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 133 - Beyond the Gold Medal: The True Measure of Success
What if the greatest secret to success has been hiding in plain sight for thousands of years? The answer remains consistent across wisdom traditions: trust in your Creator. But this isn't a passive surrender—it's a powerful reframing of responsibility that can transform your approach to life's challenges.
When we truly understand that God runs the world completely, it takes the crushing weight of outcomes off our shoulders. Our job becomes beautifully clear: make righteous choices, take meaningful action, and accept with love whatever results follow. This podcast unpacks this divine wisdom, showing why it's the furthest thing from a cop-out answer.
We explore the crucial distinction between what's in our control and what isn't. You'll discover why you receive spiritual reward for three elements: choosing good, intending to follow through, and completing good deeds—and importantly, why you still receive reward even when circumstances prevent completion. This perspective stands in stark contrast to our achievement-obsessed culture, illustrated through a powerful comparison between Olympic athletes pursuing victory at all costs and Special Olympics participants who stop to help fallen competitors.
Are you ready to embrace a perspective that will reduce your anxiety while increasing your effectiveness? Listen now to discover how the ancient path of trust offers the most practical approach to modern challenges. Then share your thoughts with us—how might this shift in perspective change your approach to challenges you're facing today?
Good morning everybody and welcome to the Trust Factor, the podcast that's going to guarantee success when you implement its divine, age-old teachings. I don't know if you are noticing I hope you are, I'm certainly noticing Everything that we have discussed up until now always gives us a similar answer. What's the answer? No matter what the situation is that Chavot HaLevavot brings up, the answer is always the same in different contexts, but it always comes down to trust in your creator. Put your faith and your trust in your creator. That's the answer to every single thing, without exception. You might think that's a cop-out answer, but let me tell you that it is the furthest thing from a cop-out. It is the ultimate secret to success. Every time I start this podcast, I keep telling you that it's going to guarantee your success, and it's true, but you have to do the things that it's telling you to do, and the one general theme of what is being told to you to do is to put your faith and trust in God. That implies that you need to know God. If you don't know who we're talking about, if you don't accept the fact that he runs the world entirely, 100%, you don't have even a 1% doubt and you know that he's 100% involved, on an intimate level, in your life, then you can begin to put your faith and trust in him in every single situation. What that does is it takes the weight of the world off of your shoulders. It takes the responsibility of outcomes out of your hands. All we need to do is resolve, like we've just been saying, to do the right thing, to live the right lifestyle, to make good choices. If we've done that, we're already on the right path, because there are so many people out there who resolve otherwise. They're driven by their evil inclination. They're driven by their desire for money. They're driven by their desire for relations and power All kinds of desires that are put into this world to try and take us off the path. These people are guided by their that. Remember the cartoons we got the devil on the one shoulder and the angel on the other. They're driven by the devil. The devil tells them what to do and they run with it. The key is to ignore that side and focus on the other side.
Speaker 1:Once you've made that commitment, you're on track. You've covered off number one. Then you figure out what you need to do. How do I implement this? How do I live the life that I've committed to living and you start to put one foot in front of the other. You don't take everything on overnight, because that can be dangerous. You set steps for yourself to be able to get to where you want to go. This is a lifestyle change. This isn't a fad. This is not a diet that you take on and you do it today and you don't do it tomorrow. This is a lifestyle and it will be with you until the day you die and it will be passed on to your children. If you live a life of lies and deceit and corruption and criminality, that will be passed down to your children. If you live a life of lies and deceit and corruption and criminality, that will be passed down to your children. If you live a life of godliness and goodness and making the world a better place and altruism and helping other people and making yourself the best version of who you can be, that will also get passed down to your children. Bottom line you have to choose. Once you've made a choice, you have to take an action. That's it. After that, it's out of your hands. Let's continue reading and see where we're at here Now.
Speaker 1:I also should reiterate that, just because the answer is that we should put our faith in God. It does not absolve us of the effort. It says it's not your responsibility to finish the job. It's not your responsibility to finish the job, which means that you're also not absolved of the responsibility to take on the challenge. You have an obligation to make an effort. After that, though, step aside, run as far as you can with it, give your effort. Remember the day before yesterday, or yesterday even, I said that your parents put you in all these things growing up, these different programs, and it's your job. They tell you that you should finish what you started, and it's true. You should strive and endeavor and give a real effort to finish the job, but the idea is not whether or not you finish it. It the idea is to accept with absolute love whatever the outcome is, whether you finish it or whether you don't, but as long as you've given a valiant effort. That's it, my friends. That's where you stop and God starts. Let's continue.
Speaker 1:And he says here, just to finalize this, he says that if a person places trust in God in regard to the initial stages of choosing to serve him, in other words, like we said yesterday, we cannot sit back and say well, if God wanted me to be righteous, he would have made me righteous. If God wanted me to do the mitzvah, he would have put me in that situation. Wrong, that's not how it works. We're not robots. He says.
