E209 - Dr Waheed Arian: How I escaped Afghanistan and became an NHS doctor

0:00Before we start today's episode, I have news that the High Performance App is now available and you can download it for free. And on there, exclusive content, including our live Q &A with two-time Rugby World Cup winner Dan Carter. Simply search for High Performance in the app store right now and then use your exclusive code HPAPP to get in. Hi there, you're listening to High Performance, the award-winning podcast that unlocks the minds of some of the most fascinating people on the planet. I'm Jake Humphrey and alongside Professor Damien Hughes, we learn from the stories, successes and struggles of our guests, allowing us all to explore, be challenged and to grow.

0:40Here's what's coming up today. So he hit me in that oven. He hit me there and he said just two sentences before the bombardment started. And he said, son, I love you. And if anything happens to me, you have to look after your sisters, your family. That's aged five. and that is when I lost my childhood. That thinking along the way, that visualization became a reality for me because that's all I was talking about, thinking about and not giving up. If I had given up, I don't think I would be here now. Even in the refugee camp, the doctor who helped me, he actually transformed my life. That's when, during wartime, I became inspired because I wanted to be like him, to heal people.

1:32rather than be somebody who kills people. The fact is that people fleeing conflict, they can't go to an embassy to get a visa. They can't find regular routes. I looked for that and I couldn't find any. And that was the only way to save myself was to be smuggled here to the UK. So today we welcome Waheed Aryan to High Performance. And look, we have some really globally famous big name guests on these podcasts. and I think when you tune in for those, you know exactly what you're getting. Other times, we're asking you to trust us, okay? We're asking you to come on a journey with someone that you may well have not heard of before, but someone that we know can bring so much value to your life.

2:14You just heard a few clips from the podcast there, and I think it sets it up really nicely, but trust me when I tell you there is so much more to hear and to learn and to understand from Waheed. This podcast is packed with lessons, but also packed with emotion. This is a man who escaped a war zone. This is a man who had to travel on his own at an incredibly young age. He had to face his fears and do things that no young person should ever have to do just to live a life. And I think sometimes we think that it then becomes about survival. And there were definitely points, and you'll hear them, where Waheed was very close to not surviving.

2:50But actually, he is now someone who is thriving and he's ready to give back. So let's just get straight into it and hear from a doctor. that has seen so much and is willing to share so much as we welcome Waheed Arian to High Performance.

3:16Well, Waheed, welcome to the High Performance podcast. Thank you very much, Jake and team for having me. It's a pleasure. Let's start as we always do. What is your definition of high performance? High performance is such a broad term, but I was thinking about it. For me, it's living a life, actually, that is purposeful and focused both at the same time. And it's not easy to do that because we can find purpose in any area of life. But which direction do we go? For me, I've learned more how to bring my focus closer to the few areas that I'm good at. I can make a difference in people's lives. and I stick with it.

3:58And that actually brings out the best in me. I love that. So you're talking there about a sense of empowerment, of understanding the impact that you can have on the world. Let's go right back to your childhood when you were growing up in war-torn Afghanistan, where I guess the feeling was a very different one. It would have been a feeling of helplessness, maybe. So I was born into war in the mid-80s during the Afghan-Soviet conflict. I didn't know any other reality. So the reality I was born into was listening to the sounds of the rockets, the bombs and the shellings outside. Whenever we would come out, dotted memories that I have, we would see soldiers on the street and then we'll see helicopter gunships and jets in the sky.

4:42So those are the formative years, how they've been formed in my mind. Amongst them, there are a couple of only two happy memories that I can remember. One is being taken to a local park by my mother to have an ice cream with my cousins and to have a play and another one was when I was at home and my father came in in his military uniform he brought in this big kite from outside he kneeled down he gave me this big kite I was so happy because usually I would see these kites in the sky and then for him to suddenly disappear from our life so you can see one moment that You're living this life which you can call normal with your family members and you're trying to enjoy your childhood a little bit.

5:30But the next moment, I lost my father. I didn't know where he went. That kind of symbolizes the happiness, moments of happiness, but really amongst a really dark period for people that they have to go through. Whether they go into hiding from the rockets, the bombs, whether they lose their siblings or they lose their parents. And for me, that was the case. my father went into hiding from the military service because that was a death sentence. He had to go to the front line to fight his fellow countrymen, and he didn't want to do that. So that's kind of the first five years. And from time to time, we would go to meet him.

6:09My mother wouldn't say to us that we're going to meet your father. He would be hiding in mountains in an area called Logar. And whenever we would go there, my mother would say that we go into the villages to have some dairy products and to have a go on the horses and the donkeys. And then suddenly, we'd be staying in one room and my father would reappear out of nowhere. And that would be so magical. For one moment, three months ago, four months ago, six months ago, he would go and then the next moment he would be there. And I remember this kind of gazing into his eyes and sitting next to him cuddling him wouldn't leave him even to go to anywhere because I knew that there could be another moment that he will go away and he will not come back and can we explore that topic then of hope I'm interested in how powerful hope is and how we can all get a little bit more of it in our lives I think I will use another part of the story which was when we, to just illustrate the power of hope and the power of not giving up when you're even in the darkest hours, that was when we moved to Pakistan as refugees, like millions of father Afghans who traveled in the 80s and 90s.

