Ignorance and Its Harm to Your Hustle

Show Notes

InshaAllah we will always try our best to share the sources for what is discussed during the episode. Please find the sources below.

• @ time: 00:00

  - OPENING CLIP - 00:00 The worst thing for any person is not a lack of knowledge. The worst thing for them is a lack of awareness for their lack of knowledge.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription

• @ time: 00:17

  - PODCAST INTRO - Assalaamu Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakaatuh. Welcome to 'The Halal Hustle' where we talk about Halal Business, Halal Entrepreneurship, and share stories about Halal Hustlers who are striving towards their place with Allah in the Here-after, by taking the 'Means' in this Dunya.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription

• @ time: 00:32

  - EPISODE OUTLINE - In shaa Allah on this episode we're gonna be talking about ignorance and how you could prevent it from affecting your hustle. The way we're gonna talk about this is by stepping a little bit into the field of psychology and breaking down the Dunning-Kruger Effect. In very simple terms the Dunning-Kruger Effect is when someone falsely believes that they're a lot better than they actually are. So an example... You think you're really good at driving but you don't really have a strong basis for that belief. You may actually suck... So we're gonna break down ignorance by using this lens as well as we're gonna talk about the different types of ignorance and how you could be incompetent even if you have a whole bunch of knowledge and experience... And lastly we're going to bring it all together and give practical tips with facts and real-life examples to help you and your hustle. For all the sources and information that I drew from for this episode be sure to check out the show notes at TheHalalHustle.com. Without further ado... Bismillah. Let's get right into it.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription
  • Dunning-Kruger Effect article

• @ time: 01:38

  - EPISODE - So what is ignorance? A basic Google search tells me that ignorance is a lack of knowledge or information but I know that I'm lacking knowledge. You know that you're lacking knowledge but the issue is we don't know specifically what pieces of information we're lacking... What knowledge do we lack and especially when it comes to our hustle... That's the challenge that we've all been tasked to solve. What is it that we need to know in order to make this successful? So here's where the Dunning-Kruger Effect is... Basically there's two social psychologists named David Dunning and Justin Kruger who came up with this hypothesis or they proved with arguments and research studies that all human beings have a natural cognitive bias... Which means that we all think highly of ourselves. We tend to believe that we're better than the norm or we're better than the average person. An example from one of their studies was that they would survey people and I think it was around 80% of people that were surveyed believed that they were an above-average driver. Now the problem here is that statistically if you survey people... How can 80% of the people surveyed be above average? Mathematically that doesn't make sense. So clearly we're thinking that we are better than in fact we actually are. Now the research wasn't anything new. It was just interesting and provided clear evidence in a modern age that humans kind of liked themselves... They kind of are feeling themselves... They get a bit gased and believe that they're a lot better than they may actually be performing in reality and this basically ties into the whole topic of ignorance. - 03:30 - In whatever hustle that you're doing, whatever thing that you started doing, you may believe just because you're doing it or because you have some credentials that are provided by a professional governing body that you're a lot better than you actually are. Somewhere along the lines you may move from being humble and continuously growing and striving to gain more knowledge, to thinking that you got it all figured out... You know everything. Now I am very familiar with that feeling. Back when I was just a teenager I thought I had the whole world and life figured out. I thought I knew it all and it was only when I got exposed to new experiences that I realized I don't know anything. So to drive this point home I'm gonna give you two examples the first one is secular - so no religion involved in this. A new graduate that just came out of university believes that they are now an expert in their field... Or even better a new doctor. Now society views them as an expert because they have specialized knowledge, they've gone to school, and they've garnered a high position but is a fresh grad really that experienced? Is someone that just completed maybe three years of residency an expert in the field? I'd say they're knowledgeable definitely. I'd say they'd have experience but they're definitely still growing and they likely have far more to learn than they already know. - 05:02 - The second one which I definitely relate to and I'm sure many people can relate to this is... There's someone who wasn't really practicing their Deen that much and then they got on their Deen - you know. Alhamdulillah. By the will of Allah their iman may have increased and they started practicing more you know... They're praying five times a day. They're going to the Masjid all the time. They started looking more like they are a practicing Muslim or something like that, where - you know someone started following the Sunnah of letting the beard grow or you know started wearing thobes... And I'm speaking from a guy's perspective obviously but now people are looking at them like oh maa shaa Allah. Maa shaa Allah... and this person may get it twisted and think that I'm a scholar now - you know. I'm a sheikh but that's far from the case. Even with a degree from an Islamic University are you a scholar now? Questionable. I'm sure there's still a lot more to learn than the knowledge that you currently have. Now this isn't limited to just... You know those two examples. This happens in every single - you know field or category or hustle. It runs rampant and creeps its way in all the time. This bias in believing that you are a lot better than the average but in reality part of it is because we don't know the average. We're stuck and or limited to our own field of view. Whatever we see is what we're using as a measurement. So someone who is surrounded by geniuses will compare themselves to geniuses and they may feel that they are a genius among geniuses or they are you know very... They're a lot less capable than geniuses but it's relative to what they're comparing themselves to. It's not relative to what actually exists. - 06:49 - So Dunning and Kruger... They broke it down into basically three categories of who's affected and how much they're affected by this cognitive bias... This belief that they're superior than they may actually be or they're superior to the average.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription

• @ time: 7:04

  So the first one is pretty scary. Dunning and Kruger said that... Or argued that those with the least amount of knowledge the least ability are most likely to overrate their skills to the greatest extent. So the people who are the worst or the people who were the least capable are the ones who are going to be comparing themselves to the best... Or that are in belief they are the best. That's crazy, that's scary but it also kind of makes sense. The more ignorant you are the more you'd believe that you are the best of the best and the most phenomenal. I'll be really you know forthcoming and say that I went to a job interview once and I was asked about my perceived ability in certain skills and the answers that I gave were pretty high - you know. I gave myself like an 8 out of 10 and you know 9 out of 10 in another one. One of them I may have even given myself a 10 out of 10. When I actually went to work, I did get the job alhamdulillah. I asked some of my colleagues and the rankings that they gave themselves even though they were more senior and more experienced than me were way lower. Like, they were giving themselves 5 out of 10, 3 out of 10, 6 out of 10... And i dawned on me... I didn't know how bad I actually was at this thing I thought I was amazing. That's ignorance.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription
  • Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.

• @ time: 8:26

  Another example of that is that when I was a teenager. You know... Teenage angst. You start kind of looking at your family or those around you and you start judging them... And you think, why do you do this this way? Why don't you do it better? I thought you should have had this figured out aren't you an adult? And then as you start to adult yourself, you gain more experience and go through things in life, you realize, 'Oh it's not that easy! What you've done is pretty impressive. I commend you! I need to learn from that!'

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription
  • Why People Fail To Recognize Their Own Incompetence

• @ time: 08:56

  All right this one's a little bit more reassuring. The second category was that those with a moderate amount of experience or expertise often had less confidence in their ability. So because they had some experience, because they gained some exposure they believe themselves to be, 'Oh I'm not really that good at this. I kind of have a lot to learn.' And that's a great space to be in. An example of that would be a recent graduate or someone that is interning at a big company and is kind of getting exposed for the first time to all of these new things and ideas and practices in the workplace. Or someone that starts a business and then shadows a competitor and sees how they do things and learns, 'Oh I got a lot to learn before I get to where they're at.'

