Asim Amin

Founder & CEO at Plumm | Empowering Minds & Building Thriving Workplaces | Passionate Mental Health Advocate

I’m the Founder & CEO of Plumm, the all-in-one HR platform with mental health at its core.

HR today is fragmented, companies juggle payroll, performance, compliance, and wellbeing across too many tools. Plumm brings it all into one platform, helping organisations cut costs, save time, and look after their people. Because no HR strategy is complete without mental health.

Plumm started as a mental health solution and has grown into a full-service HR platform, used by companies worldwide. Our mission is clear: make workplaces more productive, inclusive, and human.

I’m also the host of the Immigrants Building Companies Podcast, where I speak with immigrant entrepreneurs who’ve built companies against the odds, sharing lessons on resilience, growth, and leadership.

If you’d like to:
🚀 Book a demo with Plumm: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0mJb040 
🎙️ Discuss podcasts, speaking, or media features: taslynn@heyplumm.com

International Trade Program

Poor mental health costs UK employers up to £56 billion a year.

And yet, when employers invest even just £1 in preventative employee wellbeing, they see an average return of £5.30.

We’ve seen case after case, that happier employees make for a healthier business.

It’s why we developed Plumm: a seamless all-in-one, evidence-backed mental wellbeing solution for employers and their teams.

We support your team through our global and diverse pool over 200 accredited therapists and coaches, who can cater to their individual needs, preferences, and circumstances, regardless of where they are in their wellbeing journey.

Whether they can benefit from group learning, need professional help and personalised 1:1 therapy or coaching, or self-help resources, we've got it covered.

Ready to level up your team's wellbeing? 👉 https://www.plummhealth.com/request-demo

You’ll spend £4 a day on a latte without blinking.
But £27 a month for your health?
“Too expensive.”

That’s roughly what a WHOOP costs.
And no, not everyone needs a WHOOP.
It could just as easily be a gym membership. Plenty in the UK cost £20–£30 a month.

The number isn’t really the point.
It’s where the line gets drawn.

Some spending feels automatic.
Other spending gets questioned, even when it’s about your own health, energy, and how you want to feel day to day.

That says a lot about priorities.

Because health isn’t a one-off decision.
You don’t choose it once.
You choose it in small ways, over and over again.

Those choices compound.

And one day you realise how you’ve been feeling for a while now
more tired, less resilient, lower energy
or the opposite.

That’s why what you prioritise today matters more than it seems 👌🏼

PS: I still love coffee, but I’d rather have it home ;)

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Founder & CEO at Plumm | Speaker | Advisor

Let’s be honest.
 
Most of us f*cked up over the holidays.
 
Too much food.
Too much sugar.
Too much wine.
 
And now everyone’s pretending they “reset” on Jan 1.
BS.
Here’s what actually happens:
You enjoy yourself.
Then you feel guilty.
Then you convince yourself you’re already behind.
You’re not behind.
You’re human.
 
What’s messed up isn’t December.
It’s the idea that one month can “ruin” you.
Your body didn’t suddenly forget how to function.
Your discipline didn’t disappear.
Your year isn’t over because you ate more than planned.
 
The real problem?
People think progress has to be perfect.
It doesn’t.
Balance beats punishment.
Every time.
 
You don’t need extremes.
You don’t need to suffer.
You don’t need a diet built around how you look.
You need habits built around how you feel.
 
Energy > aesthetics.
Focus > abs.
Consistency > guilt.
 
So no, you didn’t fail January.
And no, you don’t need to “start again” next Monday.
You start today.
You eat better because it helps you think.
You move because it gives you energy.
You sleep because you perform better.
That’s it.
 
Just show up.
Again.
And again.
That’s how it actually works.
 
Happy 2026 everyone ✌🏼

Perfection is how average founders justify being slow.

I’ve done it.
Watched others do it.
Same outcome every time.

Early on, I hid behind “not ready yet”.
What I really meant was: “I don’t want the market to tell me I’m wrong.”
So I delayed.
Refined.
Overthought.
And nothing happened.

In the first 3–5 years, your product isn’t supposed to be good.
It’s supposed to move.
Because movement creates:
- feedback
- revenue
- momentum
Perfection creates meetings.

I’ve launched things that made me cringe.
They still taught me more in a week than months of planning ever did.
Most features I was obsessed with? Nobody cared.
The market told me that. Fast.

And the reality is, most founders fail because they wait until they feel confident.
Confidence doesn’t come before action.
It comes after exposure.

If you’re still polishing:
You’re not protecting quality.
You’re protecting ego.
Speed doesn’t mean sloppy.
It means honest.
And honesty compounds faster than perfection ever will.

DO NOT hire people who are good on paper.

The strongest hires I’ve seen recently weren’t the neatest on paper anyway.
A few gaps.
Not every box ticked.
Some rough edges.

But when things shifted, they didn’t stall.
That’s what stood out.
Work is changing faster than job descriptions can keep up.
By the end of this decade, around 39% of the skills people use today won’t be relevant anymore.
Most roles won’t disappear.
They’ll mutate.
Which makes “tool knowledge” a short-lived advantage.

In practice, I’ve learned to watch for different signals:
Who asks better questions once the brief gets fuzzy.
Who notices second-order problems, not just the task in front of them.
Who can disagree without becoming defensive.
Who recovers quickly after being wrong.

Those things don’t show up on a CV.
And they matter more when pressure is real.

Nearly 6 in 10 people will need reskilling in the coming years.
Yet the global workforce is still expected to grow.
So the edge isn’t experience alone.
It’s adaptability over time.

You can train systems.
Rewrite processes.
Roll out new tools.
What’s harder to build is judgement.
Curiosity under uncertainty.
The ability to stay useful when the rules change.

As automation takes care of the predictable, these qualities surface.
Not because they’re “soft skills”
But because they’re the difference between keeping up
and actually moving forward.

BREAKING 🚨 Europe just made its boldest move for founders in decades.

Yesterday at Davos, Ursula von der Leyen announced EU–INC.
A single, truly European company structure.
This matters. A lot.
For years, Europe hasn’t lacked talent, it’s lacked simplicity.
27 countries.
27 rulebooks.
Different equity rules.
Different compliance hoops.

So founders did the rational thing.
They incorporated elsewhere.
(Usually Delaware)

EU–INC changes the equation.
One corporate framework across the EU.
Incorporate online in 48 hours.
No mandatory notaries.
One legal entity, valid in all 27 countries.
Taxes and labour laws stay national.

The corporate layer goes European. That distinction is critical.
Because Europe’s biggest problem was never ambition. It was friction.

Scaling shouldn’t mean:
– Setting up new entities per country
– Reworking equity structures
– Burning seed capital on legal fees

If executed properly, EU–INC could unlock:
– Faster company creation
– Founder-friendly equity
– Easier cross-border scaling
– A real Single Market, not a theoretical one

Most importantly?
This is the first time Europe has clearly chosen builders over bureaucracy.
Execution will be everything.
Speed will matter.
Consistency will matter.
But the signal is loud and clear: Europe is finally building for founders 🇪🇺🚀

I didn’t wake up one day and decide to rethink health.
Life did it for me.

What surprised me wasn’t the moment itself.
It was what changed afterwards.

How quickly your definition of “healthy” shifts when it’s no longer abstract.
When it’s not about performance, or numbers, or discipline.
You start paying attention to different things.
How stress shows up in your body.
How sleep affects your mood, not just your energy.
How recovery isn’t optional if you want consistency.

Longevity stops being about adding years.
It becomes about protecting capacity.

The ability to think clearly under pressure.
To regulate stress instead of living in it.
To train, work, and live without constantly borrowing from tomorrow.

I’m reading Outlive at the moment.
What resonates most isn’t the science, it’s the reminder that decline accumulates through small decisions repeated daily.
Ignoring signals.
Normalising fatigue.
Treating rest as a reward instead of a requirement.

Perspective changes how you move through life.
You become less reactive.
More intentional.

Longevity, in that sense, isn’t about fear.
It’s about responsibility.
And once life forces that lesson,
you don’t approach health the same way again.

STOP focusing on your personal brand.

(I know, coming from someone who posts 5x week lol)
But hear me out.