7:25We were safe there, but the conditions were really inhumane. So we started living in a tent as a family of eight, with a little toilet that was man-made outside and a little area where my mom and my sisters could cook. But within days, most of us got malaria, which as you know, is life-threatening disease. And sadly, many people succumbed to it, but we survived. And within three months was I started coughing. I started coughing. And with that, I started bringing up blood. I lost weight. I had night sweats. My father, he took me to a local doctor and when he examined me there and he said that I had to be taken to a specialist.

8:12So my father took me to a specialist in Peshawar City in one of the busiest cities in Pakistan and the specialists usually sit in shops so you don't go to an a bit you can go to a big hospital there was a private area like you've seen it in Pakistan and India. So he went to the specialist. He examined me and he asked my father to get my x-ray off my chest. So we went to the shop next door where there was an x-ray machine. My x-ray was taken and I was so proud to have this x-ray in my hand of my body. And I brought it back to the specialist. He had a look at it and he asked me to sit outside. So when I sat outside there, I was a pretty curious child and I was trying to listen to what they were talking.

8:57And he said to my father that I had 70 % chance of dying because I had tuberculosis and my disease was very advanced and I had lost so much weight. I was so weak that I couldn't fight it. And that's when my father said, broke down in tears, and he said, doctor, don't tell me the percentage of him dying. Give me the percentages of him surviving and what I can do to save him. And he said, well, I'll prescribe you medications, but he really needs to be eating well. He needs to be in an environment that's a little bit stress-free. So that was the basic prescription he gave. And my father, being a refugee and looking after a big family, we hardly had anything.

9:43And we came back on the way. I was on his lap in this bus he was crying all the way i didn't dare ask him any question because i knew there was something wrong and then we arrived home the next moment he didn't think about the 70 percent of chance of dying or giving up on me he spoke with my mother and the whole night they were crying together but the next moment the next morning they were upbeat my father went out to start work he kept going to various parts of Pakistan to collect antiques to bring in to the centre and sell it to tourists to make some money. And my mother started cooking better food from the money that my father would bring in.

10:23So they really focused on ways to save me rather than to allowing the situation to take over, which by any means you look at it, the odds were against me of surviving. And that was not for one or two days it went on for one and a half year um that he was out and about three four days in a row he would come back with some meat bananas uh oranges which i still love so much and uh my wife calls me a monkey because i just keep eating bananas but it stems from the childhood that i developed that keenness with it and we didn't have um anything except a fan and the temperatures rising up to 45 degrees centigrade so these were one of the harshest conditions you can live in And so I think the lessons from all that that I learned and I use that in my life is in the most challenging situations in life, you can easily give up or you can fight it.

11:19And that's the lesson, the biggest lesson that I learned from my father and my mother and from so many of the people who've been through traumas of war, displacement. And then I see that, of course, I've seen people through COVID exhibit the same when their backs have been against the wall, when the loved ones are dying, when they lost jobs, relationships, they hang on to hope. So we do have that resilience in us. Can we just talk about how you ended up in Pakistan? You've spoken about bombs falling outside your house. Would you just give, for our listeners and viewers who haven't read your book, just the most sort of graphic description you can of actually what day-to-day life was like in Afghanistan and how eventually that led to your parents making what is a very big decision?

12:06And again, it's a decision based on hope to leave Afghanistan for Pakistan. The situation was that from the first five years, most of the time we were in cellars because the rockets would be coming randomly. So there was no target. And some people, they would come in about 20, 30 kilometers away, put the huge rockets and target, okay, that's the city. We're going to hit the city. And whoever or whichever house it lands on, it lands. The other situation, of course, would be that people would raid into areas and they would fight the opposition. But in the middle, the people who were there, they would get killed or they would get injured.

12:50So a lot of our time was spent in cellars. We were not allowed to go outside because outside it was dangerous for us. And there was one particular story that will illustrate the severity of the conflict itself, is that when we were traveling from Afghanistan to Pakistan, we were traveling on donkeys and horses. And that was a journey that took seven days, seven nights. We were traveling at nighttime, like most families, because people were not allowed to even leave the country. That's one, so they couldn't take the normal borders. And secondly, we were taking a very dangerous route from mountains and valleys.

13:28And that route was used by the opposition. So there's of history there as well. The people who were fighting the Russians were the Mujahideen, and they would bring in the weapons. The helicopter gunships and the jets from the Soviet government, they would attack anybody on the ground. So when we were traveling, there was one morning, it was a bit lighter. And my father said that, okay, we need to stop until it's a bit darker. We need to find somewhere in the local village to hide. I insisted that I would come with my father. So my father, along with two or three other men, they went to explore the village.

14:03I went with them. Women, the children, they stayed under trees to get to hide. So we were open. So we were spotted by a spy plane. And that's when my father realized that what was coming. So he grabbed me in his arm and he ran towards the village. And he didn't want to go back because he didn't want the children to be exposed or the women to be exposed to the rocket. And when we run to the village, he was trying to open one door, another door, and then he finally found a house that was open. And in there, he was looking for something. I had no idea what it was. And then he found an oven in the floor, which was used for baking bread in villages in Afghanistan.

