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 169 - So You Closed The Deal; Now What, Holy Roller?
What if success is less about what you earn and more about how you carry it? We open the door to a different kind of wealth—one built on gratitude, guidance, and the courage to turn daily work into service. Instead of preaching detachment, we make a case for engaged living: use your skills, close the deal, enjoy the fruit, then raise it with a higher intent that outlasts the moment.
We talk through why finding a trusted rabbi or mentor matters, not as a distant ideal but as a practical ally who knows your life and makes growth feel reachable. From there, we grapple with reward—both the breathtaking promise tied to even small mitzvot and the humbling truth that no ledger can repay the gifts of breath, family, and time. The measure that counts is the person you’re becoming: someone who treats money as a tool, practices quiet generosity, and leaves a trail of good in the lives of others.
We also lean into hardship with a counterintuitive insight: acceptance, offered with love and honesty, can shorten the test. The moment we recognize a trial as a precise act of mercy aimed at our growth, the lesson lands and the weight often lifts. That doesn’t mean quitting the fight; it means dropping resentment so wisdom can work. Along the way, we share traits of people who lift communities—teachers who give their lives to service—and why their calm joy in struggle is a compass for the rest of us.
If this conversation sparks something in you, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s wrestling with purpose and work, and leave a review to help others find it. Then tell us: what’s one way you’ll turn today’s effort into lasting good?
Until next time, have a spectacular day!
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Trust Factor, the podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. It's Friday, believe it or not. I know we just finished the holidays, so it seems like it's coming quicker. But after this, next week, we get into a routine, my friends. Let's get back into it. Right now, in the book, we're holding around this concept of reward. We're talking about how to detach or how to better than detach, to engage with the material in a way that is healthy. Not necessarily to detach from it, because that we said is reserved for people of a very, very high caliber. You and I generally are not expected to disengage entirely from the material. And even like I said, those who are operating on a high level, even they do not disengage from it. The reason that they are different from us is that their engagement with the material world is all elevated. It's called Leshem Shaman for the sake of heaven. Everything that they do in this world is strictly and exclusively for God's sake, to be able to take the physicality and to be able to elevate and spiritualize it and give it over to us so that we can utilize it in a good way and be an example for us of what to strive towards. That's the whole idea, by the way, of having a rabbi. It says, Aselaharav, you have an obligation to make yourself a rabbi, which means to find yourself somebody who is a qualified teacher, somebody who knows you, somebody who can appreciate the nuances in your life. They know where you're holding on a spiritual level, they know where you're holding on a material level, and build a connection with them, build a bond with those people. They should be way higher than you are in terms of spirituality. They should be holding on a much higher level, but ideally, they're able to understand and respect where you're holding on your spiritual level so that they can advise you without it feeling like it's beyond reach, that you cannot ever achieve the greatness that they have. They should be so great that they can make it seem to you like it is so easy to get to where they are at. And in some cases and for some people, my friends, it is much easier than for other people. That doesn't mean again that you can't interact with the material you should. The question becomes, what do you do? What is your outlook when you have acquired the material? Are you utilizing it? Are first of all you recognizing where it's coming from? Is it Kohive Otsem Yadia Salita Khailah Zah? Is it me and my wisdom and my prowess and my genius? It's my strength that made me this money? Or is it thank you, Hashem? Thank you for having given me this money. Yeah, I went to work. Yeah, I put in a solid eight, ten hours in a day. And yeah, you know what? It was I closed a wonderful deal. But at the end of the day, I didn't have to. It didn't have to work out that way. Who gave me the energy to get up in the morning and go to work? And to be able to function and put in a solid eight-hour day and to think and to reason and to rationalize and to put these efforts in place to be able to close the deal. That all comes from Hashem. The danger is not recognizing that. The danger is thinking that it is only from you, that it is you and your wonderful ability that you have been imbued with, that you've got this natural, innate talent that allows you to be better than everybody else. Guys, that is a very, very dangerous place within which to operate. Once you've recognized where the money's coming from and you know that it's coming from your creator who loves you, and you have an obligation now to do the right thing with it. If you want to make sure that you build this world and the next world, then you do the right thing with it. We said the actions that you do in this world, it's really a question. Do the actions that we do in this world help us to get to the next world, to build the next world? There's one idea that says, yes, it's the hidden actions, it's the hidden mitzvahs. It's doing things in your heart or doing things anonymously. So you've got money, you want to make donations, but you do it quietly so that nobody knows where it's coming from. They don't see your outward mitzvahs. It's said that those mitzvahs specifically are the ones that build your next world. But then this whole concept went into that really none of it helps you. None of that helps you. That the whole concept is that we are at a deficit, is that we could never do anything to thank Hashem for all the wonders and the beauty of this world and the life that he gives us. All of them. And you can, if you're honest with yourself, you can sit down and you can make a list that's almost unending of all of the amazing things, and you can start with the human body and move on from there. Think about your limbs and your organs and think about your family, your children, and your parents, and think about your community, think about the money in the bank and the food in the fridge. Think about it, just it doesn't end. It really doesn't end, and you can get down to a really micro level where you can really appreciate all the amazing things and recognize that