Episode 130 - What If Enough Is The Whole Point?

The most dangerous part of debt is not the interest rate, it’s the moment everything goes quiet and you start believing you’re “fine.” We start with a lesson we’ve all said to kids, stop trying to grow up so fast, and we apply it to adulthood, money, and ambition: if you don’t learn to live well in the stage you’re in, you won’t have the foundation for the next one.

We also pause on a powerful real-life reminder of faith and gratitude, sharing relief over a missing 14-year-old in Toronto being found safe. From there, we get practical about personal finance: why high-interest borrowing can trap you, how loan consolidation can create false confidence, and why a new line of credit often restarts the same cycle. We talk Torah concepts around lending and the pull to always want double, then bring it back to everyday budgeting and the simple discipline of living within your means.

For entrepreneurs and business owners, we dig into the frustration of hitting a ceiling, paying all the bills, and still feeling stuck. Sometimes the “limit” is not failure, it’s protection. Scale is not just about money, it’s also about patience, resilience, and the capacity to handle stress without losing your family life or your peace of mind. We even challenge the modern chase for fiat currency and digital numbers on a screen, and ask what real value looks like when you zoom out.

If this gave you a needed reset, subscribe, share it with someone who’s under financial stress, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations. What’s one area where you need to stop chasing “more” and start appreciating “enough”?

Transcript

Stop Trying To Grow Up

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How many times have we said to our children, stop? Stop trying to be an adult. Enjoy where you are right now. Enjoy the fact that you're nine. Enjoy the fact that you're 15, that you're 18. Stop trying to grow up too fast because now we know we've been there and we know it's a mistake to try and be something that you're not. Love where you are because you can't change it today. If you're so busy trying to change it to be bigger and older and more experienced, then you're not going to enjoy the stage that you're at right now, which also acts as a springboard to your next level. Without that level of investment in this stage of your life, you don't have the foundation that you need to get to the next life. The trust factor is the ticket to a better life. The trust factor shows you how to get through the life.

A Missing Teen Found Safe

SPEAKER_00 0:56

It's Friday. Felt like a really long week for me this time. Great news out of Toronto. Estee, who went missing, 14 years old, Jewish girl in Toronto a few weeks ago, has been found safe and sound and returned to her family. So amazing news. Thank God. It's hard to imagine what a parent goes through when a child isn't there and you don't know where they are in a big city and they're 14 years old. I can't even begin to imagine. I mean, if you ever wanted a test of faith, that's it, my friends. And so these two parents went through that and they spent weeks doing that. So I can only imagine, thank God they've got their daughter home, and hopefully they get all of the support and the resources that they need to make sure that something like this never happens again. And to Israel's and the Jewish people's haters, it's now time for you to go out and pull down those signs that you were dying to pull down. You were so interested in getting those signs of a missing 14-year-old girl torn down because of your rabid hatred. Now's your opportunity. Head on out there. I'm sure there are plenty still up, and the city could use you. So, but something tells me you won't go out because now she's safe. Let's get back into it, my friends.

Debt And The Consolidation Trap

SPEAKER_00 2:10

We're talking about juggling money. We said finances are a disease. They are a killer. Now there are certain times that you can try and justify it. There's no question. It can enable you to be able to spring forward. But you've got to be very careful in juggling that decision. And it needs to be done in a way that is above board. The Torah talks about lending money. Therefore, there's a whole concept about it. But the Torah says you're not allowed to charge interest. So clearly, there's a concept of being able to leverage to borrow to maybe help you in certain areas. But if it comes with that interest, especially high interest, then you get locked into a vicious cycle where you simply can't get out of it. It traps you, it ensnares you. And then you know what they do to be able to help you to get out of it? Now it's very simple. You've got all these creditors coming after you, six, seven, eight creditors. Let's consolidate, and we'll get you one big loan. And this way you'll be organized and you won't have nearly as much stress. Do you know what happens? After you've taken all of those eight different sources of trouble that are coming after you, collections agencies, left, right, and center, and you consolidate it into one loan. And now suddenly you've got peace of mind. You're used to fielding phone calls all day, every week, from agency after agency, trying to get their money. You're stressed out of your mind. Suddenly, weeks and months go by where there's no stress, there's no phone calls anymore. Everything's consolidated. Life is good again, right? So somebody turns the corner and offers you a new line of credit, a new credit card with all kinds of amazing features and savings benefits and position it in a way that suddenly, hey, you know what? I'm doing okay again. No, you're not. You're not any better off than you were before. It just got quiet. You don't have all the noise. The phone stopped ringing. So now you've interpreted that to mean you've got your life in order. And so you go out and leverage even more. Guys, if you find yourself in this situation, if you're this type of person, be very careful and know that you will never get out of that vicious cycle of debt. You have to stop with it and you have to be able to live within your means. The

