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
Three Secrets To Real Success
Let me know your thoughts about the podcast. Thank you for listening!
What if the success you’re chasing isn’t the success you actually want? We open this class with a candid look at belonging—finding a spiritual home later in life—and a playful detour into halachic puzzles like the international date line. Then we dig into the heart of the matter: three secrets that reshape how you set goals, make choices, and carry responsibility without burning out.
First, we argue for defining success before it blindsides you. Using a “God positioning system,” we map purpose the way you’d map a trip: specify the destination, expect wrong turns, and keep recalculating. Abraham’s tests become a model for living your values, not just talking about them. We also dismantle survivorship bias; copying winners ignores timing and luck. The fix is preparation. When opportunity arrives, it meets a ready person.
Next, we tackle the truth that every path is hard. Staying safe can be its own risk. You’ll hear a real story about leaving a guaranteed job to build a business, and why desire, determination, and discipline turn uncertainty into progress. Relationships get the same honest treatment: love is a verb. Parenting means showing up. Marriage lasts when attention, respect, and understanding stay active. Hobbies, self‑esteem, and faith round out the inner scaffolding that keeps you steady.
Finally, we reframe “obligations” as opportunities. Focus on the pleasure behind the pain—service, growth, meaning—and effort feels lighter. From health battles to business setbacks, we keep returning to the same promise: failure is feedback, not a verdict. Winners never quit, and quitters never win. Define what success means to you, choose the hard that leads there, and see every responsibility as a chance to become who you’re meant to be.
If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a nudge, and leave a quick review with your biggest takeaway—what hard will you choose this week?
I gave Khabur at my shul. I like if you've been in my classes, you know, like I became observant at 45 years old and wasn't like you know completely observant until like a year or two later. It took me a long time once I started learning Torah. But I go to a shul in Sharikhed that's a very yeshivish, lots of big rabbis go there, and uh you know, I don't really feel I was like I said before my classes, I don't feel froom. I got like because I wasn't raised in that community, like you know, so like I don't feel it, but like I gave a khibora uh three weeks ago on why you can't eat sushi in a non-kosher restaurant. And we got into things like Bishop Akum, Bishop Israel, and all sorts of issues that and everything, including the seaweed, and I felt like really good. Like I gave one, everyone loved it, it was great. So I'm doing a new one, and if I don't know when I'm gonna do it, I'm starting to learn, and I always had interest in this. Why going to Hawaii on Shabis is an issue? Do you know that?
unknown:The times are wrong.
SPEAKER_03:Because there's nine opinions about where the timeline is. And I'm gonna learn, I'm I'm I'm who knows what may I give the khabor here, who knows in a few in a few months. But I'm gonna learn, I got this great book called The Date Line in Khalacha. I don't even know if it's available, my rabbi gave it to me to learn from, and I'm gonna learn all the different reasons why we have different timelines in why we hold by one, you know, with the standard one that the world holds by, which is to the west of Hawaii, but Rabbi Tutachinsky holds it's to the east of Hawaii. So it's it's funny when you cross the timeline, like you're in Hawaii on a Friday, and he holds it's actually Shabbos. So I'm gonna learn all the chalakas and the reasons why and how you cross timelines and when you actually cross and the chazenish holds that goes through China and Alaska and Australia. But the problem with that is that if you're in China and you live on, you know, Guangdong Street, and one side of the street is Friday, one side of the street is Saturday, you could go on Friday afternoon at five o'clock and say, you know what, I don't want to spend Shabbos, I'll go west one day and I'll miss all the Shabbat's. Next thing you know, it's Saturday afternoon. Or you're on the west side of the street and it's third meal, and it's like, you know what, I want to do Shabbat's again, and you cross the street, and next thing you it's Friday afternoon. It's so interesting, these things. And so the Hasnish uh ha holds it that the line has to move to the end of um basically based on the um following the guidelines of where the ocean and the countries meet. Which is interesting because you can be in Alaska, I mean in Australia, and spend Chavez, right? And Sunday morning, let's go to the beach, and you go to the beach and you get in your in your little uh raft and you go in the ocean, and guess what? It's now Chavez. So all these little ramifications that I think it's very interesting. I don't know, maybe you guys don't. No one? I think it's so cool. I don't know. Thank you so much. Who said that? You're my favorite student. What's your name? Thank you.
unknown:Sorry.
SPEAKER_03:Sorry, that's great, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Today we're doing a class called the Three Secrets to Success. Because, like I when I give my students an issue to talk, I want them to be successful on all aspects of life, including relationships, dating, marriage, wealth creation, and we're gonna get into three different ideas today. The first idea, I'll give you all three right now, is you must first define what success success means to you, because you don't, you're gonna may pass it by, and next thing you know, you're 48 years old, you get divorced, you buy a Porsche, and you start lifting a lot of weights because you were successful and you had no idea, because you missed it. You couldn't define it. And then we're gonna go. Number two, it's called choose your hard, because every decision, every decision we make in life is gonna be hard. So you might as well choose the hard that's gonna get you where you want to be. And number three, look at every obligation as an opportunity. Because life is not about getting things, it's about becoming someone, and that someone is is someone who can become great, and that is you. I'm gonna try to change your mindset to become a great person. And it starts off with in the Torah when when the when the Torah asks us, God asks, says in the Torah, let us make man in our own image. Now, who's God talking to? Let us make man in our image. Who is he talking to? Now, that most of the sages say that he's talking to the angels, but Rabbi Solovechik says no, he is talking to us. What do you want your image to be? So the first thing we're gonna have to do is define what success means to us. And one way to do that is to go to the end of our life, pretend you're on your deathbed, right? Well, you're probably not asking to see a replay of the Giants New England Super Bowl, right? Or you're and you're probably not asking to have a hamburger and french fries. You're probably asking for time with your loved ones, besides morphine and ice chips if you're in pain, obviously. So the thing is, how do you define success? How do you know what successful is in life? And we see in the world today when people their whole lives strive for something, like Kate Spade, right? She becomes the greatest per uh purse designer in the world, named all over the world, and she's she gets what she wants and gets there and finds out what she was looking for isn't what she expected. Next thing you know, unfortunately, people kill themselves. Obviously, other reasons why people kill themselves. Same thing with um Anthony Bourdain, you know, a guy who is a famous chef, he had cookbooks, he had lots of restaurants, and got on the food network. Next thing you know, he's on CNN, traveling all over the world. Uh the guy's recognized where everywhere he goes. Got what he wanted, again, turns 60 years old, and then 60, next thing you know, he kills himself. Because what we thought was there is not what we expected. And if we can't define that success, we're gonna have a hard time. So we have to envision where success lies. Because there's an idea that, you know, when we're traveling somewhere, we have um a GPS. What does that stand for?
unknown:Global positioning system.
