RWH031: Abundance w/ Michael Berg

Hi there, I'm really excited to introduce today's guest, Michael Berg. Michael is a brilliant scholar, writer and teacher who's thought very deeply about the question of the heart of this podcast and also at the heart of my book. Namely, how can you and I build lives that are truly richer, wiser and happier? Michael comes at this question from an unusual angle that may not be particularly familiar to you. He teaches an ancient form of spiritual wisdom called Kabbalah, which goes back literally thousands of years. Until the last few decades, this was a secret wisdom. Historically, it was so concealed that you weren't even allowed to study it unless you were basically an exceptionally learned and pious man over the age of 40. You also had to understand Hebrew and Aramaic so that you could read the most important Kabbalistic books, including a monumental and incredibly profound book called The Zohar. Michael grew up in a family that was totally immersed in this ancient wisdom, and he's deeply committed to making it accessible to anyone it might help, regardless of that background. When he was only 18 years old, he started translating the Zohar from Aramaic into English, ultimately producing a 23 volume edition that took a decade to complete. But what makes Michael extraordinary is that he's able to take this fairly esoteric knowledge and make it extremely practical and applicable to our own day-to-day lives. In this conversation, he talks about very pragmatic subjects like how you and I can extract more pleasure from whatever else we have, whether we have a lot of money or not that much. He talks about why so many rich people are surprisingly unsatisfied and unhappy. He talks about how to enhance our own sense of abundance by sharing our money and our time. He talks about how we can support our children without disempowering them or sapping their desire to succeed for themselves. He talks about the importance of differed gratification, which turns out to be a kind of superpower in business, investing and life. And he talks about how to deal with adversity, including some very difficult challenges that he's faced in his own life. One thing that's fascinating to me is that whenever I study these very old forms of wisdom like Kabbalah or Tibetan Buddhism or for that matter, stoic philosophy, the teachings seem just as relevant and helpful today as they ever were. It reminds me of a book such on Templeton wrote many years ago called Worldwide Laws of Life, which lays out what he describes as 200 eternal spiritual principles. In the introduction, Templeton wrote, to be a happy and useful person, it's important to understand and practice the laws of life. These laws are simply the set of rules by which we should live. So that's our goal in this episode. We're going to explore some of these timeless principles that are likely to lead to a truly rich and happy life. I hope you enjoy this conversation. Thanks a lot for joining us. You're listening to The Richer. Why isn't Happy A Podcast where your host, William Green, interviews the world's greatest investors and explores how to win in markets and life? Hi, T.A.P. listener. This is Stick. I am hosting a networking event for the listeners of the Emasters Podcast in August Denmark, October 7th and I hope you'll join me. The event is completely free and we'll have tapas and wine for everyone. The intention is to keep the event small and we only have 15 spots open. It's invitation only and to apply, just need to send me an email at stake at theinvestorspodcast.com with your LinkedIn profile and the title of the last book you've read. Please also include just a few lines about why you like the book. You can find more information about the event on theinvestorspodcast.com slash Denmark. That is theinvestorspodcast.com slash Denmark. There's no set agenda for the meeting and we have no speakers. This is often the case with the free T.A.P events we discussed investing, wonderful books were read and everything else in between. I hope to see you soon. Alright, well hi folks, I'm really excited to welcome our guest today, Michael Bug. Michael's teachings have really had a huge impact on my own life. He's definitely one of the best teachers I've ever encountered and he's looked very deeply about how to build a life that's truly rich or wiser and happier and how to achieve real and enduring fulfillment. So it's lovely to see you, Michael. Thank you so much for being here. Great to be with you really excited for our conversation. Me too. I was thinking this morning that your teachings have done probably more to make me become happier than anything else I've learned in many years and then I was thinking I'm not sure how many whys are yet, but hopefully by the end of the conversation, this is going to kick in. Well, I teach you things and see I'm not happier. Those teachings that I share are the ones that continuously make me happier as well than I think probably the first thought that I have around this is that the only way to truly have happiness is by running after wisdom all the time and wisdom, I don't just mean information, right? A wisdom that changes us, that gives us a new viewpoint on lives, on issues that we're going through. I don't believe that it's possible from certainly for most people and certainly for myself to be living a life that is progressively more enjoyable without a constant desire and pursuing the gaining of more wisdom, wisdom that changes us. On the wiser side, there's one of my favorite quotes from an ancient Italian capitalist who says that the purpose of all wisdom is to know that we know nothing. And I think it's a really important to understand that it comes off as a little bit funny, but really what it means is that you can definitely see somebody who's really wise and somebody who's not is the humility that comes with wisdom because if you truly have