PIC 2024 R' Chanan Gordon 5 Actions that will Change Your Life Forever

Okay, folks, welcome to Project Inspire 2000 and 24. And as President Joe Biden has been known to say, it's great to be back in Cleveland. So, we So, Rabbi Samson tells me I'm been I have this invidious position of opening a Project Inspire every year. And the excuse that I've been given is Hazal say that everything goes off at the beginning, right? So, we're going to try and set a tone for this year's Project Inspire, which is not only about inspiration, it's not only about hisoris, but real practical advice. So, when the sun sets on Sunday lunchtime, and we go our separate ways, that you'll be able to take some pearls of wisdom as you navigate this journey called life, because every year I come back to Project Inspire, the world gets more and more mashuga. And needless to say, the world is coming off, it seems. We're going to talk about this over the whole weekend, what that means, and of course within the context of achdus, what's our role? So, I'm going to try and make this as practical as possible, so that it's not only something that we can go into Shabbos with a smile, but really some ideas that we can take with us for the rest of our life. In my many years of speaking, what I've tried to do is cull things things down to what I think the topic is is that five actions that will change your life forever. Every single one of every one of these five are literally tried and tested, not only by myself, but by other speakers, and I think that if you are preparing braces, one or two, my promise to you is that you will definitely be a different person come Sunday lunchtime. The first thing, ladies and gentlemen, is from now on, I want you to change the way you think about time. So, most of people uh think about time in a secular form, like a watch. If you really want to be smart, if you really want to achieve your goals in life, you'll think about time as a compass. It's not a watch, it's a compass. It's all about the direction, and as opposed to what every single every single day runner talks about about prioritizing your schedule, prioritizing your schedule, I'm going to focus on something which the Torah talks about, which is scheduling your priorities. So, no longer we're going to think of time in a secular way, we're going to think of time as a compass, which direction your life's going. And we instead of thinking about time, about checking things off, we're going to thinking about scheduling your priorities instead instead of prioritizing your schedule. So, obviously we need to talk about the concept of priorities. Let's just talk about quickly the concept of time from a Torah perspective. How important is the concept of time? Suppose I were to give each and every one of you $701,280 in United States dollars right now. But that's basically what a room costs here for Project Inspire. $701,280. You're pretty pretty pretty pleased, right? Think about how you would spend that money. Now, what if I were to tell you uh that if you don't use it, you lose it. If you don't use the $701,280, you're going to lose it. So, I want you to hold that thought. According to the Pew report, the average American today lives for 80 years. That's 701,280 hours. So, we're going to figure out how we use those 701,280 hours in the most judicious way, because when you come to the end of this journey called life, you're going to get an open book exam. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to ask you six questions, and it's all about whether you became the greatest you. And there's one of the commodities that's one of the most important commodities that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us, and if you don't use it, you lose it, and that's time. So important is, my friends, the concept of time, that it's in fact the first fourth letter of the Torah. Bereishis, bara Elohim, es, the aleph and the tav, the beginning and the end of the alphabet, according to the meforshim, is Hakadosh Baruch Hu creating this concept of time. What's the first mitzvah? What's the first mitzvah we learn about in the Torah? Just to underscore how important this concept is called time. Very good. Rosh Chodesh. It's all about time. How even when we see each other, right, on on on somebody's birthday, what's our salutation? Ad meah v'esrim, right? Of course, unless they're turning 120, in which case we say, have a nice day. So, the there's no question, my friends, the concept of time is vitally important. It's something Hakadosh Baruch Hu created in the beginning of this world, and hopefully by the end of our discussion, you're going to change the way you use this sacrosanct commodity. We said the average American lives for 80 years. We said that breaks down into which is 28,835 days. Let's break down, according to the Pew report, how the average American uses their 80 years. sleeping. 