George Sahyoun - The Remarkable Journey of Karima

George Sahyoun built the Karima Group from the ground up, naming it after his mum—because sometimes the best business inspiration comes from home. As co-founder and director, George has turned entrepreneurial success into something bigger: genuine community impact through philanthropy and mentoring.

What sets George apart isn't just his business acumen—it's his commitment to lifting others up. From mentoring emerging entrepreneurs to leading community initiatives across Australia, George proves that true success means creating opportunities for the next generation. This conversation explores building legacy businesses, the power of family values in entrepreneurship, and why giving back isn't optional.

Key Takeaways:

• Family Unity and Resilience: George Sahyoun emphasizes the importance of family unity, highlighting lessons learned from his mother, Karima.
• Redefining Success: The pursuit of wealth is seen as a means to an end, with true success being measured by personal growth, community impact, and relationships.
• Generosity and Giving Back: Genuine fulfillment is derived from selfless acts of giving and supporting others, a core value instilled in George by his mother.
• The Impact of Legacy: The conversation underscores how individuals are remembered for their character and contributions rather than their financial status.
• Connection and Community: Despite advancements and achievements, the need for a strong sense of belonging and community remains paramount.

Notable Quotes:

• "Money's easy to make. A donkey can make money. It's what you do with it and how you approach it going forward."
• "She was like a lioness that protected her cubs, and we were her cubs."
• "It's more important to give back than it is to get."
• "The application is more important than the physical desire for money."
• "Ultimately, where does that leave you if you lose the essence of what it was all about in the first place?"

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Transcript

0:00:00 - (George Sahyoun): Money's easy to make. A donkey can make money. It's, you know, what you do with it and how you approach it going forward. It's only a means to an end. And the reality of it is we've been blindsided. We are so driven by material aspects. Money being the primary focus of that is that we've lost sight of what makes us a special community.

0:00:28 - (Debbie Draybi): Welcome to Finding Sanctuary. Our shared conversations into how we think and feel and how we find peace and comfort in daily life. We get together with experts to chat about all things mental health, getting insights and understanding on the struggles of life. I'm Debbie Drabe and I've got Natalie Majali here, Nat joining me, co hosting, which is always exciting.

0:00:52 - (Natalie Moujalli): Hi Deb.

0:00:52 - (Debbie Draybi): So we've got a wonderful guest with us today, George Sahun, who's the co founder director of Karima Group. George, such a pleasure to have you join us in our conversation.

0:01:05 - (George Sahyoun): Thank you for the invitation. I'm very, very keen to share our life experiences, especially with you two lovely young ladies.

0:01:12 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah, thanks. George, I understand that you've had an incredible journey. You're the co founder of Karima Group and I know Karima is a special name in your family and I wondered if you wanted to tell us a bit about who Karima is and a bit about that wonderful story that got you here.

0:01:29 - (George Sahyoun): Sure. Karima is actually the name of my mother or my late mother who passed away during the COVID period. She lived a wonderful life, 93 years. Karima is a daughter of a priest, left Lebanon when she was 16, 17, came to Australia to set up a life, got married in her late twenties which was unusual. Then had four children. Unfortunately after the birth of the fourth child, my youngest brother, my father passed away at the age of and she was left with four children, 321 and 1 day old and had to leave hospital to attend the funeral. A different phase of her life started and unfortunately for her it was just a long hard experience, but one that she handled with great ability and with great strength.

0:02:21 - (George Sahyoun): Karima, the name itself actually means generosity and she displayed that through her whole life, mainly through her children, but at the end of the day through her own workings within the community and how she handled her day to day experiences.

0:02:36 - (Debbie Draybi): Thank you for sharing that. You know this profound loss in your family from such a young age. Are you the eldest?

0:02:42 - (George Sahyoun): I'm the oldest. I was three years old. I don't physically remember my father and for that matter my mother was only married for four years, literally. She was widowed for 60 odd years. So when you put that into context, you realise that her life with her husband was very short and was very productive. But the reality of it is I was the eldest, had three younger brothers, we were very close, a year apart.

0:03:09 - (George Sahyoun): We grew up as a very, very close family. And as a result of that, the formation of the Karima group eventuated.

0:03:17 - (Debbie Draybi): What an incredible journey that you shared together with your family and the wonderful lessons that your mum modelled for you that I understand you now take into your life as a father, as a grandfather, but also as a founder of an incredible.

