Episode 131 - Stop Juggling Money Like A Circus Act

Canada has officially entered a recession, and you can feel it on the ground: tighter cash flow, slower business, and a lot more fear hiding behind “everything is fine.” We talk honestly about what happens when the economy shifts, leaders promise stability, and regular people are left carrying the stress. Then we bring it back to something steadier than headlines: Torah guidance on money, trust, and how to live without getting pulled into financial panic.

We break down the dangerous fantasy of the “financial juggler” who borrows big, chases status, and thinks leverage will unlock success. Interest, fees, and constant juggling can quietly devour profit and leave you dependent on banks and finance companies that can shut the faucet whenever it suits them. If you’ve been tempted by lines of credit, complex deals, or the pressure to look successful, this conversation offers a clearer personal finance path rooted in restraint, control, and faith.

We also dig into the Torah practice of giving tithes and why it’s described as the one area where we’re allowed to “test” God. We talk through what tithes are, why proper calculation matters, when generosity becomes a strength, and how prayer and charity fit into a healthier relationship with money. And we call out a modern illusion too: influencer wealth and YouTube monetization, where platforms can change policies overnight and dry up income without warning.

If you want a recession-proof mindset, a Jewish finance perspective on debt, and practical ways to rebuild trust in God while staying grounded in reality, press play. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the line that hit you hardest.

Transcript

The One Place You Can Test God

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Hashem says, You're not supposed to test me. Follow my Torah faithfully, and everything will fall into place. Don't test me. But in this situation, God says, You have the all clear to go ahead and test me in the department of giving away tithes. Give it away and see how you become wealthy as a result of that. What an opportunity, right? It says, As ol ta' as just moving over that one little dot in that word now changes the entire meaning of that statement that you should give your tithes turns into you will become wealthy. It's a very, very powerful way to become wealthy. The trust factor is to ticket to a better life. The trust factor shows you how to get through the life.

Canada Recession And Financial Reality Check

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Good morning, everybody. Happy Sunday. It's a new week and it's a new episode of the Trust Factor Podcast. I'm happy you could join us. We're talking about something that we all know very well, especially when you consider the state of Canada and many of the G7 countries. It just came out this week that Canada has officially entered into a recession. That's not a good sign, my friends. What that is is just another sign that we're being lied to. How? Because you'll remember that when our prime minister Mark Harney was brought on board, it was because he was going to be the guy to do all the amazing negotiations with Donald Trump. And he was the guy who knows finances. If anybody knows, it's the guy who controls monetary policy for multiple countries. This is the guy in charge of central banks. He's the guy who's going to make us financially independent. And in fact, he is the first one in the G7 to sink his country into financial ruin and put us into a recession. Never mind all the failed talks with Donald Trump and all of the lousy negotiations that he did that worked against us and are continuing to work against us. Here we are, the one and only of the G7 nations into a recession. It's not a good thing, my friends. I'm telling you this because it is exactly a representation of what the Torah tells us. They tell you one thing and you end up with something else. So we're talking about financial troubles. We're talking about people who find themselves in a situation where they don't have the means, the financial means. And that is so prevalent today, especially when you have a nation going into financial ruin recession. So let's talk about it. Because if you haven't been affected by it by now, you're going to. It's a matter of time. If you decide to stay in this country and battle it out, it means it's going to be a very difficult time. And it already has been. Everybody I talk to in business, and I mean everybody, says the exact same thing. It has become exceedingly difficult, very different than the Canadian business structure that we're used to. The culture, the people involved in it, how we make money, how we get paid. Everything is different. Everything has changed. And it's getting more and more challenging. And now that we're into official recession territory and they've announced that, that means there are challenges abound. So let's read about it.

