[0:00]Hi there, Assalamualaikum. Ali Shah here. So today I'm going to talk about something about the channel. So the purpose of this channel is to bring to you the people who have been through amazing experiences, life-changing experiences.
[0:16]At the face of it, it looks like a big tragedy, a big accident that changes you. But I've got somebody who have I recently, who I recently met, and he changed my perspective about it. He told me that there was the feeling that he got into that big accident, which was quite a crushing accident.
[0:36]He told me it liberated him. So going to talk about that experience, why did he say that and how did it, how did this change him as a person and how that can have an impact on people, your near and dear ones around you as well.
[0:51]We're going to explore all of that through multiple episodes that I'm going to bring to people that I meet who have been through big accidents and their lives changed because of that. So this is what survivors' promise is to you.
[1:07]So if you have not subscribed yet, please subscribe. We're going to talk to an amazing person, Asif Aziz, who is with me today. So assalamualaikum Asif. Waalaikum Salaam. Great to have you on our show today. Thank you so much, Ali.
[1:19]So first of all, give me something about yourself. Tell us about who you are, where you're from, what do you do? So I'm uh Asif Aziz. I was born just outside of London. I've lived there all my life.
[1:30]I had my schooling, education, my first few jobs were all in the UK and then um life takes a change and I was sent abroad for many assignments. So I've lived and worked in multiple African countries.
[1:44]Across West Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and East Africa and I've lived in Dubai and for the last 10 years, I've been here in Islamabad working for an organization here.
[1:56]I am a big believer that you have to be mobile with your work. You've got to go where opportunities present themselves. And Alhamdulillah, I managed to move to Pakistan and I've been living here now for 10 years.
[2:09]And one of the reasons I fell in love was the hills of Islamabad. They offered me an opportunity to continue what I do as a passion.
[2:18]So as a passion, I like running, I like active outdoor sports, cycling, hiking. There are multiple trails on these hills that I was able to just quickly in the morning, run off the hill and run back down again or cycle it and and it kept me in a in an outdoors environment.
[2:35]Something which in in Europe is a is a bit more challenging because of the weather. Needless to say in London it's raining every day. So difficult to do these things, but here I had the opportunity with better weather all year round to continue my passions for outdoor sports.
[2:56]Somebody asked me this earlier on about some of my first jobs and first experiences and when I explain and this individual was local Pakistani and I said I had my first job when I was 13 and he had this puzzled look on his face as a 13-year-old. You were working. Yes.
[3:14]In the UK in the '70s and '80s growing up, paper rounds or paper delivery, newspaper delivery was a very common job for young school children.
[3:26]So my first job was delivering papers and then for that I had to wake up at five o'clock. And I think that discipline from a very early childhood stayed with me and even to this day, unfortunately, I cannot lie in.
[3:37]I will be awake at five o'clock, 5:30 to see the sunrise, to see the day, to start the day. And so I delivered newspapers. And so growing up in the UK was great. It's very liberating.
[3:51]You get empowered, you make your own decisions as a 15-year-old, 14-year-old boy. I was out on the streets at five o'clock, 5:30 in the morning and my parents were comfortable with it.
[4:03]And then I progressed and I had weekend jobs. I worked in um electronic stores. I worked in places and you did these things to supplement your studies with some extra income.
[4:13]So I got the concept of working and earning at a very, very young age, which then empowered me because I was able to take my own decisions because I had capital. I was able to buy my own clothes. I was able to go and spend things that I wanted to spend on and that showed me the true value of money.
[4:33]I was never given any pocket money. I had to earn my income and my living. So growing up in the UK, I think it's both empowering and liberating because it gives you the freedoms that I think are harder to come by in countries like Pakistan.
[4:47]Amazing. And how was your education like? Where did you study and So thank you. So I obviously I did my schooling. I did the usual, uh, in those days we were called O levels and we did A levels.
[4:54]So I did my A levels. I studied economics, politics, geography, history and general studies. Uh, general studies was one of those classics, um, philosophy type conversations and I enjoyed that a lot.
[5:14]Um, politics, I enjoyed a lot, but my politics was uh specifically the origins of the uh Second World War and uh British parliamentary history. So I had to study a lot about that.