0:03:32 - (George Sahyoun): The strange thing is I learned to be a father from a lady. So it was an interesting interpretation of what it was like to be mother and father and handle both roles quite successfully. So that for us was an interesting evolution into our own fatherhood and our own state.

0:03:52 - (Natalie Moujalli): I can imagine that that would be difficult on so many levels. George, Deb, you said something about the lessons that their mother taught them that they've carried on through their life. What were some of those lessons that you feel? Because I know that it was really tough going at the beginning for your mum.

0:04:08 - (George Sahyoun): Yeah, look, we were poor, Mum had a mortgage when my father passed away. She was a Lebanese migrant, Her English was average, she had to pay bills, she had to bring up four boys, educate them, put them through school and further education. One of the big issues was her resilience, her ability to handle any situation, her strength, her focus, her commitment to her boys, her love for her children. At the end of the day, the self sacrifice that she made to make sure that we lived a pseudo normal life and that was all about her boys.

0:04:48 - (George Sahyoun): The thing that I did learn was focus on family. Everything was about family. Anyone that interrupted that particular scenario, she was very, very aggressive and literally protected her boys to the end. So she was like a lioness that protected her cub and we were a cubs. We learnt from the best and we took that on into our life. We took that on into our business, we took that on into our own families.

0:05:12 - (Natalie Moujalli): Fiercely protective, fiercely protective.

0:05:14 - (George Sahyoun): Anyone that came anywhere near her boys felt the wrath. Even our own wives.

0:05:19 - (Natalie Moujalli): I can imagine. So our wives wouldn't be easy.

0:05:22 - (George Sahyoun): Our wives have an in joke that our mother was, didn't like the fact that we all went off and got married because they took her boys away from her. So it was an interesting interpretation of life in itself.

0:05:35 - (Natalie Moujalli): Well, you very much were her life, you know, after the loss of your father. I'm sure that all she knew was to love and protect you guys.

0:05:43 - (George Sahyoun): Look, she had nothing else in her life, to be honest with you, and that's probably in later life, that led to loneliness and isolation and all these other traumatic aspects in her own life, which she dealt with in her own way. But the reality of it was everything was about her boys. Every single move that she made. Whether she got up at 3am in the morning to go to work in a factory, whether she she rented out the rooms in the house, whether she took on us another job just to make ends meet, that was all about us. And I even recall when we used to have dinner, she would never eat with us.

0:06:19 - (George Sahyoun): She would wait till we were finished to make sure that we all had food. And if she ate, she would be the last to eat and she would literally eat whatever was left over. So it was everything about us. We didn't think we were poor, we didn't think we were neglected, we didn't think there was anything wrong with. We just thought that was all normal until later in life where we started to appreciate the life lessons that she taught us.

0:06:43 - (Debbie Draybi): Oh, George, so many incredible lessons there. I'm thinking about how it's landed for you. How are those life lessons that she's taught you, that she's modeled for you, translated for you in your life and how you lead your life.

0:06:56 - (George Sahyoun): The first thing that happened to us is that we realised that we had to survive. Survival was a big issue for us and we worked out very quickly that if we stuck together as a family, there was strength in unity. She taught us that family was everything. And we went on to create the Karima group as a result of that. It was four of us together. We came out at different times to go into the business. But the primary purpose of the business wasn't just money, it was more than that. It was the solidarity and the unity of the family unit and our ability to get out of the circle of poverty that we were in and break through into a different lifestyle. And we evolved with that over time.

0:07:44 - (George Sahyoun): People thought originally it was all about money. Even I thought at one stage that, you know, I want to be a millionaire. And in those days being a millionaire was big. These days it's probably not as much of a challenge, but the reality of it was that was a naive 16 year old boy who knew nothing more. And then once we evolved into adults, parents and subsequently grandparents, all that seemed to dissipate over time. And we changed our focus away from money into a means to an end, a means to provide, a means to cherish our lifestyle as a unit. And we were fortunate in that it Worked.

0:08:24 - (Natalie Moujalli): You talk a little bit about coming from poverty into this period of success and how that period of success has changed for you. What the definition of success has changed for you? I'm curious because, you know, we are Lebanese and we're part of a big community and culture. How does someone like your mum, who has four children under the age of three experience poverty whilst being part of that big Lebanese culture?

0:08:52 - (Natalie Moujalli): Like, what was that experience like for her?

