Note: You can listen to the blog post on the video or read the blog post.
Hello and Welcome.
I am Esther.
I am Peters A I Assistant to create voice overs.
I will simply read Peters blog posts, so that you have a choice of reading the blog post, or listening to my voice.
Hello Gentlemen.
Today, I want to share a very funny story with you, if you have about 10 minutes to spare.
No, not Taylor Swifts song moaning about how her boyfriend dropped her.
This funny story is about how I learned to be honest.
I am sure you will like the punchline.
So here we go.
Little boys do not know how to be honest.
We have to be taught.
We are usually taught by our mothers.
So, in 1967, when I was 3, my mum decided it was time to teach little Peter to be honest.
This is how she did it.
She put a bowl of bananas on the kitchen bench and told me not to eat any bananas without her permission.
She said taking a banana without her permission was “stealing”.
Now, where I grew up in Wagga Wagga Australia, bananas were very expensive and only available in season.
AND they were my favourite food.
So, we all know what happened next.
When mum was not looking I “stole” a banana, ate it, and put the skin in the bin.
I didn’t even know what “counting” was, so I was pretty easily caught.
Once I realised my mum could count the number of bananas in the bowl, I would steal the banana from the bunch in the fridge.
I soon realised mum was also checking the garbage tin in the house and outside.
So I started hiding the banana skins under the house.
That’s what 3 year old boys do.
We are quite ingenious about stealing our favourite food.
This went on for a while.
Then my mum gave me the lecture.
She told me that stealing the banana was wrong, and I knew it, because I was hiding the skins.
So, from now on the rules would be as follows.
- If you steal a banana, and you come to me and admit it before I find out, you get one smack.
- If you steal a banana, and I have to ask you about it and you admit it when I ask, you get two smacks.
- But if you steal a banana, and I ask you about it and you lie to me to get away with it? You get four smacks.
Of course, mum was teaching me that lying was worse than stealing the banana.
In those days, when I was 3, the smacks were quite light.
And then banana season ended.
Six months later mum started it all again.
Strangely, the smacks seemed much harder.
But, of course, I kept stealing bananas, and I kept lying about stealing them.
Four smacks for a banana?
I was taking that deal.
Soon mum stepped the “smacks” up to be a smack with a big wooden spoon that was about 3 feet long.
I had seen her hit my bothers on their bare bottoms with this spoon, and it looked like it really hurt.
Well? It did!
Now I had a problem.
I really loved bananas, but four smacks with the “wooden spoon” was too high a price to pay.
So, I started stealing the bananas and admitting it to mum, and taking the one smack with the “wooden spoon”.
But pretty soon?
That one smack was so hard that even then I was discouraged.
But I still kept up stealing the bananas.
I really liked bananas!
Then one day my mum says to me.
“Peter, mummies have magic powers. We can read the thoughts of our children. God gives us this magic power to help keep you safe.”
Oh? So mummies have magic powers?
That is how she knows I am lying?
She could have told me that sooner!
Then, just to be sure, I tested out “mummies magic powers”.
Believe me, every time I stole a banana and tried to deny it?
She knew!
Eventually, because “mummies have magic powers to read my mind”, I gave up.
I decided that it was just easier to be honest.
Those spankings with the “wooden spoon” were now so painful they actually made me cry.
It really hurt.
So, all in all?
I decided it is just better to be honest, because “mummies magic powers” will only catch me out anyway.
Fast forward to February 2008.
My mother was dying from Dementia.
I spent the month with her, we talked about life, the universe, and everything.
This was likely the last time I would get to talk with her, and it was lovely.
At one point she said to me.
“Peter, I want you to know I am so proud of you that you are an honest man”.
I laughed at her and said.
“Well it’s hard to be dishonest with you as a mother.”
She asked.
“Why do you say that?”
And even as I said the words I knew how ridiculous they were.
I said.
“Well, you had magic powers to read my mind so I simply decided it was better to be honest.”
Mum laughed and asked me what I meant.
I said.
“Do you remember, when I was a little boy, you told me mothers had magic powers given to them by God, to read the minds of their children, to keep them safe?”
She said.
“Yes, I do remember telling you that.”
I said.
“Well, I believed you, and it stuck with me all my life. You are why I am honest.”
She laughed and she laughed and she laughed.
It was so lovely to see her laughing in her demented state.
Finally, she stopped laughing and she said to me.
“Peter, when you tried to lie to me, you put your left hand over your bottom, because you knew the spanking was coming.”
We both laughed & laughed at the thought of me, as a little boy putting my left hand over my bottom & saying.
“I promise mummy, I didn’t eat the banana!”
As I grew up I had other people in my life who influenced me greatly.
None more so than my Grandfather, who was a world war two veteran.
Honesty.
Honour.
Integrity.
These were the three words that these people drummed into my head.
They said.
“Above all else, grow up to be an honest man of honour and integrity.”
And so I did.
In business, I resigned three good jobs when I was asked to do something, that I felt conflicted with my own personal ethics.
In Australia, in the nineties, it was very well known that I resigned from those three jobs on ethical grounds.
As a result?
In business, I have had men give me multi-million dollar deals, on my handshake and my word, that I WILL deliver the project I am selling them.
Today, when young men ask me, what would I say are some of the reasons I have been so successful in life?
I always tell them the basis for everything I do is honesty, honour and integrity.
I tell them on top of that you have to add hard work.
I tell them it’s not easy.
I tell them life is much easier, in the moment, to be a liar.
But to lie comes at the price of your own self respect.
I tell young men, that if you can not respect your self enough to be honest?
Then don’t expect any other man to respect you either.
Honesty, Honour and Integrity, are the basis on which I built my life.
Everything else is built on that foundation.
That foundation must be rock solid.
Now that I have turned sixty?
I am very proud of the life I have lived.
When I see my grandfather again?
He is going to shake my hand, pat me on the back, and say, job well done.
I am looking forward to that day.
Sadly, many men have chosen not to be honest men of honour and integrity.
We see the consequences of this all around us.
So.
If you consider your self an honest man of honour and integrity?
Please feel free to add your thoughts and comments below.
Let us show the young men what honest men of honour and integrity look like.
Perhaps they will follow our example.
Perhaps they will not.
But, in my humble opinion, it’s worth setting the example publicly.
Thank you in advance, for all those men who comment, and set the example, for the younger men.
And with that?
I hope you found this blog post funny and interesting.
Thank you very much for your time and attention.
I really appreciate that.
Best Regards.
Esther.
Peters A I Assistant.
