What Changes When You Cross an Ocean for Education?: Episode 67

Through personal insights and cultural reflection, Egyptian grad student Omar Yassin shares a unique perspective on navigating American life while maintaining cultural identity, revealing powerful lessons about growth, adaptation, and building meaningful connections across cultures.

This engaging episode explores:

• Why expanding beyond your cultural comfort zone is essential for personal growth
• How balancing multiple responsibilities builds character and success
• The importance of maintaining cultural roots while embracing new experiences
• The contrasts between Middle Eastern and American approaches to family, work, and education
• Why diverse social circles enhance understanding and opportunity
• The value of non-traditional education paths in American culture
• How authenticity and confidence help bridge cultural divides

Perfect for: International students adjusting to American life, college students seeking to broaden their perspectives, anyone interested in cross-cultural understanding, educators working with international students, and those curious about navigating multiple cultural identities. Plus: Essential insights about building success through embracing challenges and maintaining cultural authenticity.

Warning: This episode might change how you see your own culture.

Transcript

00:04.76
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
And welcome everyone. Today we have with us Omar Yassin. He is in Tucson, Arizona, and he is a grad student at the University of Arizona and assistant professor. So how are you doing today, Omar?

00:21.49
Omar Yassin
I'm doing good. How's everything going on with you?

00:24.09
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Good, good. I'm looking forward to this conversation. I think you have a lot of interesting things to say. So let's, I like to dive right in. Tell the audience where are you originally from?

00:34.77
Omar Yassin
I'm originally from Egypt. I grew up in Saudi Arabia most of my life and I moved to the US for my undergrad college.

00:39.61
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Okay.

00:44.38
Omar Yassin
And ever since that I've been living in Tucson and I'm enjoying my life here.

00:48.18
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Okay.

00:51.44
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Um, just out of a curiosity is the Saudi Arabian, uh, does the Saudi Arabian government help to pay for your school?

01:00.28
Omar Yassin
No, not really. They do actually help a lot of the let's Saudi people to sponsor them abroad, but since I'm not Saudi, I just lived there for a while, I had to self-pay for everything.

01:01.49
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Okay.

01:05.73
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Yeah, I know. Mm-hmm.

01:10.73
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Ah, okay.

01:15.07
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Oh, wow, okay. The reason I asked that is because I used to teach English as a second language, and I had, at one point, quite a few Saudi Arabian graduate students. So, and I know i know that their government does do that, that's why I asked.

01:26.59
Omar Yassin
It makes sense. they feel like They feel like their government needs to you know ah educate the new generation. And I love the idea that they're putting their best possible for their new generation to be educated as good as possible at all around the world, I guess.

01:41.68
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Honestly, I think they're smart for it.

01:43.79
Omar Yassin
Yeah.

01:44.75
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
They've they've helped their economy and their their country a lot by having that as a policy. um So why did you come to the U.S.?

01:56.77
Omar Yassin
Ever since I was in college, really, my mindset was I wanted to study college abroad, specifically in the US. So I, growing up, I knew this is where I wanted to be. I knew my personality was going to really grow, ah living in in that environment. And then there's all these personal ah goals that you want to accomplish for yourself, how you want to be a leader, how you want to be very strong socially,

02:26.20
Omar Yassin
as a person and made all these connections. And I always thought like, i you know what, the US is really the place where I can expand. And and I feel very proud of of the person or the personality that I came to be and in these recent years.

02:43.28
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
I'm ah good. I'm just curious why you chose the US and why the US was on your radar instead of the UK because we're pretty similar

02:51.16
Omar Yassin
Well, ah I had other options. So my other options would be the UK or Canada. Um, it's just more from a college as aspect as well. I knew that the colleges at in the US were kind of more, um, challenging.

03:05.85
Omar Yassin
They were more accredited, you know, um, and then they were, uh, the system in here is something, the US system is something I studied going through high school, like my GPA and my SAT is that is something I was, uh, like I was studying under the American high school diploma.