14:48So he hid me in that oven. He hid me there. And he said just two sentences before the bombardment started and he said, son, I love you and if anything happens to me, you have to look after your sisters, your family. That's aged five and that is when I lost my childhood because deep down, you know, subconsciously I knew that my father wouldn't to be around for long. So I had to really forget about what playing is, what being a child is like. And then within two or three minutes was that the jets arrived, the helicopter gunships arrived, and they started bombing the entire village. I can still vividly remember it was, you know, 35 years ago or so, 34 years ago, I still remember the sound of the bullets hitting the walls the ceilings the shrapnels going everywhere the dust even the walls coming down i can hear the sound of it so these are some of the traumas that people will remember forever in their lives and that exhibits what war situation is for people who live through conflict miraculously we survived that attack and further two attacks along the way but that one attack actually may show that how things change suddenly and then within minutes you're with your loved one and the next moment you're gone you know when you hear a story as harrowing as that it's so easy to imagine well you would just give up you know hope would be lost your your hatred of humankind would be so strong you would think do i even want to exist in a world like this but having read your book you know as this was going on somehow you still were able to see a future you know you were still learning English from the world service.

16:40You were still buying textbooks from street sellers to learn about the world. You know, there's a really interesting story here about the human nature not being broken by seeing the most harrowing things a five-year-old can ever witness. And for people who are listening to this, who maybe are feeling hopeless and feeling that, you know, life is one long story of despair and disappointment and letdown and challenge, what would you share with them that you learned in that time that you think they may well find helpful so that was one occasion so my 15 years of my childhood was entirely spent in days like that whether it's refugee camps whether it's in conflict but it was also a lot of the time that there were people helping each other people when they're moving because of conflict from one region to another they would go to strangers house in the middle of the night they would knock And I remember knocking and this old lady would come out or this man would come out with a child and said, come on, come on, you would go in there, they would have one room and they would share that room with another 10 people.

17:44They usually save some bread for their children, for their own children, but they would share it. They wouldn't care about what tomorrow holds because they knew that we were there to be helped. So they would provide that support. even in the refugee camp, the doctor who helped me. He is actually the person who inspired me to become a doctor myself. I interacted with him for a year, a year and a half. But every time I would go in, he would have this intellectual conversation with me, which was the only time I had something meaningful because I couldn't go to school. There was no school and I barely educated at school level.

18:22So for him to see something in me, in my curiosity, and every time he would show me x-rays of other people and some images of the heart, of the lung and so on. On the last visit, he gave me a stethoscope and a large black and white textbook. And he said, Wahid, son, I think you'll be a doctor one day. This will be helpful. So he actually transformed my life that's when during wartime i became inspired because i wanted to be like him to heal people rather than be somebody who kills people so waheed was there one particular moment of kindness in the midst of that bleak backstory that was happening that really stands out for you and if there was can you describe to us the impact that it had on you my life was in danger and I had no choice but to leave Afghanistan.

19:21My whole family couldn't leave because it was very expensive and there was no regular route to leave Afghanistan. So my family had to sell everything and put all that money into the hands of an agent, which was the only way out to leave. I would say that the biggest kindness, I know it sounds like parents would do it, is for them to sell everything and believe in me, one, to save my life, and then believe in me that I would be able to figure out my future is such a hard decision. It's so difficult. Well, that's also a huge responsibility on very young shoulders, isn't it? A 15-year-old child still, knowing that the belief and the hope of the whole family rested on those shoulders.

20:12How did you process that? I think I was looking at the options. During the wartime and displacement, it was really choosing between the worst and the better option that were available. And that's how a lot of the decisions were made by my parents. I learned a lot about resilience from my parents and from other people who were there as well. My father, he would find hope in the slimmest possible way that he would listen to the radio. There will be 99 % negative news, but he would be looking for that one point. And then he will try to drum that out to my mother, who was more realistic. She was very much kind of switched on to look at the realities and what we should do and what we shouldn't do.

20:54But my father was the one who was bringing that 1 % of hope. And I learned that I have to actually develop his method of looking for that one or two positive steps, despite what else is going on. And that's how I even developed that imaginary world in my mind. That when I was listening to the BBC World Service, I would hear that people would talk about going to school, having dinner together as a family, having friends. I had none of that. but in my mind I would create that okay one day I will be able to do the same and I translated that onto the paper so in the morning when I was motivating myself to just get by so I would draw a picture of a school of a table of me having my friends and then I'll be walking pacing around that little place or outside imagining in my mind what I would do next what my rota would look like and so on.

21:49It's amazing how that has become a reality now for me, you know, decades later. But at that time, I couldn't see it. I imagined it and I drew it on the paper. So what do you think that was doing for you? Because you're describing visualization that when we've spoken to athletes that are performing under pressure, that's a skill that they'll often tap into. What do you think that was doing for you at that young age? those methods were allowing me to really hang on to hope and not to give up because i had depressive symptoms at the age of 10 12 i really couldn't make out what the world was about because i was born into war and i had no other reality understanding of the reality of normality and so what it did was it really gave me hope that there is reality even though i've not experienced it and I shouldn't give up on that and I shouldn't give up on humanity.

22:42I left Afghanistan at the age of 15 but from the age of 12, 10, I was really focused to leave. So that took a lot of preparation. So mentally I was looking for ways to get out, looked for ways how to educate myself abroad, how to be able to save myself, how to be able to save my family there and that meant that I had conversations with people and how people go abroad, how they flee Afghanistan, what are the ways, what would people do when they go abroad, how they can get education. So all that took a lot of few years for me to ultimately get to a point where I found this person who sent me away from Afghanistan.

