Al Salam Alaikum 🌱 

😥 The Metrics That Lied to You

Let’s talk about what success looks like through the lens of modern entrepreneurship.

Product-market fit: Achieved in 6-12 months or pivot.

Traction: Visible within first year or you’re dead.

Scale: If you’re not growing exponentially, you’re dying.

Validation: The market votes with dollars. No revenue = no value

Timeline: Five-year plans are considered “long-term.”

Now let’s run Prophet Nuh’s mission through these metrics:

Product-market fit: After 950 years, his market consisted of… his immediate family (minus his wife and son). That’s it. Everyone else rejected the “product.”

Traction: Nearly a millennium with essentially zero growth. No viral moments. No hockey stick curve. Just a flat line of rejection stretching across centuries.

Scale: He literally couldn’t scale. The boat had limited capacity, and even if it could fit more, nobody wanted in.

Validation: By every conventional metric, the market definitely rejected his vision. The “customers” didn’t just say no- they mocked him daily for 950 years.

Timeline: He spent more time building one boat than most civilizations exist.

By every modern metric, Prophet Nuh’s mission was a catastrophic failure.

Any investor would’ve pulled funding after quarter one. Any advisor would’ve told him to pivot after year five. Any friend would’ve staged an intervention after decade one.

But here’s what cuts through all that noise: Sometimes your job isn’t to succeed- it’s to obey.

🛶 Building the Ark: Your Impossible Project

Picture this: You live in a landlocked region. It hasn’t rained significantly in living memory. Water? Sure, there are some wells and streams, but nothing that would require a massive ship.

And here comes Prophet Nuh, dragging lumber, constructing something the size of… well, scholars estimate it was toughly 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. That’s a three-story building that’s longer than a football field.

In. The. Desert.

The sheer absurdity of it.

Every person who walked by could see with their own eyes that this made no sense. There was no logical scenario where this boat would be needed. The “business plan” had a fatal flaw visible to everyone: no market demand for flood transportation in a desert.

And that’s exactly the point.

Prophetic ambition always looks crazy from the outside.

When Allah (SWT) gives you an assignment that makes sense to everyone, that fits nearly into existing paradigms, that can be explained by conventional wisdom- that’s probably not prophetic ambition. That’s just… ambition.

Real prophetic vision puts you in the position where explaining it makes you sound delusional.

The ark wasn’t just a boat. It was a visible, daily momentum of faith in the unseen. Every plank Prophet Nuh hammered was a declaration.

That’s exactly what you’re doing when you build a faith-first business in a capitalist world.

You’re building something that makes no sense in current conditions because you believe conditions are going to change.

You’re not optimizing for the world as it is.

You’re preparing for the world as Allah (SWT) says it will be.

And everyone who’s adapted to current conditions thinks you’re crazy.

Let them.

🛣️ The Loneliness of Long Obedience

There’s a detail in Prophet Nuh’s story that haunts me: his own family didn’t believe him.

Not strangers. Not business competitors. Not industry skeptics. His wife. His son.

The people who shared his home, who saw him in his most vulnerable moments, who knew him better than anyone- they thought he was wrong.

This is the loneliness that nobody talks about.

We talk about standing firm in your convictions. We talk about trusting Allah’s plan. We don’t talk about what it feels like when your own people think you’ve lost the plot.

The loneliness of being right when everyone you love thinks you’re wrong.

When the Ummah tells you you’re thinking too big, too different, too risky.

When your parents ask when you’re going to get a “real job.”

When your spouse questions why you’re turning down lucrative opportunities for ethical reasons they don’t understand.

When your kids are embarrassed by your “weird” business decisions.

Prophet Nuh couldn’t point to market traction to prove them wrong. He couldn’t show them five-star reviews or viral social proof.

He just had Allah’s instruction and his own obedience.

That’s all you have sometimes.

And here’s what the story teaches us: he kept building anyway.

Not because he convinced them. Not because he overcame the loneliness. But because loneliness doesn’t negate assignment.

The work doesn’t require their understanding. It requires your faithfulness.