A lot of people start building their personal brands, and then visibility comes:
the likes, the comments, the impressions, DMs
you somehow get momentum

but something doesn’t quite add up..
All those vanity numbers..all the likes, all the followers..
CAN’T fix a sh*t product
(or service)

The issue is that attention doesn’t give you breathing room. It does the opposite.
Once people are watching, they’re not just reacting to your ideas. They’re experiencing everything. The product. The service. The follow-up. The bits you were hoping to fix later.

If that experience is weak, people don’t argue about it. 
They just disappear.

I’ve seen people with impressive visibility struggle to keep customers.
I’ve also seen founders with no presence at all build businesses people stick with because the thing actually does what it says.

A personal brand doesn’t create trust. 
It spends it.

Does that mean you should not work on your personal brand? Absolutely not, you should.
But that shouldn’t be your priority.

Building an amazing product should be.
Building a fantastic service your customers can’t stop talking about should be.

Once you have that, then you can build your personal brand on top.
Just get your priorities straight.

And btw, sometimes the best move is to shut up, build properly, and let people talk later 👋🏻

If your best people are leaving..
it’s probably NOT about MONEY.

It’s about growth.
Companies that invest seriously in L&D see up to 50% higher retention.
Yet most still treat learning as a perk - or worse, a cost.

That’s not a people problem.
That’s a leadership one.

High performers don’t quit bad jobs, they quit stagnation.
When people stop learning, they don’t argue.
They don’t disengage loudly.
They don’t ask for more.
They just start planning their exit.

The data is blunt:
- 94% would stay longer with better development
- Growth opportunities now outrank pay for many senior performers
- Teams with weak learning cultures lose their best talent first

And yet we keep trying to fix retention with:
Bonuses.
Perks.
Offsites.

None of those solve stagnation.
Real L&D is whether someone leaves a year later with better judgment, broader scope, and more confidence than when they arrived.
If the answer is no, they’ll leave.
Eventually.

That’s why we don’t treat L&D as HR hygiene.
We treat it as leadership responsibility.
Because people don’t stay loyal to companies.
They stay loyal to growth.

“Go to HR.”

People hear it the same way they heard “go to the headteacher’s office” at school.
Somewhere you end up once things have already gone wrong.

That perception didn’t come out of nowhere.

HR usually gets involved after weeks of small things being left unsaid. 
Feedback is usually avoided. 
And, expectations are left vague. 
Managers hoping issues fix themselves. 
By the time HR shows up, there’s history, emotion, and momentum.

From the outside, HR looks like enforcement.
Inside, HR is dealing with accumulated silence.

Most problems don’t start as formal issues. 
They start as ordinary moments that weren’t handled early, when the cost was low.

When managers treat HR as the place difficult conversations go, people learn to associate HR with punishment instead of support.

If you want HR to feel human, managers have to do the human work first.

Clear expectations early. 
Feedback while there’s still room to adjust. Intervention before frustration hardens.

HR isn’t the headteacher’s office.
It just inherits what wasn’t handled sooner.

2026 HR trends you need to know:

1. HR will end up owning problems no one else wants
Because they sit between leadership intent and lived reality.

2. AI will finally expose how little most companies understand their own workforce
HR has been saying this quietly for years.

3. “Hiring shortages” will keep being blamed on the market
When the issue is internal talent stuck in the wrong places.

4. Job frameworks will keep getting rewritten
Work will keep changing faster.

5. Hybrid work will stay unresolved
Because many leaders still don’t know what good work looks like.

6. Burnout won’t be treated as a crisis
Until it hits delivery timelines.

7. As usual, HR will be looped in late,
then blamed early.

HR isn’t late. 
It’s just been convenient to ignore.

There’s one kind of decision
I never got used to making.

It wasn’t about direction or priorities.
It was about people, and knowing that whatever I chose would follow them home.

Later, it gets called a pivot. 
In the moment, it felt like sitting across from someone and realising you were about to change something you couldn’t take back.

I’ve been laid off before. 
I remember the shock, the quiet afterwards, the way it made everything outside of work feel suddenly uncertain.

I’ve also had to be the one delivering that news.
What stays with me isn’t what I said.
It’s what I saw.
The pause before someone replied.
The way they nodded, even when it hurt.
How often they asked about everyone else instead of themselves.

There wasn’t anger.
There was care.

People checking in on teammates.
Worrying about how the team would manage.
Trying to make sense of what came next.

