by Thinus Ferreira
Widely predicted and expected to become the winner of Survivor SA: Immunity Island on M-Net (DStv 101), Francois "Chappies" Chapman made it so close and yet so far to last 38 out of 39 days when he lost the final individual immunity challenge after winning a breath-taking string of previous ones and then got his torch snuffed.
The only two people who spoke completely differently from the rest when it came to individual interviews to camera were you and Renier. You both spoke as if watching it as a viewer, and stylistically you also changed yours to be funny and with one-liner zingers. Was it a conscious decision to do almost reality TV "method-acting"?
Chappies: The "method acting" was a slight part of my strategy, it's something that naturally occurred to a certain extent within the game.
For example, the day we arrived on the beach I played up my confidence a bit so that people might have seen it as arrogance. I am very confident in real life but I decided that I'm going to embrace this confidence and add a bit of spice so that I get into people's heads.
That was my only form of "method acting" that I embraced.
What you see in confessionals, is actually who I am, just with a bit more spice. At all times I took into account that I am producing a show here as well and I wanted to tell the story as accurate as possible and as entertaining as possible because that is what I love from a viewer's perspective as well.
That's why, sometimes - I don't know where these creative things come from - but it helps the viewer remember those scenes, those one-liners, if you colour things in a bit.
The speedo. Obviously no body issues.
Chappies: Ha ha. I don't have body issues and I just felt that if you get the opportunity to go to the beach and you can show the world that you accept your body, why don't you wear nothing if possible, or the slightest bit of material, right?
If you get the opportunity to go to a deserted beach - and as a bonus, international TV - just show people that you can love your body without faffing about yourself, if I can put it that way. Accept your body. Go out and have fun.
That's the thing that I wanted people to see. I wanted them to see this bright, orange speedo and it should be a symbol of myself having fun and not caring what anybody else thinks about my body because I love the body that I'm in.
How do you deal with disappointment and you're probably still dealing with it - how do you find something good out of something that's bad?
Chappies: It's a very good question and one that I've been pondering and been processing the last while; the last year or two of my life, you know.
The answer for me is, the things that we find happen to us, actually happen for us. Let's say that not winning Survivor SA is a bad thing in most people's hearts or in their opinion.
Yet in my heart, in the bigger scheme of things, down the line, we're going to know exactly why I didn't and why I wasn't destined to win this season. There's a reason for it that we don't understand now but in the bigger scheme of things we're going to understand.
I choose to see the things that don't go my way that it happens for me, and not necessarily to me. Accepting the fact that things are actually happening for you, you can actually overcome some of the worst things that life throws at you - death, the loss of business.
Any adversity happening to you gives you the opportunity to grow. It gives you the opportunity to discover things about yourself.
What surprised you that you didn't know about?
Chappies: There's so much, Thinus. If I can point out two things, I knew that the cast misunderstood me as a person but I didn't know to what extent, and that was crazy to see that these people really hated me to the core of their beings. They really hated me from the beginning.
It tells me that some of the strategy to mess with their minds actually worked.
Them getting to know me now, I get a completely opposite vibe from them. As much hatred as I've experienced from them, I now get love. It was really interesting to see how much they've hated me at the beginning.
Most of the other things were not that big of a shock. Another thing that shocked me a bit was that I've got flaws - I know I've got flaws - but I also didn't know to what extent these flaws are and how big they are.
This is what the game really emphasised for me. It's like a magnifying glass highlighting both your weaknesses and your strengths. A lot of my weaknesses were highlighted and now I've got to take responsibility to work on that, and that is something that was shocking to me.
I knew sometimes I say sh*t without thinking, but I didn't know to what extent, and I didn't know to what extent it hurts other people.
What did you learn about how people behave, from this experience?
Chappies: I could go on for hours about this because I'm still analysing the reactions of the cast as we go along.
First of all this experience made me realise that we are spiritual beings within the game called life. Then, I had the opportunity of playing the game of Survivor SA within the game of life. As you go further along, people tend to get controlled by their emotions more. That was really interesting for me to see.
They would lose self-control and their emotions would rise much more to the surface and take control of the vehicle. They would say things and do things that they don't normally do in their real lives because of the emotional control; because of the very harsh environment and the fact that they're in survival mode.
In the game either the spirit could rise and you could have an amazing transcending experience, or the emotions and the body can rise and you can have an egoistic experience that you're only going to realise afterwards because you don't realise that you're being driven by emotions while they drive you. You only realise that afterwards and go "Oh sh*t, did I really react like that?"
Sometimes I look back at some of the confessions and it doesn't feel - I can't even remember some of the things I've said. Emotions also took over me at some stage.
You obviously go into this expecting a deterioration of your physical body. Was it worse than you expected and to what extent were you surprised by how your body changed?
Chappies: Thinus, I was shocked because when I saw my body, I saw the homeless people standing on the side of the street. And that happened over a period of 38 days.
To lose a kilogram every third day - that's what it came down to more or less because I lost 12kg. It was insane. It was ... It was so shocking to me.
At the same time, also, when I looked into the mirror for the first time, I saw that my body had deteriorated to such an extent that I did not recognise myself.
If I had to choose from photos, myself, I would not have recognised myself, right.
When I looked into the mirror and I saw the eyes, I realised the soul is still the same.
That's the penny that dropped that made me realise that everything material will deteriorate with time. It was like an opening for my soul that made me realise: Chappies, listen, you've lost 12kg within a month, if you keep going on like that, you would be dust.
It's philosophical, it's spiritual but that what the realisation was when I looked into the mirror of "wow, this is just a vehicle. And it's just here for a little short time before turning back to dust. But this is eternal, you know". But it shocks you to your core when I saw how the vehicle just deteriorated.
As a transformational coach as your career, this is such a great thing for your CV, I'm sure a lot more people will come to ask you for help and advice, what do you think this experience has infused on a professional level and how might you bring what you've learnt from your Survivor experience into it?
Chappies: I really believe there's a lot of lessons that I've gained through the game that I can apply in my personal life as well as the business life and some of these lessons are lessons that you can apply in any business; in any person's life.
I can't say that I've got the solutions for everyone; that I'm going to boost their business now.
I want to work with people who are willing to accept the fact that there's always more to learn and that you can really learn from everyone, and wants to see what my input can do in their business.
If there are people who are willing and open to learn and they know they are open to growth and more out there, I'm going to take that opportunity to upscale the business by changing the way the employees think about themselves - about their daily work and about the people around them.
Because the moment you change the way you think about the activities you're busy with every day, your work becomes more meaningful, which gives better results, which brings about a more fulfilling life.
The business owners that don't just see numbers but see the holistic, big picture, will find value in what I can bring to the table.