0:08:55 - (George Sahyoun): First of all, she had the reality of four children. She had the reality of providing in a financial context. But the Lebanese community is the best and worst. The best in the sense that everyone rallied around, that's my understanding, around the funeral time, two, three months later, everyone gets on with their lives. Mum was literally on her own. Being a single mother in that era was quite isolating experience because no one really wants a single parent in visiting their home.

0:09:27 - (George Sahyoun): These stray children that don't belong to anybody, coming into their environment and corrupting their children. So there was a sense of isolation. We were ostracized in some sense, taken in in some sense. So on the surface everything was great on the surface everybody was very helpful and cheerful and everything else like that. But the reality of a day to day existence totally different. And being ostracized brings you back to reality that you only have one core unit, that's your own family. So you tend to go back and regroup.

0:09:59 - (Natalie Moujalli): It pushed you closer together as a unit to survive.

0:10:02 - (George Sahyoun): It creates the survival mechanism. Mum had a tough go with it, but she was really tough. No one could walk over my mother, no one would push her around, no one could tell her what to do. She was actually quite obstinate in some respects and very tough. But I now interpret that later in life as resilience, survival mechanism. It was a shield that she put up. She had a lot of barriers. But you know, if you're a little lady in the middle of western suburbs bringing up four boys, there weren't too many ways to survive. And being tough was one of them.

0:10:36 - (Debbie Draybi): Absolutely. As I hear you talk. I've not met her, but I can imagine this strength and resilience and this incredible power to keep you together and determination.

0:10:48 - (George Sahyoun): What choice did she have? It's motherhood. I'm a male espousing all these female attributes. The reality of it is she's the most important person in our life. She had the strength, she had the commitment level and she was dealt a pretty bad deck of cards. But the reality of it is she played those cards and they came out.

0:11:11 - (Natalie Moujalli): At the end you know what's interesting? I've known George for decades now, so that's not how he ended up on this podcast. He was referred by one of our board members, George Curie. He said, you've got to have this man. And he told his whole story. And then at the end of it, I said, this is sounding a little familiar. What's this man's name? He said, oh, George Sahun. I said, uncle George. He's like, how is he your uncle? I said, he's not blood related to me, but I grew up with his eldest daughter.

0:11:37 - (Natalie Moujalli): And hearing you talk really highlights to me that you're actually surrounded by strong women. Your wife is a strong woman. Your daughter is a strong woman.

0:11:46 - (George Sahyoun): God help me.

0:11:47 - (Debbie Draybi): It's.

0:11:47 - (Natalie Moujalli): No, it's really beautiful because you could see that that's how your mother was like that. And then that's what you ended up surrounding yourself with. And it's. It's inspirational and beautiful.

0:11:57 - (George Sahyoun): It's a testament to womanhood. I mean, I dare say, put a man in a similar situation, I'm not sure whether he would have handled it as well. I'm pretty sure the reality of life, women have a more sensitive interpretation of it, and I think she was able to help us through that with a greater degree of success. Whereas I think men would probably be a little bit more black and white in their interpretation.

0:12:21 - (George Sahyoun): My opinion.

0:12:22 - (Debbie Draybi): By the way, I've kept thinking about what you said earlier. You know, how initially the intention for you and your brothers was to build wealth and to set up your business. And the focus on money initially, but then that shifted quite dramatically to the point now that that's irrelevant. It's about that connection and that family. I'm wondering, you know, if you have some guidance for some of our listeners who are in that bind of wanting to make money and find success.

0:12:50 - (Debbie Draybi): But at the same time, when they do get there, often they lose sight of why they started to begin with.

0:12:57 - (George Sahyoun): It's gonna sound like a strange statement. Money's easy to make. A donkey can make money. It's, you know, what you do with it and how you approach it going forward. It's only a means to an end. And the reality of it is we've been blindsided. We are so driven by material aspects. Money being the primary focus of that is that we've lost sight of what makes us a special. And what we were able to do was graduate out of the basic desire for hard coal cash into what was the purpose of the cash and where did it go and what did it do so it bought our first lounge suite. It helped us put a deposit on a house.

0:13:44 - (George Sahyoun): It sent my wife on her first shopping spree, which, God help me, but it paid for our kids education. It put them through university. It buried my mother when she passed away. The application is more important than the physical desire for money. We all end up in the same location at the end of our lives. None of us take money with us. We learned that very quickly when my brother passed away at the age of 38.

