R' Chanan Gordon Reaching Your Full Project Inspire Convention 2023

uh what he's holding you back from reaching your full potential so I want to I want you to picture the scene it was a beautiful day in 1977. Laura Schultz was in Tallahassee in Florida at the time Laura was 68 years old you're sitting in the kitchen of her home in Tallahassee in Florida and she heard the goggling scream of her grandson she realized that there is his voice that his his Screech and he was clearly beseeching with a sound that can that hits the kishkas she looked outside the window and Laura Schultz saw her grandson pinned underneath the car what happened if anyone knows the story they should apparently someone had parked the car in the driveway with obviously the handbrake that wasn't pulled up a little kid was playing behind the car and lo and behold this kid found themselves pinned underneath a huge Lincoln Continental Laura Schultz did not think twice she sprung into Judy no consideration of any limitations or barriers she took the call with her one and hand one arm she lifted up the car and she saved her grandson's life that's not the freaky part the freaky part is that every single major news Network and television station in America called Laura Schultz this is a terrific thing 68 year old woman saves the life of a grandchild this is all the ingredients for a phenomenal story she wouldn't take a single call she didn't respond to the major Network shouldn't responded to any of the major newspapers months went by in fact almost a year went by until she finally fielded a call from Dr Charles Garfield who's a well-known life coach and obviously the first thing that Dr Garfield said that Mrs shorts this is a terrific thing you saved your grandson's alive what's the embarrassment why would you not possibly want to fill the call we can share this with the world you're the hero so she said something which I would like to repeat because it sets the tone for our discussion this evening and something that is a thesis throughout the Torah which many people don't focus on she said the following she said after she lifted up a huge car at the age of 68. she started thinking what other things in her life did she have potential for that she didn't actualize she never realized of course that you could lift up a car with a single arm and at that moment in time with her tremendous insights and life sagacity she realized that imagine if I can I didn't realize I could lift up a single car what else is there in my journey called life that I thought I could never do and I built around limitations the concept of breaking out of limitations that the the notion of achieving greatness is a thesis which is which is permeated throughout Torah the importance of things in the Torah is often learned from the context who was the first Jew what was the very final test supposedly according to Muslim before him of the test of avram avinu The Binding of Yitzhak what happened at the end of The Binding of Yitzhak avram's son who at the time he was about to sacrifice his son a bus call came out from shamayam and said avraham why the repetition of avraham's name then before she say something very clearly and it's an unbelievable concept and it's something that I would like you to all internalize and take home with you and when you pack your bags tomorrow and that is the the the bus call from Sherman was saying the avraham down here had reached his potential up there and the goal in this journey called life is to actualize our potential and every single person sitting here in Madison Square Gardens for the sake of the television is has a is destined for absolute greatness and it's one thing that a Jew no single or Jew is wired for mediocrity if I went around to the room he had I said would you like to just cruise through life and be a c minus no Jewish National is wired like that and therefore very early on the protagonist the first patriarch of our religion the bus call is teaching us that avraham down here there have become avraham he had finally finally actualized his potential by being Ahmed bunny signed by actualizing by the final test of the ten tests of avraham so is the concept of breaking out of limitations is the concept of reaching greatness an important concept it's one of the fundamental reasons why we are put in this world so if we look at the topic for that's been given here in Project Inspire 2023 what is holding you back from Reaching Your Potential I'm going to try and summarize it into Five Points why is it that people in this room who are destined for greatness can potentially come to the end of this journey and and at best have a silver or bronze medal reason number one that people don't real actualize their potential or don't push Beyond limits is number one is the lack of knowledge meaning the the lack of understanding Who You Are I have never understood in all my many years of speaking and involved in many areas of cultural why this is a topic that's not taught more in the Yeshiva World there's not a single Fortune 5500 company that doesn't have a mission statement Microsoft Google everyone or everyone in that company knows why that company was incorporated and understands why they are in business why do we not each have a mission statement why are you in this world I have spoken at every single conference we go around what anybody says but Rabbi it's for the Tariq mix that's fantastic but why you did you choose your parents did you choose the color of your eyes did you choose your IQ obviously you were given a unique situation and that is part of the hints that Almighty is given to you as to why