The Coach Daniel 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.
The Coach Daniel Ratner Podcast
Does This Dress Makes Me Look Fat? 14 Symptoms of Low Self-Esteem, Coach Ratner Live!
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A tap on the shoulder at the Kotel. Two deer in an empty cemetery at dawn. Those moments of impossible timing launch a candid, practical journey into self-esteem, why it slips, and how to bring light back when life feels dim. We connect the sacred and the everyday, then get specific about what low self-worth looks like when it shows up in real life.
We unpack 14 common patterns: imposter syndrome that lingers long after the first week on the job, avoiding social scenes out of fear rather than temperament, and relationships that wobble when we ask partners to fill holes we haven’t faced. We draw a hard line between healthy thrills and not caring if you live, explore hypersensitivity and modest presence, and dismantle the myth that you must be the best to be worthy. You’ll hear how people-pleasing masquerades as kindness, how perfectionism quietly becomes procrastination, and why your health can mirror your emotions.
There’s a relationship toolkit here too. The “sunscreen love” idea sticks: compliments protect, criticism burns. We show how fishing for compliments keeps you stuck in outside approval, while specific, sincere praise regenerates trust. We talk fake confidence, practical “rejection therapy,” and the daily skill of resilience—especially in marriage—where acceptance beats control. We challenge snap judgments (the “stuck up” label often hides shyness) and call out gossip as feathers scattered on the wind. We also examine attention economics in modern media and the lure of looks-based fixes when insecurity drives the choice.
If you’ve felt the sting of comparison or the silence of feeling not enough, this conversation offers a map back to steady ground: add light, guard your attention, replace criticism with earned praise, and practice resilience until confidence becomes your default. If this resonated, follow the show, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with the one insight you’ll act on this week.
And the question is, are you listening to them? Because sometimes in life we'll send messages and messages. If we don't listen to them, listen to them, they're going to get louder and louder and louder. And then we go through a lot of challenges in our life. And like, where do they come from? So he sends them early. So today I'm at the coatel, and inside there is a uh not inside, there's a there's a tunnel or men davin. You've probably been inside the tunnel, but it's a big tunnel. It's big and you can see all the whole thing. There's like one way in, one way out. And so I'm there today, Davi Mincha, and around 12 o'clock, and it's the repetition of the Shimon S-ray. And that point in time, you don't talk, and the guy says the brachas, you say, Amen, you say, Bruh, Brah Shimon, Amen. So I'm sitting there and I'm just saying Amen. And the guy taps me on the shoulder. He's wearing tefillin, a little overweight, got a beard, and he goes, I need to talk to you. And I, of course, who what do you expect when you have to coattail and someone taps you on the shoulder? What do you think they're gonna ask for?
unknown:Money.
SPEAKER_04:Money. Of course. And in the middle of Shemanestra, I'm like surprised, someone's bothering me in the middle of Shemanestrae. So I am like, like this, which means in Hebrew, wait a second, not in some other language, not something not good. So I said to him, I and I said to him, uh, I'm in the middle of shimonestray or something. And then I'm sitting there daffing, I'm like, I'm not dawning, I'm saying, Omain, and like I think to myself, wait a second, that's unusual for someone to do this. So I looked back to see him. This was like five seconds later, and he was nowhere. He didn't exist. The guy was, I'm like, it was almost like he disappeared. And like I was looking, I'm like, and I was looking and I looked behind me and he didn't get, he didn't leave because it was within five seconds. And like, God just sent me an angel. Maybe said stop being so cheap and give the guy the money. I don't know what's probably what it was, but it happened to me about two years ago when I landed in DC. I wanted to go visit my parents' grave site. And it's in a it's in a cemetery, it's a big open field, and they have the the uh tombstones are flat on the ground. So you can't see them. You know, they're it's all grass. So like I couldn't find my parents' uh my parents' site because I hadn't been there in a few years. And I was getting frustrated. It was six in the morning on Memorial Day, so there was no one around. There's not, it was the place was closed, but you just walk on. And I sit and I my wife always asked me, ask Hashem, when you have a problem in life, you have two choices. You can struggle like this, you know, struggle, or make it smooth and just as Hashem, and I'll give you answers. So I asked God, I got I need to help finding my parents' grave site. I turn around, it's a true story. I turn around and there's two deer. It's a big field, and I didn't see them before. And I said, I said to myself, because I was by myself, I said, no way. There's no way, no way. And I and I walked towards the deer, and I looked down, and there's my parents' gravesite. And I took a picture of it, I said it'll him, and I turned around, and the deer were completely gone. No one to be found. And there was not like they could hide, there was no trees. It was unbelievable. And today was the second time in my life where I think God sent me an angel just to give me some sort of message. I have to figure out what that message is, obviously. Maybe it's for me to have shekels in my pocket, and when someone taps on the shoulder, I should give them a shekel, right? Because I didn't have any change on me. Anyway, that's my story for today. Class dismissed, just kidding. Okay, so we're gonna talk about low self-esteem. The reason why love esteem is such a big issue in our lives is because when you don't love yourself, you're gonna have a hard time loving somebody else. It manifests itself in every single one of us here, including myself. And this is why I want to turn my mess into my message, right? What is self-esteem? What does it mean? What does self-esteem mean?
unknown:Loving yourself.
SPEAKER_04:Love yourself, right? If you have strong self-esteem, you love yourself who you are, right? And you don't need external validations, you're happy with you are as a person, you're happy with the way you look, you don't need plastic surgery, you know, you're and then low self-esteem is not loving yourself. And we all go through periods of it. When does it start? When do you think it starts? Teenage years. It's funny, I gave a class yesterday, and I said, I said, does it happen when you're four years old? And someone goes, yes, it does. Like, not really. I mean, you do feel bad you go to kindergarten, someone makes fun of you, you feel bad, but that's not really quite low self-esteem. That's just that, you know, you don't know how to handle yourself. You're so young. But a four-year-old goes to bed and wakes up like on fire. They don't wake up, oh, I've got a bed today, I hate work. No, they're excited about life. They haven't learned to be miserable yet. For me, it started around fifth, sixth grade. I grew up in Virginia and in the United States, and it used to be cold in the winter time. And then my mom would say to me in the winter time, put a wool hat on your head or you're gonna catch a cold. And in first grade, second grade, okay, mom, put a wool hat and I go to the bus stop. What happens in fifth and sixth grade? Huh?
SPEAKER_02:You're too cool.
SPEAKER_04:I'm too cool for this. Mom, I'm gonna look like a geek in front of the girls. I'm not gonna wear a hat. I'd rather freeze my ears off. Because the biggest prison we can put ourselves in is worrying about what other people think about us. It is a prison that we put ourselves in all the time. And we spend 20 minutes in the mirror and wake up with a pimple nose, I am not leaving the house today. No one's talking about you that much. Sorry. They may make fun of you in the Starbucks line for like 10 seconds, and that's wrong to something else. No one cares about you that much. No offense. Your best friend makes this on you, oh, you got a pimple, ha ha, and that's it, you're done with it. We we we sit there, my kids come up sometimes on Shabbos, and like they'll wear a dress of Shabbos clothes, and they go back down chain and they go, What do you got? I don't like that clothes. Like, they're beautiful, this is ridiculous. It's a prison we put ourselves in. And I believe so low self-esteem does not exist. It is an absence of light in your life. And you know how we know? The Torah starts out with there was darkness upon the depths of the deep, and then God created light. Which means darkness was there before light existed. How can that happen? How can something exist before existence? It doesn't make sense, right? Does anyone know the speed of light? Anyone here a scientist? Someone's got to know the speed of light. No one? It's 186,000 miles per second or 300 or 305,000 kilometers per second. It's fast, right? What's the speed of darkness? Yeah, it doesn't there's no speed of darkness because it doesn't exist. Black is not a color. It's an absence of light. If we turn off all the lights and put black black out the windows, it's completely pitched black. When we light a little tiny Hanukkah candle, what happens?
SPEAKER_03:There's light.
SPEAKER_04:There's light in the whole room. That's why Hanukkah is about bringing light into our life. That's what the holidays about coming up, turn next holidays, Hanukkah. In fact, Roch Kodesh, I think it's on Friday, month of Kislev. About bringing light into the world. And that's what the Jew, the purpose of the Jew is, is bringing light in the world. If we can't bring light to ourselves, how can we bring it to the rest of the world? Because we're like a diamond that comes out of the ground. If you ever see a diamond, anyone here from South Africa? There you go. Diamond country, right? How's the diamond coming out of the ground out of your backyard? You don't have any backyard. It comes out full of inclusions and black and disgusting looking. It's like we take it to a diamond cutter and he shapes it in a certain way to allow light to shine into that diamond. So that light shines back out to the rest of the world. And this is what we want to do. We want to shape ourselves in a way to allow Hashem's light to enter our soul. So when we go out into the world, we go as happy, emotionally healthy people to the rest of the world. As I teach my children all the time, it's your job to change the world, not let the world change you. And we let the world affect us, we just we start to gain low self-esteem and start feeling bad about ourselves. And it's gotten to be so bad nowadays. You would think that in today's world we should be the happiest ever. You would think that today, with access to food, by the way, more people in America are dying of overeating than starvation. Just think about that for a second. More people are dying from overeating in America than starvation. We have access to shelter, we have access to information. Yet we're in the most unhappy time in our life. We have more people in antidepressants than any time in the history of the world. We have more therapists per capita than any time in the history of the world. Why is that? Do you know in 2021 the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, came out a report that said that one out of three teenage girls seriously considered attempting suicide? One out of three? That's crazy. Think about that number. And the number of boys was half that much. One out of six. That doesn't make sense. So all you have to do is change your goggles, change your viewpoint. Basically bring light into your life. And what we're gonna do today, actually, it was probably a two-part class. Bless you. Again, there's no watch, there's no clock in here. We're gonna go through the we're not gonna finish today. We're gonna go through symptoms of low self-esteem. These are things that you do when you have low self-esteem, which we all do. Some of the worst ones, there's some ones that they're from the people pleasers, which is fine, to some of the worst ones, which is dangerous behavior. And then we're gonna go through ways in which you create low self-esteem in other people, how you affect other people's lives, because when you have, when you have the ability to understand how you affect other people's happiness, you'll be more aware of your own happiness. And lastly, we're gonna go through 12 different strategies. I'm gonna go through 12 of them. We're gonna go to strategies to cure low self-esteem. Because you have to put a fence up in your life. You have to keep things in that make you happy and keep things out that don't make you happy. This is why my book, Emotional Vampires, which is coming out, you know, I brought a copy yesterday. Did I bring a copy yesterday to show you? Oh, did I have you yesterday?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, in the world.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, in the world center, emotional vampires. Because you have people in your life that bring you down, they drain you of energy. And you have to learn how to manage those. So the first thing we're gonna talk about today of a symptom of low self-esteem is imposter syndrome. What's imposter syndrome?
SPEAKER_02:Anything like today's so much.
