R. Manis Friedman - Financial Abundance 1 of 2

so first and foremost thank you for everybody in the crowd for joining us today thank you for everybody out there who's given us listings Platinum property sells real estate so if you have a home or a condo that you need to sell we would love to get a call thank you very much rabbi Freedman for joining us again our last YouTube tip has already 2000 views which is amazing for me and we really really appreciate your efforts um I think if I acknowledge a hundred times how much you've helped us in our life it still wouldn't be enough for all the great things you've done for us I've started a new habit where we dedicate this talk to somebody so this time we're dedicating it to my wife and all the great things she does in our life and I think also to her parents and our brothers and sisters who are so supportive of our marriage and all the great things they do for our lives - thank you our subject today is achieving financial abundance very personally exciting subject for myself and let's start with I guess the most important question for me it is is it okay to want to make a lot of money if you don't want to is that going to happen you have to want for it to happen yes we should we should all have very comfortable and very affluent lives so that we can ignore it and do good things why ignore it because it's only a means to an end if we get too caught up in it if we become too dependent on it and it starts to work against us so actually getting rich can be very depressing I probably didn't want to hear that because generally speaking when our existence is really comfortable then we more desperately need to validate that existence with meaning so the bigger our existence the more value it has to have so it's really good to have a great existence but then the important thing is that that existence will demand meaning and validation because it doesn't justify itself so when you're poor you're struggling and you think that if you make a couple of dollars your life will get better you're a little distracted but once you're affluent then you have to ask yourself so so my existence is good now what because to be or not to be is equally bad and that is not the question the question the question is if I be why if I exist what for that's a serious question it's an urgent question so if we get too devoted to the existence and forget the reason or the motivation or the meaning and so on it just leads to depression that comes to thing that's been bothering me for years where it says that if you want if you have ten you're 120 if you have 20 or 140 I know many people who have a hundred million and they absolutely want 200 million is that your experience as well that's human nature and that's probably a healthy instinct but that doesn't mean that amassing a lot of material goods is is the true meaning of wealth it's interesting if you feel that you're getting more than you deserve your your experience your feeling your reaction will be gratitude I'm getting more than I deserve I don't deserve this then the feeling is gratitude I am grateful if I think I'm getting what I deserve well that's just justice I don't have to be grateful about that but when I feel like I have more than I need that is the feeling of wealth and the feeling of wealth demands something so if you have more than you need and that feels rich in the in the full sense of the word what do you do with that it's not an end that's where we begin like in meditation when Jews and the 70s were going off to India to meditate and they would reach the highest level of bliss or nirvana and they would feel so good and they would say this is great what do we do now and and the Guru said you don't do now you're there now now you're happy they said yeah let's do something and they said you know go back to your tradition you're not cut out for this when when we're doing great that's when our life begins that's not the conclusion that's that's kick-starting our lives so when you have abundance then you can start looting let's talk about getting to financial abundance on the subject of the talk today is learning to make a lot of money and I think about is balancing and we'll na he stood loot and beat the hone so let's start with just the definition of the three terms and how those three terms should be used to get to financial abundance please okay the three are effort and one on faith and trust okay okay effort means we don't rely on miracles money will not come from heaven miraculously you have to create an appropriate vessel for the blessing to settle into it's like rain is not going to make anything grow if you haven't prepared the earth if you haven't plowed it you haven't put in the seeds rain is a blessing but by itself it won't it won't produce anything so effort is necessary because God created the world in such a way that there's a partnership that there's a a meeting halfway you do your share he'll do his share but if you don't do your share we don't we don't we don't have the capacity to contain blessings unless we create a vessel for it so effort is necessary and it means simply we don't rely on miracles our job is to make the world function not to have goodies come from some other world and ignore this world so by making the vessel by producing the the the conditions into which the blessing can come we're elevating the world we're giving it more structure we're giving it more direction purpose and so on and then God blesses those efforts with success faith means you know you can't do it yourself that is like sanity 101 the first thing is I didn't create the world it's