you were put in this world not everyone was put into this world for the same reason and that's the beauty of the fact that every single one of us has a completely different tough kid in this world I said to someone one of the reasons that if you see a balkira laning and often you hear the balcony stops and you see someone running up to the clef and if they see two ICS two of the letters touching it's Apostle ciphero why because number four should teach us that every single one of us every single Jew is a ice is a is one of the letters of the Torah if two are touching it shows they're not unique and it's Apostle say for Torah we all unique and you have to figure out what's your unique mission in this world it said very very clearly in Missouri I'll leave the sodium for for later and let's let's make this practical tonight how do I know what my mission is I'm going to give you a few exercises because people can write people can do somersaults we don't know and this is going to be practical ways that you can figure out what your mission is in this world because if you come to the end of this journey called life and you're going to be asked if you actualize your potential you're going to be asked whether avraham will you Hanan will you Rifka and this is the way you have to figure it out you have to take some time and think about around figuring out your self-knowledge I'm going to give you some ideas through many years of speaking at different events and different workshops here's one concept some of you might know Robert Arya Nevin who does a similar workshop on figuring out yourself your mission in life just two questions think of in your life five of the most pleasurable moments in your life where you were just in the zone we just you didn't want the moment to end and I'm saying that in a way that's that's more than visceral it's a moment in your life usually often when a person just feels that they thought they they satisfied a certain project under the hook or whatever that is that that's telling you something number two if if you think if you inherited a billion dollars and or if there was five more hours in the day how would you spend the money and how would you spend your time let me say that again if I wired you a billion dollars tomorrow and uh we were we were able to do a cosmology astrological or nice and there were five more hours in each day how would you spend the money and how would you spend the extra five hours and be honest with yourself that's very telling as to what your mission is in this world same kind of concept I'm just giving you some ideas of how to figure out what your mission statement is because self-knowledge is one of the reasons why people don't read reach their potential they go through life blundering around and looking at the guy next to him and suffering from fomo some ideas in terms of how you figure out what your mission is if you knew you couldn't fail what would you do question number two what do you enjoy talking talk the most he's a very telling existential introspective ideas and you just got to be brutally honest yourself these are some of the exercises that you can figure out why your unique assault was ascended to this world what have you struggled with most in your life I've spoken to many people and they feel that there's something that keeps repeating in their life that's not mikra that's not coincidence that's part of the taken of your unique nashoma what is your fantasy about saving the world is there anything that comes to mind if you knew you weren't going to fail money wasn't a problem no constrictions I want you to start thinking about these ideas here's something I'm gonna give to each and every one of you before you leave it's really a an idea developer one of my teachers of Yark of wine because that's all who is Russia who's the review of North Weinberg three Olympic circles right think of three Olympic circles in Circle Number One and I can email this to you and again this is as close to foolproof and I've done this many times again there's no right or wrong just be honest with yourself in Circle Number One list five activities that you're good at and this is not a time to be falsely humble everyone's good at something we all have certain gifts right Circle number one five activities that you are good at Olympic Circle and number two make a list of five things that you most enjoy doing the most enjoyable activities so five things that you're good at Circle Number Two is five things that are activities that you most enjoy the third circle the third circle is what you can do to improve the world where those three circles coexist that's your mission in this world I'm gonna email us to people as much too complicated to do in a much sharpness with people looking like you know post challenge one Circle five things that you like to do the five the five things that you're gifted at five things that are most enjoyable one way you can one certain thing that you can improve the world where the three circles come together like this that is your mission in this world I want you to think about it again I'm going to email this is so much material to get through but question but Point number one is to why people don't reach their potential is because they don't know why they're here point two point two why people don't reach their potential in this world you need to know watch here and now at project Inspire 2023 you cannot be the following two things these two things are binary they're mutually exclusive you cannot be both you cannot be great and be comfortable very scary because the secular World talks about Comfort talks