The POWER of INTROVERTS (life-changing ancient Jewish wisdom)

so this is the concept of introvert extrovert everybody is intrigued by this because you know why you always want to know am I an introvert am I extrovert and I mean there's a very shallow superficial definition of introvert extrovert which goes like this introverts are people who like to be alone they prefer alone than being with others an extrovert like lobster is a party person likes other people and that's one interpretation other people like say introverts are very introspective they're sometimes more morose more I'm gonna say depressed the more they're more serious more intense an extrovert is far more lightest light spirited I mean they're all interconnected this is this is the usual conventional definition I'm not saying they're even accurate definitions but again like I just said with language before you talk about introduction you have to know what you're talking about Financial for someone may say that means something else to me but the question that people have is okay so which type am I now is it true that you can just say the criteria is that when you go do you like to go to a party or would you rather stay alone by yourself your friends say we're going out would you say you know what take a rain check and you don't prefer even if you don't do go to a party you're not going to meet people you're going more for the experience or for something else these are all questions that we ask and even if we come to an answer and say you know what I think I'm more introverted or I'm more extroverted the next question is is this by is this nurture on nature were you born that way or you became that way in other words did you grow up in a home where perhaps that was the attitude of your parents so it wasn't necessarily you're born with it it's not genetic but excuse me the culture that you're around so often we copy what we see you know where we learn we assume what we consume as they say so it means that what you see and what you experience around you becomes your model like where do we learn about love where do we learn about coping mechanisms how do we learn to interact with each other the first place we learn as children impressionable children is from our parents so they communicate well it's usually a good sign you will be a good communicator if they communicate badly I mean they yell at each other or they don't know how to communicate or silent treatment or passive aggressive behavior or aggressive behavior or other forms this often becomes our first template that we experience and very often that becomes our only template as you grow older you hopefully can think openly and say you know what maybe this isn't the best way Etc I don't want to go so much into that I'm talking about the extrovert introvert is often very much nurtured versus nature but there's also nature some people genetically and by hereditarily just simply assume simply inherit a certain personality a certain disposition that's more introverted some people say introversion is connected with being shy a shy person is introverted person others will say that's not correct at all shy person doesn't necessarily mean introvert you can be shy and not and be an extrovert you can be shy because for every reason when you were younger you may be embarrassed maybe you're a very sensitive person that doesn't make you an introvert just means that you may be shy until you get over it and there are people that are fundamentally shy so the list goes on and I'm obviously not going to exhaust every possible scenario I want to address a certain theme here but I do want to talk about some of it comprehensively because there are many different ways to look at it and why is it so relevant to us even though maybe it's it's it's a it doesn't have to be stated because it's pretty clear because the more you all know you know yourself the more you can grow the more you can figure out is there something healthy about me is this unhealthy is it something I should try to overcome or something I should embrace you know know thyself is one of the first steps in really becoming an independent individual because you definitely don't want to become like someone else you don't want to spend the rest of your life trying to be someone else you want to be yourself so you want to say to yourself okay so I want to know what am I like and this makes a big difference because then you can focus if you for example identify that you're a real natural inter introvert there's no reason to fight City Hall so to speak and suddenly try to be someone else however there is a there is a perception in society today that introverts are inferior to extroverts that's the extroverts that are going to succeed in life because they are go-getters they go out there they meet people they Network they like that whole human interaction and an introvert is going to get hurt more because of their internal nature and people don't understand them necessarily then they don't always speak up for themselves not because they're not good people that they will be at a disadvantage especially in a society like ours the way we live where it's defined by by aggression you know if you want a job you got to go get it you have to compete with others you're at a job where there's a lot of people working you want to show your boss that you're better than your peers you want to get an arrays you want to get a promotion so we live in a capitalistic society that is definitely built on that type of competitiveness and often we become someone not even want to be often we become a lot more aggressive then we really naturally are you know I remember I remember many many times I remember after 9 11 a particular story about uh about individual it's a long story I'm not going to go through the details but somebody basically was killed in the World Trade Center and he had a friend they were in school together but that friend that was always resentful of him because he had this office in uh was a cancer Fitzgerald was one of the big firms where so many people died that that tragic morning and he had an office and some little dingy place a few blocks away and he was always jealous of his friend who had this this Scenic these uh what they call them the bay windows he saw the whole Hudson River and you could see like halfway through America or something and he was in this little office and then that morning his friend was killed he remembers how his whole life was driven by his jealousy he was so jealous of it came to realize that you know he became someone who he was and he says we were such close friends not that he blamed himself for anything that happened but it was just his own feeling he realized you know when someone dies and so tragically dies you suddenly realize where are your priorities so we sometimes become people who are not even meant to be or we don't even like because of the forces of the marketplace and of economic pressures and other things so all this comes into play in looking at yourself who am I and what am I like and this is something that as I said I talk about almost on a weekly basis just different aspects of it so this introvert extrovert the first thing you need to do is Define what it means and is it true is it true to say that an introvert is a disadvantage an inferior to an extrovert as a matter of fact in the in the DMV um was it called um no not again no no