03:05.99
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Oh, okay.

03:24.43
Omar Yassin
and that somehow made it that the most reasonable transition.

03:24.29
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Oh, okay. Okay, that makes sense to me. I didn't know that. um Did not know that at all. so What is one of, so you're from Egypt.

03:38.79
Omar Yassin
Yeah.

03:38.94
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Before I ask you this next question, let's talk about that. You're from Egypt, which is a completely different culture than the US. What is one of the first adjustments that you had to make when you came here?

03:55.01
Omar Yassin
this would be very yeah This could be very broad, but the one thing that actually just pops up in my head is how honest you should be. so yeah you I've probably you've noticed this before from a lot of Middle Eastern i cultures, they're very generous.

04:11.45
Omar Yassin
They're always giving, right?

04:11.66
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Yes.

04:12.95
Omar Yassin
and They want to pay for everything. and coming to the US here you don't have to I wouldn't say lie and fake that you just you're not expected to do that so that kind of takes away the I wouldn't say fakeness either but like you're not required that you have a desk that you always have to and be overly generous to them because they're like oh I'm not expected that back home you're trying that expected to do that if you don't it could put a bad image on you that you're not as as a generous person as you should have been so that that that raises away a lot like takes away a lot of the this distress that could happen saudi arabia egypt it's it's i think it's more of an a middle eastern idea overall yeah

04:15.28
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Right.

04:24.89
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
o

04:42.79
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
ana

04:46.14
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
so ass a cool So it's a cultural norm, and and that's not just true for, well, Saudi Arabia is what you mean, right? Okay. Okay. Well, it's not just Middle Eastern. I could think of a few other cultures that are kind of like that too.

05:08.68
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
um i older Greeks can be like that too. So there's, there's many cultures I think around the world that are kind of like that, but I see what you're saying. It could be to the point where it's more obligatory than it is, uh, you know, being nice and giving.

05:22.39
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
And then you're then it they can actually cause more stress.

05:25.44
Omar Yassin
Yes, it's obligatory as you mentioned there.

05:25.60
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Um, yeah. And we're not obliged to be that way. Um, what are the other? So even though you're from Egypt, how old were you when you moved to Saudi Arabia?

05:37.56
Omar Yassin
I was five years old. So I used to go to Egypt all the time during summer and winter breaks.

05:39.48
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Okay.

05:42.12
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Oh, okay.

05:44.24
Omar Yassin
ah However, I generally think the culture between Saudi Arabia and Egypt is kind of similar.

05:48.65
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Okay.

05:49.66
Omar Yassin
Saudi Arabia just has a little bit more diversity from the amount of Middle Eastern countries you can find there. So I was brought up around of Jordanians, Syrians, ah Egyptians, ah Sudanese.

05:56.87
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Okay.

06:03.47
Omar Yassin
So you try to make these ah ah like friends, friendships that are from all around in Uganda. They're also not 100% Egyptian and I'm not 100% Egyptian and they're not 100% Jordanian because they kind of grew up in Saudi Arabia as well.

06:16.42
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Right, right.

06:19.75
Omar Yassin
I just felt it's a nice combination to to get to know different cultures in that sort of way.

06:25.51
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
cool Okay, so culturally speaking, based on what you were explaining to me earlier, I would assume that you were more Saudi Arabian because that's where you grew up. i'm but i But you still grew up in an Egyptian home.

06:38.72
Omar Yassin
Oh yes, yes.

06:39.38
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
So so say I'm sure there are some nuanced differences between the two, but I do understand what you mean because of the fact that I have been around a lot of mut Middle Eastern ah people from different countries and ah I noticed the similarities but also the differences and I know also there's a lot of Sudanese in particular in in Egypt because of war um and i I just love talking to people from other countries so I find it all very fascinating And everybody has a story to tell. um So what do you what have you noticed are the biggest differences culturally between the way you grew up, ah besides the the giving piece, because there's a lot of other differences, the way you grew up in Saudi Arabia with an Egyptian culture in the home and coming to America?