about cruising talks about but that's antithetical to the way who wired us and we know that because there's no thing there's no word in the Torah called retirement because if you go to Hawaii with pina colada and you sit in the sun off to day number three you're going out of your mind the idea of being comfortable and being great is completely antithetical to Torah if you want to be great it's going to be painful if you want to grow you cannot possibly cruise and think you're going to be an air-conditioned Tesla for the rest of your life the times in your life where it's the most painful when you are going through the most vicissitudes that's when you're growing the most so let's talk about this from the way our College world who created the the the human psyche fight or flight right they're going to be times in your life where you are outside your comfort zone there's basically three F's fight Freeze or flight I remember this training as a hotel person at the end of the day it's much more comfortable it's much more comfortable to to just flight I want to Overlay this with what what RAV Desta says Yahoo and I spoke to a lot of the people about the concept of what you feel like is your body what you want is your noshoma so hopefully through some of the stuff we're going to talk about tonight figure about what you want what do you you turn 97 the chocolate cake comes out your significant honest your significant others on your right your families on your left your buddies all around the boom mic like this goes around what do you want them to be saying about you what do you want that's your legacy what do you want them now we cut that down into little pieces you want to be I just finished a a thing called realize can run there's like 40 rabbis we ran a marathon to raise money do you honestly think that after running for a few miles at schmuck I'll I started looking for an Uber I was going out of my mind you hit a certain wall right what do you want I really wanted to get in the best shape of my life and I felt bad because people gave me money today for charity what do you what did I feel like I felt like just walking away taking Gatorade and Calling it Quits what are you well that's how I felt what do you want I want greatness I want to be honest I want to take every one of my sponsors and say I just finished the marathon you want to be a tomahawkem tomorrow morning when the alarm goes off at four o'clock what do you feel like you feel like hitting that snooze button so fast that you can't say but what do you want you need to focus on your life of what you want you'll achieve greatness if you recalibrate your life onto what you want and not what you feel like what your feedback is going to be your animalistic it's going to be pulling down you're tired I know you're tired it's tough I know it's tough great people celebrate their lives onto what they want as opposed to feel like that's more in confidence within a genre so Point number two is understand that if you want to achieve greatness if you want to achieve your mission in this world it's going to be painful and you need to follow you know Sharma not your goof let me ask you the following every Friday night right we bench our sons and daughters what do we say when we avenge our daughters they should be like they should be like our Matrix right why don't we say that they should be like Jessica and Jennifer who went to live eating school they marry this good looking jock from the they're now living in Connecticut with a white picket fence they've got a penthouse in the world of Astoria because that's not why we hear our boys saying if you look at the lives of our Patriarchs and our Matrix they had tough tough lives do you have any idea what kind of a life dominant had the Mahaba of to Helen great people focus and they stay on what they want and they don't calibrate their life to what they feel like because the natural proclivity of following what you feel like is to become a victim and to ask questions like why and you will never ever achieve greatness if you're following the natural feelings of it's tough I'm hot I feel you've got to surmount the the body and focus on it's not easy things on the mashoma so the first reason why people don't read greatness is they don't know who they are we spoke about developing a mission statement we went through some guarded exercises some questions I gave you the Olympic three flags which I'm happy to email you the second thing we said is that most people want to be comfortable and greatness requires you to be to follow what you want not what you feel like the third reason that people don't reach their greatness which is one of the reasons why you put in this world is to achieve what you're supposed to be is to actualize your potential is and people unfortunately use things like excuses or they use victim mentality right I spoke about this once before how many times have we been at uh discoveries what workshops came and someone comes with Podium that was amazing they're fantastic I didn't understand your accent but it sounded great but you don't understand I'm I'm too old so it's a beautiful piece that I'm great I think earlier in one of the talks is it dear I don't know if anyone's around from the days of the dear Abbey column remember the Abbey column so the real Abby is a Jewish woman who lived in Iowa it's a beautiful pieces someone wrote a piece into Abby and said I am X years old I've always wanted to go to medical school but I figured that if I go to medical school seven years from now I'll be 43. listen to Abby Sans it's beautiful she said in seven years from now if you don't