no the American Psychiatric association has a uh manual DSM that's a DV what did I say the department more I was thinking about it I was thinking about a ticket I have to pay no not DMV but I say DSM right the DSM manual which classifies um all the mental illnesses so they're actually until until 2010 they considered the person the introverted personality as a defect imagine they consider the defect in the in in uh disorder they've changed that but till 2010 just talking about eight years ago so that's the extent how Society sometimes seems to sees and misunderstands introverts I remember like everybody I'm sure remembers I have classmates in my class when I was a kid remember one particular guy was so very quiet it would be like the classic introverts and everybody thought including my teacher that he was a stupid guy because whenever any time any challenge or any any particular uh question was raised he was always quiet teacher looked to him he was too shy to speak I got to know him over the years we went to elementary school together and I came to realize that guy is brilliant he's probably the smartest guy in the class may have later many challenges in his life as we went to high school and so on but he was the smartest guy in the class no question about it he was just a very very internal very what we call in uh Hasidic language premieres dick he was an internal person he's a very um Quality person and he was a kid I mean we were children she wasn't like developed and matured yet but he was a person had not other circumstances in life coming the way would have been unbelievable you know really sincere gentle very sensitive person really understood other people he had a deep empathy and if you really get to know him you start saying is this guy what is the exact now is he an introvert as I said I still haven't defined even the word in a way that's acceptable to all of us but he definitely appeared like an introvert because he would not go out he was not interested in parties he wasn't interested in people even you know in the beginning he wouldn't even show friendship you know I didn't have to pull teeth because he did have what to say but we became very friendly and uh I've recently met him even years later as I said he had the other things that got into the way of his life but but it was a classic I remember the misunderstanding of a child that can be the the best kid in the class but nobody understands the person because you know we like Cookie Cutter monkey like the popular kid Everyone likes when necessary there's not necessarily the best person in the room now he wasn't bullied thank God so it wasn't that he didn't have that problem but sometimes this type of children are also bullied because they're they seem vulnerable and they seem uh you know you can pick on them the point is that so much of our Lives as children as we grow up is so defined by how others see us in this context our social status and how popular we are and how outgoing we are how not outgoing we are and very often the introverts get the brunt of the criticism as being oh he's a loner he's a he's a Broods like The Brood he or she so this is a really a tremendous uh tremendous it's a critical aspect to our personality and our lives to address this topic so what so how do we look at this so here's the interesting points and I'm taking what I'm saying now from primarily from mystical teachings kabbalistic and Hasidic teachings and I'm not gonna I'm not going to quote the exact sources right now but coming from that place talking about what really defines a human being okay what defines a human being are we as I said are we really wired that way some of us are wired extroverts and some as introverts is it something like I said before we assume through nurture through education through influences around us or there's something more going on and the answer is there is absolutely more going on because you can't answer the question are you an introvert extrovert if you don't first answer a bigger question which is what makes us tick who is the human being before we start classifying and labeling people you know your extra extrovert you're introvert let's define who are you who what do we know for sure about a person and here we get into very interesting um analysis because if you go by the terms of minor psychology which is really around 100 years old a little more 110 120 years old Freud Sigmund Freud could you the good Jewish mother is considered the father of modern psychology today absolutely there are many do not have wandered who have definitely digressed from his approach and actually adamantly disagreed with his approach but he's still the guy to disagree with he's still Freud he's always hear his name he's the guy that you don't agree with so you have the different schools of thought whether it was young or Adler or others or Victor Frankel you know um my point that I'm really making here is not to get into the comparison of different psychological models but rather just to tell you smarter psychology is only a few 100 years old it's not a long time so you can imagine since it's infancy really I mean there's some that even say psychology is not even a real science so I'm saying comparison to True medicine or true mathematics the real physical sciences they'll call psychology quack quack medicine yeah it's called that check it out on Wikipedia on the other hand the fact that matters there are psychiatrists there are psychologists they're therapists and social workers and they're probably outnumber medical doctors you know no one even knows the numbers but it's definitely in the Millions some people say they're more psych therapists than there are clients in the world today and what others insightfully say that every therapist should be a client or maybe is that's where they go into therapy because they need help themselves well however you twist and turn it the bottom line of psychology is not some type of tangential and the marginal uh factor in life it's absolutely very much part of our culture and today it's like people are even proud they say you know here's my dentist my doctor my therapist it goes like you know my accountant my lawyer it's on the some people even have it on their business card I never saw that that's a little it's meant to be a joke okay a lot of laugh by the way in this class there's no need to control yourself um just for the record I know you know maybe think that you have to be reverent um right motion is that true yeah okay laughter so my point is then so then where do we turn to if you want to ask the question who are you what makes you tick I always mention this because it happens to be true as ridiculous as it is you ask most people who are you they actually give you their business card I've tested this and when you say to them but this is what you do this is not who you are they say a good point okay what does that tell you that most people never think about who they are they're more involved with what they do than who they are what do you mean what they do their job because that's what preoccupies your life when you're younger officially and you should have the time to be exploring who you are but once you get into the rat race and the mirroring around of Life the roller coaster and you have to pay bills and you have responsibility and you have a family to take care of like many will say I don't have the luxury to ask