[5:25]Actually I had dreams or ambitions to become an ambassador, to study international relations or do something else. I had a place at international relations at Lancaster and my father sort of convinced me
[5:38]what's your career after this? What if you don't make it to the foreign service then what are you going to do? And parents are quite worried at that time.
[5:47]So my father encouraged me to study business uh studies instead. So I switched from international relations to business studies.
[5:54]I I was surprised. I enjoyed it as much and I really enjoyed that and I continued a career then in business world uh with a few postgraduate diplomas uh etcetera and then I supplemented it with an MBA from uh Holt.
[6:10]uh or it was called Ashridge at that time, but Ashridge was taken over by Halt Management School. And so I did an MBA with them. And then most recently I completed a Stanford executive program where I was on campus for about six weeks. And it was like another mini MBA refresher.
[6:32]So it's always been in the field that I am, but um more interestingly, I dropped out of an MPhil in languages.
[6:40]I'm fascinated by language and I wanted to learn about the history of language. Even in the UK, if someone's living in Scotland, they have a different accent, different words to describe the same thing that would be in London.
[6:54]France, which has a 25-mile difference between us and them, the language is totally different. Language between Belgium and Netherlands is different to Germany is different. So I was fascinated by how languages evolved.
[7:07]And I had registered to a course to do MPhil at Cambridge University uh in London, uh near London. But unfortunately, I got married, I had children and then time ran out and I couldn't complete that course.
[7:20]But if I was to ever stop working, I think I would go and do it. Amazing. What about your family? When you decided to move to Pakistan, since you never lived here before, what was their reaction?
[7:35]Yeah, I'm going to be I'm going to be roar on this one. They were worried. Now you just think back. This is 2015. Um, there's still concepts of terrorism and terror alerts.
[7:50]My father who is Pakistani, but he left in the '50s and has never been. He was paranoid that, you know, I'll be in the market and something will happen, an explosion or something.
[8:02]You know, and then unfortunately, media negatively amplifies this in Western societies. So there would be a terrorist attack in somewhere in Balochistan and my father would be ringing me to see if I'm safe.
[8:16]Not knowing that that is a many miles from where I am. So they had a very a different perception. They were nervous. And all of my family has emigrated.
[8:29]So my family either lives in um Denmark, Norway, UK, so very, uh, very few relatives.
[8:39]whom I hardly ever see live in Pakistan. So my parents were nervous. You'll be all alone. Your children are young. Are you sure you want to do this? There are many countries you could live in.
[8:50]You've worked in France, you've worked in Germany, you've lived in Dubai. Why Pakistan? And I had one very simple answer to him, which was at that time, we were 180 million people.
[9:04]I said to him, that's three times the size of the population of Great Britain. I see a huge opportunity. I see everything underdeveloped.
[9:14]I want to go there and and um explore the market and explore it. And then I came to the country and I literally related very well to people. I picked up the language.
[9:25]I wasn't able to speak Urdu until I came here. And and I really have enjoyed my my time here. Um I find people welcoming, people friendly, uh people open.
[9:39]And most importantly, something these people don't know, they're actually very talented and good at their jobs. Um, if they knew their real self-worth, um regrettably, we would have a brain drain out of Pakistan.
[9:52]I believe we are on the precipice of being able to export significant amounts of intellectual capital. My humble advice to everybody is, with 250 million people, population growing in at five million every year.
[10:07]GDP set to grow. It's okay. The economic indicators are okay. There is some negative press, but the opportunities in Pakistan are still immense. Do not underestimate what you can achieve here.
[10:20]So what exactly happened as a result of that? Your life changed. I I call it the greatest moment of my life.
[10:28]Allah bless me. On the seventh of January, at nine o'clock in the morning, on the hill in just behind Islamabad called Margala Hill, I was descending the hill on my cycle at great speed.
[10:43]I was with a friend and we were as men racing each other. And to see who could hit the fastest speed.
[10:55]And um, nine o'clock, Sunday morning, no traffic. So you can descend. And it's got some windy turns but you feel comfortable. I've done that hill more than 600 times. So I had an air of arrogance.