That kind of response doesn’t come from policies or values written on a wall.
It comes from how people have been treated all along.

You don’t really understand leadership when things are moving fast and going well.
You understand it when something breaks and there is nowhere to hide.

We talk a lot about growth.
But responsibility shows up differently.
It sits with you long after the meeting ends.
Long after the decision is made.

Those moments are uncomfortable, and they should be.
Because once the decision is made, there’s nowhere else for it to land but on you.
You don’t get to soften it with language or hide behind process.
All you can do is stand in it, be clear, be honest, and make sure the people affected are treated with as much care as possible.
Not because it looks good.
Because you owe them that.

If things get hard → raise.
If growth slows → raise.
If you’re unsure → raise.

There’s a weird default in startups…
Everyone’s obsessed with raising.
But no one really stops to ask the boring question:

What exactly are we trying to buy with this money?

Not the pitch-deck version.
The one you’re honest about when it’s just you and the numbers.

Some of the best decisions I’ve made at Plumm didn’t happen after a round.
They happened when there was little (sometimes VERY little) money in the bank.
Because that’s when you’re forced to think differently.
You get creative.
You stop hiding behind “we’ll fix it after the raise”.
You really ask: what actually moves the needle?

Scarcity sharpens you.
It forces out-of-the-box thinking.
It makes you ruthless about priorities.
Sales matters more.
Focus matters more.
Every spend suddenly has to earn its place.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve been sold this fundraiser lifestyle.
The press.
The LinkedIn posts.
The idea that raising equals success.

But money isn’t success.
It’s just fuel.
And fuel on a bad engine doesn’t fix the engine.

There were moments where raising felt like the obvious next step.
And then we realised it wasn’t.
The better question became:
How do we push revenue?
How do we sell better?
What can we do without more capital?

Raising can make sense, I’m not anti-fundraising, but raising by default is a trap.
And sometimes, having less is exactly what makes you a better founder.
Because when there’s no safety net, your instincts show up properly.

You can’t make an A-player out of a B-player.

I know people hate hearing that.
I used to, too.

For a long time, I thought the right coaching, enough time, or “the right environment” would change people. It doesn’t. Not in the way founders hope it will.

I’ve tried. 
More than once. 
And every time, it cost the business.

Ash didn’t step up because he was promoted. 
He was promoted because he was already acting like it mattered to him personally.

No one had to chase him. 
No one had to spell things out twice. 
No one had to convince him to care.

He already did.
That’s the difference.
Some people feel ownership naturally. 
Others wait to be told what to do, how to do it, and when it’s “enough.”

You can train skills. 
You can’t train that internal bar.

At some point, I stopped trying to turn the wrong people into the right ones. And started backing the people who were already wired differently.

Everything got easier after that. 
Decisions. 
Trust. 
Progress.

Ash is a good example of this.
He is THAT person who takes responsibility even when no one is watching.
He cares.

If this makes you uncomfortable, good. 
It should.

PS: Choose carefully. 
And stop lying to yourself about potential.

The worst way to start a business:

	1.	Decide you want to be a founder before knowing what you want to build (because you like the “lifestyle”..)
	2.	Reverse-engineer a product that sounds good to investors, not customers
	3.	Build an MVP to justify a deck, not to solve a problem
	4.	Avoid talking to users because “we already know the market”
	5.	Call early confusion “vision”
	6.	Ship features no one asked for because they look impressive in demos
	7.	Measure success by meetings booked, not problems solved
	8.	Sell discounts as “traction”
	9.	Hire sales to compensate for unclear value
	10.	Blame sales when customers don’t convert
	11.	Add more features instead of fixing the core problem
	12.	Call lack of focus “moving fast”
	13.	Run internal meetings about growth instead of external conversations with users
	14.	Burn cash to protect the narrative
	15.	Pivot quietly, rebrand loudly 
	16.	Tell the team profitability comes after scale
	17.	Run out of time, not ideas
	18.	Buy PR articles to boost you ego

Remember: Build something people would miss if it disappeared.

Everyone wants the quick win.
The overnight success.
The shortcut.
The “one good idea”.
What they don’t want is the part before it.

It took me 10 businesses
and 27 years
to get here.