The Debt Trap Of Financial Jugglers

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Let's prepare ourselves with amazing divine information on how to overcome, how not to fall into the trap of financial ruin. And we're talking about financing, borrowing money. Guys, be very careful when it comes to borrowing money, especially when you're doing it from a non-Jewish entity that's charging you interest. You're setting yourself up for disaster. Now, it says that the biggest mistake that people make is thinking that they're making more money by juggling big sums. You feel like you're a macher. You feel like you're an important person. When I'm the guy juggling big money, I got myself a million-dollar line of credit, and now I gotta allocate funds and I gotta move things around, I gotta set up fancy structures, and I gotta make sure that I'm paying this one and that one and the interest on the debt. You feel like you're an important person because you're juggling large sums of money. What a mistake. What an all that just for status, and that's what ends up sinking you. It says if they check carefully, they would see that the cost of financing all that money is eating up all of your profits. They don't realize it. It's such a heavy burden when you have these debts that the financing, the interest alone doesn't allow you to move forward. It holds you back. The very thing that you think is going to enable you to propel you is the very thing that's holding you back, not allowing you to make money. He says, moreover, jugglers, he's calling them jugglers. Who's a juggler? People juggling everything all day long associated with finances and business and success. I've got investments in this company, I've got my stock market investments, I've got more companies I'm investing in, I've got people I'm investing in, I've got all these different projects that I'm juggling, just by virtue of juggling them, makes me feel like I'm important and successful. And in fact, when the dust settles, when the smoke clears, you're left with nothing, or God forbid, you're in debt. It says jugglers are dependent on the mercy of cruel institutions like banks and finance companies. They're in it for themselves. They're not in it for you. As soon as a bank or finance company calls the loan or closes off the faucet of the juggler, he or she falls on their face. Ultimately, a person can't earn a penny more than what our creator has determined for us. It doesn't matter what you borrow, it doesn't matter what lengths you go to. There is only the Torah way of increasing your income. What