Speaker 1:If you say to yourself, I shall never choose nor intend to do anything in the creative service service until he himself chooses for me the good choice from among the options before me, he says that person simply has strayed from the straight path. You're on the wrong track, my friend. His feet will have stumbled off the proper direction, for the Creator has already commanded us to make the choice of performing his service. We said that God says and you shall choose good, you shall choose life. And to focus our intent on that choice with effort, resolve and complete conviction. Furthermore, he says he has already informed us that this is the proper path for us to choose for our own benefit, both in this world and in the world to come.
Speaker 1:It is illogical and foolish to rely on God to choose the good for us when he has already told us what that good is and has directed us to choose it. It's very simple, he said I'm telling you what's good, I'm telling you what's bad. I'm telling you to choose the good, I'm telling you to avoid the bad. And then you come and you say no, no, I can't choose. God has to choose for me. Obviously, it's simply an excuse. Let's continue. This is where it gets really interesting.
Speaker 1:He talks about reward and punishment here. He says now, if the factors and resources necessary to perform the act are present and we are thus able to complete the mitzvah act after having chosen to resolve and resolve to do so, so then he will receive the great reward of the next world for all three components. So he's saying the massive reward that you will get if all of the requirements are there in order for you to do the commandment and you do it. Number one, you will get rewarded for choosing to do the mitzvah. Number two, for having the intent and the resolve to perform it. I'm talking intent here, yeah, the intent and resolve to perform it. You get reward for it. And finally, number three, for actually performing the acts of that mitzvah with our limbs. But and here's the kicker, even if our limbs are ultimately unable to complete the mitzvah act, we will receive reward for choosing and intending to do so.
Speaker 1:Just like I said the other day, if the result, the outcome, does not rely on you, then how can God say to you when you've made a valiant effort and it's failed? How can he say to you, I can't give you a reward? Obviously, he has to give you a reward because the outcome is out of your hands. So whether it's good or bad, whether it happened or it didn't, does not determine your reward. The things that are in your control determine your reward, which is exactly what he just said over here.
Speaker 1:And this is the opposite approach, my friends, to society. This is exactly 180 degrees opposite of what secular society teaches us. What do they teach us? Let me give you an analogy, which is spectacular, that I heard from Rabbi Wallerstein a long time ago. The secular world will teach you that you have to be number one, because that's the only thing that's important. And where do we learn that from? We learn that from the Olympics, something as simple as the Olympics.
Speaker 1:What happens every time there's an Olympic Games? There's winners and there's losers. Who are the winners? The top three, first place, second place and third place? Who remembers second place? Nobody. Who remembers third place? Nobody. The only person that gets their picture on the Wheaties box, the only person that gets recognition, who gets all the fame and the fortune, is number one. Everybody else is irrelevant, never mind the top three. What about all the dozens or hundreds that have competed? They didn't even get up onto the podium. They are irrelevant. But wait a second. They spent their whole life training, working hard, breaking a sweat, avoiding family, avoiding friends, no social life, nothing. They have a modified learning routine. They don't have a regular life because they've committed their entire life to winning the gold at the Olympics and they don't even qualify. They don't even make it to the podium. They are irrelevant. You understand, my friends? The only one who wins is number one. Here's the example that was given by Rabbi Wallerstein.
Speaker 1:A long time ago there was a commercial on television. I remember seeing it. It was a long, long time ago and it was a commercial that showed the Olympics. It was a race, a track race, and the people were running. I think it was a baton, I can't remember, but they were doing their race, running laps, and eventually what ends up happening is one of the people who were in the lead trips and falls and hurts herself in a bad way, and what happens? All the rest of the racers who were behind her, come running right past her, jump right over her, move around her, do everything they can to get out of her way and keep the race going. They saw an opportunity. Here it is. She was in the lead. She was going to take the gold. She tripped and fell. Doesn't matter to me that she's hurt and crying or in a lot of pain. I'm going to win this now. Here's my opportunity to win at her expense.
Speaker 1:And then that thing fades away, goes into darkness, and suddenly there's a new race that pops up on the screen. And what's that race? It's the Special Olympics, the Olympics of people who are mentally or physically challenged. And these people are doing the very same race and these kids are running around the track and ultimately, the same thing happens the person who's in the lead trips and falls and hurts themselves and is crying on the floor. And instead of running around over through that individual to continue the race, every single one of those racers stopped in their tracks and they turned around and they went right back to the individual who had tripped and fallen and helped them to get up and stand up and to console them and to make sure that they were feeling good, and the whole race came to an end, they all said we're going to stop and help our friend to feel better. They were hurt. This race is not as important as my friend being hurt.
Speaker 1:And then the screen again fades to darkness and what comes back is something along the lines of who is normal. In other words, question your perception of what you think is normal and what you think isn't. We think these kids, god forbid, aren't normal. I got news for you. They're much more normal than the rest of us. We're the ones who have the problem. These kids did exactly what we should have done, but they weren't driven by societal pressures. They were pure and innocent in their approach to life and therefore they did the right things. If we can look at them as an example, wow, can you imagine the life that we would lead? Let's get back into this tomorrow. My friends. Have an amazing day.