[11:10]That I know what I'm doing. And as I was descending it, a car just pulled out of the car park and hit me at full speed.
[11:21]And I went flying and I landed very heavily. And immediately, um, I was fully liberated.
[11:36]I had broken more than 18 bones. And the doctors didn't think I was going to survive the next 12 hours. They were going to amputate my leg. They were going to amputate my arms.
[11:47]Uh because they said the the trauma and the fractures are too heavy because the guy hit me from the side. Arm was dislocated, wrist dislocated, fingers cut off, fingers severed, hip broken, leg broken, pelvis broken.
[12:01]It was just unbelievable. And why I call it the greatest second of my life. Um, and it all happened in less than a second.
[12:13]It's the greatest second because it taught me everything I needed to know in that one second about the importance of life, the gift of life, the blessings of life. Um,
[12:24]as I was flying through the air, not knowing where I'm going to land and then landing, I was totally free. I was liberated.
[12:37]I was unable to help myself. I was unable to stand. I was unable to get up. I was unable to drink water.
[12:49]I was unable to do anything. I had this illusion of control.
[12:54]And I realized that it was only an illusion that I had no control. Just two minutes before this accident, I had spoken to some friends who I could see hiking on the hill and we had arranged to meet for breakfast in about 30 minutes at a local restaurant.
[13:11]And to their horrified surprise when my other friend put on the group that Asif had a an accident. They were in complete shock. We just spoke to him two minutes ago.
[13:23]Little did I know that in those two minutes my life was about to transform in immeasurable ways. But the greatest gift that Allah gave me was obviously, firstly, my life and secondly opening my eyes to show me that actually I'm not in control.
[13:43]I have an illusion of control, but I've got to be able to plan um for every eventuality.
[13:53]So as I'm lying there now, completely helpless. Subsequently, miracles happened that I didn't realize.
[14:06]The first miracle that happened was the driver of the car. It was his brother who was in the hospital attending to me.
[14:18]So his brother had already called forward and told them that I've just hit a car on a car in a bike. Can you attend to him?
[14:28]If that wasn't enough of a miracle, um, I flew about 25 feet. If I'd flown 27, I would have fallen down the ravine.
[14:40]So that was pretty amazing that I didn't fall down the ravine. I would have had to be airlifted. If that wasn't enough miracle, the third miracle happened was one of my work colleagues had just parked his car in the very same car park who happens to be head of HR.
[14:59]He came running over and took complete control uh called the emergency services, called my driver, called my cars and got me rescued and to the hospital.
[15:10]That's the third miracle that happened which is unreal. And the fourth miracle, which is the most important, where I landed, um, uh, there was a brick wall that had broken.
[15:24]And it had metal, the the the the metal structure was sticking out and I missed it by about centimeters.
[15:37]So you fly 25 feet and somehow you miss all of these things. So that's but then the biggest miracle in all was, I had no permanent long-term organ damage or spinal damage or a head injury.
[15:53]And and uh everything that I had was just purely orthopedic. It was bones andhamdulillah, bones do fix over time.
[16:03]Um, I couldn't feel my body. Um, I had lost perceptions of my body. I didn't know where my arms were. I didn't know where my legs were. I had this incredible sharp pain in my stomach.
[16:16]So I was nervous that could this be a spinal damage. I did feel a hard thumb when I landed on the road.
[16:25]And the doctors and then um I'm still awake. And then I'm getting transported to the hospital and they cut my gloves because I was wearing cycling gloves.
[16:35]It was winter, it's cold. My fingers fell off on the floor in the um ambulance. And I was sat there thinking this is becoming the worst day of my life.
[16:48]But actually it was the greatest day of my life because it taught me everything I needed to know about the importance of who's in real control, your illusion of control and the blessings for which you have to be extremely grateful for.
[17:01]So I was getting blessing after blessing after blessing. And then suddenly a trauma surgeon became available who wasn't available. He was leading orthopedic.
[17:11]And um they were about to sever my hand and he stepped in and he stopped that from happening. So I still have my hand. Although it's a bit stiff, but I still have it.
[17:23]And then um I was told the next uh 12 hours were critical for me. Um because of the extent of the injuries, I was prone to a stroke or a cardiac arrest.