SPEAKER_04:You don't deserve to be somewhere or be doing something. By the way, we all everyone goes, even all the teachers, I go through it all the time. Like, what am I doing teaching here? I don't, I don't, I'm not, I don't I don't have a degree in teaching, right? And it manifests itself as someone, and by the way, it's okay to have imposter syndrome. Usually when you're new, let's say you become a teacher and you're going teaching eighth grade for the first time, and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm nervous. It's okay to have it. You're new at what you do. It's understandable. It's fine. We all have that. But then you become, after a few years, you shouldn't have it anymore. And you sometimes people still do. And then there's the what I call the GOAT theory. The goat theory is the greatest of all time theory. When someone like Michael Jordan, or uh the greatest basketball player of all time, right? When he finished his freshman year of playing in the NBA, his first year in the NBA, a reporter came up to him and said, You know what? You're a great offensive player, but your defense stinks. You know what Michael Jordan did? He had a chip in his shoulder. He was already probably going to become the greatest of all time. He said, You know what? I can't stand this. He went over and beyond and became the greatest defender of all time. Not only is he the greatest offensive player of all time, he's the greatest defender of all time, which is unheard of. It doesn't even make sense. Because he had a chip in his shoulder, and sometimes that works. Tom Brady, same thing, wins four Super Bowls. Not enough. Five, six, seven. Because he had a chip on his shoulder and he had probably some imposter syndrome. Like, you know what? I can even be better. But where it manifests itself with the worst is when you're in the middle of your career. And it's just a symptom of low self-esteem. And we all go through it. Something to recognize. The second symptom of low self-esteem is avoiding social interaction. Now, there's a fine line between being an introvert and someone who has low self-esteem because they're paranoid, are terrified that they go to a party or at a singles event, and that no one's gonna talk to them, people are gonna think they're ugly, people are gonna think they're fat, that no one's gonna like my hair, people are gonna deny my clothes, right? And you're judging yourself on other people, and like you're never gonna be happy. Now, there are people, I remember I was in college and I had a, I used to go to, this is before I was religious, and I used to go to tech parties on the weekends, big tech parties on our campus. And uh, I'd always go on Friday nights. A social person, I like to drink beer, meet girls, whatever. And uh um, and there's always a guy in my dorm who'd stay at home and read a book. And I've I'm like, what are you a loser? I was like, come on, you're not you don't have fun. But for him, fun might have been sitting at home reading a book. My wife is an introvert. For her, fun is sitting home reading a book. Now I'm I'm as I now I'm teaching all the time. I actually want to sit at home and read a book all the time because I've had enough of people. I get so much people during the wit day, I'm gonna be alone at night. But um, some people avoid social interaction because they're terrified of being uh jugged in public. And that is low self-esteem. The third one is called poor relationships. Imagine I have a guy for you. I do have a guy for you. Really cute. By the way, he doesn't love himself. Do you want to go out with him? Not a chance in the world, right? No one's about someone who doesn't love themselves. You see people that don't love themselves constantly having poor relationships all the time. I met a girl today in my essentials class. I could tell off the bat. I don't, I don't, I don't know how I can tell. She asked a question in class after class at a big class today, pretty much on this why I lost my voice. And after class, she came up to me and she goes, and she started talking to me. She wants to meet with me. I said, You have low self-esteem, don't you? She goes, How'd you know? And like, I just, I mean, you're reeking of it. Like she's like, I I even said to her, You get abused in relationships, don't you? I I couldn't believe I said this. I don't know her. She goes, You're totally right. How do you know? I said, Well, first of all, you're cute, and so guys like it. And like, I can just tell you, have she thanked she needs a lot of therapy. She's she's seeing a therapist, she's gonna start coming to my classes. Hope that I can help her. I'm not a therapist, but I play well on TV also. Uh self-destructive behaviors. These are things that we do. Obviously, there's something called thrills. You know, uh, we like to get thrilled, we go to we go to a um roller coaster, bungee jumping, jumping out of airplanes. These are all great things, right? But there's a fine line between people who do things for for the thrill versus people who don't care if they're going to die. If you uh I had a cousin, I never knew him uh about gosh, maybe 15 years ago, he died in the car crash. And the report, the autopsy report says accident. All his relatives tell me, suicide. Why? Because he didn't care if he was gonna die. And when you see people, and there's a again a fine line, people what is what is dangerous behavior? Doing something where if there's any little mistake, you're going to die. A jump, bunching jumping, the court breaks, you're gonna die. Jumping on the airplane, your parachute breaks, you're gonna die. These are they're very thrilling. But when people do them for thrills versus doing them because they don't care if they're gonna die, there's a fine line. If you ask a typical eight-year-old kid, right, who's driving at 200 miles an hour in the night, drunk in his car, 150 miles an hour, whatever he's driving very fast, he's not gonna say, Yeah, I wanna die. He's not gonna say no one's gonna admit that. But deep down, there's something, he doesn't care if he lives. And that comes from having low self-esteem. So to be careful when you see, you know, I'm gonna say probably more with boys and girls, when you see people doing, and this includes over overuse of drugs, lots, lots of sexual contact, you know, uh, you know, lots of drinking, that kind of thing. People don't care, they're gonna die. Hypersensitivity. This is another one where you're so hypersensitive about everything, like, you know, like I said, your hair's not right, your nails aren't color, like I can't go out, my hair, like it's ridiculous. No one, no one's looking that close. We look at ourselves so much closer than what everyone else sees us. I mean, I'm not saying not to look, you should look like a mensch or menchha, right? You you should look nice. This is why in the froom world we wear white, you know, white shirts and black pants. We look like the idea is that we look nice without calling attention to ourselves. You can be attractive without being attracting. Do you get my point? You can be attractive without being attractive. This is why in the froom, in the observant world, they dress modestly. Warren did. He had a chip in his shoulder. He was already probably going to become the greatest of all time. He said, you know what? I can't stand this. He went over and beyond and become the greatest defender of all time. Not only is he the greatest offensive player of all time, he's the greatest defender of all time, which is unheard of. It doesn't even make sense. Because he had a chip in his shoulder, and sometimes that works. Tom Brady, same thing, wins four Super Bowls. Not enough. Five, six, seven. Because he had a chip on his shoulder and he had probably some imposter syndrome. Like, you know what, I can even be better. But where it manifests itself the worst is when you're in the middle of your career. And it's just a symptom of low self-esteem. And we all go through it, something to recognize. The second symptom of low self-esteem is avoiding social interaction. Now, there's a fine line between being an introvert and someone who has low self-esteem because they're paranoid, are terrified they go to a party or at a singles event, and that no one's gonna talk to them, people are gonna think they're ugly, people are gonna