go to Middle School how old will it be it's gonna be 43. right this is a life dream excuses is usually a one of the voices of The Miser Sutton of the eight Sahara be careful oh when you're here successful people don't make excuses that make things happen the other thing that I always hear is if only I didn't do this Rabbi you don't understand what happened in the past I completely messed up my life I probably had that once a day so I'm gonna tell you from a Torah perspective there's no such a thing as messing up your life firstly there is a gift that we have all been given that was in the world even before the world was created and that's called truva I mentioned in the talk before in the next world it's very very clear that you're going to see the movie of your life panoramic movie of your life and you're going to be sitting there with buttered popcorn and a Diet Coke and you're going to be sitting there within astronomers who've already left this world and there are going to be scenes in the movie that you want to chalish and jump under the seats and hit that root run to the exit right here tonight what's the Shabbos project inspired 2023 you have the you have the full control as to whether you see the cut or the uncut version the way you see the cut version is something called chuva there's something that all of us have done in this in our journey called life that we wish we didn't do that we fallible human beings and we made a mistake there was a misjudgment if you walked in tonight and you have made no mistake and your life is perfect speak to me authors we'll go into therapy we'll talk about on the site it's impossible who created us as not malachim we are fallible human beings and life is tough the idea of looking back on your past and saying I could have would have should have I think I mentioned to someone I spoke I think it was gateways one year and a woman came up to me afterwards crying her eyes out and I literally could not get a word in I couldn't get to speak to this woman I'm trying to I'm going to give her some three minutes and all I heard was and he did this Rabbi and he was listening I'm just being very patient I'm trying six minutes into this diatrop she she finally realized that she was talking about her ex-husband that she divorced 21 years ago so she's been living with a hand breaker for 21 years you've got to bury the past otherwise the past will bury you we are not in this world to live life in the area view mirror that is one of the classic classic tricks of the yatesa horror your job in this world is to achieve greatness the mice is sadness is an iteration of the Malachi Mavis and what he wants you to do is to sit like a zombie and say what a schmendrick I am look what I did when that voice comes into your head you you can assure yourself that that's not a positive thing there's almost no positive action that will come out of guilt we make jokes about Jewish guilt guilt as a general rule does not come from a good place I've unfortunately had too much I've seen the movie too many times with someone married someone and at the end of the day I get this I get this call at ravindly speech alone I know exactly what's coming he she I married I just felt bad I mean we have been dating for all the invitations were already out what are supposed to do it's never a reason it's never a reason to make a life decision and guilt is usually connected to something that happens in the past okay so number one we said understand your life mission and number two we said and follow what you want not what you feel like and number three we said stop living with excuses and being a victim and usually if only I did this if only I was older number four I come from South Africa there's two major kinds of elephants in the world there's the African elephant which I know a little bit about and there's an Indian Elephant so here's how when an African element which is a bull van right this thing is like you can take out Village Art when an African elephant is born in order to make sure that this little puppy elephant doesn't rip the village out what they do in large parts of tribes in Africa is they take a little rope and they put it around the elephant's head and they put a peg into the ground as this elephant this cute little elephant grows up to be this enormous Beast same thing when the elephants done their work and it's usually transport whatever what do they do they take the elephant little rope around its head and they put the Rope into the ground tap it in the peg the elephant doesn't move the elephant's been hardwired to think because it's a little baby he couldn't move and that's metastasized in his mind eye and he thinks he cannot move he can pull that pig out quicker than you can pull out dental floss and rip through every single Village the idea the idea of creating restrictions is something that we all do and that's the notion of self-sabotaging I'm going to give you some of the 11 signs of whether you self-sabotage if you are 11 out of 11 we need to speak poverty afterwards as well number one if you avoid people in situations that make you uncomfortable number two if you stay within your comfort zone and avoid any kind of change you're probably a few of these things but if you're all 11 we need to speak also number three setting goals that are too low to make sure that you're successful number four creating conflict with romantic Partners or loved ones or friends or co-workers number five trying to control others number six attempting to gain others approval if you live in the world of fomo we need to talk number seven keep making excuses these are the