who I am I I don't you know I don't have time I have to I have to pay I have to get my I have to make ends meet so basically what you do controls Who You Are and the who you are goes undercover with Statistics showing that most people don't even like their jobs so not only is you who you what you do is not who you are it's actually contradictory to who you are so you'll say to somebody it's not who you are why are you doing this he said I need to pay my bills this job came my way if it was up to my dreams and my ideals I would never be doing this how many people will say that many then there are people who come to terms and say you know what I didn't like this job but this is what I do and I learned to love it or I learned to tolerate it I learned to accept it and then there's the rare few that will say I make a partner I make a livelihood from the thing I love it's a labor of love I actually do the thing that is closest to my heart and soul but that's a very small part of the population how that work you know and again it's not the topic I want to talk about just talking about it because the issue of Who You Are is not really um a prominent question that children are forced to ask so we go through school we learn a lot about the tools of life how to do things so you come away in the best scenario with an excellent education so you have an excellent tool chest but it's so nasty so who are you say well you know I know they never I never took that course you know now some of us figure it out due to our only life experiences or our parents our good influences in that way but some of us I know people phds in in any on everything under the sun and they have no clue who they are they have no clue about what really makes themselves sick they they're very knowledgeable uh Oscar a while put it for this way you know there are people who know the price of everything but the value of nothing or another way to put it is you know more and more about less and less so just to have a lot of knowledge doesn't necessarily mean you know qualitatively about life you just know a lot of quantity you know a lot of information you know computers today have much more data than any mind does that doesn't make a computer self-aware so knowledge is not a prevent is that a it's not a guarantee that is going to make yourself aware so psychology is meant to address some of that psychology is a is a rooted in the Latin term psych analogy which means study of the Soul logi is the study and psyche is the Latin or Greek word for soul so it's the study of the Soul not necessarily the religious context soul but Soul meaning not what you do but who you are and here you're going to go through a literally if you go through psychological models literally from one end of the spectrum to the next Freud mentioning him again would say that the core of a human being is what he calls the in German the ID the ID is a uh the core raw you is raw pleasure sexual pleasure whatever I me that's what it is but it's regulated by the ego and the superego so therefore we become socially proper to coexist with each other but if push comes to shove if you were to cut through all the layers a human being is a selfish narcissist this is Freud's analysis of the human being you go to The Other Extreme Victor Frankl for instance well say No Man's Search for meaning logo therapy he will say the core of a human being is the search for meaning with all the different evidence he has and he was in the in the camps during the Holocaust and and demonstrated how people who had meaning in their lives were able to survive even the harshest situations because they had something transcendent young also much more spiritual than compared to the raw that's called materialistic view of Freud not to say that Freud's view is not sophisticated but it defines a human being in a very in a very wet in a very defined way so then they ask yourself the question so well how do we come to conclusion what is the human being who's the human being who am I am I at heart a narcissist and a selfish person as is proven for example in scenarios where people get caught trapped in an avalanche or you see in times during during the Holocaust when you're tortured how people turn on each other very fine good people could suddenly suddenly become cannibalistic and actually kill somebody because they're so hungry they'll kill the weak one yes you have scenarios like this and you ask yourself a question God forbid no one should ever be in this situation what would you do if you were desperate would you turn your friends in if you could save your own skin as some of the couples and did in during the Holocaust would you stoop to a level that is beyond human below human in order for your own Survival so some psychologists say you know when we're in the regular situation most of us have an etiquette and a certain proper behavior but put somebody in extreme circumstances where they're tortured or they're starving from Hunger or there's a gun to their head or they're trying to save their own lives they can suddenly become monsters and animals and turn on each other everybody read Lord of the Flies which was a study of children in that circumstance what they can do to each other the cruelty so you can make a very strong case that at the heart of the soul of whole human beings is very ugly and we just have layers of uh it's packaged nicely on the outer layers or we have the opposite scenarios you have people who in the harshest circumstances became the most noble let died before they would turn someone else in sacrifice their lives for even a stranger gave someone else the bread to eat before they would eat it even though they died because of it so you can see human beings rising to even higher than Angelic Heights so which one are we the angel or the the devil at heart so here I turned to a psychology that's longer than 110 years old or 100 years old we'll call it the psychology Universal psychology of Torah or Judaism and not only for Jews for all people and what does the bible state right in the beginning man the human being was created in the Divine image it's the first statement about a human being the first first nothing comes before that not intelligent creature not an emotional creature not a sexual creature a creature created in the Divine image which right away gives you like a piece of God an image of God then in the next chapter we read another expression which is called Yates that the Yates are the inclination of a person is evil from childhood this is this root for the word yet Sahara so we have another voice inside of us that is selfish and narcissistic and me me me as opposed to instead of giving taking selfish instead of selfless so which one are we if you read Bible literally it would appear that we're really the Divine image and then we have another voice because that's the order but you could easily argue and this is the way it's argued this is actually the whole Tanya is based on this and other this other texts that talk about this which is really based on What's called the sharigdusha the gates of kadusha of Holiness from the great student of the Holy Arizona so this goes back now 500 years where he writes that every person has two Souls every person has two voices one is the Divine and one is the animal one is selfish and driven by survival the other one is driven by Transcendence one voice is take care of myself the