The Trust Factor
A daily lesson that focuses on achieving unparalleled success in life using ancient wisdom in modern times.
We will be discussing critical concepts as they are laid out in the book Sha'ar Habitachon - The Gate of Trust. Written 1000 years ago, the author reminds us of the values and wisdom that have allowed humanity to thrive throughout history.
The concept of trusting in a higher power that exists purely for our benefit, puts us in the drivers seat with absolute confidence to achieve greatness.
Eliminate: Fear, Hatred, Anxiety, Depression, Jealousy, Greed...forever!
* Note that some terminology will be in the original Hebrew or Aramaic which I will always follow with the English translation.
The Trust Factor
Episode 23 - Let Go and Let God: A Businessman's Revelation
The sacred period between Passover's first and last days holds extraordinary potential for personal transformation—if only we recognize it. Rather than sleepwalking through these intermediate days as though they're ordinary, small adjustments to our routines can unlock tremendous spiritual growth. Whether leaving work earlier, taking a longer lunch break, or carving out extra family time, these conscious modifications acknowledge we're in a season designed for elevation.
Trust in God brings unexpected practical benefits, particularly freedom from exhausting travel for income. When someone believes their livelihood depends entirely on their own efforts, they'll chase opportunities across continents, enduring physical and emotional strain. Yet this necessity to travel for work often stems from deeper spiritual dynamics—either as atonement for past mistakes or fulfillment of a divine mission related to charity or commandments incomplete in previous existences. By developing genuine trust, we open alternative pathways that align with both our material needs and spiritual wellbeing.
A revealing personal story demonstrates this principle: two business shipments from China yielded opposite results based on my approach. The critical, time-sensitive order I obsessively micromanaged arrived frustratingly late despite constant follow-ups. Meanwhile, the routine shipment I barely thought about arrived perfectly on time—first delivery of the day. This wasn't coincidence but divine communication: our desperate grip on control often becomes the very obstacle to success. Those with "eyes to see" recognize these patterns as invitations to greater trust. When we surrender outcomes while fulfilling our responsibilities, life unfolds with remarkable efficiency. The question becomes: are we willing to notice these messages and adjust our approach accordingly?
What area of your life might benefit from loosening your grip and trusting more deeply? The results might surprise you.
Good morning everybody. We are in the intermediate days of Passover. The next holiday starts Friday night coincides with Shabbat. So this week should not be just a regular week for you. This should be a week where you modify your behavior, your practices. Some people, like I said, take off entirely. Some are not as fortunate. If you're not as fortunate and you can't take entire days or weeks off, then do certain things that you don't normally do. Take, you know, come in a little bit later in the morning, or leave a little bit earlier, or take a longer lunch, or do some things with your family that you don't normally do, recognizing that it is a period of time which is still considered a holiday and, if you remember what we've talked about coming into Passover, there are tremendous, tremendous powers in the world that exist right now that are designed to help you, to help you grow personally and spiritually. Take advantage of those. Don't just make it another week. Do something a little bit different to recognize and remind yourself that this is an opportune time for amazing growth.
Speaker 0:Let's get into what we were talking about yesterday, which is a second worldly benefit of having trust in God, and then, hopefully, we'll move into the third, yesterday, which is a second worldly benefit of having trust in God, and then hopefully, we'll move into the third. So what we talked about yesterday was the second worldly benefit is that it relieves an individual from the worry of having to travel long distances. Somebody who thinks they're in control and thinks that their income is entirely dependent on them will do whatever it takes, including if they have to, and they may find themselves in a situation where they have no alternative, where they they have no alternative, where they seemingly have no alternative, because the alternative is to pray to God or is to have trust in God and know where your money's coming from. If you don't have that, then you do whatever it takes to be able to make an income and feed your family, even if that means traveling to the other side of the world, and we talked about how challenging that can be physically and emotionally, spiritually, to be constantly traveling long distances. Why is that the case? Why do we find that sometimes people can't make it work locally they have? The only way that they can make it work, seemingly throughout their career is by traveling long distances.
Speaker 0:So Rabbeinu Bacha brings two different examples over here of why that might be. One of these reasons is that if a person leaves his hometown in order to achieve an income, it's actually a form of exile. Like we said yesterday, there are many, many difficulties associated with leaving the familiar surroundings of your home and your community. When you're born and raised or grow up or spent enough time in a certain environment, you know where everything is, you know everybody and you know a lot of people and they know you, and so things are a lot easier and you're a lot more comfortable operating and you could be much more effective working in a familiar territory. When you have to leave, it becomes very, very difficult to generate an income somewhere else. But why do you have to leave in the first place?