initial the signs of self-sabotage number eight taking actions that don't match your values and goals and number nine continue comparing yourself to other people and number 10 social withdrawal isolation number 11 doing crazy risky Behavior if you are 11 out of 11 that is a good certain shows that you have a proclivity self-sabotage okay I want to fly to the very Point number five is negative thinking tomorrow I'm speaking about a book that became a cult book called a secret the secret was the book that launched the concept of the law of attraction The Law of Attraction if if those those people understand what this whole cult thing is about is that your prominent thoughts you can make your head into a magnet and your prominent of thought can pull in and can actualize and make things happen we're going to discuss whether that's a Jewish concept how important is the is positive thinking so when we all know trust Goods or design good if you think good is that a Jewish concept is that a Torah concept a power or positive thinking so again I don't want to preempt the talk tomorrow but the idea of whatever you if you have a certain thought you can make yourself into a magnet is not a Torah concept that's making yourself the center of the universe instead of but the power of thoughts is a very clear powerful Torah idea because thoughts thoughts effectual emotions factual actions you are not responsible for a thought coming into your mind but you are responsible to reject that thought if it's inappropriate now I'll give you so the contrast is a booklet that comes out on the nine tricks of the eight Sahara if a voice comes to you and it's completely negative you're listening to an unbelievable literature in Stanford Connecticut for example and the thought comes to you which is for sure going to put you in a bad mood right you think of the mortgage you think what okay if you start engaging in their thoughts and get into this discussion you're done that is for sure the voice of the Citra of the other side here's what you're supposed to do when that thought comes into your mind and the goal of that thought is to pull you down and make you have us feel depressed and not in a good place assume it's not coming from a good place if you and it says it's very clear inspiring what you're supposed to do is say to that voice which if there's any shrinks in the audience basic cognitive behavior therapy is to say it's a fantastic idea that you think that I'm so-and-so let's discuss it in about an hour and you keep kicking their can down the street and you're going to take away the power of that thought as soon as you engage in that idea I cannot tell you how many hassanim and I get calls from between the engagement and the marriage Rabbi I need to speak to you I've got to break this thing off I mean and I start drilling down as to the reason why he's breaking this thing off he doesn't even know himself the one of the hardest times in the life of a national is between engagement and marriage it's an unnatural time okay this is a time where two nashamas who brought down to this world are coming together and during this this is beneficence this is a limbo period it's extremely fertile time for the mice are Saturn to mess with your head and he's going to say things to you which are crazy don't engage in those discussions that's for people who are not engaged if you get these weird thoughts as soon as you engage in that you're done so that once again thoughts affect emotions effect actions I want to make this more of a discussion so what I've done is I've summarized 10 things that all of you need to let go of if you want to move forward and reach your potential in this journey called life number one you need to let go of the opinions of others controlling your life what other people think of you is none of your business let me repeat that 10 rules 10 things that you need to let go of in order to reach your potential number one you need to let go of the opinion of other others controlling your life number two you need to let go of the shame of past failures I think we some of you guys were in the room when I spoke a couple of days ago of someone who failed in every single possible way as a kid growing up in Europe he couldn't speak until the age of four he couldn't write until the age of seven he was expelled from elementary school at the age of 13. his principal said he's mildly today you know him as Albert Einstein or perhaps you know of a cartoonist that dreamed of becoming a cartoonist for a newspaper and tried for every single possible newspaper and failed and failed and failed and eventually he was so financially Indigent not a penny to his name that he knocked on the door of the priest of the church and he said I don't even have a roof over my head the preset at the very least I can do is you can sleep in the farm Barn at the back of the church he went to the farm barn and on a stack of hay that night a little mouse came out of the corner of the farm barn and he sketched that Mouse you people know that Mouse today is Mickey Mouse and that person is Walt Disney or perhaps you know a woman who grew up and was was terribly molested emotionally and physically and she dreamed of being a talk show host and her first edition at the age of 13 is the the producer said get off the stage you have absolutely no talent and she failed again and she failed 17 times and today you know her as Oprah Winfrey I had a client when I first came out of law school who had dealt with periphery he had an idea in a movie an idea of the plight of the underdog and a beautiful concert and he wrapped it in a certain kind