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 28 - Let Go: How Embracing Change Brings Back What You Love
What if life's unexpected turns aren't detours but divinely orchestrated opportunities? In this thought-provoking exploration of trust, we unpack powerful principles that transform how we navigate both business challenges and personal tribulations.
The journey takes us through the fourth and fifth worldly benefits of trusting God. We discover that what appears negative might actually be perfectly designed for our growth. Through personal experiences and business case studies, we reveal how resistance to change—even beneficial change—often stems from our human attachment to familiarity. When employees at mall kiosks couldn't adapt to expanded responsibilities that would have doubled their sales, they missed tremendous opportunities for growth simply because the new tasks didn't fit their self-defined job descriptions.
Perhaps most illuminating is the swaddling analogy, where we learn that temporary constraints, like a tightly wrapped infant protesting against straight limbs, ultimately serve our development. The spiritual wisdom here is profound: when we accept challenging circumstances with love, recognizing they come from divine wisdom, we often find the trial itself dissolving. Having passed the test through our faithful response, we frequently return to our previous comfort—but with greater strength and understanding.
As we conclude the introduction to the Gate of Trust and prepare to dive deeper in upcoming episodes, one truth becomes abundantly clear: trusting that a loving Creator orchestrates your circumstances transforms how you experience every aspect of life. Have you experienced a time when accepting a difficult situation actually caused it to transform? We'd love to hear your story.
Good morning, my dear friends. We are, believe it or not, on episode 28 that I'm recording right now, and we are just getting close to finishing the introduction to the book of the Gate of Trust. I think we've done really, really well. So the fourth worldly benefit of having trust in God, we said, was that it makes a person relaxed in all matters of life, business and otherwise, even if he suffers setbacks. Why is that? Because we know, we've learned already, that setbacks aren't a bad thing, that bad isn't bad, it's only seemingly bad. That's the thought process, that is the understanding. When we've been through life and we've been through life and we've been through the challenges and we know how we come out on the other side and we've learned that there is a God that runs this world and he is our spiritual father, he's our heavenly father, he loves us and he has every ability to make us successful. We've seen that happen day in and day out, experience after experience, and we come to learn and to live knowing that everything is perfect. The fifth and the final worldly benefit of having trust in God is that it enables a person to feel happy with any situation to which he is assigned by God, even if that situation is at odds with his nature. This is very common in business, very, very common. When you're working for somebody that you sign up to do one job and suddenly you're doing a completely different job. Or they've added to your job description it wasn't on the original agreement but suddenly you find yourself cleaning the office. Suddenly you find yourself doing a completely different job than you signed up for. That you've been doing for years and many things can lead to that, I can tell you. In business, you know we go through ups and downs and sometimes during the hard times we force our staff to wear multiple hats because we have to cut our workforce down. That's just the reality of life and it's not an easy thing to do. It's very difficult to take somebody and I can tell you from vast experience it's very, very difficult to take somebody who's been doing X for a living. Whatever it is, they're doing X, that's their job, they know how to do it, they've learned it, they've become accustomed to it, they've been doing it for years and suddenly you want to either change it to Y or you want to add Y to their job description. I can almost guarantee you that Y is not going to be done nearly as well as Xs. They're going to dismiss it as much as they can. They're going to their best to gravitate back to what their original job was. That's just the way things happen and I can tell you this from my own experience.
Speaker 1:Just as a side story, as an illustration, we were in the food retail space and we had convinced one of our trading partners to take their existing mall kiosks where they were selling ice cream, and modify, retrofit the kiosk so that we could better utilize the excess space in there that they were already paying rent for. So they had this, let's say, a 10 by 10 kiosk in a mall, but they were only really using just the front. There was all this open area at the back. It's a kiosk in the center of the mall and there's people walking all around but they're not being efficient with their space. And we convinced them that we could take a complimentary product and put it on the other side of the kiosk and increase sales that way. Take their sales and literally double them, if not triple them. And it worked over here because we ran it, it was our business and we'd seen the fruits of our labor. We'd seen the results of now expanding your offering, not cannibalizing your existing sales, but adding on to your offerings, being able to capture incremental dollars from your customers. And that's what we did and we did it over here and it was massively successful and it was what started us out in one of the businesses that we were in and it flourished and we had stores all over the city. We took it into the US with one of our trading partners and we convinced them, based on our sales and our history, that it was something they should do. They had a massive network of these kiosks and so we started it off small and we went into existing stores and we retrofitted their space and we put on an entire new offering on the back end of their kiosk.