[17:40]So I and by now I think I've passed out. Uh they started to relocate my legs and put my arms back in. Uh the pain was extensive. So I think I literally passed out and I think I was out for five or six hours.
[17:55]And then when I woke up, I had a burning sensation all over my body. The pain was nothing like I could ever imagine. The only thing I can describe is I'm sitting inside a furnace.
[18:07]Not a yellow flame, blue flames. I'm sitting in a furnace. And that was because my heart rate was going at over 140 uh because I was losing a lot of blood.
[18:19]Um so the next few hours were critical and the next day we had a mammoth long, like eight, nine-hour operation to fix everything, return fingers off and everything. And um the doctor was rather satisfied with himself.
[18:33]There was multiple surgeons. I think I plastic surgeons, orthopedics, trauma surgeons, um cardiac guy as well. I had a lot of medical support. So I'm from which I'm very grateful to.
[18:44]And then um the next few hours I was told I'm in a wheelchair. So I had to cope with how long is this wheelchair going to be?
[18:55]The doctor said we don't know. So I have to now readjust my life. Then I'm told uh it could be a few months. And Alhamdulillah, it was about three months that I was in the wheelchair. I was able to eventually stand and walk.
[19:12]But I lost a lot of muscle. I had lost uh a lot of energy. And uh the point I just want to make is the learning moment was how I was totally free.
[19:24]I had this thought in my head that who's going to look after my children? Who's going to help educate them? Who's going to mentor them?
[19:33]And I realized, uh, that might never be me. But God has a plan. So they will be educated. They will get mentored. They will get married and they will have families and they will lead their lives.
[19:48]Whether I'm in that part or not is rather irrelevant. So I realized that I don't have the illusion of control.
[19:57]That they will grow up and they will be fine. Meanwhile, whilst they're with me, I will do everything I can for them, but knowing for well this could not this could end any moment.
[20:09]I also learned, uh, sabar, which is patience, which was my biggest learning. There was things I could no longer do.
[20:20]And I had to realize how do I readjust myself with patience. I cannot go to the kitchen and get a glass of water.
[20:29]I have to drink it there because I cannot carry it back. Someone's got to push the wheelchair. Or my crutches.
[20:39]There was also uh moments of time when I realized that I was being incredibly selfish. Yes, I suffered.
[20:50]But actually my family suffered considerably more than me in the sense of the fact that not only did they lose a husband and a father, but they gained this miserable individual who was feeling sorry for himself.
[21:08]So they had to put up with two things. There were days where I would just stare at the wall, wallowing in my misery and trying to figure out what happened. Trying to make sense of it.
[21:19]But I realized I was making them suffer as well. So I realized the importance of being inclusive. I needed to include people.
[21:28]Um, many people wanted to carry my bags. I'm being a British guy, no one carries my bags. I I carry my bag. And I realized people just wanted to help. So allow people to help. Allow my family to help.
[21:42]Be inclusive with them. And I think this is an important management lesson at work as well.
[21:48]It's okay to ask for help. There is this egotistical image that we have of ourselves that I must have all the answers, especially in my role as the president of the division. I must have all the answers.
[22:01]I cannot go to anybody else for help. I realized it's okay to ask for help and it's okay to let others help. So be inclusive. Allow others to get involved. Allow others to help.
[22:13]And then I and then another lesson that I had was, I realized um that the life was going to be a journey and it wasn't always going to go up and it was going to come down and you've got to deal with those troughs as well as the peaks.
[22:28]I thought to myself, you know, why me? I'm a good God-fearing citizen. Why me? But I didn't ask that question when I was promoted to president.
[22:40]Why me, God? Why am I being made the president? I very happily accepted that. So I very happily accepted why me? I needed to learn something.
[22:50]I needed to learn sabar. I needed to learn inclusivity. I needed to learn uh allowing others to be involved. I needed to learn how to be grateful for every little thing, how to celebrate the small successes.
[23:04]I've taken my first steps today. I drove a car today. I was able to climb a stairs today.
[23:13]So I learned to appreciate uh milestones and learn. And then I think post-accident six months on, I wasn't recovering and I was in deep intense pain.
