My Story 

I always like to say, I was born and raised by NYC. This city has molded me into who I am and taught me the invaluable lessons of grit, passion, and determination to pursue my goals. Taking the bus + train during winter storms, surviving through inner city public schools, and learning how to maximize on a $2 bagel for fuel after school was a humbling life perspective to have and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

However, when I was young, there was a period of time where I also lived in Pakistan for 4 years. These were some of the most formidable years of my life because I developed a beautiful connection with my religion, culture, language, and family. Such simpler times where we used to just run around the house and bother our grandparents! Time flies by so fast. 

Childhood 

I moved back to New York City in 3rd grade. I remember when I moved back, I didn’t know how to speak English. My Dad would make me speak to him in English and signed me up for voluntary summer school so I don’t get bullied. Shortly after moving back to New York, things in the house became rocky. As a result, we usually cycled between living with one of my parents. 

Due to some rocky times, we went through a financially and mentally difficult time. Money was always a big unknown growing up and in many ways, we had to sacrifice aspects of “normal living” to make ends meet. Mentally, it wasn’t easy seeing my family in this situation and that came with its own low moments.

As the eldest son, brother, and cousin, I had to grow up really fast. I took my brother, who is 4 years younger than me, as my responsibility - teaching him our faith, culture, professionalism, and the essence of hard work. This instilled independence, maturity, and emotional intelligence within me at a very early age.

Regardless of the situation, I’m extremely grateful that I had two loving parents who always wanted the best for us. They worked 2-3 jobs at a time to support us and our relationship only grew as we got older. This situation inspired, empowered, and actually built the present day version of Mahd and that’s why I always remember this statement - God is the best of planners.

They were, are, and always will be my biggest motivation. I knew from an early age that I wanted to give them a better life. Everything to come was and will be for them. 

Teen years

Speaking of God, my faith is the center of my identity. But, this wasn’t always the case. Growing up, my brother and I weren’t very religious and were bullied because of our faith, especially post 9/11. This resulted in a confusing Muslim identity. But it all changed with one trip to Dubai.

One day my Dad came to me and said “your Uncle wants you both to come visit him in Dubai”. My first question was “do we have an Uncle in Dubai?”. My second question was, “what is Dubai?”. We didn’t have a relationship with our Uncle. And Dubai wasn’t as well known as it is today. But off we went, mostly without a choice.

The first day after arriving, he took us to the mosque for noon prayer. I was really confused but I went along with it because you don’t want to mess with him (in a good way). The same day, it came time to pray again so he took us back to the mosque. I remember thinking to myself, “my dad played me! this is a religious bootcamp”. I was pretty upset because this was not how I wanted to spend my summer.

A few weeks went by and we were keeping with Uncle out of respect. But one day, everything changed. I remember this moment vividly because it’s when the switch in my heart flipped. We had just finished afternoon prayer at the mosque and sat back in the car. On the way home, my Uncle played this exact recitation of the Quran (Chapter 67, Surah Mulk). Listening to this beautiful audio, my heart felt the most peace it’s ever felt in my entire life.

That’s when I knew this religion was peace and for me to live a joyful life, Islam was the answer. I’m ever grateful for this trip because it changed the course of my life, identity, and my development. Discovering my faith gave me purpose and continues to carry me everyday.

Faith

We tried to visit Dubai every year. It helped reaffirm our faith which was a huge blessing. Although every time I would return to America, I would become extremely sad. It’s almost as if I had two different personalities. In Dubai I was lively and joyful. In America, I was unmotivated, lazy, and lacked clarity.

In my first two years of high school, I was very insecure. I stuck to myself and maybe one or two friends. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in the future. I wasn’t very book smart either so my grades were below average.

But I did have street smarts, being raised in NYC and knew how to touch the hearts of people with my words which I learned from my Dad. And I had untapped tenacity and leadership which I learned from my Mom. These things just had to be unleashed. And that’s exactly what happened.

For some reason, my business teacher saw something in me that no one did. One day, my teacher for my business class asked me to volunteer for an upcoming open house. I immediately said no because I was terrified to speak in front of people and just very insecure to begin with. She kept insisting because she needed someone to talk to parents looking to sign their kids up at the school. I said yes after my friend also peer pressured me.

