Mustafa Allawi: The Stories That Shape Us

Every person is living inside a story. Almost nobody stops to ask who wrote it. In this episode of Internal Momentum, Ben sits down with Mustafa Allawi, founder and CEO of the global film and creative company Hazen, to explore how stories shape identity, behaviour, and what a person believes is possible for themselves. Mustafa left Iraq at fifteen and learnt English watching films. There are childhood friends he would not know how to find today. He talks about what it does to a person to leave parts of themselves behind in different places, and why that same process happens to everyone, even the ones who never move. It is the reason he ended up in storytelling, and it is the lens he now brings to working with people like James Cameron and Tony Robbins, where the main discovery has been that everybody wears their pants the same way. Ben and Mustafa work through the three kinds of stories that build an identity. The ones you tell yourself, the ones told to you by culture and family, and the ones other people tell about you. Ben opens up about the years he cast his ex-wife as the villain of his own life and himself as the hero, and the confronting conversation that finally broke the cycle. Mustafa presses him on how anyone actually gets there, and Ben names the tell that gives it away every time: righteousness. The conversation then turns inward on Ben. He talks about being the overweight, shy kid who would take no position on anything rather than risk one person disliking him. He talks about the half-written album sitting on Spotify that he has never told a single person about, and about stopping mid-song at the traffic lights in case a stranger in the next car saw him. He also names what it took to rebuild that identity on purpose, and why the ceiling on your income, your health, and your relationships is almost always sitting on the inside. If you have ever caught yourself as the hero of a story that needs somebody else to be the villain, this episode will make that story much harder to keep telling. About the Guest Mustafa Allawi is the founder and CEO of Hazen, a global film and creative company that tells unseen stories through documentary and brand work for an international audience. He arrived in Australia from Iraq as a teenager and built a career around a single belief, that nothing shapes people more than the stories they carry. His work has placed him alongside names including James Cameron, Tony Robbins, and Bassem Youssef. Connect with Mustafa: Website: hazen.com.au LinkedIn: Mustafa Allawi Chapters: 00:48 The Journey of Resilience 05:23 The Power of Storytelling 11:00 Personal Stories and Their Impact 19:39 Extracting Stories from Individuals 25:30 The Hero vs. Villain Narrative 27:13 Breaking the Cycle of Perception 29:14 Taking Responsibility in Relationships 30:09 The Role of Righteousness in Connection 33:26 Vulnerability and Authenticity in Conversations 36:13 The Power of Storytelling and Identity 38:53 Rediscovering One's True Self 42:45 Embracing Imperfection and Authenticity 46:18 Embracing Flaws and Self-Acceptance 49:22 The Journey of Self-Discovery and Boundaries 51:39 Lessons from Influential Figures 55:47 Overcoming Fear of Judgment 57:50 Navigating Parenting in the Digital Age 01:01:34 The Role of Pain in Growth