How to Be a Shapeshifter to Get Ahead in Your Career

Mustafa Ammar is an author and the founder of the Passion MBA, where he is a speaker and consultant for individuals and corporations around the world. He is truly a global citizen who’s lived in five continents and speaks seven languages on different fluency levels. In addition, he has enjoyed success in several fascinating fields, including pharmacy, diplomacy, and multinational infrastructure, banking. He is the author of the passion project, build the career that you were born to have and find your life purpose.

 Mustafa was born in Cairo, Egypt. But he grew up with his family in different countries. His dad used to travel all the time, since he was one year old, so he was traveling with him everywhere. He grew up as a shy kid but always dreaming. When he was six years old, he was asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Then he would say “I want to be an astronaut. I want to be a diplomat. And I will be a soccer player.” He always had that feeling inside that he could do different things. And he could follow always his passions.

Mustafa have to conform at that age, because each time he answer that question with the same answer, people would say that he only has to pick one. Mustafa tried to pick one. But it was never fulfilling for him because he don’t want to do only one thing in life. “It’s only one life and I have to do several things.” He said. But what he decided to do when he was 12 is just follow his passion. So when he was 12, his passion would become a diplomat who would travel the world.

The idea was to just pursue his passion. Mustafa started imagining himself traveling the world and even preparing himself for the exams. It takes a very long process of examinations to become a diplomat. So he started preparing himself until he was 16. Then he decided to be a pharmacist out of his passion for chemistry. He started five years of chemistry and enjoyed it until he had enough of it. So Mustafa decided to be a diplomat, so he prepared himself to be a diplomat, while working as a pharmacist. He then became a diplomat. And in diplomacy, Mustafa worked in the UN in New York, Africa in Malawi and China. At some point, after 11 years of his career, Mustafa thought he needs to change and do something else. His third opportunity came to be working in a Multinational Development Bank. And currently, he is in his fourth career life, he is now preaching all the concepts and values that helped him to transform his life and help people transform their life.

It was three years ago, when Mustafa was in the banking career doing his MBA at the same time in Manchester in the UK. He was very interested in writing, he have at least 20 ideas what to write about and 20 concepts that he could write about. And this is how the idea of the book came. Mustafa thought that he has done this career change a few times, and each time was so successful, despite all the hardships, the doubter around him and the difficulties in doing a very major career shift. From a pharmacist to a diplomat, he had to learn all those skills to be good at it. And then had to move to investment banking and learn new skills and integrate this because he thought that there is a methodology here, the steps that he followed and it worked every time, and the careers he had were somewhat identical. He put everything on a mind mapping chart, he started his fourth career, The Passion MBA based on that and he tried it on other people, and it worked each time.

Mustafa believe in life that if you have your passions, your values, your vision for your dream lifestyle aligned, you can do whatever you want. Mustafa had always aligned his passions with his values and with his future vision. “Our passions change over time.” he said. 10 years ago, we were completely different persons having different interests, different passions, but overtime we evolve our personality, we change, our priority change. So we tend to have different lifestyles to adapt to our new passions. Our values are mostly similar, or sometimes they change over time. But when you have them all together, you can do whatever you want.

Shapeshifter is a nonfictional being or a creature that is able to change his or her physical form all the time. If we apply this to career shapeshifting, it means that, a job shapeshifter is somebody who’s able to change his career and adapting to the environment around him or her. Mustafa said that the benefit of being a shapeshifter, especially after combat when millions of people lost their jobs, some lost their investments and savings. Non shapeshifter claim to one thing all their life, they claim to one measure, one area of expertise, one domain, and that’s it. And even if they want to have something else or try something else they cannot do it, out of fear, or out of conformity, because they will lose their job or because they will lose their savings because they will start something that is risky. But then on the other side, shapeshifters are able always to adapt themselves. So they can live and want different lives in one single life. This is very powerful.

“Even if I’m in my fourth life, I’m planning for my fifth life, maybe five years from now. And it’s much more enjoyable, and entertaining, fulfilling feeling that we only have one life. So I’m not here in this life to pay my bills and just die. I’m here to pursue a life purpose, think of my life purpose, and try to reach it, enjoy myself, fulfill my potential, reach to my full potential and then help people around.” Mustafa said.

Mustafa thinks that we are not able to fulfill our dreams right away. We need some time. So the main idea is not to ignore those callings about those dreams. Spend time on reflection. In order to build that imagination, you really need to reflect every day about life, whether you’re enjoying your day or not, you’re doing your job or not, whether your personal relationships are fulfilled or not, whether you’re happy even if today is the last day of your life or you have lot of regrets that you wish you could have done this or do that. It’s very crucial to live every day with this reflection session, having 30 minutes session every day at certain time and is uninterrupted. But even if you haven’t reached to your goals yet, at least you’re on the way, and at least you’re pursuing them. People don’t regret the mistakes. Often, we would just think about it for a while learn from it and move on. But the long lasting regrets are lifetime regrets, regrets about the things that we wanted to do or we never did the dreams we wanted to pursue or the skills we wanted to learn. Nobody wants to be in that position.

Mustafa had a fatal accident back in 2008. He was in Malawi in Africa, his car flip and it flew not three meters and it broke nine trees. He though that his life is done, he was still 25. And he couldn’t think of too many regrets. He was in a coma and he was suffering for 15 months of some fractures but then later on what he thought is, if he got another chance in life, he have to really live it to the extreme, to his best and fullest potential. “If you have a passion inside yourself, my own definition of passion is; passions are the seeds that God implanted in your heart, in order to pursue your life purpose.” That’s Mustafa’s own definition of passion. So when God plant something in your heart, it means, you should open a door and explore it, if you have a calling about something, don’t close the door, because you will always regret it. And for me, I really didn’t want to regret. Even if it’s difficult, even if it would take some time to build what was coming.

“I humbly advise myself and everybody who’s listening to us. That every day when you wake up. Live your day to full expectations, do your best, think of as if it’s your last day in this life, whatever initiative, and you will really enjoy your day you will be enjoying your life. Even with all the hardships and challenges, at least you will be fulfilled” – Mustafa