any significant breadth of wisdom, the one obvious conclusion is that you understand a tiny, tiny fraction of reality and therefore that must lead to humility. So you know, you know, I'm sure we all met people like this in our lives, they're those who have all the answers for everything all the time. And then there are those who have some of the answers sometimes, but always with humility and that's the team in a wisdom. So when you say, you're not sure you've got any whiter, that's one great indication that you probably will be happy. So we live in hope. No, I've studied Kabbalah for about 15 years and I've found it incredibly life enriching wisdom, but I'm aware that a lot of people in our audience don't really know what it is. And also it's worth mentioning that for thousands of years, people like me weren't allowed to study this concealed wisdom. So could you just ground us a little bit by explaining what Kabbalah is and how this secret concealed wisdom came to be accessible to all of us here today, including folks like me who would have been regarded as much too ignorant and based to study Kabbalah until the last few decades. Sure. And so I'd like to have that little bit historically and then a little bit more, I would say, deeper spiritual answer. So historically, the view is that from the beginning of time, there's always been this secret wisdom and that's worn out through many of the works that have been revealed that came to our world. But that's the understanding. I'm stating that this wisdom is not a new wisdom, it's a wisdom that really was the foundation of the world within which we live. Historically, though, there are a number of books that were that came into being one of the most ancient of the Kabbalistic works that we know is what's called the Sephirah Yitzirah, the book of creation or formation, which was revealed a few thousand years ago. It is meant to have been written by Abraham, the biblical patriarch. Then the idea is that Kabbalah, which literally means received, it was an oral tradition, not a written tradition. So even, for instance, at Sinai, a number of a few thousand years ago, when what is called the Torah, the Bible was revealed through Moses, it is understood that within that revelation of the physical, what we have today are the five books of Moses, there was also an oral secret tradition given it as well. And throughout history, while there was a tradition that kept teaching and giving from one generation to the next, it was called the reveal, Torah, the reveal, spiritual understandings, there was always that layer of the secret. And it was only about two thousand years ago when a great Kabbalist in the Northern Galilee in Northern Israel revealed to a small group of students, it was called the Zohar or the secret teachings, and he asked them to start writing it down. From that moment, for the next at least a thousand years, students of Kabbalah, students of the Zohar would study these teachings and continue to write down and add on to them. But still, it was only to a small group of students, the teacher who had the wisdom would gather around him five students, ten students, and that's how the tradition kept going. About a hundred years ago or so, the Kabbalists believed in this other historical reasons for this, that it's time for this to be at least a little bit more revealed in just to a small group of students. And therefore, what's called the Zohar, the foundational text of Kabbalah, was really brought out to the public, again, still only in Aramaic, so only those who understood Aramaic and were able to read it, were able to access this wisdom. This continued on, and there's a lot of history here, and we'll go through all the steps of history. But basically, up until about a hundred years ago, you had to be a tremendous scholar with a connection to one of the teachers who had this secret wisdom to really access it fully. One of the reasons why the organization that I am a part of today, the Kabbalah Center came into being about a hundred years ago, was because they understood the spiritual leaders at the time that the world needs this wisdom. And then began a process, first in Hebrew, and then in English, and then eventually in all the languages of the world, to endeavor to make this wisdom accessible to all, because it is necessary for all people. That's a little bit of the history, so it's an ancient secret wisdom that was originally held by only a few, given from generation to generation, to those chosen to receive the wisdom. About a hundred years ago, so it began a process of making this more and more accessible in other languages, and of course, making anybody who wanted to receive this wisdom to be able to access it. The other part of this, and by the way, feel free to ask if you want to go any further detail into the history of it, because we can talk an hour and a half just on history, but I'll be honest. Well, one thing I was going to say is, it's amazing to people who don't know just how controversial this was, because your father, Ravburg and your mother, Karinburg, obviously played a very central role in spreading this wisdom, and I remember when your mother passed away back in 2020, you did a beautiful podcast episode with your wife Monaco, where you talked about lessons from your parents, and one of the things you mentioned was that when your parents had decided that they were going to spread this wisdom, your mother was literally attacked with a baseball bat, and your father said, you know, they'll kill us, and your mother said, well, that's okay. We'll be doing what it is we're passionate about. So, I mean, this was a very controversial thing in many ways to make this public. Absolutely. And the controversy goes back thousands of years. I mean, to be clear, you know, those who were teaching wisdom 2,000 years ago, especially during the Roman rule over Palestine, over what is now Israel, there