It ain’t just about bricks and mortar

Last Friday, I completed on an expensive flat in Central London; sure it brought an end to a tortuous 6 months, meant no more paying off someone else’s mortgage and was ticking off one of my big goals from H12025 ✅ but so what? 🤷🏻‍♂️

By ticking it off, I had just opened up the next set of house related goals [time to clean it, do some renovations, move all my boxes in, buy furniture, meet all the neighbours, etc] and in the grand scheme of things this doesn’t make me a better person or help improve the world [in fact, the world cares so little it’s ramped up its wars in response 😔] so why should I have so much fanfare about it?

Not every one of your stories is exclusively about you

As chance would have it, on the day I exchanged on the property, I happened to have one of my quarterly catch ups with a friend of mine who is a Professor at Harvard University (and also is a fellow child of Palestinian emigrants).

“What’s new with you Faris?” asked my friend

“Oh nothing much; I just bought a flat though”

“Oh wow! Massive congrats Faris, this is huge! You’re not doing this just for yourself, this will mean so much to your Family and to every Palestinian out there”

And so the realisation hit; this was important for so many reasons and I shouldn’t dismiss it all to quickly.

Here’s why:

1. I had achieved one of my major goals and that should always be celebrated 🥳
2. Achieving this goal in particular really does symbolically mark a new chapter in my life — It will allow me to re-engineer parts of my life (habits, hobbies, relationships and fun) that I want to change thanks to the vehicle of a new apartment 🆕
3. Achieving this goal means I can now focus more on other priority goals 🎯
4. Achieving this goal helps unlock many of my other goals that I’m still working on — (e.g. having a bigger dining space will allow me to host more dinner parties, having a balcony will allow me a better place to read all the books that I have, being closer to the park and gym will inspire me to run more) 🔒
5. Achieving this goal helps me to think bigger about all my future goals — it really does feel like I’ve levelled up 🙌
6. Buying this flat is also a celebration of the success of the business I started 5 years ago— I was only able to afford it because my business, Shiageto Consulting, was doing so well 🤝
7. Buying this flat consolidates the fact that I am going to stay in London for the next chapter of my life — I’d flirted with the idea of moving countries over recent years and this (at least for the time being) nipped that in the bud, much to the relief of family and friends 🏙️
8. Buying this flat gives comfort to my parents — whilst younger generations don’t put as much importance on buying property, for many others it gives the signal of greater financial stability. I know for sure, my parents felt they could rest easier as a result (plus it raises their hopes that I may fill the new place with more grandkids… First things first, I need to sort out my lack of relationship before that can change 🙄)
9. Buying this flat gives inspiration to others — you might not know it but others do get inspired (positively or negatively) by your story 🤔
10. When you’re roots are Palestinian (or any other race that has been displaced due to conflict and persecution), buying your own property is MASSIVE. This is an achievement not afforded to many people who come from these cultures (in fact right now many Palestinians are facing the loss of their homes due to forces beyond their control) 🍉

Do any of these resonate or am I a madman? [I do love feedback after all]

What’s next?

Despite all the talk of stopping to celebrate, life must also go on and I can’t wait to get stuck into my new place.

As well as setting the place up to be the most hospitable, comfortable and productive surroundings possible I also have a plan to embed myself in the local community.

Over the next 6 months, I intend to visit every shop, restaurant, café, bar within a 15 minute radius of my apartment.

I will buy something (a meal, a drink, a loaf of bread, etc) and introduce myself at every single one. The reason being: this is my neighbourhood now and I want to feel like Norm in Cheers 🙌 [dated reference so, for anyone not a boomer: I want to know everyone and have my name shouted down the street in a friendly way as I walk past].

If any of you fancy joining me for a leg of this adventure, let me know 😆.

I’ll also be updating my goals for H2 2025 [spoiler alert: this isn’t the only one I’ve achieved in H1 2025] so watch this space 😊

PS It wasn’t all about buying a house this week, I also spoke at 2 festivals, attended 3 conferences, recorded 2 podcasts and got shadowbanned on LinkedIn, alongside doing actual client work. Just a typical week in my life so make sure to hit follow to see what happens next week 🫣

Faris

Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness. Connect with him here

Success = IQ x EQ x FQ

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Originally Published on https://farisaranki.medium.com/

Faris Aranki Strategy & Emotional Intelligence

Having spent over 20 years delivering strategic change for the corporate and non-corporate worlds, Faris has experienced first-hand the fine differences between strategic success and failure.
His work has spanned numerous companies (from global behemoths to small start-ups), in numerous countries, across a range of sectors, supporting them all to unlock strategic success.

He came to realize that often what hinders institutions from achieving their goals goes beyond the quality of their strategy; it is their ability to engage effectively with others at all levels and remove barriers in their way. This has led to his passion for improving strategic effectiveness within all businesses and individuals and the foundation of Shiageto Consulting.

Over time, Faris has worked to distill his knowledge of how to solve complex problems in a structured manner combined with his skill on engaging effectively with others and his ability to quickly determine the barriers to a strategy's success. This knowledge has formed the foundation of Shiageto’s workshops, courses and methodologies. Faris believes that any firm or team can adopt these improvements; all it requires is a little of the right support -something Shiageto provides!

On top of leading our business, Faris is now an accomplished speaker and contributor for a variety of outlets.