Exploring Life Philosophies (Episode 3)

In this 3rd episode on philosophies, we delve deeper into philosophies and discuss 3 tenets amongst other topics including Basil Harris's influence over Arjun's thinking: "To every disadvantage, there is an advantage" | "I face every adversity with the attitude that the seeds of a greater benefit shall emerge" | "I have the capacity to accept criticism without resentment"

Transcript

Good morning again,

Arjun.

How are you today?

Great morning to you.

Excellent.

So last time we talked about episode six,

We talked about philosophies in general.

What is the concept of,

Well,

What is a philosophy?

Why is it important?

Episode seven,

We talked about what happens if a philosophy doesn't align to us.

And we also talked about a very interesting philosophy of four Bs by Jim Dornan.

Now,

You are yourself a seeker and have been for years and years and years and continue to be as many of us are.

Who is your inspiration?

Who is your own mentor,

Arjun?

And what is their philosophy?

Yeah,

So my life was impacted,

And we spoke about this in episode one as well,

By my mentor,

Teacher guide Basil Harris,

When I met him for the first time in February of 1998 in Johannesburg,

South Africa.

Basil is South African by origin and has been living in Australia since 1981.

He was born into a middle class family,

Had the challenges that any middle class family would have,

But he had a dream,

A desire,

An aspiration to succeed.

He educated himself,

Qualified as a chartered accountant,

Became an entrepreneur,

And had a clothing factory business in South Africa.

And by the late 1970s had become a millionaire in the country of South Africa.

And then in the late 1970s to the early 1980s,

The country of South Africa had a challenge,

And that challenge many of us are aware of is called apartheid.

And the apartheid regime was a very difficult time for Basil and his family at the time.

And being a white man,

His life was constantly under threat,

Decided in his wisdom at that point in time to migrate to Australia.

And the government of South Africa said,

Yep,

You can go,

Your wife can go,

Your kids can go,

But you cannot take any of your money with you.

So Basil had worked hard to become a self-made millionaire up until that point in time,

And he had to leave everything behind and arrive with very little money.

His wife and two small kids at the time in Sydney,

Australia in 1981.

Three years,

Three years,

Three years after arriving in Australia,

He was a millionaire again from zero.

And Basil taught me a long time ago,

He said,

Your success in life is not determined by the money in your bank account.

Your success in life is determined by the thoughts in your head.

If you can learn to think correctly,

Then no matter how many times life throws curved balls at you,

You will learn to manage the situation.

Basil says success is about recovery from challenges and the operative word being recovery.

And he says there are three kinds of curved balls that get thrown to you.

And those three kinds of curve balls are number one,

Financial challenges,

Number two,

Health challenges,

And number three,

Relationship challenges.

And so your ability to manage yourself in the presence of those circumstances is what will determine your success.

So that's,

In a sense,

That's his philosophy.

He also has three tenets,

Which we will talk about in a bit,

But this person was,

Has been an inspiration to me,

Became my business slash life teacher in 98.

And him and me have a conversation every month,

Even today on Zoom for an hour.

We,

Him and me are going to be talking next on,

Well,

Today is,

Today's the 8th of January.

It's the 9th.

9th of January,

2022.

So Basil and me are scheduled to talk on the 19th of January,

2022.

And we set a date every single month and have a conversation around that.

So,

So this is the person,

I guess what to me is,

Is impressive about his life is,

Is that he failed and then he picked himself up and succeeded again.

John Maxwell very famously says,

He says,

If you want to impress people,

Talk about your successes.

But if you want to impact people,

Talk about your failures and your recovery from failures.

And so Basil has had an impact on my life because he has taught me in more ways than one to recover from misfortune and failure and circumstances that,

Unsavory circumstances.

Let me just say that.

So,

So yeah,

That's,

That's the story.

That's the man that's,

That's him and Basil and his wife,

Leonie.

Basil is 75 years old now,

A grandfather,

A self-made millionaire,

A happy,

Healthy person into physical fitness.

And he's had his fair share of challenges as well.

And I'll tell you more about that as we go along.

But I asked him once,

I said,

Basil,

What do you consider as,

As your greatest victory,

Your greatest success?

What are you most proud of?

And he says,

What I'm,

What I'm most proud of is that I've been married for 43 years.

And then he pauses and then he says,

To the same woman.

So this kind of just tells you where he comes from and how he thinks about family and relationships and success.

What Tony Robbins refers to as not just the science of achievement,

But also the art of fulfillment.

And Basil exemplifies that.