1,635 days is spent eating. Actually, here it's probably 2,000. Working 3,202, entertainment 2,000. Fast forward, you're in the bathroom, ladies and gentlemen, for 671 days of your life, which means if you live to the age of 80 years old, you have 7,363 days in order to achieve your potential. How important is the concept of achieving your potential? Who was the first Jew? Who was the first Jew? Very good. Avraham had how many tests? Very good. At the end of the 10th test, the proverbial binding of Isaac, what happened? When he was on that bunny sawyer, when he managed to surmount the final test, what happened? A bas kol came out and said what? Avraham, Avraham. Why twice? It's a lesson for all of us, and that is the Avraham down there in this world had reached the potential that he could have actualized up there. That's why, my friends, we're in this world. The delta between who you land up being and who you are at Project Inspire 2024 is called Gehennom. That's the concept of Gehennom. It's the disparity between who you are supposed to be and who you land up being. One of the most important things is the way we're going to use our time. So, I want you to start thinking again, time in terms of compass, time in terms of priorities. I'll take you back to 1954. Professor at the school the Professor in Paris walks into a classroom, and he puts in the classroom the following. He had a bowl of water, and and next to the bowl of water there was large rocks, and there were slightly smaller pebbles, there was a cup of sand, and all he asked 15 of the biggest CEOs in the world at the time is whether you can take these objects and put it into this vase of water without displacing the water. It's one of the biggest mussar haskals that you'll learn this entire Project Inspire. What do you think What do you think the only way you can get rocks, the sli- slightly smaller pebbles, sand into this vase of water without displacing the water? You have to put the big rocks in first, and then the pebbles, then the sand. What's the lesson for all of us? In life, you have to figure out your big rocks. You have to put the big rocks in first. So, I have made copies which I will disseminate to you guys after this unbelievable lecture of a slightly modified version of Steve Covey's four quadrants. If you want to reach your potential in this journey called life, you want to spend 80% of your time in what we call the northeast quadrant. Now, let me explain to you how this works in terms of horizontal and vertical. On the vertical side is important and not important, and horizontally it's urgent and not urgent. You want to spend most of your time in things that are not urgent, but important. For example, your important relationships, exercise, all of the things that ultimately are going to be the core, and all of the things, those who've got a landmark or any other similar type self-help programs, that's what Those are the things that are going to be on your mitzvah. It's not going to be whether you drove a Lexus or a Ferrari, and it's not The most important things, the big rocks, that's where the action is. You should spend 80% of your time doing things that are important, but not urgent. So, I've spoken about it many times, because I work a lot with Gen Z, that unfortunately, because of social media, people are reacting. They're not being proactive. They're reacting to to to a text, they're reacting to likes and schmikes, and you land up come to the end of the day exhausted, and you've done two things. Again, if you want to use your time judiciously, spend most of your time doing things that are important, uh but not urgent. So, point number one is the way we're going to spend our time judiciously is we're going to put the big rocks in first, which means as opposed to time management in the Western paradigm which says prioritize your schedule, we're going to schedule our priorities. We're going to figure out what our big rocks are. For example, if you have a business meeting and your 7-year-old child or your 6-year-old grandchild says, "Zaidy, Tati, please come with me to my school play." What do you do? Why? Because that's the big rock and time and time again people will make the knee-jerk reaction and you will find that people ascend up the ladder of life and they find that it's leaning against the wrong wall. Focus on scheduling your priorities. I want to come to a subsection of time management and that's what's in your head. Okay, I happen to I guess during time we can say this cryptically. I happen to represent the biggest content creator in the world. The biggest YouTuber in the world. So, I think working with this person I got a sense of how the algorithm works and how social media works. It's all about making you sticky, latched on to these little screens, okay? It's also about owning your mind. I'm talking I think on the last day or Shabbos about being a South African Jewish Harvard person, the worst possible combination. How did Harvard brainwash a generation? Who owns our minds? Being in the present is one of the the most difficult things with the proliferation of technology and the advent of social media. There's three major for our purposes there's three major tenses, right? Being in the past. I'm going to show I'm going to give you an emotion. You tell me if it's present, past, or future. Guilt. Past. Um anxiety, freaking out. Usually the future. How many people rent space in their head and thinking about anything but being in this room area of Shabbos a project smart listen to the most unbelievable lecture. So, you should know you should know that the Malachim others there's a country on the tricks of the eight Sahara. That's one of the tricks of the eight Sahara is to make sure that you're not in the moment. Because if you're not in the moment, you're not living. If you're thinking about what's going to be on Shabbos and then we've got to got to come back, we've got to pay the mortgage. You're not here. This moment is never going to happen again in your life. Why are you in this room? I'll show you very clearly the Gamoran Sanhedrin says, "Every single person in this room, for the camera, 32,811 people in this room are all meant to be here." I have no clue what I'm going to say, but I promise you I'm going to say something that some way is going to resonate and has the potential to change your life. Very Hazal 101, okay? If you're not in the moment, you may miss something that is potentially going to be change your