0:14:11 - (George Sahyoun): We were invincible at that stage. We had over a thousand employees who were making a lot of money. We used to call him the patron saint of lost causes. Cause he used to help everybody and anybody. And then this tragic accident and we found out that life is not in our control. We threw into his, when we buried him a packet of cigarettes and a can of coke because that was his two pet habits. How tokenistic is that when you think about it? The reality of it is we take nothing with us.

0:14:44 - (George Sahyoun): But what he did leave behind was his legacy. And if anyone knows, my brother Arthur, he was the patron saint of lost causes. We literally had at his funeral over four or five thousand people. We sent Westmead Hospital and Our lady of Lebanon into gridlock. Now that wasn't about money. That was not about money at all.

0:15:04 - (Natalie Moujalli): It was about character.

0:15:05 - (George Sahyoun): It's character, it's legacy. And that legacy was built on the foundation of my mother. Because, you know, remembering her name, it's all about generosity. And what was he? The most generous person I've ever met in my life.

0:15:17 - (Debbie Draybi): Such a generational gap from Karima to now, the grandchildren. So what's a special way do you think that you can keep her story, her memory, her.

0:15:26 - (George Sahyoun): It's a hard one, actually. I thought about that coming into here. And like, my mum still lives in my head. So she's very much ingrained in everything I do. Our children got to meet and experience their grandmother and they saw her idiosyncrasies and her strange behavior and the food that she cooked and everything else has got some great memories. Unfortunately, the grandchildren don't have that connection.

0:15:53 - (George Sahyoun): They have the association through their parents and through their grandparents, which happen to be us. But even that's being diluted as we go down. We still do it through, you know, we have yearly masses for mum and our wives still cook meals that mum used to make for us. And we do all those other types of things. But I think that whole interpretation is being diluted and lost over time. It's probably more through the value set that we've passed down than it is from a national experience of it.

0:16:21 - (George Sahyoun): We still got pictures everywhere, but they don't know who that lady is. We kind of. We tell them. And there's some very, very faint association there, but it does get lost over time, unfortunately. Part of keeping a story going is to come something like this. I've had people suggest we should make a movie or write a book about her or something like that, which I was very honoured about. But being able to pass on her story is not about talking about Mum, because I don't need to explain to anyone that she's great to me, but if I can share her tenacity, her strength, her focus on family, her ability to be able to survive, she was a survivor. You know, we talk about refugees coming from over and then, you know, trying to make it, but we get them put on the doll.

0:17:09 - (George Sahyoun): Mum never did that. She brought up four boys. She didn't do a bad job and she lived a long, healthy life. She, to me, is very successful.

0:17:19 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah, absolutely.

0:17:21 - (George Sahyoun): Passing that legacy on from my mother to my brother and to the rest of the family was super important. You know, that turned us around completely because all of a sudden we saw a different meaning in life and we really had to look at the fragility of what we do, how we do it. And then we just changed the way we lived. We had a different focus on our family. We had a look at what we could do to help other people. And we'd been doing that constantly anyway.

0:17:51 - (George Sahyoun): And we don't often talk about this, but we do do a lot behind the scene because we have to give back. It's all about giving rather than taking. It's easy to make money, it's not easy to give money away. And I defy the Lebanese community in total to not act like they're generous, but to be generous.

0:18:11 - (Natalie Moujalli): So what do you mean by that? Like, it's more important to give back than it is to get.

0:18:16 - (George Sahyoun): We've been blessed. We came to this country or my parents came to this country and we have been blessed with every opportunity. You can be whatever you want in this country and you can be good, bad at it. You can do nothing. You can do everything. There aren't many people that haven't got the opportunity to do something, give back to some degree. It's their choice. But what do you do with your life?

0:18:43 - (George Sahyoun): What is your legacy?

0:18:45 - (Natalie Moujalli): Why do you think it's so important to give back? Like, what does that bring to you? How does that make you feel?

0:18:51 - (George Sahyoun): Look It's a very selfish thing, giving. Actually. I actually get more enjoyment out of giving than I. We were brought up that way, so mum gave all the time, so you need to give. And ultimately giving is a blessing that you get back 10 times over. And the act of giving in itself is an amazing thing. Whether it's, you know, you put $5 in a plate at church, or whether you take something to a homeless person, or whether you go and do something for the church or you just go and help the neighbour next door.

0:19:23 - (George Sahyoun): Giving is everything. It's part of your day to day life. People, we've lost the art of giving. We've lost the focus of where we came from and what we're about. And that's super important, what we're finding in our community.

0:19:41 - (Debbie Draybi): People are quite lost. That accumulation of wealth, that rapid success often in one generation, seeing that it's lost all meaning and it's really disconnected them from where they started.