of script and he went to Studio number one and they laughed him out Studio Number Two now Studio Number Six he didn't have a penny to his name Studio number seven said you know what we're going to pay you 250 000 for the script here's the condition the protagonist the main actor is going to be one of our people it can't be you and Sylvester Stallone walked out in a student number 80 made a movie called Rocky and if you want to take it from a tour perspective how many times did avram Yitzhak Yakov the greatest people how many times did they failed there's a misunderstanding of what it says in mishlay when the notion that you have to fall seven times that you fall seven times and you get up you'll have to fall you have to fail in order to reach that potential the best muscle I can think of is the person who won the gold medal in the Olympic high jump they had to walk backwards first before they ran the other way a college borrowhold tests everyone's metal before he will give you that success do you know the reason why on Friday night when you cut the color you never hand Khaled to another person to put it in their hand you take the colony you put on the table and let them grab it do you understand the reason why because no one wants their handouts no one wants bread of Shame no one wants to think that they've done something and they're not worthy of it do you know how many people who are are people that I've worked with who are some of the richest people in the world that get hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars and they give it to their kids and their kids have done nothing and do you know the percentage of that generation they grow up to be juvenile delinquents people can't stand the fact that they've got something that they didn't deserve what if I were to tell you that Gary was about to to graduate from Harvard Medical School and Gary's next door neighbor Larry they've been buddies for all these years and Gary says you know it's my big day I'm about to graduate from Holland Medical School Larry get in the car come with us to graduation and Gary is waiting his name gets called up this is his big day the Pomp and ceremony the Gown this is Harvard Yard blue skies Cambridge and he gets on the stage and her two names later the next door neighbor Larry he has his name being called and he's got nothing he was there as a knock stripper and people throw him a gown and a cap and he sends up and he shapes the dean's hand and he has his name Dr Sun so how does he feel on that stage accomplish a muzzle because he's done nothing that's one of the reasons that's one of the reasons why by the way people think that love is in Emotion love is a byproduct of giving means to give right the more you give the more you love which is the reason why Hazel say as a general rule parents will always love a child more than the child loves the parrot let me say that again it's not me why does a parent love a child more than the child loves a parent it's from giving and giving and giving and we can break it down even further I've had many many many parents over the years tell me that one of their children was special needs one of their children had certain physical challenges and they had to work harder and it was very tough and they can't help but feel this more love it's because you're giving you're giving and you're giving your kishkas and a part of yourself is invested in that other person it's the antithesis of taking that's when you feel good do you feel better by taking money or by giving money number three of the things you need to give up the 10 things you need to get up give up in order to actualize your potential you need to give up being indecisive about what you want the road of life is filled with flat squirrels that couldn't make a decision you need to give up being indecisive I have spoken to people I've sat down with hours about you should maybe should date slay me maybe you should go to this receiver and I see them the next year at project inspired how you doing Rocco hey how what happened I'm still thinking about it rabbi not making a decision is a decision in and of itself fourth thing that you need to let go of in order to reach your potential stop procrastinating on the goals that matter to you the egg timer of life has started my friends and the sand is moving through that egg timer and there's one thing that there's two things in the world that we all get a limited amount of we get a limited amount of time and by the way you get a limited amount of words and when your time is up it's up and when you say the last word you say the last word time is something that is sacrosanct the secular World talks about killing time there is nothing further from the truth Point number five that you need to give up in order to actualize your potential is choosing to do nothing there is a thing in this world the physical world is is is a mirror of the spiritual World there is a thing called spiritual gravity if you do nothing your spiritually you will atrophy if you want to achieve your greatness you need to stop doing nothing number six that you need to let go of in order to reach greatness is you need to stop thinking you need to be right I cannot tell you how many Shalom bias couples that I've counseled and it's at the end of the day I sell and it's usually the man woman don't have a problem with Egos and testosterone and it's usually the man who's whacked out of his mind and you need to make a decision sir you want to be right or do you want to have shot in halacha there's very very few times where there's a shutter where there's a where there's a compromise there's