Speaker 0:One of the answers is that you might have to atone for something. Who knows. You've got some kind of challenge that you're dealing with from a previous existence or even in this existence, and it's affecting your ability to make an income. And so Hashem says listen before I give you money which you're not entitled to and you don't deserve, based on your behaviors in the past or whatever it may be. You need to clean up. You need to clean up your act. How do you do that? Get out there and experience these difficulties Go through the challenges associated with working from a very far away place, and that is an atonement, because of its difficulty.
Speaker 0:Anything, by the way, guys, anything that we go through in this life is called a tribulation. A tribulation is any challenge that comes out of the blue that affects you on a daily basis, no matter how big or small it is. Anything that gives you any amount of stress is a tribulation and it goes directly to assisting you. It is literally for your benefit, because what you pay in this world you don't pay for in the next world. If you have a choice that you have, you've done something wrong. We all do things wrong all day long. That's who we are. We're human beings. We make mistakes. We're not perfect. We're programmed to make mistakes, so we're going to make them.
Speaker 0:So if you have a choice of where to pay that bill, now you've got a bill to pay because you made a mistake, you caused damage and now you need to pay a bill. Do you want to pay that bill in a temporary world that lasts 70, 90, 100 years, or do you want to pay it in a world of eternity that just goes on and on? Obviously, the answer is you want to pay it in a temporary world. Pay that bill over here, because material things are cheap, they're easy to come by. Pay it over here and then, once you've paid it over here, you no longer have to pay for it in the next world. What that means in detail we can get into in another time, but right now the concept is that you are now being sent to another place. It's very difficult, it's challenging and as a result of that, you're paying down your bill. That now opens up the pipeline for you to receive tremendous income, but unfortunately it needs to come with challenges. It needs to come with tribulation.
Speaker 0:The other reason why some people might find that the only time they really make any money is when they're away from home, when they've traveled far ways, because it could be that that person is being sent on a mission for giving tzedakah, for giving charity, and the very fact that as he goes and he spends time and he spends money and he makes an effort to get over there, his business trip is undertaken for making extra income. That's a mitzvah. Taking care of your family and providing, that's a mitzvah. That's a commandment. And so when you're traveling effectively, you're traveling for the purpose of a mitzvah and, as a result of that, you're granted your income and maybe, based on your previous existences and what you've done in the past, maybe had you not traveled, had you not gone for that mitzvah specifically, maybe you didn't complete that mitzvah effectively in a previous go around. Now you're doing it and by doing it, by virtue of you doing that mitzvah, that's why he sent you down here. He opens up your income for you here. He opens up your income for you. So those are two of the reasons why somebody may be forced to go overseas to generate a living.
Speaker 0:That obviously comes with the sense of lack of trust in God because, ultimately, if you know where it comes from and you know what you need to do and how to behave in this world in other words, you know that all you need to do is do tshuva, you need to repent. You did something bad in a previous existence. There's a way to do tshuva, to do proper repentance. If you've done that, then guess what? Now you no longer need to travel, now you no longer need to go through the tribulations of making an income because you've done a proper tshuva. But so many people walk around, especially those without trust in God, and don't realize this, and so they keep doing the same thing, repeating the same behavior, and as a result of that, then that effect is Hashem says okay, listen, if you're not going to clue in, then your income is going to be challenging and that you're going to have to travel. Let's move on.
Speaker 0:Let me share a story with you because it happened to me today and I think it's some insight and it's a learning opportunity. So I thought I would share it with you guys because it might give you some inspiration. This is how I'm kind of wired and it's not natural. I've been working on myself for a very long time, probably the better part of the last 20 years, and I'm constantly trying to grow my faith and my trust in God and to have eyes to see, because if you don't, if you're not dialed in, if you don't have your antenna up and you're not into the right station, it's just static. You just go on with life. You know you don't really hear anything, you're not on the receiving end. But when your antenna are properly positioned and you tuned into the right station, things start coming in in in high fidelity. Sometimes it starts coming in crystal, crystal clear if you're dialed in properly. Now I'm always working on that and that's kind of the point of this entire podcast is that you guys continue to work on yourselves so that you become sensitive to the important things in this world. And the important thing, the most important thing, is to recognize that there is a creator who loves you and wants to have a relationship with you. So how do I realize that?
