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 100 - 100 Episodes: Finding Clarity in a Chaotic World
Have you ever wondered what happens when a single decision changes the entire trajectory of your life? Today marks our 100th episode milestone of The Trust Factor podcast, and I'm taking a moment to share the deeply personal journey that led to creating a show dedicated to genuine wisdom in a world filled with hollow content.
Twenty years ago, my life changed forever when a friend shared a video of Rabbi Yosef Mizrahi. As a secular Jew with a comfortable life, I was skeptical at first—giving it just five minutes of my Sunday morning. Those minutes stretched into hours, then weeks of learning that completely transformed my understanding of purpose. What began as casual curiosity evolved into a profound spiritual awakening that gave me clarity I never knew I needed.
The podcast emerged from recognizing a critical truth: we all have an obligation to both learn and teach. While our digital landscape overflows with meaningless content and entertainment, there's a desperate need for counterbalancing voices offering substantial guidance—especially during these challenging times of economic uncertainty and moral confusion. The Trust Factor provides this balance, offering practical wisdom with the guarantee that implementation brings success. By making the right amount of effort—not too little, not too much—while maintaining faith, listeners discover how to live with one foot in this world and one in spiritual reality.
As we look toward season two with interviews and video broadcasts, I invite you to join this growing community. Share these teachings with others who might benefit, because the right influence at the right moment can literally save a life. What meaningful content will you share today that might change someone's world tomorrow?
Good morning everybody. Welcome to the Trust Factor. This is the podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its teachings. My friends, I want to wish you a congratulations, a sincere congratulations. Today's an important milestone in the history of the Trust Factor podcast. We've reached 100 episodes, my friends, today, and this is the 100th episode of the Trust Factor, a podcast that I started back in March, and I think it's important that we talk about it for a few minutes. How did we get here and where are we going? We got here because four months ago, I decided that I was going to actually implement the thing that I thought I should have done a long time before that. What inspired me? Many, many different things. But to understand it and it's important that you understand it because you can apply some lessons to your life here Almost 20 years ago, I started to become an observant Jew.
Speaker 1:I did not grow up as an observant Jew. I grew up in a secular, traditional household. I knew that there was a God. I shouldn't say that I thought or I believed that there was a God, but I could never explain that to you. He did his thing and I did mine, and we were cool. We worked well with each other. He ran the world. I ran my life. Everything is great. I grew up with religious friends. I grew up with religious family members. I spent my childhood in Hebrew school learning not much in fact learning nothing about the things that I'm giving over in this podcast and so naturally I didn't feel it was important for me to live a religious lifestyle, and I didn't. Later on in my life and I was very respectful of those who did, including my friends and family members.
Speaker 1:But later on in life, around the age of 33, when I was married with a young child, young children at home, I was sent a video by a friend of mine, a lecture on Facebook, a link to a lecture on Facebook. I opened it up and I listened to a rabbi who. I thought to myself why am I listening to this individual? I'm too busy for this. I've seen many videos like this before. Doesn't interest me, does not appeal to me. But I had a little bit of time, it was a Sunday morning and so I said let's give this guy five minutes. Five minutes turned into 15. 15 minutes turned into the rest of the day.
Speaker 1:Weeks and months followed where I listened to. All minutes turned into the rest of the day. Weeks and months followed, where I listened to all the lectures, or a lot of the lectures that the rabbi had on his website, and thank God I did, because that was the beginning of my journey to be able to become what's called a balchuvah, somebody who recognizes that there's more to life than filling my belly and filling my bank account and working like a slave to be able to keep up with the Joneses and not having any real clear purpose or perspective. I thought I did until I heard these unbelievable ideas that set me on the right track. My friends, that rabbi his name is Rabbi Yosef Mizrahi. He became my rabbi, who made me a Baal Tshuva. He effectively saved my life and gave me a life of eternity, and the reality is that it was his benefit and it was the person who sent me that video, and that, in big part, is why I'm doing this, because I have an obligation. As I've said to you guys all before, we have an obligation to learn and to teach, and so the individual who sent me the video of my rabbi was not a teacher. He did not know how to teach, he did not have that skill, and so instead, or he didn't have the reach and instead he sent out a video that could be blasted on the internet and reach the four corners of the world. And that's what he did, and he kept being persistent at it and eventually he it found its home and it changed my life forever.
Speaker 1:I don't even want to consider what my life would have been like. It wasn't a terrible life. I had a fantastic life, a very charmed life, no question. I grew up in a upper middle class environment and I had wonderful friends and community, living in a wonderful country. Everything was great, had every opportunity available to me, but I did not have clarity. I did not know what my real purpose was. I did not know why we were put on this earth. I knew nothing about God, nothing I thought I did. But I figured out that I knew absolutely nothing and I started to learn about him, and I started to learn about the things that I'm teaching you how to have a relationship and, more importantly, what really got me was all the things that he talked about. That proved to me that God runs this world.