0:19:54 - (George Sahyoun): I'll give you the classic irony of the third generation loses it all. And the reason they lose it because they've got no context. They see their parents squander it away, whether it be on bags or big flash cars and everything. That's not to say you don't have any of that type of stuff, but there's a point where it's only material and the materialistic approach is very limited. And if that's what you're showing your children, I can guarantee you the next generation will spend it and they'll have nothing because they've got no context in where it came from.

0:20:23 - (George Sahyoun): The reason I can say that with a degree of certainty is that I understand where my mother made her money and why she'd made her money. She was there to support, put food on the table, to pay the bills and everything else and to send us to school. And I still remember that we've tried to pass that on to our children. Our children have got it. I'm not sure whether our grandchildren are gonna have it, but it gets diluted through the various generational shifts.

0:20:50 - (George Sahyoun): Ultimately we still have to maintain the dignity and strength that comes with the Lebanese community. And we have got it. We have got it.

0:20:59 - (Debbie Draybi): For those that are listening, that feel they're at that point where they're losing it, what's something that they can do to reconne with the true meaning in the way that you've described, you know, with your mum.

0:21:10 - (George Sahyoun): This is a personal opinion, so please take it. We've got to get back to what being Lebanese is all about and being Christian. Lebanese to go with it. Our value sets, what it means to be a Christian. It's very simple. If we just interpret that in a very literal sense, we would start giving and not taking. We would start valuing other things rather than money. It's about your morality and it's about how you live your life and your value sets.

0:21:42 - (George Sahyoun): And we don't pretend to have it right and we struggle with it every day. We've had problems in our respective families. We've had wins, we've had losses, we've made money, we've lost money, we've gone through all the natural things. But at the end of the day, if you looked at the scorecard, we're probably on the positive side as opposed to the negative side. And that changed over time. You know, as we get a little bit older, hopefully we're getting a little bit smarter and the interpretation is getting a little bit more sophisticated.

0:22:12 - (Debbie Draybi): It's really understanding the depths of true success. And you know, rather than this linear, very rigid understanding that success is about money and wealth, it's much broader than that. And you've given some beautiful examples around that.

0:22:26 - (George Sahyoun): Look, I think the great people in history, no one ever mentioned that they had $500 sitting in the bank, 5 million or $5 trillion sitting in the bank. Great people are the ones who contributed to society.

0:22:40 - (Natalie Moujalli): They left their mark on the world.

0:22:41 - (George Sahyoun): And they left their mark now. You know, not all of us are going to be great saints or, you know, Rhodes scholars, but we can help just that one person. And if we all help that one person, everyone ultimately would be in a better position than where they are today. So it's a simplistic approach, but we really gotta get refocused.

0:23:02 - (Debbie Draybi): I think that's the key. We have complex issues in our community and a lot of it has to do with wealth and success and status. But the solutions are simple. It's coming back to your identity and your roots.

0:23:16 - (George Sahyoun): My parents generation, most of the ones that I've met have been hard, honest, God fearing people. So we all literally had the same base. My mother was for me was great, but she was one of those people. Your parents, my parents, someone else's parents, they all got, they came from the same stock. So we could all end up doing the right thing if we just remember where we came from. That past will help dictate where our present and our future is.

0:23:48 - (George Sahyoun): And ultimately, if we want to sit in this money scenario in today, what are we passing on to our children? Because, you know, it's either the golden chalice or the poison chalice? I'm not sure which one it is.

0:24:01 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah.

0:24:01 - (Natalie Moujalli): Or both. It's the. The poison in the golden chalice. You know, it's a little bit scary that what we are passing down is a lot of the good times, you know, like you said about this generation, possibly, like, kind of spending their money and, you know, whatever it is, cars, it's bags, it's holidays. Guilty of all of those things.

0:24:23 - (George Sahyoun): There's nothing wrong with them, and there's.

0:24:25 - (Natalie Moujalli): Nothing wrong with them as long as we need to figure out, are they your servant or are they your master? You know, does it control your life or is it something that's in your life? But what I fear that we're not passing on to our children is how hard it was to get to this place to be able to do those things. So they're seeing kind of a lot of the positives, but they're not seeing the hard work and the grit and the sacrifice that it took to get to those places. That's.