SPEAKER_03:Global positioning system. But we want to change that from a GPS to a GPS, which is your God positioning system. Because generally, when you put something into the global positioning system, you don't know where you're going. So you put an address in to help you get there where you're going. The problem is if you don't know where you're going, we always don't have, we don't, it's not always gonna tell us. So we want to tell God where we're going, put that into our destinations, and sometimes, by the way, you make wrong turns. And you'll hear the computer say, recalculating. And you might get your destination, you might not get to your destination, but at least going somewhere is going to get you somewhere. And uh one way to figure out how you're gonna where you're gonna go is we're gonna go back to the Torah and we're gonna look at uh the Medris that talks about Abraham's ten tests. Right? He's tested ten times, from leaving his land, the last test being the um the Akeda, where he's where he tries to shack to his son. Sheched him, he tries to kill him. And the question the rabbis ask, why ten tests? One of the tests was when uh King Nimrod said, you either bow down to this idol, or I'm gonna throw you into a fiery furnace. What does Abraham do? What? He goes in the furnace! Now, think about that. Isn't that enough of the test? Right? Isn't that enough? Like, think about it. How many tests do you need? You're willing to die. He spends three days in a furnace, he's willing to die instead of bowing down to an idol. Now, if King Nimrod said, I want you to eat this this bacon and cheese sandwich, what should he have done? One second. It depends on No, he should have eaten a bacon and cheese sandwich.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_03:Because it's not one of the big three sins.
SPEAKER_04:But isn't it depend on what's going on in the world? Like if you think about even if we eat everything has a few and certainly with that trying to get at, you have to find you. That's what I've learned is that it depends on what's going on around.
SPEAKER_03:I don't quite underget that, but let's hold on to that thought for a second, okay? Yes, you have a question. Of course, that's what that's what we're about to get to. You got ahead of me. Very good. Gold Star. What's your name? Shara, gold star for Shara. You have a question.
SPEAKER_00:No, uh, a comment. There's uh there's a persecution of the loss that then you do have to uh refrain from eating it. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_03:I I I I don't think so. I think if it's not one of the big three, sexual immorality, uh idol worship, or killing somebody else, I think that you have to die in order to do those three things. But if someone's died. Huh?
SPEAKER_04:If it's kind of a lot of Jews, then you have to stand up about everything. Yeah, there are there is a time period about it.
SPEAKER_03:I just don't know where it's forced to do. Good. You're telling me this because I'm not a rabbi. All I play one on TV. Yeah. Abraham was willing to die as a Jew. Abraham was willing to die as a Jew. And the rabbis tell us, do you know why? For that one test? Because the other nine tests he was willing to live as a Jew. And as Shara said, you don't die for what you believe in, live for what you believe in. So figure out what you believe in in life, what your purpose in life is, and then you'll live it. Don't die for it. You know, um Rabbi General uh Patton said to his his army, I think it was in Italy or North Africa, I'm not sure. Maybe someone knows history. And he said to his army, You think your job is to you're about to fight the Nazis. He goes, You think your job is to die for your country? Your job is not to die for your country, your job is to get the other guy to die for his country. Don't die for what you believe in, live for what you believe in. You figure out what you're willing to live live for, you can put that into your guy positioning system and get there. And so what I want to do is go through what I thought, I kind of when I'm writing this class, I'm just like, what is my what is my success? What do I consider success in life? I have different uh ideas, but the one idea I'm gonna talk about in this class is three different things. Being a Kiddish Hashem. That when I'm not here anymore, and people say, oh, coach, you know, Daniel, he was a Kiddish Hashem. Always tried to do the right thing. In fact, next week I'm doing a class on Tuesday. It's a new class, it's called uh Living Life Between Mayim and Sheminim. Right? Living life between Mayim and Shemaim. So you understand having clarity of God, living living life through the lens of God. I was actually gonna call it that, and I thought this other title was much cuter. Um and that's number one, being a kid of Shashem, number two, inspiring many students. As I teach my kids, as Burk Hashem, I have five children. I said, your job is not to change the world. Your job, your job is not to let the world change you, your job is to change the world. That's why I tell them, your job is to change the world, not let the world change you. So I inspire my kids to inspire other people. Because I aspire to inspire before I expire.
SPEAKER_01:I actually desire to go higher.
SPEAKER_03:And I desire to bring everyone with me much higher.
SPEAKER_01:Because you're not a liar.
SPEAKER_03:And I'm not a liar. Right.
SPEAKER_00:That's something you acquire.
SPEAKER_03:It is something you acquire, sure. Let's keep going. Anyone else? Uh so inspirement is number three, give wisdom for life and family. You know, I have a class on persuasion. One of the things persuasion is to give, when you meet with somebody, right, you leave them something. You give them with wisdom, uh, a skill, something that they can take with you. When they leave you, like, oh, I got something from this person that can help me change my life. This is one of the reasons why I give this book away, Sunscreen Love. I printed 2,000 copies, I've given a thousand copies away already. Why? Because I think this could change your life. I think I can help build passionate, loving relationships that last a lifetime. And if I have something I can give the world, if I have something I think I can give the world, I want to give it to you. Because once I start selling it, it makes it a lot harder for you to get that with that wisdom. But it's funny, um, the guy, I have a guy who helped manage me right now, and he says this new book I have called Emotional Vampires, I am not allowed to give away.