other one is to change the world in some way to bring light and warmth to others you get the idea so we could say then that the identity of a human being is is like two voices and they're in struggle they struggle they're in battle with each other like jacoven Jacob and asaph from the mother's womb they always struggled as the Torah says they were two Nations that she carried two archetypes won the warrior and won the scholar I'm intentionally using that expression so now once you get to that place you say okay so what that makes us tick makes us thick is that we have a soul inside of us we actually have two and one of them is driven by survival and one's own needs and the other one is driven by a higher purpose and we see this all the time who doesn't have the struggle every one of us has every minute of Our Lives am I going to do something for me or am I going to do something for someone else am I going to indulge or am I going to be more sensitive and it permeates every aspect every choice we make in our lives it lies at the heart of relationships you have a partner you have a spouse is it all about me me and my spouse is here to serve me or is this a mutual partnership give and take and there's a humility and there's a giving you're not just here to give take there's a selflessness relationships that have one or the other are not going to work function well they'll be dysfunctional so you need to have definitely have to take care of yourself because you have an identity but you also have to have you're in a relationship with someone else it's not just about you if you could put it the way Hillel said it may not nearly merely if I'm only for myself if I won't be for myself what am I and the other side of it if I'm only for myself what am I so which one is it it sounds contradictory when you first read it the answer is not contradictory because we need two things we need an identity we need an independent individual identity that's healthy to have but you don't have an identical identity at the expense of everything else and the simple analogy for this is when you look around look at everything in nature look at your own human healthy body you see it all the time look at the human body you have a mind you have a heart you have different organs lungs liver kidneys I'm just missing a few listing a few millions of different pieces are they individuals or are they team players the answer is both if they're not going to do what they have to do then you will have destruction if they only do what they have to do and they don't interact with anything else in your body they'll also be destruction so the best example is like a symphony a symphony an orchestra you can have a hundred instruments 100 musicians playing different instruments they each know when to play their comes their turn but they also then defer to the next step and that's what makes it beautiful we call that Harmony within diversity so it's not single Singularity of one single cell or one single unit everyone is an individual but every individual is aware that it complements and is complemented by the others and yes it sounds like a paradox but that's the only way true healthy organisms work this this Paradox of individual balanced with others exactly like killer said if I'm only if I if I'm not going to be for myself if you're not going to do your job and say what I'm just relying on the crowd or everyone else that's not no you need to do what you have to do the Mind cannot be the heart the heart can't be the liver on the other hand they ease the further each see to or yield to the others as they all interact with each other so in essence you really need the two Souls because even the animal cell is not a bad thing it's fine to be not to take care of your own needs we have the concept my life comes first you have to take care of your own needs you can't just be a selfless creature that doesn't think about yourself and only about others that's not that's not healthy either but you can't think only about yourself that's the point it has to be a balance and now let's take it to the extrovert and introvert issue I mentioned Jacob and Ace of the twins if you're on a surface level it would seem that Aesop is the extrovert and yaakov is introvert very simply the verse comes that they grew up and one was Jacob meant the innocent simple Tom sincere one the one that sat in the tents he was he was a scholar very introverted life he sat with the books the other was described asaph a warrior who was a hunter he mastered the hunt that is a go that's a go-getter that's a hunter that's a warrior if you think of it in terms of society today you know you have people who are more of the scholars the introspective ones the ones that are behind Library walls in Academia and then you have the the the go-getters aggressive business people who build things and go and go out there they're the hunters they're the Warriors which one are you and I the answer is we're both we should be both because that one is not they both are necessary in life she'll say one second isn't Ace of the bad guy and we want to eliminate him no that's not true we don't want to eliminate them we want them to balance him you see the end of the story is Jacob and Ace of do reconcile not only that it says at the end of days they will con they will work side by side why because you need to have two sides that you need to be a person who goes out to get things you can't just sit inside your own your own little castle and on the other hand you can't just be a person who's just an extrovert you have to have introvert you have to have introspective time so if you really ask someone if you really I should rephrase that if you really want to Define what makes a healthy person a healthy person has moments when they're there with themselves and there's times where they're interacting with others anyone that has one extreme or the other something's problematic so then the question is so then are there such a thing as an introvert extrovert objectively healthy introverter yes there could be a primary so-called a primary disposition predisposition that some people lean more toward the introvert of others lean more to the extrovert but everybody needs both think about it let's say the person who's the warrior the person who's out there loves to be with people is a social animal party animal loves to party to do that 24 7 does that make sense that person also has to sleep no matter how many uh acid trips they are on or how many other things that keep them awake they have to sleep they have to have some down time for themselves and they don't it's not healthy can you imagine somebody that's constantly on that uh on that uh what's the word I want to use on that uh merry-go-round it's always partying always social always extrovert you always we all need moments where we have to stop pause and say okay where I stand introspection a little accountability on the other hand the person was completely introspective and stays there is is what Hillel says so it is stay only for yourself only an introvert you're not going to be complete we all need others first of all to complement us nobody is a island unto themselves we need support we need friends we need companionship I mentioned before relationships a human being a relationship a marriage is not just an optional nice idea it's actually a necessity we need a companionship in this world one of