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription

• @ time: 09:42

  Finally the last category was that those who are experts tend to be aware of just how knowledgeable they are - meaning that the people that were legitimately the top of their field tend to know that they actually are in the top of their field because they have the experience and the knowledge to ascertain that. They could judge it correctly but what happens to them is that they often assume or believe that others are just as knowledgeable as them. So because they've been exposed and have gained so much experience it's become normal for them. It's normalized and so now they take on the presumption that it's normal for other people as well even though their knowledge and expertise may actually be abnormal compared to the rest. A great example of this is someone who doesn't know how to dumb it down. When I say that, I mean someone who has a great deal of technical knowledge and can speak using a whole bunch of technical terms but when they're speaking to other people that may not be in the same field they don't dumb it down. They don't simplify it and use general terms that can easily explain the concepts that they're trying to convey. They're not able to... I guess turn it off but it's not that they're intentionally trying to do that. It may just be that they've forgotten that everyone doesn't know these terms. I can give an example in let's say... You're a personal trainer and you study the human body - right. You know the scientific names for muscles or the Latin names for muscles... And the common term for your back muscles when you're doing pull-ups or you're doing lat pull-downs is lats - right. The technical term 'latissimus dorsi' - well... Are you gonna go to a client and start telling them, 'hey you need to work your latissimus dorsi.' - well what's that? - right... It's not really conveying the message that you want to be conveyed and that's the challenge that some people have. A doctor may not use layman terms in order for you to understand what's your prognosis. Now some people may do it intentionally but it's likely often that they're just not aware that you don't know these terms.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription
  • Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.

• @ time: 12:00

  So the overarching takeaway from these three categories is that no one is immune to it, no one is in a situation where they can't be affected by this ignorance or this lack of awareness for where you actually stand, or what other people understand. So let's bring this back to reality. How exactly does ignorance affect you in your life or in your hustle? Because this is the Halal Hustle... Well, I'll put it simply... The worst thing for any person is not a lack of knowledge. The worst thing for them is a lack of awareness for their lack of knowledge. So not knowing that you don't know or not knowing what you don't know is the biggest issue that you can face when striving towards any endeavor or undertaking any pursuit. So from an Islamic perspective it's a bigger issue if you do not even know that there are five pillars in Islam versus if you know that there are five pillars in Islam but you don't know how to properly practice them - right. One is a complete absence of knowledge. The other one is an awareness that there is a lack of knowledge. One you could solve that problem. The other one you didn't even know a problem existed.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription

• @ time: 13:13

  So here's the basic way to solve that problem... Its exposure. That's it. Plain and simple. If you're not exposed to something you're not aware of it. Hence you can't do anything about it. So until you're aware of what's going on, or the problem that may exist, or a lack of knowledge that you may have... You're never going to be able to address it because you didn't know it was there. Now there's a really beautiful example that's given in Islam. There's this one story about... Some historians related that Al-Hasan and Al-Husain, may Allah be pleased with them, saw an old man who was performing ablution incorrectly. They wanted to teach him in a gentle and kind way, so they approached him and said, "O uncle, we disagree about which of us performs ablution the best, and we want you to judge between us." Each of them took his turn in performing ablution before the man, and they said, "Rule between us." He said, "Indeed you have both done well, may Allah bless the two of you (i.e. he realized that his own ablution was not done properly)." They said, "(we are) Al-Hasan and Al-Husain, the sons of 'Ali bin Abi Talib." He hugged them both and said admiringly, "Children, who take after their father."

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription
  • Original book from the publisher
  • PDF Explanation of Important Lessons (For Every Muslim) - Page 10. Note that this is NOT a guaranteed authentic version.