not my world and I can't make it happen I can't make anything happen and this is necessary for your sanity because you look at people who do everything wrong they're not smart they start a business they do everything wrong and they succeed and you're doing everything right and it's uphill all the way the at best so obviously it's not we make the vessel that contains the blessing but it's not cause and effect there's no guarantee that if you push this button you'll get that reaction the world is not mechanical that way it's a relationship so yes if we do our share he'll do his share but not instinctively it's not like a trained animal so will there be a response probably are you causing the response never so faith means God will do whatever God feels is right I will not be able to claim success as my right like where is my success I worked hard where is my success you can't demand it by right that's a muna so a muna means as hard as I try and as as well as I do what I need to do the blessing is voluntary on the part of God if he decides then it will be if he has a better plan that mine won't work now trust means if you if what I'm doing doesn't automatically produce a result on high if there is no cause-and-effect then why am i doing what I'm doing rather than anything else so why go into the real estate business and not open a bakery and sell bagels if if what you do doesn't a meet and guaranteed results then then you have all these doubts well maybe I shouldn't be doing this maybe I should be doing that trust means that you're confident that God will respond to your effort although you chose the effort although you pick the business you decided which vessel to create is that the right vessel is that the wrong vessel you have to trust if you make a vessel God will respond out of goodness out of generosity out of kindness and out of his desire to have a rich world so this I think is an important principle when we want to be rich are we fighting God on this because we're not born rich off we're not born rich maybe we're not supposed to be maybe he doesn't want us to be rich so we're arguing with him we're fighting with him we're trying to twist his arm what makes you so confident that he's going to let you be rich I think the best answer is he wants you to be rich much more than you want to be because he made a big investment in creating this world you didn't you're here for a couple of years and then you're leaving he stuck with it so who wants this world to succeed more of course the Creator it's his project he wants us he wants us to be healthy he wants us to be successful because he wants his world to work at peak performance so you're not fighting God sound like you want to be rich and he doesn't want you to and you have to outsmart him so you trust that he will give you the blessing not because he owes it to you but because he's more interest in it than you are that's called butta home I find that some people used baton or Amana as a crutch for laziness they say hey if God wants to be rich I'll be rich and I'll need to work one hour or it's okay if I miss the meeting or if it's okay if I'm running late everything that should be will be and therefore will need to stress it hmm well if you want to be rich and you open a little candies or maybe that's what you call the rich that's all you're going to get if you create a small vessel then you'll get a small blessing that fits the vessel you want a bigger blessing create a bigger vessel God is not going to force-feed you your not gotta force money in through your window if you want more money open the window make a bigger window so the response from God is according to your capacity if you don't have the capacity to handle wealth he's not going to give it to you because it's going to destroy you so if you're thinking small he'll give you small because otherwise it will overwhelm you you want more well then think big thinking big means you do attend the meeting you do make the investment you do make the effort if you're going to sit back and have a little vessel he'll find you you'll make a living on the other side though working 22 hours a day is not correct working 22 hours a day is not correct because you have to balance the the condition the value the quality of your existence with the purpose for which it exists so if you're putting it 22 hours a day just in getting your existence comfortable when are you going to attend to the purpose and the meaning and the and the value of that existence so you've got to balance your time with getting rich and knowing what to do with it you're spending all your time getting rich and what where's it going some rabbi asked one of his congregants do you have time to study he said no I have no time to study after work have to make a living he said why he says to send my kid to yeshiva so the rabbi said you know everyone I asked tells me the same thing who is this kid that everyone is trying to send to your sheep and when that kid grows up is he gonna come and tell me that he's too busy to study because he has to send his kid to yeshiva when are we going to get to the punchline so if everybody is working full time to make it possible to go to yeshiva and nobody actually goes what are we doing so you make your life your existence better how do you establish yourself comfortably so that you can live a life but then you have no time for it because you put 22 hours until where is your life where is that happening in a very simple language you put in a long day at work and then you come home what is home to you a break from life this is where you can collapse and chill out or