SPEAKER_01:Well, are your vampires or some emotional books?
SPEAKER_03:Huh? They are this emotional book. But I'm not giving this one away. I have available outside outside for sale for 50 shekels, and I have a few copies, I have some copies here, Sunscreen Love. Oh, by the way, if you want to get on my um list of events and classes, there's a what's there's a thing here you can sign up for on WhatsApp, and I will I will um notify you and have new books coming out and new classes and new events. I don't I don't do it that much. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_02:Oh that was hot.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, this is awesome. A little bit hot. Cup of coffee. Rukhita, Nailaina Malhalam Shadowni Havro. Woo! That's good. You have good coffee there. The three D's I call it. It's called it's not don't dilly-dally, it's it's determination, discipline, and and and and um desire. Desire you wanting something, determination, which means not quitting, and discipline, which means regimen, right? And we confuse this with the other three D's, don't dilly-dally. Really, it takes determination, desire, and and and and discipline in order to achieve what you want. It takes hard work. Just like in a marriage, I'm telling you right now. If you want a great marriage, if you want to be a great parent, it takes hard work. And a lot of people don't want to put in the hard work. You have a baby, six months old, he's crying in the crib. Let him cry it out. Guess what? That's gonna affect that kid 20 years later when he has low self-esteem. He doesn't believe he's got any uh, you know, he's got he's got he's got anxiety because the parents weren't there for him. It takes I and I get upset, I was at a uh dinner. There's some seats up front here. I was at a dinner for my son recently here in uh outside Jerusalem, and the you know the men and women sometimes sit separately, and there is a Haredi guy with a baby in the stroller, and the baby's crying, and I'm like, and he's just going like this, sitting down, it's like she's eating his dinner. I'm like, pick the damn baby up. Your baby wants to be held. Either it wants to fed, held, bathroom, or something. And guess what? Yes, you have to get up from your dinner, pick up your baby, and hold it. That's what I do. I uh Hashem, I worked hard for my kids, and it takes hard work, but if you put the hard work, you will see your successes in life. You have to spend time with them, you have to engage with them, and we talked about I'm gonna talk about my parenting class. Saying I love you to your kids doesn't mean anything. It's I understand who you are and I know what drives you and motivates you. Same thing when you're in a relationship. Saying I love you to your wife is nice. It's nice, I love you, but do nothing about it. Does that mean anything? What does that love you mean? It's a noun, I love you. It means nothing. It is a verb. This is how I teach it. It is I am in the act of loving you. Me saying I love you doesn't it doesn't mean I shouldn't say it, but it doesn't mean I am in the act of loving you. So everything I do in my life is about connecting to you on an emotional, intellectual, and physical basis and spiritual. You have a question?
SPEAKER_04:No, no. You want to say something? No, no. We were just saying we haven't had that class in a while. And we missed it. Oh good.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I have some good new classes coming up.
unknown:I just heard your website.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, good. Tomorrow I'm doing a somewhat new one. I don't know if you've heard it. Have you heard this one? It's well, the the the title one, the sheet that you read online is called Kosher Intimacy. But it's really talking about that. It's actually called Kosher Climax. Yeah. We have a group chat called Kosher Priwegs. Huh? We have a group chat called Kosher Crylogs. You told me this, right? Usually someone showed this to me. You got it off, you took it off my name? Yeah. Oh, great. You inspire us. Oh good. Listen, as long as it inspires guys to learn Torah, it's gonna work, right? It's a kosher class, some kind of, whatever. Kosher enough. I mean, listen, I'm not these classes aren't meant for froom girls. Just to let you know. These essential classes, when I used to come here, I remember the first time I came here in 2012, like it you had, you know, what's his name? Rabbi Yom Tov Glazer talking about taking LSD, right? Like, you had they're not meant, they're meant to bring out people into coming off the coatel, coming in, and to learn Torah and to get just to get some inspiration, right? So that's why my classes are a little bit edgy sometimes. Uh I want you to be careful what's called survivorship bias. This is when we focus on traits of people who have succeeded and what made them successful. And we have to consider the people who have those same exact traits, took the same exact route, and have the same qualities and skills, and actually failed. Because we think if we do what this other guy did, this other girl did, we're gonna be successful. It doesn't mean you're gonna be successful. We can't always follow the paths of others we want to emulate. That bias can lead to overly optimistic beliefs because failures were overlooked. And this is a this is an example I'm gonna give you. Is imagine um I know a lot of people bet NFL. They bet football. Anyone here bet football? No one? Nobody? You bet you bet football, right? I haven't fought in Israel. You can still can you do it online? No, I can't. Oh, you block are you blocked? Yeah. Oh. It's good for me, it's good for me. Yeah, it's fine. You're gonna lose, by the way. I hate to tell you this. I'm being honest. I'm up all that. Are you really?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I swear to you.
SPEAKER_03:That's really rare, isn't it? What do the stats say?
SPEAKER_01:I'm good at what I do.
SPEAKER_03:Good for you.
SPEAKER_01:I can show you my history later.