I think I just have been very,

Very fortunate to have met him in 98 and my life has not been the same since,

But then Basil also tells me,

He says,

Hey,

You know,

When the student is ready,

The teacher will appear,

Right?

So I would,

Because a lot of times people ask me,

Hey,

How do you get a mentor?

I said,

You've got to want one.

You've got to be in a state of readiness.

It is your curiosity that will attract great teachers into your life.

Now for me,

It's Basil for you,

It could be somebody else and,

Or you could have a multitude of teachers as I still do,

Although my anchor still is,

Is him.

And yeah,

So that's where,

That's where that is.

You made me laugh with,

I've been married for 43 years to the same woman.

And it reminds me of Bruce Licton's work.

He wrote a book called The Honeymoon Effect.

He also wrote the Biology of Belief.

Yes,

Of course.

Absolutely.

We know that one.

So in The Honeymoon Effect,

He talks about how he is now married to this woman.

They've been together for a number of years.

He talks about how to maintain the honeymoon effect period,

But not in the typical way that we know it,

Not in the Eros kind of,

You know,

In that kind of way,

As in it's hormones and it's that heightened state.

But he talks about the honeymoon effect in the,

What you just mentioned here from Tony Robbins,

In achieving a sense of fulfillment and newness and awe every single day of your relationship with that person that you're living with for years and years and years.

Yeah.

And it's the ability to see yourself and see them from fresh eyes every single day.

Indeed.

All right,

Brilliant.

Tell us a little bit more about Basil's philosophies and how it's impacted you and what's,

You know,

What are the things that have,

You know,

Permeated your life over and over and over again and still do?

Yeah,

Yeah.

So he's lived his life on three tenets,

Three principles.

He calls these his ideologies.

These are his three philosophies.

And here's philosophy number one,

Short and sweet.

He says,

To every disadvantage,

There is an advantage.

To every disadvantage,

There is an advantage.

And he's lived his life by that.

And to me,

Initially when I heard it,

It was intellectually stimulating.

Hey,

That sounds good.

Great positive thinking,

Nice self-talk,

A wonderful line to stand up on stage,

Hold a microphone and speak to people about.

But what's interesting about that,

That tenet,

That principle is the word every,

Not to most disadvantages,

There is an advantage to every disadvantage.

And that has become his philosophy.

That has become his belief.

I was sitting with someone once and they said,

No,

But that's not true.

And I said,

Actually,

That's not true for you,

But it's true for him.

And let him choose his philosophy while you can go ahead and choose your philosophy.

This person was surprised because he thought I would convince him that no,

To every disadvantage,

There is an advantage.

No,

No,

I'm not going to do that.

You choose your own philosophies.

It's your life.

You decide.

This is just a buffet.

If you don't like this dish,

Move on to the next one.

There's no compulsion here.

But since you're listening to me and if you're curious about the philosophies that drive me personally,

This is my teacher and this is what he taught me to every disadvantage,

There is an advantage.

Excellent.

What is the second tenet?

So the second tenet says,

I face every adversity with the attitude that the seeds of a greater benefit shall emerge.

I face every adversity with the attitude that the seeds of a greater benefit shall emerge.

Okay.

Tell us more about that.

So here we go.

We have the unpreferred adverse event that plays out.

Things that happen,

That we don't want to have happen globally,

Domestically,

Within the organization,

In and among our colleagues,

Family,

Friends,

Or even in our personal lives,

Or maybe even with our health.

I face every adversity with the attitude that the seeds of a greater benefit shall emerge.

And let us now look at the occurrence of that event as an opportunity to now tap into growth,

Development,

Success,

Expansion from there onwards.

Now I want to take number one and number two and combine it and tell you,

Because you know,

People,

Okay,

Yeah,

You know,

The guy's wealthy and so on and so forth.

In the early 2000s,

Basil called me once and he said,

You know,

I'm going to share something with you.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered I had a lump in my throat and we went to the doctor and he's told me now that I have cancer.

So he had a cancerous lump in his throat the size of a golf ball.

And he was in his late 60s up by then.

And that is adversity.

Yes,

For sure.

And come on,

I mean,

You've got all the money in the world.

But the fact is,

You've got a tumor in your throat that's malignant,

And it's there.

And it's real.

But he got through that.

He faced that adversity with the attitude that the seeds of a greater benefit shall emerge.

Today he's physically fitter than he was before he got cancer.

He's mentally sharper.

He's read more books.

He's become a stronger,

Wiser,

Better,

More intelligent,

More patient,

More compassionate human being as a result of it.