Because that’s how long it took to actually understand what works.
Most of those businesses didn’t fail, they just… faded.
Wrong timing.
Thin margins.
People problems.
Ideas that sounded good but didn’t survive reality.

Each one taught me something small and painfully specific.
How fragile cash really is.
How quickly momentum dies.
How often “almost ready” is just fear in disguise.

There was no big moment where it all clicked, just fewer mistakes over time.
The Plumm people see now isn’t the result of a breakthrough, it’s the result of repetition, and the sum of all the hard lessons learnt in those 27 years.

Everyone wants the result.
Very few want the years it takes to recognise one.
That gap is where most people disappear.

We all say we hate talking about money.
What we really hate is being exposed.

Because money has a way of cutting through the BS.

The biggest mistake I see some founders make is stepping away from numbers too early.

Because staying close to revenue forces uncomfortable conversations.

Sales conversations.
Pricing conversations.
Reality conversations.

Top line tells you if anyone actually wants what you’re building.
Bottom line tells you whether the way you’re building it is sustainable.

Ignore either, and you start lying to yourself.

I’ve seen founders obsess over growth while margins slowly collapse.

I’ve seen “strong pipelines” with no cash to show for it.

By the time they re-engage with the numbers, the options are already limited.

Spreadsheets aren’t finance work. They’re where the truth shows up first.

If you know your numbers, you feel in control.
If you don’t, you call it stress.

That’s the difference.

“Is there still a future in HR?”

That question keeps coming up because a lot of HR work is disappearing in plain sight.

AI is already handling the volume work.
Questions. Admin. Scheduling. Screening.
The things that kept teams busy and roles full.

That part isn’t coming back.

But much of that work was never the value.

For years, HR became the place unfinished thinking was sent.
Vague roles. Avoided conversations. Poor decisions dressed up as process.

AI exposes that.

Because once the admin goes, what’s left is judgement.
And judgement is harder work.

The future of HR belongs to people who can design work that still makes sense as organisations change.
Intervene early, before silence turns into resentment.
Support leaders when there is no policy to hide behind.
Read patterns humans feel long before data shows them.

AI can answer questions.
It can’t rebuild trust.
It can’t decide what “fair” looks like in a messy situation.
It can’t carry the weight of a hard call.

Teams using tools like Plumm are already shifting this way.
Less firefighting.
More thinking.

So yes, there is a future in HR.

But it belongs to those willing to step away from owning process
and into helping organisations make better decisions about work.

Cognitive decline starts earlier than what you think 
(and if you are 30+, you should be reading this..)

Yep, the decline starts in your early 30s..
way earlier than you expected, right?

And interesting enough, the other day I was reading how some studies put the difference between people who actively challenge their brains and those who don’t at 2–3 years of memory decline.
In some cases, closer to a decade…

So, I was like “Hold on a minute.. I need to do something about it..”

So I’ve been trying to go back to basics lately.
And yesterday, instead of doing anything particularly “CEO-productive”,
I did a puzzle.
No phone nearby.
No background noise.

What surprised me wasn’t that it was calming.
It was how unfamiliar it felt to concentrate like that.
Holding pieces in my head.
Remembering what didn’t fit.
Staying with the problem instead of jumping to something else.
That kind of effort used to be normal.
Now it’s rare.

The data on brain longevity is pretty consistent on one thing:
it’s not about consuming more information.
It’s about effortful thinking.
Puzzles, crosswords, problem-solving tasks - they show up again and again in studies on cognitive reserve.
They force the brain to slow down and work.

Kids do this instinctively.
Adults engineer it out of their lives.
Shortcuts.
Assistance.
Constant input.
The brain adapts.

I’m not claiming puzzles are a solution to anything.
But they’re a good reminder.
If brain health matters - not just now, but over time -
it’s worth paying attention to how often we actually ask our brains to do something hard.

Sometimes going back to basics isn’t regression.
It’s maintenance 👌🏼

PS: What was your weekend “brain activity”?

“Graduates should work for free.”

That’s not a hot take.
It’s exploiting the market while pretending it’s common sense.

What it really says is this:
We want output without accountability.
We want talent without doing the work of building it.

