#LifeLessons - Shab

NAME: SHAB

AGE: Old enough to know better!

INSTAGRAM HANDLE: @shabmusicofficial

JOB TITLE: Entertainer & Mega Mom 

Shab is a refugee from fundamentalist Iran and the youngest of the 13 children raised by her widowed mother after her father died from the stress of political persecution following the revolution.  After escaping Iran, she first attended boarding school in Germany for four years before receiving permission to come to the United States as a young teenager and as the last of her family to arrive in America. She landed unaccompanied and alone on a Lufthansa flight in New York, speaking no English and carrying all of her worldly possessions in a single, handcarried suitcase. 

Today she is a thoroughly American mom of two kids who began her pop music career rather late in life and has been blessed to have made four tours of the United Kingdom & Europe, with one of her final performances at The O2 in London. 

Her second album, ONE SUITCASE, will be released during early 2025: and the second single from that collection, SWERVE, is currently trending on social media as well as climbing the charts on MTV and SiriusXM.  

Shab shares her biggest life learnings with us today:

#LIFELESSON – 1  - BE BETTER EVERY DAY 

One thing that I have learned and very much taken to heart in the unusual course of my life is that no one else is going to take charge of your life.  It is your life and therefore your obligation to make the changes that you seek. 

Moreover, I believe that one of our obligations to God is to maximize the talents and abilities that he has extended to each of us. In failing to take action in terms of personal improvement, we are wasting away gifts that Our Maker has instilled in us. 

No great thing that has ever occurred in the history of mankind was born out of laziness. And when we hold ourselves back out of a lack of discipline or laziness, we fail to make progress.  

Besides: we will all have enough time to sleep when in our graves.  

There is no antidote for hard work and discipline in terms of striving to better oneself. For my own personal happiness and contentment, I have awaken everyday with the mindset that I'm going to work on some aspect of myself -- whether as a member of my family or my professional life or in my service to others. The remarkable course of my life and career would have been impossible without that mentality.  

And if you're not making progress, you're sliding backwards.  

So just get your ass in gear and do it. 

#LIFELESSON – 2  - LOVE IS SERVICE 

For myself, my greatest episodes of happiness are when I am able to be of service to persons who deserve and can greatly benefit from my actions.  

At the end of our lives, we will not be remembered -- and probably, judged -- for our personal achievements or how much money we have made. We will be remembered and judged for the positive effects that we have had on the lives of the people around us: and the degree to which we were willing to make sacrifices or inconvenience ourselves to have real impact on the lives of others.  

True leadership is rooted not in one's position but rather in service and love. And I have found that the best way to discover who I really am as a person, in order to find myself, is frankly to consciously lose myself in the service of others.  

And there can be no greater legacy than to have improved the lives of others whom you have never met and will probably never know. 

#LIFELESSON – 3  - DON’T LOOK BACK 

I myself have more strongly than ever embraced the reality that the past serves us no purpose, other than to have learned from prior events and circumstances. 

I have probably spent too much energy thinking about past situations that serve me no benefit and add no value to my life. And I guess to a degree that we all reminisce and dwell on our personal histories, but as I pondered that prospect over a number of months I realized that those mental exercises could have been spent in more fulfilling and forward-looking manners. 

You can't truthfully change your past: it is what it is. But your tomorrows will be changed as of your thinking and actions of today.   

Keep your eye on future goals while remaining committed to not repeating your past sins or mishaps.

And when you combine this forward focus with dedicated action and discipline, your world will change in the most magical and fulfilling fashions.