Episode 134 - What If Your Competitor Is Not The Threat?

Are finances managing you? Let’s talk about how trust can change your approach to money. 

Tag someone who needs this insight! 

In today’s episode of the Trust Factor Podcast, we dive into the profound lessons from "The Garden of Emunah," a book that transformed my life two decades ago. It’s not just about money; it’s about faith and the choices we make. 

Money isn’t evil, but our relationship with it can be skewed by fear and mistrust. When we lack faith in a higher power, that’s when bad choices creep in.  

I share a powerful story about a kosher grocery store that faced tragedy but was lifted by its competitors. This act of compassion shows the essence of true community and faith in abundance. 

How you treat your competitors reflects your beliefs about success. Let’s build each other up rather than tear down, knowing that our Creator provides for us all. 

Have you ever noticed how arrogance can cloud judgment in business? It’s a recipe for disaster. Let’s strive for humility and kindness. 

More insights await!  

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Transcript

Ego, Superiority, And Blind Spots

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The more knowledge they acquire, the better they think they are, the smarter they think they are, the more they can outperform their colleagues. Oftentimes, it's just about being better than the next person, to the best in your field, the strongest, the most successful, the source, the go-to person, that gives me a sense of superiority. And therefore, I block out all of these opportunities to connect back to my creator. And that means that if you take somebody who has an ego and is arrogant, and you sit them down and try to explain to them Torah precepts and try to explain to them all of creation and give them divine information and prove to them, even in black and white, that the Torah knows everything that ever was, is, or will be. It's all predetermined.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

The trust factor is the ticket to a better life. The trust factor shows you how to get through the night.

Why Money Tests Faith And Trust

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for joining. If you're just dropping in, let me bring you up to speed on what we're doing. Right now we're about halfway through the book that's called The Garden of Amuna. It's a life-changing book, my friends. It's more of a manual. The first time about 20 years ago, and it changed my life. I've since read it multiple times, and I've suggested it. I purchased many copies on my own and handed them out to friends and family. It is an amazing book. If you haven't picked it up by now, go out. This is something that needs to be on everybody's shelf. Buy at least one copy, if not more. We're in the middle, we're talking about finances. We're talking about how somebody who has trust and faith in the creator in a higher power manages issues such as finances. Finances are key to survival. Some people will say they're the root of all evil. Is money evil? That's a whole other conversation. We've done podcasts on it in the past. But generally speaking, money is not evil. It's the people who operate the money and the choices that they make as a result of acquiring money that can be made evil. But the point is, we're all challenged with finances. It's what makes the world go round. But at the same time, so many people are tempted by it and will make bad choices when given that opportunity to manage money, and therefore they harm themselves and people around them. And that's why it gets a bad rap. We have this thing called an evil inclination. We all have it. And that dictates oftentimes for people who lack Amuna and Bitachon, who lack faith and trust in their creator. That's the driving force. It's their evil inclination, an age-old force that was created thousands of years ago at the beginning of creation, has been around a lot longer than all of us. And that evil inclination knows exactly which buttons to press and how to sink us. And oftentimes it's using finances. There's so many people running around the world today trying to chase a buck. It's the mighty dollar. You know, it was a mantra that I used to sing often, and I still do, that when people will scratch their head and wonder, why does that happen the way that it does, whether it's government policy, corporate policy, whether it's just the way professionals work, there's a saying that you've all heard, follow the money. And that comes from a very good place. Nine and a half times, if not more out of ten, when you follow the money, you find the source of the problem. You find the source of corruption. They are always related. So we have to learn about it. We have to learn how important it is to acquire faith and trust in a higher power in order to utilize those teachings to help you fortify your own life and your approach to life when it comes to things like health and wealth. So