Entry-level roles were never meant to be efficient, they were meant to be formative.
You hired for raw potential.
You tolerated mistakes.
You invested time before expecting judgement.
That’s how people got good.

Now?
Many companies want graduates who arrive finished.
Tool-ready. Confident. Immediately useful.

And when they don’t?
The gap gets filled with unpaid labour.
“Trials.”
“Exposure.”
Open-ended internships with no real intent to hire.

The cost moves from the balance sheet to the individual.
Income disappears.
Waiting becomes the price of entry.
At that point, talent isn’t about ability, it’s about who can afford to be patient.

AI is making this worse.
The low-risk learning work is vanishing.
Junior roles are fewer.
The remaining ones demand judgement before judgement has time to exist.
Instead of redesigning how people grow, many companies opt out altogether.

Pay matters.
Not as a moral argument.
As a forcing function.
Pay creates obligation.
Clear expectations.
Feedback.
Actual management.

Without pay, there is no graduate role.
There is only unpaid labour with nicer language.

If you hire graduates, you’re making a choice.
Either you build capability, or you extract value and avoid responsibility.

We’ve always paid interns, because serious companies invest in the pipeline they depend on.

If you hire graduates, pay them.
That’s the line between developing people
and taking advantage of them.

He travelled the world building businesses. 
Then he came back to the UK.

James went to China at 18. 
1997. 
Six months to teach English.

He picked China because it felt hard. 
New system. 
New rules. 
Nothing familiar.
That choice shaped everything.

Working abroad showed him that business isn’t just about competence. 
It’s about knowing how things really work. 
What’s said. 
What isn’t.

In China, contracts were flexible. 
In the Philippines, age mattered more than ability. 
At 26, being young made selling harder.

He moved across Asia through a management programme. 
Different countries. Different businesses. 
Sometimes with a week’s notice.

Family brought him home.
He built a bike marketplace. 
It looked successful. 
Awards. Partners. Press.
But it didn’t work. 
Ethical supply couldn’t scale.

When his family needed him, he stepped in. 
He grew the recruitment business. 
88 people. Five countries. 
Sold in 2020.

He’s not an immigrant in the UK. 
But immigration shaped everything he built.

Today, he works with founders who are already carrying a lot. 
Helping them think more clearly. 
And make better decisions under pressure.

🎙️ Watch the full episode below. 
Link in the comment section.

Founder & VC Coach | Advisor | Speaker | Podcast Host

Building & Monetizing LinkedIn™ Assets

Most people treat LinkedIn like a megaphone.

I treat it like a conversation at a dinner party where everyone wants to sit next to you.

Here's the thing about LinkedIn that nobody talks about:

Your audience isn't scrolling to be sold to. They're scrolling to feel something. To learn something. To find someone who gets them.

That's where I come in.

I don't manage LinkedIn accounts. I craft presences that feel magnetic. Think of me as your LinkedIn brain, the one that's always three steps ahead, always reading the room, always knowing exactly what to say and when to say it.

What I bring to the table:

You build the business in real life. I make sure LinkedIn knows about it and talks about it.

→ I brainstorm angles that feel human, specific, and memorable.
→ I write content that sounds human, specific, and intentional.
→ I manage your posting schedule so you never miss a beat.
→ I craft comments and engagement that quietly grow reach.
→ I capture small moments and make them memorable.

What my clients experience:

Week 1: Your profile starts feeling alive
Week 4: Strangers are commenting with real perspectives.
Week 8: Your DMs shift from spam to "I need to hire you."
Week 12: LinkedIn begins sending opportunities your way.

No paid ads. No sleazy tactics. Just strategic content that positions you as the obvious choice.

The track record:

Managed 70+ professional LinkedIn accounts.
Generated 20+ million impressions without ads.
Single comments reaching 300k+ people alone.
Helped build multiple six-figure personal brands.
Created content people save, share, and reference.

I’m Top Rated Plus on Upwork and a Level 2 Seller on Fiverr, but more importantly, hundreds of people have trusted me with their voice. None of them regretted it.

This is for experienced founders, consultants, coaches, and leaders who want to be visible without trying too hard.

Most LinkedIn managers use the same formulas for everyone. I don’t. I build your presence like a custom suit or a dish made from scratch, designed specifically for you, not pulled from a template.

If this resonates, let’s talk.

