2:and then this just shows what podcasting is really like, especially at the level where we don't have these, like producers and all of this type of thing people checking over. So mistakes can easily happen and, and when they do happen, sometimes they can completely ruin a podcast. But fortunately we were still able to use the podcast as the audio was a little bit off. Some people can't notice it, but avid podcast listeners probably can't tell. But despite that it was still a great conversation and a great podcast, so you should still go and listen to it.
Speaker 1:It was also so hot in that podcast studio it was crazy, especially when he's telling you those stories, man, and how much he just knew, like his level of honesty as well. Man, he was a very honest guy. He told us some things like you know how he wanted to put his skills into use after using the Marine right, which was really fascinating. Like it's like you know how someone like learns boxing I mean his is on a more extreme case and then you're like you know what I want to do something when I want to test my ability. So like I don't share those things.
Speaker 1:Like he had it, like he's like you can. You can tell he's gonna grow up to be a great mentor because he's willing to talk about his fuck-ups and how much of a loser he was in order to help others. And I've always like I, that's the standard I want to live by, and when I meet someone else like that, it just brings me so much joy because, yeah, it's like you know, I was like I get you, man, I mean you, we understand each other, so he's great yeah, no, it was amazing and that was he was referring.
Speaker 2:When khashoggi said putting his skills to use, he was referring to going to war, like having to shoot people. He said the mentality people had was they were just excited and they didn't really see it as, oh, I'm killing someone, or they just saw it as like, oh, I get to put my skills to use all this training I've done, which is quite a scary thought. But they were conditioned to like they don't call them people or things, they call them like targets or tangos and things. So they get almost like brainwashed into just do the mission, mission, like you have a job at hand, just do the job. And he says they take like every single precaution to not harm, uh, civilians and things like that. Which is really interesting because we pressed him I don't think we included that in the final thing, but we, because it was way too long the podcast, but we pressed him on the like drone.
Speaker 2:The second half yeah, if people want it yeah I mean, why not? This dude is done. Yeah, yeah, true, we asked him about, like the drone attacks and all of these kinds of stuff and the negative impacts of all these wars on, especially, arab countries, muslim countries as well, like Afghanistan. So, yeah, that was a really interesting conversation as well because, like you said, he's honest and he just gave his honest opinion on it yeah, and when he didn't know something, he was like I do not know.
Speaker 1:And that is the most refreshing thing to hear, because when he does tell the truth, you can trust it. When a person tells you, even though, even though you were giving him a lot more clout, even though he was something a lot more interesting, man was like I don't know. And that's. I love being around those type of people and we need to do another podcast with him and release the second one, definitely yeah, definitely, um.
Speaker 2:So the other podcast we did was with bilal bilal stitan. It was the second time we had him on. The first time we had him on was in October of last year and Bilal is a British Palestinian. So this was shortly after the October 7th attack, massacre by Hamas, massacre by Hamas. And we had Bilal on at the time because Israel had launched its own genocide into Gaza. They had started just slaughtering people for the actions of one group. So we wanted to get Bilal's story out there because he had family in Gaza and they were all suffering. He has lost, I think, 60 family members now, which is heartbreaking man.
Speaker 2:But since that first podcast we did with him, we had him back on again to just reflect on how he's feeling now and how how just the slaughter has affected him. And to me it just seemed like he was tired, like he had been drained of his energy compared to the first time he came on. It seemed like when he first came on he was really energized into like helping his people and doing everything he can, but it was almost like they had, like they had just drained his soul like he. He's been working so hard, he's been going on charity missions to try and help the people of gaza that he just seemed so exhausted and it was like he just knew that the people he was trying to appeal to weren't listening to him anyway.
Speaker 2:Because, I mean, at the start we were all optimistic that if people see these crimes, people see how horrendous it is what Israel is doing, they will open their eyes, they will condemn it. They will come out and say this is condemn it. They will come out and say this is wrong. The governments will come out, like our government in the UK we consider ourselves to be a moral country, a democracy. When they see these crimes, when we voice this to them, they will wake up and change will come.
