Transcriber: Ivana Korom Reviewer: Sharaf Alkibsi
2011 we made something happen in Yemen.
Notice I said, we made something happen.
I didn't say something happened.
We broke the chains of fear.
We crossed the Rubicon, so to speak.
Mr. Fear used to live within us,
in our places of work, in our homes,
in our streets.
One fine morning, we decided that we have had enough.
We took Mr. Fear,
we bundled him,
we packaged him,
and we sent him to live with Mr. President of the republic.
(Applause)
Ever since
everything the President and his government does,
everything he says,
every decision he makes,
Mr. Fear reminds him
to think very carefully
about what we will say or how we will react,
whether we will agree or not.
We are no longer a nation of people subdued by Mr. Fear.
Now, it is the President of Yemen and his government who are reminded everyday
by Mr. Fear, who they work for
and who is the real boss in Yemen.
(Applause)
If there is one thing we accomplished and none other
crossing this Rubicon should be enough.
There are two types of people.
Those who see difficulties in everything they are about to start,
and those who see ways around those difficulties.
Those who ask, "Can I really do this?",
"How can I really do this?"
and those who say, "I can do this".
Those who wait for something to happen and those who make it happen.
Today you have seen here, the people who spoke before me.
Like in 2011, you have seen that we have shifted.
We have become a nation of people who don't wait for things to happen.
We have become a nation of people who make things happen.
(Applause)
And, that is the way forward.
Nothing holds a person back [like] fear does,
other than death, of course.
In a way, death and fear are the same.
That's why probably we have the saying "I was scared to death."
There are different types of fear.
There is the fear of child.
The kind of the fear that makes a child afraid to go to the toilet alone at night.
There is the fear of the coward.
And I'm not going to try to explain; that's too complex for me.
And there is the fear of the wise person
who understands the danger of doing something he doesn't understand,
or he doesn't know about.
To face fear, one needs to be brave.
Let me try to define brave for you.
My wife is a very brave woman.
That's why she married me.
(Laughter) (Applause)
Or you can say, she is stupid for the same reason. (Laughter)
What would that make my ex-wife clever or coward?
The fear I want to talk about is the fear that prevents us from trying.
The fear of failure.
And in the process we end up failing,
we end up in the same ditch,
we tried to avoid to start with.
Because that fear prevents us from walking the walk to success.
I'm not suggesting one should do something one doesn't understand.
Remember, the fear of the wise person, not the bravery of my wife.
You have seen where that ended, haven't you?
Of course, failure is something we all want to avoid.
But, what is failure, really?
And can one truly succeed without failure?
How can one distinguish success from failure?
How do you distinguish salt from sugar, dark from light, if you only know one?
If success was easy, why isn't everybody successful?
I will dare to say,
and this could be debatable,
that anyone, who has never experienced failure,
has never really succeeded.
And, if you came out of your mother's womb,
passed in every exam in your life,
succeeded in everything you touched,
you haven't really succeeded.
You were just lucky,
because you didn't really do it.
That drive to succeed despite failures
is what distinguishes the ambitious from the ordinary.
J.K. Rowling. I think all of you know J. K. Rowling of Harry Potter.
An amazing woman.
At the age of 28,
she had a failed marriage,
a dependent child,
and no job.
She described herself, as the biggest failure she knew.
Yet, that failure did not stop her from trying.
In fact, in her own words, she can see the failure
stripping away all the inessentials in her life.
And she said, "Had I really succeeded in anything else,
I may have never found the determination
to succeed in the one area,
that I truly belong."
That one area is where each one of us truly belongs.
Each one of us has a talent, at least one talent.
We might have more, but at least one talent.
At least one thing we are really good at.
What each one of us needs to do is find that thing,
that talent.
And find where we belong.
J.K. Rowling described her previous failures
as the liberating force for herself.
And rock-bottom
became the foundation
on which she rebuilt her life.
What a great perspective!
What a great way to look at things.
That determination from the womb of failure
is what made her keep on trying.
Twelve times she went to publishers, to publisher reporters.
Twelve times she was rejected,
I mean, you try 5 times, 6 times, by the 9 times, you give up.
Twelve times she tried, and on the thirteenth time, she succeeded.
And published her book, which ended up publishing 400 million copies,
and becoming one of the biggest blockbuster movies in history.
(Applause)
And as a bonus, turned her into a multimillionaire.
Failure is part of the process toward success.
It's among the many building blocks or pot-holes of life
that we need in order to understand and appreciate and strive for success.
One day, many years ago, I came home.
I saw my eldest son was in very depressed condition.