Speaker 0:And let me give you a small example from what happened recently Two shipments that I ordered out of China recently for my business. One of them left first and it was critically important and very time sensitive. If I didn't arrive on time I stood to lose not only a lot of money but a very, very important and brand new customer. So I put in that order, I put it in nice and early. I put it on an expedited fast boat from China to come to Toronto. Everything went off without a hitch. The vendor put out the product when they were supposed to. It hit the water when it was supposed to. I had everybody informed, from the vendor all the way through, everybody who touched that product, to let them know that it was time sensitive and it was very critical that that get here as fast as possible, right until the final day, which, by the way, was about 10 days late. So I managed, I scrambled, I did all the things that small business owners do in order to pivot, to be able to lessen the damage and the impact, and thank God, it all worked out in the end.
Speaker 0:However, 10 days later, this still hasn't showed up yet, and I'm keeping everybody informed all the way through, until the very last delivery. The driver where they said they were going to deliver it tomorrow. I said do me a favor and deliver it first thing. I said anywhere between nine to four. I said what can you do to get it here at nine? We'll do our best. We'll do our best All the way through.
Speaker 0:I'm thinking about this until the very morning, the day of or the day before, and I request a morning delivery. When does it deliver? Three o'clock in the afternoon, Okay, what can I do? I was thinking about the shipment the whole way through. The same time I had a second shipment that left three days later on a regular boat, not as pressing, not as time sensitive. I didn't say anything to anybody about that shipment. It was just a shipment that would arrive when it arrived. And guess what happened? It came on time. Now, I knew it was going to arrive one of these days this week. I called yesterday and I asked them when is it supposed to arrive? They said today, between nine to four. So I said, okay, great, I didn't ask him for a morning delivery because it's not so pressing. Guess, when it arrived 9am, driver's waiting for me at the door.
Speaker 0:The previous one, that was so time sensitive that I went nuts for telling everybody about it and staying on top of it. That one came at the end of the day. The latest point of delivery potential, this one where I'm not worried about it, I'm not thinking about it and I don't have my hand on the button all day long, right, and I'm not nagging people to make sure that they're doing their job. This one arrives on time. Not only on time, it's the first delivery of the day. Now, 95% of the population would just say, oh, nice coincidence. Okay, listen, what can you do? You win some, you lose some. That's 95% of the population, and that's not where you want to be. You want to be the other 5%. The other 5% is tuned in and they reflect on their lives, on their days and on their weeks. And that's what I did. I did it today.
Speaker 0:This morning, when I got the phone call from the driver at 9 am, I laughed. I said, ha, look at that, the guy. The previous shipment. I couldn't pay them enough to come early. This guy I don't really care, he comes on time. What's the message? Coincidence? No such thing. The message is the previous one.
Speaker 0:I thought I was in control. The previous one. I didn't scream out to Hashem, help me, I need this one on time. I'm not even going to call them, it's all on you. I didn't do that. You know what would have happened had I done that? Without a doubt it would have arrived early, it would have been super early, I wouldn't have had to worry about it, I wouldn't have had to bother anybody about it and it would have come on time or early.
Speaker 0:But because I had my finger on the trigger, because I was making everybody crazy about it, including myself, and because I wanted that early morning delivery and I was pleading with the carrier and the truck driver, it came at the end. The message to me was very, very clear there you thought you were in control and I showed you the result. Here you let go of control and I showed you a different result. That, my friends, is a snapshot that captures our every decision, our every interaction. If you address it the way that I should have addressed it, where I addressed the second ship and I said hashem, this one is critical and that's why I'm not calling, that's why I'm not driving anybody crazy, this one I'm putting in your court. Really, I should put them all in his court, but this one, because it's got extra pressure and it's putting extra pressure on me. I'm going to drop this one in your court and Hashem says I got this, I got this. I guarantee you it would have went perfectly smoothly.
Speaker 0:We are our own worst enemies when we lack trust, when we have no faith in Hashem. He shows us very clearly and then the question becomes do we have eyes to see what he's showing us? Because when you see them, you have no choice but to acknowledge them. Then you're grateful, you say thank you, you smile because you realize it's all perfectly orchestrated and that there was absolutely no reason for you to ever be concerned, and you change your approach the next time. Have an amazing day. We'll continue tomorrow.