life. So, point number one in the five things that you need to think about to change your life, I want you to start start thinking about time in a very different way. We spoke about instead of scheduling instead of prioritizing our our schedule, scheduling our priorities. We said about the big rocks. We spoke about being in the moment in terms of what your what you're thinking about. Let's come to number two. In order to achieve greatness, you need to get rid of the following. It's a concept that pop culture talks about. It's completely erroneous. It's not a Torah concept. Get it out of your head today and that's the concept of concept of you can have it all. You can have it all is not a Torah concept. The way Hakadosh Baruch Hu works is there is nobody in this room. There is nobody in this room. The reason why I can say this is because it's very clearly in my Machzor, I can show you inside. There is nobody in this room. I hope there's no one in this room and I'll tell you why, that doesn't have a pekel. There's nobody in this room that doesn't have pain. The Gemara says very clearly, "If you go 40 days without pain, it ain't a good sign." It's a sign of a symptom which Hakadosh Baruch Hu is saying, "You I'm indifferent to you. God gesundheit, live your life." Pain, by the way, according to the Gemara can mean putting your hand in your pocket and taking out a quarter and not a dollar. So, pain doesn't have to be, you know, being uh a car collision on the New Jersey Turnpike. But any kind of knitch, anything that's happened to you right now, it's a very good sign if you've got some Torahs in your life. Okay. The same Gemara says the following, okay? Hold on to your shaitels for this. You cannot have Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't create a situation where at the same time a person's getting complete nachas from all their children, their bank account is beautiful, they have shalom bayis, and everything's pure equanimity. I've been doing this for a long time. I speak to a lot of people. There's always one leg of the stool. Hakadosh Baruch Hu in his infinite love for us and I'll explain why will not will be a slightly not in equilibrium. Okay. So, then get out of your head the concept of having it all. There's enough community The difference between two concepts, shalva and menucha. Shalva means that a person saying they're not missing anything in life. My friends, shalva is a negative trait. Why? Because if you feel that everything must be perfect, it's very very dangerous. I'm going to talk I think on the second day about people who want everything perfect. I've been involved in many many many shidduchim and that's a very big problem where especially with the guys, the women have this right. But the guy is waiting for Christie Brinkley to walk around the corner with a shaitel on. Are you guys nuts? There's no such a thing as perfection. Hakadosh Baruch Hu created fallible human beings, okay? Shalva as opposed to menucha. What's menucha mean? Menucha means that you don't need anything. As opposed to you've got everything. Let's just drill down a little bit more about this concept of you that you can have it all. So, I used to do many many of these programs with Dennis Prager. I'm not saying Dennis is is I certainly do not want to quote Dennis as a Torah as a Torah uh sage. But he's got some wisdom and I want to quote from you a a very good piece that he wrote in uh it's called missing it's called the missing tile syndrome and it says it all. Quote. One of human nature's most effective ways of sabotaging happiness is to look at a beautiful scene and fixate on whatever is flawed or missing no matter how small. The tendency is easily demonstrated. Imagine looking up at a tiled ceiling from which one tile is missing. You'll most likely concentrate on that missing tile. In fact, the more beautiful the ceiling, the more you're likely to concentrate on the missing tile and permit it to affect your enjoyment of the rest of the ceiling. By the way, my Rosh Yeshiva would never ever ever allow us to respond where people say, "Chanan, how's How things going?" A well-known Americanism is it could be better. My friends, that's pure mumsh. The Chofetz Chaim speaks about it. If it could be better, it would be better. Exactly what's supposed to happen right now is happening. You're sitting at whatever time it is erev Shabbos with a stomach ache and you're worrying about THAT'S WHAT'S SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. If you were God, you would create this exact matzah. So, it could be better it would be better. The proclivity of the human being to see the missing tile is based on an erroneous is that you can have it all. You can have it all in Hollywood. That's not the way uh the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world. Next. I want to start I want you to start recalibrating your definition of success. I've spoken I think in every continent in the world. In America, if I say the word success, let's be honest. Okay, we're friends. If I say the word success, what am I talking about? It's gelt, right? Now, in the Torah, there is someone who is described as an ish matzliach. Who is that? Yosef Hatzadik is an ish matzliach. A successful person. This is Hakadosh Baruch Hu's definition of a successful person. By the way, when the Torah says that Yosef was an ish matzliach, was it at the time that he was the viceroy sitting like a big shvitzer in the When does the Torah say that he was It says it three times. When does it When are the times that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says in the Torah that Yosef Hatzadik was an ish matzliach? One time when he was in jail. When he's in the bor, excellent. And the third? Excellent. Two for two. Give this woman a free shaitel. Unbelievable. Three for three. Okay, what but there's something about all of those things, right? Those were big tests. So, therefore So, therefore what's the definition of success? To make the Forbes list or to be able to have the intestinal fortitude to overcome, to use your stumbling blocks as stepping stones? That's what success is in the world of Torah. And I I the concept of how success has crept into our lives, let me tell you about the American notion of success. And that is as follows. 