Taking the "One Change Challenge" this Yom Kippur - on The Shabbat Show

[Music] is [Music] sing with me shalom [Applause] hello everybody welcome [Music] hello everybody and welcome to the next version of the shabbat show it's an honor to be back with you again it's been a long time since we were together thanks so much for tuning in thanks so much for coming back i gotta tell you i missed it i miss you i missed this i was having a conversation earlier with our all-star producer rabbi yaakov ginagru talking about the weekly grind of trying to get a show and how much we missed it we missed you we missed the opportunity to be there every single week to celebrate shabbat together celebrate the ups and the downs in the weeks together shibacho is going to continue this year it's going to be a little bit of a different form it's going to be seasonal won't be weekly and uh hopefully over time we'll see what happens with it but at least for now look out for it because it's going to be something that's going to come at you every once in a while and we will be together at least every every little bit and that we look forward to doing that we look forward to being together with you this is a very powerful show today um and the show really is is discussing the idea of the one game challenge what is the one game challenge so what's happening is we are now entering into a period of time keeper i remember years ago i was sitting at a a client sitting around a conference table and the client mentioned how he was at a personal growth retreat and he's saying how it's amazing we got there we set our goals and our values we changed our lives everyone's around the table like so enamored and i'm like i want to go to that it's like really i'm like yeah i'll go to the personal growth retreat like we're going to the seminar it's three days change your life i'm like i'm in so the client looks at me across the imagine a packed room he goes why would you go to that seminar i said i don't know i wanna i also wanna grow and change he said you're jewish he said is that what you do like isn't your whole religion growth and change he's like i had a jewish partner for most of my life he's like i don't know my holidays were margaritas and parties your holidays were like sermons about change and and treating god to put you into the good book because you're going to be better this year and reaching out to your friends and making sincere resolutions that this is going to be the next year he's like what do you have to go to seminar for he's like it's baked into your religion i'll never forget the guy next to me he was a jewish guy he doesn't no no no no he goes he goes charlie's talking about actually changing this what we do and that's we just say we're going to we don't really change now we're looking at him going like holy cow you're right we go through this period of time and god's like listen i'm not doing this for me you think i gotta like play the game and bring you in and have you like be scared of getting into some book you don't even know about because i need you to like say some prayers because i got a complex and i need you to tell me how great i am god's already joking me guys like i'm good part of being god is that you don't have a complex you're good up here i'm doing this for you you're a life you can become inmate you can go amazing in life and if you just hit the treadmill your whole life you're never gonna hit it so i stopped i stopped the year and i create a world and there's a real spiritual world with real judgment out there it's real and i keep you aware of it because i want you to realize that you gotta change you gotta grow you can be greater why don't we it's because this period of time doesn't ground us into something specific this show is about is actual change tonight we're going to do something different we're not going to give you a show of standard young kipper inspiration that's awesome hope you got it and if you didn't get it go out and get it it's gonna be different we're gonna talk about strategies for actual change because over the next 24 hours before yom kippur shows up we got to make a decision if we're serious or not we're going to go out and show god no no no no this year is going to be no it's going to actually be different the way it's different is we start to focus on one thing that's what we're going to talk about tonight one thing because if you pick one thing to change you'll change it between me and you've even paying attention over the past few months few few days there's a little voice in the back your head saying you got gotta change this thing it comes then it goes and it comes then it goes but if you're being honest with yourself we all have that one thing that we know is next that if we would just take all the clutter and hone in and take it on upon ourselves to change one thing the one challenge if we would do that we would actually change that's what we're going to talk about tonight one thing all right we got a great show for you excited for it i give special shout out to project inspire for coming back it's great to be with you radio back again um of course this week's show is dedicated sponsored as a program of the carl enoch goldman center for jewish values dedicated by jay goldman i miss saying that we appreciate your your benevolence and you being a partner in our show uh and project inspire and specifically the shabbat show is a beneficiary of dailygiving.org and i encourage everybody to go to dailygiving.org and become a daily giving member it's just one dollar a day and by giving one dollar a day you put all those dollars together they're giving thousands of dollars every single day to 40 simultaneous charities it's an unbelievable group unbelievable thing for you to get involved in check out dailygiving.org dailygiving.org and today's show is sponsored in loving memory of jamie trop allah shalom on his 12th your site by his family and friends jamie's brother by mordechai trop is the executive liaison involved in so much of what you see i spoke to him earlier about his brother and i want to turn to her by trump to say a few words about his brother i know that this show is dedicated in memory of your brother uh can you tell us a little bit about him and uh and maybe a little bit of what what you're thinking right now as the show goes on uh jamie was a um a young parent