23:23So it suddenly didn't happen. But that thinking along the way, that visualization became a reality for me because that's all I was talking about thinking about and not giving up if I had given up I don't think I would be here now and do you feel that I mean a lot of what you're describing as well Waheed like correlates with the research that on post-traumatic growth as opposed to the post-traumatic stress that we would imagine that somebody going through those experiences might have endured. The idea of being able to make some kind of sense out of those experiences allow you to move forward and progress rather than remain stuck in a certain moment.

24:06What other factors do you feel that you could share with us from those quite extreme circumstances that our listeners would be able to maybe dealing with something that's traumatic in their own world could take and use to be able to move forward? Well, post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic stress, I think these are very important terminologies. And I think it's theoretically you can differentiate them. But in reality, when we talk about trauma, it's even now, decades later, I get into situations where there's a risk of me being re-traumatized. For example, I do a lot of humanitarian work. I advocate for mental health.

24:47So when I see stories, hear stories of other people suffering from mental health, it really brings out my own memories as well. So I would say that it's for me learning to be at peace on reflection now with the traumas. And at that time, it was about survival. It's about I was still on a fight or flight mode. I was really high on adrenaline trying to save myself and I was also in a because I was the eldest son I was had so much responsibility on my shoulders to be able to provide for the family so deep down that motivated me to not give up responsibility for others for myself I was inspired to become a doctor and I looked for ways to to make that dream a reality each conversation the build-up of that over months and years and making small progress here and there was a let out for me from those traumas.

25:44So I didn't let my mind be consumed with what was going on. Of course, you have to dodge the bombs. But on the other hand, I was thinking about the future. I was thinking about ways how to be able to survive myself, save myself and to save my family. They were struggling to find food. So for me, deep down, I was thinking that if I get out, how best can I combine working and supporting my family? And that brought out the meaning. I found meaning in life that, you know, if I'm able to support my parents who've done so much or my family members, my siblings who've done so much for me, that would be an amazing feeling if I can help them back.

26:21So very early on, I thought about giving back, about compassion. And that really on reflection, I'm talking all about reflection now because that time it was very much adapting, I would say. It's very much looking, developing a lens to how to see the world in a different way is how I would describe that people survive conflict, they survive really traumatic experiences, and they live one day at a time. I love the power of reframing. And it's been spoken about on this podcast on so many different occasions because it truly is powerful for people. I think this period in your life where you have to leave and you decide to come to the UK and you're, you know, you're smuggled into the country with 100 pounds in your pocket and people are saying to you, look, just go and get a job as a taxi driver, yet you had much bigger ambitions.

27:11You know, you had this idea of being a doctor. You ended up at the most prestigious university in the country, you know, having lived this war-torn life in Afghanistan. I think it's the kind of story that needs to be celebrated, but I think you should be celebrated for this point because actually up until this point, you always had that support. Your mum was there, your family were there, you had protection around you, suddenly you're on your own and you still are able to do what you need to do. And I think when Damien talks about post-traumatic growth, you grew in those really difficult times when you were sitting in the oven and the floor of that tiny village, you know, being shot at by the enemy.

27:49You know, you grew in those moments so that when you actually had to arrive in the UK and find your path forwards, you were able to do that. I agree with that. And I think you've put it so well there that when I arrived here in the UK, I was prepared. I was prepared. And for me, when I landed here, I was arrested, put in the back of a van and sent to prison because I didn't have the right documentation, which is, of course, I mean, the right thing to do that, you know, to look for the documents. But the fact is that people fleeing conflict, they can't go to an embassy to get a visa. They can't find regular routes.

28:24I looked for that and I couldn't find any. and that was the only way to save myself was to be smuggled here to the UK. And that's when actually I found a barrister who's saved me. The first time I saw him in court, he spoke on my behalf and he told the judge that I shouldn't be prosecuted because refugees, when they're fleeing war, they should be allowed to take any route according to the UN Geneva Convention. So the judge agreed with that and dropped the charges. And then my new life started when I was in the UK on my own without any family support, hardly any formal education with$100 in my pocket.

29:06But I was absolutely beaming with excitement because I saw that the opportunities that I never had in life, the schools, people trying to work in various ways. i remember walking up and down on portobello road the market on a saturday morning trying to find myself this shiny jacket you know coming from afghanistan we liked our shiny jackets and so i found this gray jacket and shiny green trousers and trainers i thought that was the best combination uh so that was my look for the next two years but uh and i thought i'm sorted in when it comes to my clothes let's sort out the rest so for me i really kind of like said okay this is a new life let me use every bit of it i started working three jobs which was being a salesman on edge road in london being a cleaner in sussex gardens and then a kitchen porter in in somewhere in in the city and those are the jobs that i look for them myself i went from one shop to another you know do you want somebody to work for you and the fellow refugees they advised me to just go on and worked for grocery shops.