think they're fat, that no one's gonna like my hair, people are gonna lie my clothes, right? And you're judging yourself on other people, and like you're never gonna be happy. Now, there are people, I remember I was in college and I had a, I used to go to, this is before I was religious, and I used to go to tech parties on the weekends, but tech parties on our campus. And uh, I'd always go on Friday nights. A social person, I like to drink beer, meet girls, whatever. And uh um, and there's always a guy in my dorm who'd stay at home and read a book. And I'd like, I'm like, what are you a loser? I was like, come on, you're not you don't got fun. But for him, fun might have been sitting at home reading a book. My wife is an introvert. For her, fun is sitting home reading a book. Now, now I'm I'm as I now I'm teaching all the time. I actually want to sit at home and read a book all the time because I've had enough of people. I get so much people during the day, I'm gonna be alone at night. But um, some people avoid social interaction because they're terrified of being uh drugs in public. And that is low self-esteem. The third one is called poor relationships. Imagine I have a guy for you. I do have a guy for you. Really cute. By the way, he doesn't love himself. Do you want to go out with him? Not a chance in the world, right? No one's about someone who doesn't love themselves. You see people that don't love themselves constantly having poor relationships all the time. I met a girl today in my essentials class. I could tell off the bat. I don't, I don't, I don't know how I can tell. She asked a question in class after class at a big class today, especially on this why I lost my voice. And after class, she came up to me, she goes, and she started talking to me. She wants to meet with me. I said, You have low self-esteem, don't you? She goes, How do you know? And like, I just, I mean, you're reeking of it. Like, she's like I I even said to her, You get abused in relationships, don't you? I I couldn't believe I said this because I don't know her. She goes, You're totally right. How do you know? I said, Well, first of all, you're cute, and so guys like it, and like I can just tell you, have low, and she thank she needs a lot of therapy. She's she's seeing a therapist, she's gonna start coming to my classes. Hopefully, I can help her. I'm not a therapist, but I play well on TV also. Uh self-destructive behaviors. These are things that we do. Obviously, there's something called thrills. You know, uh, we like to get thrilled, we go to we go to a um roller coaster, bungee jumping, jumping out of airplanes. These are all great things, right? But the defined line between people who do things for for the thrill versus people who don't care if they're going to die. If you uh I had a cousin, I never knew him, uh about gosh, maybe 15 years ago, he died in the car crash. And the report, the autopsy report says accident. All his relatives tell me, suicide. Why? Because he didn't care if he was gonna die. And when you see people, and there's a again a fine line, people what is what is dangerous behavior? Doing something where if there's any little mistake, you're going to die. A jump, a bunch of jumping, the court breaks, you're gonna die. Jumping on the airplane, your parachute breaks, you're gonna die. These are they're very thrilling. But when people do them for thrills versus doing them because they don't care if they're gonna die, there's a fine line. If you ask a typical eight-year-old kid, right, who's driving at 200 miles an hour in the night, drunk in his car, 150 miles an hour, whatever, he's driving very fast, he's not gonna say, yeah, I want to die. He's not gonna, no one's gonna admit that. But deep down, there's something, he doesn't care if he lives. And that comes from having low self-esteem. So to be careful when you see, you know, I'm gonna say probably more with boys and girls, when you see people doing, and this includes over overuse of drugs, lots, lots of special contact, you know, uh, you know, lots of drinking, that kind of thing. People don't care, they're gonna die. Hypersensitivity. This is another one where you're so hypersensitive about everything in, like, you know, like I said, your hair's not right, your nails aren't colored. Oh, I can't go out, my hair, like it's ridiculous. No one, no one's looking you that close. We look at ourselves so much closer than what everyone else sees us. I mean, I'm not saying not to look, you should look like a mensch or menchha, right? You you should look nice. This is why in the froom world we wear white, you know, white shirts and black pants. We look like we don't the idea is that we look nice without calling attention to ourselves. You can be attractive without being attracting. Do you get my point? You can be attractive without being attracted. This is why in the froom, in the observant world, they dress modestly. And one of the reasons why is because sometimes when you show body parts, they're not modest, you'll attract guys for sure. Did I tell you the story about how I used to lift weights? And I told you the story. I don't remember who I told what. Huh? Yeah. Comparing yourselves to others. So here's a story. I was in my high school years, and I was a junior in high school, and I decided I used to play piano and I was very good. I used to play Chopin, Rachmanoloff, Gershwin. And in my social circle, everyone said I was fantastic. And I was. I was a good player. I was very good. I practiced all the time. And my perception of myself was you know what? I am going to become a professional pianist. I'm going to, my goal was to play on Broadway. That was my goal. I'm going to play on Broadway, write musicals. So I decided to apply to two schools that year. This is 19 early 80s. I decided to apply to Oberlin School of Music in Ohio and the Juilliard School of Music in New York. At the time, in the 1980s, there was a TV show called Fame. Fame. I want to live forever. I want to learn how to fly. Hi. I don't want that song. It was a famous TV show, and I wanted to be in the show, I just wanted to be at the school. So I was going to apply. And then a few weeks later, I went to an all-county chorus event in Fairfax County, Virginia. And I went into a room where all the pianos were going to go, all the accompanists were going to be. So I walked into that room and expecting people to be my compadres, my buddies, whatever. And I walked into that room and my heart sank. Do you know why? They were so good. They were unbelievably good. They were playing music by ear. I could play music. You can give me a piece of music, and in a minute I can play it. They could play by ear without even any music whatsoever. Changing keys, I could do it, it would take me some time. They changed key on demand. Like without even thinking about it. And they all happen to be 13-year-old career girls, but that's a different point. My point is they were unbelievable. And the idea of me applying to Oberlin or Juilliard completely went out the window. I learned two lessons from this. Lesson number one. You don't have to be the best at what you do in order to succeed in life. You just need to be good enough. You just need to be good enough. We go through life thinking, oh, if we're not the best, why bother? You don't have to be the best. And in fact, if you are the best, no matter how good you are, someone's gonna probably end up being better. You should always be trying to improve yourself and improve your skill and your craft, whatever you do in life. I'm always working my classes. In fact, today I was gonna put a new uh what I call a speaker's notes for myself. I didn't get a chance to finish it because I ran out of time for this class. I'm always working my classes, constantly, constantly working myself to get better and better and better. But you don't have to be the best. I don't have to be the best best to be successful. I don't have to be RovGov or Dove B. I don't be them. I'm I'm myself. And we go into life, especially when you're young at this age, like, oh, I'm not like that person. And we try to be like somebody else. You know, I remember when I was young, I used to watch Michael Jordan all that. I want to be like Mike. I still want to be like Mike. I like to play basketball like him. But I I uh, you