when you come home this is where your life happens at work that's where your existence takes shape so if you don't have time and energy and interest in the life because you're putting 22 hours into the existence you're going to get depressed as a real estate agent a lot of Realtors make their business and a lot of salespeople make their business either by door knocking or head knocking or cold calling and it's a two-part question part one is that aloud and part two if somebody doesn't feel comfortable doing something is that a sign that he shouldn't be doing it that's a tricky question because if we if we did only what we feel comfortable doing I don't know if we would ever accomplish anything great so you do push yourself past your comfort zone if you really want to achieve something but there are also times when you're pushing not against your comfort zone but against your capacity and you really should be trying something else because you're not cut out for this and you need to consult with friends and I think this this is the kind of program that helps you sort out are my efforts going to be productive or am I just frustrating myself because this is not for me it's hard it's hard for the individual to measure that honestly and you need input from the people who know you and know the business so consultations good friends advice indispensable cold calling aloud door knocking aloud sure if you have the stomach for it the next example I was going to bring is the AFT Oliveira where Alisha helps a lady in need who doesn't have money do you mind summarizing the story and how that affects or how that comes into what we're talking about that story that haftorah is something you've got you've got to study and you gather it's just beautiful it's amazing basically what happens is her husband dies leaving her with debts and there's no money because israel shockingly is at war with syria and then that doing so well so there's no money there's a poverty and she comes to the Prophet to Alicia crying for help Alicia says what have you got left in your house she says and I think she had to sell everything and she still can't pay her debts she says I have nothing except an oil pitcher Alicia says to her go borrow empty vessels from all your neighbors bring them to your house close the door and take that picture of oil that you have which may or may not have oil in it it was just the pitcher but poor oil from that pitcher into all the empty vessels you've borrowed and they will all fill and then you will sell the oil and be able to pay your debts and have enough to live on for the rest of your life so she goes and she does this her children hand her the empty vessels and she's pouring when all the vessels she had borrowed were already full she says to her son hand me another vessel and the boy says we don't have any more vessels and the oil in the pitcher stopped so the commentaries tell us what is it what is the torah' trying to say here it tells you when the vessels were all full she said hand me another vessel why because the oil was still flowing when the son said we don't have any more vessels then the oil stopped flowing which means the fact that the vessels were full did not stop the oil did not end the miracle when somebody said we don't have any more vessels that stopped the miracle that killed it the important message and lesson here is what you verbalize has a powerful effect if you say well I don't think we can do any more business well then that's not that's going to stop it if you say we can't take anymore if I get any richer I'm going to explode well then you're not going to get any richer in other words when you think and verbalize that you have reached your capacity what God is not going to force vu but as long as you're open to more the blessings will keep coming even though the vessels were full well then fill your hat get something else but the oil will keep flowing but when you say we're out of capacity we have no more vessel we can't contain any more of this blessing then then it stops it also says that she had to do it behind closed doors he instructed her very care very very explicitly to make sure that the doors are closed because miracles like privacy so when you're negotiating a big deal don't talk about it during the negotiation even after the negotiation until you've until you've deposited the check don't say anything till a check cleared another one of my favorite passages Agati mohammed sati do you mind sharing with us how that affects our conversation and making money in our partnership with God he promises that no effort will ever be wasted if you're putting in a sincere effort a genuine effort it will not be wasted God creates the world very efficiently and he expects that our efforts and our investment and our input will also be efficient he doesn't like miss nature doesn't like waste that's because of who created it God doesn't like waste and so if you're putting in an effort it will succeed now again it's not cause and effect it's the way God works so are we guaranteed that if we put in an effort we will succeed we are guaranteed that something will come from your efforts what will come how much will come this is all unpredictable but that an effort was wasted no such thing and it could be that you put in an effort hoping to make money one way and then God surprises you and the money comes in from the side door the back door the chimney that's fine we're not particular don't get too narrow head to this little story this guy came to the Leben back in Poland asking for a blessing to be rich and it never it never happened what he had was