This post is a means of looking back to finding answers, correcting mistakes, celebrating achievements and laying the foundation of whats to come in the future.

Before I begin, I want to lay out the fact: Rizq is truly from Allah-swt and the outcome of our efforts really isn’t totally a product of our doing, but the magnificence of Allah-swt allowing for the right circumstances at the right time for opportunities to make themselves available to us.

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With that said:
Top 3 ACHIEVEMENTS I’m most grateful for that happened in 2008 are:

• Getting AlMaghrib Institute as a client contract for Leechon, which has resulted in many fruits such as: IlmCast.com, GemReel.com and Superstar seminar trailers

• Setting up MessageMastery.com - an online learning system to teach people aspects of media, marketing, and communication (although its been a real bumpy and overwhelming ride - still is for me)

• Going from 700 RSS subscribers to 13,000+ RSS subscribers on Leechon.com - How this happened, I’m not entirely sure.

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Top 5 LESSONS I’ve found most valuable in the process of work in 2008 are:

• Contract or hire a bookkeeper! - As you grow in your business, the frequency and size of financial transactions will increase. If you’re not a number cruncher at heart,  you’ll find the process of recording all those transactions into QuickBooks a grueling and painful process. Save yourself the agony and delegate this process to someone who’s more qualified than yourself.

• A slice of a watermelon is bigger than an entire grape. - When involving yourself in a project, think beyond yourself. Look for ways in which you or your business can benefit the client (whether that be your customers or target audience) and share in the fruits and rewards. — Instead of getting a bigger piece of the pie, make the pie bigger to involve more people so all can share.

• Know your worth and have an understanding of the market before diving in - Business is about exchanging value. Business can be conducted fairly and professionally only if you know what that value is. If you don’t know your own self worth then you cannot expect others to know either. If the value of your work is $10,000 in the market, then don’t do injustice to yourself by receiving only $1,000. You’re limiting yourself and in the end it is YOU who will suffer.

• Fail Forward - I’ve made many mistakes this year. Mistakes in areas of financial decisions, what projects or clients to take up, biting off more than one can chew, and the process developing content for Message Mastery. These mistakes have led to delays on delivery and overall performance. - Being a human being, mistakes are inevitable. Welcome and admit the mistakes. Don’t fear them. The important thing is we fail FORWARD and learn from our mistakes as they happen.

• Never let schooling get in the way of your education - It’s a quote my Mark Twain, and its so true. We all to go school to get an education. If you find a means of education superior to traditional schooling, then jump on that bandwagon. You obviously have to factor in stuff like being able to pay for life’s essentials. For me, running Leechon is my education, so much so that the principles and hands on experience of business education has been far greater than business school itself.

A bonus lesson:

• Clarity = Power : Whether you want to progress in business, home, religion, etc - having absolute clarity is essential. Gaining clarity is a process of having perspective and getting in control of what’s around you. You need to organize what’s around you and focus on what’s important (or vice versa)  and throw out the rest. Having absolute clarity will lead you to what you want on the different levels of your life.

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Any and all good that has taken place in this past year is because Allah-swt allowed it to happen. The mistakes are because of my own shortcomings and for that I ask you to forgive me.

This company exists for the sake Allah and for the benefit of Ummat Muhammad-salAllahu alayhi wasallam. I pray that as we progress we keep our intentions pure and our actions clean.

My next post is going to lay out what’s to come in this new year inshaAllah.

One of the greatest benefits of having a contract with a client to produce work is the existence of deadlines, which bring about a sense of urgency for you and your team to produce something of value.

If you really wish to grow in a craft, whether its basket weaving, graphic design, video production, motion graphics, medicine, law, engineering, etc. — you need to put yourself in a position where you have the opportunity to practice and work hard to hone your talents to mastery and excellence.

Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it sure can bring about excellence — ONLY if that practice is in an area of your strengths and talents. Working on your weaknesses and not developing your strengths will ultimately land you in a career that will make your miserable, or at the very least leave you empty in a way.

I’m not saying ignore your weaknesses, rather understand them and work around them and make sure they don’t undermine your strengths. What I AM saying is develop your strengths and talents to a level that will enable your to simply dominate your area of expertise. - What ever that may be.

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When you service a client well and shatter standards that were laid out, usually this ends up in the bar being raised — followed by a push of encouragement to shatter it again.

Visual Eye Candy Store

The last trailer I did was for the Torch Bearers seminar taught by AlMaghrib Institute. I ended up employing motion graphics, something I hadn’t done much before.

The issue this time around was that AlMaghrib and its base loved it so much they wanted more of the same quality.

I’m not a motion graphic artist. I’m far from it. Personally I haven’t had much opportunity to practice such a specialized craft (which by the way pays real well). I decided to look for outsourced venues to do some of the work.

For those who don’t know — RevoStock.com is an excellent source for stock footage and Adobe After Effects project files. I purchased a project file titled Particle Fractal Fly Through and began playing around with it in After Effects until I got it to be visually as I wanted it.

Personally still being new to After Effects, it took me quite a while to get myself around it. Longer than it normally would if I was editing footage shot with a camera in Premiere.

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Shatter a standard continuously is harder each and every time, but that doesn’t mean you cannot be consistant. I’m not a sound designer or sound engineer by any means what so ever. I personally don’t even have the proper tools, knowledge or skill set to be an effective sound designer.

Music To No One’s Ears

I go by an Islamic standard and principle that musical instruments are not permissible in my line of work. Whether those instruments are based in string, wind, brass or percussion.

I guess this principle has been an aspect of the brand I’ve been building for Leechon. I guess you can say that’s a good thing.

Fundamentally, in Islam musical INSTRUMENTS are prohibited — this isn’t a forum for Islamic jurisprudence, so don’t start a debate

The After Effects project file came with an audio track that I had to throw out the window and face the challenge of producing another track inline with my principles.

Creating the sound score is a difficult challenge for me personally. Its certainly not a strength of my own and its a source of pain considering that I’m not a sound designer by any standard.

:: UPDATE START :: 8:52pm

I forgot to add…

One of the ideas I had for the dialog portion of the sound I got from the movie Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. The opening lines start with a voice in “elven” language and then follows with a “translation” in English.

I thought that would be an interesting way of applying Yasir Qadhi’s voice into the sound track. Arab (a real language) followed by English.

:: UPDATE END :: 8:56pm

After about two days of intensive work, I ended up with a first cut for the trailer. This first cut is what was played at the GPU conference. Personally I find it a bit embarrassing.

After I got news back from AlMaghrib, I was basically requested to redo most of the audio and change up some of the visuals. After about another week worth of stress and facing the technical challenges I came out with the final cut which you see in the beginning of this post.

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E.I.D. - Enjoyed :: Improved :: Discovered

The only facet of this project I truly enjoyed was the end result. Not so much the process. The reason for that is because I spent most of my time working on my weakness of sound design — only because it was simply undermining my strength. I certainly did improve in my ability to take sound and develop a track that sounds quite professional to the ear while keeping to my principles.

My most important discovery here is that I need to move beyond working with only myself. If I’m to shatter the standards I’ve set for myself for future projects, I’m going to need some professional assistance — especially in the area of sound design.