the most painful saddest things is to be lonely loneliness can sometimes be worse than any disease I mentioned a number of times when you read for example the book of Lamentations the first thing Jeremiah the prophet the first thing he says when he Witnesses the destruction of the first temple he doesn't talk about the destruction he doesn't talk about the deaths he doesn't talk about the expulsion and the Exile and the torture and all that he says alas that she sits alone the loneliness of Jerusalem was more painful to him than anything else because without when a person has friends and has companions we can get through anything but when you feel isolated and alone then you don't feel the strength to get through things so child the pain is pain and we and there are many difficulties in life but but loneliness weakens the person's resolve companionship friendship you have others that care about you gives you strength so to say just introspection just introvert no that cannot be the case so the first half available statement negates being total extrovert which means a men are nearly merely I have to be for myself and the second negates being a total introvert if I'm only if I'm only for myself what will I if I need to ask me if I'm by myself or will I be so if you think of it that way and I did a little research I wanted to see extrovert introvert in modern culture and I realized that all that I just described is not even talked about hey by the way every easily categorized people okay this is extrovert personality the arguments are what defines extrovert some say it could be an introvert personality can sometimes look like an extrovert extrovert can look like an introvert and I'm not negating the fact that there's that there's a leaning we all have something we'll get to that soon but this idea this Nuance which is a lot more subtle and a lot more sophisticated is that we all have both and you would you can identify when you look for it unfortunately what happens in life is we're sometimes forced to be someone we're not like for many of us we we cease to be the introvert because we're not comfortable there I know people personally they talk to me that come for counseling or I come to this class and tell me I'm terrified I remember I had one person I said it was a couple they were just married so I said Do you ever spend time with each other because every night they had money and they would party and they went every night every night another restaurant you know New York you could spend 100 years and every night have another place to go eat so no they're always out they're always doing things so I said every any downtime you ever just sit and we really explored you know they came down they're both terrified of being alone with each other why because they saw relationships around them that were very painful both of them had parents that did not know how to communicate a lot of fighting and they're afraid of that type of just being vulnerable with each other so they have all kinds of distractions smoke screens here's a party here's a wedding here's we're traveling here we go eat so their whole introverted element the healthy being introvert being introvert I mean it's introspective sit down think about things they are afraid to go there so many people hide behind their activities I'm so busy I don't have time to for myself well some people it's not the enough time you don't want to have time because you're afraid what you're going to find and you're afraid of of beating yourself meeting yourself and I mean that literally meeting who you really are so you have all these things to keep you busy now there's also Other Extreme people are afraid of everybody else and they just stay alone isolated all the time the fact the matter is a healthy human being needs to be partial infrared partial extrovert that's the Revelation that you don't find as I said in other schools of psychology because they don't really I think they haven't come to realize that I'm not saying this has never been said by anybody but definitely not developed into a whole approach now let's talk about leaning now obviously everything in life if someone say to you are you a cerebral person or an emotional person you make decisions based on emotions are based on intellect now we all have our leaning some people are very intuitive and very emotional they react they want they they base things on their instincts others are very cerebral very calculated they won't let their emotions into play it's not even an appropriate question to be honest I would never pray for phrase that question that way it's a good question too it's a good conversation piece it may be a good pickup line but if you really want to think about it the real question is not that the question is we all have a mind and a heart to say that one person is completely cerebral another person's completely emotional is ridiculous I want to say ridiculous there are people that escape there but it's not the healthy balance a healthy human being needs partial emotions and partial cerebral however you could say some people are more cerebral and less emotional and others are more emotional and less cerebral that's what you can say and even that you have to determine is that who you really are or that's just the tools you've developed because some people are great at hiding behind the Mind Games I know people they have an excuse for anything you'll never get them anywhere because they are actually very fragile very vulnerable and very insecure and how do they hide they hide behind their mind they can explain anything and they can manipulate anyone with their minds and if you know such people I know many such people and if you say to them you know you're just an insecure little child hiding behind a big computer they are obviously going to give you very big reasons how you're so wrong obviously and that so therefore the fact that some people use their mind a lot doesn't necessarily mean that they're more cerebral just means that's the tool they use to cover their tracks you know put it bluntly now so how do you determine what is the healthy person and what is not well firstly if you're an honest person and you're really looking for the truth not just to be right or not just to feel good about yourself then you will have to be open to hear some things you may not like to hear like a person like this that hides behind their mind to be very honest is going to have very difficulty in good in relationships how will they ever really have a healthy marriage they don't want to even ever be vulnerable never admit the mistake always feels the other person is a problem and always have a good excuse with the mind and remember the mind is brilliant the mind can do anything confine answer for anything you can justify the killing of six million Jews with the mind if you're pure cerebral you know where's the room for empathy on the other hand many of us do our emotions take whole or control us I've seen probably majority of people there make decisions based on emotions and that too how do you find the balance that's why it's critical to have a measure of humility and look for the healthy template of who you really are and this takes really it's really I'm digressing a bit but not completely so I'll just mention this briefly what is the Dilemma how can you really discover who you are as opposed to what you're doing I don't just mean your