0:24:50 - (Natalie Moujalli): That's a bit scary because they're growing up and they're going, this is fun. These holidays are great. This car is beautiful. But they're not really understanding the journey. And you're saying that even for you, the journey and your understanding of success from when you were 16 to however old you are now, like 41, we won't mention that it was different and it matured and it changed for you.

0:25:11 - (George Sahyoun): You know, one of our aspirations. I've got a brother who's out there. He's. His big aspiration in life is to sit on a milk crate and have coffee with his mates. He's wealthy. You know, what he wants to do is buy a $5 cup of coffee. He probably doesn't even pay for that. Someone else would buy it for him. He wants to sit on a crate and talk rubbish for two hours.

0:25:30 - (Natalie Moujalli): Simplicity.

0:25:31 - (George Sahyoun): That's his interpretation of success. I'd value the crate at probably a dollar, the coffee, maybe 5, 6, 7 dollars. These days, the sum total of that experience is $10. Is he wealthy? Absolutely. I've never asked what he's got in.

0:25:48 - (Natalie Moujalli): His bank account, but do you need wealth for that cup of coffee and time with your mates?

0:25:52 - (George Sahyoun): You know what it is? It was his mates. He was with his friends, his family, who were his boys, whatever it is, that was success. But having the luxury to do that, obviously, I'm not taking away from the fact we all need to work hard and we need to accommodate a certain level of lifestyle. But. But ultimately, where does that leave you if you lose the essence of what it was all about in the first place?

0:26:17 - (Debbie Draybi): I think that's been a huge theme in our podcasts around the importance of building, you know, that social capital, the connections, the relationships, which often wealth creates barriers for. Because my dad used to often say, when we came to this country, we had one car and we shared it in the community and we lived together, you know, this real collective sense of connection. And now everyone's in their mansions and multiple cars in one family and there's such a disconnect.

0:26:47 - (George Sahyoun): When we were brought up, we used to go to my auntie's place every Sunday for lunch because she was the head of the family or the matriarch. And that barbecue was a thing I remember and I'd give a million dollars to go back to that. But it was a simple barbecue, but it was family. We had to catch a train to get there because we never owned the car. And. And we forget those things. I would defy asking anyone what their best memories are. And it's got nothing to do with buying the handbag or going on the holiday. It's who they were with, where they were with them and the times that they maybe drank too much with them or ate too much with them or just told out and out rubbish for four or five hours. And they're the memories.

0:27:32 - (George Sahyoun): Like even with Nat, my memories of her with my daughter and they'd come to our house or they'd go the other way. They're golden. Memories, memories. They're the things that are worth something. I don't care how much money she's got with my kids, I was very lucky. Their circle of friends were good people.

0:27:49 - (Natalie Moujalli): That's so important.

0:27:50 - (George Sahyoun): But again, got nothing to do with money.

0:27:52 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah.

0:27:53 - (George Sahyoun): So my mum taught us all about family values, friendships, true friends, because we worked out real quick who were friends and who weren't friends. That was a skill set that we developed real quick. We went through our business experiences with this street smart that she gave us because she wasn't educated in today's context, but we had street smarts to the nth degree. We could pick a hustler from a mile away, cause we were hustlers.

0:28:22 - (George Sahyoun): We could pick a legitimate person or a liar because mum was great at doing that. She could pick them from a mile away and she'd tell em to their face like she was black and white with it. So, you know, some of our skills and everything that went with it we got from her. And we took that into our business life. And we've taken that subsequently into our parenting and grandparenting life.

0:28:44 - (Natalie Moujalli): You've carried so many positive things along with you from that. But we were all just sitting in the room and we were talking a little bit about trauma and grief. How do you feel like that's impacted the journey?

0:28:57 - (George Sahyoun): Trauma? I learned today what the definition of trauma is. So my mother definitely was traumatised, and she was a single parent very early in her life, and for the majority of her life, she was lonely. The trauma of that, as children, we actually didn't have a father. So for the bulk of our lives, we were missing this traditional role of what a father is. And the experience of growing old with your father and anyone that has a father, you should value them because they actually provide such an integral part in the development as an individual. So we missed out on that. Even though Mum tried to compensate for that.

0:29:43 - (George Sahyoun): The lack of male role models in our life was a trauma in itself, if that's a technical definition of that. We found those kind of role models in our business life. I was fortunate in my career that I had a. A guy, an md, who I work for, that just saw the potential and he gave me opportunity. Like I was going out of style, and I was able to capitalise on that. I ended up being a director of a multinational company at the age of 26 and traveled the world.