Tithes As A Torah Wealth Strategy

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is that? It says that you have to increase your prayer and your donations to charity and especially giving tithes properly and faithfully. Then it's possible to attain an increase in our allotment from the big boss upstairs. What are tithes? Tithes are when you give away your 10%. We're supposed to work for a living, have expenses, pay off your expenses on a monthly basis, have it organized so that you're aware of what your expenses are, and that whatever you're left with, that's net at the end of the day, you take 10% of that and you give it away to charity. You're supposed to do that with every single paycheck. You've got to make sure that you're giving away that 10%, and that's the minimum. In some cases, it needs to be 20%. Now, there's halakha, there are rules that surround this that you can read about for a lifetime. And so you need to familiarize yourself with that. It's incumbent upon you if you want to make sure you're giving properly, because you got to know what you can deduct. Not every expense is deductible, right? And some of the money that you're already spending on education, for example, might be considered part of your tithe. You have to know what is and what isn't. And the only way to know is to learn or find yourself a rabbi and have them explain it to you. But this concept of tithes is a secret that the Torah gives us. It says if you want to become wealthy, then you need to tithe. And if you're going to do it, you have to do it one of two ways. You either be exacting, very careful, with the way you calculate it, where you've got a spreadsheet and you've got checks and balances and you know what's come in and you know what's gone out, and you spoke to a rabbi and you've qualified everything, and then you come down to the exacting amount that you're going to give away every month, or the opposite, meaning to say that you become very loose with it. Not loose in a way that benefits you, but loose in a way where you're giving it away more than you're keeping. In other words, you're not keeping score. If you can afford to do that, if you can afford to take from your money and give away, knowing that when you just do a glossover, that you are giving away much more than you're supposed to. And you can afford it. If you can't afford it and you're giving it away, then you're doing yourself a disservice, and that's not how you're supposed to function. But if thank God you're making money and you're doing well, well enough to be able to give away more than what you know you are supposed to give away and still be okay. If that's you being loose with it, then you're doing exactly what Hashem wants because that's the way he will deal with you. If you're exacting, he will be exacting with you. If you're loose and giving it away because you know where it comes from, because you know that it is the creator of the world that gave it to you in the first place, that it really doesn't even belong to you, and that you're never gonna lose by giving away. If that's why you're doing it, then Hashem says, okay, I got to respond with him in kind. The way that he is with everybody else, with giving out his tithes, I have to be with him when it comes to me, giving him his income. And that's why it's an unbelievable way. God says, in fact, generally speaking, we're not supposed to test him. That's a general rule. Hashem says, you're not supposed to test me. Follow my Torah faithfully, and everything will fall into place. Don't test me. But in this situation, God says, you have the all clear to go ahead and test me in the department of giving away tithes. Give it away and see how you become wealthy as a result of that. What an opportunity, right? It says, Asol ta'aser in the Torah, which means you shall give your tithes. And it uses a double language, asor, which means give your tithes, tacer, which means again, give your tithes. So why the double language? So it's very interesting because our sages tell us that if you take that dot that's on top of the shin, and when you say asor taser, it's on the left side of the shin. If you take that little almost imperceptible dot and you move it over to the right side of the shin, now it's pronounced shin instead of sing. Instead of asort asir, you now say ashort asher, which means you shall become wealthy. Just the moving of one little dot in those words suddenly changes the entire meaning of give your tithes to you'll become wealthy. Just moving over that one little dot in that word now changes the entire meaning of that statement that you should give your tithes turns into you will become wealthy. It's a very, very powerful way to become wealthy. And the other ways are obviously to pray to your creator and ask him. Explain to him what you're doing. Confirm for yourself that you're doing the right things with the resources, the financial resources that he's giving you, that you're doing his work with it, and that if he gives you more, you'll continue to do more of his work with it. That is another way to increase your wealth and by giving charity, charitable donations. Again, same idea. You're doing God's will. If the financial juggler simply failed to make as much money as he dreamed of, that wouldn't be so much of a problem. If all it was was I made an effort, I took an investment that I money I set aside and I invested in the business, and that business failed. Okay, I get it. I'm not happy about it, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad as what? The real problem is that when the jugglers entertain delusions of grandeur, and what do they do? They invest sums of money that they don't have. It's such a wonderful opportunity. I'm going to leverage myself. I'm going to borrow. I'm going to do whatever it takes to get additional funds to be able to invest a larger portion, to take a bigger stake, to be a controller, to invest in multiple businesses. They end up taking more loans and wasting more money by hiring all of these workers that they don't need, spending needless funds on advertising or by disproportionate spending trying to increase their business. Not only do they squander their annual allotment that they get, but they sink into debt as well. That is where the problem starts.