• @ time: 14:34

  Now the source of this was from a book 'Explanation of Important Lessons For Every Muslim' by sheikh Ibn Baz. May Allah have mercy and forgiveness towards him. The links in the show notes in Shaa Allah. But that's a scenario where someone was exposed to that knowledge - right. It just kind of happened. They were introduced to it. It was a blessing, but they didn't actively pursue it. So what I'm talking about here, especially in your hustle is that you have to actively pursue knowledge because with regards to any business venture or any venture towards success in this life you have to actively pursue it. You have to take the means and that's what the show is about - you know. Sharing stories and providing tools and tips for those who are taking the means. - 15:19 - So tip number one. In order to overcome ignorance in whatever pursuit you're doing even if it's a brand new venture is you have to actively seek knowledge. The majority of the wealthiest people in the world spend most of their time not running their business but acquiring new information because in order for them to continuously develop new sources of wealth and diversify their business and their business portfolios they have to be aware of what is going on in the world. So they're reading constantly. - 15:48 - The second tip is ask for feedback and more feedback and more feedback and be open to getting it because oftentimes people want feedback but they don't want to actually hear real feedback. They want to be fluffed up. They want to feel that they are being successful and that they're making a lot of progress and they're doing well. They want support. That's great. Feedback can definitely be a source of support but in order for you to ensure that you are not being ignorant and staying in a state of ignorance you need true feedback. You need harsh feedback. You need reality checks... And the easiest way I find you know not to be disheartened or be discouraged by getting negative feedback is that it's a blessing. Alhamdulillah. Knowledge is a blessing and so if you were unaware if you truly believe that what you did or the product that you design or the service that you're offering was amazing and someone told you that it sucked it may be shocking at first because it rattles your own belief but at the same time alhamdulillah... Well why does it suck - right? What is it that can be improved because you do have something. It's not that it's a complete zero. Something is always better than nothing so when you have something you could always improve upon that. So that feedback is... It's wonderful. It's great, It's a means for you to continuously improve and if you're constantly getting feedback that means that there's always something that you can work to improve upon and as humans that's never not going to be the case. As Muslims that's never not going to be the case. We always have room for improvement. So it's great. Alhamdulillah. And - you know just as a highlight, always trying to keep it real. For myself I strive to get feedback I love feedback and I mean I like hearing that is good but I've been conditioned I don't know maybe it's how I grew up or something but I thrive off of hearing that it sucks or that I'm not good or someone told me that you know I'm bad in this way... Because to me it's like oh I'm gonna prove you know that I could do this. I'm gonna prove myself correct. I could do this too... Like I have such a strong belief in my ability to improve alhamdullah. May Allah preserve and increase it aameen... That I love feedback and the worse it is the better it is for me because I could thrive off of that and take advantage of it and really improve based off of that criticism. You know always try and think of it like this the feedback is not the end. It's not the final judgement it's just the beginning - right. It's your starting point for what you do next with the new knowledge that you obtained from getting exposed to people's opinions. - 18:46 - All right well we're moving right along the last one the last tip that I have is find peers. Don't go in alone. Now you could hustle alone and you could have your own pursuit/business - you know... You're working alone but you don't want to stay that way forever. You want to have peers even if they're not doing the exact same thing with you. They may be competitors or they may be working on something as well... Like you want to have a hustle buddy. You want to have someone that is striving and trying to improve on themselves as well. So when you learn something in business, you can share that with them and then they share something with you and you're feeding off of each other and by doing so you're increasing the efficiency in your acquisition of knowledge. So rather than going in alone and having the exposure of only one person's life you now get the benefits of the exposure of two people - right... You're not alone anymore and you could bounce ideas off of people and they could share their experiences and it works in your favor. Give-and-take - right... And we already do this - right... We've been conditioned with this in our upbringing that when you learn Quran you generally do it with others. It's not a one-on-one setting where you're sitting with the teacher. When I'm in school group projects or you're learning with a classroom full of your peers - right. So when you have a problem you look at well how did you do this, how did you approach this and then you get study groups and things like that. So naturally as human beings we get more done as a group than we do as individuals but at the same time everyone has their own interests... But there are a whole bunch of people on this earth. There's a whole bunch of Muslims that will share those interests and so it's a huge benefit for you to get introduced to them. Be exposed to them and connect. That's something that we're gonna try and work on in shaa Allah - you know... Through The Halal Hustle but until that time you got to solve that yourself because having peers will exponentially benefit you