What if You are the Bad Guy

[Music]

[Music]

good evening

it is actually quite exciting to see

such a diverse audience

do we have business people in the house

any business people wonderful do we have

students lifelong students

part-time full-time yes we have some

wonderful do we have kidnappers

kidnappers

no okay what about what about arsonists

do we have arsonists

not arsenal supporters arsonists no no

arsonists okay

terrorists at least

wow i could keep on going with this list

and i doubt

anybody would raise their hand so we’re

not so diverse after all

we’re all a bunch of good guys that’s

why i’d like you to take a journey with

me on my train of thought

where we’ll eventually get to a point

where i’ll ask the question

what if you are the bad guy

now for us to be on this you know to

start off from this

same station just to make sure we’re on

the same train of thought

let’s define what a a good guy is

in the early 1900s they lived a young

man

who advocated for environmental

sustainability

he was one of the first in the world to

do this

not only that but he was also an animal

activist

he even wanted to abolish animal cruelty

to a point of saying no more

slaughterhouses

pretty good guy on top of that

i mean it’s safe to assume if that’s how

he would want to treat animals

how would he value human life

and what he did for the people of his

nation

he put policies in place that turned

around the economic situation

where people were struggling to even buy

bread

with tons of cash inflation had gotten

so bad

but he managed to turn there to oh to

put policies in place that helped turn

that situation around

how many of you would say this person is

a hero

no nobody show them hands no okay i see

a couple of hands wonderful

this person goes by the name of adolf

hitler

now i do not have to say more about that

he has already gone from hero

to bad guy he went from you know

hero to villain good guy to bad guy

so for the sake of this discussion let

us find out

where that went wrong because if his

narrative

stopped where i stopped describing him

we would think this was a great man

but what happened and like i said for

the sake of this talk we’re going to

draw a line in the sand

and the reason why he became a bad guy

we’re going to oversimplify it he

crossed

this line that says achieve your goals

do what you have to go for your dreams

even if it’s at the expense of others

and that is where we draw the line let’s

take some

everyday examples that we could relate

to law enforcement officers

they’re supposed to serve and protect

yes wonderful

and they’re supposed to stop crying

now if we know or hear of an officer

who’s taking money from

robbers i mean as children we know cops

and robbers cops good guys

rob is bad guys right but if the bad

guys are giving the good guy

money to look away and not bother doing

anything about

crime does that cop remain

a good guy no

what about doctors awesome people save

lives

they help people and then you find out

that one doctor has been taking

sexual advantage of unconscious women

patients and maybe even sometimes staff

will he still remain a good doctor

so using that simple example and that

simple line in the sand

of the only difference between a good

guy and a bad guy a good guy

goes for a cause so does a bad guy but

one of them

is willing to do it at the expense of

others for an example that is really

close to home

less than 100 kilometers from here we

have

hundreds of families that are not able

to sustain themselves because they’re

way below the poverty line

simply because a few individuals decided

to make sure that their families were

way above the poverty line

are they heroes

now we will get to that question of what

if you’re the bad guy

don’t worry i’m not accusing any of you

of any of these things

so i will make myself a bit vulnerable

and i will tell you

about myself hi my name is harry i have

always had a vivid imagination

and one of the places i realized i had a

vivid imagination is from my

earliest memory of sitting on an

airplane

i could always picture what the air

hostess was talking about

when they were giving up in-flight

instructions

emergency exits that way i could see

myself

walking down the aisle and knowing which

side of the door was going to go out

when they talked about bracing yourself

for impact

i i could see myself doing it

but there was one thing that i did not

see myself

doing the way the air hostess

instructed us and that was the part that

went like this

in the unlikely event of the cabin

pressure to drop

masks will fall from the ceiling gently

pull on the mask

cover your mouth and nose and breathe

normally

up until that point no i’m we’re

together i’m i’m with you yes

wonderful i can do that and i’m seeing

it

and then there’s that extra bit at the

end

make sure you do this before assisting

the people next to you

not me because my babysitters were

superman wonder woman

and batman so naturally i’ve been

training to be a hero all my life

and this would be how i would see that

playing out in my head

in a plane where the cabin pressure had

lightly dropped

the masks came from the ceiling but one

man

decided to dramatically unbottle his

belt

and like at the speed of light helped

the lady clutching onto her two babies

and before we know it was on the other

side of the cabin hoping an old man

with alzheimer’s put his mask on

and like an acrobat he flips and lands

in his seat perfectly

he gently grabs a mask puts it over his

mouth and nose

head breathes

i am going to be that person who says no

not me i i’m going to help you you you

i’m going to rescue this whole plane and

then take care of myself

and i carried this thought for a very

long time like i

vivid imagination it has consequences of

delusion sometimes

and i carried it with me for such a long

time until recently

i heard of a condition called hypoxia

let me tell you what hypoxia is there

was a scientist

on a channel called smarter every day

he explained why you need to put your

mask on first

and in this experiment they flew up into

the air dropped the cabin pressure

and they were all wearing masks and

breathing normally

and he was told okay great here’s a

simple child’s toy

it has four holes and you have four

corresponding shapes

simply pick up the shape you could name

it

and put it in the right hole and he did

very easily

circle round hole square square hole