69%. This is according to the Wall Street Journal poll which is March 2 2020 which is March 2023. It's pretty recent. 69% of Gen Z's believe that money can buy happiness. Hold on. The Wall Street Journal poll which is very telling is points to a trend that is tragic that I see every single day with the people that we work with that what's going out the window is religion, community, family, and unfortunately it's all being superseded by material things. The most authoritative research ever done on happiness ever It was a longevity study was done by Harvard. Harvard used to be a good school. Harvard study of adult development. Sorry, 1938. It's a long long study. Here's what the the mask here's the sure here's the mask kind of the study. Money can never buy happiness. The bottom line of the research is once you reach certain basics in terms of certain necessities, anything above that is not going to have a bearing on happiness. And therefore, unlike the secular world, the things that make you the most happy are not things, they're people. It's all about relationships. Sam Walton. Sam Walton one of the one of the richest person ever to live in this country. He started small grocery store called Walmart. What was Sam Walton's last words? You can check anything I'll say snoop snoop whatever you want to check. Every word I've double checked. Thanks to Pastor Crone who promised that I check and recheck anything I'll say. What's what are the last words of Sam Walton before his demise? I blew it. He looked at his wife who was completely estranged from him, his kids who hardly said a word for and at the time when with I don't know how many billions he knew that he had absolutely missed the purpose of life. So number one we said if you really want to have a successful life, you got to start thinking about time in a very different way. And number two we said that if you want to have a successful life, we're going to have to we we said we're going to have to you have to spend most of your time in the northeast quadrant. We then said in order to have a successful life, we're going to have a different definition of success. There's another concept within the within the subcategory of success is people conflate success and happiness. They're very very different. If you take the Torah concept of success, let me explain to you the difference between success and happiness. Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. Success is having all the money in the world and happiness is having family and friends to spend it on. Success is a fancy car. Happiness is a joyous journey. Success is having everyone know your name. Happiness is knowing everyone's name. Success is money in the bank. Happiness cannot be deposited. Success is private jets. Happiness is flying high. Success is second homes. Happiness is always being home. Success is praise. Happiness is never needing it. Success is reaching the top. Happiness has no ceiling. Success is envied. Happiness is shared. One of the things that I've seen in in speaking on many many many campuses and and in different different different audiences with a big secular audience is people get confused between success and happiness and between fun and happiness. There is no word my friends, there is no word in the Torah. If there's no word in the Torah, I am telling you that the phenomenon the concept doesn't exist. There is no word in the Torah for retirement. I am saying I don't want you to go be set out into the fields like cattle and sit in Florida or the rocking chair with your feet with your teeth in a glass. The amount of the exponential degradation and deterioration of people when they retire is unbelievable. There are there's a disproportionate amount of get any form of mental problems because they're sitting in the and they're using their gray matter. Retirement I am saying we don't go off to the pasture like cattle. There's also no word in the Torah called fun. Because fun is something that's attached to the happiness is attached to the in the shower. If I say to you after this the this talk is going to be about a 20 minute standing ovation. We're going to after showers I'm going to take you to the Six Flags and we're going on a Torah concept. Who was the greatest human being ever to the world? There will never be another person even close. What did make mistakes? Right. If I was the author of the Torah, I would I would redact that cut and paste. Why does the whole world have to but that's the that is the integrity of the author of the Torah. This is the greatest person that ever the planet and he's fallible. And he made more than one mistake. So the idea that we're supposed to be perfect or you're not supposed to fail wrong being. That's a that's not a human being. A doesn't have you have freedom of volition. That's why this that's why there's a concept of reward and punishment because you have a struggle. A doesn't have a struggle. Okay? We've spoken about this before in in the secular world the concept of failure. Person who lived in Europe until the age of four couldn't read. Till the age