you know who left three young children behind thank god ten years later his uh his children are all grown his two daughters are married his son is uh is is learning and studying industry university and uh his wife is is remarried the family has has remained you know uh strong and uh and and has really probably grown from the the design of his his leaving the world and um you know both jamie and i and my our parents really uh are deeply connected to outreach because we all became from through ncsy back you know when we were teenagers so we very much appreciate first project inspire and all of the great outreach organizations and uh also growth small incremental growth because the way we made it to where we are today where his family is where my family is is through step by step growth i know that's the theme of the show yeah it's very much what he was you know what he was all about uh and uh and thank god that legacy you know lives on uh in his family uh today so uh we um got together some friends some family and uh and we were sponsoring this show to as a as must just passed his 12th uh yard site to uh zev eliezer ben moshe to uh to jamie trump i'm going to add one thing after putting my project spar hat on and uh that is that this show has been so incredible and uh you know if if people who are watching it you know would step up in sponsor shows or make donations on project inspired.com enable us to do that much more in project inspire at large and with these shows that could that could change project and spark and change the world so uh it's an ad advertisement a shout out to everybody's watching if everybody the thousands who are watching here all contributed in some small way according to their means that would make a great difference for all of us thank you thank you we thank you everybody trop and we wish um really for his brother and for the entire family may you have only sunkhouse and only good things may you be inscribed in the book of health happiness and all the good things so we've got a great show coming up if you stick with us all the way to the end we got kahoot i know you guys missed kahoot i know you missed code i miss code so you must have definitely missed code we got an incredible lineup of guests will be rottberg social worker chaplain and a lot more risky silver from cleveland with an amazing story how she converted how why she converted to judaism we got dr david lieberman who you know has been on the show before and is a favorite uh so he's back again in new york times best-selling uh author psychologist and we got new music videos got a lot but what we're gonna throughout the show i'm gonna keep on going back and referencing this projectinspired.com forward slash change page we're going to post it on the zoom we'll post it on the facebook page go to it if you don't if you don't if you're not on either of those twos if you're watching this later beforehand project inspire forward slash change and in there what we're going to do is we're actually there's a it's a form you fill out of the thing that you want to do and we're encouraging you to take the challenge with us we're all doing it you know it's all gonna go out and take its 21 day challenge that's the way it's going to work it's 21 days between now and october 5th 21 3 weeks a lot of mysticism and and symbolism to that number take upon yourself to do one thing for three weeks 21 days fill out the form and we'll have someone follow up with you to see how you're doing to check in with you and it'll be real don't just hear the show and be like sure i'll change one thing and then like it's too easy like oh wasn't there a thing i gotta no do it right now before you don't give her sign up say what it is welcome to your kid with a piece of paper your hand going like god not really i'm no i'm serious i signed up for the change someone's calling me in three weeks i gotta really do it now so look it up projectinspired.com backslash change and of course as always the shabbat show's got a lot of materials for you so there's a yom kippur download as well go to shabacho.com and you'll get a yom kippur download uh something you can take within you with you during your kipper the amazing remember we're on facebook we're on zoom we'd love to hear from you and give you a shout out especially uh during the kahoot time so please let us hear from you it gives us so much encouragement to know that you're there we're a family this isn't i'm not just talking to you we're talking to each other so we miss you we'd love to hear from you wish you a good year okay let's begin let's start with a short video on change from h.com check this out [Music] thank you age for that always inspiring videos just one note about challenge we're not sharing with anybody it's between you and yourself we're just holding it on and and following up with you so feel free to to join us and know that no one's gonna we're not gonna be publishing people's one change challenges on the next shabbat show this is a personal thing to you and yourself we're just facilitating it actually happening our first guest incredible individual rabbi moshe rottenberg he is the rabbi of carl zikroni jessica of thomas river new jersey he is a practicing licensed uh clinical social worker he he published a few books on medical situations and jewish law medical ethics he's a member of otsula the premier volunteer emergency medical ambulance services and a chaplain if he had nothing else to do he's also a chaplain of the new jersey fire department rabbit is an honor to have you on the show it's an honor to be on the show i mean this is really incredible to speak to the famous charlie around person it's very sweet i'm not sure where you have a minute to do anything after reading your bio i'm exhausted already and we appreciate you taking the time and you're the rabbit of a congregation which means you got a lot going on before yom kippur and it's an honor to have you on and thank you so much people are talking about change all the time and they never do it right it never and i'm sure you see it from your congregation people are rabbits can be different this year why do people generally stay the way they are why don't people change you know i got to tell you i was looking at a statistic recently it came i think from cornell university and we think about thoughts because everything starts with