30:17But I went into quite a stylish shop that was selling perfumes and all that. And I went in. So the boss was this guy who was sitting across the table. He was interviewing me and he asked if I had a national insurance number. I thought he was asking about my phone number. And then he realized that actually I was so new to this country. But I convinced him, And I said, listen, I'm hardworking and I really need to support myself and my family back in Afghanistan. And that was another moment of kindness that he said, you know what? You come to this basement where his office was every week. I'll pay you.

30:55When can you start? And I said, I can start now. And that was it. He gave me the job and I stayed in that shop for three years. So I combined working that job with studying at nighttime in the college to in three different colleges to do my A-levels. Although that was an extremely difficult period in terms of combining working and studying, but for me, I was so excited. I was so happy to be there. I would, from time to time, sit in a park and I would look into the sky and I was able to see the planes that were not attacking me. And I would look at people, the soldiers here and there or police people and I said, they are there to protect me, they're not there to take me.

31:34I was really enjoying every moment, celebrating every moment. And that enabled me to work hard because those were all the things I didn't have in life. I was really using the power of the gratitude and a combined exercise with that as well. I was very keen to do running and martial arts and then pursuing my dream to become a doctor. So I went to King's College in London to the admissions office. i knocked there and i said uh i want to become a doctor so this lady uh came in very kindly said are you here on an open day i said uh i'm not sure what open day is but i want to become a doctor so she actually uh was very kind she showed me the prospectus and she said like okay so these are the requirements i think what you're looking for and all i did was i tore that page of and put it on the wall to become a doctor i needed gcac i needed a levels and i would get to university and i blocked out all the noise outside so for me it was that simple okay and then it was the requirement was three a's because i didn't do gcc so i thought let me do five a's a levels and that will help me you know position me better in my mind when i'm competing so instead of three as's I took five ASs.

32:58And I think that's kind of like it shows the pattern there, that how I was on one hand blocking the noise outside, people putting me off from my dream. And I was so driven to become a doctor because it had a meaning for me. And the meaning was that it resonated with my childhood, the traumas that I'd experienced, the people who I'd seen die, that becoming a doctor would mean that I would be able to save people like myself, people who are suffering like I was. And also, becoming a doctor would mean that I could support my family. So I really attached meaning to that target. It wasn't just, okay, I want to become a doctor, you know, have a big house and car and so on.

33:40It was a lot deeper meaning. And that's another lesson that I've learned in life in whatever I do, can I find that deeper meaning into it in that activity? And that really allows me to look for the solutions outside the box, to look for people who can help me and for me to find ways or even creative ways. And that's how innovation comes into play as well.

34:05For so long, many of you have been asking for more from the High Performance Podcast, and now you can get it. I'm pleased to say the High Performance app is available for you to download now, simply search for High Performance in the app store right now, and then use your exclusive code HPAPP for exclusive content, untold stories, and things you won't see or hear anywhere else. Check it out right now, the High Performance Podcast app.

34:36So how can our listeners find meaning in what they do? I think it requires a lot of reflection. it requires a lot of thinking sometimes it's quite easy to go down the route of paths that are created for us by other people you go to school you go to university then suddenly you have to go down this path and before you know it it's mid 30s 40s you've got responsibilities and you've really that passion that dream is beaten out of people and that's what i i strongly disagree with is that there's a lot of pressure on people right from that you have to follow certain parts and and i worry about that is because you really taking that creativity when children i see them they're so creative but i see why people would have to follow certain parts that are created by others and and a lot of thinking what their passions are trying to explore them and i think it takes a lot of time as well for people to be able to explore and find out whether something is right for them or not right.

35:42If something or a path is not right for them, then they can, on the way to discovering about whether that path is right or not, they might find another way, which is usually the case, that they find something ultimately that resonates with them and they're good at as well. So for me, it would be a combination of, is it something that you're really interested? Is it something that, you know, you're good at and you can become better and you become the best at it at some point is what I see. And thirdly, is there anything that can actually do to help the society? I think that's another level that I would look at things is, is it something that can provide value to other people?

36:24And that's how I narrow down the tasks ahead of me. I say, although I'm so big on compassion, but for me, I'm very big on saying no to things is because I want to focus on things that are meaningful to me, they're purposeful, and I can focus on. Because if I say yes to a task, I really want to do it in the best way possible. And I want to do it to help as many people as possible. So it's a combination of what I'm interested in and what my passion is, and how can I do things to help people? And now, how can I do it differently? That's an interesting point, because I think that so much of what you do is purpose-driven.

37:03You know, Ariane Tellahil, which is working in conflict zones to look after people and provide healthcare. Ariane Wellbeing to make sure that, you know, people are being properly supported, particularly with mental healthcare, but doing it differently. Why is that an important lesson for our listeners to learn from the importance of not just doing something, but doing something differently? I think that's where I find competitions and quite motivating as well. You know, if I see that I'm doing something a bit differently, and that adds value, not differently for the sake of it, but doing it, that it can help more people, it can bring more efficiency, it can really add value to the lives of the people who are suffering, and it can solve a problem.

37:53It becomes really motivating for me. And when I search that so many people have done it and they're doing an amazing job i applaud them and i take lessons that okay well done you you actually embarked on this path you're doing this work um and and what are the lessons for me so i quickly review their work their profile individuals that's how i keep myself motivated by so many founders by so many people who go through adversity and find you know how do they find actually overcoming these challenges whether it's such work whether it's in their family or whether it's the organizations they've found it.