07:28.77
Omar Yassin
I would say the idea of working in school is something that is not very common back home.

07:36.33
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
What do you mean?

07:37.33
Omar Yassin
ah so So when you're studying and you're in high school or when you're in college, you're not expected to be working.

07:43.89
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Ah.

07:44.79
Omar Yassin
I had to really convince my parents to allow me to to work here. They thought it would be a distraction or they thought it would be hindering my main priorities on school.

07:58.68
Omar Yassin
However, I took it as like, I can't just be staying home and do nothing when I see my friends and colleagues are working some other job. Even if it's not really related to my future, having in that experience is very important. So my first ever job was in the US.

08:17.19
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
oh wow wow okay i want to point out something that you said you probably didn't even notice that you said how old are you right now okay so when you came here how old were you like oh you were still a minor because you just said you needed your parents permission to work but you are a minor okay so that that

08:24.01
Omar Yassin
I'm 23.

08:29.99
Omar Yassin
I was 17.

08:37.82
Omar Yassin
Yeah, but i i was i was I didn't even want to work when I was 18. I really started the idea of working like when I was 19, when I saw that taste school isn't that much of a time-consuming thing, as I expected.

08:52.35
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Mm-hmm.

08:53.50
Omar Yassin
And I do actually have time to to work, so i this is where I started engaging in that idea.

08:59.54
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Wow, okay. i Well, then my thought process there was incorrect, but I'm i'm glad that you you took the initiative to want to actually work, even though you didn't have to. um I think that's a good thing. so what are Now, what are some of the things that you would consider that are not good about living in a foreign land?

09:23.13
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Well, America in particular, because this this is where you are.

09:26.34
Omar Yassin
I would say the idea of family is something very important. And I'm talking about how close you are to your family.

09:30.31
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Mm-hmm.

09:33.04
Omar Yassin
So I honestly started appreciating my parents way much more when I started moving here.

09:32.87
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Mm-hmm.

09:38.81
Omar Yassin
Not because I missed them more, but more particularly to how much I realized I was taking things for granted.

09:45.41
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
OK.

09:46.45
Omar Yassin
ah I always faced this ah awkward conversations when I would be talking about how my childhood was and then automatically two or three people that I'm having a conversation with, they would mention that they have divorced parents. And it became so frequent in conversations that I started thinking that this is a a sensitive topic.

10:09.29
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
For some people, it is. And um I do understand where you're coming from because in and the in the cultures that you come from, divorce is not a not a not a thing.

10:21.13
Omar Yassin
Exactly.

10:20.67
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
It's not it's extremely, it's it happens, but it's extremely uncommon. Whereas America, it's actually extremely common. So the breakup the breakdown, I would say, of the family is very common in America, and you're you're not the only person from a foreign land who recognizes that. I hear that from foreigners all the time from all different parts of the world. It is an issue. and it' it it Yeah, it's an issue in America. And you do. You're right. You take it for granted, because you're just like, well, parents stay together. And you know this is just the way it is. You don't have to work. This is just the way it is. And I think as Americans, there's certain things that we have, and we take for granted.

11:00.63
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
you know um What other things would you say are maybe some bad things about living in America?

11:09.29
Omar Yassin
I wouldn't say there's a lot of bad things. I would say definitely something that I haven't ah or I would see as a problem is e like the idea of outdoor consumption as as a getaway.

11:24.27
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
in

11:25.59
Omar Yassin
So I really don't, back home in Egypt, there's a lot of homeless people, by the way, there's a lot of poor, poor people.

11:26.63
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Yeah.

11:29.91
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Oh, there is.

11:31.97
Omar Yassin
However, they you 100% know that they're on the street trying to find a job or trying to wash a car or bed into wash a car or bed into help you out to the groceries to get some money out of you or help you park so you can give them anything.

11:31.51
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
OK.