know, you have to be yourself. And I finally realized that if I didn't wasn't gonna be playing for the National Symphony Orchestra, I wasn't gonna play for the Jerusalem Orchestra, I wasn't that talented, but I had other skills that maybe they didn't have. I could write music, I was creative, I could play and have fun. I never gave myself the chance. And the second lesson I learned, stop listening to negative people, but the worst person you should ever listen to when you have neg is negative thoughts of yourself. I never gave myself the chance. I know I, and the two words two kinds of there's two kinds of regret. One, where you tried something and failed, but at least you tried it. The second kind of regret is not trying anything at all. You go through the rest of your life having this regret. And I don't want you to go through this. That's comparing yourselves to others. People pleasing. The reason why I added this in is because I grew up, I was in high school, I was in a college, and we I lived in the dorm, it was mixed girls and guys. I think girls on the top three floors, men on the flat bottom two floors. And there was a woman in our school who always would throw both birthday parties for you, would take you to the airport. She was always there for people. She was very, very kind, very sweet. Now to look back 40 years later, she never got married, and she had severe, she has a severe low self-esteem. And she went out of her way to help police people. By the way, if you have to have a symptom of low self-esteem, this is the one to have. It's a great symptom to have. But when you're doing it just because you have low self-esteem, it's an issue. And she never took care of herself, and she always took care of other people and never really achieved what she wanted to in life, which is probably raising having a husband and raising children. Perfectionism leading to procrastination. Because why should I start if it's not gonna be perfect? Why should I go to nursing school if I'm gonna have a hard time? Why should I make my bed if it's gonna get dirty again? Why should I clean my room if it's gonna get dirty again? We say these things all the time. We never start anything. And we get stuck in this cycle of not achieving anything in our lives because we're afraid if it's not perfect, why start? It's not gonna be perfect. I have a different attitude than some people. Some people say, you know, you should, you know, writing books and stuff. I just I just put it out there. I get it, I mean I'm I'm doing a much better job at editing in my later books now than I was earlier, but I just get it as fast as possible. And again, I'm getting better and better and better. Maybe in my 15th book, you know, in five years will be a bestseller. Who knows? Right? But I don't wait. I just put it out there. I don't wait till it's perfect. If you do, you're never gonna get it done. There's another idea that your emotions, your low self-esteem can actually turn physical, that people that, you know, our bodies are all interconnected. And you feel bad about yourself and you're not happy with yourself, whatever that feeling is, if you have it long enough, you can it can manifest itself as diseases and sickness. And you'll notice that people who are older and health are usually happy people. And people who are unhappy are sick people. It's just the way the world works. Ask Hem. I don't know how that works, but it just seems to work that way. So it's you're and by the way, you know, you are happy, you are, your health and your emotions go hand in hand together. We're all interconnected. And by the way, if you're not happy with yourself, you want to meet you want to get married and meet a guy. Like, does you want to marry a guy woman's not happy with yourself? No. We what guys, we want to meet happy people, and you want to meet happy guys, you don't want to meet a guy who's not happy with himself, do you? You want to meet happy guys. So that means you have yourself to be happy. So put a smile on your face. It changes the whole room. Smiling is such an important thing. I don't think I talk about this in this book. Maybe I do, I don't remember. But you can see a picture of someone, a guy with a patty face, and him with a smile. What's the difference? Huge! One is a three, one is an eight. Same guy. You don't own your face. You think you own your face, but I see your face more than you see. I see your face way more than you're gonna see your face today. Unless you spend two hours putting makeup on, which you don't, right? I see your face more than you're gonna see your face, which means you don't own your face. It's public property, right? Fishing for compliments. Another symptom of low self-esteem. This is when you say, and I I used this all the time, and I catch myself now. Oh, how is my class today?
unknown:Good.
SPEAKER_04:What are you gonna say? No coaching really sucked. No one's gonna say that. It's like if you redo your kitchen and you invite your friends over to see your kitchen, hey, how do you like my new kitchen? If you really wanted their opinion, you would ask them before you did the kitchen. You're asking for validation. That's all you're asking for. No one's gonna say to you, you know what, I don't like the dishwasher, you should use a different color. No, it's too late now. You've already done it. So when I ask, how's my class? What do I expect you to say? So I've learned that I'm not gonna ask for my opinion anymore. It's just like when I ask for opinions on my, like if you read my book, I'm not gonna ask you my opinion, your opinion on your book for two reasons. Number one, if I asked you, you don't like it, you're gonna say I like it. Yes. Hold on a second. And secondly, you if you know me, if you've been in my classes and you like my classes, you're gonna like my book unless it's complete trash and it's not, right? Because you wouldn't have finished reading it if it was complete trash. You'd stop after the first three pages. So I'm not getting a real answer from you. Right? If you say, Do you like my book? You're gonna say, I love the book, but could you like if you like me, my classes, you're gonna like the book? Question. Say this again? Your husband should be giving you validation. You shouldn't have to ask for it. Of course I should give it. That's what I train the guys to do. You have to compliment your wife on her clothes. Everything from the hat on her head to her shoes, because everything matters. If you don't compliment them on their clothes, they're gonna keep buying more clothes until you start complimenting them. Did I answer you? I don't know. Yeah, of course a husband should compliment you. For sure. I always compliment, especially when she comes for Shabbos, I would look beautiful in your shabbas, so I always tell her this. Yeah, for sure. If you're asking for dilidation, it's probably seems It could be sin's low hosting. But it's different for your husband. That's a different relationship than like everybody else in the world. Your husband should be complimenting you. He shouldn't have to ask for it. They have to be trained. The guys don't know. They have no idea. This wife they be taught. Right? Now, a wife should not come up to her husband and say, Does this dress look make me look fat? That's not for you. That's you shouldn't ask, she shouldn't ask that question. And you shouldn't answer, you should not answer, no, the dress doesn't make you look fat. Your fat makes you look fat. That you don't say. Really? Those questions should be asked for her best friend, not her husband. Right? You have a question? No? You can. It's free. Yeah. Let's see, where are we? Fishing for combat. Okay. Oh, next one's fake confidence. Fake confidence is something I added as a chapter as a symbol of low self-esteem. I remember when I was in high school or college, you go to a party, and there's a guy that walks in and he's loud, obnoxious, not obnoxious, but loud, like, hey, how's it going? Where's the beer? Do a beer beer beer, you know, do a beer bong or whatever. And, you know, you think he's the life of the party, where in actuality, he's there at low self-esteem because he needs attention to validate himself. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:What about like flaking and make it? Like, why do you draw the line?