38:33But then if I come across a problem that I'm passionate about, which is mental health, initially it was, for example, the philanthropic work that I went to Afghanistan back and forth and I saw that people didn't have access to specialist care. My own parents had to travel to another country to get specialist care and a lot of people would have to sell their houses or their cattle to be able to afford the journey and by the end of the journey they would do a couple of tests they'll get a specialist opinion they'll come back without any intervention so for me that was a big problem and the community suffering the severity of the problem was very very high and that what interested me is that even if i can work towards a solution for this that means that it can help people tremendously and that motivated me that i have to look for it and the other aspect of motivation was that when I spoke about it here in the NHS working as a doctor I realized that so many people wanted to help and I saw that actually people want to help even though they don't know a stranger so the compassion exists in the world and I saw it amongst my own colleagues that was actually the beginning or the origins of teleheal area in teleheal which now connects medical specialists from the NHS and across the world to medics in Afghanistan and other low-resource countries.

39:55And they provide life-saving advice on an emergency front on smartphones. But the origin is actually that there was a problem that I understood, the community who was suffering the problem, and ways to solve it was through collective compassion. And the technology just became an enabler. And that is actually the key components of innovation. It's the technology doesn't come at the top. Technology quite comes lower down. And those are the lessons that I've taken now from the philanthropic work in Afghanistan and across the globe that I've done it for nearly a decade. And I'm using all those methods to solve the global mental health crisis.

40:38So for listeners, one in four people suffers from a mental health condition. And for people who go through really traumatic experiences such as conflict, it's about 22 % that actually they suffer from some sort of severe mental health condition like PTSD, anxiety, or depression. It's a World Health Report that published that, and I was very honored to launch that myself at the World Health Organization last year, these figures. So now if you look at the crisis globally, there are hundreds of millions of people who are suffering. So that's the scale of the problem that we have. And sadly, I see it firsthand how people suffer in the NHS, in the National Health Service, where I'm an A &E doctor.

41:22Every shift that I spend, I see people who are coming in who are trying to commit suicide. They take overdose. They drink. But there is a lot deeper problem that exists there is that they have suffered from trauma in a lot of the situations. They have deeper mental health issues that are not solved and they're not tackled. the people who are experiencing it they're from all ages from mothers from young men elderly children and that's really heartbreaking for me because i can relate to them from a position of empathy that i suffered from depressive symptoms when i was a child 10 year old and in the uk i suffered when i came as a child refugee i suffered from ptsd symptoms like hypervigilance I had nightmares I also had flashbacks whenever I would look at the red bus in London it would turn into a tank for me in the middle of the night I would have these nightmares that the sniper would be taking my head off so I had to open a window to see for myself that I was in London you know I wasn't in a war zone now when I see although you know not exactly the same but I have that level of empathy for the people.

42:39And that's where my passion comes in, that I need to do something about this problem. Because the solutions that I look at really don't tackle them comprehensively. For example, in the NHS, the waiting time is one to two years just to be able to get an assessment. And a lot of the time, actually, the assessment that happens, sadly, isn't done by an expert. So we're really not trying to tackle the root cause of a problem. A lot of times, people suffer from really complex mental health issues. On the surface, you might see a bit of anxiety. You might see a little bit of depression or some depressive symptoms.

43:16But deep down, when you talk to them, when they're assessed properly, there is so much going on. So for me, for example, that flashback that I explained, that symbolizes 15 years of war. So for somebody to understand, to go deep into that, which later on was through a clinical psychologist. And I'm still taking therapy myself in that sense and continuing with it. It requires so much knowledge, so much expertise. And that's why part of the solution is that I'm working on to bring in experts at the top, clinical psychologists with the expertise of knowledge, of knowing various modalities of therapies and then looking at that client or that patient holistically to see what the problem is.

43:59And secondly, the trauma-informed care, a lot of the mental health conditions, almost all of them or nearly all of them, they have got some elements of trauma, whether people have experienced it as a child or as an adult. And third aspect is that we don't really have a lot of culturally sensitive solutions and that worries me when you look at populations such as the BAME populations marginalized communities even if they're not refugees I'm talking about people who are born in the UK or have been to the US and I've seen the black communities that suffer but really we don't have solutions that are a bit more tailored or experts who understand their culturally what's going on so that's another aspect of the motivation for me working at Aryan well-being and the final aspect is that we usually treat mind and body so separately we think gym is for exercise and therapy is for mind whereas it's wrong for me i go to gym mainly because of my mind you know i do it so routinely i can't miss the gym because that's the one place where after two or three days when i've done heard really horrible stories or doing philanthropic work or listening to other people suffer an A &E, but that's the one area that when I go, I feel that I have let that tension out.