job meaning the projected identity that you have versus your true identity so you have to first identify and I'll identify three factors that come into play that that make a person be somebody who they're really not as you're born a certain way let's think that that is like freshly fallen snow yes you have a genetic makeup that comes from your parents no problem with that but then life takes over what are the three key factors that shape a person's life three forms of subjectivity they are number one personal bias you developed personal biases and prejudices and personal way of looking at things so that can block you why because self-love distorts your way of thinking you know you're suddenly think that your way is better than everyone else's way simply because you're subjective on that fashion so that's a self that's a natural self-blind spots that all of us have we all have that natural biases again that's not bad when you recognize it it's bad when you don't recognize I'll get back to that in a minute second thing that that can distort a person's Identity or personality is Parental influences attitudes your parents projected on you to give extreme example just to make them Drive the point home you come home from school you feel good about what you just studied but your father is always berating you everything is critical and your mother's quiet and even when you're proud of what you just did your father starts knocking you and starts saying no you're just a disappointment I'm using of course an extreme I mean this happens day after day what do you think happens to the child this enthusiastic bubbly jovial child suddenly becomes afraid because they know that father is going to criticize and therefore stops starts repressing their feelings and that's so excited about things basically the parent the critical parent is undermining and invalidating a child's natural excitement and enthusiasm at some point the child starts changing and adjusting to satisfy that parent and all that natural self-confidence and self-esteem that this child deserved was was robbed from it it does not lost but it goes undercover this is not uncommon what I just described I gave us an extreme example some of us have it more milder some of it has to have it even worse abuse so a normal child was growing up and was going to have a healthy parents with what do they do they validate they nurture they water they they cultivate they they reinforce the child's few and give it confidence to explore yes that's beautiful try again even if the child fails you don't just jump on the child you help the child grow through failure learn from your mistakes what does that do it infuses the child with the confidence so parental influences a tremendous effect of how we will adjust our personalities and maybe wander away from who we naturally are to what the environment of our parents have has created and this can go as I said the terrible way it could also go in a good way and finally the third factor is social influences your friends peer pressure media the things you see the things you think will make you feel acceptable by others and there too you can suddenly start doing things that your natural instinct would never do but everybody does it so you don't want to be unpopular you don't you don't stand out as being different so social parental and personal biases are three factors that play into every person's life because we all have all three nobody is immune the difference between someone who grows into a healthy human being and one who doesn't is not because we have the person doesn't have biases because they're aware of it it's like I asked once a fellow came to see me I said to him and he was a brilliant guy he had an excuse for everything like I mentioned and I said to him he's looking to get married and he says nothing's working he wants to know there's a curse on him or something well I said to him uh sir his name I said do you have any blind spots I was I know what he's gonna answer I was sorry I knew he was answering he answered he says no he says yes but I know what they are so I said I smiled I said Southern Blanchard you know what they are that's like the doctor that tells you I'll tell you when you need a second opinion that's not what you want a second opinion is a second opinion that's not to tell the doctor tell him because you want to make sure that doctor didn't miss something so the doctor's going to tell you I'll tell you when I miss something uh not really that's not exactly how you verify the facts that's what's called circular uh journalism as is being now in the headlines now you know you verify your own thing what's your Source I'm the source said but I want to have an independent Source I'll tell you when you need an independent Source you get the idea so I smiled he says why are you smiling I said because a blind spot means it's a blind spot not that you know what they are and uh he wouldn't admit it he just wouldn't accept it fine so good I couldn't help him can't help someone that's not helping themselves the point I'm making here is all of us have these three forms of so-called disposable distortions or biases the difference is are you acknowledging it if you acknowledge it you'll do something about it what does that mean if I know that I personally can have a bias because it's about me or about my friend or my brother or sister I'll go to an objective party and say I need an objective opinion because I am not sure that I'm right that's the first healthy thing a human being does to verify now if you don't want to hear something that you if you don't want to hear you're wrong obviously you're not going to do that but which intelligent person is going to do you're going to go buy a house and say oh you know what I don't need a lawyer I don't need a I don't need a bank I'm going to do it by my own good luck most people will understand because they're it's not so emotional you understand you need a lawyer you need a bank you need a loan you need whatever it needs you're going to go build the building I'm saying I want to have a a five-story mansion you don't know a thing about contract you don't think about architecture you're going to start building it every intelligent person says I gotta hire someone that knows it when it comes to our personal issues it gets more it's much more touchy and much more sensitive because we don't want to acknowledge necessarily so these three biases is what blocks us to really find out what we're like if you can get through them then you can begin to discover the real you the real you independent of these three influences will then tell you whether you're leaning to being more extrovert or more introvert because I can assure you that most of us are one of the other not because that's who naturally are it's most likely because of the forces of Life the three factors that I just said that drove you in that direction now I'm not going to say absolutely because there's no question that we also have a natural side to things what we really made up but the problem is we don't know how do you know what's natural what's not you know so it's really coming to terms to discovering yourself and discovering these two forces inside of you and realizing that you need to have a balance and yes once you have the balance you'll realize that some things you're most you're stronger at than in others like some people are very clearly