SPEAKER_03:I believe you. I believe you. You have to be really sharp and very disciplined in order to. But imagine you get an email. Excuse me. Imagine you get an email from this guy every Tuesday. Hey, I have the game for you, picked it on Sunday, Giants Redskins, I'm picking the Giants, taking the spread, right? And then the next and the Giants win. And the next week, he picks a game and he picks the winner, and you get the email five days beforehand, and he wins the game. And the third week, he does and he's trying to get you see 50 bucks a week to subscribe to his program. And the fourth week, he picks another team and wins again. By this time, you're like, wow, this guy's pretty good. And you sign up for his team for his program because you can bet thousands of dollars and it's only costing you 50 bucks a week. What you didn't know is that this guy sent out 20 million emails, and the first week he said to 10 million emails, the Redskins is gonna win, and the other 10 million emails he said the uh Giants are gonna win. And then whoever the 10 million he picked, he said next week's five million and five million. And the third week, two and a half million, two and a half million. And next week he's sending four weeks in a row, a million and a half people, million, 1.25 million people CD picked four games in a week in a row. And guess what? How many of those people signed up for 50 bucks a week? A lot. Why? Because he it's really a scam. He didn't really pick the games. He just got you to believe that he was picking the games. And we have to, and survivorship bias eliminates that luck and timing play both a significant role in success. Now, what is luck? Obviously, as an observant Jew, we believe every happens because of Shem. But you have to, luck is the kind of the definition I use is that it's when when opportunity and preparation meet. When opportunity and preparation meet. If you're not prepared for the opportunity that you want in life, when it comes to you, you're not going to be ready. And it takes a lot of work. You know, I'm prepared if I get a call, which I do sometimes in the morning, at nine in the morning, I get a call from someone at H hey, can you teach this class for H Gesher? Or can you teach this class for J internship? And I'm prepared. I'm ready to go. Let's go, baby. You know, I'm ready to do it. Because I prepared myself for these opportunities, therefore, and I get more opportunities now because I am prepared. And opportunities do you no good if you're not prepared in life. So you want to prepare yourself for whatever you want to be in life. First, define what success is. Now we're gonna talk about choose your heart. So I was a Junior in college, I went to a school in Fredericksburg, Virginia called Mary Washington College. She was, anyone know who she was? Mary Washington?
unknown:The wife of George Washington?
SPEAKER_03:No, she was the mother of George Washington. She was the mother of the father of the United States of America. George Washington being the father. I mean, not he's not that shem, obviously, right? But um, so I used to work every single, uh, this is the mid-1980s, so I'm aging myself. And back then, the I think minimum wage back then was like 280 or 320 an hour. That's what it was. And I used to make five bucks an hour working at a bank as a teller. So I'd come in Thanksgiving for four days and work, I come in Christmas break and work, winter break and work, I'd come in spring break work in the summer, I had this job. Easy peasy. At the same time, I was very involved in the uh, I was a coin collector and I started trading coins in high school, and a little bit I was staying involved in college. And then my junior year in college, I had a buddy of mine who didn't go to college who traveled the country buying coins, worked for somebody else, he was making a lot of money. And I said to my buddy, Dwight, I go, Dwight, I think I want to trade coins this summer. I don't want to work in the bank. Guaranteed money, easy job, guaranteed. I said, I want to trade coins all summer. And he said to me, this is March, and I said, I need some money, and he had a lot of money. Well, for his age, he was 18, 19 years old. He said, if you meet me in Denver next week, I'll give you$5,000. You pay me back at the end of the summer, you know when you can pay me back. So he said, before you come to Denver, go around to all the coin stores in the DC area. This is the DC area where I'm from. And he said, I want you to uh do you want to do you want to bring chairs in? Why don't you bring some chairs in? So you can sit like a mench or a mencha. This coffee's great. Oh you got you want the roba. Oh, I'm gonna be flying at the end of this class, man. Woo!
SPEAKER_01:By the way, I was laughing before they picked up the book sunscreen love because you it's so much in my brain, the love, the ear. Love! I didn't see the word sunscreen love.
SPEAKER_03:You were funny last week. I was Sunday. I was talking about, I was about to do the thing with um the soup and the and I was about to do it, and you had it in your mind beforehand because you've been to all my classes, and you were cracking up. Do you remember this? Yeah. I was talking about this girl on the date with the Sparty guy that didn't work out well, and how she ordered a soup and sandwich, and you started cracking up. Do you know this? Yeah, you are cracking up. I haven't even given over yet.
unknown:I know.
SPEAKER_03:You guys know that that part I talk about? How compliment don't criticize? Yeah. It's a great. I love it.
SPEAKER_01:Where's that guy even?
SPEAKER_03:I don't know who the guy is. I have no idea. I don't I don't know who he is. Anyway. We love it.
SPEAKER_01:No, you may have to.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. We need to lighten up this room a little bit. Can everyone do this? I I don't know if you guys can do this. Can you do this? Let's go. You can do it. We're on dive team number one and everything. Look at how many misses we've got. 613 is gonna be fine. All you have to do is one at a time. We will, we will rock you. A college borrowhoo!
SPEAKER_02:We will, we will bless you! A college borrowhoo!
SPEAKER_03:Okay, let's go. Guys ready? So I had a chance to make$5 an hour. I said, you know what? I'm not gonna do it. I flew to Denver, bought my buddy all these coins. He bought every single coin from me, made$800. This is back 1986. A lot of money. Right? That's back when you could fly People's Express Airlines through Newark, right? You remember this? For like 20 bucks. Like I flew the People's Express through Newark. And you paid on the plane. And you paid on the plane, right? Everything you had to pay to go to the bathroom. I don't think you'd do that. But did you? I don't remember that. I played on the plane. You played the plane with that? Yeah. Are you from New Jersey? No, New York. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny how many airlines have been in existence. Isn't that crazy? Independence Air, my father used to fly Eastern Airlines. Trump Air. Trump Air? I used to fly Trump air in New York all the time. It's funny, I talked about this on Sunday. My kids were asked me about 9-11.
SPEAKER_01:Trump wasn't.
SPEAKER_03:Trump had an airline.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:At a LaGuardia.
SPEAKER_03:At LaGuardia, yeah. And the other one, it was, I think it became Delta. He took it over in Dallas and whatever. And they said, and I said, Oh, I was in New York on 9-11. Like, no, you were really? Like, did you see it? I'm like, no, I was on 57. I flew in that morning from uh IAD Dulles. I flew from Dulles, I flew United to LaGuardia. I landed at 7 a.m. I was in Manhattan, 57th Street. I remember I was looking in a window. I was next to Stack's auction house. I was looking in a window between 6 and 7th Street. I was looking in a window that had all the TV. Remember the old days, like they had windows with TVs and cameras, like electronic stores in New York. I don't think they have this anymore. They do, but they don't have TVs, right? I still talk about TVs. Like you guys don't even know what a TV is. Huh? What? Did somebody say what?