45:18And there is evidence for it is that, you know, exercise is actually a frontline treatment for prevention and treatment, actually, for a depression and conditions like anxiety that does not explode. So putting all that together, exercise, connecting mind and body, trauma-informed, culturally sensitive, all that and put it on a smartphone or a laptop is what our own well-being is and that's the dream for me for people to be able to access it anywhere later on and around the globe but for now starting in the UK. In the current age of where there's a narrative around asylum seekers and illegal immigrants coming in and I think there's something around the dehumanization of the way we'd refer to these people on boats and that kind a political narrative and yet so much of what you're talking about is about empathy and kindness and treating people with compassion can you just tell us some of your top three tips on how we can all be a little bit more empathetic towards each other so my you know I've been through so many traumas in my life um countless traumas and and other people they've been through their own traumas and we are all on our own trajectories in life's challenges traumas but for me what i've discovered is that it's the compassion of other people that along the way of countless people that have transformed my life to help me to become who i am now so many to name and for me now to be able to give that compassion to other people is that it's brought meaning to my life and it's brought joy fulfillment and i'm trying to instill that in other people in what i do and i do believe that we all have it in us in one way or another it doesn't have to be big things that we have to do big companies or big organization it could take actually for how we speak with each other how we communicate with our neighbor how we receive marginalized how we interact with, in particular, with vulnerable communities such as the homeless, such as the refugees, such as the asylum seekers.

47:34It's very easy to pick on them. The opposite is also true, is we can re-traumatize them more by picking on them, by weaponizing them, by politicizing them, because they don't have a voice. And that's sadly what's going on in the narrative, is that it's easy to pick on refugees in the media. It's very easy to pick on them in conferences because they don't have a platform to defend themselves they don't have a way to tell their each individual stories which are so different but on the other hand we have a choice you know we can extend a helping hand to somebody who is homeless to somebody who's got mental health problem to somebody who's a refugee and that is how we can actually transform our own community and that's how I believe we can bring that joy into our own lives.

48:25Right, we've reached the point where we bring you our quickfire questions and the first one is what are the three non-negotiable behaviours that you and the people around you should buy into? The three non-negotiable behaviours I would say one is to be able to show compassion in what I say and in what I do and the second one would be and I'm learning this more and more every day is to keep looking after myself because I've spent a lot of my life trying to help my family, trying to help other people. But recently I've been thinking, you know, exercise, therapy, eating well, and doing all the things that I preach elsewhere.

49:05And I try to do that for myself. And thirdly, I would say the third behavior would be to look for meanings in what I do. It may make it sound that I'm taking spontaneity out, but it really, it may do, but it really brings a deeper fulfillment in even the small tasks if i'm meeting someone talking to someone then that really i enjoy that conversation more even coming to the podcast i knew that if your audience is listening to this and they can maybe help two or three or four people that would be absolutely mind-blowing if you could go back to one moment of your life what would it be and why one moment in my life going back to my younger self when i was trying to create this imaginary world and to dream about a better life and to say that one day things will be okay despite me uh come living under bombs i would go back and tell that person that continue dreaming that dream will come true i didn't know if it would um and but i was betting that one day it would and i think I will just reassure him, tap him on his back and say that, you know, mate, you're doing the right thing.

50:15Just stick to what you're doing and not to give up on hope. If you could recommend one book to our listeners, we have a book club called the High Performance Book Club, and it can't be your own, unfortunately. If you could recommend one book to them that's maybe made a difference for you, what would you recommend? The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. So this is a book by William Kamkawamba. who is a Malawian engineer. So this is a boy. The story resonates in some aspects with my own background story. What he did was he used the power of the wind turbine to power electricity for his own house and his local community.

50:57He couldn't go to school or he was kicked out of school and he couldn't afford. But it was the problem. He was so problem-driven that despite his lack of expertise in engineering, he understood that there was a problem in the community. He worked on that and he tried to add value to the people, whether it's his own family and to local community. And that in a way symbolizes what innovation is about. It is about looking at a problem, trying to see the people who are experiencing a problem and to help those people. he developed it actually from parts of broken pieces metal everywhere and that shows that you don't have to have shiny technologies to make a difference the reality is if we stick with humanity if we stick of how we can help each other we will always be ahead of innovation as long as we look after each other what's your biggest strength and your greatest weakness i think my biggest strength now would be that probably focusing a lot on meaning and trying to give compassion.

52:02But that has become a weakness as well, in a way that I can get consumed by trying to help others. And in the process, it can really affect me as well, that I forget about myself. So get that balance and ride. And it can be a double-edged sword, I would say that. I recently, I give an example i recently went and um so i'm involved in this docuseries that will come later this year and i visited um some displaced people and after spending a week really trying to talk about their stories and and see if i how i could help them and and by the end of it i was actually a bit re-traumatized because i had immersed myself so much that i had to take a week off to recover and although I tried to help but you know the extent I went into was was really impacted me getting that balance right is not easy it's something that I really tackle with the biggest moment of failure in your life and how you dealt with it the first one was that when I landed in the UK I was arrested and at that time actually my whole world turned upside down because I was told that I would be imprisoned for about a year, a year and a half because I didn't have the right documentation and I'd be sent back to Afghanistan.

53:29And I think that's the time when I saw myself as a failure because my parents had spent all their money to send me away and I just landed here in the UK. You know, I could just about touch, but I could not live it in a way to educate myself and to find a job to support myself and to help my family and to realize my dream. And I had ruined it all. And so for people, when they read my memoir, they will know why that happened. It was because of an incident on the plane that I tried to burn my passport. So it was my fault. I was told that by the smugglers that, you know, you have to get rid of your passport when you land.