better to sit quietly in a room to analyze to um to dissect to research more of a very introverted approach others are excellent at pitching it or selling it to someone else you'll see many good marketing firms or advertising firms or PR firms or even lawyer even legal firms you'll find there's the back end excellence and there's the front end okay all right what's the back end for example the person who writes a press release is usually more of a research writer type the person who gets on the phone to splits the press release is usually much more of a socialite someone that can connect to another person sometimes the good writers are not necessarily the best ones to sell even their own writing you all know the study of Carl Reiner Carl Reiner was one of the first TV producers he basically is the father and creator of the sitcom you know the half hour or hour show that is now so popular whether it's drama or comedy or whatever it may be Carl Reiner in the 60s brilliant writer wealthy wrote what was called one of the early sitcoms was called the one of the early comic comedies the Dick Van Dyke Show okay before my time either so it's not as evidence of how old I am okay but I read the story it's very it was very intriguing he he wrote this wrote the script and of course now you have to choose actors who's going to play this group so he who acted decided he's going to be the he's going to be the main character now he wrote the character so he knows it well and he thought he would present it best and when he when they first piloted it and they had the whatever the test audiences what do they call them these uh yeah you have the test audience yeah focus group that's the word they when they they stay short it's unanimous or most of them said you're not the right actor for a brilliant part and Brilliant writing but you're not the right actor now he was in control you could do whatever he wants he could have said I don't care what you say I want to do it and that's that but he was smart enough and humble enough and maybe maybe even maybe it wasn't humility maybe he wanted success more than being the actor he went out to search and they found Dick Van Dyke that's why it's called that show Dick Van Dyke was the actor and the show became one of the biggest the first one of the biggest hits the model for so many other comedies that came later because he understood that though he wrote it and though he he fabric he basically created it from scratch someone else was better at acting the part that he wrote that he himself could that's an understanding that you realize that success does not dependent you don't have to do everything you have to just know what you're good at and let someone else do the other thing some people feel that they have to be the extrovert because they for some reason convinced those were the success stories in their lives and there's some people who think the other way around so just an example of this um of this of this approach and you'll find this I remember in writing when you write I remember my agent my literary agent told me and I asked them what's the real definition of a good editor is the writer there's the editor everybody needs an editor so some arrogant writers say editors are failed writers so that's why they go into editing since they can't write they only come to edit and criticize other writers okay I didn't really feel that way so he told me very interesting to finish and he said editor is someone that takes your writing and writes it better in your voice than you could have written it not someone who writes a new voice that's not an editor that's a new writer someone that writes your voice better than you could have written and I realized that same idea that the strength but you need to be confident and secure and need to be ready to hear that so to go back or sum up what I was saying is that we all have the extrovert introvert in us from birth both are necessary in life and you see the hillel's words you see it in all of Jewish tradition you see for example in the morning you wake up the first thing we do is read prayers then some study or the or the other way around and then you go out to work so you begin like Yakov is study prayer and then you would like the Aesop that goes out the warrior and we're talking about in a kosher good way into business into the work every week we have six days of the week where we go out to work and we have one Shabbos where we go in back to home back into our natural selves our souls a more Soulful experience and this balance is necessary for every human being in life we all need the time where we go more internal and times we go more external and the balance is when you're able to balance the two perfectly which is effort but you have to be able to understand these two elements a person that's just out there and doesn't have time to plan doesn't have time to introspectively look at something evaluated properly um do that it's not going to succeed fully and someone that just as introspective and just plans all day and doesn't Implement and execute is also not going to be complete and there's many other manifestations of this in many different ways and we have to always look at ourselves and say which part of us is what are we doing right now what are you where you where are you more active in which the world the introversion introvert or the extrovert see if it's in a balanced way and then try to see what you like if you strip away the three biases I mentioned as much as possible and see what do you like not in the environment of your parents not in the environment what Society demands and somewhat get an objective opinion by asking another person because you yourself may be biased and I guarantee you do do the suggested things I just I just the idea the exercises I just suggested you'll find other things about yourself you'd be surprised because there's always Dimensions to us that we're not aware of as self-aware as a person is there's always more because we don't know what's lying beneath the surface you only know what you know you don't know what you don't know so someone to say you know I did I once did a little survey I can't call it a scientific survey but I asked around 100 people maybe more of different ages from Young childhoods to all the way to the 90s men and women Jewish and not Jewish of all different Persuasions and my question was in percentage in a ratio form in percentage form how much do you know of yourself 100 would be I know everything about myself there is to know zero would be I know nothing about myself and the the results were fascinating no matter what no matter what's persuasion no matter what denomination no matter what religion culture gender it was all dependent on the age the younger the age obviously the five-year-old was not capable of understanding such a question so I think I started 11 12 maybe the younger the age the more the percentage the higher the percentage 13 14 year olds were saying I know 70 80 percent of myself once I explained the question and by the time I'm 30 40 I'll know 100 or 99 percent the higher the age the percentage is reverse someone 20 years old starts saying 40 30 percent someone 50 years old says 20 the 90 year old not one they said I don't know maybe one percent and I say how do you explain that they say because the more you know the more you realize how much you don't know because how do I know how could