And so that is the application of that philosophy.

I face every adversity with the attitude that the seeds of a greater benefit shall emerge.

But you've got to look for those seeds.

You've got to believe that those seeds exist.

And Les Brown very famously says,

He says,

In life we are ordained with a series of God-given opportunities brilliantly disguised as problems and challenges.

So that's that philosophy.

That's that tenet.

And there's multiple examples of how we can perceive our life through that lens and use situations to our advantage.

You know,

It makes me,

It reminds me of many conversations that we engage in so often when people say in hindsight,

This was the best thing that happened to me.

Or in hindsight,

When I was going through it,

I couldn't see the trees from the woods or the woods from the trees.

I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But now that I look back on it,

I learned,

I climbed the steep mountain and I emerged better and bigger.

And here for me,

That particular tenet is not just about looking at things in hindsight.

It's about being able to see that even in the midst of your storm.

When you are going through a storm,

And we all do because again,

Life is cyclical and things will happen that are neither good or bad,

But that will challenge us to behave,

Act and choose how we perceive things and being able to,

In what we call in inverted commas,

Being able to remind ourselves that this thing that I'm going through at the moment is challenging,

But I know that there is benefit in it,

There is learning for me in it,

There is growth in it.

You're then able to enjoy the storms with a bit of fun actually.

And I know that sounds a little bit crazy.

People might be thinking,

Naseema,

You've lost it.

But if you're able to get to that stage,

Then even in the middle of the storm,

You have that sense of gratitude and you have that sense of trust that this too shall pass and I am going to emerge and shine even brighter than before.

You know,

Helen Keller said,

The end in the road,

I'm sorry,

Helen Keller said the end in the road,

The bend in the road is not the end in the road unless you fail to make the turn.

Absolutely.

The bend in the road is not the end in the road unless you fail to make the turn.

There's a guy called Alan Cohen,

He said every minus sign,

Every minus sign is just a plus sign waiting for a stroke of awareness.

Amazing.

And in a sense,

The best flavour from a bag of tea is evoked when it's put in really hot water.

Yes.

So the hot water has the capacity to bring out the best in us in that sense.

So yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You know,

It's just reminded me of an old adage and I think most of us have heard about this one,

Where when you boil a potato in water,

It softens up.

When you boil an egg in water,

It hardens.

So it's,

Again,

It's how we metamorphose into different states based on how we perceive things.

True,

True,

True,

True,

True.

So there's another philosophy also and this is by a guy called Bob Andrews and I heard him a long time ago and he said,

You know,

When you're in an airplane,

There is the tailwind and there is the headwind.

So he says the same God,

The same God that made the tailwind also made the headwind.

I will not curse the headwind because I will not curse God.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Let's go to the third tenet.

Tell us more about that.

The third tenet says,

And this is the challenging one,

Right,

That really gets you in the gut.

It says,

I have the capacity to accept criticism without resentment.

I have the capacity to accept criticism without resentment.

So it's happened,

I've shared this at seminars,

Some people,

Oh yeah,

That was a really tough one for me because I don't have the capacity to accept criticism without resentment.

And you know,

My response to that is you don't yet have it,

But when you do repeat this as an affirmation,

As an incantation,

It can become your reality.

And here again,

Here is a philosophy that is on offer that has the potential to radically transform your life for the better.

So I have the capacity to accept criticism without resentment.

That's a great thing to say when one is being criticized.

You know,

I guess you don't want to take it to the other extreme saying,

Oh,

Do you mean I don't respond to criticism?

No,

That's not what I'm saying.

I'm just saying that you don't have to get upset or angry or pissed off or irritated by the criticism.

You can respond,

But you can respond from a state of absolute calm,

Even-mindedness and equanimity.

You certainly can.

And be curious about it.

Be curious about it,

Sure.

And be compassionate about the person who is extending that criticism towards you.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Because it could be perceived as a gift,

Right?

True,

It certainly can.

We don't know what we don't know,

And if other people are seeing things in our blind spot area that we cannot see,

Then surely it's an opportunity for us to expand our awareness.

Yeah,

And the key thing is without resentment.

Let's not resent what somebody else says that we don't agree with.

And sometimes we even have resentment towards people who have an opposing,

For example,

Political point of view.

We could harbor resentment towards them.

And that doesn't serve either of us.

It certainly doesn't help you.

That's their point of view.

It's a valid point of view.

It's just that you've preferred another point of view.

But just like you have the free will to choose this opinion,

They have the free will to choose that opinion.