SPEAKER_01:Something to do with the microwave? Like, microwave? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Anyway, I'm looking, and I see the plane going to the building, and I told my kids I was there that I flew in that morning. And that was the last time, that was night in 2001. I got married a month later, but that was the last time I flew to New York. From then I started taking Amtrak. Alright, whatever. It has an effect on you. Anyway. So I decided I'm not taking this job. I'm gonna work the coin business. And that was a very hard decision. And what I come to conclude is that you can go through life and be comfortably mediocre. But if you want to have a shot at greatness, you have to get uncomfortable. And for me, that was very uncomfortable. Having to leave a job that was cushy, simple, and I had it for as long as I wanted. It was very uncomfortable. But guess what? That got me to be where I would become a coin dealer the rest of my life. It was hard for me to take a risk on my own, but it's also hard to stay in the same boring job every year, not knowing what you could have accomplished, how much success I could have achieved. Every decision in life is hard. I remember just moving to Israel six years ago. And I complained to my listen, I struggle. It's not so easy being here in Israel while I don't speak the language. I'm taking three old ponds. I haven't succeeded yet. Whatever. You know? Do you speak Hebrew?
SPEAKER_02:Not yet.
SPEAKER_03:Are you living here? Not yet. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Struggle is real.
SPEAKER_03:Huh? Struggle is real. It's a real struggle. It's not so easy. Thank God my wife speaks Hebrew. My kids have most of my kids have picked it up. But it's not easy. And I complain. And my wife says to me, You forget how hard the struggles were back in America. Because you got used to it. You understood it. And then you understood what was hard and you got used to it. And she's right. Every decision in life is hard. It's hard to be in shape, right? It's hard to eat healthy. It's hard to also when you're overweight. It's hard to be rich. It's hard to be poor. It's hard to have anxiety and depression. It's hard to do the work to get out of these things. Every decision in life is hard. You might as well choose the hard that's going to get you to where you want to be. You can take the easy road, or you can take the hard road. In the end, the easy roads end up being hard anyway. So you might as well take the hard road now. And if you don't want to be average, you need to be a savage.
SPEAKER_02:Oh dangerous savage.
SPEAKER_03:That's a fact of life. It is. You have to be a savage. It takes hard work. Yes, go ahead.
unknown:What if you lose and you make a decision?
SPEAKER_03:I lose all the time. Let me give you an example. I wanted to um, I decided like four years ago, I'm gonna run a marathon. I'm not I'm not a marathon guy. I I like running, I think running is great for you. But I'm not a marathon. I always like, you know, it's like 10 miles, but 10 miles, I did 10 milers. That's what I did. And so I was like, you know what? I talk about it, I'm like, I'm just gonna make make the effort. And so what I did twice a week, this is maybe four years ago. I was teaching here. I did two runs a week, I did one run of three miles. I don't do kilometers, I have no idea. I did one run of three miles, I did one run. It's so funny because miles make no sense whatsoever. And kilometers make perfect sense. You know, a meter, a kilometer, whatever. Uh and then my second run was gonna be a long run, and every week I'd increase it from three miles to four miles to five miles to six miles to seven. I got to eight and a half miles, I got eight miles. I did eight mile run, and then I had an issue with my leg. I I didn't train for the marathon anymore. The question you have to ask yourself did I fail? Did I fail? Well, I failed to run in the marathon, but did I fail? No, I didn't even fail! That week I ran 11 miles. We four 10 miles. Nine, I do want to add that starts to add up, by the way. So, what was your question again?
SPEAKER_04:I think the guy who offered me that situation. Yeah. What if it wouldn't have worked out? You'd like to make a decision.
SPEAKER_03:I ought to find something else to do. I probably would have gone into, I actually would have probably gone into the music business. I had a few different options in my head. And this is why I'm very much in my kids having lots of hobbies. I promote hobbies in my kids. I don't care if it picks like because some parents are like, oh, you I bought you the violin, now you don't play anymore after three months. I don't care. I'll switch. Let's go, baby. Something until they find something they love to do. Because those hobbies create our self-esteem in life. And so many people have low self-esteem in life because they have nothing to bring light into their life. And you want to have light in your life because that life brings you happiness. And when you love yourself as a person and have light in your life, you're going to be able to open up and love somebody else. And this is a major issue in relationship today. That people get married, they're 25, 22, 30 years old, and they don't love themselves. Oh, if I only find a guy to love me or a girl love me, then I'll be happy. And not only does that relationship fail horribly, 50 of them out the window, and you have 50 left. How many of them do you think are passionate, happy, loving relationships? 10%. You're walking down the aisle today and you're in love. And you think that love's gonna last forever. Do you know why? Because it's easy. You're young, you don't have the careers, and you don't have the children, and you don't have life getting your way, and then you get married and wonder why ten years later you're in a horrible relationship. I'm just being honest. More people spend more time learning to get a driver's license or going to a college or spending more time in essentials than they do. Well, maybe you will learn in essentials because if you come to my marriage and dating class, you will not be one in statistics. You have a one in ten shot. And people walking down the aisle, I didn't go to my my kids went to a wedding last night. Our friend Gila Oz got married last night. Malzatov. Yes, it was great. I wanted to go, but it's like, oh, in the north. And if you if you if you've been in my self-esteem classes, Hila? You Hila Oz?
SPEAKER_00:Our friend got married last night.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, where?