I answer this question you could only say if you knew for example what's inside this hidden closet you could say okay we revealed ten percent but if you don't even know what's inside how could you say 10 maybe you don't even know one percent how do you know what we carry in potential we carry inside ourselves it's a very humbling exercise because you suddenly realize one second that's a good point how much of your brain do you use some no one really has an answer because I only have an answer if you knew the full capacity when it comes to a hard drive on your computer you can say okay five uh what are they today not five what's after gigs the T with the T um terabyte five terabyte 10 terabytes five gig 100 Gig whatever megabytes kilobytes whatever it is you want so you could say the computer has maximum memory of five um terabytes and then you reach the place where the computer says no more memory very clear so if you have thirty percent or thirty percent of five but how many terabytes in the brain tell me how many ideas you think can fit in your brain do you think anyone's figured that out yet no because no one has a no one has a clue because there's many ideas that are fit into the brain you could always fit more no one has ever come to a point where your brain tells you all the red lights go off no more room for ideas you know anyone that's ever complained and told you that so we don't even know the potential that we have the capacity that we have that's why it's so vital to have friends and people that believe in you and don't take no for an answer and there's no such thing as impossible because you cannot say impossible if you don't know your capacity now I understand most of us understand that you cannot lift up 10 tons we all have a limit of what we can lift I'm not talking about that physical limit when you talk about emotional psychological and intellectual capacity we are far far that close to our limits that's why there's so much more to learn about oneself and these exercises are the things I've been discussing are great tools I believe to help a person get to that place so on a final note I'll say this um in my own little experience in life people I meet my own observations you find um that every human being you meet has unbelievable much more strengths and and potential and Beauty than they even know thank God I've been blessed to be able to see that and it's a great thing to see because I know people who see other people they always see the negative in everyone they see how little you can do you know they're always great to remind you don't think you don't get your hopes up who Do You Think You Are so it's great to be able to look at people and be able to see that a Soul's capacity is far more beautiful more powerful than even you yourself May ever know and seeing that gives you a lot of strength because it helps you give you confidence in people and then the question is how do you help people get to that place like what's part of the way makeup Michael Angelo said it Michelangelo said it when he was asked how do you carve those beautiful angels out of marble he was a uh a Sculptor and an artist so his answer was a brilliant answer he said I see the Angels trapped in the marble and I carved and carved and set them free so most people think no his Brilliance was that he knew how to create an angel he says no the angel was there all I needed to do was get rid of the excess the lesson of that is that we all are those angels and we all have those flowers and all have that music but then there are things that grow on us like weeds in a garden layers concrete marble other substances that black and don't let us access that potential we have so it's a critical component is to learn how to recognize that there's those angels and then do what's necessary to get rid of the excess the sideshows the means to be able to let that shine and very often we are our own worst enemies because we don't believe in ourselves and we buy into the myth that other people tell us that weaken our resolve and our self-confidence so in seeing that would you see that when you see it you see both both sides the beauty of what people can be and sometimes the pain of what people think they are and it could be very uh disturbing when you see it very clearly because you see wow look at this person such great potential but they're so far away because they think they can do it and it's excellent way of looking at things sometimes put it simplistically I tell people okay tell me you're part of the problem or you're part of the solution it's critical to want to see yourself as part of the solution too many people are part of the problem part of the problem means you reinforce all these negative stuff being hopeless sensing resignation all these factors that weaken weaken resolve demoralization and it's vital to be a person that feels you're part of the solution that doesn't mean it's all solved it just means you're growing toward the solution and the solution is what is the solution is that self-awareness and recognizing these different forces in their lives the extrovert introvert and and using it actualizing it actualizing it in our in every possible way so in a way you can say in a way our mission our Collective mission is to help each other see that clear as I said before we're one grand Symphony every one of us is an indispensable musical note and can only be complete when we all play the music together but we also have to have confidence in our own voice in our own music and that's the challenge is to find help people find that voice and then help them see how they complement and others complement them so I want to wish you all that you should be able to find and discover these tools I hope some of the class that I've give here all the classes I give is tries to go in that direction in the empowering tools and skills to be able to discover these parts of yourself and then of course most importantly actualize it because we're sent to this world to fulfill a mission and each one of us has our indispensable mission that you and only you can accomplish period so it'd be very sad if a person could lose goes through their lives and doesn't even is not even aware of it and doesn't actualize so my blessing to everybody this week is the every week but this week as well is to find that part of yourself the introvert within you the extrovert within you make sure they know how to dance together they complement each other because they both need each other and to live a very blessed week and a blessed life so it's a pleasure to speak to you a few words this week that means again okay we'll read the dedication again and um and then we go every week Wednesday 8 30 till approximately now those of you have not been here before online or in the class meaningful life.com full array of resources in this spirit and I want to we're going to say the class was sponsored by Judith Kirk in memory of her brothers in honor of the birthdays of biafraid and the village Pearl okay everyone be blessed have a very beautiful week and I look forward to see you again soon thank you

Channel: Rabbi Simon Jacobson at Meaningful Life Center

Views: 654,949

Keywords: spirituality, soul, meaning, purpose, god, kabbalah, torah, chassidus, mysticism, psychology, bible, practical bible

Id: gUaP3ONrDeo

Length: 61min 25sec (3685 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 24 2023