Influencer Money Myths And Platform Control

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I was just having this conversation with somebody recently. There is this facade in the generation that we're living in of social media and influencers that everybody is led to believe that if you become a social media influencer, then you become super wealthy. You become rich and famous. And the reality is it is the furthest thing from the truth. Another wonderful example of how things don't add up. I know I didn't get into this business to become a financial mogul. I didn't get into this business to become a celebrity. I got into doing this because I want to impact the world in a positive way. And a lot of people get into it for the very same reason. My wife, for example, has a cooking channel. She does it not because she wants to become rich, but because she loves cooking and she loves sharing her recipes with the world and getting feedback from people. It builds her up and it makes her feel good, that she's helping people to deliver amazing meals to their families. So that's why a lot of people want to become influencers in the first place, because something bothers them. Something is awake inside of them and they want to help change the world in a positive way. Now, you know who knows that? The platforms, the YouTubes, the Facebooks, the TikToks. They know that very well. They know that they don't have to pay somebody in order to have them make content. People will make content all day long for a variety of reasons, some of which I just mentioned, but others are for the desire of becoming famous or becoming rich because they're dangling carrots. But I've got news for you. They make it almost impossible. I know because I've looked into it. When you're on a platform, you eventually come to the point where you want to understand this concept of monetizing. And I've looked into it. It's almost impossible, my friends, that bar keeps moving. I'll leave you with a story from an individual that I met the other day who said to me that his wife, once upon a time, a long time ago, probably 10, 15 years ago, had a YouTube channel where she was making programming for children, which was very popular for a long period of time, and it might even still be, where people are coming out making content, children's shows. And she was very successful at it. She had many, many thousands of followers and she had millions and millions of views. And YouTube was paying them. $10,000 a month they were getting in checks sent home to them. They were laughing. It was amazing. She's doing something that she loved, and they were making big money coming from YouTube until YouTube figured out we are at a critical mass right now. We have no need for more content creators, which means we don't need to pay out nearly as much because everybody jumped on the bandwagon. Make content for children and you'll become rich. YouTube will pay you because everybody was hearing through the grapevine that people were getting checks. And then eventually YouTube changed their advertising policy. For whatever reason, you could no longer advertise children's shows. While they were building their following, it was no problem. But suddenly, when they decided, hey, wait a second, we could keep tens of millions of dollars instead of giving it away, all we need to do is change an advertising policy, and that's what they did. And suddenly, no more views. People dropped off the map and they couldn't advertise their shows and people didn't know they existed, and suddenly the checks dried up. They got nothing and they were left high and dry. That's how it works, guys. Everybody's in business for themselves. If they could avoid paying you the tens of millions of dollars, because they've got people lining up to become influencers, they've got people lining up to share the goodness that's inside of them, or because they want to become celebrities, or because they're chasing a dream. Whatever their reasons are, they're going to do it, whether or not they get paid. Why do I need to pay anybody? The only time you'll see it resurface is when a new platform comes around and they want to build their following. Suddenly, they open up their wallet and that becomes their investment. And then when they've reached a critical mass, do you know what happens? The guys who are getting all the views, the big influencers, the reason that they're so big and well known is because they're spending the money, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, if not millions, in marketing online so that you get to see all of their content. It's not what you think. It's not that they're getting paid the millions by these platforms, maybe by sponsors, but you got to have those millions to put into advertising and marketing in order to even be known. So, my friends, it is the exact opposite of reality. And it's the same thing with these financial jugglers, people who think if I only do, if I just do more, if I just do better, if I just find the right industry to invest in, how do I do it? I don't know. I don't know what the right one is. So what let me just invest in all of them. Let me go and cherry pick all these different investments and go ahead and invest in them. And the reality is that that becomes a recipe for disaster. Why? Because you're leveraging yourself to do it, which means you don't have the resources to put infrastructure in place to follow all of these businesses and investments that you're in. A guy who's got billions that you want to be like because he's investing in these businesses, I've got news for you. He has the ability to put systems in place, to be able to monitor, to hire high-level professionals, to report back on a regular basis, to check profitability on a regular basis, to make sure money's not walking out the back door on a regular basis. You, as somebody who is leveraging yourself, you don't have the ability to put those mechanisms in place. So everything starts falling apart because you don't have controls. And suddenly all of these things that you were mimicking, a billionaire, are the very same things that end up getting you in trouble. My friends,

Contentment Over Chasing The Next Billion

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recognize that what you have is perfect. It comes from your creator, and he knows exactly what you need when you need it. Learn, spend that time and energy trying to become comfortable with where you are in life, and two things will happen. You'll start leveraging yourself to get all this money to invest in everything to become the next billionaire, which nine times out of ten will not happen if he doesn't want it to happen, right? And number two, you'll start to enjoy all of the hard work that you've already put into this world and all of the money that you've already made, you'll begin to actually enjoy. Because the biggest shame would be that you went through this life and you worked so hard and you produced so much, and yet the clock ticked so fast because you were so busy trying to make more, and you realize when you look back that you missed out on the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Let that not be us, my friends. Have an amazing day, have an amazing week, and we'll chat

Share The Episode And Stay Connected

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again soon. 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.