two cheetahs as to how you put a missus on the door one says vertical the other says horizontal when you walk into Jewish Home what is the direction of a mezuzah it's at 45 degrees it's a reminder you've got to meet someone halfway you can be right and you can go through 27 divorces or you can have Shalom which is one of bakaraju's names number seven that you need to give up with in order to reach your potential you need to stop running from problems that should be fixed everyone who's anyone that that has mastered and I spoke about spiritual time management time management the hardest thing in the day do first that's a time when your defenses are up the most where you are in the zone you're not suffering from fatigue don't keep procrastinating it doesn't mean it goes away Aim Fire do it in the morning get that phone call out the way it's not going to go away number eight that you need to give up in order to reach your potential is stop making excuses rather than decisions successful people don't make excuses they make decisions and they get on with it number nine stop overlooking the positive points in your life let me explain to you there are 8.7 billion people on this planet out of 8.7 billion people 0.02 percent are Jews out of 0.02 percent of at best 10 are in the Parsha of being Torah observant you're here on a Saturday night in Stanford Connecticut listening to an amazing nature do you understand how in the eyes of the mighty you diamonds the world is rough but you're the Diamonds in the Rough to understand that every single person in this room is an ambassador is a prince and a princess it blows my mind and I think this is why our College Michael put me in a situation I work with the most famous influencers the most famous celebrities some people know and the most famous actors and actress in the world do you understand the the meaningless life these people lead I know them they're my clients they some of them become our friends do you understand if they sit at a Shopper's table with us the way I speak to my wife and children they've never seen that before to understand that I understand we all understand why we're in this world they are clueless and I made the point in one of the lectures before what industry out of all the industries and professions and locations of the world in in the world what industry has the most suicides what industry do you think in the world has the most suicides it's not the industry someone came up with Dennis before it's the entertainment industry what time of the year or most of these fatalities or most of these suicides carried out very good you said that December December the 25th and January why because there's no one around and they they watch that Falafel ball drop in Times Square and they kiss some stranger and they say no there's nothing there there's nothing there do you understand that we don't say our new year is called Rosh Hashanah we don't have a good year we have we say have a sweeter because everything's good I it's painful there's a lot of things that are inexplicable I don't understand why this family had this baby I understand why this marriage went this way but I know that our loves me more than I love my own children it's good in the Eternal spiritual sense of the world do you understand what's happening I work with Gen Z every single day the Mahala what's happening Genesee is the highest form of nihilism in any generation nihilism means that there's no meaning in their life if there's no meaning the corollary of nihilism is Hedonism or materialism Hedonism is pure pleasure they're looking for pleasure and it's only the pleasure in the in the Goof which is transient and it'll never ever will make a person feel happy and ego in terms of I the iPhone and the ice it's all about I and four years ago the Oxford dictionary as it does every year included the brand new word into the Oxford dictionary or selfie this is the I generation and what do we do when we wake up in the morning I think Goldberg mentioned this as well grammatically we should say we shouldn't say more drni we should say I need but we never say I first but it's not about me and the last two words of Moderne is I have faith in you every single person in this world in this room is part of that 0.2 didn't you didn't choose Jonah Sharma you've got the biggest gift that you can possibly have from the Maori is the spiritual DNA of a Jewish National is something that you cannot possibly fathom believe me LeBron James would like to have money chamber he can never ever be able to have the capacity the people in this room have number 10 is you need to stop not appreciate the present moment this is one of the hardest things in the world is being in this present moment don't get me sorry about social media and the fragmentation of what's happened and the Advent of what's happened of multitasking which doesn't exist I spoke early on about a place first which talks about you cannot possibly do two things using your brain and think that you're doing them at the same Pace it's a complete myth it's a Torah source for multitask you feel busy you'll feel now someone pointed out to me that has given woman a certain gift that we don't have men don't have I mean I used to be a woman but there's a whole different discussion a woman can multitask in different modalities that we can't do so a woman we can't do this a woman can hold a telephone nurse the baby and be screaming at her husband you can't do that man but using the same brain neurological thing and thinking you can be on the phone checking your screen and speaking to your boss it's a joke if it'll exhaust you