11:46.44
Omar Yassin
So they're not really stranded in the street just because they oh are misguided, but more because just of how a poor ah economy it is. However, here you can really notice that ah I would say more of an addiction mentality. When you have a lot of accessible bad things that are easily accessible to you, there's going to be a lot of people that really get misguided.

12:12.68
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
You said it.

12:13.47
Omar Yassin
Because it's accessible, because it's everywhere and it's common and it's not socially bad.

12:14.19
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
no

12:19.79
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
That's the key thing. It's not socially bad. And that is the difference between here and a lot of other other places in the world. We're not the only place. But yeah, you you said a lot right there. um It is not socially acceptable. Definitely where you are in a few other places in the world.

12:35.35
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Uh, well, where you're from rather. Um, and what are some, what are some good things about, uh, that you like in particular about us that you haven't already said?

12:45.10
Omar Yassin
Oh, oh i love I love the mentality of how people here are very ah hungry. So they have very strong endurance.

12:51.81
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Hmm.

12:54.89
Omar Yassin
What I mean by endurance is the idea that, ah let's say the working thing, let's say students are would be working or studying all year long, and then in summer, instead of just having a summer break, they take the opportunity to to find a job and to try to work more.

13:10.83
Omar Yassin
And I kind of appreciate that. That raises the sense of responsibility from a really young age.

13:12.37
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
and

13:15.95
Omar Yassin
ten

13:15.64
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
No, good boy, very good boy.

13:16.82
Omar Yassin
ah Many, many people that i would that I would have known, personally myself, if i if I didn't come here, I see myself doing the exact same things as I would be doing if I lived back home from ah from an endurance standpoint. What I mean by that, you have to be multi-dimensional.

13:38.81
Omar Yassin
Multidimension means you you are above average in many ah characteristics about your own life. School and work aren't the only two things you do that.

13:44.84
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Hmm.

13:49.62
Omar Yassin
You have to really be dedicated to finding a strong social environment.

13:49.52
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Yeah. Yeah.

13:56.12
Omar Yassin
you're not I was never the type of person that would be studying for 12 hours at home. I would find that very, ah to some degree, unnecessary time. You could be investing that time in something else. For example, like, as I said, having a very strong social circle means you have opportunities for leadership, joining organizations,

14:17.24
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Ooh, so true.

14:18.02
Omar Yassin
ah ah charity organizations. That's not something you really do back home. that's I've noticed this so much in in my study here that there are multiple clubs you can organize things with.

14:32.97
Omar Yassin
you You have these fraternities and sororities that do a lot of ah philanthropy throughout the years. So these are mainly organized by students. Back home, that's not something you're even remotely expected to do.

14:46.86
Omar Yassin
Internships, that's something as well that that you do here as as as ah as a ah that stage.

14:49.00
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
a Yeah, that's true.

14:52.73
Omar Yassin
And then the best thing I really loved is the fact that growing up here ah correct for during my school time here, I would see a lot of people that are not typical college students.

15:05.07
Omar Yassin
Okay, and I respect that so much.

15:05.21
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
What do you mean by that?

15:06.68
Omar Yassin
there Oh, like like not a typical college students that they're not in their 20s anymore.

15:07.87
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
What do you mean by that?

15:12.73
Omar Yassin
They're people late in their 30s and they're joining pharmacy school and their moms or fathers.

15:15.39
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Okay.

15:18.21
Omar Yassin
And I kind of respect that because you just, you develop that idea that, hey, I actually want to do something better in my life and I want to go back to school.

15:19.79
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Ah, okay.

15:28.03
Omar Yassin
It's not too late for me. I need to go back and I need to accept that and you have now you have a family, you have multiple struggles and you're still being able to to compete. This is something that, hey, you need to be acknowledged for because this is not easy.

15:46.05
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
No, you're 100% right. And that's less likely back home, right?

15:50.11
Omar Yassin
Yes, yes people people don't accept the idea that you go back your or you you take a gap here.

15:50.91
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Yeah, I know it is.