54:10You know, the smugglers, they would give you instructions that you have to follow the instructions strictly. and it didn't work for me. I was arrested. That was the one time that I couldn't find a way out of it in my head and that's probably the only time that it crossed my mind that you know is it actually worth living if that would be the case and I immediately erased that thought. I said you know what I'm sure there is a way out and I started writing down my case in the prison in Feltham Young Offenders Institute. So I really wrote down pages and pages and pages how I would be telling the judge, you know, why escape Afghanistan?

54:49And my whole life, I wrote it down first there. And how I would argue and convince them that, you know, I should be allowed to stay in this country, that I would be a good citizen, that I would be somebody who would help the community. And one other example I would give that I saw myself as a failure was when I got into Cambridge University. And when I started university, I was there amongst best of the best in the world. And suddenly I realized that because of my lack of education, because I hadn't been to school, although I had done the A-level requirement, but I was exposed. I couldn't read as fast.

55:29I couldn't actually register or listen to the teachers because for the first time I was in a class and it happened to be at Cambridge. So for me, I was absolutely out of my depth. And then a lot of people who struggled in the beginning at university at Cambridge, they go on to struggle for the next few years. And the tutor told me that, you know, you really have to look at what's going on here. But I didn't give up on that. So what I knew deep down, and I couldn't even tell my tutors that I hadn't been to school because on my application I said I have been to school in Afghanistan I didn't they didn't inquire about it too much so I said some white lies there but then what I did was I found a way to speed read I found a way to be able to read large amount of information because what I was trying to do was to memorize everything which I thought was the way forward and I wasn't.

56:23And I spent so many nights on my own working out how to read, how to learn how to learn. And that allowed me actually to get a first in my third year for my research project because I didn't give up on it in that sense. But I was a failure because I couldn't compete with them. I got a third class in my first year I failed subjects and there were students I couldn't even interact with because my social skills were absolutely non-existent and I was struggling with PTSD as well so the combination of all that at university came at me so hardly that but I've still kept on with my usual tested methods which was gratitude which was being thankful for being at university being thankful for being in the UK to be safe being thankful to to help my family combine that with exercise and knowing that one day I will make it as a doctor it's incredible so the final question then we're here is what is your one golden rule to live in a high performance life?

57:32One golden rule for me to live a high performance life would be that we have one life and for me to make the most of it for me that when I reach to a stage towards the end of life is that I can reflect on and I can be proud of that I've helped a few people along the way it's something that would make me very proud and I just stick to that rule. I love that. Can I just say thank you so much for your story, for your honesty, for the resilience, for the empathy that you've shown. And I think you are a great example to people that you can have the hardest start in life, but your future isn't determined.

58:15And despite everything that you went through and everything that was thrown at you and all of the traumas that you had to deal with, you know, the fact that empathy and compassion is still central to what you do, speaks volumes about you as a person. Thank you so much. I'm really honoured. It's not easy always, but I found that, you know, going to the stories, it requires a level of compassion from you guys as well. And I think that you as a team, you've made me, you've allowed me to bring out that authenticity. And so I have to thank you.

58:50Damien, Jake, I am always amazed by people who can have the kind of trauma and the challenge and the difficulties in life that we've just heard, yet still put empathy and understanding and care for their fellow human being at the forefront of their mind. Yeah, I mean, what an utterly, utterly spellbinding journey that Waheed has been on. I think that story will live with me a long time, the one of his father putting him in that bakery hole to protect him from fighter jets that are coming over the top. and telling him that I love you, but you need to look after your mother and your siblings at five years of age.

59:31Imagine a life where your childhood has ended at such a young age and you expected to embrace it. I think then the story of him coming to England as a 15-year-old boy and being the one that his family have put all their hopes and dreams on to cope with that pressure. So to have experienced both of those factors and yet still come out of it with that innate optimism, that essential kindness and just that human decency is a testimony to the human spirit. I think I can't think of anyone that would have listened to that and wouldn't walk away feeling utterly inspired by him. And I'm glad you mentioned the human spirit there.

1:00:09I think it's also a reminder that human beings can cope with a lot. Human beings are naturally resilient people, you know, and there may well be some folk listening to this at the moment that are just finding life a bit overwhelming and hard. And I think there's a big message coming through from that episode that you can do hard things and just hang in there, see it through and you will come out the other side. Nothing's forever. Yeah, I mean, another response that Wahid gave us that really sort of moved me was, you know that story when he said when he first came to London and he'd just lay on the grass and he was looking at the planes in the sky and he was grateful that these planes flying overhead weren't trying to drop bombs on him.

1:00:50And I think there's something around that that I know is born from real traumatic experiences, but there's magic all around us in pretty much everything if we remember to look for it. And there's a power in looking for those small moments that galvanise us and give us the strength and the courage to be able to carry on, even when times are tough or, in his case, is feeling lonely and a thousand miles away from home. And I think that's how we have to learn to nurture and care for our own human spirit that then gives us a capacity to go and do it for others. And that to me is high performance, just in a slightly different guise.

1:01:34Thanks a lot, mate. Thank you, mate. Again, a real privilege. Well, how about that for a conversation? Listen, if you would like more from High Performance, then we've created the High Performance app, which gives you a daily boost. It gives you exclusive access to content that you can't get anywhere else. And it's totally free. Just click the link in the description to this podcast or head to our website, thehighperformancepodcast.com to find out more. But thank you so much for listening and we'll see you soon for more from High Performance.

1:02:14Thank you.