In more than a third of my photos with my boys, I am
on the phone. I simply took my family for granted
Few invest the time and energy to prepare
for the inevitable changes life brings. As a consequence, we find ourselves scrambling to know what to do next. If we are to move from what feels like chaos to clarity, we need to approach life’s challenges with head and heart united. Just like a family office manages everything
related to wealth, a family health office does the same for the health and wellbeing of the family. As founder and chief executive of a multi family health office, Qineticare, my personal experience has allowed me to understand the importance of developing practical tools and techniques to unite the wisdom of head and heart. This is what gives us the clarity we require to take the kind of action that results in flow, which is often spoken of as being in “the zone,” a mode of being in which achieving excellence becomes virtually effortless. Uniting head and heart is a four-step process
involving learning to embrace a situation, trusting that it will work to our benefit, achieving clarity, and moving into a state of flow. It required three major crises to bring me to
the place where I could embrace whatever might arise. After these epiphanies I entrusted myself to life’s flow as I made decisions that sprang from absolute clarity.
LET ME SHARE MY STORY Within a year of getting married, my ability to accept a financial meltdown was shockingly tested in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. Whether it was my age of 30 or my idealistic view that everything would be okay, I was able to recalibrate, transforming our family
ISSUE 73 | 2018
business from a trading house to a multinational fast-moving consumer goods distributor with operations in 15 countries, seven in war-torn Africa, five in Eastern Europe, and buying offices in Hong Kong, Dubai, and Paris. This re-emergence allowed us to build a 10,000 employee business generating revenues of several hundred million dollars within a span of five years. I was clearly on top of my professional game and felt invincible. Then, at age 35, a fundamentally different
challenge was presented—stage three cancer, involving 10 tumors and a low probability of survival. My house was in order in terms of inheritance and succession planning, but with a one-year-old and a three-year-old I was not ready to throw in the towel. Accepting the cancer was not as difficult as preparing to say goodbye to my two little boys. I asked my doctors to give me the absolute maximum treatment possible. “If I am to die in peace, I have to be able
to look my children in their eyes, assuring them, ‘Baba did his best, but the Big Boss decided otherwise’.” I soon realised that the cancer had in fact
saved my life, sparing me from dropping dead of a heart attack as a result of my driven ways. I recognised I was being given a second chance. Was I going to continue living other people’s definition of success? Or would I seize the opportunity to live a life that was more in line with my authentic self? After the first five rounds of chemotherapy, I
got on my hands and knees, put my head in my spouse’s lap, and begged not to be taken back. It was my son’s four little eyes looking up at me that enabled me to muster the resilience to face the next toxic blast.
Top: Feisal Alibhai recalls spending too much family time on work via his ever-present smartphone
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