Speaker 1:The problem we faced every single time, every single time, was that the individual who was working in that kiosk and had been there for years could not wrap their head around the fact that they had another job to do. There was a very small component of preparation associated with the new product that was going in and they could not condition themselves to add on to their job description, even though 90% of their time and you know because you've been to these kiosks and the malls, certainly Monday to Friday. They've got nothing but time right. Malls are generally slow and so they sit there doing absolutely nothing, reading a book in the corner, waiting for somebody to come by and buy from them, and still they could not bring themselves, even though their boss and the owner had told them no, you have to do this. It's critically important. They still could not do it. Those who did benefited from it tremendously. Those who did literally doubled and tripled their revenues. But those who who couldn't bring their staff or their staff couldn't do it and they couldn't train them effectively, because maybe they had multiple stores and they couldn't be everywhere all the time. They did not reap the benefit.
Speaker 1:It's a challenge, and rabbeinu bakhi over here is telling that, yeah, you're going to have to deal with it. Maybe it's travel. We talked about that in the past. We said traveling for a living is a tribulation. It's difficult. We always pray when we do our benching, when we say grace after meals. One of the blessings that we give to our host is that his income should be close to where he lives. It should be in his city. He shouldn't have to travel. Why? Because traveling is difficult, no matter how much people tell you. They enjoy it. It's difficult, it's taxing on them physically and emotionally and it's taxing on their family life.
Speaker 1:I have a family member who now has a new role in his job. He's never traveled for business before. Suddenly he's traveling and he doesn't like it, and I don't blame him. But here Rabbeinu Bachi says when you're assigned different tasks to be able to generate an income, to be able to make a living, whatever it is, or even in school, you know you're used to a certain lecture hall and suddenly you're moved into a really tiny one that's cramped and confined, or you can't hear the prof, or whatever it is, whatever your situation in his life, that's inconvenient because it's unfamiliar, because you're not used to it. That's inconvenient because it's unfamiliar because you're not used to it.
Speaker 1:Now, suddenly, you recognize who put me here. Why am I here? I didn't choose this, it was chosen for me. Who chose this for me? And the answer is the same God that loves you, the same God that created you, the same God that pumps your heart and fills your lungs and gave you all the wonderful things in life. He's the one that decided that this should be the way that you generate your income, which means that it is ultimately for your best. So you're not upset about it. You're not upset about it. You accept it with love, like we said yesterday. And more than that, when you accept it with love, do you know what happens? Things change.
Speaker 1:Things change because it's a test. All of life is one big test and god is testing you to say wait a second, are you doing this for me? Are you doing this because you love me? Are you doing this because you acknowledge me, or are you doing this for some ulterior motive? Why are you in this relationship with me? He's testing you. Are you going to do the right thing or not? And when he's given you a tribulation and you conquer it and how do you conquer it? By accepting it with love, knowing that nothing could be better Then guess what happens to that tribulation? It fades away. Suddenly, it's not there anymore. Suddenly your old job position becomes available again, or there's a new person to take over your new position, or whatever it may be goes away and you revert back to making a living the way that you were comfortable with originally. Why? Because you accepted it with love and Hashem says okay. God says you passed the test. I put a test in front of you. You nailed it because you understood that it came from me and that I love you, and it came from a place of love. So it can't be bad. You accepted it and you ran with it and you embraced it. So suddenly you don't have to deal with that anymore. It's okay, I'll put you back where you were before. You'll make more money doing what you love. That's how it works, my friends. That's how he created this world, just like it's interesting.
Speaker 1:Over here, rabbeinu Bachia brings an example that I didn't know about. He talks about swaddling a baby. He says just like a mother takes her infant son and swaddles him against his will. Those of you who have had babies here know that when you have a baby, the nurse teaches you right out the gate how to take this big piece of cloth and wrap your baby up like a burrito. Right, you take their arms and you stretch them out down by their sides, nice and straight, and you wrap them up nice and tight. They can't move. They got an itch on their face, too bad. They're not moving and oftentimes the baby is screaming and crying in protest.
Speaker 1:Now, I didn't know why, but Rabbi Rabbeinu Bache says over here that you're stretching out the baby's arms that have been bent and cramped throughout its entire gestation period and delivery. Right, if you think about the fetal position, the baby's been in that for nine, ten months. Suddenly it's out and it's got the ability to stretch its arms. I remember when my daughter my second child came into this world, she came out with her arms stretched out like she was just pulling this amazing 10-month stretch that she'd been waiting for for the longest time and she wouldn't release it for a good solid two minutes. So when we're swaddling, what we're doing is we're adjusting this baby to understand that you're now outside of that environment. You can now straighten out your limbs and get used to having them nice and straight. They don't always have to be bent, but the child doesn't always like it. It's annoying, it's frustrating.
Speaker 1:There are many other benefits to swaddling, but the idea is that the mother does it, even when the child is protesting. Why? Because the mother knows that it is good for the child. That, my friends, concludes all of the five worldly benefits of having trust in God. We're going to summarize it tomorrow and then we're going to get into the meat and potatoes. I don't know about you guys, but I am excited. We had a lot of benefits, we had a lot of learning, we had a lot of growth, and that was just the introduction. Can you imagine what's to come? Have an amazing day.