of seven couldn't write. Was expelled from elementary school at the age of 11 was told you are slightly So you folks know this person today as Albert Einstein. Or how about a person who was a cartoonist who wanted so badly to write and draft cartoons for a newspaper. Went from one paper to the next paper couldn't get a gig. Finally so financially indigent didn't have a penny to this is the person's name knocked on the front door of their local church and said to the priest I I mentioned I have a roof over my head. And the priest said you can go to the farm barn at the back of the church. And that night a little mouse crept out of the farm barn in its corner and he this person sketched that mouse. You know that mouse that is Mickey Mouse. And that person is Walt Disney. People don't understand what it says in falling is seven times. It's not that they have they fall and they get it's but for falling they wouldn't be who they are. My whole family is in the medical profession. So I made sure I was speaking to my brother before this who's a nuclear radiologist that the following fact is true. Life breaks all of us. Everyone life will break all of us. But you are strongest in the broken parts. How do we know that is a is a fact? I create in the physical world a pedagogical example of things that happen in the spiritual world. When you break a bone at the point that the that bone meets and grows together, you are strongest in that part. My brother was explaining and he's been through many many obviously he's a radiologist that it's highly unlikely that you're going to break on that same there's a certain chemical that I created so the bone knits in a way that it's strongest in that part. That's a good lesson for all of us. Is that if you if you really want to get a good understanding of why you're in this world. And I do this often in why we're in this world? Rabbi I'm here to do the Rabbi I'm here. There's a reason why every single person in this room it came into this world and it's not the same for anyone else here. I don't know if any of you seen a person lining and suddenly they stop. The ball carrier stops. Often the reason is because he's got two two of the two of the letters are touching. You can never have two letters touching. Every is a separate letter in the Torah. You can never ever be the same as somebody else. Your is not the same as somebody else's. The place where you're broken, the place that keeps coming up in your life, the that you that you look heaven down and say just get rid of that's how you know what your your is in this world. It says in many many places many many places the test that keeps repeating in your life, the area that somehow keeps being that knowing Achilles heel is a tremendous tremendous indicator of why your has been sent into this world. So failure very clearly is something that is part and parcel of the journey of life. Next, there is one thing there is one thing that every single one of you number five can have completely own and it's up to you. There's one thing that do you choose your parents? You choose your IQ? You choose the color of your eyes? This is something you can choose. This is something you can choose. And I know what you're going to ask me and this is something I talk about a lot. What can each and every one of us choose in the journey called life? You're on the right track. Okay, that you're on the right track. We cannot control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond to what happens to us. Say it in one word. It's a word starting with A. Very good. Give that man a shaitel. Attitude. Are you you The best example is Victor Frankl. Man's search for meaning. What Does anyone know when did Victor Frankl pen this book in his head? He was in Auschwitz. He was in Auschwitz and he was pretending to give lectures to a And he realized the Nazis you must remember can take everything but they can never take away your attitude. I want to say tell you something else and this is according to the Torah and according to all psychological research is that there are people that are naturally wired their disposition is more is more prone to see the the glass half full and there's some you can have a different predisposition but that can be worked on and that can be changed. Your attitude is something that you can work on and that you can change. Okay, I want to quickly summarize this and then I want to give you the 10 Commandments that I want you to take with you for the rest of your life. We said the following the topic is five actions that will change your life forever. We said in terms of time I no longer want you to think of time in a circular fashion. I want you to think of it in terms of a compass the direction of your life instead of thinking of prioritize your schedule we get a schedule out which means we have to know what our priorities are. What did I say about how do you figure out what your priorities are? You got to put the big rocks in first. The chances are are the big rocks your relationship your spouse your kids or whether you can afford to go to KMR? Very good. Putting the big rocks in first is the way you will come to this end of this journey. Hazal have promised us one thing claw. Nobody comes to the end of this journey called life and checks all the boxes. Nobody. You want to make sure you just check the column that says the big rocks. You don't want to leave your neshama like Sam Walton say I blew it. Next. We said that we're going to rethink the concept of success. I left that one I'm going to come back to it. We said that if I say the word success in the Western paradigm in culture we think of But we said the who is an ish matzliach three times