SPEAKER_04:Oh, no, it's okay. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying it's a symptom of low self-esteem. That guy, for some people, I have it's called um, it's actually one of the ways to cure loss of esteem is actually called rejection therapy. It's actually going to a situation where you could get yourself rejected, like talking to the to the sales lady at the clothing store or talking to your waitress and like and talking in a way that's you know engaging. And I I think that's a cure for low self-esteem, but it is a symptom of low esteem also. Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Somebody's like notice like everything and like very sensitive to energy. How does that relate to self-esteem?
SPEAKER_04:What do you mean by what you said it you said like who's you can feel energies from people? I do, I notice everything. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:How do you know when it's like a normal amount versus a a low sensitive amount?
SPEAKER_04:How do you know when you're being too hypersensitive when you're just being just normal? Like, for example, it's like if you're asking the question, it's probably too much.
SPEAKER_03:I had a guy like well, wait, okay, like when you notice it versus what when you let it like when you like if it runs your life, it's too much.
SPEAKER_04:I had a guy ask me a question. He was getting married in two weeks. He was coming to my classes and he sent me a text and he says, when is ar he was because he was complaining because he's fighting, he's arguing with his his fiance. He says, When is too much arguing too much in a relationship? I said, if you're asking this question, it's too much, right? That you shouldn't that's another question coming up. If you're asking about when am I too sensitive, it's probably because you're too sensitive, right? Right.
SPEAKER_03:So how do you like how do you sort of disconnect and allow yourself to notice things but not let them affect you and affect like how you like feeling?
SPEAKER_04:I don't know if I can answer that question right now. I don't it's not it's not clicking my brain. I'm not I'm not sure. Can you ask it again? Ask it again.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Like, how do you notice things right that bother you? Sure, yes.
SPEAKER_04:I notice things all the time. I notice your pink shirt, I notice your blue shirt, I like your blue sweater. Okay, it's not bothering. It's not bothering me. It's a very pretty shirt. It's not bothering me.
SPEAKER_03:It doesn't have to be about anybody. Okay. Like, how do you now notice it without thinking about it? Like, you just want to know it it it's life. Things are gonna happen.
SPEAKER_04:You have to you have to do resilience. I put resilience when I in I think in my daily marriage book, I talk about resilience is really one of the keys to one of the keys to happy marriage, having someone who's resilient. Someone doesn't complain about you know the bugs flying in the house or about you know dirty dishes. Well, like they're they're resilient people, and you want to become you want to be a resilient person. So you have to work on yourself, become resilient. Right? It sounds like you're very sensitive. And a little complicated, possibly. Because I didn't quite understand the question. That's like they go hand in hand sometimes, complicated and sensitive. Rend you're right. I and I told you last time you I told you last time I think you have to clarify your questions sometimes. I don't quite get them. Maybe I'm not smart enough to get them, but like it's okay.
SPEAKER_03:Notice something that bothers you. I realize it's not even about me.
SPEAKER_04:It's not about you. You can't change other people. You cannot do that. You can only change your reaction to them. And you have to learn to change yourself. I think it was a half a time. It was a half time that said, you know, I want to change the world. And he tried to change the world, they couldn't do it. So, you know what? I'm gonna change my community. And he couldn't change the community, so you know what I'll change my family. And he finally determined, you know what, I can't change my family, I'll just change myself. You can only change yourself. You can't change other people. I'm trying to change you. But most people can't, you can't change other people. You can only change your reaction to them, right? And you have to learn it. We talked about this before when we drew the heart with the zigzag line down the middle. You think your job is to get your husband to stop throwing his underwear on the floor and then pick up the swillet seat and then start listening to you more. No, your job is not to do that, your job is to accept him for who he is. You know, obviously, there's ways to get him to stop throwing his underwear on the floor, and you'll figure it out in a nuanced way, but not with criticism right, because it's not a good thing. Not throwing underwear on the floor, that's not gonna change them, right? There's probably animosity. Criticism destroys relationships. You have to find a way to get him to not do it. It's a nuance, everything's nuanced in relationships. Okay. That's fake confidence. Oh, I I don't know if I talked about it to you before. Like when I talked about being an introvert, I remember when I was in high school and in college and elementary school, there's always a girl that we called stuck up. Did we talk about this? Stuck up. You know what stuck up means? What does stuck up mean? I don't know how you arrogant. It's always a pretty girl. And we would say, oh, Sarah, she's so stuck up because she won't talk to me and my friends. Where in reality, Sarah is either A, she's shy, an introvert, or B, she has such low self-esteem, she's terrified of being in social situations.
SPEAKER_03:And I'm Sarah.
SPEAKER_04:I don't mean to I didn't call you out. Yeah. Sarah. I have a friend who has a daughter named Sarah Rach. That's a name of the Torah, actually, Sarah, right? And you are judging her because she's so pretty, where if she wasn't so pretty, you wouldn't even give her a second thought. You get my point? All these, I remember back in high school, all these stuck-up girls you love because they're all pretty, and we assume they wouldn't talk to us because they're so pretty. If she's so pretty, she won't talk to us because we're not good looking enough. Where in reality, she's just either shy or terrified of being in social situations. And we completely misjudged them. And we misjudge people all the time in our life. You know, you walk into, you know, even coming here, De Short, you walk in, like, what are people gonna think of me? Oh my gosh, maybe I'm not dressed nice enough. Maybe like, you know, you get terrified. You walk to a Shabbat house or you go to a Haredi house, like maybe I should be wearing it more, maybe my dress down to my feet's not long enough, maybe I should be dragging, like you you start to you start to look at yourself like maybe I'm not good enough. I say you should judge everyone like a 50-chapter book. And you're when you see someone, someone's causing you stress, right? Or they're giving you bad emotions, that you should view them as chapter 25 in that book. You have no idea what happened in the first 24 chapters, nor do you know what's gonna happen in the last 25 chapters, which means you're seeing just a, you're seeing a cutout of their life. They could have gone through, they could have, they could have been a hostage for two years, they could have gone through turmoil, they could have been in a dysfunctional family. And basically, hurt people hurt people. And they're hurting you because they hurt themselves. And the way to get over that is to say, maybe, God willing, they're gonna come out to be an amazing person. And their last 25 chapters are gonna turn out to be amazing. Right? But you can't, you can't let someone's actions affect how you feel. You gotta put that barrier up and protect yourself because only you can protect your happiness. That's why we have to judge everyone favorably. Go ahead, question. What's high level? It's it's practice makes perfect. Right? I practice a practice, and I yes. The rejection I'm talking about is more when you're putting yourself in a position to get rejected. Yeah, for her rejection therapy would be great. It'd be great for having rejection therapy. Go out and talk to your waiters, go talk to people in the street. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I can totally be rejected.