in your pursuit of improvement. - 20:41 - So all in all ignorance is essentially a bubble and when you're in that bubble you tend to not know what is outside of it but as you expose yourself to more and gain more knowledge and more experience those bubbles tend to shrink. We still have those bubbles without questioning... But we become more aware of where those bubbles exist and are more capable in addressing how we manage our self perception or our believed competence. We know where we stand compared to others and are able to judge how we can improve. So to give you a real example of how I get exposure, how I seek feedback, and how I link-up with peers I'll talk about myself for a sec. So my hustle is web development, my hustle is programming, currently right now I offer web design and development services to small businesses and mainly restaurants. I tend to focus towards Muslims because there's challenges with working with non-muslim businesses because I may have some ethical disputes as to what they do and me offering those services. An example, a company that has a bar or sells alcohol... Me providing an advertising means for them to sell and service alcohol... That's a challenge. Anyways the way that I developed myself is one, I'm connected with a whole bunch of outlets where other developers and designers produce their content. There's CodePen.io, there's LinkedIn, there's the place I learned - you know... Some coding was FreeCodeCamp.org, there's YouTube, there's a whole bunch of outlets, Dribble, like... the list goes on and on but there's a whole bunch of outlets that provide a place, a community where my peers share their work. So for me as long as I go there I'm able to be exposed to new information, new ideas and see where the industry is starting to trend. Where you know certain designs are coming from. Different development practices, what programming languages, libraries... Things like that but that's relative to my hustle. - 22:56 - In terms of feedback I have an inner circle that I always ask to you know listen to the podcast or check out any code that I write or anything that I work on and give me honest feedback. I want it to be honest. I only want it to be honest and I hope that I do well but at the same time I look forward to knowing that there are areas that I missed and that there are areas that I could continue to improve on because I know I'm so far from being perfect. - 23:23 - Finally I have peers whether it's just through those outlets that I mentioned before or just reaching out to someone on LinkedIn or going to community events. Checking out - you know posting yourself in a message saying hey I do this is there anyone else that does this as well. The fastest and easiest way for you to get peers is also pretty scary because you have to put yourself out there. I can give an example that I am... I'm pretty new at web development. I'm not the most experienced out there. I still have a lot to learn but I went and when I was applying for jobs I posted my resume on LinkedIn and it got a lot of views. A lot of people saw it and then they commented and a lot of them like the design but one person in particular he reached out to me and messaged me and told me that he'd like to give me feedback and that he'd like to call... And he called me and it was amazing alhamdulillah. It was such a blessing and I - you know... I'm so appreciative of it. He spent an hour and a half talking to me about how I can improve the content on my resume... Just out of the blue. I didn't even know him. Since then I worked on - you know a new resume. I sent it to him. He gave me feedback again and we have a relationship that we bounce ideas off of each other now. Even though he's way more experienced than me but he became a bit of a mentor to me and it was all because I put myself out there. - 24:48 - So when it comes to overcoming or ensuring that you reduce your level of ignorance the biggest takeaway for me is that you have to put yourself out there. You have to take the means. you have to pursue it. It's easy to remain ignorant but it can be hard at times to constantly be learning new stuff or accepting really harsh feedback or negative feedback or even just making new friends. It's not easy and for each of these things the key role is ignorance is bred in a bubble. As soon as you leave that bubble it's gone. Pop that bubble in shaa Allah.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription

• @ time: 25:32

  - CLOSING REMARKS - So there you have it. that's my spiel on ignorance and in shaa Allah it serves as a benefit for you in your Halal Hustle. For me, I'm always one hundred percent down to try something new and make mistakes because I know that I'm going to learn something valuable from that. I'm not afraid to make mistakes and I don't think you are either it's just a little annoying and tiring to have to go and review all of those mistakes in order to learn something from it but you got it.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription

• @ time: 26:04

  - EPISODE OUTRO - In shaa Allah for more information and to get updates on our story as we continue to develop check us out on Twitter or Instagram. You could follow us using the handles @_thehalalhustle and for all the information and the resources used for this episode and all previous6 episodes visit TheHalalHustle.com where you can find the show notes. In shaa Allah this has been a pleasure and until next time... Assalaamu Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakaatuh.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription

Please note that that all information related to Islam in this podcast is intended to be without a position. Although we strive to provide factual information (from the Qur'an and Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ‬) that is taken from an authentic source, we are not scholars nor students of knowledge. Therefore, please understand that our mistakes are not intentional. We are not a valid source for finality regarding any matters pertaining to Islam.