thoughts you know the way we think is the way we feel the way we act 95 of our thoughts are repetitive that means we are boring we rethink 95 defaults we had today we had yesterday we have tomorrow and dr lieberman will correct me as soon as he comes on if i'm wrong and of that over 80 percent of them are negative so that means that we are almost conditioned to doubt ourselves we are conditioned to be robots that we're just going to continue in the same way we've acted yesterday tomorrow and today so when people talk about change we're so used to thinking i just can't change because we think the same way and even from things we're afraid about negative thoughts of our negative thoughts 85 of them actually don't come true and other than 15 that do come true close to 80 people say it wasn't as bad as they thought so what does that mean it's mind-blowing it's great now these stats are like they should each be a meme these are awesome stats like i can stop the show right now i'm letting you know we got enough that's great stuff it's mind-boggling when you hear it like this you're you're hearing the tape in your head and not realizing that everyone's got the same tape exactly and and when we think about why we don't change of course we're conditioned not to change right we're conditioned to do the same things again and again and again and and you know we have it in bad behaviors and we have it in everything we do and same thing goes with four processes in words i'm not a type of guy that happens i don't pray it's not my thing i don't do but i haven't done chill for x amount of years it's this year i'm going to start come on who'll be full right you know tough yummy you know my shoe i wanted to promote we got to do that family we got to learn that blood every day i never did that fear me in my life and all of a sudden i'm promoting it and my wife tells me she says are you also going to do it of course not she said what are you should you're happy i'm just saying i don't got to do it someone's gotta say it someone's gotta do it you said i'm learning enough i don't gotta do it and it's now we're in the middle of bayer or uh and i'm still in it because one day i said why not why not but a lot of times it's changing that initial thought to who said this why did i accept this assumption of this belief very good it's a very strong point to not take our thoughts as being us but to take our thoughts something we can control we're talking it today and this whole show really centers around the change the one change challenge right tell me from your perspective um what one change could do well how this i'll tell you what i i i opened what i thought tell me what you think about baby steps i think when people want to change we want to get to it right away how does baby steps work and change and is there are there torah sources that support this concept you know i gotta tell you i i personally am incredible at making cabalas um i can count on one hand how many i've actually followed through with and accepting things and saying i'm going to change and i'm going to do this and i'm going to do that all these concepts the reason why very often it's not done is because we take on things which is way out of our league it's wait we're not ready for it and when we do baby steps part of it is is because practically i could stick to it so instead of picking something like oh i don't keep shabbos i'm going to keep showers for the rest of my life that's just ridiculous you cannot go from one point point a to point b that fast right so then and then there's also the psychological part that we were always we feel like failures we're disappointed with ourselves right you know i said i'm gonna concentrate the entire schwannoschweight i'm going to concentrate on every brahma i did that on on every blessing there's 18 of them all 18 i'm going to concentrate on and i realized probably about a day in that maybe i don't think it concentrated on any and i got up in front of the shoe and i said this in front of everybody to the whole congregation guys this is ridiculous we need to take things that we can actually accomplish let's pick one out of 18. so for example if somebody says i want to be more charity and you know what i really should be giving so much more money this year i'm going to give ten thousand dollars to charity one last year he gave a hundred bucks to charity it's just it's not something which is doable so number one it's psychologically it works as well when we're able to accomplish small things and notice them congratulate ourselves and realize that change is possible those small steps become reality and you know there was a there was something that cuts correctly one of the great reviews of all time he said you know that that that is the possible says that the from the hand of the strong person he says so is our so is our lives when we're young and he explains he says what does that mean when a person shoots a bow and arrow he said it's going to go you know it's going to go it's going to go exactly where you shoot it if you're off by a little bit it's going to be way off the target if you're going far enough so sometimes small changes changing our perception changing out failings about things in a small way that could sometimes be the the conduit too much bigger change because our attitude changes when the motive change is something which is possible right people i don't think people fully appreciate that when you change something the one change it it only creates a whole world of this is awesome i can change or i can actually change like all that positive inspiration that's internal starts to generate and what's nice to hear and i think it's important for people to understand that when they stand before god on yom kippur right and they're real about change god also remembers that they're human beings and so we get this sense of like okay god no really like no really because you mean it's your kipper right you're like i'm totally in i'm gonna do it and god's like okay i love it and i want you to change everything but just do me a favor like can you not come back next year like exactly the same so really it's permission that people need to allow themselves to turn before their creator and say i'm gonna change it all but i gotta start with one thing to which he's like yeah i know i made you that way it's a hundred percent and