0:30:15 - (George Sahyoun): But you know what it was all about. This guy believed in me, and I was waiting for that. Took me 26 years to get there to find that guy, or he found me. I'm not sure which one it was. But, you know, you talk about some of the. The experiences and the traumas and the negatives and everything else like that. And the four boys dealt with it okay. I just think the ultimate trauma was Mum being lonely for most of her life, even though she had a lot around her, the family and everything else like that.

0:30:43 - (George Sahyoun): Being a single parent or being on your own is not having that adult companionship. It's quite traumatic, I think. And I didn't realise how lonely she was until, you know, much later in life, because you look back on it with different set of eyes.

0:30:58 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah, I think that's been a huge motivator for us in this podcast, understanding that there is a lot of lonely people out there. Whilst we're a big community, it can be very isolating and lonely for some people. And I wondered, you know, if any of our listeners out there who are in that state and feeling quite lonely, what's something that you'd suggest for them? You know, what's something that you would have wished for your mum during those lonely times?

0:31:27 - (George Sahyoun): Yeah, look, for my mum in particular, I wish that she was part of the Lebanese community as opposed to being on the edge of it. She was part of it. There wasn't like she got invited to the weddings and the funerals and the christenings and all the formal things. But being part of the day to day experiences is what she missed out on. So her belongings to a community as opposed to being on the fringe of it.

0:31:57 - (George Sahyoun): I met my wife at a Blouser association bus trip to the snow, but that was being part of the community. So you know, the dividends when you go down that path are immense and you know, it's more about a sense of belonging. We have got a lot of lonely people out there. We've got a lot of people who need guidance. They've just got to reach out. Whether it's through a formal structure like the church or whether it's through networks or the Australian community offers a million different ways to talk to people.

0:32:30 - (Natalie Moujalli): Well, one of those ways you just kind of mentioned the significance it had on your life where you said that the MD that kind of took you under his wing and kind of provided that mentorship for you. I know that you do the same thing in a few people's lives as well. So you've now become a bit of a mentor to people. So that's also a way of feeling like you belong and it's a way of connecting to the community, especially when it's in the right environment that your interests lie in.

0:33:01 - (George Sahyoun): My mentoring is typically geared around business related because that's the first thing they come to you for and they think, oh well, you're a successful business person. How do I become rich? I always talk to them about their life goals as opposed to their business plan. We get to the business plan, but I talk to them about how they, where they want to be, where they see themselves in the next five, 10 years.

0:33:24 - (George Sahyoun): And the business component comes into it. But what they realize is they've got a bigger plan. So I quite enjoy the mentoring side of it and I do that for quite a lot of people. My other brothers do too, oddly enough. And my late brother who passed away, he was the ultimate mentor. He tend to attract an interesting combination of people and we all are very eclectic in our mentorship. But the mentoring for me is about an opportunity to give back to somebody.

0:33:53 - (George Sahyoun): Something that I got. It was a blessing, it was an absolute pleasure. Set me on a career path which Just went. It was astronomical. So if I give that back in a small way or in a number of ways, I'm happy to do that. I think there's an obligation on the, the older community to take people under their wing and give them the time of day. Even if it's a conversation, let alone sit down and do a business plan, that's not what it's about at the end of the day. It's about listening, having someone take notice of you and then build you into their network.

0:34:30 - (George Sahyoun): So I've been really lucky with a lot of people and the mentoring is really a process where we both grow in the exercise. So it's been good. It's been really good. Actually.

0:34:43 - (Natalie Moujalli): I think we used this quote when we did the grand opening for the Friends of Friends project almost two decades ago in the Khalil Gibran exhibit in the New South Wales State Library. But there's the saying, he says you give but little when you give of your possessions. It's when you give of yourself that you truly give.

0:35:03 - (George Sahyoun): Yeah, I've read that. I love Khalil Shiwon. So.

0:35:06 - (Natalie Moujalli): So it's just that very much sums up what you've been talking about today.

0:35:10 - (George Sahyoun): Look, my mother gave to us. We gave to all these people that we hired and nurtured. Someone gave to me in a career sense. I'm passing that on in a family context, but also in a greater community context. I think the Lebanese community's got so much to offer. We've got so many successful people. The reality of being able to share them, that is just frightening. We are an amazing community. If we got together, unfortunately, we're individuals primarily.

0:35:45 - (Natalie Moujalli): Maybe when it comes to success, we.