Message me “LET’S DO THIS,” and I’ll walk you through how I’d approach your account.

- Bushra Nasrullah.

Bushra N.

A client messaged me on Upwork saying he was interested in my services.

I responded honestly and shared that I am not feeling well these days.

Despite that, he said:

“Let’s talk on a call before creating an offer.”

I hesitated, but I agreed.

He asked for my working days and time slots.
I shared my availability clearly.
He selected a time.

This morning, I showed up.

I waited. He joined a few minutes later.

I introduced myself.

And then he said:

“This position is not available anymore.”

I won’t lie, I felt upset.

Not because of rejection. Rejection is part of work.

But because my health is not at its best right now.

I have been avoiding meetings. Declining invitations. Protecting my energy on purpose.

And still, I showed up.

This experience reminded me of something very real:

Not every meeting deserves your energy.

Not every “interested” message deserves your health.

And not every opportunity is actually an opportunity.

Work will always exist.
Clients will come and go.

But health?
Once it declines, everything else pauses.

So I am choosing a simple rule again:

Health comes first. Always.

No project is bigger than your well-being.
No call is worth delaying recovery.

Sharing this for anyone who needs. permission to say:
“Not right now.”

Sometimes, protecting yourself is the most professional decision you can make.

No alternative text description for this image

I was the girl who wasn’t allowed to go out alone.

Now my work reaches people across the world.

That sentence still feels unreal when I type it.

People call it luck. I call it the year I finally moved.

Quietly.

From one room. → One laptop. → One belief.

Here’s what actually changed my life:

I was protected as a child, so I learned to build dreams quietly.

I used to look at the “Top Rated” badge on Upwork like it belonged to someone else. Now it’s on my profile.

I prayed for organic clients on LinkedIn. Today, my community brings work to me.

I wanted my Fiverr gigs to rank. They finally did.

I was told my CGPA would decide my future. Discipline decided it instead.

I proved to myself that you don’t need to leave your home or your values to build something global.

No shortcuts. → No pretending. → No blaming the market.

Just clarity. → Consistency. → And doing the work even when nobody was watching.

Psychology lesson I learned the hard way:

The world doesn’t respond to noise.
It responds to clarity.

When you stop chasing attention and start building assets, people find you.

I’m not at the finish line. I’m finally in rhythm.

See you at the next level.

P.S. What are YOU quietly building right now that others don’t see yet?

♻️ Repost if you’re building in silence too.

I didn’t own a cell phone until I started University.

In my environment, girls were kept "protected." 

→ The belief was simple: stay focused on your studies and wait until you are mature enough for the world.

My mother, who only completed 5th grade, made our education her life’s mission. 

→ She poured everything into ensuring we had the opportunities she didn’t.

And my father? 

(He was a Government Officer who lived for us. For 25 years, I only saw him on weekends.)

He spent a quarter of a century working away just so we never had to worry about money or struggle for the best institutions.

Today, he is recently retired. After 25 years of "weekends only," we finally have him home. 

Every success I have today, from $15k months to building a 25k+ community actually belongs to them.

People ask how I stayed so focused when I finally took LinkedIn seriously in 2025.

↳ The answer is simple: I had a foundation of sacrifice behind me.

I wasn't an "average student" because I lacked potential; I was just a girl being carefully prepared for a much bigger stage. 

My parents gave me the clarity and security to dream big.

To the parents who sacrifice their presence for their children’s future, this success is yours.

I am the first girl in my family to build a digital empire, but I’m standing on the shoulders of giants. 

(Never forget the roots that watered your growth.)

Alhamdulillah for everything.

P.S. Spend time with your parents while you can. Success tastes much better when you share it with the people who actually built you.

To the girl who thinks it's impossible:

I started with: 

- Zero knowledge 
- Zero network 
- Zero experience

Today: $88,000+ earned in 2025. Alhamdulillah. 💚

Three years ago, I didn't even know what "freelancing" meant. 

I spent my first entire year just sitting at my desk, trying to understand how Upwork, Fiverr, and LinkedIn actually worked.

I was an expert at nothing. I was just a girl with a promise to herself: 

"You have to figure this out... and you can."

I didn't buy fancy courses. I didn't have a mentor. I just practiced day and night until my "storefront" was ready.

