One of the great advantages you have in life is relationships. They can also become your greatest disadvantage. When you reach a certain age bracket, learn to let people go. Particularly if you are a father or a parent. When your children reach the age of 30 and beyond, they have an independent mindset. They have their own visions. They have their own dreams.
It is only in countries and communities like the Jewish people, the Arab people that live a communal life, and maybe the Italians, that you see children willing to take their father’s businesses and legacies to another level. We black people, there is a tendency for us to always want to tow another line. And so a man will build up something, and then you will see the children go in different directions, and what the man has built up is negated, except in very few cases.
There is an ice cream parlour in Damascus called the Bakdash. It started in 1895 and is still on till today, even during the war in Damascus. There is a soap manufacturing business that has been on for nearly 400 years in Palestine. There is the Beretta pistol manufacturing company that has been on for about 500 years. When I was doing a study of enduring businesses in Africa, there were very few businesses established by black Africans that endured from one generation to another. So what do we do?
Set up trust funds. Set up businesses. Build systems and structures that will grow without you. My bones, skeleton flesh, heart, kidneys, and my liver represent my system. I don’t prompt my heart to beat. I don’t prompt my lungs to inspire and expire. So build systems.
When you reach a certain age bracket, don’t struggle with them. Your wife will form her own impressions, her own ideas. If care is not taken, rivalry can come between you and her. Some children, because of the discipline you gave them, will call you a wicked father. I am a strict disciplinarian. Some of them will see it as the time to break away and have their own liberty. If you give a strong counsel: don’t fight them. Don’t struggle with them.
Build institutions. Build systems that will keep going on no matter who leaves you, no matter who rebels against you. Somebody sold a bank recently when the wife and the son were living contrary to his principles. What you need most at this age, and I am not very old, I am just 67, is peace of mind.
You need good health.
You need financial solvency.
They are interrelated. If you are in good health, you can make money. You can manage your systems. You will live at peace.
So what do you do? Let them go.
Like the father of the prodigal son. The son migrated away because the father had built systems. When the son came back, the father was not poorer. The system was still producing wealth. The only people I really have responsibility for now are my children’s children. Because a righteous man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children. The Bible says, train up a child in the way he will go, and when he grows up, he will not depart from it. So your duty is to train the child. If the child departs, he has not grown up. When he realises and comes back, he will meet the system still working.
The servants were eating better because the system was still producing wealth. I am not saying you should be heartless. But don’t struggle with them. Don’t call family meetings. Don’t force people to listen. Counsel them. Leave them. People pay to listen to me. I was in two universities two days ago speaking to professors.
If professors can listen to me, and you my child don’t want to listen to me, I will not fight you. Even if you are my wife, I will not fight you.
I conquered inferiority complex growing up in a mud house. I attended school with children of the elite who were driving cars. I conquered illiteracy in my family. I became the first graduate, the first medical doctor in my community. I conquered poverty. I conquered limitations. I built global friendships and a global audience.
If you say you will not listen to me, I cannot force you. But be ready to bear the consequences.
So I am at peace. I started the OMAD program — one meal a day. I checked my blood pressure recently: 120 over 80 at 67. I did not take any medications. Despite traveling, speaking, granting interviews, my blood pressure was normal.
At this rate, I will live up to 100 and eat the fruit of my labour. Nobody troubles my mind today. I hope you have learned.
There are friends you cannot change. Counsel them. Leave them. It is not every person and not every burden you will carry on your head.