[23:28]Um, I couldn't walk. I needed two crutches to walk. Which is better than being in a wheelchair. So Alhamdulillah, you're not in a wheelchair. You're independent. You've got your own crutches, you can walk.
[23:40]But it's not really walking. It's just kind of dragging. How do I move on from this? What I learn from this? And as I began to accept my fate with Allah that okay, this is what you've deemed for me. I need to accept this and I need to figure out what I need to learn from it.
[23:56]I met with another surgeon in London who did some analysis on me and built some software-based 3D models. And he's a professor and a researcher of hips only. He's at Harley Street. Great guy.
[24:12]He gave me hope and he undertook uh another operation on me and my pain went. So today I am almost pain-free.
[24:26]Still a bit stiff and sore. It's been three months since post my second surgery. Um but this surgery, if that was my second life on January the 7th where I was just spared a life.
[24:40]I've now been given a third life and I now trying to figure out, okay, why have I been given this third life and what should I do with it? So for me now, this is my most motivating period of my life.
[24:52]that I stand on this crossroads, knowing that I've been blessed with another life. Um, I've got to do something more positive with it.
[25:03]What is it that you want from me? And I believe the previous 18 months where I learned how to be more grateful, how to be more inclusive.
[25:12]I think I got a blessing of this third life. Even my surgeon wasn't too hopeful, but he was sort of impressed with the surgery he undertook and the recovery that I've made since. So I mean, I'm I'm still doing very intense physio um every day.
[25:27]It's only been three months. So I have to do at least two hours of intense physio with my physio trainers. I've got online physio trainers. I have online consulting and I do uh gym work as well in order to get me back.
[25:40]But think about a scenario. I wasn't able to get up off the floor. I couldn't sit on the floor, first of all. I definitely couldn't get off the floor. I can't tie my shoelaces. I cannot put socks on.
[25:54]To now, Alhamdulillah, I have uh I have the ability to do all that. And that for me has got to be what do I need to learn from these moments in life?
[26:05]What is it that I need to do now going forward? Uh clearly I'm very cognizant of not wasting this opportunity that I've been blessed with.
[26:17]So now I'm just using this time to evaluate how to magnify my impact on mankind, my contribution back to everybody else, whether it's in training, coaching, education, mentoring, opening a school, uh working harder.
[26:36]I I but I need to figure out what it is that I now need to do because I've been given a third blessing, third life. So what do I do with my third life now?
[26:45]after this accident, how did the work get impacted? I underestimated the challenge of recovery.
[26:52]And my work was impacted quite significantly. Mentally I wasn't there for at least five months.
[27:01]And even when I was coming to the office, I was there for about two hours, three hours before I had to head back to physio. Or honestly, I'd fall asleep.
[27:12]It's quite embarrassing to admit this, but I could be sat in the office and I could feel my eyes shutting because my body was exhausted and it was telling me to slow down. With hindsight,
[27:25]I should have requested a sabbatical. At least 12 months. I need to get back. But the ego inside me was like, no, I've got to work. I'm a man. I'm I'm hard, you know, I've got to do this. I've got to keep going. I've got to keep going. Never give up. You know, giving up is, you know, permanent, but pain is temporary.
[27:47]Keep going, keep going. And and I think I I became too much of a hero for myself.
[27:54]And I would look back with hindsight. My work suffered and I should have taken a sabbatical as was offered to me. I should have just taken 12 months out and said, look, I'm so sorry. Things are not right. I I need a time out and I need to recover.
[29:38]Which is what I'm doing now. In fact, um, I'm in a transitional period now. My boss has forced it upon me to take six months out and fully recover.
[29:50]So which is allowing me to just mentally prepare myself to come back to work physically and mentally. So I am now doing and this is why I'm able to do intense physio, which is what I couldn't do before.
[30:03]You've got a tough job and you got physio. I have to be at my physio at three o'clock every day. I need three hours out of the office. It's not easy to commit when you've got a full-time job.
[30:13]And I do online physio in the morning. So then I need to sleep for a little while after that because your body gets exhausted. Did you get all the treatment in Pakistan?