Speaker 2:However, we're nearly a year into this now and nothing has really happened. The death toll has just kept on rising. The conditions have been getting worse. There's been a polio outbreak now and medical journals like the Lancet are saying the death count could be over 180,000. Another journal said it could be over 200 000. Now the reported figure by the palestinian health authority is 40 000 at the moment, which people are even skeptical of that and say it's lower, which I highly doubt because, um, the un bodies have regularly corroborated you know, okay, let's say it's 10 000 lower, let's go extreme 30 000 people.
Speaker 1:That is ridiculous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, doesn't change anything yeah, there's a similar feeling to belong that like what, what more can we show people, what more can we do until they will listen? People have seen little babies being decapitated and they don't care. They've seen prisoners being sexually assaulted and they don't care.
Speaker 2:They've seen so many crimes. Those three aid workers killed even though they had given their coordinates to israel, hitting three different side times in three different cars, even though they shared their coordinates. British aid workers people don't care. Those Israeli hostages who came out in their underwear waving the white flag. They were killed. People don't care.
Speaker 2:And we're supposed to believe that they're doing this all for the hostages. They clearly aren't. Those hostages do they clearly aren't. Those hostages do deserve to be free. Like something needs to be done. The this ceasefire needs to happen, because that's how you are going to get the hostages free. That's been clear from the start. The most hostages that were released were during the negotiations, during that temporary period of peace for a few days. So why would you not pursue that again? I think it's clear.
Speaker 2:Netanyahu's made it clear that his main goal is not to release the hostages or to end this war. It is to end Hamas and he's prioritising that over his own people. Those hostages that are in Gaza fearing for their lives and I mean for anyone on the pro-Palestinian side. You have to acknowledge that that is heartbreaking as well. There's, there's families. Those people do not deserve to go through that. Um, some of them are even like soldiers in the thing, but still like that. That's just I don't know. I personally don't think that's the way to do things.
Speaker 2:The everything that the pro-palestinian side has been saying from the start has been getting validated by, uh independent journalists and like un bodies and stuff. Like, for example, when people said that is, the idf killed many of its own civilians. Uh, the idf has now confirmed that that might be the case and at the start, if you even said that, people would say that is a ridiculous thing to say, it's anti-semitic all of that. But it's just the truth, it's a reality. They were recklessly bombing uh those houses from apache helicopters and just shooting people. Many of the people who survived that attack even said that the idf shot at us and then people would say it's ridiculous to assume that that was the case and that doesn't justify any of what Hamas did like. You can't just go and attack civilians like that. Um, it is a horrible thing to do.
Speaker 2:Like the Palestinian people do need justice, they don't. They do need peace and it's understandable. It's not justified. It's understandable that people could go to that, that extent, when they've been put under such grueling conditions for so long, because this has been going on for over 70 years now. These people have been oppressed and occupied, murdered, assaulted in these prisons, like these cases have been coming out for so long. Their kids have been kidnapped. It is understandable and it would be a lie to say that it's not understandable that something like this would happen, and it it's clearly understandable because many people predicted it beforehand, but it's not justified in any way, like people need to be better and do better than that, because, yeah, it was horrible what happened on october 7. But what's happened since is definitely a genocide. There's no other way to put it.
Speaker 1:I mean to draw a parallel right with the drone attacks in Pakistan. They're not even on that crazy of a scale, but those victims innocent victims that are in those drone attacks, they go and join the terrorist groups because they have so much hatred in their heart. So I don't know how, like yeah so the innocent victims?
Speaker 2:you mean the people, innocent victims. Just make that clear. You mean the people who lost family members, not like You're not saying the people who are the terrorists are the innocent victims. No, no, they're not the terrorists. People who are the terrorists are the innocent victims?
Speaker 1:No, no, they're not the terrorists.
Speaker 2:People lose family members.
Speaker 1:Because they just drop these collective guns.
Speaker 2:They're innocent at the time.
Speaker 1:But then, because they get radicalized, because their family members get killed, they then join these terrorist groups, these radical groups Exactly exactly what you said, and so I don't know how killing 20,000 babies is going to get rid of Hamas yeah yeah, I mean, you're creating more terrorism, you're creating more hatred, radicalization, and one good thing I saw was from israeli people.