we become a new person because you're not the same person if you change one thing about yourself you're no longer the same person rabbi thank you so much for being here thank you for what you do and we appreciate it and may god bless you for an incredible year of change in in the best way possible thank you for having me you're incredible continue your great work thank you rabbi that was rabbi moshe robert and we thank you so much for joining us of all that he does remember go to project inspire forward slash change check it out on zoom or wherever else we put it on sign up walk in with the knowledge in your own kipper that you signed up for something and in 21 days you'll do it because someone's going to call you and be like hey did you do your thing maybe i don't know what it is but did you do your thing and remember also go to the shabbat show you can download the yom kippur download it'll enhance your own kipper check it out okay it's time we're going to go early to kahoot this week why not it's time for gohood man for those who are here for the first time you're in for a treat for those who've been back before who it is when we start to compete a little bit um it's just nice to hear from everybody remember go to kahoot go to cuda it's people a little rusty it's on your phone on your app on your computer 937-5117 check out kahoot we'll play the game together while we wait for the people that are going to join kahoot 937-5117 um i want you to give a kumar tov to fran hirsch of chicago to the silver family in highland park new jersey how you doing uh welcome back um to the novak family good to see you again ken winkler my brother good to see you again welcome back to um to linda thanks so much for being here tamari levy thanks so much for your kind words if tyler's back watch out for rivka tyler she's a champ in kahoot to the mandelmans are on it's great to see you and welcome back as well and it is great to see everybody coming in uh and we're looking up fallon levin is on from southfield michigan kamarutov and it's great to see you again give everybody one more minute just well ten more let's just let's just play if you're if you haven't jumped on yet just keep on going it'll be okay um all right ten more all right let's get started we can't wait we can't wait all right let's go shabbat show september 14th go 3-2-1 let's roll although we use the word cheshiva for repentance what is the literal translation to change to grow to return to believe teshuva does not mean repentance which has all these connotations of guilt and remorse and i'm not enough and all the fun stuff that we love to do walk into a place and feel like we're not enough the true actually does not mean repentance it means something else what does it mean change grow return or believe three seconds the answer is excellent everybody it's the return okay how we doing hb on top nervous family ch rachel and silver family everyone's title there's three ties by the way there are five things a person must refrain from on yom kippur which which is not one okay which is not one greeting a friend leather shoes eating or taking a shower greeting a friend leather shoes eating or showering what what can you do [Music] on yom kippur right answer is greeting a friend excellent everybody you guys are good we're quick to the draw we're accurate like commandos rachel s on the top silver edison adler's up go pats i wonder who go pats is in the mervis family okay here we go question three which of these terms originated from yom kippur fasta scapegoat bt breakfast this is a good one this is a good one whoever made these questions excellent job which of these originated from yom kippur think don't don't answer until you think fast a scapegoat bt or break fast oh this is good six seconds left think and the answer is scapegoat you all got it you all got it for those who were who weren't aware of it the goat that they pushed off the mountaintop there were two goats one was if you will going to the other side that was for our for many of our sins that's the beginning of escape goat great question project inspired team okay let's see where we are pat's on top i have a clue as to who the pets are hb chai town cpa sarah zien and the mervis family okay remember the last lap anything can happen i've seen crazy things happen on the last lap what is repentance in your kipper not atoned for what is it not a tone for pork desecrating shabbat singing nirvana in the shower or insulting another person what does it not atone for 15 seconds final question what does yom kippur not atone for pork shabbat nirvana and salting another person answer is [Music] insulting another person i think we have a lot of nirvanas yeah you it'll turn into nirvana let's see what we got here you can't insult another person you have to ask them for forgiveness ch number three good job ch welcome to the board go pats coming in at two and the winner of this show's kahoot goes to hb identify yourself hb excellent job edison adler is in a frying walk thanks so much for playing here ah viva himmelsdon and family from toronto the torontonians win we love it when our north american family wins we got such great friends and family coming in through the shabbat show from our from toronto congratulations congratulations to all of you um for for playing and number four remember is you gotta reach out to your friend and ask for forgiveness you can't wait for your kid for that okay also let's continue on to our next guest our next guest is rifky silver she is a writer a musician she writes for jewish websites and magazine she plays the clarinet and piano she co-hosts the popular normal from women's podcast she lives in cleveland with her husband and five children roofie welcome to the show thank you so much it's such a pleasure to be here i am such a fan of everything you do so i'm thrilled to be here thank you for your kind words we appreciate you being here as well tell us a little bit about can you tell us briefly your story a little bit so we get to know you a little better sure so basically i had a very standard midwestern upbringing like picture a house in the suburbs with 2.5 kids that was my childhood i went to excellent public schools i also did church growing up because we were not jewish like no one was jewish we were just regular christian midwesterners and my life went on just a total normal