in the Torah? Yosef. And you pointed out there were three times that the Torah says ish matzliach. Every one of the context where it says ish matzliach Yosef was going through a gehennam and therefore success is a person who uses the stumbling blocks as stepping stones and is a person who goes who might have a whole bunch of things hitting the fan but they still have the ability that if you change the way you look at things the things that you look at change. Next. We said that there is no such a the notion of you can have it all is completely erroneous. It doesn't exist from a Torah perspective. Every single person I sit in this room bezras Hashem has pain. Every one of you has a pekel. It's very clear that if you go 40 days without some kind of pain the Rambam says very clearly the highest form of pain is indifference. The high the most According to the Rambam the most benign form is money. The next form up is health problems chas v'shalom. The third form of pain is vicarious pain. That's a pain a parent feels for a child. The most the zenith of pain and suffering according to Rambam is indifference. That's the nachash. The nachash was able to slither and slip and he didn't have to ever look heaven bound because he had his food he had everything. When everything is going your way the chances are you're riding on the wrong side of the road. It's not supposed to be like that. We said then number four we said change success we said you can't have it all we said failure and the final point we said was your attitude. Okay, I I want to tell you in my journey in my life if I had to call this down into the 10 things that I want you to take with you for the rest of your life certain things that I want you to let go of from now on to have an unbelievably happy successful life they would be the following 10 things. If I can't find them I will have to do them but I'll pay. Number one. One second. And then we're going to open it up for I want to take a few questions before the standing ovation. Okay, the 10 things that you need to let go of in order to have a successful happy wholesome life. Number one. You got to let go of the opinions of others controlling your life. What other people think of you is none of your business. I work with a lot of Gen Z's. Their entire decision making is based on FOMO. I won't go into details there's certain there's a certain subsect of a certain culture in America many of these kids land up going into professions because their parents told them they'll be good at that. Insanity. Next. You need to let go as we alluded to the shame of past failures. About seven or eight years ago more about 10 years ago I was speaking at KMR a woman comes up to the podium afterwards and she starts crying and that's very awkward I'm trying to be mechazek her I'm trying to get a word in two minutes three minutes she's pouring out all I could hear is he did this rabbi and he did this. It took about three and a half minutes for me to figure out she was talking about her ex-husband that she divorced 21 years ago. So this is a person who's been going through life with a handbrake on for 21 years. You've got to let go of the shame of past failures and I'm not saying a marriage that goes through a sechter gitten is a failure. Number three. You've got to get get get get rid of being indecisive about what you want. My friends the road of life is filled with flat squirrels that couldn't make a decision. It's unbelievable. I saw I see people at all these gigs at Project Inspire Gateways it's just it breaks my heart when I sit down with someone and we go through something and three years later they still haven't made a decision. It's a very very good trick of the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara just wants you to be perseverate. Number four. You got to let go of procrastinating on the goals that matter. You You got to let go of procrastinating on the goals that matter. Let me tell you what this means from a deep Torah perspective. How many times do I hear rabbi it sounds amazing what you're saying but you don't understand rabbi I I've got the storm in my life. I mean my my shalom bayis is a Rabbi the idea of taking a few starting a new learning seder it's out but you don't understand I've got a storm in my business. So I'm here to tell you every person in this room has a storm in their life. It's an optical illusion to think that you're going to wake up the storm's going to subside the rainbow's going to come up you're going to live in a white picket fence with a labrador in Greenwich. That's not why we're in this world. We're not here to wait for the storm to subside we're here to dance in the rain. Next. You need to let go of choosing to do nothing. Another trick of the yetzer hara. There's such a thing as I said everything in the physical world has a functional equivalent to teach us in the spiritual world. There's something called gravity. If you do nothing you're going to go the other way. Why do you think in Yiddish when I see a friend what is the salutation I say vos macht a yid? What are you making of yourself? What are the biggest tragedies is someone says to you someone said to me a few at my Harvard reunion some said someone said to me you're the exact same guy that left the exact same guy that left law school X years ago. That's the biggest insult you can give a person. I'm a walking cadaver that's right. Number six. You need to let go of being right. This will come up all the time in a marriage situation. And let me tell you and I've been through this many times with many couples. You can either be right or you can be married. There are very very few times I'm not a posek but there are very very few times in halacha where we have what's called a pshara a happy medium right? What's the halacha of a mezuzah? One money I'm going to say it should be horizontal the other vertical. When you look at the doorpost when you go home after on Sunday after you tip Rabbi Gordon and the other rabbis what do you see? It's at 45 degrees. You got to meet each other halfway. And what's the first thing you kiss before you walk into a Jewish home? Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu is in that home. It's not about being right Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't care about being right it's about understanding the other the understanding of the other person and being machshiv the other person and ego which is a men's problem not a woman's is edge God out. As soon as you got ego the shechinah leaves. Number seven. You need to let go of running from problem to problem that should be fixed. It's a very very very very wonderful thing that you run from problem to problem. Let me tell you ladies and gentlemen the carpet is getting extremely lumpy with what we're brushing under the carpet. The way successful people and I'm saying this from a Torah perspective handle life is when something comes up face face it face on deal with it. Don't say in three months in six months because it may not happen. Number seven. Number eight. You need to let go of making excuses rather than decisions. Successful people don't make excuses. They make decisions. It's very very easy to make excuses. It doesn't get help you to get to where you want to go. Number nine. You need to let go of overlooking the positive points in your life. The positive points in your life ladies and gentlemen 8.7 billion people on this planet. Out of 8.7 billion people, 0.02% are Jews. The whole world is going absolutely meshuga. You would swear that our country is the size of Australia and America together. We're not even the size of New Jersey. Okay? The idea of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, life is very rough. It's getting a lot more. But every person in this room is a diamond in the rough. You got to understand that not only are you part of the 0.2, but the fact that you're at a Project Inspire convention listening to this unbelievable lecture means that you are 10% of the 0.02, which are the people that understand why we're in this world. You people are the people Hakadosh Baruch Hu is giving the torch. You people, the people in this room, are the people Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to be relying on. I'm talking about the only way to fight anti-Semitism is not by running around Harvard with It's bringing a light to a very, very dark world. And it's by doing what you people are doing, giving up a Shabbos weekend to try and bring his orders and actus. That's exactly what's going to refute anti-Semitism. Number 10, you need to give up the notion of not appreciating this moment. It's a very big yetzer hara when people say, "You know, I'm sitting here. I could be This is exactly where you're supposed to be. Exactly where you're supposed to be." I can from doing this for many, many years. I have no clue who lands up what lecture. But many times, not once or twice, this is too many It's It's almost empirical. I've spoken to people that say, "Rabbi Goodman, I don't I I blundered into your lecture." And if you're here, you're meant to be here, and you're meant to hear something that hopefully can change your life. Hopefully you'll take these things to heart. It's The passion that I have is because not only this is what I do, but I I have such a contrast. My Your Your Your Your day job is working with some of the biggest people in the world of entertainment, sport. I don't say this with with any joy. I wish good on on everyone. But the people that the the Gen Z and pop culture are putting on a pedestal are living dysfunctional lives. I know these people. I'm their rebbe. It's ridiculous. You people in this room, the Jewish people were handpicked. The people Nachman that are in this room, they're not only handpicked, they understand that you have a GPS for life. We all know what the very final destination is. Everyone is not No one in this room is going to avoid the Chevra Kadisha. But the idea of taking some of the rule the rules that we discussed today and over the Shabbos together is just to make sure that you recalculate a lot less. You don't have to go through 27 marriages to figure out about relationships. You don't have to You don't have to And I get this all the time, but Rabbi, Plainy has got this, this, and this. And I know Plainy. Okay? Plainy's also got Tourette's syndrome. Every single thing that is happening in your life is supposed to be happening. I said to my wife, one of the most beautiful things that I I mean this from the bottom of my heart, of being a speaker on the speaking circuit, is you get to meet so many people. And when people say, "But Rabbi, I wish I could be like that person." I know that person with the blonde sheitel. You don't want to be that person with the blonde sheitel. That's the reason why when you got off the plane, those of you who don't live in New York, and you went to the turnstile, and you and you went through that conveyor belt to pick up your suitcase, you pick up your luggage. Why don't you pick up the suitcase, the baggage of the guy next to you? Everything Because it belongs to you. Your pekel, your matzav, your wife, your children, that's your baggage. And that's exactly what's tailor-made for you to have a life of of bracha and simcha, which I wish for each and every one of you. Welcome to Project Inspire. Take any questions, and thank you for listening.