Sales Promises, Lies, And Slander

SPEAKER_00 3:43

let's get into it. We're talking about a business person, an entrepreneur, somebody who's run their own business in the past. But again, while it applies specifically to those individuals, it generally applies to everybody. And we said that the person who lacks MUNA thinks that their livelihood depends on the customer, on the person sitting across the table with them. Are they able to close a sale, to close a deal? Are they able to sell this person? And because they believe in their own talents, it says my dia saleta chhailzeh, which means that the Torah warns you, be careful, because you might come to think that it was your prowess and your strength and brilliance that got you to where you are, that made you all this money. And you forget that there was a God that runs the world. And that's what happens. And therefore it says that they believe in their own acumen and will readily stretch the truth. They will compromise and they will outright lie. They will tell the customer exactly what the customer wants to hear in order to get the business. Doesn't matter that they can't deliver on it. They know full well that they can't deliver, or they're not even doing the math. They're just saying yes, whatever the customer demands, yes, we can do it. And yes, we can do it within budget. Try and operate different than that. You know, in my family, we have people in the contracting business doing renovations. That is a well-known industry for this very thing. People come around who are shady characters, and they may not have even a business, but they have some talents with their hands to be able to make things happen. They'll come over and make all kinds of commitments. They haven't even done the math on what it's going to cost them to do the job, and they will commit to working within a budget that's completely unrealistic. Why? Because that will get them the job. After they get the job and they start to take things apart, and it comes to a point where it's irreversible, suddenly things change. Suddenly we need more money. Suddenly, he just had a rude awakening that he's halfway through the job and he's broke. He can't finish the job. Happens so often. It's not just contracting, it's so many industries where it's almost a bait and switch that'll tell you this is what it's going to cost you. This is what you're getting. And ultimately you get something of much less quality or end up spending a lot more than you anticipated. That all stems from a lack of imuna. It all comes from the lack of a knowledge that there is a God that runs this world and that you are not going to earn one extra penny, especially if it's done in a way that is not above board. They often make promises that they can't keep or slander their competitors. That's a big one. It's a big no-no. If you're ever dealing with a salesperson, and that salesperson is often bashing the competition in order to make themselves look better, it's your first sign that they lack him on. Now,

Helping Competitors As A Faith Signal

SPEAKER_00 6:29

where do we see an unbelievable example? It's happened unfortunately too many times for comfort. But the last one that I remember was probably a few years, maybe five, six years ago, that there was a kosher grocery store either in New York or Montreal. I don't remember. I want to say New York. It was all over the news. I'm sure you would have heard about it. A kosher grocery store in a small town that the owners put their life savings into. And they ended up opening this beautiful store and there were riots in the street. It could have been around the time of BLM, I don't remember. But that store ended up getting burnt down to the ground. And they lost everything. The owners of that store, their family, it was family-owned, lost their entire life savings. And do you know what happened? Do you know who came to their rescue? The neighboring kosher grocery stores. There were many in that city, kosher grocers, who were catering to a very religious Orthodox community. And when they saw that their brother had lost his business, they all came together, the competitors, and they purchased an entire store worth of supply from the vendors. And many of the vendors themselves were part of the community. And they outfitted the entire store again from scratch, helped them to rebuild and restock their shelves right back up to where it needed to be, and extended them unlimited amounts of credit and time to be able to repay. That is how you manage your competitors. You lift your competitor up. What message does it send to yourself and to your family and to your creator when you go and pick your competitor up off the floor, dust them off, and help them to re-establish an income for themselves and their family. What's the message? It screams out that we have all the faith in the world that we know where our next meal is coming from, and we don't doubt it for a minute that we are willing to go and allow and enable somebody with our own money to get up and compete with me because he has nothing to do with my income. None whatsoever. The creator has every way in the world to give me exactly what I need. I haven't missed out in a meal. I've been around for 30, 40, 50, 60 years. Everything is always worked out in hindsight. If I haven't figured that out by now, then the problem rests with me. The very act of going to help my number one competitor compete against me, there is no bigger sign of amuna, which means conversely, when you're speaking to a salesman and he says to you, this guy's terrible because of that. This one's run by a bunch of shady characters, this one's all kinds of problems, sells a terrible product. If that's who you're dealing with, you know right away the exact opposite exists. They have absolutely no amuna. When the creator grants them success, they pat themselves on the back. Good job. You did great. Now go do something else and show the world just how amazing you are. And when things don't go well, what ends up happening? You kick yourself when you're down. Good luck getting back up. When it's all you and when it's all coincidence and circumstance and it fails, then you are just a victim of society. And so you end up kicking yourself because you weren't smarter than that. Have you ever seen an arrogant person fail to complete a transaction that he or she was bent on completing? Many will end up venting, pulling the hair out of the head, screaming and crying, temper tantrums like a child, cursing and complaining, and others will eat themselves up from the inside. These individuals score the lowest test in the Muna. Think about it for a second.

When Intelligence Feeds Arrogance

SPEAKER_00 10:03

My rabbi often used to say that if you bring to him a good person, somebody with a good heart and an open mind, and you sat them in front of a secular individual, that it would only take minutes, an hour maximum, to be able to change this person's life around, to make them a religious orthodox Jew who believes in God and wants to follow the commandments of the Torah. Minutes, half an hour, hour maximum. What's the prerequisite? He has to be a good person and an open mind. That's what my rabbi says often. And I understood it then, but I understand it more now and appreciate it more now as we get older. You understand that the differentiator between a good person and a bad person, at least in my rabbi's eyes, was arrogance. That a closed mind, somebody who has a big ego, and that ego gets in their way, it doesn't allow them to succeed. Why? Because they've convinced themselves that they're better, smarter, stronger, more talented, better looking than all these other people in the world. And therefore they are entitled to so much more. So their ego and their arrogance gets in the way. Over Shavod, I mentioned there's an idea called a chmolog. In Hebrew, when you're talking about somebody who's a professional, there's usually a log at the end of it, right? So a chochmolog is somebody who's a professional in intelligence, in intellect. In other words, a career intellect, somebody who does not leave the system of academia. All they want to do is acquire more and more and more knowledge. Oftentimes, there is a direct positive correlation between somebody's level of intelligence and their lack of observance of Torah precepts. Why? For this very reason. The more knowledge they acquire, the better they think they are, the smarter they think they are, the more they can outperform their colleagues. Oftentimes, it's just about being better than the next person and not so much about your own personal fulfillment. To the best in your field, the strongest, the most successful, the source, the go-to person when it comes to ex-subject matter. I am that guy. I am now able to hold myself up above all other people in that field. That gives me a sense of superiority. It builds up my ego and I become an arrogant individual. And therefore, I block out all of these opportunities to be able to connect back to my creator. I see it often, my friends. They go hand in hand. And that means that if you take somebody who has an ego and is arrogant, and you sit them down and try to explain to them Torah precepts and try to explain to them all of creation and give them divine information and prove to them, even in black and white, that the Torah knows everything that ever was, is, or will be. It's all predetermined. Just look at things like Torah codes. I mean, it's enough to blow your mind to show you that everything is in the Torah. Prove it to them. Scientific bodies have been floored, flabbergasted by what's come out of the Torah, with no way to explain how the Torah would have access to this knowledge. And the only way that it does is because it's divine. It comes from the Creator, He who manages everything. You could prove that to somebody in black and white over and over and over again, hundreds of times, but the only thing that keeps blocking their heart and their head is their ego and their arrogance. That's why, my friends, it's so important to recognize the connection. Because when you see somebody who's modest and humble and open-minded and kind, you know that that person is a godly person. They are somebody who can connect to the idea of Torah wisdoms and benefit from it. And the opposite, therefore, is also true. We want to be more like the former and less like the latter in order to succeed.

Closing Thoughts And Share Request

SPEAKER_00 13:42

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 Podcast. Thanks for listening.