and I can give you a plethora of research to tell you that ultimately it's gonna be it's gonna be a degradation of your performance and all it's going to make you feel is busy but you're not being productive so for those of you just came in what we discussed this evening is how important is it to reach your potential we spoke about Laura Schultz a woman that lifted up a car and saved her grandson's life and she didn't take a single interview from any of the TV stations or newspapers because at the moment she lifted up the course she realized if I can lift up the car how many other things in my life it could have done that I didn't do we pivoted and we spoke about the Torah and we spoke about the first Jew avram and we said after the first after the last of the tenth test the AL qaeda's Yitzhak he heard a bus called come back and said avraham avraham why two avrams we said because I'm down here had reached the avraham there up there and we learned from that number for him is that we all have tremendous potential what's the definition of gehelum I don't know where people get this idea of this Red Devil and and this hot that's not what Gahanna means he has gehenna again is when you're in that world and you see the movie of your life hopefully the cut version and you will see who you could have been and it's too late that's gehenna you see the things that you said this is who I am Take Me or Leave Me and the almighty will show you could have overcome that and you'll see the way you treated the gift that our Karishma who gave you in your spouse and your kalish that's Canon we then spoke about five of the the main reasons why people people don't reach their potential we said they don't know what their mission is in this world we went through a few exercises about how to figure out what your mission statement is we then said often if people want follow what they feel like instead of what they want in order to reach your potential you've got to recalibrate and follow what Jonah Shoma is telling you which is what you want not what you feel like we spoke about the fact that people have make excuses if only I was younger if only I didn't do this in my past we spoke about self self sabotage self-imposed boundaries we then the last point we spoke about was the uh a positive having a positive frame of mind because your thoughts trigger your your your your emotions to your thoughts your thoughts through your emotions to your action and then we summarize the 10 things that you need to let go of in order to reach your potential I want to end with a story take it out for a few questions I do this because I care there's no other there's no other agenda here and I do this because it's it's unbelievable that for whatever reason our College Park has given me a incredibly unique vantage point and it's clear he's put me in a situation where we work and represent some of the biggest Personalities in the world of pop culture people that everyone in this room would not and after doing this for years I see that the things that make them dysfunctional and unhappy are things that we all have in this room instructions for living and the potential and when people because we're not impervious to what goes on in the western world and when people put these these pop idols on pedestals people in this room and I'm saying this to myself it's a tragedy because these are dysfunctional unhappy people and the paradoxes they wanna they want meaning they want the kind of relationships that you've got with your kids they want to be at a place like this where people are sitting learning and growing they would Harish for this um about a ribby who was an unbelievable unbelievable person he just knew all of his kids on an unbelievable level he knew the nashamas and there used to be a little Min hug that there used to be recess and the kids would go out into the field and he knew all of the he's tall made him and one kid used to love tennis balls you know grab a tennis ball now the kid used to grab a piece of grass and little Moishy loved butterflies it was a bit of a heverman so he said to his class watch this I'm obviously rabies going to come back he's going to say what's in your hand I'm just going to be a butterfly he's then going to say to me is a dead or alive if he says it's dead I'm going to open my hand and the Butterfly is going to Flap away if he says it's alive I'm gonna Crush that butterfly and the carcass he's gonna fall and true to form a recess all the kids go out into the play Garden they come back into the room says why she say sister what's in my hand system what's in your hand he said it's a butterfly and then Moishy says Rabbi is a dead or alive and his web he said it's in your hands whatever I talk about tonight and the ideas that are all coming down from Total sources I can talk until I'm blue in the face but at the end of the day when the sun sets tomorrow and when you check out and give the South African rabbis a huge tip realize it's in your hands and I really want to say this from the bottom of my heart because not everyone has the opportunity to be dealing with all these famous people and I see them and I say if you lived in my shoes you would wake up in the morning and you would have such a sense of simcha that you're a Jew that you understand what your purpose is that you have people around you there's a support we take this for granted you are in the gamoran sanhedron says each and every one of you are hand-picked you hand-picked for greatness you're hand-picked together I wish you concerned and any good things I'm happy with that question thank you for listening come on [Applause]