were many teachers who were killed by the Romans, because the Romans saw this teaching of this wisdom as in some ways undermining their control over the people, over the country. So one of the most important capitalists, Rabia Kiva, who was the teacher of Rabia Kiva, the author of the Zor, he was killed by the Romans for gathering around him students to teach this wisdom. And unfortunately, that has been the history of this wisdom for many, many years, where it was always seen as either dangerous, either to get into government or to religion or to other people, and many people who took of this wisdom and tried in any way to teach it, even if it was to small groups historically, would find themselves in danger. And even as you said, as we go back all the 100 years ago, we went to Rabashlan with founder of the center. Many of his students were very learners from very, what are called good families in Jerusalem at the time in the 1920s and 30s. They were beaten up by people around them, because everybody saw this wisdom as too important to secret, to wholly choose the word for anybody to be learning it, to be studying it, to be kept in a book in a corner on a show. And so that has been the history, it has been dangerous, literally, relatively recently, physically dangerous to be studying and disseminating this wisdom. And as you said, in the 1970s, when my parents began continued the efforts of their earlier catalyst to bring this wisdom to a wider and wider audience, there was physical danger involved. Thankfully today, I don't think that that exists, but I think it is important, I know for myself, to appreciate the fact that literally there have been people, many people, for the past thousands of years, that have literally either given up their lines or for their lives in jeopardy for the purpose of bringing this wisdom to the world. Which leads me to the second point that I wanted to make, which is that when we talk about this wisdom, and I think it's really important, you know, I think a lot of people have with the notions of religion, whether as it relates to spirituality, what we're talking about, when we talk about the wisdom of Kabbalah, we're talking about the underpinning spiritual rules that govern life, the govern our world. And when you understand it in that way, it becomes clear, of course, anybody who wants should have access to it. If I or you, anybody in the world has wisdom information that can make one person's life better, of course, that wisdom needs to be disseminated as widely as possible. And you wrote in one of your books, Kabbalah is not a religion, but rather a technology. In many ways, what we're going to discuss in depth today is how this kind of spiritual technology can help us to build richer, wiser and happier lives. But can you first explain what you actually mean by it being a technology rather than a religion? Right. So the word, as many words, even the word God, but the word religion has many different meanings to many different people. It has a positive and negative history as most of us know. The understanding is that when you go back to the origins, so whether you go back to Moses or Jesus or Muhammad, the understanding is that these people never meant their job purpose. They're called it their prophetic visions, their writings, their teachings were never meant to create a road following of rules, which is unfortunately for many people, or at least historically, what religion has been seen as, which is this doesn't make sense. But God wants you to do it. And if you do it, God will be happy with you. And if you don't do it, God will be happy with you. That doesn't make any sense. But aside from that, it's also not the truth as the way we see it. The only purpose of what became known as the world's religion was a deep spiritual wisdom for only one purpose. To help the individual transform, to be able to achieve the life that we're meant to have. And when that's the view, you can call it religion, you can call it technology. The words are less important than the understanding of what is men, which is that at least the way we understand it, the capitalists understand it, religion as many of us know it was not the original thought, was not the original idea, that the only whether and therefore whether, again, this spiritual wisdom is whether whether you're Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or none of the above, or something else, because it's viewed as simply a wisdom that to be learned for the individual, to become a transform and become a better person on a consistent basis. Religion, unfortunately, as we said, throughout history has not always been either viewed or used in that way. And that, not only, as we said, is not only a needs to be a shit, I think, certainly from that thought of a road following of rules, which, again, as I said, both doesn't make sense. And neither was the original intention, but also sometimes completely distracts from the purpose, which the simple, simple, single question is, am I a better person today than I was yesterday? Have I changed tomorrow? Well, maybe a changed person tomorrow than today. And that constant change with the only purpose for what we'll call it, Moses, teachings, Jesus, teachings, all that have to come, on religion. And therefore, when we call it a technology, or we call it a spiritual wisdom, that the understanding, it has to both have to make sense. And most importantly, and I think maybe this is the key, you have to see it working. You know, my father, my teacher, the Robert often used that phrase that, you know, he was, you know, the miserious in the United States, called the show me state, right? And he said, spiritual wisdom has to always answer that question, show me. Is it working for me? Not, oh, I'm doing this so that when I leave this world, God, I'll be happy with me and I'll put me into the place. If it's true, if it's true, and