triangle triangular hole rectangle

in the rectangular hole too easy

and then they said take off your mask

and he unclipped it

in no time he was asked to repeat the

experiment

and this is what happened he picked up

the triangle

said circle and tried to put it in the

square hole

and he failed this experiment dismally

and it got to the point where they had

just given up he’s not going to get

this particular thing right

so they asked him well first of all they

warned him and they said to him

we’re monitoring your blood oxygen

levels

and in a minute you are going to die if

you don’t do

what you know you should do can you do

that

and he responded with a humongous smile

on his

face and said i don’t want to die

but did nothing about it he was

suffering

from hypoxia the inability to function

because of oxygen deficiency

well that killed my dream of being a

hero

because then i realized if i have

hypoxia

i’m not going to be able to get to that

man with parkinson’s and say

breathe normally i’ll collapse

i would not be a hero why do i bring

this up

why do i bring up hypoxia

because very often we say to ourselves

or you know this argument that we have

if we do something at the expense of

others

we’re delving in the realms of being a

bad guy but

sometimes we forget that those

others include ourselves

so i asked the question again what if

you are the bad guy

let me share something that’s more real

life out of not in my imagination but

happened

an electrician came over to my house fix

the problem that we had

and he also went above and beyond

by fixing other long-term problems we

had that other electricians twice his

age

could not solve i was thoroughly

impressed with this young man

i’m definitely saving his number and

he started fumbling when i asked him the

question

how much do

um i i don’t know how much do you want

to pay me

so i could tell he was an expert he was

inexperienced

still knew in the trade and

didn’t know how to navigate around this

business that he’s going to venture into

so i pulled him aside and i said okay

when you’re looking at how to charge or

what your customers should pay

take these into consideration what are

your goals with this oh no i want to

start a business

wonderful so this is what we’re going to

do this is what i’m going to do

i will give you a phone number of a

friend of mine who can help you get

those things registered

you know help you with someone he’s

reasonable and on top of that

also take this and that into what was i

doing

i was facilitating someone’s dreams

i was helping out at least pointing him

in the right direction

and yet when it came to myself was a

different story

a long while later i call this young man

because we had a major problem and it

needed to be fixed

now in a brilliant electrician as he is

wonderful businessman he came with his

branded truck he came with his equipment

wearing his overalls in uniform and

professionally

handled it i had to go to work before he

finished

at the end of the day i received an

invoice

with a letterhead and even at the bottom

if it’s not paid by this time this is

the interest i’m going to charge

i’m like yes i felt like a proud

mentor and yet

i was in a place where i was not

facilitating my own dreams i was not

facilitating

my own brain children if i can say that

so i started to realize that in my life

i have my other forms of hypoxia

so at whose expense have i been helping

others

when i encourage people to study yes no

don’t give up

and yet i don’t do that

at whose expense is that am i still

being a good guy

at least myself when we tell people

yes eat healthy exercise and we do the

total opposite

are we still being a good guy

now we get to the point where i ask the

question

what if you are the bad guy

well it doesn’t just stop at

acknowledging or figuring out that you

know what

there might be some places where i could

treat myself better

where i can still do good without it

being at the expense

of my own well-being

the first thing i’m going to say about

that first road to cure

is have a taste of your own medicine

because a lot of times we are so quick

and ready

to give good advice and we see it make

the people flourish and succeed

and yet rarely apply it to ourselves

let’s look at some scenarios when i said

how many kidnappers do we have

some of us are holding our own dreams at

ransom

for the sake of other people’s dreams

and when i said how many arsonists do we

have

some of us have burned bridges to

relationships that we actually need

people who are daring enough to be

honest with us

to hold us accountable to challenge us

but like an arsonist we burn that bridge

and we use that we lose a valuable

relationship

and then i said how many of us are

terrorists

how many of us have exercised

self-sabotage we’re on our way we have

finally got our head on straight things

are working out circumstances are not

unfavorable anymore and we’re moving in

the right direction

but maybe

picking a fight with the wrong person or

the over

drinking or the over-indulging in other

things

lack of planning poor prioritizing

or even just start

to you know start going to work late

start disappointing your clients

and yet you were on the right path you

just had

to continue

and we can come up with so many

different examples

beyond the kidnapping of your dreams

beyond the

burning bridges like an arsonist and

beyond being a terrorist

and being self-destructive

there’s tons of them so i would like you

at this particular point

to take a look at yourself

and ask what if i’m the bad guy where

am i being the bad guy and when you

recognize those places

you are now in a good space because if

for example you realize your temper

is your hindrance to building meaningful

relationships

you can start working on it what advice

would you give someone with an ill

temper

would you give them good advice yourself

or would you direct them to someone who

would

move from the line of willing

to do it at your own up to to lose

yourself

and get into the side way you can

actually say this

is where i need to be

because i don’t have to do this at my

own expense i can do it with somebody

and it’s important to ask yourself that

question

so this thought doesn’t end here i hope

it continues to echo

and resonate and keep finding those

places

where you’re not being a good guy to

yourself and to start fixing those

thank you

you