Rockefeller’s advice – 1

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. Peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his family. Peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his family. My brothers and sisters, all praise is due to Allah. One of the beauties of Islam and of winners in life is that they are open to learning from everywhere. And that's what I also recommend. One of the things I want to share with you is Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller's advice to his son. This is being written in terms of nine specific principles. So let me read out the list first. He says, First principle, Heart-shaped, Hardship is your greatest teacher. Hardship is your greatest teacher. Secondly, Failure plus persistence equals breakthrough. Failure plus persistence equals breakthrough. Third one, Love your work or live in misery. Love your work or live in misery. Fourth one, Money is fire. Money is fire. Use it or get burned. Use it or get burned. Fifth one, Excuses are mental illness. Fabulous. Excuses are mental illness. Number six, Business is war. Act accordingly. Business is war. Act accordingly. Number seven, Master negotiation. Master negotiation. Number eight, Reinvest everything or lose everything. Reinvest everything or lose everything. And number nine, Reputation outlasts riches. Reputation outlasts riches. Inshallah, We will talk about these in detail. We do not even know. We do not know in detail. Deliberate intellectual Cathedral Training, Research of heteroplane technology, Fidel zas genius. What a ape there, Clean equatel, Guaranteedministry, But rather maintain iron economy and Not make humane decisions. But preserve equality, wildそんな welfare hundred billion in today's money but his greatest creation as they say was these letters his letters to his son so the first principle is saying is hardship is your greatest teacher now young Rockefeller Johnny Rockefeller faced crushing poverty and constant rejection crushing poverty and constant rejection his response I am grateful for the struggle it built the character that built the for Joe it built the character that built a for Joe and he says that success requires deliberate suffering conscious suffering really if you think about it we human beings seem to learn mostly from I won't say from the book but from the book but from the book but from the book once a entirely but almost entirely from hardship not from peace if I am if you ask me to think of or if I ask you to think of ten people ten people just randomly ten people who you know almost invariably those who you think about who are successful in every way whether it's material whether it is material whether it is material whether it is material whether it is is material whether it is spiritual whether it is physical our people who are people who started in poverty of people who started with nothing now are people who started in poverty of people who started with nothing now poverty I don't necessarily mean somebody was bringing on the street but poverty I don't necessarily mean somebody was bringing on the street but someone who had to think about spending money somebody who for whom money was spending money somebody who for whom money was not easy for example hand me down hadn't had it down close from their siblings or not easy for example had me down hadn't had it down close from their siblings or have anything to say on my children is that I had to close my children's or from their parents, they made choices. I think the biggest, most important strength that comes to us from being poor, from not having enough resources, is to make wise choices. Because you cannot have everything, you're forced to choose. Everything is a choice. Every single thing is a choice because you can't have everything. So the smallest things, for example, should we go out to eat a meal? Should we go to a restaurant today? Or should we eat at home? Now this, if you have, if you are poor, it is a financial decision. It's not a decision based on whether outside food is healthy for you or not healthy for you. It's a financial decision. Can we afford it? As simple as that. Can we afford it? But if you don't have that, if you have enough money, then there are people who practically eat out almost every day. So simple decisions. So the first thing is, should I buy a new pair of shoes? The new shoes are on the market. Should I buy them? The question is not, should I buy them? The question becomes, can I afford to buy them? And then the question is, well, I already have a pair of shoes, which are perfectly good. Nothing is wrong with them. They're not torn. They don't have holes. They're just old. So what? And it goes from there to say, where do I find my own self-worth? Is it in a pair of shoes? Is it in the clothes I wear? Is it some brand? Or is it something which is really worthwhile? For example, my output. We find a sense of worth from two main sources. One is what we own. And that what we own has to do with what we can afford. So people find a sense of worth from their so-called bank balance, their net worth. And then they start to think, well, I don't have any money. I don't have any money. I don't have any money. I don't have any money. And then they find a sense of self-worth from the kind of car they have or the kind of house they live in or the kind of clothes they wear and so forth, which is what the economy seems to be running on. And that's why you have the so-called influencers and all that social media does. Social media in its most benign form, that's probably the only benign form, if I can call it benign, is to influence your buying decisions. It has forms which are far less benign and far more malevolent and far more harmful. But in the most benign form, it is something which influences buying decisions. And the way that you can influence your buying decisions is through the way you buy. So, you can buy things. You can buy things. You can buy things. You can buy things. And the way, therefore, that business runs is by making you buy stuff which you don't really need. So poverty forces you to differentiate between what you want and what you need and to make those choices. I remember one of our family stories, and I heard this story from the time I was a little kid, was the fact that my grandfather, my father's father, who was a very rich man, he was a very rich man. He was not wealthy. He was poor. He worked in the Indian railways as a guard, you know, the guy at the end of the train who waves a flag, green flag or red flag, which tells the Indian driver that you can go or you can't go. He worked as a guard. So he obviously, they had very short of money. He had a lot of children. My grandparents had a lot of children. When my father went to medical school, he was a very rich man. He was a very rich man. He was a very rich man. Obviously, it was a huge strain on the pocket. Nobody was earning anything. So my father went to medical school. And the story was that my grandfather, my dada, father's father, he not only did not buy himself new clothes, but he did not even buy himself a new handkerchief for the duration that my father was in medical school, five years. Didn't you? Didn't even buy a handkerchief. Second thing was that when my father qualified and he got a job and so on, until my grandparents passed away and or until my uncles and aunts, they grew up and they had their own families and so on. Everyone lived together in one house. Which initially was a house. And then they moved to another house. And then they moved to another house. And then they moved to another house. And then they moved to another house. So initially my grandfather's house was the one that we lived in. And then later on it was our house. And throughout my childhood, we grew up with our aunts and uncles living in the same house. I don't even know how many people slept to a room and so on. But we didn't. We lived like, you know, one kitchen. We ate together. And my father's salary, Alhamdulillah, Allah Ta'ala gave us the barakah. Not only was it enough, but it was enough to send us, you know, to the hospital. The Allowance. We didn't even know the word allowance. We said pocket money, we used to call it. We didn't even know what was pocket money. When I first heard the word pocket money, I remember thinking to myself, what is pocket money? And then somebody said, oh, you know, this is money which parents give to children to spend. And my thought was, well, you know, why would I spend? To spend on what? In the India of those days, choices also were limited. But even if I had the money, what would I spend it on? Right? It was considered to be very, it was not considered to be respectable to eat in a restaurant, right? You ate at home. You didn't go sit in a hotel. You didn't go and sit in a restaurant. So there was no question of eating out. What did you spend money on? We had clothes. So if I, you know, I wore what my father had in me down, my brother wore from me. And the point being that poverty was what taught us one of the most valuable lessons in life, which is how to make wise choices. How to make wise choices. How do you choose? What is the basis of your choice? And so therefore, when you have, you know, when you are forced because of material, lack of material means, then you get this. So that's why when John D. Rockefeller says, that poverty is the, hardship is your greatest teacher. Poverty is one of them. The other, you know, may Allah keep us protected from that. But people have hardships in terms of health issues and so on. How many absolutely inspiring, amazing stories of people who have no hand, no legs, all sorts of things like this, which are major, major, major hardships. But, you know, they are also inspiration for living.