Abdallah AlHadidi – Transformation in the Arabic-Speaking World

🎙️ In this episode of the Landmark Difference Makers Podcast, we sit down with Abdullah AlHadidi, whose leadership has been instrumental in making Landmark’s programs available to Arabic-speaking communities.

Beginning with Landmark’s first program in Dubai in 2019 and the later translation of the work into Arabic, Abdullah has helped create something that goes far beyond translating words. His vision is about creating conversations that can cross cultures, beliefs, and differences—and ultimately remind us of something we all share: our humanity.

Beyond “Us and Them”

Abdullah grew up in a religious Muslim family and describes spending years searching for ways to contribute while repeatedly encountering a familiar dynamic: belonging to one group often seemed to mean separating yourself from another.

His experience with Landmark opened a different possibility.

“The moment we say, ‘I belong to this community,’ it’s kind of saying that I don’t belong to that… What’s available here is that we all belong to humanity.”

For Abdullah, this doesn’t mean abandoning culture, religion, or identity. It means discovering that those identities don’t have to prevent us from being connected to people who see the world differently.

That possibility has become central to his vision for Landmark’s work throughout the Arabic-speaking world.

Finding Possibility in Extraordinary Circumstances

One of the most striking stories Abdullah shares involves a group of women teachers from Sudan living amid war.

They didn’t even have individual internet access. To participate in a conversation together, they gathered in a room where someone had arranged a single laptop and an internet connection.

Initially, their future occurred as something that could begin only later:

When the war stops.

When circumstances change.

When life returns to normal.

Abdullah isn’t dismissive of the very real circumstances they faced. Instead, the conversation allowed the women to examine whether waiting for circumstances to change had also left them unable to see actions they could take now.

During that conversation, something shifted.

“They started to see possibility… they are the possibility for their lives.”

The Courage to Be Human

Abdullah also speaks candidly about his own transformation.

Before participating in the Landmark Forum, he describes himself as extraordinarily closed. As a businessman, he believed toughness and logic belonged at work while emotions were something to keep private—even from the people closest to him.

Then, during the Forum, he found himself sharing openly in front of a room filled with people from different countries and cultures.

He cried.

And he was embarrassed.

Then the Forum Leader asked the room who had fallen in love with this human being.

Every hand went up.

For Abdullah, it was a revelation.

“At that moment, I realized that I wasn’t living life as it could be. Imagine going through life and I’m not there with my feelings.”

Instead of vulnerability separating him from people, it connected him to them.

Authenticity Across Cultures

That experience raises one of the fascinating questions explored in the interview: Does transformation look different in different cultures?

Abdullah says there certainly are cultural considerations. What people comfortably discuss with family, colleagues, or strangers may differ dramatically between Dubai, Europe, and the United States.

But underneath those differences, he sees something universal.

People everywhere want to look good.

People everywhere hide things.

People everywhere have relationships that aren’t working as well as they could.

And people everywhere want to be understood.

For Abdullah, authenticity isn’t about making everyone behave the same way. It’s about creating enough space for people to be genuinely human with one another while respecting the cultures and beliefs from which they come.

Listening Without Needing to Be Right

Abdullah describes another important change in his own life: becoming able to listen to people whose opinions are very different from his own.

In the past, disagreement could leave him frustrated and unable to genuinely hear another person.

Today, he says, he can listen—even when internally he’s thinking, How could you possibly believe that?

The difference is that he no longer needs the other person to change.

“I’m not here to change anything. I’m not here to impose anything on anyone.”

That doesn’t mean abandoning his own beliefs. In fact, Abdullah says the work has deepened his relationship with Islam and his connection to Allah.

Instead, it means allowing another person the freedom to have their beliefs while creating room for genuine conversation.

Translating Transformation

Making Landmark available in Arabic presented another fascinating challenge: How do you translate distinctions when the words themselves don’t exist?

Abdullah and the Arabic translation team have spent countless hours exploring not merely literal translations, but language that captures the distinctions behind the words.

One of Abdullah’s favorites is إمكانية — Imkaniyya: possibility.

Some transformational distinctions required the team to create or adapt language so that Arabic speakers could encounter the idea freshly rather than simply attaching it to an already familiar concept.

Abdullah now finds himself using this new language outside Landmark conversations—and watching people stop and ask:

What does that mean?

That question itself creates an opening for discovery.

A Vision of Connection

Ultimately, Abdullah’s vision is much larger than making Landmark programs available in another language.

He sees the possibility of people throughout the Arab world becoming increasingly connected with one another and with people around the globe—not by erasing their differences, but by discovering the humanity underneath them.

When asked what he hopes people will say about him 100 years from now, Abdullah describes the legacy he wants to leave:

“This person gave his life to empower people individually and to unite the Arab world.”

And then he adds another dimension to that vision: a world in which Arabs can go anywhere and naturally be perceived as friends.

It is an ambitious possibility.

And, appropriately enough, possibility—Imkaniyya—is exactly where Abdullah’s work begins.

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✨ Listen to the full episode to hear Abdullah AlHadidi explore transformation across cultures, authenticity, faith, leadership, and his vision for greater connection between the Arabic-speaking world and the rest of humanity.

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