Speaker 1:You know, as guys, oftentimes we're very pragmatic, we're very logical. Everything that we do has to be based in the physical, in the here and now. We need to be able to quantify things and qualify things and be able to touch and feel and sense them to be able to make sense of them. If we don't, if we're not able to see or feel or touch these things or sense them with any, if we don't, if we're not able to see or feel or touch these things or sense them with any of our five senses, it's very hard for most men to get their heads around these concepts, as it was for me. But thanks to my rabbi and thanks to my friend, I ended up being able to recognize all of these truths and to incorporate them into my life and make massive change.
Speaker 1:So here I am today, fast forward almost 20 years. I've had the opportunity to learn Torah. For decades I've had the opportunity to teach Torah because, like I said, we're all obligated. So I did a lot of teaching over the years and, because of my natural ability to be able to connect to people, I did a lot of mentoring for the younger community through different Jewish organizations, high school students, even elementary school students, and certainly into university and adults as well. So I've had plenty of time to teach, but I've always kept it confined to my immediate surroundings, the organizations I'm involved with, the synagogues I'm involved with. That was always the extent of my reach, but I always had a desire to take it to the next level, never really implemented it until four months ago, my friends. And here we are today, a hundred episodes in.
Speaker 1:Why do I share all this with you? Because I want to encourage you to do the same. It is a big part of the purpose that you are put on this world to do. You have an obligation, as I did, to learn and to teach. So if you can teach, if you know the Aleph Beit, the Hebrew ABC, then you have an obligation to teach it, and so you should do it. And if you don't know how to do it, then find the individuals, whether it's this podcast or any of the others, and share them with your friends and your family. My friends, we don't know what tomorrow brings. As I said yesterday, we really have no idea of five seconds from now. So the best time to have shared was yesterday, and the next best time to share it is today. Don't delay, my friends.
Speaker 1:I could tell you that the opposite side of this spectrum, my friends, I could tell you that the opposite side of this spectrum, the opposite side of this coin, are all of the influencers out there who are doing absolutely nothing. In fact, they are denigrating society Because if you watch, if you're on TikTok, if you're on social media, if you see what our kids are looking at, it is simply junk. That's all it is. It is just an opportunity for people to make fools out of themselves. Everybody wants to perform for you, everybody wants to show you their abilities, everybody wants to share their opinion with you, and most of the time, it is simply junk. That's all it is.
Speaker 1:I get the entertainment factor, don't get me wrong. I get the fact that people need to let loose for a little while after a day and unwind. We used to have TV growing up. Today, I mean, I haven't watched TV in a very long time. Everybody needs their form of entertainment. I get it, so understand where it belongs and how much of it, but there needs to be the opposite available to people. We need to counter the ridiculousness with influencers who are going to influence correctly and put people on the right path. It doesn't help that the the right path. It doesn't help that the economy is suffering. It doesn't help that we're in a post-COVID era. It doesn't help that humanity has fallen from their perch in terms of what our moral values are and our moral compass. We have lost our way and it's time to come home, my friends. It's time to get back on track, and that's what we're doing with this podcast. So thank you for listening, thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1:I sincerely hope that you're getting a lot, you are gaining from this and, more importantly, that you are implementing these things in your life. I know it's the tagline that we guarantee success when you implement it, but it's true, my friends. If you implement it, your life will change. Your life will get better, you will be happier, you will be more fulfilled, your family will benefit from it. There is no downside, absolutely none.
Speaker 1:I live, you live in this world. It's a secular world. You can't help but have one foot in this world. Make sure that it's not two feet. Make sure that you've got at least one foot in the next world. Operate that way and in this fashion, my friends, you will miss out on nothing. You will lack absolutely nothing. And the reality is you have to make an effort.
Speaker 1:And let me just segue into what we're about to talk about, which is that we have an obligation to act. That's what we're about to learn. We're going to take it over on Sunday, but that's what we're about to get into. We have an obligation to act. This is a world of doing, of action, and that's what Rabbeinu Bacha is about to explain to us that if we don't make an effort, you are guaranteed nothing. You have to do your hishtadlut, you have an obligation to make your effort and then, and only then, will God figure out which method, which way he wants to give you what's coming to you, what you need in order to succeed in this world.
Speaker 1:But if you make no effort, or not enough effort, my friends, then it may not come to you. If you make no effort, it's not coming to you. If you make some effort, you may get some of it. If you make the right amount of effort, you will get all of it. And again, if you make too much effort, then you may not get any. Why? Because when you make too much effort, then what you are saying is I've got this, it's on me, I know how to handle this situation, I know how to get a good outcome, the outcome that I want. And so if I just do A, b and C a million times. Eventually it's going to hit. When you do that, when you act in that way, my friends, you are demonstrating clearly for yourself and for God and for anybody else that's watching, that you have absolutely no faith or trust in God. That would be the antithesis of what we've been teaching for the last four months.
Speaker 1:My friends, I'm looking forward to reaching 150 and 200 and beyond. I'm looking into a season two. I'm looking into interviews and video broadcasts and all kinds of different things. My friends, hopefully there to come. There is an evil inclination. He's working overtime over here. I'm not immune, we all have him. He wants to make sure that I shut this thing down as soon as possible. I'm not going to let that happen and, with your help, we're going to conquer that evil inclination and we're going to take this podcast to new heights and achieve new levels of success. Have a spectacular day, have an amazing Shabbat, a meaningful Shabbat, disconnect to connect back to your