SPEAKER_00:Julia? Do you remember? Red outside Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_03:Oh no, this is all the way in the north, like the north in the Tanya. And thank God she's been in my class. She knows, she knows what it takes. She's gonna do great. She found a great guy, too. She didn't go into the first guy. She's like, she had a weight, she's 25 years old. But it takes knowledge. It takes, I'm sorry, it takes wisdom. And everyone thinks they have the knowledge in order to have a great relationship. Everyone thinks they do. I know what I'm doing. I'm 21, I know what I'm doing. No, you do have no idea. No offense. I know what I'm doing. No, you don't. Sorry. Most relationships fail. You have with nine and ten, you have a one in ten shot of having a great relationship. Doesn't mean your marriage doesn't last 40, 50, 60 years until you die. It doesn't mean. But as you know, many people in this room have parents who are not that greatly happy. They're not, you know, they're they're just getting by. Or they're waiting until the kids leave the house and they're gonna have emptiness divorce. Do you know what I'm talking about? So common today in the world today. I'm just saying I'm the point of you because you're older and you understand life more than the guys that people are younger, right? I love when I have older men in the classroom because they understand when I talk about like when I talk about um sexual ambiguity. You know, I talk about when you're in a relationship and you get married, you think you're gonna have a lot of sex, but you do guide willingly early on, but as you get 10, 20 years in a relationship, it becomes ambiguous because he doesn't he wants to go and she's got a headache and she wants to go and he wants to go play poker. And next thing you know, you miss a week, two weeks, three weeks, and then he stops he stops showing her attention, affection, appreciation, awareness, and she stops respecting him, and next thing you know, that relation falls apart. We're talking about this tomorrow. Talk about the laws of family purity. It is a wisdom from Hashem that who would put this in the book, right? You're gonna write a book about a religion that you want people to follow for thousands of years. Hey, let's put an idea in the book, dude. Hey, this great idea. Let's make it a man and woman don't touch each other for like a week to ten, two weeks. Battle cell. All these guys are gonna love this book. Who's gonna buy that book? You get my point? Anyway, where was I? You had a question. Did I answer your question? I got off topic. What did you say again? You lose, and you move on. I don't win all the time.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, so then there's something about being stable, right? Why are you making changes?
SPEAKER_03:I I one of the things my parenting class, I tell I take my I I want my kids, one of the successes of being a parent, is for my kids not to have fear of losing, right? Which means they're not always going to win. But they have to make logical choices. It doesn't mean to you should go out and make stupid choices. They all have to be logical. What's my upside in in the coin business? It's called upside-downside. This is like my thinking. What do I have to gain and what do I have to lose? And this is why investing in companies can a lot of people make a lot of money investing in companies. Because what's the amount of when you invest in a stock and you bet invest a thousand dollars, how much can you lose? A thousand dollars. How much can you win?
unknown:Infinite.
SPEAKER_03:It's infinite. Do you get my point? This is why I talk about I've I haven't done classes on finance in a long time, but when you when you have a basket of 20 to 30 stocks that are really potent have lots of potential, all you need is one. One NVIDIA, you know, one Apple, one Amazon, and that thousand dollars turns into millions of dollars.
SPEAKER_01:SodaStream?
SPEAKER_03:SodaStream. How do you know it's SodaStream?
SPEAKER_01:It's my book. I read the tragedy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, there's a tragedy. I didn't make the money I should have made. I was I was so right on SodaStream. Which book did you read that in?
SPEAKER_01:It's Emotional Vampire.
SPEAKER_03:Oh. I was so right. I was stupid. I was trading the options because I'm greedy and should have just bought the stock and forgot about it. Every choice in life is hard. You might as well choose a hard that's gonna get you where in a go. I want to talk about one other thing that I don't haven't mentioned in a long time. I don't know if this is gonna make sense or not. Oh, this is the root for the word baruch in Hebrew stinks. Baruch. Right? It's uh you know, we say the word this is the root for baruch, which means like blessings, right? And it's also the word for bahor. What is bahor? Huh? The firstborn. Firstborn marriage of, and what happens when the parents die? What does he get versus everyone of the child? Double the inheritance. He gets double. When we make blessings, when we not only make blessings to Hashem when we pray, or when we bless other people in times of life, like when you get like this girl last night got married, that that's a time when you're changing, um, when you're going through a development, right? You're having a baby, you're getting married, or you're born. They say that you should give brachas to other people because that's when you have the strongest connection to Hashem, when you're when you're having a birthday or getting when you're getting married. And so it's interesting that these three letters are the only three letters in the Hebrew alphabet that double the previous letter. You knew this? So what's the gumatria for for bass? Two, it doubles one, huh?
SPEAKER_02:We did this this morning. Where?
SPEAKER_03:Oh. So okay, I don't need to do it then. So you heard this already. No, it's still good. Yeah, yeah, and then the raish is 200, it doubles 100, and the chaf is 20, it doubles 10. The only three letters are double. Which means when you're able to bless other people or have a you know bless a shem, you will get double the reward in life. More than you're looking for. I just thought that was cute. Look at every opportunity as an obligation. There is a guy named Zig Ziggler. You guys probably don't know him. You do. Zig Ziggler, remember in the 1970s, he was like the big motivational speaker. And he says, What wakes you up in the morning? What wakes you up in the morning? Go ahead, wait a second.
SPEAKER_02:My bladder.
SPEAKER_03:Wait, yeah. No, that's me. I'm the 60-year-old guy with the bladder at 5 a.m. That's me, not you. Not yet, right? What wakes you up or what gets you? What wakes you up? An alarm. Alarm clock! What's an alarm, especially especially here in Israel? What's the alarm? Missiles, right? They have earthquake alarms here too. Do you know they have earthquake alarms here? I hear sometimes. I I think they practice it. It goes off. Earthquake, earthquake.
SPEAKER_01:What about the museum?
SPEAKER_03:Or the fire alarm? The what?
SPEAKER_01:Museum.
SPEAKER_03:Museum?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, the call to prayer. Yeah, the call to prayer. It's so funny. I lived in Sherry Khes when I've lived here for the first year and a half. We live kind of down the hill. I never heard it at 4 or 5 in the morning, but now I live up the hill and I can I have a better, I hear the call to prayer if I'm up at 4 30 morning. I get at 5 in the morning, I can hear it. So alarm is not a great thing. Fire, missiles, we have to run to the run to the bomb shelters, right? What should you really call it? Because that's not a good way to start your day. Think about it. Oh, my alarm call set me off. That's a great way to start your day. Fires, missile. No, it's an opportunity clock. That's what it is. It's a chance for me to make something else happen with the day. You can look at everything in your life as two different ways. One is an opportunity and one is an obligation. Obligations are hard. I have to clean the house, I have to walk the dog, I have to take the kids to school, I have to clean the dishes, I have to go shopping. These are obligations, and we look at them in a negative light. And we look at them as painful burdens, and we want to run away from them. But obligations mean responsibility, and we want to take responsibility because that is who we are. We're the Orle Goyim. We're the people that the enlightened nation. We're the people that take responsibility for the world. And that's why no one likes us. Do you know why? I think of a, I was back in elementary school, and we had in fourth grade, fifth grade, the crossing guards. Do you remember the crossing guard? I don't know if you guys have if you went to like a seminary or like whatever. You did, you went in the right? You went to a secular high school. You had a crossing guards. You were probably a crossing guard, weren't you?