SPEAKER_04:You have a question? Uh criticizes others. This is also a simple low self-esteem when you criticize others all the time because you're not happy yourself, so you want to bring people down in order to make yourself look higher in their eyes. And we we talked about, I think we do we did sunscreen love here, right? Compliment, don't criticize. I did it today, they liked it a lot. It was fun.
SPEAKER_01:Please do that song again? Yes. Wait, hold on.
SPEAKER_04:Did anybody here not hear it? You didn't hear it? Did you hear it? So, oh, so the wait- I have to preface compliment, don't criticize. That the idea, sunscreen love is the idea that when you go to the beach, if you don't reapply the sunscreen, you're gonna burn. And you burn because you're busy playing in the waves, taking up, having a good time. Marriage is the same way. You fall in love, that love needs to be romanced. If you don't romance the relationship, that love is gonna burn. So every time you compliment your spouse, you're putting sunscreen on. And every time you criticize your spouse, you're wiping sunscreen off, allowing the relationship to burn. Complimental criticize, complimental criticize, or she'll find another guy, complimental criticize, or she'll poke you in the eye, complimental criticize, or he'll switch from girls to guys, complimental criticize, then he'll say, bye-bye bye, complimental criticize from extra fives to 305, complimental criticize, then he'll stop the exercise, complimental criticize, then she'll eat four cherry pies, complimental criticize, then your love will start to die, complimental criticize, get your love to sort and fly. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Is that okay?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It's exhausting. I added a bunch of new ones. It's like two weeks ago. I added the last three, four ones. I stopped at um at and they'll say bye-bye, and then I stopped it after that, and then I added so that they're all new. So a lot of people haven't heard them. Yeah. And they'll change again. It used to be it used to be it used to be from cheesy fries to 305. And I did this about six months ago, and no one understood what I was saying. So I stopped stopped saying it, and then I added again this time, but I said from extra fries to 305. Do you understand what I mean by that? I see I don't understand. Who understands it? Explain it.
SPEAKER_03:Like you're overeating due to like low salt, is that?
SPEAKER_04:Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. Because someone's criticized you all the time, right? You're you're you're criticizing your husband all the time. So what he does is as a as uh comment say he's gonna eat a lot of food. He's gonna get fat. And then he stops exercise. And then she starts, because she's getting fat, she starts to eat four cherry pies, and then your love's gonna start to die. That's why I think your love to soar and fly. Get that? Is that fun? That's fun, right? Come on. Likes to gossip. People like to gossip. And this is why one one of the I have to tell you, in my Jewish growth from being a secular Jew to an observant Jew, when I when I started learning about the Huffethaim and how he promoted Lush and Hara, Lush and Hara is evil, is gossip. It's not all evil either, it's gossip. And there's different levels of gossip. And the idea is that when you're talking about someone else, in a in in any way, positive or negative, it's because, and especially negative, it's because you feel bad about yourself and you're trying to bring someone else down to make yourself seem higher in someone else's eyes. And this can even be as simple as saying something about somebody for no reason. Like I saw Sarah, like, you know, imagine I said, Oh, I saw Sarah at the King David Hotel with her with her boyfriend having a fancy dinner the other night. And she's she bought him dinner. It was really nice. She bought him dinner. And then and then, what's your name? Sophia. Sophia, Sophia, you told, I know that name. You're just at my house. Sophia, I sometimes it's out of context. Sophia says, I can't believe it. Sarah, I just loaned her$100 last week to pay her electric bill. I can't believe she's buying her boyfriend dinner at the King David Hotel. Do you get my point? I don't have to say that, but it can cause stress and it causes it can cause tension in a relationship. And the other kind of lush and horror, uh, evil speech or gossip, and this is uh it's called the uh vacclochon, which is which is the um, what do you call it? This, not the sand, but the um sand, like the like when you sand something and like the grain, whatever. It's like the dust, the dust. The dust of lush and hara, right? The dust, thank you. Sawdust. It's the dust of lush. It means when you when you make faces about people, oh Sarah's going to dinner with us. That is lush and para. That is gossip. That brings down the world. Because we have an effect on the entire world. There's an idea that you have a student goes to his teacher and he was he was speaking badly down with his fellow students. And the teacher, he got in trouble, and the teacher said, I want you to take a pillow, a feather pillow, I want you to go to the top of your apartment building, I want you to, I want you to cut it open and let the feathers loose. So he does it, and he comes back next day to his teacher, he goes, I did it. And the teacher says, Okay, now I want you to go pick up all those feathers. Because I can't, they're all over town. And that's what we do. When we speak gossip, that's exactly what has happened. And we're killing three people. We're killing the speaker, we're killing the person being spoken to, and we're killing the person being spoken about. And those feathers go all over the world. And we have so much lush and hard today. When you watch the news, it's all lush and hard. When you see those things in the checkout line, like the inquire, it's all it's all what do we care about so much. What do we care about Tom Cruise's life? Why do we care that Tom Cruise dated Kitty Holmes? What does it matter to us? I know people like to read about it because it makes their life more exciting. And when you have Tor in your life, you don't need to read about these things anymore. They can still be a little exciting. But you know, it's not so it's not so focused on your life anymore. You're not sitting on the news watching the gossip from the celebrities anymore. Because they're like, by the way, you know, we had idols back in the olden days. And we used to worship these clay idols. And now we have them, but they're not Buddha statues anymore. They're celebrities and politicians and social media figures. And we worship them, yes. I didn't say that. I you, in fact, uh, I think some of the a lot of rabbis say you should understand what the news is, but you just read the headlines and you can learn a lot from the headlines. But you have to be careful because a lot of it, and it's not fake news, it's manipulated news. Because what happened in the 1980s, when I used to watch the news, it would be um the uh the nightly news was like on channel four or three channels, ABC, CBS, and NBC. And that was it. It wasn't even Fox then. And there's Fox, it was just reruns. It's like uh, you know, I love Lucy, that kind of stuff. And then what happened was they couldn't figure out what you're watching because it's just the Nielsen ratings, it's what they didn't have the