15:57.27
Omar Yassin
That's something very forbidden. Oh, you're wasting your time. So the idea of going back to college when you're in your 30s is as if you are doing wasting time.

16:00.83
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Yeah.

16:09.34
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
yeah Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. I hadn't really thought about it that way. Um, let me ask you another question. You speak English fluently very well, obviously, but when did you, did you learn English while you were in Saudi Arabia?

16:23.28
Omar Yassin
Yes.

16:23.14
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
So you already able to speak it when you came here?

16:25.36
Omar Yassin
Oh yeah, this is something people always ask me about how my English is is is fluent.

16:25.06
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Well.

16:31.76
Omar Yassin
some degree degree and And I think it's mainly just because of my school. However, though, ah I never really spoke English with my friends.

16:34.83
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Mm hmm.

16:39.76
Omar Yassin
It would just be something in class or when you're studying.

16:39.84
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Right. Right.

16:42.72
Omar Yassin
But yeah, ever since I came here, like, pro communication has to be English all the time. Even with my friends that can speak Arabic, I really communicate with them English all the time. And I feel that that just ah something better. That's another point that we should get into is your circle. What type of people you should be going and being friends with when you're in a foreign country. Because I feel that the biggest mistake that I see people here doing is they try to find people with the same background and they stick with them. They never try to get outside of their comfort zone. That's a really big mistake here because I feel that the biggest, the strongest thing in a group is versatility. The more versatile a group is, the more unique they are.

17:23.75
Omar Yassin
is now you have like, you have a Justice League. You have Batman, Superman, you have this, this. They're all different now, you know?

17:29.83
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
yeah yeah yeah so but why i i completely agree with you and i think it is a valid uh it segues right into what i was gonna ask you next so it it's a very valid point um our circles are very important and it's so important to be around people who are not like us and quite frankly people have heard i've said this publicly many times one of the reasons why i loved Teaching English is a second language and you always find me around foreigners, meaning people who weren't born in America, because I have something to learn from you. And I love talking to people from other cultures because ah they're going to teach me something I don't know. And I love studying humans. And it's something I've learned is that no matter what culture you're from, at the end of the day, we're all still human and want some of the same things.

18:17.01
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Um, and so yeah, your circle really matters. So what you're saying is that it's important that you don't just hang around people who came from the same trailer park you grew up in or went to the same same country club or whatever.

18:26.34
Omar Yassin
yes otherwise you're gonna be absolutely you don't be speaking the same language that you grew up with you're not gonna enhance your english you're not you're i i genuinely feel that there's a strong understander the strongest asset for me of actually understanding the american culture and how joking goes around and how uh people communicate here like you can never learn this land until you really are able to to communicate to people in that sort of way this is how you build up

18:36.10
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Hmm.

18:56.24
Omar Yassin
report with others throughout your career. And if I haven't done so much of this when I was 19 and 20, I wouldn't have been able to to get many let successful opportunities in other areas in a career itself, just as of based on how you're able to communicate with people. Because you know what's possible? It is so noticeable to see somebody that is not from the US and you're able to know that they're not from the US just because of how they're able to interact and engage.

19:27.80
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
I can tell you as an American, grew up in America, but has also worked with a lot of foreigners in different capacity in my life, that is a thousand percent true. I can usually pick out the foreigner in a room for many, many reasons and not always physical looks.

19:43.93
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Most of it's not physical look.

19:45.35
Omar Yassin
It's our physical ops.

19:45.54
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
It's mostly behavior. It's mostly behavior. um and and body body ah language and things like that, um you can usually pick out. There's especially certain countries I can pick for people out, and sometimes I scare people because I'm able to tell them exactly where they're from without them opening their mouths. And they're just like, how'd you know that? I've been around y'all.

20:08.66
Omar Yassin
Yeah, and it's easy to be that person that, oh, he's physically, he doesn't look like he's from the U.S., but he's engaged in a sort of way that he probably lived here all his life, which is good enough for me.

20:08.66
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
on

20:19.68
Omar Yassin
I like to be, ah as long as I live there, I'm like, okay, yeah, that could be true.