0:35:47 - (George Sahyoun): Have the propensity to be the most successful community in this country. We just don't do that as a collective. And if every single business person out there took one person under his wing, we would be the most successful community in the whole of this world. Because we've got so many clever people, we have got this innate skill, passion, business sense in us. I realized that when I went for my first job, I was a natural born street hustler because it's in our Lebanese blood.

0:36:21 - (George Sahyoun): I was there to make the deals happen, everything else to go with it because it was an innate gift that we had. Share the gift. It's a little bit more sophisticated now. It's a little bit different to when I went from my first interview for a job which happened to be about 300 odd people, all had the same degrees that I did. And I got Chosen. And the only reason I got chosen is because the guy was an older gentleman and he said I was a barrow boy, which means it's the English version of street kid.

0:36:50 - (George Sahyoun): He says, I could give you anything and you can go and get it done. That was a gift from my mother, but it was also a Lebanese trait and we've got it. We as a community have got it. We have got the ability to take it to another level, share it, just help that one other person doesn't take much.

0:37:09 - (Debbie Draybi): Thanks, George. I think that's a really powerful message around staying connected and true to your roots and being able to find people that you can support and really mentor. And as you said, it's engaging the power of the collective. We are, you know, Lebanese culture is a collective of US culture, but unfortunately, we seem to have disconnected as a collective.

0:37:30 - (George Sahyoun): When I look at it individually, they're brilliant. Have a look at you ladies here. And just the talent that I've seen tonight, it blows me away. But where is this collective? I don't see that. So I don't experience it. I don't know it unless it's hidden somewhere. If we leave people in isolation, the impact of loneliness and the impact of a lack of success in life, let alone financial aspects of it, it's going to be debilitating for our community.

0:38:04 - (George Sahyoun): We will get lost once we assimilate to the point where we don't even know who our cousin is, let alone.

0:38:09 - (Natalie Moujalli): Anything else, especially as we, as this generation ages. So I'm talking about decades from now. If the pattern now or the trend now is to get more, we're becoming more individualistic as we get older, in the decades to come, that will be debilitating on the community because there will be so much I.

0:38:29 - (George Sahyoun): But there'll be no more community. You know, we've gone. We've grown physically in number. We haven't grown in our collective ability to make a statement in this country. You know, we've got individuals who are brilliant, you know, like Marie Bashir. She's one of my idols. Again, a female, little female. But it's a very, you know. But we just haven't been able to get that in a collective sense. And maybe you ladies are the ones that should spearhead the push, because young girls now are coming out highly educated. They're showing the boys up a little bit.

0:39:07 - (George Sahyoun): And the collective talent of this generation is just phenomenal. Phenomenal.

0:39:14 - (Natalie Moujalli): Sounds like a job for Debbie.

0:39:16 - (Debbie Draybi): We're both good at delegating in different ways. Oh, George. It's been wonderful connecting with you. Honestly, I just wondered if there's anything that you'd like to leave our listeners with, any parting wisdom.

0:39:28 - (George Sahyoun): Very simple, just get out there, have a go, take people with you, enjoy the ride, and thank God for every opportunity that you get given and sit down and have that cup of coffee on the milk crate and enjoy life. Nothing else. Not that complicated.

0:39:46 - (Debbie Draybi): Thank you for keeping that alive and for sharing your story and her story. And I think it's just such a powerful message and I feel really honored to be part of this conversation with you.

0:39:55 - (George Sahyoun): Thank you for the invitation. I'm honoured, first of all to be in your company, but second, secondly, to have the ability to tell the story and it is a story that we tell in a social context. But it's great to have this avenue to pass it on.

0:40:10 - (Debbie Draybi): We'll keep sharing it. I think it's really powerful and it's been quite profound for us to hear and I'm sure it's going to be for our listeners as well.

0:40:17 - (George Sahyoun): Appreciate that. Thank you.

0:40:18 - (Debbie Draybi): Thank you, George.

0:40:19 - (George Sahyoun): Thanks for your time.

0:40:27 - (Debbie Draybi): I hope this episode has helped helped you find sanctuary in this exciting journey of life. All of the resources we've mentioned in this episode are found in the podcast Notes. If you need some assistance with any of the topics discussed in today's episode, then please Visit our website, HSHL.org au if you have any thoughts, comments or ideas, please leave us a comment on Spotify. Alternatively, send us an email at admin at hshl.org

0:40:59 - (Debbie Draybi): au. You and your mental health matters to us and we hope you get one step closer in finding sanctuary. Bye for now.