data. Now with the internet, they know exactly what you're watching. And guess what is journalism about? Journalism is about making money. It's a it's a profit business, and they need your eyes on their articles. And when they have your eyes and your articles, they can sell ads for those eyes. Your eyes have value, right? To the to the to the news article, to the to the internet. So what happens is they see you reading an article about something and it triggers you because you either share it or you like it or you comment or you spend some time on it. And what happens is they start feeding you more news like that. And what happens? They start to manipulate your news. And so what happens is it's white, it's black and white, and there's no gray anymore. There's no middle ground anymore. You either watch Fox or you and you never watch CNBC or you watch CNBC and you never watch Fox, right? No one's watching the middle ground, or MSNBC, whatever. No one's watching the middle ground anymore. And we're being manipulated by the internet. And we have to have our eyes open for this. That when we read the news, it's all manipulated. I'm not saying 100% of it is, but a lot of it is. To trigger your eyes. Because your eyes make those journalism companies money. And you just need to be aware of that. When you read the news, it's not all true. I'm not saying it's fake, it's just manipulative. And that's what that's what gossip is. And the last of the 14 symptoms of having low self-esteem. You ready for this one? Before I give it over. When I wrote this in the book, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get in such trouble for this. It's called Tattoos, Bull Nosed Rings, and Plastic Surgery. Let's start with plastic surgery. It's an easy one. Right? And a lot of people have it. Probably some of your parents have it, right? I have a chapter in my new book called Uh Bozo Lips, Nose Snips, Stretchy Face, Chasing Grace, right? Because it's a whole thing. I was on a train just last week. I was coming back from Orse Mea, I'm going to Orsa Maya, and there's a woman on the train, and she was older, an older elderly, not 60s, but like 70s or later. This is what she looked like. Her lips went from her nose down to her lip, to her chin, right? I'm like, what is she going to? A birthday party as a clown? You know, I look at her, I'm like, what did she have for the Joker special? Like, what is this? Like, you have such a low self-esteem that you make your face look like this, right? And becomes an addiction. It's an addiction because you could look at Michael Jackson if you've ever watched photos of him. He was when he was young, he was a nice looking black kid, but he had a flat nose. He had the first surgery, handsome man. Second surgery, still handsome. Third surgery, started to look like a freak. And by the fourth and fifth surgery, it was like the plastic surgeon said, he got took a nose from a Mr. Potato Head and put it on to Michael Jackson. Like, didn't he have anyone in his life saying, You're looking like a freak? I'm being honest. Was he such a celebrity that he just made an appointment, never said yes, sir, and just made an appointment with a black surgeon? It was crazy. And we people get in this train, you see older women in this train that's plastic after plastic surgery, it becomes an addiction. It's from severe lows of steam. And by the way, we all go through that. I sit, like, you know, I just turned 60 a few months ago. And I, if you've been in my house, I don't know if I mean it's been in my house before you've been in my own. My elevator has these nice mirrors, right? My elevator, it's good lighting. And so I sit there in the elevator, going to the elevator. You know what? If I just tick in just a little bit, I would look 20 years younger. And I do this all the time. I'm not getting it. But I think about it, I do understand why people get it. But it's from having low self-esteem. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Sorry, I know I'm jumping a little bit, but I actually read this book and I was curious about the tattoo question. Like, what if you didn't get a tattoo story low self-esteem? You've got it because it puts meaning to it.
SPEAKER_04:Like you you tattoos and when I wrote this chapter on tattoos, I'm like, I'm gonna get myself in trouble by a lot of people on this one. And the reason why it's not a call, it's not a it can be a symptom of low self-esteem because if you feel bad about yourself, what if you're rich, what are you gonna do? You're gonna go to a Louis Vuitton's store at an hermaid store and buy a purse or buy BMW. That's what you're gonna do when you feel bad about yourself. But when you don't have that kind of money, the cheapest version to do is to go to a tattoo store and get yourself a tattoo and make yourself feel better. And the and and this data I had in that book shows that you die significantly younger, that the data shows that people with tattoos die significantly younger than people without tattoos. And it's not that tattoos are the cause of death, obviously not. It's just that people that get tattoos aren't thinking about the long-term effects of their actions. And it's probably coming from low self-esteem. That's why I put the data in the book. And I know there's people here that have tattoos, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not saying I'm not saying chapters in our life, but you're probably linked or is something significant.
SPEAKER_04:Just so you know, your skin is your largest organ. Your second larger organ is your liver, and you never consider putting a tattoo in your liver. Well, I of course not. I know that's obvious, but like it is an organ. And when you look at like the fact that God made us a certain way, right? I'm not gonna I'm not gonna ruin God's gift. We have skin, and it does cause long-term effects, which are showing up now, because now when I was in America, I see a lot of tattoo anti or like reverse tattoo parlors. They're having them taken off, yes. Yes, so that's that's the issue. Most people get things because of insecurity. But the problem is like, how bad, how bad is it? Is it like, you know, if you're compl I understand, if you're completely flat-chested and you want you have you, then then you then you get breast implants. I understand. But when you have breasts already and you want large breasts, it's because you want attention. And this is why women have figured out it's a multi-billionaire industry, that men love cleavage. We do, and that's why I have a chapter in my new book coming out later next year called Cleavage and Catnip. Because catnip to a cat cleavage to a man is like catnip to a catnip, which is crazy. And we want to figure this out, and so they want to show it to us, right? And this is why you have so many bad relationships. And this is why if you want to catch the right fish, you need to put the right bait. When you show that cleavage out to men, you'll have men around you for sure. And then the most likely those men are the ones you date, and next most likely the ones you marry, and next thing you wonder why you're in a bad relationship. Because you put out the wrong bait to catch the right fish. Anyway, that's my club, that's the beginning of this class on self esteem. We're gonna get to Monday, ways in which you affect other people's loss of esteem, and then we're gonna get into symptoms, strategy to cure loss of esteem. Thank you very much.