a horse and he would make deliveries and he kept coming back every year there but I don't have enough money I need more money I need to make more money and it never happened one year it comes to the death and he says that but now I'm really in trouble my horse died now what am I going to do the debbye gave him a blessing and that year he became very wealthy he comes back to the Lebanese says every year he gave me a blessing it didn't work this year you gave me a blessing all of a sudden that work what happened did I do something right that I they said no the horse died every year when you came and asked me for a blessing what you were thinking is how can I make more money with my horse well you can't you were making as much money as you can make on this old horse once the horse died you opened yourself up to greater possibilities and then the blessing took off if we get too narrow I want to succeed this way don't don't be so particular you put in your effort and success will come like they say other airline's check out to see where the doors are and they might be behind you at very smart the blessing could be coming from behind you so stop running towards it let it catch you so if you try you will succeed but but don't narrow the the opening don't narrow the possibilities try what you're trying let success come anyway at once don't be particular let's end with a couple of definitions who is strong the Mishna says who is strong a person who can control his temper temper meaning personality not just anger who is rich he who is content with his lot who is smart who is a holcomb one who learns from everybody and who is honoured one who gives honor to all creatures now this needs a lot of commentary because none of it makes any sense how do you get to be smart by learning from everybody or by learning from smart people you're not going to get smart if you don't hang around smart people who is strong one who controls his temper you control your temper nobody will ever know you're strong you get really angry and destroy them and destroy the whole city oh now we know you're strong so it seems to be like promising something and then limiting it who is honored the one who honors all people no you hang around with low-lives nobody's going to honor you you're ruining your reputation and and you go in the opposite direction but the mate the most puzzling is who is rich one who is happy with his portion that's like bait-and-switch you started off telling me who's rich and they're telling me who's happy and you can say well happiness is a form of wealth not sorry I want to know who's rich so what is the mission the same turns out like this the mission is saved who is rich what do you mean who's rich take a look at his bank account what kind of question is who is rich well it's a mystery rich people are rich poor people are not no matter how happy they are so a person who is very happy is a very happy poor person is not rich what the mission is saying is if you're going to be rich there's a certain condition be happy with your portion otherwise the wealth will work against you like for example a person gets rich all of a sudden because he has money he doesn't like his wife anymore and he has no time for his children and his house is not comfortable and the city he lives in is not is not right for him and all of his friends are annoying see you became rich and all of a sudden your portion and life is not good enough feel the wealth is killing you so to be wealthy and not suffer you should be rich and content with your lot it doesn't mean content with how much money you have because if you're content with that you're not going to get rich so it doesn't mean you are rich if you don't need any more money that's not rich that's just content what it's saying is of course you should get more money but getting more money doesn't mean that you have to trade in your wife or your husband or your house or your friends or your city or your Judaism the same is true with strong who was strong the person who controls himself it doesn't mean that if you control yourself you're strong could be your timid if you're a very strong person and you don't want your strength to destroy you then you need to control your own impulses otherwise your strength will start to work against you so who is strong somebody who can beat up everybody else but if you don't also control yourself it will turn against you and you'll beat yourself up who is smart if you can't learn from all people you narrow your your sources of information and your wisdom your smarts will lock you up in a certain place and now you can only you can you can speak only to educated people and your knowledge becomes sterile you live in an artificial world who is honored not somebody who honors others you're honored because you're a great person and you do great things but if you don't want that to start destroying you and get you know a little arrogant and selfish and so on as you're being honored for all the great things you do make sure that you spread that honor so that it doesn't destroy you so wisdom wealth strength and honor are great things but if you don't know how to handle it it will hurt you and thank you very much for coming hopefully we'll do this more often with the mother crowd we have two other videos on YouTube there's going to be the question answer right after this clip and there's the one we did before so thank you very much

Channel: MLSWorldwide1

Views: 96,887

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Id: QrX6W01J4jo

Length: 32min 46sec (1966 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 24 2014