there really is nothing that we can do for him to repay him for these kindnesses. And so all of these things that we do always keep us at a deficit in our relationship with him, which is fine. For us, it it builds us up. It's money in the bank, it makes the world a spectacular place. It makes it amazing for us to live in, it makes it amazing for our children and our grandchildren and future generations to live in. It makes this world an amazing place where one wants to be. That's the benefit that we get from doing these things. But with our relationship with God, forget about trying to catch up. That's not gonna happen. So ultimately, what happens is when 120 years pass and it's time for us to get our part of the next world, God has to find kindness and he has to do us a real solid. How does he do us a real solid? By looking at our actions, looking at the life that we led overall, not on a case by case basis, but a snapshot of who you are, who John Doe is, who Jesse Revivo is, what kind of a life did he lead? Is it one that he could wear as a badge of honor? Is it one where he looked and he tried to find what was important for me? And did he implement the things that I taught him how to implement to make this world a better place and to improve his life and the life of those around him? Or was he just thinking about his own stomach? Was he just thinking about filling his belly, filling his wallet, filling his bank account, at the expense of all of my other children? Not taking anybody else into account, just worrying about himself, getting through this life and acquiring as much and as fast as humanly possible, even at the expense of other people. God forbid, God sees that and he says, nope, sorry, he didn't figure it out. He came down, I put I gave him a shot at it, another shot, and he still hasn't figured it out. Why would I reward him with that? Okay, you got rewards for the things that you did. Everybody does a mitzvah here and there, everybody puts fillin on once in a while, everybody gives a little bit of charity once in a while, everybody helps a person out once in a while. Those are mitzvahs. Okay, wonderful. So for those mitzvahs, God gives you spectacular reward because at the end of the day, those mitzvahs that you're doing, those deeds, are spiritual in nature, which means that they are unlimited in their power, in their nature. They are not limited by time and space. God needs to reward you for them in a world of time and space. So the war the reward that we get is spectacular. We can't even begin to fathom it because it really doesn't even fit into this world. So, okay, you get rewonder you get amazing reward for your efforts in this world. But when it comes to issues of the next world, recognize that God has to find favor in his eyes when it comes to you and the life that you lead. And if he does, and if you've led a good life according to these principles, and you've been his emissary in this world, you've represented him in a spectacular way, and that was what you concerned yourself with, then you can be assured that God would look at you and say, This is a shining example of an individual who understood what the challenge was and rose up and met it. And that individual is now entitled to an eternity of spectacular goodness. Let's read a little bit. Because what he does right now is he points out that there are additional characteristics of who those people are. He says, if you want to be that individual who is the emissary of God, the representative who really makes this world a better place, then these are some of their traits so that maybe we can learn from them. He says, the identifying traits of the people who have reached this exceptional level of piety and love of God include that they teach those who wish to serve the creator how to properly perform the services of the creator, rabbis, their wives, oftentimes their families. These people dedicate their lives to the community, to teaching them the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. I know so many spectacular rabbis, and my intention, by the way, is hopefully starting next week, is once a week to start conducting interviews with some of these rabbis. Thank God I'm connected some to some of the most spectacular. I've gotten to know them, I've established relationships with them. They are people that you cannot find the right words to describe them. They dedicate and they've given over their entire lives and the lives of their families just to serve God's creation. I want to conduct interviews with them because I want to get into their heads and I want to put their thoughts on this podcast so that you, my listening audience, can start to gain from some of these people as well. What else does he say? That they exhibit, that they exhibit acceptance of their lot. Even in times of challenge and distress, these are people that we can look to, that when they're having a tough time and we know they're having a tough time, it is clear and obvious to everybody that they are in a challenging time in their lives. And yet, despite that, they are able to rise. Despite that, they are able to maintain a happiness. On the contrary, sometimes it is just because they recognize that in the tribulations, in the difficulties that God gives us is where they find God. Because those difficulties come as mercy, they come as an assistance, they come as a crutch to us to say, look, what you suffer in this world, you do not suffer in the next. This is your lot. And so they embrace it. They embrace it. Now think of this, guys. This is this is all this is a mind-boggler, and this is I'm gonna leave you with this. Not only do these representatives of God accept and embrace their challenges and their difficulties, their lot in life with absolute love and acceptance, but the effect of that, the net effect, this is not why they're doing it, but what they do know, and what most of most of us don't know, is that when they do this, when they accept it with love and they say, thank you, the test is now over. It does not need to schlep out. It does not need to be a drawn-out challenge or tribulation. God says, You got the point, that's all I wanted. You recognized that it was out of love and compassion and that it's good for you, and that you need to always take an inventory and make sure that you're operating properly and be loving and accepting of the things that I give you. You recognize it comes from me and that I love you, you're done. You've passed the test. Well done. Good job. The test oftentimes comes to an immediate and abrupt end, and that challenge is over. That is the trick to succeeding in this life, my friends. That should be each and every one of our approach to this life. Anytime you're faced with any challenges, remember it's out of love and it is perfect. Accept it with love, and it will be over in a moment. Have an amazing day, have an amazing Shabbat, we pick up again on Sunday.
