Episode 82 - What If Every Choice Went On The Front Page

Power is not just influence, it’s accountability. We dig into what happens when someone with authority uses their position badly and what it means for both the person harmed and the person holding the power. Through a Torah perspective on modern life, we challenge the fog created by corrupt media, corrupt information, and loud influencers who profit from confusion. The way through isn’t more outrage; it’s education, humility, and the discipline to keep learning. 

We explore a core definition of wisdom from Pirkei Avot: the wise person learns from everyone. That one idea becomes a practical framework for navigating stressful workplaces, leadership roles, and everyday conflict without getting pulled into arrogance or reactive speech. We also talk about why authority figures carry heavier tests of character and why money and power raise the moral stakes. Your decisions don’t just shape a moment, they shape a trajectory, and the episode argues there’s no real split between this life and the next when it comes to consequences. 

Then we offer a simple tool for handling painful leadership: instead of getting mad, get sad. It’s a way to step out of retaliation, watch your tongue, and recognize that the other person may be failing a serious test of character. We connect that to the concept of the evil eye and the danger of handing people power over your inner world. Finally, we close with two decision filters you can use today: Shiviti Hashem L’Negdi Tamid keeping the Creator in mind before you act, and the front page rule asking whether you’d be proud if your choice were public tomorrow. 

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the line that hit you hardest. What’s your personal “front page rule” question?