🌊 The Flood Always Comes

Here’s the pattern the Noble Quran establishes again and again:

The Prophet delivers the message. The people reject it. The Prophet persists. The people mock harder. The Prophet keeps going. And then- really vindicates the prophetic vision.

Not because the Prophet was trying to be proven right. But because truth eventually surfaces, whether people believe it or not.

The flood came. Not to validate Prophet Nuh. Not to prove he was smarter than everyone else. But because the flood was always coming. His boat-building didn’t cause the flood. His obedience just prepared him for inevitable reality.

The flood comes whether you build the boat or not. Your obedience doesn’t control outcomes. It positions you to survive outcomes.

Your job is not to be proven right. Your job is to prepare.

Prophet Nuh didn’t get to see the flood until after 950 years of mockery. The validation came at the end, not the beginning. Not even in the middle.

You might not see your flood in your lifetime. You might build for 40 years and die before the waters come. But the boat you built will be there when your grandchildren need it.

That’s prophetic ambition. Building for a future you might not see, trusting that future reality will vindicate present faithfulness.

🗓️ What 950 Years Builds in YOU

Let’s talk about what the accumulated years actually accomplishes.

Prophet Nuh wasn’t building of the ark for 950 years. Allah (SWT) was building Prophet Nuh for 950 years.

The ark was the assignment. But character was the curriculum.

Think about what 950 years of obedience without validation does to a human soul:

It kills entitlement. When you’ve been faithful for a millennium without results, you stop thinking Allah (SWT) owes you anything. You just obey because obedience is the point.

It destroys ego. Try maintaining arrogance while everyone thinks you’re crazy for 950 years. Can’t be done. The accumulated years humbles you.

It builds unshakeable conviction. When you’ve held a vision for that long against that much opposition, you stop doubting. You know what you know.

It develops prophetic patience. The kind of sabr that doesn’t break under mockery, isolation, or delated results. The kind that outlasts everyone’s doubt.

It purifies intention. When there’s zero external reward, the only reason you keep going is because you’re doing it for Allah (SWT). Every other motivation gets burned away.

The boat took 950 years to build. But Prophet Nuh took 950 years to become the person who could build that boat without breaking.

This is what people don’t understand about “the grind.” They think it’s about the outcome. It’s not. It’s about who you become in pursuit of the outcome.

Allah (SWT) could have sent the flood in year one. The boat could have been built in five years with divine shortcuts. But then Prophet Nuh wouldn’t be Prophet Nuh.

The 950 years weren’t wasted. They were the whole point.

Your slow growth isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. The years of obscurity aren’t delay- they’re development. The long obedience is the curriculum.

When the flood finally comes, you won’t just have a boat. You’ll be the person who built a boat for 950 years. And that person can survive anything.

Alright, time to get honest. This week, you’re going to identify your ark and commit to building it regardless of validation.

Question 1: What’s your ark?

What’s the thing Allah (SWT) has called you to build that makes no sense to others? Write it down. Be specific.

Question 2: Who’s mocking it?

List them. Not to shame them, but to see clearly. Who thinks you’re wasting your time? Who’s waiting for you to fall?

Question 3: What’s your daily hammer swing?

What’s the ONE thing you can do every single day that moves the ark forward, regardless of results?

Pick ONE thing. Make it small enough that you can do it even on terrible days. Make it significant enough that daily repetition actually builds something.

Question 4: What’s your 100-day commitment?

You’re going to do your daily hammer swing for 100 days straight. No excuses. 100 days of faithfulness without measuring results. Track it. Check it off each day. Don’t break the chain.

💌 I’d Love to Hear From You!

If this reflection sparked something in you, I’d love to hear it. You can reply directly to this email- I read and respond to every message. Share your thoughts or tell me how you’re planning to start using leverage in your own life! 🌱 

🤲 Closing Dua

“O Allah, we seek refuge in You from knowledge that is of no benefit, from a heart that does not fear You, from a soul that is never satisfied, and from a supplication that is not answered. O Allah, pour upon us patience and make our steps firm. O Allah, nothing is easy except what You make easy, and You can make the difficult easy if You wish.”

Ameen