trajectory when after high school i went to college after college i graduated i moved back home i got an entry level job at a law firm and i started you know adulthood which i found profoundly um underwhelming i was like this is what i've been rushing to grow up my whole life for it's very anticlimactic so i was having like this quarter life crisis strangest phenomenon started happening to me people started coming up to me and asking me if i was jewish so it happened first when i was outside my office building there was this guy i would schmooze with sometimes and one day he asked me so what temple do you go to and i said i don't i love that so awesome right and then um another time i was at a coffee shop just minding my own business and a guy came up to me and he was like are you secular or religious i didn't even understand what the question meant this is great you should go to h.com and i was like you should maybe go away right right and then i was in a bar and a german exchange student came up to me and apologized for the holocaust oh it's great and you can't make this up and i said it's okay and he said it's not okay and i said you're right it's it's very not okay right i'm not the person to apologize to so it happened for months it was so so weird and i was having lunch with my mom at some point during this and i said to her hey ma it's so weird people keep asking me if i'm jewish and she said yeah that happened to my mom all the time and i was like excuse me what and then on top of all of this i found like a whole stack of genealogical records in my basement and like all the way back off my mother's line to the family who came from europe in the 1800s and what was their name it was kramer and there were millers and there were newmans and i was like oh my gosh oh my gosh we're such jews oh my gosh there's that one guy who said i should go to h.com i was like well if i'm jewish i should like know what that's about right so i went to age.com and my mind was blown like right i so i mean i stopped being religious in college but growing up i learned about the golden rule you know treat others the way you want to be treated be nice but as i grew up i was like you know life is pretty complicated i need a little bit more to go on than just being nice and here on h.com i was reading how the torah had literally instructions for how to deal with all of this all of these interpersonal relationships that had very detailed guidance and not just for interpersonal relationships for like literally anything that would ever happen in a person's life happy stuff difficult stuff life cycle stuff personal development holidays like literally everything was there i was i was like i just stumbled across like literally the directions for how to live the most amazing fulfilled meaningful deep amazing life i just thought for a second could you stop for a second it is so good to hear this and i want to tell you why when you grow up with it you don't appreciate it at the level that you when you stumble upon it the way you do it's no one's fault it's just how it is right when you inherit things it becomes why are you telling me what to do when you're coming at it from someone who's a little bit of an older perspective like older than four and you start getting this stuff as it's amazing to just hear you say it even though i believe it just i'm going to tell you i'm enjoying hearing you say it like wait guys someone's telling you how to live an amazing life like no one's getting in your business right they're giving you instructions this is like great stuff right and all you have to do to access it is just be jewish that's all you need to do so when so when i was like totally falling head over heels in love with judaism i was also coming to the very unfortunate realization that all of those creamers and millers and newmans in my family tree they were all very devout lutherans they're all buried in lutheran cemeteries not a jew among them no sign of anyone ever being jewish that's shocking out of all those jewish names really they were all lawyers and doctors and none of them were jewish i don't think they were even lawyers and doctors but gosh i know so i was really like oh so what do you do right that was my question i like i knew on one level that you know converting to judaism was like i guess a possibility but it was so outlandish to me i didn't know anyone who had done that i didn't even know anyone who was actually even religious in real life you know i was just reading about it on the internet but at the same time like i just couldn't imagine just going back to my nine-to-five job just going back to this very underwhelming adulthood that i was experiencing well knowing that there was like this amazing treasure just right over here it was right there i just couldn't walk away so i mean long story short i picked up the phone i called my local asia tour branch i got invited for a friday night dinner by a very i'm sure confused rabbi who was wondering why this random non-jewish person was calling him but as soon as he saw you like oh you look jewish i'm sure you're doing it right and um whatever i took that first friday night and then i went back the next week and then i just kept moving forward and that was that was about 16 years ago i love it so this is great and this is what yo this is so young kipper all of what we're doing is like the story so this is this is the this is the example right you're i'm sure when you first jumped in whatever that pool was the friday night the conversion you were like i want in and i'm sure you were met with oh welcome to judaism here's four bajillion things you have to do and there's another form of joy you didn't even know about because it's not even the rules right it's just how we roll you know i'm saying like and how did you process change at such a level in which you're able to acclimate to judaism which is such an intricate religion how did you do it mentally well i remember very i mean it's a great question i remember thinking very distinctly at the very beginning wow i am never going to be bored there is always that's true i'll tell you that much you know and to just like because it is because there is a lot i just focused on one thing at a time and i would just learn one thing at a time and then i would learn another thing and yeah like we've been saying you know literally