I’m the first girl in my family to do this. 

I told my FatherI wouldn't let him down, and I didn't.

The only difference between that girl and the $88k version of me today? I refused to give up when it was silent.

You're next. Trust the journey. Trust Allah's timing.

Alhamdulillah for everything. 

What's one area of your business where you need more tawakkul? 

PS: If this resonates, please say "MashaAllah" in the comments! 💫

Sometimes I look at certain people and think, 'They're still fighting with the market.'

But it's not the market that's fighting them.

You see, every day I meet someone who says:

"LinkedIn is so confusing."
"Upwork doesn't work anymore."
"The algorithm keeps changing."

And my heart breaks a little.
Because I see their talent.
I see their potential.

But they're asking the market to do their work.
To figure out their message.
To decode their value.

And that's when I quietly whisper to myself,
"The market isn't confused... You are."

No growth tips today.
Just a gentle reminder:

When you're clear:

- Who you serve becomes obvious
- What you solve becomes visible
- Why you're different becomes natural

And suddenly, the market feels like home.

For everyone feeling lost right now: 
May this post find you. 
May it be your compass.

P.S. If you could share one clarity moment that changed everything for you, what would it be? 👀

I stopped asking, “How much can I earn this month?”

I started asking, “Will this still pay me in five years?”

That question quietly changed everything.

It changed how I look at LinkedIn.
It changed how I choose clients.
It changed how I price my work.

It even changed how I show up daily.

Most people use LinkedIn to find work. They optimize for quick wins.

One post → One client → One invoice.

There’s nothing wrong with that. But it keeps you stuck in survival mode.

I don’t want to depend on:

→daily posting to stay visible
→constant pitching to stay paid
→explaining my value again and again

So I stopped building activity and started building assets.

Assets that work when I’m offline.
Assets that attract without chasing.
Assets that compound instead of reset every month.

My parents didn’t build a life for quick applause.
They built stability. Character. Foundation.

I’m doing the same, digitally.

It’s not about the next viral post. It’s about the next decade.

P.S. Are you building for a month or a decade?

♻️ Repost if you’re thinking long-term.

A few years ago, I’ll be honest, I was a very different person.

I lived inside my own bubble.

Nice clothes. Looking put together. Keeping to myself.

If someone around me was struggling, I didn’t notice.

Not because I was heartless.
Because I was immature.

That version of me existed 3–4 years ago.

Life didn’t change me overnight. Independence did it slowly.

Responsibility has a way of sharpening you.

Today, my prayers start differently.

I don’t rush to ask for myself.
I ask for people who are trying quietly.
People doing the work without applause.
People who feel stuck but haven’t given up.

Pain doesn’t pass me by anymore.
I notice it. I respect it.

And the truth is many doors opened in my life for one simple reason:

I believed. Fully. Without hesitation.

I was raised protected. Always treated like the “little one” at home.

But my dreams were never small.

I didn’t fight the system.
I didn’t rush the process.

I grew into myself.

Slowly.
Silently.
Seriously.

Growth isn’t about becoming louder.
It’s about becoming steadier.

And that’s the part most people miss.

P.S. What changed you more time, responsibility, or independence?

(♻️)Repost if you believe real growth happens quietly.

The most exhausting thing on LinkedIn right now?

Pods.

You know exactly what I mean.

They like every post first.

Then share their own post with:
“please support 🙏 like + comment.”

Then another message.
“Client post, like and comment.”

And I’m sitting there thinking…are we building careers or running a support group?

Here’s my honest take:

The time we spend forcing likes on random posts, could be used to make our own content better.

I know organic likes are slow. Sometimes you post and nothing happens. It hurts the ego a little.

But honestly?

That still feels better than typing “amazing insight 🔥” on a post you barely scrolled.

I’d rather grow quietly than fake excitement loudly.

If likes aren’t coming yet, fine.

Improve the post. Say it clearer. Post again.

Trying again is easier, than acting impressed all day.

Hard truth: The hardest job on LinkedIn isn’t growth.

It’s pretending in pods 😒.

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The Battle

Asim Amin

Bushra N.

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taplio

The Battle

Asim Amin

Bushra N.

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Asim Amin's LinkedIn Performance

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