They may choose to change that opinion over time,

But let that be their choice,

Not your choice.

We want to eschew resentment towards opinions,

Beliefs,

And convictions that we do not conform to,

Adhere to,

Or have subscribed to.

And that is so important.

I have the capacity to accept criticism without resentment.

This could be criticism directed towards you or directed towards the things that you don't think should be criticized.

That's the expansion of this tenet as well.

Powerful one.

And this can take us into the whole rabbit trail of emotional intelligence and the management of our states,

Our feelings,

Despite turbulence or perceived turbulence around us.

So yeah,

It's just powerful.

I have the capacity to accept criticism without resentment.

Very powerful.

And again,

It's one of those tenets that can really help us to become more aware of the I or the ego self that we cling to so much because we are more able to hear feedback when we don't cling too much,

Too closely to our concept of self image.

And we are able to take a step back and realize that we are but a vehicle to make other things happen.

Again,

State of flow.

All right,

Let's talk about the last tenet out of the four that you mentioned.

Three.

Three tenets.

Yeah,

That's what I have three tenets.

Okay,

Three tenets.

Excellent.

Arjun,

Would you like to cover anything else before we close off this particular episode?

What I'd like to do is I just want to since we are on philosophies,

I just want to now present what else is on offer in this buffet.

What else does this mall have to offer ideas,

Philosophies that you could subscribe to?

Okay,

So let's have a look at some of these ideas now.

Shall we do that?

Is that fine?

Yeah,

Let's do that.

Okay,

Great.

Excellent.

So when we're talking about taking ownership and success,

Here's a good one that comes from Ralph Shirell and he says,

Be a chess player and not a chess piece.

Okay,

So just a visual of that saying,

Hang on a second,

Am I the chess player or am I the chess piece?

How do I become more of a chess player in my life rather than just a chess piece?

So that's one.

Here is one which is an ancient Chinese aphorism and this taking on from the resentment that we were talking about earlier,

An extension of resentment is the emotion of revenge and an ancient Chinese aphorism says,

If you're going to seek revenge,

You'd better dig two graves.

Yeah.

Very powerful,

Right?

It's like anger.

Anger is,

You know,

Sometimes we think we're getting angry at somebody,

But it's self-directed.

The other one is unforgiveness.

Unforgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

Okay,

You're going to have to expand this a little bit.

Come on.

Unforgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

So it's a flower,

Right?

It's the violet and it's being crushed by a heel and how does it respond to that being crushed?

It actually emits the fragrance,

Which is the essence of what it really is.

Its response to offence is actually love.

Wow.

And that's so powerful because Wayne Dyer also proposed three beautiful philosophies and this is a beautiful segue into the three things and Wayne Dyer says,

You know,

Three things to do.

Three things to do.

Number one,

Return love for hate.

Number one,

Return love for hate.

Okay,

Philosophies.

This is just on offer.

Listen to these philosophies,

Hear them,

Say them,

Sense them,

Maybe write them down,

Script them,

Sleep over them.

So return love for hate.

That was number one.

Number two,

Wayne Dyer said include the excluded.

Include the excluded.

How powerful is that?

Yeah.

And number three,

He said become willing to say,

I was wrong.

Become willing to say,

I was wrong.

Yeah.

So in this journey that we call life and we,

You know,

We come into this life and then we're gone.

You know,

We're what again Wayne Dyer says we are a parenthesis in eternity.

And while we're here for this speck of time,

Let's make this a fulfilling experience for ourselves and for others because we start life.

How does life start?

Hey,

Open parenthesis,

Right?

Open parenthesis and then there's a fertilized ovum.

There's a zygote,

There's a fetus,

Then the mature fetus and boom,

Birth.

And then there's the infant,

The toddler,

The child,

The young teen,

The mature teen,

The young adults,

The mature adult,

The old adult and then boom,

There's death.

And now there's close parenthesis.

This here is your life.

This is where it began and this is where it ends.

Might as well make it matter.

Make it matter.

Make it joyful.

Yes and rich.

Make it fulfilling.

Yes.

Exciting,

Engaged,

Motivated,

Alive.

Let's be alive.

Let's be alive.

Jim Rowan said,

When the end comes,

Let it find you conquering a new mountain,

Not sliding down an old one.

Let's live full and die empty.

So yeah,

There's a plenitude of philosophies that we've shared with you guys.

Thank you as usual for sharpening our taste buds with so many interesting ideas and beautiful conversations.

Thank you so much Arjun.

Until the next one,

Take care everyone.

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