Happiness Means Living Within Means

SPEAKER_00 4:19

more you live within your means, the happier you will be. How do I know that? Is that just my wisdom? And the answer is no. Because it's very simple. The Torah says that you have to be happy with your lot in life, which means you need to live within your lot in life. Torah also says that somebody dies having achieved only half of what they set out to achieve. He has a hundred, he wants two. He has a million, he wants two million. Why? Because that's the way we're programmed. To know that we're not happy with our lives, and therefore we're always striving for double. So what's the secret recipe? Stop striving for double and start living within your means. You can have a billionaire who still lives out of his means, if you can imagine. It doesn't just mean, in my mind, it doesn't just mean your capital. It means also your financial capital, not just monetary, which means you may have a certain amount of patience and resilience and ability to deal with all these different things. And as soon as you operate outside because you've overspent yourself and you've invested in too much and you've got too many companies operating and too many people reporting back to you, you lose your mind. First you lose your family, then you lose your community, and then you lose your mind because it's all about that. So you may not be cut out for that. And who knows that better than your creator, which takes us into this conversation. He says that God gives each of us the necessary funds for whatever He deems that we need. It's very nice that you think you know what you need, but we've already established clearly up until now, for all of us, that we know very little, if anything. He knows everything. He says, right now, you don't need to be a millionaire. Right now, you don't need to be a billionaire. It might be in the carts for you later on. That's yet to be determined by us. He knows. But as far as we're concerned, if we didn't get what we're looking for, it's simply because we do not need it. And in fact, it may actually be bad for us. Let's keep reading. A person with Amuna knows that if the creator wants him to invest a large sum, he'll provide him with the funds. If you're supposed to invest in that real estate or the stock market or whatever it is, he will make sure that it comes at an opportune time where you have that extra cash. And again, if you're an entrepreneur, I'm speaking one to another, you know this very well because you have investments to make in business and you've got your your regular monthly cash flow and you know what needs to come in in order to go out. And it often seems like it's just the right amount of money. If you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. That when the right time comes, that account gets nice and plump. Why? Because he knows what's waiting around the corner, because he knows that you're going to have a heavy cash outlay. And so it just so happens that at the right time of the month, every year, you get that little infusion that helps you to get through the next little phase of your business. Always the case. You get through one month to get through another until something opens up, something loosens up. And it may not even be in the industry you're in right now. It might just be that the job you're doing now is to be able to provide you with a moderate means for this stage of your life. I don't know how long that is, and neither do you, but he does. So you have to understand that there's a reason why you're operating in that range. Does the creator lack the necessary capital? Does the creator need banks? Does he need loan sharks? Obviously not. If the creator provided us with a small sum, it's a sign that in the meanwhile, he wants us to run our business on a small scale. This is a tough concept for people to swallow.

Why Growth Hits A Ceiling

SPEAKER_00 7:52

When we do, we see a blessing in whatever we do. Why is it a tough concept for business people, which is kind of generally what we're talking about? Why is this a difficult pill to swallow? Because most entrepreneurs, most business people, don't get into business in order to be limited. If I wanted to be limited by how much I make, I'd become an employee. My employer determines this is your salary, and that's it. You might get bonus, you might not. If you don't have a bonus, even more the case. This is your set salary. You have nothing to think about anymore until maybe you're up for review. If you have a bonus involved, okay, maybe you can impact it a little bit. But generally speaking, if you want to be limited, go get a job and then limit your salary. When you're in business for yourself, the understanding is that I'm not limited. I'm only limited by myself. Nobody else can limit my pay. So now here I am. I've established this wonderful business. I'm out there trying to make money, and I keep hitting roadblock after roadblock. In the meantime, I'm paying all my bills. I've put my kids in private school. I've got cars in the driveway. I own a home. I've got a business. I've got employees. I've got food in the fridge. I've got everything that I need, clothes on my back. Everything is working out for me. But what's not working out is what I think I need right now, which is for my business to go to the next level. I'm trapped, making X amount of money, and I can't get beyond that. I can't grow my revenue beyond that amount. What's going on? And I drive myself mad. I've done everything. I've pulled out all the stops year after year. I've bent over backwards. I've outperformed. I've done 10 people's jobs. I've done this is all what entrepreneurs deal with on a day-to-day basis. Why? Why not now? This is what I'm not doing this for the goodness of my health. I'm not getting any healthier and any younger. I'm just getting older and this is eating away at me. So, Hashem, come on, clock's ticking, right? What am I doing this for? And Hashem is saying, no, you're missing the point. Just the fact that you're not happy with what you have right now is the problem. Tune in. Maybe right now in this industry, in this stage of your life, until you hit 60, you're just on cruise control. You're coasting, which you should enjoy. How many people get to coast? How many people get to have all their bills paid and 99% of the things that they want and all the things that they need? Maybe they can't rack up millions in the bank, but who cares? At the end of the day, you're living a great life. What's going on? What are you complaining about? Stop and enjoy it. You're missing the entire view as this high-speed train that you're on rockets through life. Stop and enjoy the view. Enjoy the fact that you've made X amount of money and you can have time with your children and that you're not some billionaire locked up in an ivory tower with 10,000 people reporting to them and you don't have enough time to even breathe. You can't foster a relationship with your family. Enjoy the benefits of living a modest lifestyle. It's not even modest, a middle class lifestyle. Enjoy the benefits of living a middle class lifestyle or an upper middle class lifestyle or wherever it is a lower middle class lifestyle. If you're living wherever you're living, understand that right now, that's where you need to be. If you're a billionaire, it's because you shouldn't be a pauper. And if you're a pauper, it's because you shouldn't be a billionaire. It will hurt you. It will play against you. He knows that. We don't. We're always striving for the things that the rest of the world tells us we think we need.