Speaker 1:Was that they really like. They're like, you know, do you really care about the hostages? Why has there no, no deal been done yet, and I hope that people keep on. Whether it's the israelis americans, I hope people keep on putting the pressure on them, um, but yeah, I think, I don't see as much like push on social media anymore as I used to. I think people do eventually become discouraged until another horrible incident happens. Um, but yeah, it's very tough. They're not listening, man, it's not. They're not listening what you can do. I think.
Speaker 2:I think, like you said, even in israel, people are protesting now, um for netanyahu to resign and actually bring someone in who will work towards a ceasefire even a lot of these. Those people might even be anti-Palestinian and racist, whereas Palestinians, however, they prioritize their hostages. The despicable thing about Netanyahu is he's not only does he hate Palestinians, he also doesn't care about his own people. He doesn't even care about the Israelis. And that's true for a lot of these people in, like america and stuff, who are advocating for the war to just go on endlessly. When you have people in israel who are calling for a ceasefire we're calling for you to agree to the ceasefire negotiations, and you just won't and you have people in america saying, no, he can't agree to the ceasefire negotiations.
Speaker 2:These people have their own vested interests. The people who have family members taken hostage they all want to ceasefire. It's actually frustrating, and I feel like there's no point even saying this, because most people already know these things, even the people on the pro-Israel side who want the war to continue. They know these things. There've been so many public figures now saying these things. They just don't care. There seems to be something very nefarious going on to where they can just get away with all of this and the world can turn a blind eye.
Speaker 1:Yes, this ignorance, or I think most of it is probably ignorance. If they truly knew what it felt to be a palestinian, they wouldn't. They wouldn't be, especially these evil figures, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing um oh yeah, of course if they were if they were on the other shoe, of course they would, uh not be they
Speaker 2:would be advocating for a ceasefire straight away. One of the prominent israeli leaders in the past also said if he was palestinian, he would probably be a terrorist again, because when you brutalize someone for that long, it's understandable that they become radicalized and they do these things. It's not justified, but it's understandable, and this is again another distinction that people pretend that they can't make. It's a very clear distinction to draw between justification and understanding things. When you understand something, you can actually find a resolution, you can work towards a solution. But if you just pretend there's no understanding and if you try and understand things, you're justifying it you'll never come to a solution because you'll never understand why those people have those grievances and those problems. There's no such thing as oh, they're just bad humans, they're just built like that.
Speaker 2:The the crazy thing is, people used to say that about jewish people. For so long, people used to say people are bad. There were so many pogroms, they were persecuted for so long until finally we came to the realization that no, no group is just bad. People were persecuted wrongly. The Holocaust happened. It was disgusting.
Speaker 2:The whole world realized oh, we can't carry on with this mindset. It's incredibly dangerous to brand one group of people as evil or selfish or greedy or whatever the stereotypes were at the time. However, now they just say Palestinians are bad, they just like to see terror, they just like to see violence. They don't care about their children. They use children as human shields. This kind of rhetoric is so dangerous and then it bleeds into our politics within this country as well, because you see more and more anti-muslim hate, more and more islamophobia and more and more just can't even call it anti-muslim hate. It's just anti-brown people hate, because even indian people are getting attacked, like hindu people who have no association with islam, or arabs or palestine seek people, and get attacked as well for the same thing. So I think people I don't even know what people need to do anymore like people are aware.
Speaker 1:It just seems like they don't care yeah, and on the flip side, there are a lot of innocent israelis and jewish people and their religions have been weaponized and you know they're probably getting unnecessary hate and ridiculed as well yeah, that's.
Speaker 2:That's an important point to bring up, like that's very important because anti-semitism will definitely be rising, because most people will struggle to draw the distinction between Israel and Jews. Because Israel always likes to frame itself as fighting for Jews in the world and pretend that all Jews in the world support Israel, when they don't.