one thing at a time you can't do it all so just start with one thing and i found also on the not being bored thing it's like i you know something i learned when i was 25 i'll learn it again now that i'm not 25 and i learned the same thing in a completely new way it's like even the things i know they become new it's just endlessly like an endless well of treasure that's an important point and i know that we gotta wrap up in a second but i i just wanna double click on what you just said because it's very it's very astute i want people to hear it one thing at a time doesn't mean you're done it means you're just focused on one thing at a time you can go back and when you go back then you get it deeper right this is a big aspect when you study talmud there's a concept called hazara which is keep on going back and when you talk about life we don't have to feel embarrassed that we're working on the same thing year after year as long as we're actually working on the same thing year after year we're actually getting better let me ask you one more question now you are where you are and you are who you are so if you would go back and speak to you that first i guess meal by the ace rabbi what would you tell yourself knowing what you know now what the other you're still growing every day god bless but like where you are in your growth trajectory is much different than starting when you look back at the beginning what would you tell yourself i would say slow down it's a relationship not a race and right the process the process is just as important as the goal i was very goal-oriented at that point and i was like gotta keep calm okay gotta keep shutting but i forgot that getting there is really also very important yeah yeah excellent well thank you so much for joining us i how do people watch your story do you have it anywhere online that i can just we can or speak do you speak do you go around to communities or yeah i do i do sometimes yeah and i've written it up on mishpochah.com you can find it also i've written it up a few different ways okay people have to i gotta it's great it's really wonderful and great i'm so happy you're officially part of our people and i'm so happy you are who you are and we thank you for being on the show thank you so much okay all the best and thank you so much that was rifki silver that was great and so many great insights just i want just before you want the next point like mail this right go to go to project inspire change and do this one thing just own it one thing 21 days how long is 21 days it's a minute it's october 5th right it's like by the time we're done with all the food over circus it's october 5th next time you go back to work is october 5th right how long is it take one thing focus on it and own it go into god be like listen one thing i got this but i'm going to really do this look look at one individual one individual who that uncovers the beauty of judaism look what she could accomplish she changed her whole life around look what we can do it's amazing what we can do it's great all right everybody remember download the the uh yom kippur downloaded project at shabbat show.com um we're now i want to share now an incredible music video i saw this earlier i was really taken by it came out five days ago and it has gone viral it's called i need you now from a film called desperate measures the backstory is the singer's going through his own challenge changes and improvements in the challenges that go along with it i'm talking to his mother she wrote this song for her son and the abduce of the film liked it so much he made it the theme song for the movie here is this incredible video i need you now by yosef ginger check this out [Music] so i look around and trying to find you there they say you are you can see and hear but times like this i need much more than faith that's blind me to see to believe to feel you in my heart and mind but how do i keep from falling up my eyes i need you now to hold me close when i'm so far you show me how to make it through bring me close to you now to hold me close to find the truth we shall be high to see your life [Music] and when i make mistakes and feel alone help me forgive myself and still come home they say it passes it's face and soon i'll recognize but how do i keep from falling up to hold me close when i'm so far please show me how to make it through bring me close to you now [Music] please don't let me fall [Music] [Applause] i need you now to hold me close when i'm so far please show me how to make it through bring me close to you now to hold me close to find the truth please [Music] don't let me fall now's when i need you most of all [Music] wow that is one talented kid his parents should be so proud of him incredible incredible incredible message what a story a little voice wow wow wow wow okay our next guy getting like a minute to pause from that you know what i'm saying our next guest is a fan favorite of me personally i'm a huge fan and of the show he's been rocking the show i think more than once but every time every time he comes on we get like tons of comments about how awesome it was he is dr david lieberman he's a legendary leader in the field of human behavior interpersonal relationships 11 published books i said that right i did 11 published books two new york times bestsellers translated to 27 language selling more than three million copies dr lieberman welcome to the show hey charlie thank you so much it is awesome to have you on happy to have you back and gemar has over to you and your family amen we're talking about change and i want to talk about something we've been talking about focusing on one thing but what i want to delve in with you is the idea of willpower and how does it work because we get inspired and we're ready to roll and then it's not like we don't want to change it's not going to wake up the next morning like i was kidding people don't wake up that is what i'm like god by the way i just want to get into the book now that you shut the book like you know the gates are closed like gotcha right it's like where am i where did my strength go where did my discipline go how do we understand it and maximize it to change such a good question so look we all have a self-concept as a self-image of how we see ourselves and just fundamentally the reason why change is so difficult is because a person is driven to