During the start of that open house event, I was extremely nervous. I remember having trouble breathing and sharing the right information with these eager parents. I remember another flip switched within when I realized the influence I held in that situation. I thought to myself, I can control each interaction and how people perceive me, this school, and this conversation through me. Yes, that is pressure but it also is a privilege. Once that clicked, I caught a much better flow.

I started developing my voice and discovered how to answer questions that resonated with the hearts of people. To my surprise, parents were smiling, laughing, and many of them signed their kids up for the program. I remember at one point, while I was speaking, my teacher made eye contact with me and gave me a nod of approval. I could sense the excitement and relief through her expression. As if she was saying, “SEE, I TOLD YOU!!!” 

The tides Shifted part 1

Following that day, my teacher made me teach her class for the next 2 weeks. I’m pretty sure this was very illegal but she wanted me to practice getting up in front of people and leading them to a common goal. That opened me up even more and showed me the beauty of doing things outside my comfort zone.

After that, I decided to get more involved in school activities to build out my leadership skills. I joined a bunch of multicultural organizations like the Spanish Club, Bengali Club, Indian Club, and Palestinian Club. These organizations also performed at a dance festival - I didn’t know how to dance but I decided to make myself very uncomfortable. Through this festival, I discovered my love for dancing and this actually allowed me to create community, develop my confidence, and break that shell even more.

Going into my senior year, the final project in my business program was called Virtual Enterprise. This project was a year-long business venture simulation. Due to my growth as a leader, I was nominated as the class CEO. Alongside this position and my participation in the cultural organizations, I was also a member of the Key Club, Library volunteer, and a few other things. I mention this because one day I was sitting in class and a girl came in with a note for the teacher. The teacher quietly came up to me and told me that I was being called to the guidance office. I was scared because I had no idea what I did wrong. Once I got there, I was informed that I was being nominated for a full-scholarship through the Posse Foundation to attend private school. This was a dream that was extremely out of reach considering how much it costs. It’s crazy how God blessed it through this opportunity in such an unexpected way. After extremely rigorous rounds of interviewing, I was selected for the scholarship and committed to Babson College. 

Tides shifted part 2

The first few weeks of school were chill - I made a lot of friends, socialized more than I needed to, and got my footing in place. A few months in, I noticed myself struggling with my grades and not having a Muslim community. Because faith was such a strong part of my identity, and our Muslim Student Association was super small (7-8 students), I lost myself. I was extremely unhappy, wasn’t practicing my faith as I was before, and spiraling fast. I hit a point where I wanted to transfer schools and just go back to NYC.

Some nights I would be upset with nothing to do, I would take my roommate's penny board and ride it around in the parking lot. I would do until late hours of the night contemplating my choices and how I should just hang it up.

I remember one night when I was riding around, I had a mindset changing moment. I asked myself, what have I truly done to better my circumstances? To be honest, the answer was nothing. I just expected things to be good. But that’s not how it works in life. My leadership experience in highschool reminded me to always work towards a solution rather than being part of the problem.

So, in that same year, I decided to take more leadership and become active in the MSA (Muslim Student Association). The MSA became a large part of my college story. I slowly discovered there were actually 30-40 Muslims on campus, out of a class of 500, which is a lot. They were also feeling a lack of community which led them to stay isolated. Come sophomore year, I decided to become the Co-President for the organization. At this point there were only 4 active members left so we all became leaders in every respect. The “core 4” - what we called ourselves - invested so much time in developing the MSA. We would sacrifice time away from hanging out, going home, and even from school to build a roadmap for the community. We never wanted anyone coming after us to feel how we felt during our freshmen year.

With dedication and God’s blessings, the MSA became one of the most vibrant communities on campus. We held large Eid dinners with over 300 people where even the President and Deans would attend. We educated the community about our faith and created a family for even non-Muslims who made up 20% of our organization because they felt belonging.

This provided me with such rigor, purpose, and motivation that translated into other areas of my life. I knew if I could do this, I could do anything. I ended up winning Senior Leader of the Year out of my entire class for leading the MSA!

What a ride. 

college Life

The first few weeks of school were chill - I made a lot of friends, socialized more than I needed to, and got my footing in place. A few months in, I noticed myself struggling with my grades and not having a Muslim community. Because faith was such a strong part of my identity, and our Muslim Student Association was super small (7-8 students), I lost myself. I was extremely unhappy, wasn’t practicing my faith as I was before, and spiraling fast. I hit a point where I wanted to transfer schools and just go back to NYC.