SPEAKER_04:I was a crossing guard.
SPEAKER_03:You probably were. Straight A student. In elementary school. Yeah, of course you were. I can tell you were. Yeah. Yeah, the people, and maybe people didn't like you for that. But usually it was the Asian girls, right? The Korean girls, right? You had Korean girls in your class and they're also the bus stop. And no one liked the safety patrols. Do you know why? Safety patrols, don't they call it? Because they had to wear, you were talking about this? Because they have to wear the thing and they get to cross people from the streets, and they're they they get straight aid students, and they're and they're really the teachers love them, right? And no one likes them. You know why? Why doesn't anyone like them?
unknown:Because they're jealous of them.
SPEAKER_03:Because they're jealous of them, because they do the right thing. By the way, I really think this is our whole issue in in with the the Muslims and the Arabs. I think it's our whole issue. I think they just don't love themselves. I think that I think it comes, all this whole thing with, I think it just comes from severe, low self-esteem. Because they had something in their life to live for. They wouldn't be killing themselves. And we can use the excuse, oh, maybe because that's where they they want to go have 72 versions, they want to kill them. I'm not sure. I mean, if you have a good job, I mean I do it, they just I listen, I I people say, oh, the the the problem Nazis were dumb. They weren't dumb, they were smart people.
SPEAKER_01:They have 72 versions of self instead of one.
SPEAKER_03:But they don't realize it's not 72 versions, it's one 72-year-old version. Can I say that? Is that okay? I'm not a rabbi, it's all right.
SPEAKER_04:It's because Ishmael was sent out. That's where the low self-excit comes from.
SPEAKER_03:Of course, Ishmael is sent out, and they disagree. They say no Isaac was sent out. This is why they hate us. You want to hate us? Because they ain't us. That's where it's coming from. Find some light in your life, find a purpose in life that you want to live for, and stop worrying about us. Leave us alone. We don't want to, we don't want to don't you don't need to bother us. And this is why I'm gonna say this, I hope I don't offend anyone. This is why it makes no sense if I would not live here if I was not observant. There's no way I'm gonna come to Israel if I'm not an observant Jew, because I know it's a myth to live here. If I'm not gonna, if I'm not an observant Jew, I'm gonna live, and I and I still want the Jews, you know, if I'm not observant, then I believe that the Torah is maybe not written by God, and therefore I believe that, but if I'm with the Jews to be successful and live, I would say they should have gone with the Uganda plan. Put Israel in Uganda, right? And there's none of this hassle. Let them have their own country. And if people, if if the secular in the government was smart, they would go to Iran. Instead of fighting with Iran, they have this. Let's make a deal. You give us a piece of Iran that's approximately the same size, we'll negotiate, but give us a piece, you have a big huge country, right? Most of it you don't even use, most of it's desert. Give us a piece of Iran, and we'll trade you. We'll move there, we'll make that our Israel. You can have this land, give it to the Palestinians as you want it, and we'll have a nice day and we'll have peace. Does that make sense? Do you have my point? If you're a secularist, that's what you should, that's what you're waiting for. You should you saw the whole peace process. Yes. Would you say this again?
SPEAKER_01:They believe once they conquer a land, it's always supposed to be under their belief.
SPEAKER_03:Islam is Islam. Yeah. That's fine. But listen, um let's pretend we're not observant Jews. Let's pretend we're secular Jews, don't believe we were tortured by God. Right? Who cares? Let them have the religion here. We don't need it. Let's give it access to visit our holy our our our history, historical sites. Let's not call them holy sites, let's call them historical sites. We can come visit the old temple top place, we can visit Yosef's tomb, we can visit Rachel's tomb, we can go to Akka, we can visit these different places. But we don't need to live here where there's no mitzvah to live here. If I don't believe it's horrible by God, there's no mitzvah to live here. So therefore, I can live in this new town, this new city in Iran, have an airport, have access to the to the water. There's no peace, there's no peace, there's no fighting anymore. But again, if that was clear, if that was people have clarity in the secular government, they would do this, but they don't. Oh no, this is our land. Why is our land? We're here, who cares? The Indians were in Mexico, the Indians were in New Jersey before the New Jerseys were there, right? There's Indians who in New York and Canada, that's all Indians. Let's give it back to them. In fact, the Torah even says, before we came to this land, kick out the Canaanites. So you know we weren't the original people here. I'm sorry, I got off topic. If you look at everything as an obligation, you'll not be happy because you're focused on the effort involved. How do you change the idea from looking at everything as an obligation to an opportunity? Three ways. You ready? Number one, focus on the pleasure and you will be able to handle any pain. This is the way life works. This is why when you work for yourself, you can work a heck of a lot harder than you do for somebody else. Why? Because you're focused on the pleasure of work that you're gonna do. I always say I'd rather sell hot dogs on the street than have to work for somebody else. Even though it's painful to wake up at four in the morning and get your car right, I'm sure it's painful. But when you focus on the pleasure you're gonna get from something, you'll be able to handle any amount of pain. Think of an Olympic athlete who you know dives or swimmer. They wake up at 3 a.m., they swim for three hours, they go to school for five minutes, and they work out the rest of the day. And that's painful, it's a lot of work. Why? They keep their eye on the ball, they keep their eye on the pleasure. If you can't find the pleasure in what you're doing, you're not gonna be able to handle the pain of what you're doing. If you're coming to seminary or yeshiva and you can't see the pleasure you're gonna get from it, you're going to have a hard time in anything you're gonna do in life. It's just the way life works. For focus on the pleasure. Number two, learn to juggle instead of balance. And this is the concept that really saved my life. So when I moved to Israel, I had a lot of things going on my head. I've, you know, businesses, real estate, other things, a lot of health issues, whatever. I started my new drug yesterday. I I don't know if I've told some of you, I've this tried last class, last Tuesday, I had three liters of fluid drained from my lung. That's why I missed last Tuesday's class. If you were here, I wasn't here. Yeah, so I have cancer right now in my lungs. It's not a tumor, it's just cancer cells, thank God. But it's releasing um, it's excreting fluid. I don't know why. Don't I don't have the answer. Any doctors here? You a doctor? Play one on TV? Yeah, you're a doctor, you're a nurse. Right. Yeah, so uh they did a genome test and I have a new mutation. I this I am I am a living miracle. I I can't tell you. I I was in Orlando last week giving a class, and there's an oncologist in the class, and we were talking after class. He goes, You are a miracle, because I got cancer in 2012, right when they started with all these kinase inhibitors. These are the new class of drugs that are able to stop the growth of cancer. So I went on one of the first ones called torsiva. I was on that for seven years. I went to the Gristo for three years, and that stopped working just now. It's still working, but it's not working great. And so I'm starting a new, a second drug, which I started yesterday called a fatinib. It's kind of a funny name. A fat nib. Am I gonna get fat? Hopefully I don't get fat. You might see some side effects for me, which means like bad skin. If it happens, that means the drug's working, which is good. It's funny when I was in Tarsiva. It might give you two, is this TMI? I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:You're good, you're good.