I asked him, "What's your problem?"
He said, "I failed my exams."
So, I said, "What's your problem?"
He looked at me weirdly, as if I had a loose nut.
He said, "Well, I just told you, I failed my exams."
I said, "Yes, I heard you the first time,
but you still haven't answered my question.
What's your problem?"
He said, "You think failing an exam is not a problem?"
I said, hello, you are talking to somebody who has been a master of failing exams.
(Laughter) (Applause)
Young man, if you are trying to impress me, you are not.
It's not working.
For him, that was the end of life.
We had to do a little work to get him back.
To cut the story short, my son went on to graduate with honors
from Waterloo, one of Canada's top universities.
(Applause)
You need to have the bravado,
to challenge the odds that life throws against you.
OK, let's do a show of hands here.
How many of you use Facebook?
Wow, I'm really in the wrong business. (Laughter)
Twitter, Google, I suppose everybody.
How many of you know Aramex, Fadi Ghandour?
Well, if you look at the background of all these people,
they are just ordinary people like you and me.
I hope Fadi Ghandour doesn't mind me calling him ordinary.
I'll send him another bucket of Yemeni almonds, he loves Yemeni almonds.
If you look at all these guys, they're just ordinary people
who have good days, bad days, successes, failures, setbacks, everything.
Where they differed is in the fear department.
That's where they differed.
They did not allow the possibility of failure to stop them from trying
again and again and again.
We have seen J.K.Rowling. Twelve times.
That's the key.
That's the key, right there.
See, as long as you're still trying, as long as you are still in the game,
the game hasn't ended.
You are still working on it. You haven't failed.
You fail when you throw in the towel, when you give up.
And then, you are the one who has announced that failure.
Nobody else has done it.
You are the one who announced failure, yourself.
In the mid 1970s, when I was in my 20s,
- it's kind of difficult to believe I was ever in my 20s -
but, yeah that did happen sometimes in the last century.
I was in Abu Dhabi trying to build my life.
I had to sleep in the beach, not because I love beaches,
but because I was thrown out of my home by the landlord.
We were 8 guys of us staying in one room,
one day, the landlord came and threw us out.
He found another tenant who paid him more.
So what do I do? Well, you do what you have to do.
I went to sleep in the beach.
In fact, my morning shower was in the mosque nearby,
which helped me discover gold, and that's a different story.
It took many years to happen.
At that time, I was about 21, 22 looking at myself.
I was looking at a failure.
I mean, how do you actually build your life when you have no roof
in an expensive city like Abudhabi at the age of 20-22?
Many years later, it occurred to me that what I was looking at is not failure.
I was looking at the building blocks of character
that will make you one day appreciate, strive and if ever you succeed,
realize that you succeeded.
After all, the poison that doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
I have a friend.
He had another friend.
They become business associates together.
And they decided to expand their business into European expansion.
My friend was responsible for it.
While my friend was busy with the European expansion,
he was hit by the news
that his friend has committed a massive financial fraud, and ran away.
And, we are talking massive, we are talking mega dollars,
because the business was dealing with those kinds of sums.
My friend was investigated, suspected, but anyway, at the end of the story,
although the investigations proved that my friend was innocent,
and in fact, he was a victim,
it destroyed his life in the country where he lived, and he had to leave.
In the other country, where he went
maybe about 2-3 months later, he was hit by another crisis
that hit him in a very personal way.
Something that only his wife and I know.
Nobody else knows, not even his family.
You'd say, by that time, he should be finished.
He's done.
Two major crisis in your life
almost instantly.
But he managed to stand up again.
He managed to rise again.
Right now, he is facing another crisis, another major disappointment.
But I look at his face, and I see a defined man.
I see a man who refuses to give up.
I see a man who's still trying to build up his life.
He reminds me of a story.
And this is where I want to end this.
My time is almost done.
Of a man who enters into a fight, one of those ancient fights,
there were no rings at the time, they used to fight in the open.
And he gets beaten up in his face and he falls flat on the ground.
He rises up again and is hit again.
Every time he rises up, he is hit again,
third, fourth time, he's down on the ground.
trying to rise up, he thinks in his head,
"If I'm able to stand up again, it's because I refuse to stay down.
And if I do stand up,
and I'm hit again
and I'm never able to rise up
at least it will happen while I was fighting.
At least it will happen while I was on my feet."
The Chinese have a saying, and I want to say this to myself
to you guys, and to Yemen.
The Chinese say,
failure is not falling down.
Failure is refusing to get up.
(Applause)
Thank you very much.