20:19.92
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Uh, well, yeah. Yeah, that that's true too. Um, but you, that's a choice that someone has to make too. And even if it was an American going over to China or going over to Russia or wherever you're going to go, we would still need to follow that same principle and engage with, you know, engage with the people around us and learn their nuances and, and how they get along and how can I integrate with these people?

20:47.48
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
around me because you're going to gain more you're going to gain more from people who are not like you than from the people who are like you. That's true in every aspect of life I find.

20:58.43
Omar Yassin
I 100% agree that having an open-minded even you know what even a lot of the things here I Wouldn't have known the bad stuff unless if I surrounded myself with it to some degree You know I'm talking about so I wouldn't have known Addiction and all of that unless I've seen it with my own eyes that happens to people that I that I can see in in front of me I'm not just talking about like, and oh, just noticing ah any homeless person on the street. No, no, no. I'm talking about people ah in the same criteria as I am, friends of mine, that somehow lost their way due to to excessive partying or excessive drug consumption that they're like, they become

21:41.60
Omar Yassin
They lose their track. This is what I can see where, okay, I knew this person from who they are when they were fine, but now they engaged in so much partying and that affected them and and that distracted them from their goals and they can't take it back to their normal stuff anymore. So you're trying to, this is what I'm saying about just as how accessible it is. You can, and you're surrounded with with it. It makes you somehow open-minded that

22:07.99
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Mm hmm.

22:08.59
Omar Yassin
you are able to engage in these certain and like circumstances and this is where you're able to learn and notice and see where people are different in these situations.

22:23.69
Omar Yassin
But yes, if people are just around their own same circle, they never learn how to how to adapt

22:23.86
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
yeah

22:30.87
Omar Yassin
And I feel that to some degree, you are never going to be satisfied with who you are, because you'll notice that you haven't changed that much in this certain amount of time. Progress is is divided by time.

22:42.32
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
You are speaking from my mind. I think you've been inside my brain and you just took out the information because you're really, you're speaking my language right there. Cause that's something I teach all the time. Just learn from the people around you. It is so important that you do that because you are going to be a very small minded person. If you only keep, you know, your twins around you, you know, the people who think just like you were grew up in the same background and that's it.

23:10.77
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
um I want you to speak to the audience right now. Young college students. Just don't even talk to me. Talk directly to them right now.

23:25.11
Omar Yassin
Well, honestly, i if if if you're an international student in general, I want you to be hungry to this new challenge. If you are not excited to come in here when you're still back home, then this might not be appropriate for you.

23:42.85
Omar Yassin
You have to really be hungry and you can see that this is a new challenge, but hey, I can see myself doing it. This is the mindset I need you to be taking. And coming here, it's like genuinely going into Disneyland where you don't know where to start, which game to play, but I want to play them all.

24:00.37
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Hmm.

24:04.72
Omar Yassin
right and you're gonna have to figure out a certain desire because now it's not only about school now it's all about life i'm gonna start learning how to do laundry on my own and manage food as well and i'm and to some point i have to manage finances because i can't be eating out all the time and then if you're somebody that cares about their physical appearance you have to also yeah inject that ah time for sport overall. So now you're you're balancing many things in front of you. And and the more you balance things, the more successful you are. Every successful person that I've seen has more stress than they had when they were unsuccessful. the more The more stress you have, the more successful you are.

24:51.26
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
And that shouldn't be the case, but it often is. there There are ways of changing that, but I do think that that it then generally tends to be true because the more responsibility you have, the more likely you are to be stressed.

25:01.82
Omar Yassin
The more important you are.

25:01.99
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
It's just, yeah.

25:03.22
Omar Yassin
And if I have one phrase to say to people that come here is think about what what story am I going to tell to my to the future, to the people I talked to in the future.

25:15.77
Omar Yassin
I want this to be a great story. And for it to be a great story, there had to be a bigger dragon to slay.

