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Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah ﷺ wa ala alihi wa sahbihi salam. Tasliman kathira kathira. From my brother and sister, that’s a herd of impala. There are a couple of blue wildebeest in them.
There are a few Egyptian geese in the distance there.
And there are some blue wildebeest directly behind this bush.
So it’s a very beautiful scene Alhamdulillah. On Qantu private game reserve in Qasim. In South Africa, near Port Elizabeth, Sidbury village.
Very beautiful. The thing I want to say to you is that everything is possible. There’s no such thing as impossible in life.
Every single thing is possible. But everything has a price.
To explain that… let me say that.
Imagine you’re going on a drive—a long drive with your children. Now why would you do that? Because you are a parent. Because no one else has the patience or the ability to do something as insane as that: to go on a long drive with small children. That’s why parenting is so difficult and why parents have the position they hold of honor.
Because they go on a long drive with children.
Now what happens when you do that? Ten minutes into the drive: “Are we there yet?” “How much longer?” You keep saying, “Enjoy the view. It’s so beautiful. Isn’t it so nice? Instead of being stuck at home, we are out on this beautiful drive.”
“How much longer?” Right? As if you are torturing the kid.
But you are out on this beautiful drive. You don’t do what you should do, which is to tell him, “Okay, get out of the car. Stay here. Then you know how much longer.”
Please don’t do that; I am just joking. Now the point I am making is: If you go on this drive…
And then you come to a gas station and stop there not because you want gas, but because you say, “Okay, let’s get these kids out. Let them stretch their legs,” and so on. So as soon as they get out, the kids have no intention of stretching their legs. They know what’s in the gas station. They want to go in and get candy. So can I go in there? Yes. Okay, go in there.
Now you know the kid wants something, so you give him two dollars.
Now the kid goes in there.
What does he find? He finds a shop with shelves full of stuff—some stuff which, of course, the kid is not allowed to buy and shouldn’t buy. Nobody should buy it. I mean, this is all haram stuff: cigarettes and lottery tickets. You know the usual garbage that is there in these stores. Unfortunately, people make—even Muslims make—their living out of buying and selling haram. May Allah have mercy.
So I am not talking about that. That is a blue wildebeest behind that, head down to the grass. So the kid has other stuff there too. He’s got candy, balloons, comic books—a whole bunch of stuff. So if I ask you, what are the choices? What choices does the kid have? We are talking about everything is possible, but everything has a price. Right? So what choices does the kid have? Everything which is in the shop is a choice.
But what can the kid actually buy?
The kid can buy only what his dollar will buy him or his two dollars will buy him. And that is what I call options.
Choice, option… Choice and option.
Choice is everything in life; options are only what you can afford. So if you want to succeed in life, you need to increase your options, not just choices. Choices are already unlimited. Right? Given your place in society, given the country you were born in, and so on, choices are unlimited. Everything in that country, everything that is in your society, everything in your environment is already available to you, potentially. It is a choice. But how many are options? Based on what you can afford. So success in life consists of increasing options. Now, if that kid wanted to increase his options, what would he do? He could go back to his dad and mom and ask for some more money.
Or he could go and tell the storekeeper: “Look, why don’t you and I go into a partnership and I will bring other kids here to buy from you? But right now, I want you to give me this candy free.” Whether that storekeeper will buy that story or not is a different matter, but he can try; he can do this. Now, that bird is what is called a pied crow—it’s a black and white crow. So, increase the options. This is what the child can do. But in life, how do we increase options? We increase options by increasing our influence, our ability to make a difference. Some of that has to do with money: How much money can you make? So how can you increase your earning capacity? Others may have to do with increasing your influence by becoming more valuable to people. The more valuable you are to people, the more people will respect you. The more people will respect you, the more people will be willing to give you what you need without asking, the more people will want to please you without asking. Influencing without authority is directly proportionate to the degree that you are seen as valuable. If you increase your value in life, to that extent, people will be willing to be influenced by you.
When people see you as somebody that adds value to them, helps them, stands by them in times of need, saves them from oppression, and stands up for their rights, then people are willing to listen to that person. This is how Rasulullah became. He was a great person.
He was so influential that he created a religion. He achieved the impossible, which is to get people to change their minds, to get people to change who they worshiped. The most difficult thing in the world is to influence people to change their opinion.
Just try and get someone to change the football club or cricket. You can imagine how difficult it is to get people to change who they worship. That’s why all claims of conversion by the sword—whether that claim is levied against this religion or that religion—are false; they are patently false, by definition false, because belief can only be changed voluntarily. It cannot be changed by force.
If a person doesn’t want to change their belief, there’s nothing on the face of the earth which can make them change their belief. They will change it only when they want to. And if you want people to change their belief about you and see you as influential, see you as potentially valuable, see you as somebody worthy of being followed, then become valuable to people. Become helpful to people.
Go out of your way to be good to people. Give, because givers are loved and takers are hated. This is the reality of life. We ask Allah to make us and keep us as givers who take only from Him and give to the rest of the world.