Some nights I would be so sad with nothing to do, I would take my roommate's penny board and ride it around in the parking lot. I would do until late hours of the night

Going back to high school after I committed to Babson College, I remember speaking to one of my Posse mentors they had assigned me. She brought me into her office and asked me “what’s your dream job?” I told her I want to work at Google. She looked shocked, and said “woah woah relax okay, how about a realistic one?” In the words of Michael Jordan, I took that personally. Believe it or not, that same week she emailed me. Google had reached out to her office inquiring about any students that were interested in touring the Google NYC office as part of a 1-day seminar. My mentor referred me because the conversation was fresh in her mind. And because I was bold enough to share my largest aspiration out loud.

When I got there, I was super intimidated. Kids were committed to Harvard, MIT, NYU. No one from Yale surprisingly. We toured the offices and met people from different parts of the company. Towards the end, the host, Mel, shared with everyone that Google didn’t have internships for anyone until the 3rd year in college.

I remember there was a strong sigh from all the students in the room because that was such a long time away. We were all hoping to secure something earlier. But immediately, I took it as more time to prepare. Because everyone had checked out and it was a long day, they were eager to leave. When Mel announced the program was over, all the kids rushed to the door, similar to how when the bell rings in school. 

work

As everyone was leaving, I remember one thing Mel said that stuck with me: “stay in touch over the years.” I don’t think anyone heard her except for me. I did exactly that. When I became a freshman in college, during that very challenging time period, I emailed her in hopes of reconnecting and finding opportunities.

To my surprise, she wrote back and was down to hop on a call with me. During that call, she told me to apply for another 4 day seminar which would take place during my sophomore year. This was a feeder program for Google to select students straight from the seminar into their internship program. I was so excited to hear about this program and knew this was my opportunity to make it.

I asked her, very naively and anxiously, “can you connect me with the person that leads this program?” She laughed. I swear I thought I had messed something up. She said, “actually Mahd, I’m the global lead for the program.” At this point, I was crapping myself because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She told me to keep doing what I was doing and “stay in touch”. Every 2-3 months, I would send her an email to update her about what I was doing, learning, and where I was interning at. It finally came time to apply for the 4-day seminar and I remember spending around 6 weeks on the application - reading each word to the short essay prompt about 1000 times. I was sitting in my dorm when I found out that I was accepted and jumped straight off to celebrate. From there, I joined the internship program which led to joining Google full-time, going to 4 years now, Alhamdullilah. When I met Mel again in-person, I asked her “why me?” And she told me it was because I was persistent but not annoying. She said, out of 150 people from that 1-day program, I was the only one that actually stayed in touch. 

WOrk part 2

After graduating in 2019, I moved out to the Bay Area for about 6 months. I’m not going to lie, it was a rough 6 months. With a new job, new coast, new house, new friends, it was a lot. When I finally felt settled in, boom, covid happened. The life that I was developing out in the west coast as I knew it just abruptly ended. I moved back to NYC and I was in my childhood room like I never left.

I was down bad during covid for real. I gained 20 pounds, work was extremely stressful, and I was forced to confront a lot of personal things. My journey towards self-enlightenment and self-love didn’t start until I ended a difficult relationship in 2020. In the process of moving forward from this relationship, I recognized a lot of gaps in my life and opportunities to heal which the relationship didn’t allow me to see at first. Seeing how down bad I was, I knew something had to change and I needed to get help.

I started coaching sessions as a way to unpack everything and these sessions were completely life changing. It got to the point where every session, my coach, Freddy, and I were having mind blowing realizations together about my life. I grew so much from these sessions and developed a new profound self-love + vision for myself. It was hard but I’m very grateful I experienced this challenge because it allowed me to discover, build, and generate a higher + better version of myself.

Check my coaching story in more detail here. Ultimately, it helped change my life so much that I decided to become a personal development coach myself. About a year and a half post covid, I moved back to California to finish what I started.

I now live in the Bay Area, excited to be working and building my coaching practice. I recently started modeling and acting as well to cast a wide net because I want to explore every opportunity out there. The story continues, God willing, and I’ve been very blessed through the highs and lows. Stay tuned. 

Current day