0.4 | Faris Abubaker | TEDxUniversity of Birmingham Dubai

Introduction and Philosophical Framework

• The story being shared is a raw and truthful one, with the goal of simply sharing experiences, rather than motivating the audience, and the talk is titled "0.4" 10s.
• Two key beliefs are mentioned: the phrase "it is what it is," which has been a guiding principle for the past 10-11 years, and the idea that life can be viewed as a chessboard, with its own set of rules and strategies 2m6s.
• The concept of a chessboard is introduced, with the idea that each piece has its own unique role and abilities, and the story will be shared in the context of this chessboard analogy 2m6s.

Early Life and Chess Metaphor

• The journey begins with the introduction to chess at the age of 6 or 7, when a mother taught her child how to play, explaining the roles of each piece, including the pawn, bishop, rook, king, and queen 4m30s.
• It is mentioned that the child has played four out of the six pieces in life, having been a pawn, knight, bishop, and rook at various points, with the experiences of being a king and queen potentially being shared in a future talk 6m40s.
• The first move in the chess game, point E4, is discussed, and the unique ability of the pawn to transform into any other piece except the king when it reaches the end of the board is highlighted 8m20s.

University and Career Exploration

• The university experience is shared, where the individual thought they knew everything but soon realized they did not, and they went through a process of trial and error, trying out different fields such as law, accounting, and business before finding their fit in marketing 10m30s.
• The marketing class is described as a fascinating experience, where the subtle art of understanding people is learned, and it is compared to psychology, requiring a deep understanding of the audience being targeted 12m40s.
• The concept of moving forward, like a pawn in chess, was applied to a marketing class, where out-of-the-box thoughts made sense, and this idea was relevant to the person's life 10s.

Graduation and Job Hunting Beginnings

• The person's life also involved becoming like a knight, which meant not going around problems, but rather going through or jumping over them, and this was exemplified during their graduation 42s.
• After graduating, the person was taken by their dad to a printer shop to print 100 CVs, and then driven to Media City in Dubai, where they were told to find a job, which was a shocking experience 1m6s.
• The first day of job hunting was spent partly at a juice bar, where the person was excited by the interesting conversations and cool appearances of the people around them, and they decided to walk around and knock on doors to introduce themselves and hand out their CV 2m6s.
• The second day of job hunting was worse, with people telling the person that the industry was crashing, and they had no experience, which made them feel different and consider doing a master's degree instead 3m14s.
• The person's dad responded to their concerns by asking why anyone should hire them, which made them think and eventually come up with a more planned approach to job hunting 4m14s.

Job Hunting in Media City

• On the third day, the person walked around Media City with a more planned approach, researching companies and looking for ones that interested them, until they stumbled upon a building called MCN, where they found a company they loved and decided to try to get in touch with them 5m30s.
• The person managed to get into the MCN building by figuring out how to get around the security and made their way to the reception, where they introduced themselves to the receptionist and expressed their interest in finding a job 6m42s.
• A person went to a company to inquire about a job, but was initially asked to provide their CV, which had zero experience, and instead offered to work for free to learn, which led to an internship offer being sent to their email at 4:00 p.m. 10s.

Meeting Challenges and Turning Points

• The person received a call from someone they had met six months prior, inviting them to a meeting, but on the day of the meeting, they were involved in a car accident on Sheikh Zayed at 9:00 a.m., and despite being injured, they attended the meeting at 1:00 p.m. 42s.
• At the meeting, the person met with a highly experienced individual who had led Ogilvy for 20 years and won numerous awards, and was given two conditions to work with him: to forget everything they had learned and to not hold back, which marked the beginning of a new journey in storytelling, focusing on people, and understanding data 2m6s.
• The person's journey led to them working on fun ads, winning a gold Linux campaign award, and working at music concerts, ultimately transforming from a "pawn" to a "knight" in their career 2m6s.

Transition to Entrepreneurship and Innovation

• Work was done with various individuals, including J. Cole and Serena Williams, and after that, a transition was made to a new field, entrepreneurship and innovation, which was unfamiliar, 10s
• The transition to this new field involved leaving behind a known world and entering an unknown one, where business skills such as building a business, pitching, and understanding business models were lacking, but two valuable skills from the advertising world, listening and thinking outside the box, were retained, 42s
• Over the course of four months, time was spent sitting down with people from different fields, including someone building something for the ocean and a VR startup for the aviation world, and it was realized that founders embodied their work and faced new challenges every day, 2m6s
• A common question among founders was "What's next?", and an effort was made to help them figure this out by studying and teaching themselves about building a startup, 2m6s

Building and Teaching a Startup Course

• A course was built to help people learn about startups, and after getting approval from the corporate world, it was decided that the course would be taught, but the initial plan was for someone else to teach it, 4m0s
• However, just before the course was set to begin, the person who was supposed to teach it backed out, and the responsibility fell to the person who built the course, who had never publicly spoken before and was initially hesitant but ultimately trusted to deliver the course, 6m0s
• The individual had to speak in front of 25 people, which was an amazing learning and teaching moment, and after doing a little prayer, the session went fantastic, with people staying all 3 days 10s.
• The number of sessions grew from 25 to 50, 100, 200, and 300, with the individual speaking publicly over 100 times in a year, making a difference for an ecosystem by helping founders who were lost and trying to figure things out 1m30s.

Leadership and Management Reflections

• The individual views the rook in chess as a piece meant to protect, and when they became a manager, they realized they were not protecting their team, but rather managing and taking instead of asking, which led to a team member calling and crying about the individual's management style 2m45s.
• This experience led to a change in the individual's approach, deciding to inspire and mentor instead of manage, and realizing that when they were in different positions, such as a pawn, bishop, or knight, someone was a rook for them, helping them get to the next point 4m10s.
• The individual advises young people who feel like they are losing their game or chess piece not to beat themselves up too much, remembering that a pawn can go all the way to the end of the board and become anything they want to be, and sharing their own experience of having a GPA of 0.4 in university 7m30s.