25:22.96
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Hmm, that's a pretty powerful statement and you are exactly right. I'm gonna ask you to do something a little unusual. I want you right now to give very but quick, short advice to people who are just arriving in this country, grad students like yourself.

25:44.40
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Hold on, but they are from a Middle Eastern country and I want you to do it in Arabic and then tell us what you said in English. I want you to talk directly to them.

25:52.41
Omar Yassin
in Arabic.

25:53.42
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Mm hmm. They're just learning English. So Arabic is better for them right now.

25:57.96
Omar Yassin
I will go with some Egyptian dialect.

26:00.38
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
OK.

26:15.75
Omar Yassin
These are, I think I gave like three important factors. which I initially said that you should really focus on your studies and then broaden your networks by engaging in social activities, wherever it is.

26:18.90
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
OK.

26:29.74
Omar Yassin
However, you should never really forget who who you were raised back home. And that connects to your family values and your religious values.

26:41.92
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Great advice. um I want to piggyback on the last thing you just said because I think it's something that sometimes I've seen um where people try to over-simulate into the culture they're coming into and they completely just

26:58.36
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
leave behind every single thing they were ever taught. And I don't think that that's a good idea. I think cultural differences are in fact, absolutely beautiful. We should not all be the same. And so no matter what country people are from, I love to see them stay connected you you in some kind of way, of you know, some kind of way at least ah to their original culture, but especially language. Don't forget your original language. I don't care where in the world you're from.

27:26.35
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
don't care where you're from, what color you are, don't forget your language. It's so important. I get disappointed when I see people who are from other countries and they've been here for a while and they're like, I don't remember how to speak Czech anymore. I don't remember how to speak Spanish anymore, whatever language. And yeah I just find that so just disheartening.

27:46.77
Omar Yassin
No, I agree with you.

27:46.99
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
you know

27:48.02
Omar Yassin
I feel like ah the more confident I've become here when I've built some more social connections and actual, very genuine friendships, the more I was able to speak with them in my own language and share with them a little bit more of my culture.

28:02.20
Omar Yassin
Why? Because now I noticed that they're very curious and you know what's so funny? They were always very curious. I was just a little bit shy to share that part and I just came here.

28:10.95
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Uh, yeah, yeah, it's understandable.

28:11.82
Omar Yassin
Okay. but Everybody's curious here. You live in a very, you live in a country where it's it's global within itself.

28:21.05
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Mm, good point.

28:22.11
Omar Yassin
Okay, the US is very low.

28:22.71
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Good point.

28:23.80
Omar Yassin
The US has people from all around the world and it influences people all around the world and I love the fact that I know this is not very common to say but I am really like when when people think I ever get any mist mistreatment just because of where I'm from or ah ah if I'm not American or anything I honestly I always say and this is some justice to say I've never really been any

28:23.90
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Yeah, you might. Mm-hmm.

28:47.40
Omar Yassin
ah

29:06.70
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
I'm going to say I'm surprised if you tell you haven't experienced racism, but I'm not surprised because of the second half of what you said.

29:08.93
Omar Yassin
yeah

29:13.77
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
You are right. When we carry ourselves in certain ways, it tends to override that sort of ignorance. Um, cause they're like, uh, okay. Cause I've dealt with people like that too, who you, you just know that they're racist, but then when it comes to me, they don't behave that way because I very quickly show that, you know, I have class, I'm articulate that I, you know,

29:35.26
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
I'm not about the BS. And it does make a difference. But so, Omar, thank you for coming on. It has been a joy to talk to you. I i love having these conversations because I always learn something new. And I learned a couple of new things from you today. And I hate i love that. So once again, shukran.

29:56.66
Omar Yassin
Well, of course. Thank you. Thank you Fatima. It's my pleasure talking to you. And if there's anything your audience ever wants, I'm more than glad that they can contact me and and I'm really excited for for for this episode. It's been a very pleasure to talk to you overall. Thank you.

30:13.40
Fatima Bey The MindShifter
Thank you.