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Why I want to attend upw

A big turning point in my life was when I met Mr. Adnan Jalali. He was former school principal turned into personal development coach. My previous employer had hired him to conduct personal development training with a heavy focus on teaching (I was working as an Arabic Instructor). Before this, I was always highly skeptical of Personal / Leadership Development Gurus. He worked with me one on one over a course of many sessions and turned me from a skeptic to a believer. The single most important thing he taught me was the importance of self-knowledge. I firmly believe that understanding yourself plays a massive role in the quality of life and the level of impact one can have.

3 things excite me about UPW: 1) Colleagues. It takes a certain mindset to take the scary leap of embracing change and self-improvement. I am excited for the opportunity to travel and connect more deeply with my colleagues who commit to self-improvement. You are the sum of the company you keep. I am blessed and honored to work with such amazing people daily and excited for the opportunity to get to know a few of them better. 2) People. I always believe that at the end of the day at work and in life I am in the people business. Whether that is my family or the strangers at the bus stop. I am looking forward to meeting amazing people at UPW and getting inspired by their success and taking lessons from their failures. 3) Self Knowledge. Travel is the best education. I have been blessed to have traveled to so many different places and have experienced so many different things. Through it all, I have gained valuable self-knowledge. UPW is one more step in this lifelong journey.

I have a few limiting beliefs that I want to get rid of. Chief amongst them being scared of taking complete ownership. I had an e-commerce startup with a few friends almost 3 years ago. That experience though immensely educational left with me with a few scars. That was the first time I had complete ownership of my career. This was the first time the buck truly stopped with me. And it was amazing and terrifying. The failure of the startup I am ashamed to admit has left with a strong fear of failure and complete ownership. I want to be rid of this fear.

Hell Yeah!! One of my goals at Scalefactor is to become a Senior Software Engineer. I know that I have a long way to go but I am confident that I will get there. I am confident of my technical ability to reach that goal. What is holding me back is that my fear of taking ownership of difficult projects that put me outside of my comfort zone. Matt has been doing a great job of pushing me in that direction. However, I feel that fear is still holding me from giving it my all. I know for sure I am not performing even close to my 100 percent. After running my own startup I know what my 100 percent looks like and I really really want to get back to doing that. I truly feel that UPW is going to allow me to reach that goal of being Senior Software Developer a lot quicker.