The Men, Hardship and Triumph podcast series is a series of interviews with men as a resource for other men navigating the minefields of modern life. The men interviewed in this series talked about the difficulties of their lives, how they got through them and looking back, what strategies they used to survive the hard times.
In this episode, Clement shoots the breeze with Reverend Bill Crews AM. Bill is the founder and chairman of the Exodus Foundation, a charity that assists homeless and abandoned youth. The foundation ran the Loaves & Fishes free restaurant in Ashfield, NSW which feeds 1000 people each day until it closed due to COVID March last year. It now provides free meals through food vans as well as providing dental, medical and welfare services for the homeless and needy. The foundation also run an outreach program for homeless youth.
Bill has received many recognitions including being voted Father of the Year, Humanitarian of the year, being included in the National Trust of Australia's 100 "National Living Treasures", named as one of Australia’s 100 most influential people, and was appointed a member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his over half a century of tireless work with the disadvantaged and with homeless youth. He was the subject of a documentary film titled A War of Compassion that came out last year, and he is currently hosting the radio program Sunday Night with Bill Crews on Sydney radio station 2GB the largest Sunday night listening audience in the history of Australian radio. Bill has a book titled “12 Rules for Living a Better Life” which is a very honest, frank book about his life. A must read for people to understand his philosophy of Do as well as Reflect!
In this episode Bill discusses his constant sense of being an outsider, his strained relationships with his father and later with his children, and how he was able to make ammends with them. He also talks about learning to trust as trusting allows him to take on challenges.
A summary of his strategies and what he learnt are listed below;
1. To have a good psychotherapist to clear the baggage we carry from the past
2. To forgive because it frees and allows him to move forward
3. To have mentors because they give him additional ways of looking at the world
4. To surround himself and to cultivate friendships with good people because they help him grow
5. To let go of what he loves because if he held on to what he loves, they will go away
6. To discover himself so that he could become strong in himself
7. That pain and suffering is just the other side of love
8. To meditate on the temptations that are around
9. That crisis can either break you or break you open!
10. To learn to say “yes” to everything
11. To own up to his mistakes and be willing to apologise and listen to the harm he's done with his mistakes
12. To push through the darkest hour because there usually is a dawn at the end of it
13. To always appreciate what he has
To listen to this episode, go to https://www.clementdjaja.com/podcast/episode/e0819b81/men-hardship-and-triumph-episode-7-with-bill-crews-am
This brings me to the end of the Men, Hardship and Triumph podcast series. I will do a final short episode tying up all the points that were mentioned by multiple guests which show that while individual people may have some ways of surviving difficult times, there are also some ways that seem to be quite universal.
I really would appreciate any kind of feedback from you so that I can improve these podcasts. You can email me on clementcounselling@gmail.com.
Comments