[30:23]So initially, I took all my treatment in Pakistan because I was here. But I realized there was a limit to what the the surgeons could offer me here. I then started consulting with uh UK-based doctors from about February this year onwards.
[30:41]And then I went to meet one in April and uh and I started procedures in London from there onwards. However, I'm now doing two different physiotherapies.
[30:51]One is from here and one is online with my physiotherapist in London. But my surgeon who did the operation, he's actually very involved in my rehabilitation.
[31:04]He's in direct contact with both the Pakistani physio and the London-based physios. And they're constantly updating him with what they've done for me and he's given them milestones and road maps of where I need to be in the next sort of six months.
[31:18]You were satisfied with the treatment that was offered you here and how did this accident have any impact on your faith?
[31:22]So I am deeply faithful at all times. What this did do was renew for me, uh the purpose of life. I've always believed the purpose of life was making sure all your interactions with everybody, um are productive.
[32:20]Um where you receive information or give information. But what this did was it renewed my faith in the fact that there is submission to our higher will.
[32:40]You need to have patience if you don't like what the action taken for you was and you should be forever grateful for whatever you have been given because I was significantly better than a significant amount of other people.
[32:57]So whilst I was feeling sorry for myself, this could have been sincerely ten times worse. And death wouldn't have been the worst thing.
[33:06]Can you imagine my life as a quadriplegic in a wheelchair permanently? I can't. I was in a wheelchair for about four months and it was the worst time of my life.
[33:17]Now imagine if I had to do that on a permanent basis. So I realized submission to the will and then be very, very grateful. Very, very grateful. And if you don't like it, exercise extreme patience.
[33:32]Sabar. So that renewed it and I think it also dispelled the myth of the illusion of control that I had that I thought, uh, my life, I know what I'm going to do now. I know what I'm going to do tomorrow. I'm going to do next week. Sure, plan for it.
[33:48]But there will be multiple contingencies that are necessary. My concluding question would be that if you are to speak to people who who are watching right now and there's somebody who's going through it, what you went through something similar.
[34:02]Is any message you would like to give to them? Yeah, absolutely. First of all, uh have submission to this is the will of God.
[34:07]And if he's happy with your situation and he knows what you're suffering, be forever grateful to him because he knows how much you are suffering. So you don't need to tell him, I'm suffering. He knows. And if he's happy with that situation for you, then you should say, Alhamdulillah, I'm happy with it too. You need to accept that.
[34:28]If you don't like it, you need to exercise patience. That is a philosophical side of it. Then there is another mental side of it, which is you've got to exercise extreme amount of patience on a personal level.
[34:44]Things do not go your way all the time. Just adapt and readapt. They will not go your way. It's okay. Just readapt yourself. Accept it.
[34:55]Really deep down, embrace it. This is my life. I'm okay with it. You're okay with it. I'm cool with it too. Let's move forward. The minute you accept it, I think uh you get liberated because you dispelled the illusion of control.
[35:11]You're trying to get better. But he doesn't want you to get better. It's okay. So, accept it. Embrace it and really love it. That this is still a blessing.
[35:27]And uh have that level of mental strength and the rest will come. I I think the mind I I could not have imagined a time where I was pain-free. Even sitting here with you right now for this amount of time. I would have had to put my fingers or sitting on a cricket ball because I would have been in intense pain.
[35:48]Now I'm not, but I was very patient. And I think I was one of the very, very, very blessed ones.
[36:00]Who was given a glimpse of what life could be like and then brought back and now I stand at that crossroads. Okay, I was given that glimpse of what life could be.
[36:09]Now I am here. All right. Let's not go back to being the old me. There is some development you want from me. I now need to find a higher purpose of self-actualization. What is it that I now need to do?
[36:29]And that that for me is what's driving me now. So I think that that's pretty much it. So viewers, if you like this video, please hit the like button. If you haven't subscribed to our channel so far, please subscribe.
[36:40]We are going to bring similar raw content, uncensored content to you. We're going to meet people who have suffered tragedy beyond belief, who have been through accidents, traumatized them, changed them, transformed their lives.
[36:53]And how that happens. We're going to bring all of that to you. So that's the promise that I have for you. All I need from you is subscribe. Thank you very much for joining us today. Bye now.
