MM#122--The Last Of The Human Freedoms

Welcome to the theory to action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately, and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.


Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo minute. You know, sometimes when I'm researching information and reading books, for these great Mojo minutes, I come across the same information shared just a little bit differently from one author to another, from just a little bit of a different angle. And so for the last three weeks, I have been studying and researching business marketing and personal productivity. And then doing so a funny thing just kept happening to me. Almost every book in fact, the last three books, spoke about and used examples from the great cert German psychologist and founder of logotherapy Viktor Frankl. It's crazy how many times Frankel's name has come up. Now, if you don't know Victor, and his life story, well, you should. He's a fascinating individual. And his life story is both supremely tragic, and yet equally supremely beautiful. So let's pick up today's Mojo minute or Mojo book of the day. And it's one of the earliest personal development books I read way back in the day. And I'm going to share with you what I mean. And that book is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. 

Now as an aside, speaking of Covey, does anyone remember the Franklin Covey planners back in the day when day planners were kind of a big hit? Obviously, this is in our pre smartphone calendar era that we're in now. Or the pre smartphone calendar era. That's it's just crazy that I said that name. And then a flood of memories came back to my my mind about the Franklin Covey planners. And I just, I'm just now remembering there was a store. You guys might have had this in your neck of the woods. There was a store that specialized in selling those planners at one of our local malls. Here in Columbus, Ohio. I used to always schedule my time to get to that store to get the planner I was so I was so religious about it. That's just that's funny. That's what a great memory. Okay, oddly enough. Speaking of stores got a crazy another crazy memory or not a memory but just an event that just happened. 

And it's all about stores. I was just in a local mall here in town. And man has anybody been in their local mall like the old inside malls? You know the enclosed malls that came about in the 1970s and 80s they were they became super popular at least when I was growing up they were super popular but now I guess everyone's shopping online but I was just in the mall and in the mall is going downhill fast. I think probably a quarter of the businesses had their their gates down and you know security systems up and blinking lights and everything else. Yeah, I just I don't know where I guess everybody is buying everything online. I certainly buy a fair number of stuff online and but I certainly like going and touching things in stores. You know, you want to pick up products look at it. I've always loved the brick and mortar stores. But I guess I get it. Everybody's ordering stuff online. It's more convenient, far, far more faster sometimes. Okay. 

Let's get this podcast back on the rails and away from my memories. So we're gonna go back to the book and back to our quote Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And here's the quote. Frankl was a determinist raised in the tradition of Freudian psychology, which postulates that whatever happens to you as a child shapes your character, and personality and basically governs your whole life, the limits and parameters of your life are set and basic. He basically, you can't do much about it. Now Frankl was also is a psychiatrist and a Jew.


He was imprisoned in the death camps of Nazi Germany where he experienced things that were so repugnant to our sense of decency that we shudder to even repeat them. His parents, his brother, his wife died in the camps, or were sent to the gas ovens. Except for his sister, his entire family perished. FRANKEL him himself suffered torture, and innumerable indignities never knowing from one moment to the next, if his path will lead to the heavens, or if he would be among the saved, who would remove the bodies or shovel out the ashes of those so faded? 

Now listen to this portion of this quote. One day, naked, and alone in a small room, he began to become aware of what he later called the last of the human freedoms, the freedom his Nazi captors could not take away, they could control his entire environment. They could do what they wanted to his body. But Viktor Frankl himself was self aware, was a self aware being who could look as an observer at his very involvement. His basic identity was intact, he could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him, between what happened to him with the stimulus, and his response to it was his freedom or the power to choose that response. In the midst of his experiences, Frankel would project himself into different circumstances, such as lecturing to his students. After his release from the death camps, he would describe himself in his classroom, in his mind's eye, and give his students the lessons he was learning during his very torture, unquote. Holy smokes, is that not powerful. I'm not exaggerating, this is probably perhaps one of the greatest Mojo minute nuggets of wisdom we've ever covered. 

So let's go back over it again to make sure we get it one day, naked, and alone in a small room, he began to become aware of what he later called the last of the human freedoms, the freedom his Nazi captors could not take away, they could control his entire environment. They could do what they wanted to his body. But Viktor Frankl himself was self aware, was a self aware being who could look as an observer at his very involvement. His basic identity was intact, he could decide within himself how all this was going to affect him, between what happened to him or the stimulus, and his response to it was his freedom or power to choose that response? Wow, between the stimulus and his response to it was his freedom or power to choose that response? 

That's incredibly powerful. So powerful, it's actually quite hard to articulate or summarize it if we think about the human person if we think about the amount of evil that can exist within one person's heart, in this case, Adolf Hitler and the amount of people that he infected with his hate throughout all of Germany, and much of Europe in the 1920s and 30s, to be able to murder over 6 million other human beings just because of their religion, because of their Jewish religion, and the Hitler's hate for that religion. It's just mind boggling, horrific about the torture and what went on in those death camps. 

So back to Frankl. If you don't know his story, it's worth learning. It's probably one of the greatest human beings in the 20th century. He was sent to Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp, but he was then moved around between four other concentration camps. He survived all that. He survived losing his wife to the Nazis. His father died in the camps. His mother and his brother were both killed in Auschwitz. his sister amazingly escaped Australia
and heroic ly enough in 1946, just some nine short days. After being released, he wrote his autobiography Man's Search for Meaning. The book was published finally in English in 1959. It sold millions of copies and dozens of language. Frankl saw this success as a symptom of the quote, mass neurosis of modern times. Unquote. In the 1991 survey conducted by the Library of Congress, Frankel's book was named one of the most 10 most influential books in the United States. And certainly, we're going to be covering it here in later podcast. 

But in today's Mojo minute, let's think about Frankl. Let's think about his profound point that he arrived at while sitting in that concentration camp naked and alone. Think about the incredible grace from God that was put into his heart, to tell the world this nugget of wisdom that any person could take away everything from you. Take away everything. They could strip you down naked, they could torture you. They could humiliate you, they could degrade you. But in the end, they can never take away the last of your human freedoms. They can never take away the last of your human freedoms, they can never take away your choice to respond. That choice is God given. And you and I will always have it. So thank you, Victor, for sharing that incredible wisdom and that great gift with the rest of the world. We are indebted to you.


Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at T Mojo academy.com where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo our