The Coach Ratner Podcast
Coach Ratner is not a matchmaker, but a MateMaker. With 7 books under his belt, Coach Ratner is an accomplished author and sought-after speaker on topics such as relationships, self-esteem and spirituality. His unique insights and captivating speaking style have helped countless individuals achieve their goals and transform their lives.
Whether you’re looking to unlock your full potential, cultivate meaningful relationships, or just to feel good about yourself, Coach Ratner is here to guide and inspire you every step of the way. Join the thousands who have already been transformed by Coach’s teachings and start your own journey towards success, fulfillment, and ultimately a passionate, loving relationship, with one person for the rest of your life.
The Coach Ratner Podcast
Overcoming Low Self-Esteem with Coach Ratner
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Ever wondered why teenagers today are grappling with low self-esteem more than ever? Join us in a conversation with Coach Ratner as we tackle this pressing issue head-on. You'll hear firsthand about his personal journey through self-esteem challenges, sparked by societal pressures and the perilous cycle of comparison that can dampen one's self-worth. Through anecdotes like his dream of becoming a professional pianist, Ratner sheds light on how to break free and embrace your own unique light. His new book, "Never Feel Loved Again: Symptoms and Strategies to Cure Low Self-Esteem," serves as a beacon of hope for anyone trapped in self-doubt.
Navigating social landscapes online and offline can be a minefield for self-esteem. With Coach Ratner's guidance, we dissect the subtle yet significant ways our interactions affect how we feel about ourselves. Are name-dropping and humble bragging really just cries for help? We explore the complexities of sharing personal milestones on social media, emphasizing the importance of mindfulness and empathy. This episode encourages listeners to build their self-esteem from within, rather than seeking approval from the world around them, creating a supportive and nurturing environment for all.
In a journey towards genuine happiness and self-worth, Coach Ratner emphasizes the role of boundaries, forgiveness, and vulnerability. He reflects on life events that paved the way for profound personal growth, highlighting the importance of living with purpose and gratitude. We even delve into the spiritual realm, discussing how connecting with God through prayer can fortify self-esteem and instill a sense of divine support. Prepare to be inspired as we uncover strategies to safeguard your emotional well-being and empower yourself to make a meaningful impact on the world.
welcome everyone. I'm coach ratner. Today we are talking about my new book called never feel loved again symptoms and strategies to cure low self-esteem, and the reason why I wrote this book was because there was a report in 2021. The cdc the centers for disease control came out of the port and said that they interviewed 17 000 teenage girls 2021 17 000 and they said that about one in three seriously considered attempting suicide one out of three. That's crazy, right, if they didn't. For boys, half that much which means you've got a room full of young teenage boys here five of them would be considering has considered suicide. That numbers astounding.
Speaker 1:Now, what is low self-esteem? What is self-esteem? What is low self-esteem? What is self-esteem? What is it? Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself. You can have high self-esteem, feel great about yourself. We are the person you have yourself, no matter what goes on. Or you have low self-esteem, which is what a lot of us go through in our lives, and it's your opinion of yourself. But it's not real. That opinion yourself is just how you view yourself. The but it's not real. That opinion of yourself is just how you view yourself.
Speaker 1:The reason why I kind of did. I had a lot of pleasure writing this class because I've gone through some of these issues myself. You know I've had some low self-esteem various times in my life and it starts for almost everybody when, I would say, you start going through puberty. You know, when I was in third and fourth grade my mom would ask me to put a cold. I grew up in Virginia and it was cold in the morning at the bus stop, especially at 630 in the morning. My mom would say put a wool hat on your head, you're gonna catch a cold At third grade. No problem, I put it on. I go to the bus stop Sometime around fifth, sixth or seventh grade. I'm like no, mom, I'm not gonna wear the hat, I'm gonna look like a geek in prison. Because the greatest prison you can put yourself in is worrying about what other people think about you. And that's what I did, because I was worried about what the young, the eighth grade girls, would think about me at the bus stop, so I wouldn't wear a hat. And that's, I think, really when it starts now.
Speaker 1:We learned something in in the in the bible that really darkness was there before the creation of the universe. It said there was darkness upon the depths of the water and then God created light, which means darkness does not exist. What is darkness? It's an absence of light. Black is not a color. Black is just no light. If I put shades in this room to cover up all the windows, it'd be completely dark. But if I light one little candle, what happens? The whole room lights up. So low self-esteem does exist.
Speaker 1:It's just a figment of your imagination, and what I tend to do is to light up, just basically bring light into your life. That's all I have to do is bring light into your life. And we bring light into your life, your whole, your whole soul will light up and you're emotionally much happier. We're just like a raw diamond. If you ever see a raw diamond that comes out of the ground, it's black, it has inclusions, it's disgusting looking and you take it to a diamond cutter and he shapes it. He shapes, he makes these. You know the way he shapes it to allow the light into the diamond. So that diamond, when you see a beautiful diamond, it's gorgeous. Why? Because it allows the light to permeate. It works. That light goes back out into the world, and that's what I want to do with my students, with you, today. I want to shape you in a way you can allow the light of God into your life so you can shine a light back up to the world. You can leave this half of class much happier person. So what are some symptoms of self-love, self-esteem? One is comparing yourself to others. We're always comparing ourselves to others. You're never happy your own accomplishments and there's always gonna be something better than you.
Speaker 1:I have a story. When I was in high school I used to play a lot of piano. I was very, very good. I played a lot of piano play Gershwin, rachmaninoff, billy Joel and John and I decided sometime in high school that I wanted to become professional. I want to become fat, I wanted to play on Broadway. I'm gonna play Broadway musicals and I was going to apply to the. I was going to apply. The two big music schools like that in that time one was called Oberlin, ohio, and it was called Juilliard School of Music in New York. Ever heard of that one, juilliard?
Speaker 1:There was a TV show back in the 80s called fame. Fame, I want to live forever. I want to learn how to fly high. It was a very popular show. It was based on this music school in new york city. They had dancers. They had singers. It was very popular.
Speaker 1:I wanted to go to the fame and I was going to apply because everyone told me how good I was on the piano and in my social circle, in my school, my shul, my friends, my family I was the best I'd ever seen and so I thought I was great, until one week I went to an all-county chorus festival in Fairfax County, virginia, and I walked. I went as a baritone singer, but I walked into this room full of people playing pianos and what I saw blew my mind. Here I am thinking I'm pretty cool, I'm good, I know how to play. I walk into this room. I saw people playing music much better than me. They were all like 13 year old Korean girls, but they were unbelievable. They were amazing. They could play by ear. I couldn't play by ear. I could read music and within like 30 seconds to a minute I could play a song pretty good. But I had music they could play by ear. They could change key on demand. I couldn't change the key in the man. I could figure it out after some time. They were geniuses and the idea of me going to oberlin or or julia school of music completely left my mind. I did not apply at all.
Speaker 1:I learned two very valuable lessons. One is do not listen to negative thoughts. And you who give those negative thoughts yourself or people I can't believe. And I look back at my life and I learned another lesson you don't have to be the best at something in order to succeed. I didn't have to be the best at something in order to succeed. I didn't have to be the best piano player to succeed in piano. Okay, maybe I'm not gonna play for the National Symphony Orchestra, maybe I didn't have those skills, but I had other skills. I could have written music, I could have played on Broadway. Whatever I could have done, I could have done something I didn't give myself a chance, could have compared.
Speaker 1:And that is a symptom of low self-esteem. And basically, no matter how good you are at something, someone is eventually gonna become better than you. You should always be striving to be better, whatever you do. But just realize that. Don't let it bring you down. You don't have to be the best at something to succeed and it keeps people from starting and they procrastinate in life.
Speaker 1:Another symptom of low self-esteem is avoiding social interaction. Now, there's a fine line here. I used to go to parties. When I was in college I used to go to keg parties and you know it was Friday and Saturday nights and there was always one or two guys in my dorm who wouldn't go. And I'd go to these guys like why don't you go to the party? And they're like I'm going to sit back and read a book. I'm like really what a loser. And that's my perception, because my perception from my personality is you should go out and drink and have a good time. Of course I wasn't raised in religious homes, I wasn't observant then, I wasn't doing shit about dinners on Friday night then. But looking back, they could have been introverts and they could have gotten pleasure from sitting at home and reading a book. Now there's a fine line from people that want to sit home and read a book versus people who are terrified out of their mind about going into a social situation Because they think, oh, people are gonna think of me, no one's gonna like me, they don't like my pimple on my nose, my face, they think I'm ugly, no one's gonna talk to me, and that is low self-esteem. Avoiding social interaction, like I said, it's a fine line. There are many people like my wife happy being at home at night, doesn't like to go out, and some people want to go out and socialize. But if you don't want to go out because you're terrified, that is low self-esteem.
Speaker 1:You might have known a guy in high school or college who was like the party guy. He'd come in, he'd do the beer bongs loud, obnoxious, he'd try any drug there was. He was considered the guy who was like oh, that guy's a social butterfly, when in reality he was compensating for the fact that he had low self-esteem. Someone with strong self-esteem doesn't have to be the center of attention. They're happy in their own skin and that's avoiding social interaction, self-destructive behaviors. You know, I had a friend of mine, a guy I was learning with. He was in his 60s and he came to my house on a Friday night for a Shabbat dinner and the next morning that night he goes home. He found out his son died. His 19 year old son had died in a car accident. He was driving high speeds and hit a tree.
Speaker 1:Now why do things like this happen? I believe when people have low self-esteem and they do things that are dangerous, that are life-threatening, it could just because they don't care about dying. There's a fine line between people who are thrill-seekers and want to go bungee jumping or jumping out of airplanes or riding big waves in Hawaii. There's a fine line between someone who's a thrill-seeker because a thrill is when you do something where you make the tiny mistake you die versus people who do these things. They don't care if they're going to die. So when you're driving high speeds at two o'clock in the morning down the highway, it could be because you like the thrill of it or deep down in your soul, in your subconscious, you don't care if you're gonna die. And that's what a lot of unfortunate with a lot of teenagers. I had a cousin who died in a car crash. I didn't know him, but my my family said that he, even though was in a car crash I didn't know him, but my family said that he, even though it was considered a car crash, he was like probably committed suicide. So when you do dangerous behaviors, it could be a symptom of low self-esteem, poor relationships.
Speaker 1:Imagine I have a guy for you. I have a guy for you. Are you single? I got a guy for you. He doesn't love himself very much. Do you wanna go out with him? Probably not. No, you don't want to. Right who wants to date someone who doesn't love themselves, and this is prerequisite. Tomorrow I'm gonna give my class on sunscreen love you must love yourself before you can love somebody else. People who don't love themselves and think, oh, if I just get married and find a guy or a girl, they'll make me happy and I'll be happy. But in reality it doesn't work out very well, it doesn't. You have to love yourself before you can love somebody else and be happy who you are. I was in my 30s. I decided meet my wife, now 34 and decided you know what? I'm just gonna be happy being single and enjoy life. And that is when I allowed myself to open my heart up to allow someone into my life. You have to be happy with who you are as a person before you can be in a successful relationship. Okay, now we're gonna talk about.
Speaker 1:The first part of my book is based on symptoms. There's 14 different symptoms. A lot of them we're not gonna get into, like fake confidence, bullnose rings, plastic surgery, criticizing other people, gossip, the whole bunch of other different ways in which you are a symptom of low self-esteem. But I wanna get into the middle part of the book, which are ways in which you may contribute low self-esteem to other people, and the reason why I put this in the book and I put this in the class is when you have the ability to understand how you make other people feel, you'll be more cognizant of your own feelings and you'll do things to make yourself happy. The first one is called name dropping. Name dropping is when you basically drop someone's name who's popular or famous in order to make yourself look better in the eyes of somebody else, and it could be because you.
Speaker 1:I remember when the when I started getting involved Jewishly, the Maccabees came out. I think I don't know what year was, 2011 or 12. You guys heard of the Maccabees. I remember at that point in time, everyone had to have some sort of associate with Maccabees. Oh, the Maccabees are you? My brothers, girlfriends, uncles, sons, friend knows the Maccabees? Like every had asked me. Because it made you feel good. Good, you happen to know someone who's popular and we do it all the time. But the worst thing I used to name drop all the time. I don't do it anymore.
Speaker 1:The worst thing is oh, you don't know so-and-so, you don't know who so-and-so is. Someone comes to you like, oh, you don't knows Rabbi Goldberg, and it makes you feel bad because you should know them. You don't know them. It makes you like oh, what am I a loser? And you have to realize that not everyone is in the same social circle. Not everyone follows and watches the same thing. So I hate when people do that to me. I've had people do it to me all the time They'll start talking to me. They'll be like oh yeah, who's David? I'm like oh, you don't know David, everyone knows David. Don't make me feel like an idiot and be aware, when you're doing things like this, like the name drop and you don't know so-and-so, there's something called the humble brag.
Speaker 1:What's the humble brag? The humble brag is when you say something in order to make yourself feel humble, but you're doing it in a way to basically brag. So, for example, imagine a young lady comes off a plane and she hasn't slept, she took a red eye and she goes to a bar or whatever and she says oh my gosh, I haven't showered in two days, I haven't slept, and guys keep hitting on me. Right, that's a humble brag. Or like oh gosh, I was stuck in traffic. Thank God, you know I was in London and I spilled coffee in my soup. Thank God there was an Armani store and they replaced my suit for me. Do you understand what I'm saying? Something bad happens to you. You say in a way that makes it.
Speaker 1:I did it when I first got here to Israel. I was complaining about the fact that I didn't have what I had in America. In America you have a pool and I would say these things and I would say the things that I had and I don't have them here. In a way, I was trying to be humble, but I was really bragging and I caught myself Because I don't want to make people feel bad. I want, when people interact with me, I lift them up, don't bring them down. Because when you lift people up, when you let the light go into your body, into your soul, and you shine that light out to the world, you can change the world. You can change the world from interactions you have with people. I see it all the time in my life. Now. I spoke this past week in Rockville, maryland, and people came to coach.
Speaker 1:You said something to me last year like I don't believe I'm doing this now. You don't know how you can affect other people and when you make people feel good and help affect other people, you'll feel good about yourself, and the last of the ways in which you may contribute to low self-esteem is what I call posting on social media. I get a lot of pushback on this, like why should I care about what other people post? You don't have to. You can do what you want, but I like to be aware of other people's feelings and the reason why I put this in there.
Speaker 1:I have a friend, a good friend, who was traveling to Paris with his family and every single day he posted pictures of his beautiful family, of his kids, at these fancy French restaurants, every single day, and I said you know, it's great. I thought to myself you know it's great, I'm happy for you, it's awesome. You should share with the world. But you know what? You don't realize that when you have I have 1800 friends on my Facebook page. Do you think I know 1800 people? There's not a chance. I don't know who these people are. You can friend me right now I have no idea who you are. So when I'm posting something, I have to be cognizant of other people's feelings.
Speaker 1:What really bothers me is what I call the gender reveals, this one when someone has a baby right and they post we're going to have a boy. And you see the balloons flying, the jets flying overhead with blue smoke, and then they have, have catered food Like we're having a boy. It's great, mazel Tov. How many people can't have babies? How many people have tried for years to have a baby? It's great, you're having a baby, Mazel Tov. Share with your family and friends. You don't have to share it with the entire world.
Speaker 1:When I moved to Israel a number of years ago, we started what I called the Ratner Israel chat and so it's about it's my close family and my close friends. So I post on there. I know it's only going to my family and friends, no one else. I post pictures of my you know, my son getting army uniform. I post pictures of someone graduating or a birthday party, whatever. We post pictures, but I'm not sure with the world. I don't need the world to know all my stuff, I just don't.
Speaker 1:And when you're cognizant of the people's feelings, you'll be more cognizant of cognizant of your own feelings. You know people post when they get into a college they have that was called a. They open their envelopes from different colleges. Oh, I got into Harvard, mazel Tov. Well, not everyone. Not everyone can get into Harvard. It's great for you. And people will say why should I be worried about what other people feel? You don't have to. But the reason why I'm giving this class is because I want you to feel good about yourself, I want you to have positive self-esteem and I want you to go through what I went through. This is why I want to turn my mess into my message so you don't have to go through life having low self-esteem. You need to be happy with internal satisfaction, without external validation. You should not always be looking for validation from other people, which brings us to strategies to cure low self-esteem, protect your happiness.
Speaker 1:Just like you know, when you get married, there's things that husbands, men, don't do Not all of them. You know going to a strip club, going out with your girlfriends that maybe you had when you were single. People ask me can I be friends with you? Know girls ask me can I be friends with guys? You ever asked this question before Can I be friends with guys? And as guys? Your answer is, unless you're like, completely lying to yourself, no, because every guy wants to sleep with you. That's the way it works. I mean guys, don't. I mean like you know what I'm talking about. Like, at least in the regular world, guys who are friends with a girl, they all want to sleep with them and like can I be friends? And of course there's always this tension between the relationship. So no, you can't be friends with girls, especially if you're married, obviously.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna tell you a little story. There's a guy named Chaim Kreisworth. He was a young man on the Holocaust and he encountered an older man and the man says I'm about to die, my days are numbered here. He goes I have a lot of money in a Swiss bank account. I want you to find my kids and my grandkids and make sure you memorize the account number and the password. So, many years later, chaim Kreisworth was in Jerusalem and he was a teacher, a rabbi, and he was learning in Yeshiva and he was learning with a student and, as it turned out, the student looked familiar to him. He goes are you a Kreisworth? He goes. Yes, he says do you know about your grandfather? And he explained to him how his grandfather died in the gas chambers and he was taken aback. He goes do you realize that I met your grandfather and that you have a lot of money? He goes can you get to Switzerland? He goes no. So he raised enough money for this boy to get to Switzerland and he went to the bank and this boy found out who didn't have any money that with interest over time he had $30 million. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine one day being a student with no money and then finding out you have $30 million? The question you have to ask yourself is when did he become rich? Was it when he was born? When was he discovered at 30 million dollars? Was it when he actually took the money? When was it?
Speaker 1:My rabbi always says to me imagine you buy a lottery ticket. Sunday morning, you go look in the newspaper to see the winning lottery number. You look it up online and you find out you won a lottery ticket. Sunday morning, you go look in the newspaper to see the winning lottery number. You look it up online and you find out you won a $150 million lottery. How do you feel? Feel amazing, right, but what changed? Nothing changed. Sunday morning, you have the same bank account. Everything's the same. Nothing's changed except your vision of the future. Nothing's changed except your vision of the future. It's all in your mind, of course, that future looks bright when you have 150 million dollars but in reality nothing's changed that day, just your vision of the future. So if you bring some light into your life, you can be much happier.
Speaker 1:So we don't put a fence around around your happiness, just like in pure God, versus put a fence around the Torah. We protect things that are precious to us. We protect our marriage. We protect our children with fences. We protect our children making sure that they don't hang around the right wrong people, and one thing you need to protect is your happiness. I never really thought about this. Put a fence around my happiness. I'm in charge of it, no one else is. I do things that I want to do and I don't think do things I don't want to do. I know I get.
Speaker 1:I just got invited to another wedding today and people in jerusalem, a lot of people, get married all the time and I told my wife you know, my wife, it's great to go to a wedding it's a mitzvah to celebrate but I don't like eating dinner at 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night. It's ridiculous. I can't do this all the time. So I tell people, can you go to my wedding? I'm like, yeah, going to go to our wedding. No, I'm only going to your chuppah, but of course I'm going to go to their party. But I'm making like a 12 o'clock in the afternoon so I don't have to stay up late. It's funny, I got married at noon. When my parents got married at noon, I'm like done actually with my in-laws house after the wedding and we had like a little snack. It was nice that wasn't. It wasn't so late.
Speaker 1:Protect your happiness. First thing you have to do is understand and forgive the source of your low self-esteem, whatever is making you feel bad. If it's your parents, if it's your upbringing, if it's a teacher maybe, or you got, you know, a boy friend, whatever it is, you need to forgive the source. Because you can't forgive the source, you're never going to move forward in life. When you hold in anger, you hold in resentment. It keeps you from growing as a person.
Speaker 1:Imagine a high school teacher takes a cup of water and holds it out and says how much does this weigh? And the students respond you know, four ounces, six ounces. And the teacher says really the weight means nothing, because right now it's light, I can hold it, but if I hold it for an hour it starts to get uncomfortable. If I hold it for a day, I start to be in pain. Hold it for a week, I'm excruciating pain. The longer you hold something in, the more painful it is in life and you cannot move forward until you forgive. My kid says to me the three hardest things to say I forgive you, I'm sorry, and Worcestershire sauce, the three hardest things to say Worcestershire sauce, very difficult. No, it's hard to say I forgive you. It's hard to say I'm sorry. It's hard to say I love you, say I forgive you. It's hard to say I'm sorry. It's hard to say I love you.
Speaker 1:I'm coaching so many guys now. We're having such a hard time opening up and becoming vulnerable. I coaxed a guy here at age he was 35 and he is very sweet, but not the most socially adept guy. He wasn't like awkward, he's not great, and he went out a date with this one girl from B'nai Brak and he said coach, I love this girl, I want to marry her. Because how do I get her? How do I get her? And so I said she, she has to feel like you're vulnerable and engaged with her, like engaged emotionally. So we practiced. I said and I don't think a lot of people do this and I said you know, we're gonna practice this. On the second date, when you're talking to her, you're gonna say you know I really like you and smile. And he couldn't do it. He had a hard time practice 20, 30 times. A second day practice. You know, I really liked you. He was done. He got married for five, six dates I mean games, not not married, but engaged. Why? Because he showed that his heart was open and allowed himself to be vulnerable. As guys, a lot of us have a hard time doing that, but that's what women want. Women want a guy that listens to them and understands them and is open enough to let their feelings be shown and be vulnerable. So you have to forgive the source.
Speaker 1:Number two control your exposure. If it makes you feel bad, don't do it. If going on social media makes you feel bad, you shouldn't go on. Just like I don't wanna go to wedding parties. It doesn't make me feel bad, it's just not something I really wanna do. I protect my happiness. You need to be the gatekeeper of your brain. If you have a flower garden, you put a flower in the garden. You see the flowers wilting. Are you gonna blame the seed company? Hey, I'm gonna call the seed company. It's the seeds that are bad. No, you're gonna check the environment, the soil, the water, the sunlight, check what's around you, because that affects your self-esteem. The two biggest decisions you're gonna make in your life number one, who you're gonna marry. And number two, where you're gonna live Because where you're gonna live is your community. It affects how you are. This is why it's very important to be in a community that's growth-oriented.
Speaker 1:You know there are guys who are sitting on Madison Avenue in New York City. These are marketing guys and they're sitting there trying to make you feel bad. That's what trying to do. They're trying to make you. When they, when they bombard with advertising on social media and TV and newspapers and magazines, they're trying to make you feel bad. So you spend money on what they're selling you. Oh my gosh, I feel bad. I need to have that, I need I I. You know there's so many things that people can buy, but I need to have that. There's so many things now people can buy. You have to understand when you're sitting in a checkout line at the grocery store and you see the Mademoiselle magazines and GQ and Elle and whatever these and they're saying you're not pretty unless you have this makeup, have this body, you have to think for yourself.
Speaker 1:It's funny, it's amazing that tan is in when it used to be. If you watched the movie Titanic, right, and the women were walking around in the early 1900s, parasols covered up, they were dressed modestly, they had their skin covered. Why? Because if you were pasty white, you were considered beautiful, and if you're tan, you're considered white trash, because it means you worked in the railroads or worked outside in the farms. Isn't that crazy? And now, if you're white, it means you can't afford to fly your private jet down to Barbados, right? And if you're tan, it means that you're like you don't work anymore because you're so rich.
Speaker 1:It's amazing how our views on life change. And it used to be being I don't want to say chunky, or being bulky, chunky, chunky, heavy was considered sexy, and being skinny was considered being poor and no one wanted to date you. Why? Because you were poor and couldn't eat. And if you were chunky, that means you could have a lot of children much easier and that means you would come from the upper echelon of society. When did our vision and life change? It's funny, I haven't got the word.
Speaker 1:Pink used to be a boy's color Until someday some department store said pink is now girls and blue is boys. We didn't decide that for ourselves, someone else made that decision. What's that movie when the girl she goes to? She works for this magazine in New York City and it's a fashion magazine and this woman says I could determine what you wear, even though you go buy it at Marshalls or TJ Maxx. That color was decided by me five, six years earlier and just makes its way from the expensive stores from Saks Fifth Avenue and makes its way down to Marshalls and TJ Maxx. That's decided by her. We wanna think for ourselves. We wanna open our brains up like is this making me feel good, is this making me happy or not?
Speaker 1:So you have to control your exposure, define your core values, do what's important to you and don't do what's not important to you, which means what are your core values? I know if you're young and you're early twins, it's hard to know what your core values are, but you gotta have something to base it on your life form. I use my core values. I use the word great Great as an acronym and I live.
Speaker 1:The G stands for gratitude. I'm gratitude. Everything happens to me, the good and the bad. I thank God Because the Gemara says for everything that bad happens to you, something good is going to come from it. I know it's a high level. I mean you can thank God. Okay, whatever, you got a new job. Thank God for the new job. You won the lottery. Thank God I broke my foot. You know what you want to live a high level of having strong self-esteem. You thank God for breaking your foot because you don't know what's gonna come from it. Something good is gonna come from it, so that's gratitude. R is responsibility. Take responsibility for the world. World, basically, the word responsibility stands for respond to your ability. You have ability to do great things. God didn't put you here for nothing. God put you here for a purpose. Maybe you don't know your purpose, but at least knowing how your purpose, you go through life trying to search for your purpose and he put you here to do great things, and that is taking responsibility for the world.
Speaker 1:I have a chapter in one of my books called who's they? Because there's always people like, oh yeah, they should do this, they should get more water, they should have a coffee machine, they should, you know, have more classes. Who's the? Who's they? And when you're saying who's they? You're the, they, you're the ones in charge. Now there's a mission that says when there is no man, be the man. When you see a need for the world, that means you're there to help. Do it, to help change the world, because it's your job to change the world. Don't let the world change you and we don't put a filter on our brain. We have things we don't that make us unhappy. We struggle in life. We're not happy. It's hard to have a relationship, it's hard to get a job. Imagine we're for a job. Yeah, you know how. No one's gonna hire someone's not happy.
Speaker 1:I tell my kids, I teach my kids this wherever you do in life, people like to be around, people that they enjoy being around, that are happy. I just told my kids, even when you go to school, if you're failing but the teacher likes you, guess what they're going to do? They're going to make sure that. They're going to go extra out of time, out of their way to make sure you don't fail. My son recently thank God he's a great student he was in school and he got a six-year-old test. He usually gets 90s and 100s and the teacher said and I happened to be out of town. So maybe he was sad, I don't know. And so the teacher said you've been tired this week. I know you don't normally get 60s. So what he did is he gave him an oral test to keep his nose material and my son did great on the oral test. He goes. I'm giving you a 90. Because he likes my son. Now, if he didn't like my son he wouldn't go make that effort.
Speaker 1:It's just like if you're in a job and people make excuses all the time, when they get fired They'll say oh, I lost my job because of this, this and this. You know why they lost their job. They didn't like you and that was just an excuse to fire you. But if they liked you and they enjoyed your company and you're a happy person, you know we just, unfortunately, our cleaning lady is going back to sri lanka and I told her I said you're the. I said I love her being my house. I mean, who likes having cleaning ladies in the house? I don't like it. But her, she was amazing, she was happy, she always smiled. It was funny when my kids were sleeping and she'd be come in the morning. My kids were sleeping in late for they didn't have school that day. She literally she'd go in the room and she'd clean the room and she'd like tuck them in. She's like, and she's like, she's like, tuck them in. She was amazing. She'd do their hair for them. I loved her. I'm sad to lose her, but the reason why I loved her so much and she made me happy. So we have gratitude, we have responsibility.
Speaker 1:The E stands for end game Means what are you living your life for? And I know it's a little tough, but what do you want people to say at your funeral? Stephen Covey says in his book "'Seven Habits of Highly Successful People' start with the end game in mind. What do I want people to say when I die? Don't want them to say, oh, he had a fancy car.
Speaker 1:I was at a funeral once, and this is really one of the reasons I started writing a lot. I was at a funeral and this happened to be for this boy that died in the car crash. He was 19 or 20 years old. I'm at the funeral and all people talked about was how this kid skateboarded, how he brought his kid skateboarding back. He was a great skateboarder. They couldn't say anything else about him. I was disgusted. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1:That's your life. You skateboarded. You didn't help people, you weren't kind, you didn't do good to whatever it was I said I don't want that to be remembered. I don't want people to say, oh yeah, he played piano really good. I don't want that. I want more in my life. So that's end game and the A is awesome.
Speaker 1:Know that you are already awesome. The day you were born was the day that God decided the world could not go on without you. You're awesome. You're amazing people. The fact you're in this class means you're in. You're amazing people. The fact you're in this class means you're in the highest levels of personal growth you just come into one of here. Class on personal growth puts you at the upper. Echelon Doesn't mean anything else, but it still means that you're making the effort to become great in life. And the last T is transformation, because the greatest transformation you'll make in life is when you believe in yourself as much as God believes in transformation. Because the greatest transformation you'll make in life is when you believe in yourself as much as God believes in you. Because God put you here. He believes in you and we have to transform ourselves from having low self-esteem to having high self-esteem.
Speaker 1:I used to have low self-esteem and now I'm pretty happy. I mean, I'm always happy. But how are you happy about that? I don't know. I'm just happy. I've been working on myself. I filter my brain If it doesn't make me unhappy, like when I flew back from America yesterday. There's movies on the plane and I don't watch. Movies on the plane, I don't watch. I think the only one that walks this year was the Tom Cruise one, top Gun or Maverick, because I used to love the old Top Gun movie and so I hadn't seen the new one. I'd watch them but the acting wasn't that good but the scenes were great, the fighting scenes Anyway. But I started to watch different movies and I was like if it's violent I can't watch it. I can't watch these movies anymore because it just makes me unhappy to see violence, so I don't watch them. So that's great. That's my core values gratitude, responsibility, end game awesome and transformation.
Speaker 1:Make your list of attributes. If you're unhappy with yourself, think about make a list of all the things you have in your life that money can't buy. This way, you can't make yourself say, well, that guy's got that money, that guy can do that. He has that. Make a list of what you have in your life that money can't buy. Do you have two eyes? Do you have two legs? We take it for granted until we're sick, and then it's amazing, we're always desiring the car, the house, the boyfriend, the girlfriend, the husband and wife, until we get sick and there's only one thing we want when we're sick and that's to be healthy. Maybe, since I've gone through cancer and I've had to deal with that, maybe that's changed my perspective a little bit, but that was, you know, ten years ago. I'm still dealing with it. But like I do not want to go, I want people. When I die to that guy it was always happy that always had gratitude and that's a good way to Remembered. Okay, the last of this I'm gonna give you.
Speaker 1:There's a lot more in this book as far as these strategies and symptoms of low self-esteem. There's rejection therapy. Set a new goal for yourself make life fun, synchronize with others. Synchronize with others is basically join a chorus or join something where you're needed. You're a part of the group. Going to a yoga class is not the same. Because you don't show up to yoga class, you know they still go on, but being partisan there for me, teaching essentials here is a major thing, because I have to come. If I'm not here, there's no class, so make yourself needed somewhere. I used to be in the chorus it's playing the band and of course I was in the chamber choirs. We had only 20 singers and I was was one of the four bass singers, so I have to be there. If I'm not there, they have to replace me Because it's all off. It's not only 20 singers. Your voice is very important.
Speaker 1:Exercise, exercise, is one of the most important things we can do. I talk about this a lot that in olden days if we wanted to have dinner we had to go chop down a tree, make firewood, build a fire, go kill an animal, you know, check to kill it and cook it. Now we get hungry. Call 1-800-DOOR-DASH for the hamburger at our front door. Because of that, we're not exercising anymore. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:Here in Jerusalem I don't have a car and I walk everywhere and so like it's easier for me to stay in shape. When I was in America, people drive everywhere. Of course I wasn't in New York City, but people drive everywhere. I was in LA. I would had to go to my the shul and I was like two blocks away and I was gonna give a talk to the shul and my host said oh, do me to drive you. I'm like the shuls two blocks away. What do you drive me? Because, oh, we always drive to the show like it's two blocks. I walk two miles to go to shul. It's a good to come here.
Speaker 1:And because of that, we lose natural uh, the natural ability to be happy, because our body gives us god gave us free drugs. It's called dopamine, melatonin, serotonin. These things make us happy and if we don't exercise, they don't get created in our brain. This is why, when you don't exercise and start to gain weight, you start this flywheel of eating more to make yourself happy because you feel bad about yourself and you get heavy and you get overweight. People that are extremely overweight aren't more hungry than you. It's emotional, they're not happy with themselves, and so they eat as a crutch. They eat to compensate for their unhappiness. They don't need more food than you. It's not like they're exercising more and flying, climbing Mount Everest or running marathons. In fact, they're doing less than you because they can't do anything. They can't walk up the stairs. I have an acquaintance who's like huge I mean, he's so unhealthy he has a struggle walking. It's an emotional issue and when you exercise, especially like running, you're producing free drugs and they make you happy and with this, this is the last strategy to really protect your happiness and help trigger what sort ofem.
Speaker 1:It's to pray, but you have to have clarity in what you how to pray. I know many people go to the shul and they pick up the art scroll or they go to a concert show and they see the man on the stage with a big robe and you're not playing to the man, you're not praying to a book. Have clarity on who you're praying to. And so what I do is I have an acronym and the acronym is repeats. Why? Because prayer is something you can do any time of the day, as many times as you want. You can pray all day long if you want to. You can repeat, repeat, repeat.
Speaker 1:But you first have to take out the two E's. One is your envy and one is your ego. That's repeat as an an acronym R-E-P-E-A-T. It's an acronym. Take out two E's. One is envy, because you cannot pray to God when you're envious of somebody else. It means God made a mistake. I should have that car. I should have that house. I should have that girlfriend. It means you're envious, you're not happy with what you have in life, and it means God made a mistake. You can't pray to God with clarity when you have envy. And the second E is ego. Ego means that you control the world.
Speaker 1:I was in my early 20s and I was a coin dealer and I started doing was successful pretty quickly and I got an ego. I started to get a little arrogant and someone said to me Daniel, because that's my name, they go, you're pretty arrogant. I'm I don't be arrogant, I don't be knows an arrogant guy. And I quickly stopped being arrogant and I eventually came to realization, realization that God gave me gifts. God gave me a gift to see coins better than other people. God gave me a gift to negotiate coins with other people. God gave me a gift that maybe not everyone has.
Speaker 1:I like to say God wrote us a check at birth. He wrote you won for 5,000, 10,000, 20,000. Each of us have a check and your job in life is to cash that check. You never go to a bank with a $5,000 check and say just give me $4,000 to get the change. That seems insane. And when you don't reach your potential in life. That's exactly what you were doing. You wanna reach your potential in life and so I started thinking about it. You know what? I'm a good coin dealer. I know that. But it's not me, it's just the gifts that God gave me that I'm using. I'm using this. Not everyone has the same skill as me on coins, but maybe I don't have the same skill as you on science or the same skill as you as math, but I have skills and each of us has skills, and we want to maximize those skills.
Speaker 1:And so we take out the envy and the ego. Ego means I'm in charge of everything. God has nothing to do with it. Ego stands for, as an acronym, exiting God out. And when you have ego, you cannot pray with clarity, because in life, especially in relationships, your ego is not your amigo. It's not. Ego is not your friend. It causes a downfall of many of us. A lot of divorces are caused because of egos. And so you take out the two E's envy and ego. You left with four letters RPAT. The R stands for recognize.
Speaker 1:Who am I praying to? Not the art scroll, not the prayer book, not the man on the stage, not the wall, not the guy like this wherever it is. I'm not. I'm praying to God Hashem, that's recognized. Number two is to praise Him. Praise Him is not thanking. Praise Him is recognizing all the things he can do.
Speaker 1:My wife recently was at a dentist and no, she was at an eye appointment and she was telling the woman oh, thank God, or something. She goes. What do you think? Oh, my wife prayed for her eyes to be better and the woman said you should be praying for bigger things, like the return of the hostages, for the war to end. She goes don't pray for little things like that. And my wife said God can do anything. He's unlimited. He can cure cancer and he can put a penny in our pocket. He can stop your mosquito bite from itching and he can save the weather, the climate problem we have. God can do anything. There's nothing that's not too big for him. That's praising him. He can do anything for us. That's R-P.
Speaker 1:The A is to ask, because six days a week when we pray, we are asking for something. We're asking for our health, for our family, for our job, for our wife, our husband. We are asking for something. We're asking for our health, for our family, for our job, for our wife, our husband. We're asking for something and if you do not expect for him to give you what you're asking for, you are not being real, because God is going to answer every single prayer. You might not like the answer, the answer might be no, but he is going to answer you. And if he says no, you have to go back and say why did he not give me what I wanted? Maybe it's not good for me, maybe it's not the right time, maybe you did not make enough effort, but he is going to answer you. And the last is T, that stands for thanks.
Speaker 1:You should be thanking God for everything. You should be thanking as soon as you ask for something. When you're praying, you recognize, you praise him and you ask and immediately you say thanks, whether he gives it to you or not, because he doesn't give it to you. That means it's good for you. He gives it to you. That means it's good for you and that will help you to have amazing self-esteem. When you know you're not alone in the world and God has your back and you bring in the idea of repeat, you get rid of the envy, you get rid of the ego, recognize praise, ask thanks, you'll go on through life having amazing self-esteem. May you all be blessed with an abundant amount of self-esteem and spread that light that's going to shine inside you and you reflect it back out to the world and you too will change the world, because the greatest transformation you're going to have in your life is when you believe in yourself as much as God believes in you. Thank you very much.