act congruently consistently with how they see themselves and we have what's called a personal narrative a story that we tell ourselves why we do what we do where we've come from and where we're going and that narrative needs consistency so if i make a change in my life even if it's for the better i now have to revisit who i am so for the the a person it becomes or can become an existential threat meaning if this is who i am this is what i do if i do something else who am i that's a very legitimate question right you know if this is me then then who am i so fundamentally that's why change can be difficult but it's important to remember that change is inevitable well maybe except for a vending machine but change is inevitable but growth is optional in other words things are going to change we think that you know what if i just decide you know to make a change or not uh you know i can keep things going there's not this villainous explains there's no such thing as a status quo you either growing or dying you're living or decaying so things are going to be different tomorrow they're going to be different the next day and so on maybe gradually incrementally but sometimes you know you get hit with a wallop so would it just be nice and which is good as the point about willpower in your question is to be able to steer that change and direct it in the direction of growth now when it comes to willpower we've been sold a a lot of huey in terms of malarkey i don't know what the word is anymore we've installed a bill of goods on what will power is and it's 99 wrong mama it is incredible which is why we see that people are just not effective it will power the fuel of willpower or self-discipline comes from the engine of self-esteem meaning if i like me i respect me i want to invest in me if i don't like me i'm not going to want to invest in me and that much makes sense you had mentioned before when you're talking to rifky about you know you inherit something you don't necessarily appreciate it that's quite true and also that if you get something that you don't appreciate how much energy time money heartache are you going to put into it you get a car a bicycle a new object whatever it is if you don't look at it and appreciate it you're not going to want to invest in it so fundamentally the engine of self-discipline or willpower comes from the interest the desire to invest in who we are so when a person is this it's this is fascinating so many things you said i wanted to follow up on but let me see if i can remember it all just for a second let me just make two comments first is what a great concept that i wanna make sure everybody realizes changes happen in whether you like it or not right and just like i'm even like as you're saying i'm thinking like think of like oneself as a tree right it actually actually the cause i'll teach us like a man it's kind of like a person a tree it has there's similarities in that there's growth the tree's gonna grow and change every single season like it's not an option it's just life and just understanding that's critical like just understanding that wait change isn't an option right that's happening whether i'm directing it or not is a different story but that now changes the game to not if i'm going to change it's how and when so that was awesome and that was just the beginning of your answer right that wasn't even your answer that was on the show on the way to the answer but i want people to understand that that's an incredible piece but i want to double click on this self-esteem thing so what you're saying is like this if i really believe in myself i really appreciate myself if i really want if i if i feel in a way positive to my future then i'm going to want to change and i'm going to then be able to find willpower that i would not have found it's there but for that perspective that's right that's right that's right and you know when you talk about believing in yourself the in the cahoots game one of the questions was about chuva which means to return so if we want to return to our pristine selves we can't be me ish we can't have given up on who we are otherwise there's you know there's no there's no fear to raise an obligation to return it so we have to tap in to the majesty the beauty the incredible aspect of shama and be driven by our potential what we can become because we make a mistake in ourselves and in relationships that we think that we move forward from negativity if you beat someone up enough they're just going to go ahead and they'll eventually get it it doesn't work we scream at ourselves sometimes enough we use awful language and we literally yell i can't believe that was so dumb i can't believe that's not how you move forward you move forward from self-compassion from appreciation from acknowledgement about who you are your majesty your greatness and then there are a number of things we can speak about how to galvanize that willpower because will power can be an unbridled force you need to go ahead and focus it like a laser beam and move forward in that way because otherwise it becomes like a flashlight in daylight and it just gets scattered so let's do that because i know that time is running out i don't want to i have a comment what you said but i don't want to waste that time tell me tell us how to galvanize because let me just make my comment in two seconds all right because i don't want to miss it the this is important i find because as you're saying i'm thinking when you come to um kipper and you have that like i'm not good enough stuff that i don't know if you got but i got as a kid like you're not good enough like maybe you'll make it to the bad book maybe or the middle book but like can you stop at the good book like for a second like when you have that perspective of i am not beloved in god's eyes in this room like this whole experience is meant for the right person in the beard in the front regular normal people we're just trying to get by so what i'm hearing you say is that mentality versus you are beloved god wants you in the room and wants you to change because he believes in you just the mentality of i'm not versus i am will impact your ability to actually make any change that's right that's right that's right it is a mindset shift and like rabbi robert spoke about about how 80 of the things that we think about are negative and our lives end