She's bubbly, sharp, energetic, and self-aware. She knows what she knows and knows what she doesn't know. Mental health is her thing. Coffee is not. Yet, she indulged me with a chat around a coffee table and got straight to it.

I met her once on April 13, 2011, for a project. Social media suggested her posts as of a year or so ago. A mutual friend got us back together. We met at 7 a.m. at Starbucks in downtown Beirut on a beautiful Saturday morning.

I called him to North Carolina. We chatted for over an hour. It's a long way from our Starbucks conversations 4+ years ago in London. The foggy city got us together, time made us grow fonder, and the distance became insignificant with technology.

I read his material, watch his videos, and saw him on TV, but this was the first time I sat with him and had a one-on-one conversation. Jihad has an unpretentious wealth of knowledge and is humble yet very opinionated about who the youth are and what they should be doing.