SPEAKER_03:Are you sure? I it was it might please let me know. I mean, I don't I can't read your minds. I'd like to read your minds.
unknown:What are you thinking?
SPEAKER_03:Um so when I started tarsiva, I had really, really bad skin. Like, like imagine a bad teenager when they have bad acne? That was mine. Really bad. And then occasionally the side effects morph. They switch to different things, I'm not gonna talk about them, they're not very nice. And occasionally my skin would get clear, and people say, Oh, you look really good. And I I wrote a actually wrote an article on this. I'm like, stop telling me how good I look because I want the side effects. When you have side effects of a drug that means and this this is for the new cancer drugs, maybe not for older drugs, for the new cancer drugs, if you have side effects, it means the drug is working. And I want the side effects. So I wrote an article, actually, it was on H.com, I think maybe 10 years ago. You can probably Google it. Stop telling me how good I look. I want to look like a teenager because I want my drug to be working. And so I started this new drug yesterday. I took one this morning, one yesterday, one this morning. I had to go to Benay Brac to get it. And it could be in the next week when you see me that my skin starts to turn bad. Which is good, which is good for Hisham, right? It means the drug's working. So, and the amazing thing this doctor said to me in Orlando is like, you're like a living, they should write a book about you. You've now been living 14 years of lung cancer, and I've been on two different drugs. Now I'm starting my third drug yesterday, and my doctor says to me at Shared City, he goes, you know, if this stops working, which it will, because cancer tries to morph. You know, cancer doesn't want to die. So it's gonna morph into it, it's gonna mutate. It's like I have mute uh mutant ninja turtles. Remember that movie? Mutant ninja turtles. So that it's gonna try to mutate, and what they can do now, because they can now do genome testing, they biopsy whatever it is, they biopsy the fluid, they tested it, and I have a new um a new mutation called exon 18, and this new drug, a fat nib, matches exon 18. Pretty cool, huh? I'm like gonna be a story someday. Not I want to be a story, like whatever. Uh oh, so we talked about, I we talked about success. You talked about like, what if I fail? You failed. I failed running the marathon. But guess what? Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player that ever lived, forget it's not LeBron James. Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player that ever lived, right? He played 15 seasons. He only won six championships. That means that nine years he did not win the championship. The question you have to ask yourself, did Michael Jordan fail those nine seasons? No, not at all. We're gonna fail on life. Every time that you have an NBA basketball player or an NFL player playing in sports, they're what's their goal? It's to win the Super Bowl. And most of the time they don't do it. Right? It doesn't mean they failed. Only 97% of professional athletes only 3% of professional athletes will ever even see a championship game. Forget about winning, we're just getting into the game. If you knew you had no chance to lose in any endeavor, what's gonna keep you from trying? Why not try something? Why not move forward in life? Because getting the staying in the same place is gonna get you nowhere. And I was I said in my class, I teach my kids this also. When I was in business in America, and I'd sit in my office and plan trips, and nothing happened. But when I got out of my office and went to coin stores and went to coin shows and went meet up before lunch and did things and got out into the world, things happened, positive things. And this is why people who are connectors usually make a lot more money than people who are not connectors. Because they have a lot more contacts and are always learning ways to make money and to succeed in life. And I want you to be successful in life in all aspects. But it doesn't mean you're gonna be succeeded at everything, it doesn't mean that all your kids are gonna turn out perfect, and it doesn't mean that you know the person you marry ends up being the one you want, and this is why you have to have a lot of wisdom before you go into a relationship to understand what the definition of love is, because your spouse is going to annoy you, I promise you. That is a fact of life that you're gonna have issues with your spouse. It doesn't mean they're a bad person, it just means that you have to focus on why you fell in love in the first place. Thomas Edison was asked how he was able to invent the light bulb. You know what he answered? You see some of you know this.
SPEAKER_01:I failed 99 times. I didn't fail, I found 99 things that didn't work.
SPEAKER_03:I think he said, I think there's Mach Lokus on his answer. He said, I found a thousand ways to not invent a light bulb. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple. Michael Jordan was cut from his varsity basketball team. Noah Weinberg failed many, many times before he found Aisha Tor. And the thing I want you to understand that winners never quit, and quitters never win. You must first define what success means to you, else someone's gonna do it for you, and that's not living life. Then you have to choose your hard, every decision you make is your life's gonna be hard. And then finally, the third thing you have to look at every opportunity, obligation as an opportunity. And that is focusing on the pleasure you're gonna get from that opportunity. Life is not about getting things, it's about becoming someone great. And that someone is you. Thank you very much.