up becoming filled with tragedies that never actually happen not just in terms of how we move through our day but if we can our inability to recognize hashem's love for us stems ultimately from our inability to recognize our own greatness and have love for ourselves because we assume that if i'm so rotten why would hashem love me if i'm not worthy of love why would hashem do anything for me so when we're able to tap into our majesty instantly we connect and recognize hashem loves us as if we were and only his only child our inability to see his love for us is our limitation his love for us is there our ability to receive it it is what needs to be shifted and that's exactly the mindset wow that's amazing that's an amazing piece let's do one more because you're you're knocking us over over here uh galvanized tell us how to galvanize the willpower okay so number of steps number one is you have to have a clearly defined goal number two is you know you have this uh great thing where people go ahead and write down their goals you can triple a success rate if they put down a penalty attached to it the reason is because human beings live by deadlines and penalties you think about coupons companies spend billions of dollars in advertising you figure they'd say whenever you get to using my product clip it and buy it no expires in two weeks 10 days why is because we are inherently lazy unless there's a motivation unless there's a clearly defined deadline limitation we do not take action so you need that clearly defined goal which you have two is a time frame we don't run the world we don't run our lives but we do make decisions and there's something called parkinson's law which basically says that tasks expand or contract depending on how much time you give for it which is why you can be rushing up the shabbos in the summer when you've got maybe a couple extra hours than you do in the winter it's not like you're sitting around reading the magazine and having lemonade you know two hours before skia it's because hats that are elastic expand or contract so when you give an actual time frame a limitation a a boundary around the goal you're able to bring into your purview your dollar amis the something called a chicken activating system short short uh psychological brief here is that it hones in on what's significant so if you give something a shorter time frame you're going to be able to galvanize and pull in from your world all different types of resources that you need that you never would have seen if you didn't have this necessity and third is that penalty look you know the taxes come around every april 14th and you see lines around the post office if there were no penalty attached to it there wouldn't be the lines so if you add it to that list there what are you willing to do if you don't hit this goal you're going to find compliance rate goes off the roof that's amazing that's amazing doctor thank you so much for joining us thank you for your wisdom as always you're great hope that people will take your there's so many nuggets here that that i think really can shift someone's entire yum kipper now we appreciate it and uh maybe you have a wonderful year a good convention jordan only good things amen demarcus and matilda be well charlie all the best thank you so much all the best that was dr lieberman what an incredible incredible individual and i i don't want to forget his insights here how you see yourself walking in and being able to accept if you will uh the god's love all the pieces that he went through growth is happening don't forget what he said that was great at the end we said put the penalty on because it'll make it happen but remember this one change challenge right it'll galvanize one change 21 days i got to do it i got no choice what'll happen is when you can show yourself you can change it will create a positive growth in your change capacity you will start to remind yourself that you are good at changing you will start to realize that you can do it it's not just the thing that you're doing right it's that you can change maybe that's what it's really all about and maybe this is what what yom kippur is really all about you know kipper really is not from what i've learned today of judgment that was rosh hashanah from kippur's day of forgiveness today where moses came down with the tablets and god says we're back together again it's not a day where i'm judging the jewish people today where i'm forgiving the jewish people it's an opportunity that we have to connect to god in a way that we can never connect the whole year we're not ourselves we're angels we get rid of the physical world for 25 hours and we can connect and think and dream in ways that we can never otherwise but maybe all of this is because god is reminding us that we've got a whole life ahead and there's so much that we can accomplish let's walk in with something together walk into your own kipper with something that's the back of your head that you got to change you know you got to change welcome and say god i'm going to connect to you in a deep way but i got to tell you before i do just one thing i'm i'm serious this year i'm serious this year i'm gonna do this i'm gonna change something you'll be a different person one percent by october so i'll give you a challenge for the challenge fill out the form i'll give you one more forward it to one person that you'll do it with maybe if somebody didn't watch the show do it with somebody do it together find the partner three weeks let's make a difference let's create real change on the show let's let's turn a show from being just content into being something that we could all together grow with with that i want to wish each and every one of you an incredible year may our young kippers be filled with connection depth may our years be filled with blessings and symbols and only good things you know i hope that the next time we do this show we can do it live in jerusalem but if not i hope we get to see you again soon i miss being here and i miss seeing you and i hope i get to see you again soon so on behalf of me and mine to you and yours i wish you an incredible year that you be inscribed in the book of life and may we together have a year filled with the most incredible wonderful year that we can ever dream of [Music] oh [Music] pick you up and if you feel like you're outnumbered [Music] you