Transcript

Welcome And A Quick Request

Combating Corrupt Voices With Torah

What Makes Someone Truly Wise

Authority Raises The Moral Stakes

Don’t Retaliate Choose Sadness

Evil Eye And Giving Away Power

Shiviti And The Front Page Rule

Daily Practice And Closing Actions

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to the Trust Factor Podcast, the only podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Trust Factor Podcast. I hope you're having a good morning so far, and I hope that the rest of your day is even better. Let's get back into where we left off because there's a lot of ground to cover. Before we get into it, let me just make a small request. You've noticed that I've been putting out more content. There's videos that are being put out. A lot of it has to do with current events, mixed in with a Torah perspective, which is really the basis of this podcast. It's taking modern day challenges, things that we deal with today, which has a lot to do with corrupt media, corrupt information, corrupt influencers, especially in difficult times, who are out there making life even more difficult for people by injecting confusion, by injecting a lot of negativity into the world. We have to know how to combat these people. We need to know how to operate in such a realm. So one of the things that I do to help put things in perspective is to read the commentary on a lot of the posts. And what that does for me is it solidifies that we're really just dealing with ignoramuses. There are a lot of people in this world who don't know left from right, good from bad, right from wrong. They just don't know whether they've never been taught or whether they're not capable of learning. I don't know. But they're simply ignorant people. It should come to teach us what we already know and why the Jewish nation is oftentimes very successful. Because we understand the value of education. We understand the value of growth. Personal and spiritual and emotional growth. That's the purpose of this podcast, is to educate people. People who want to be educated, they keep their mouths closed and they open their ears. That gives them the ability to learn from the people who are around them. What does the ethics of the father teach us? Who is the wise person? It asks. Who's the wise person? You want to point to somebody that you can look at and say, ah, this person knows what they're talking about. Do you know what the distinguishing feature is of that individual? It's the fact that they are willing to learn from any situation. They don't just learn from specific people that they think or they determine are the right ones. Alamed Mikol Adam, the person who learns from every single individual. Younger than you, older than you, wiser than you, not as wise, it doesn't matter. You can learn from every individual. If you don't enter into life thinking that way, then you will miss out on plenty of opportunities. And when you see who these people are and their comments, it shows you clear as day that too many people suffer from this idea of ignorance, which ultimately comes from what we said multiple times arrogance. Arrogance is what's holding the world back from real spiritual growth. We're talking about people who are in positions of authority. We've said yesterday and the day before that these people need to operate much more carefully because they have authority directly over people and they can make their lives good or bad. Right? And that that person who has all that extra authority has a massive weight on their shoulders that most of us don't have. There's a lot to learn from this concept, my friend. So much to learn. Because with money comes power, and with power comes authority. You now have the ability that people who don't have those same resources cannot do. And so you're held to a higher standard. Now, if you don't know that, then it becomes very dangerous for you because your every interaction impacts your eternity and this life, by the way. There is no disconnect between this life and the next. Everything that you do in this life not only affects this life, but it also affects the next life. So here's the reality is that these people that find themselves in positions of authority, and that may be you. It could be as simple as a school teacher, it could be the prime minister of the country, the president, it could be a government, another government official in charge of a department, it could just be your boss. That's it, a low-level supervisor who has direct authority over you. You have to be aware, you have to be careful, because your actions and your words have consequences that affect not only the person standing in front of you, but you yourself. Don't mess that up. Now, in that vein, I want to add an additional layer. Now that you know this, if you're not the person in a position of authority, then you have to be aware that when that person above you does something to negatively impact you, recognize that because they are in that position of authority, as a result, they are massively impacting their life and their eternal life negatively. So instead of firing back from the hip, instead of shooting back, instead of getting upset, instead of cursing them out under your breath, instead of praying for the worst things in the world to happen to that individual, which is a natural response, it's a natural desire, I've been victimized. I've been hurt by a person in a position of authority above me. And so I want to fire back. Nobody wants to be a victim, but the person who is capable of watching their tongue, of controlling their emotion, of recognizing that this person is losing. This person who's coming down on me right now is losing so much they have no clue. And this is how I operate, by the way. Instead of getting mad, I get sad. Not because I'm a victim, because this individual in front of me has no clue what they're doing, number one, or they're demonstrating clearly that there is still so much growth that is required in their lives. So I feel sorry for them. Instead of getting mad, I think to myself, thank God that if I was given the option to make a decision that my boss just made, I would choose so much better than them. I know that because I'm learning, I know that because I'm growing, I know that because I have been challenged in similar ways and I've overcome those challenges. But at the same time, I know that I don't have the same responsibility as this individual does. So I feel for them because I want them to succeed, I want them to do well, I want them to achieve their goals, but clearly they're failing at it. And so instead of piling on the negativity and reaching out to your creator and saying and begging, you know, Hashem, please get rid of this guy, or worse, God forbid, give them some kind of an illness. Believe it or not, there are people out there who pray for other people to have illnesses and to be removed from this world before their time. There are people who pray for this. It's a serious thing, especially if you subscribe to the ability that they have that power. Remember, we said with regards to evil eye, how does somebody get evil eye when they allow it to happen in their lives? But it has to come first. In other words, in order for evil eye to work, you have to first give that person power. The person who you believe is guilty of evil eye against you, you have to believe that they have the power to actually negatively impact you. And then because you believe that way, we've said, Bader Shah Malikimuton, the way that a person wants to go, they take him, which means to say, if you want to put the power of evil eye in somebody else's hand, then Hashem says, okay, I'm going to give that person a power over you in the form of evil eye. So if that's a situation, and if this person is really coming at you and making all kinds of requests, negative requests, putting it out there that negativity should come your way, and you believe that's a possibility, then guess what? You've set yourself up for failure. So the message is that you should be the bigger person. We need to recognize that the individual in front of you is also a human being, and that they are failing. And so instead of getting mad, get sad. It's such an awesome tool to be able to overcome your emotional difficulties, your desire to fire back. A person of authority has a greater need for perfecting character than any simple person. People of authority undergo severe tests in their relationships with other people, and without refined character, they simply won't succeed. Every moment they have the choice of helping people or hindering them, of acting with kindness or with cruelty, of being lenient or being stringent. They are also tested constantly as to whether they will fulfill their tasks loyally or use it as an egotistical tool of vindictiveness and flaunting their power. As such a person of authority must constantly ask himself what the proper course of action is. How would the creator want me to act in this situation? It's called Shiviti Hashemle Negdita Mid, which means that I'm constantly considering God before I do anything, that the proper way to conduct yourself, and this is not just for the people who are in positions of authority, it's all the more for the people in positions of authority. That when we make a move, we stop and we think to ourselves, what would Hashem think? When I was in the finance business a long time ago, once upon a time, there was an idea that was taught to me by a career veteran. And what he said to me was there is a rule called the front page rule. If you get caught doing something that you're doing in business, and a reporter puts it on the front page of the newspaper, are you going to be able to defend it? Are you going to be proud of it? Or is that going to sink you? That is the ultimate litmus test. And that's a similar concept. What I'm about to do, what I'm about to decide, is that something that God would be happy with? Is that something that God would be proud of to say yes, keep doing what you're doing, and therefore inspire me to do more and give me more opportunities to continue to do the same thing and extend my life and put more resources at my disposal to continue to do more of that? Or is it the opposite where he will say, No, sorry, I'm cutting you off. I can't let you keep doing that. You're bringing too much negativity into the world. That's the analysis that you need to do. When you've lived long enough and you've done that analysis enough times, what ends up happening is that it becomes second nature. And you do it in a split second. It happens in a millisecond because in the back of your mind, it's always on. You're always contemplating him. It's not something where you have to stop and think, oh, I got to do something now. Let me do a complete analysis, let me take a pen and paper, let me read chapter and verse, let me call my rabbi. No. You can do it automatically because you've learned enough, you've spent enough time building yourself in terms of your knowledge, in terms of your choices and your decision making, and conferring with people like rabbis and people who are much more knowledgeable and experienced than you are, that eventually you train yourself and it happens, like I said, in milliseconds, as you approach the situation, you've done that analysis in the back of your mind, and it helps you to make a better decision so that the outcome of the situation that you find yourself in ends up in your favor. You end up winning from it. Try doing that every day, my friends. Work on it. Shiviti, Hashem, the Negdita meed. I always contemplate Hashem before I do anything. Do it, and you will notice how the events in your life, the circumstances start to change from becoming negative, difficult ones to being positive ones that help you to build your next world. Have an amazing day, my friends. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts, drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the trust factor. Thanks for listening.