Speaker 2:Because you can't kill babies in the name of Judaism, or pretend to do it in the name of Judaism and think Jewish people are going to be okay with that. That's why so many Jewish people around the world have come out against Israel, and very prominent figures as well have just completely condemned Israel's actions, and I think it's important for people to carry on mentioning that Israel does not represent Jewish people. It really does not. Most Jewish people I have met in real life do not support what Israel is doing right now, because most Jewish people, like most of any other group of people, are just good, kind-hearted people who don't want to see little kids getting murdered.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's a very important point to bring up 100%, and I want to touch on the whole understanding this versus justification thing. Like, my sister almost lost her life because of the taliban and their radical ideology, but of course I'm the last person to justify the action. But are their actions understandable? Yes, of course they are. Poverty, um, what you call it being radicalized? Uh, their lobbies paying them, you know, misinforming them. The University of Nebraska went back in when Mujahideen were trying to defend their country against the, the soviet, they, they. You know what their book said, that okay, if you have 10 soviet union soldiers and you kill six of them, how many are left? That ideology, the, the things they've been taught, is still running through their mind. They, they, they are not they. They have blown up mosques, they have blown up 200 schools. That was their maths of their own people, that was their mats of their own people.
Speaker 1:And they're, they're these powerful lobbies that are funding them, they, they have a lot, of, a lot of these and I understand the ignorance and I know that if I was god forbid born into a family where my father was the taliban, I would be most likely a terrorist. I understand that. Does that? Am I justifying the action? I'm the last person, like I said, I'm the last person to justify their fucking actions, because my sister almost lost her life because of their horrendous, hideous, disgusting fucking ideology that leaves no space for women, that is against Islam, that is against the Pashtun culture, that is against humanity, that is against the Pashtun culture, that is against humanity. It's literally anti-humanity.
Speaker 1:So I will never justify it. I will never, I won't. But I understand it. I understand where it stems from and we must understand it because if we want to get rid of it, you need fucking understanding. I don't know why we can't speak about that and just being called a terrorist sympathizer on the flip side, um, what you call it? Oh, in the case of, uh, palestine being called pro-hamas yeah, yeah it's.
Speaker 2:It's ridiculous, like imagine from the situation that we've grown up with, in what our families have gone through, what our loved ones have gone through, to be getting called terrorists and sympathizers.
Speaker 2:Your father was given death threats, yeah, so was your sister and, yeah, her life, like you said, she nearly lost her life through that type of ideology. So people are obviously not going to do their research, they're not going to look into us, like who are these people who are saying these things? They're just going to jump to conclusions. However, it is disheartening, it is sad that people are so quick to jump to conclusions and say things like that because, uh, for us, like a lot of these kids who grow up in these areas, in these impoverished homes, they get groomed by these groups. They're little vulnerable kids. They get groomed, they get radicalized, they get abused their whole life. They don't get taught what islam really is, um, and then they end up becoming terrorists and they become radical and they end up coming for people like us, for our families. They have done that. It's not just like some hypothetical. They may come to the uk and they may do that. They've targeted us and we can have an understanding for them. It's we don't justify their actions.
Speaker 2:Who would, in their right mind, justify someone trying to kill me? I would. I wouldn't say, oh yeah, no, fair enough, you can kill me, me, mate. That's okay, that's justified.
Speaker 2:But I understand that these are vulnerable people not, of course, not the leaders and stuff, but the ones who do all the dirty work and all that. A lot of them are just vulnerable little kids who have been grown up, radicalized, abused and turned into horrid human beings, like hateful human beings, and there's no other way to put it. The way they are now is hateful, despicable human beings. But there was once a little vulnerable kid who was groomed and the understanding helps you prevent those kids from getting groomed in the future. If you just have the mindset that, oh no, these people will be these people, there will always be people like this, they will come and they will do bad things versus if you think there's some little kid out there who could be saved from going on that path, you can prevent people from becoming radicalized and taking these actions by just helping them, providing them with a better life and taking them away from these nefarious groups that want to cause harm and are actually just hateful groups.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not box the whole group. Like not box a whole group with them. Like, for example, in our context calling the Pashtuns terrorists because the majority like in Afghanistan, they're part of the Taliban Are Pashtuns, but that doesn't mean All Pashtuns are terrorists.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is some statistic, or, in the wider world, calling all Muslims terrorists.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all Muslims, terrorists, like we have literally spoken Against these terrorists, like a lot of other Muslims Are speaking against these terrorists. And the same goes for, you know, jewish people. They are against. There are so many of them that are against what israel is doing, what america is doing. But again, when you box people in, that's how they get you once. Once they like, once they manipulate you into thinking oh, that entire one group is bad, but then and then they go on to commit a genocide, you're okay with it because that entire group is bad, when that's never the case. There are good and bad people in every religion, in every country, in every ism that is there, there's good and bad people. And, like you said it perfectly in our previous podcast, it's good versus evil, it's just good versus evil.