Chasing Fiat Numbers On Screens

SPEAKER_00 11:07

I saw a quick video the other day, just a short one online. You know, sometimes you get nuggets of wisdom from random people. And the guy comes on and he's talking about, wait a second, you're telling me that God put everything that we need in this world for us to be able to live and thrive for free, right? Building materials, food, the ability to cook, fire, all these different things we have that we can make for ourselves for free. And somehow look at where we've come to right now, where we're all chasing a fiat currency, meaning a dollar that has nothing that backs it. We used to have cattle, we used to have assets, we used to have physical things that we could trade. We knew they had value to them, they had practical use. Today we're all running after stacks, not even stacks, it's all online. We're running after digital numbers on a screen. Are you kidding me? Flip the power off, it goes dark. But yet we go after that all day long. There's nothing that backs it. There's no security, there's no value behind this except for what the screen is telling you. Think about that. Once upon a time you had assets. Okay, today you've got a house, you can invest in hard assets. But really, we're all running after the dollars that, even if they're digital, to buy that house. Let's finish up over here, my friends.

When Wants Become Costly Debt

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Let's say, for example, you want a new car, but you can't afford it, right? This is a clear sign that the creator doesn't deem the new car necessary at this time. But without Imuna, people entertain delusions of grandeur, imagination. That's what makes us crazy. We all have it, and it's an important tool because without imagination, it wouldn't be a very fun place to live. But we have that imagination. That imagination drives us to believe that we're entitled to X, Y, and Z. If they have it, then I should have it too. If they're successful, then I should be successful too. If they're a celebrity, then why can't I be? We're always comparing ourselves to other people, which is not a good thing because we know that we've got our test and we've got our lot and our lives, and they have theirs. We should embrace the fact that they have theirs and we should assist them with theirs and not feel that we're entitled to what they have or that we should want what they have, and vice versa. We need to focus on the life that we were given and understand that your father in heaven loves you. And if he knows it, that new car will only sink you. Why? Maybe because you're gonna get financing for it, maybe because it's gonna come with somebody else's money and what should have cost you $30,000 becomes $40,000, what should have cost you $50 becomes $70,000, and so on and so forth. And if and really he knows whether or not you're gonna be able to pay those bills. So he decides it's not for you. Not now. It doesn't mean not ever, but it certainly means not now. The question is, will I be able to even pay back this tremendous amount of money that I took, whether it's for a house investment, a stock market, a car, whatever, there's so much that goes into it, we don't know. That doesn't mean that you have to live in a shell. It just means to understand that you're at a stage right now with every time you make an effort to move forward, you find yourself being brought back. Two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, two steps back, two steps forward, three steps back. We've all been there. That's life, right? It's never like this, right? So if you find yourself in there, instead of fighting to get out of it, enjoy

Build The Foundation For Next Level

SPEAKER_00 14:14

it. Think again, what we say to our children. How many times have I brought up that analogy? Because the Torah brings it up all the time. How many times have we said to our children, stop. Stop trying to be an adult. Enjoy where you are right now. Enjoy the fact that you're nine. Enjoy the fact that you're 15, that you're 18. Stop trying to grow up too fast. Why? Because now we know we've been there and we know it's a mistake to try to be something that you're not. Love where you are because you can't change it today. Right now, you are where you are. And if you're so busy trying to change it to be bigger and older and more experienced, then you're not going to enjoy the stage that you're at right now, which also acts as a springboard to your next level. In other words, without that level of investment in this stage of your life, you don't have the foundation that you need to get to the next life. You need to build up your resilience with money and with interactions with people and with business and ups and downs and losing and gaining and realizing the cyclicality and the crazy nature of business. It builds you up, it makes you strong so that you can endure the next stage when you get up there and it takes you to the next tax bracket and suddenly your business does start to grow. You can approach it with a sense of maturity, an experience that you would not have had if you would have just given it to you right away when you wanted it. You understand? We don't see that. And that's why it drives us crazy. The trick is to see it, the trick is to tune in. You're learning, you're on the podcast. Congratulations. You're doing exactly what you're supposed to do. Just make sure that it gets in and you lock it in. You're fighting an uphill battle because this is a small portion of your day. The rest of your day, the rest of the 23 hours or 45 minutes, you're out looking around, looking at billboards, listening to the radio, watching the news, online scrolling, being bombarded by society and secularism. So take this 15, 20 minutes, these precious times, hopefully more. Keep learning all day, as long as you can. Block out all that noise and make this content your number one content. Doesn't have to just be this podcast. There are many out there. Learn all day long. There is no downside, my friends, only upside. Have an amazing Shabbat, and God willing, we'll chat again on

Closing Thanks And How To Respond

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Sunday. 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 Podcast. Thanks for listening.