#290: Lessons Learned From Getting Stage 3 Cancer at 35 After Growing an International Business to 10,000 Employees with Feisal Alibhai

Feisal Alibhai was born into an entrepreneurial family but decided to venture out on his own after Wharton and a short period on Wall Street. By the time Feisal was 35 he had scaled internationally to over 15 countries, employed 10,000 people, and was doing $100s of millions in revenue. Then his life changed. At the age of 35, Feisal received a surprise stage three cancer diagnosis.

On today’s show, Feisal walks us through what it was like getting a life-altering diagnosis and how it changed the way he looked at his life and business. He reflects on his new mindset, and the shift in his approach from a work-work-work to a “game time then, and game time now” view. He shares his insights on stress and health, as well as some key measures every business owner should take to keep their mind and body healthy for the years to come.

What You Will Learn

What drove Feisal to start his international business in repressed countries lacking resources widely available in developed countries
How owning both sides of a market - the buy side and sell side - can create a protective moat, increase enterprise value, and keep competition out
The customer insights Feisal gained from personally going into every world market - accompanied by armed guards - and how that impacted his strategies
How a cancer diagnosis almost derailed his business alongside his personal life
What kept Feisal’s business performing during his 10-month absence
Why Feisal was able to sell his company in under 10 minutes
The challenges of bridging significant market gaps between dominant and emerging markets
Why preparing for crisis in a business is essential to not only preserve the wealth created but also to allow one to focus on the present issue
When to tell you’re physically present but not mentally
The impact of giving it all at work and half-assing it at home
Why Feisal says stress doesn’t cause sickness, but how someone handles it does

// USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment

Bio:

As a 35 year old 3^rd generation family business entrepreneur with over 10,000 employees in 15 countries, Feisal received a wake-up call one day with the news that he had stage three cancer. He felt his life was over, but when he was unable to visualize saying goodbye to his two toddler sons, he chose to do whatever it took to transform the cancer.

Looking back, he recognized all the warning signs he had missed, and spent the next seven years helping his family and friends to prioritize what matters most. In 2013, Feisal founded Qineticare, the world’s first family health office. Qineticare’s mission is to empower individuals and families through an integrative wellbeing journey of self-discovery to transform their way of being to live a meaningful life.

Quotes:

14:23 - “That was our goal. Was to have the average person be able to afford the Disney, the Cartoon Network, the Warner Bros. and be in fashion.” - Feisal Alibhai

15:40 - “I’ll be very honest: I wanted to be financially independent. I didn’t want to depend on my father or the family to support me.” - Feisal Alibhai, on his driving “why” when he started

17:07 - “The mission statement was to bring to the third world, what the first world takes for granted. That was really about providing accessibility and improving quality of life.” - Feisal Alibhai

26:34 - “The second game that was different was really the long game. How do you change lives? How do we improve the quality of life? Then you’re playing a different game because a lot of my competitors were serving the core. ” - Feisal Alibhai

33:49 - “The questions I would ask are as brutal as, ‘Did you have time to eat? Did you have time to sleep? Did you have time to go to the bathroom?’ This is the level of hardass I was. [...] So don’t tell me you didn’t have time. Because you had time. Because if you did any of those basic fundamentals, you had time.” - Feisal Alibhai

46:33 - “All those projects in Pakistan happened because I had a three hour window with nothing to do.” - Feisal Alibhai

49:06 - “I had a tumor the size of a Rubik’s cube that was pressing against my lung and my lung had collapsed.” - Feisal Alibhai