Speaker 2:And not the simple. One side is good, one side is evil, and not the simple. One side is good, one side is evil. There's good on all sides and it's that good everywhere versus the evil everywhere that's what it should be exactly, and I think you said it perfectly there.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, it's very heartbreaking, especially when bela started crying. Man, I was talking about the little girl, um, who lost her mother orphan they can respond, you can. Anyone can take that kid and just groom them and then, 10 years down the line, they are part of a terrorist group.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then 10 years down the line, you'll have some american commentator saying oh, they're just hateful people, they just want to kill people. These people are so out of touch I don't even know what to say. It's frustrating because these things are so obvious.
Speaker 1:Yes, common sense.
Speaker 2:It is. Most well-intentioned people understand these things. However, it's the people with the biases, who have a certain agenda to push, who block these common sense basic things out of their brain because they don't want to understand it. No one wants to be the bad guy or to be seen as the bad guy. In their own mind. They probably see themselves as the hero for whatever cause that they're fighting for, but this type of bias is what leads to people being so just stupid there's no other way to put it.
Speaker 2:They put the most, the dumbest arguments out there to try and justify what they're doing, because there is no rational, logical argument to justify what they're doing, to justify killing tens of thousands of innocent people and half of the population there is children like, yeah, I think we've said this so many times on this podcast, so we'll refrain from doing so again, but yeah, that podcast was really sad man just going through everything bilal had been through again. He spoke about why he left the labour party as well, because he was involved, uh, with them for a long time, but he no longer saw them as aligning with his values, um, and there was a really interesting story behind that as well. So you should really go listen to that and follow Bilal on his socials and everything to keep up with what he's doing, because he's doing some great work. And, yeah, we wish him all the strength, because going through something like that, even though he's not in Gaza himself, you do need a lot of strength yeah, 100.
Speaker 1:I mean, in some ways he's feeling pain that no one else is, because he feels so helpless. I have I felt that pain when we moved here and, you know, somehow I escaped, like the allah, of suffering the pakistani suffer, and I started feeling guilty and that survivor guilt is really crippling. It really is a lot. Very few people understand survivor guilt and you can tell that bilal is going through it and I hope he doesn't, you know, and I, um, I wish him strength that he doesn't feel guilty about having fun, that he can have his, he can be a normal human being, because a lot of people can never live a normal life After seeing or going through what they have and they lose their humanity.
Speaker 1:And we don't want people to lose their humanity. We don't want people to give up their hope. We don't want people to be all is lost. Think that way, and Bilal isn't one of those people. He's got faith and inshallah is the faith of good people in this world that will get us through these difficult times. And, yeah, I want to inshallah and anything else wally, or should we end it there?
Speaker 2:no, let's call it a day. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:thank you so much for listening, guys, and you know I think focus is all of these conversations can feel like you know, we can feel helpless, right? What do we do? Try to just help the people around you Become a competent human being for the people around you, and that has a broader effect. That's, honestly, my honest advice and that's what me and Wally have been doing to the best of our ability. Because, yes, you do feel helpless, because we all want to end this war, we all want to do our part and we like sometimes we like you know we can't do anything. So, you know, let's, let's forget about it. That's not the right approach either. There's a lot of good we can do near us, close to us, that's in our control and that has that rippling effect. So let's continue the good work that we all are doing and I wish you guys all the best. Have a good day.
Speaker 2:Take care.