powerful, and it works, I need to see the changes here and now. In some spiritual and religious traditions, there's a sense that making lots of money or having physical success in the world is somehow torjory and shallow and distracts us from deeper spiritual pursuits. So you should, if you want to be a holy person or a righteous person in some way, you should withdraw from the world and live a modest life like a monk or a holy man on a mountain top. And in Kabbalah, there doesn't seem to be that sense of conflict between being successful in worldly terms and being spiritual. How come? So I'll share with you a few teachings that relate to this. So I will actually just starting this yesterday. There is a teaching that says that any great teacher, and they referred to Moses in this case, had to have both strength, wisdom, and wealth, that Moses could not have been Moses and could not have revealed what's called the Torah, the Bible, had he not had all three of those attributes, strength, wisdom, and wealth. Because we understand everything to be what we call a niff and might have to go a little bit deeper and this is what we call the light of the Creator. So what is our view of everything that exists, money included? Everything is only what we call the light of the Creator. You know, we, and maybe we'll take a minute here. Well, if it makes sense, I think to talk about the Kabbalistic view of what others would call God. So I always make the joke that, you know, some people have a vision of God as it's all guy in the sky with the white beard, right? Which of course is silly, right? You'd have to be, you know, immature to it in any way think of God in that way. Kabbalistically, the view of God, which I think is closer, and this is where I think both important and beautiful to science, which is the God is an energy. It is an energy, the primordial energy that brought this world into being. And it is also that energy that sustains everything that exists. You and I are both an aspect of what we call that light or that energy of the Creator. And everything that we, that exists in the world is an aspect of that light. And therefore, everything in this world has a very positive part to it. Of course, everything also has the the converse of potential negative to it. But when we understand that everything is energy, God is energy with what others would call God, we often refer to as the creator of the light of the Creator's energy, then money is energy as well. And when the Kabbalists say that Moses could not have been Moses had he not been wealthy, it means because it is a connection to that energy as well that allowed him to gain greater wisdom. So that's where I would begin the Kabbalistic view of well, which is it is often actually a necessary prerequisite to attaining wisdom, which I think is a, I like it, it's a little bit, I would say, a little bit controversial, but it's the teachings that I've been around for thousands of years. Number one, number two, the Kabbalistic view and the word Kabbalism before means to receive is that the singular purpose we exist, the singular purpose for which we exist is to receive. Now, how to receive, what is the right way to, there are right ways to receive, there are wrong ways to receive, of course, but if the foundational principle of life is that I came into this world to receive and to receive goodness, abundance of goodness, that that both my view and what I would call the creator's view of the way my life and your life and every single person in this world's life is meant to be, is a life that is a constant growing abundance and goodness. That's life as it should be, that's life as what I would say the creator intends it to be. Within, of course, there should be no limit on any aspect of my life, what my love should be limitless that I receive and give, my wealth should be limitless that I receive and give, my wisdom should be limitless that I receive and give. So not only is it not unnegative, it is actually along the line of the singular purpose why, why I'm in this world. Now, of course, money can be used in negative ways, chasing after money can be done in negative course, that's a whole other conversation, but foundationally, foundationally, it is the understanding that wealth and goodness are the reasons why we're in this world and which leads me to the third corner. One of my favorite quotes from a Talmud says that what a person leaves this world and I was actually talking about this to a student the other day, he was asking me, should I limit sort of he, he's somebody who has, you know, money to spend and to enjoy life, should I sometimes feel he says, I'm spending too much time on, you know, spending money on things that I enjoy, I said, the opposite is true. It says in the Talmud that when a person leaves this world, one of the questions that he's asked in judgment is, is there anything that you could have enjoyed in this world that you did not enjoy and the creator would then be upsense because the only reason why I put all of this in front of you is for you to increase in pleasure, enjoy and abundance in wealth all the time. Now, of course, of course, as we said before, there are many the right way to attain wealth, the right way to use wealth and so on, but as a as a foundational understanding, the Kabbalistic view is that not only is it not the, you know, against spirituality to attain the desire and the attainment of wealth, but as a matter of fact, often it's a prerequisite, it is certainly foundational to why we are in this world and as a matter of fact, if you think about judgment, one of the things that one will be judged on when he or she leaves this world is whether he partook of all the pleasures again that he was supposed to partake of in this world. So we'll talk about this in much more depth, I hope, how to build a balanced approach to money, wealth accumulation, giving sharing, giving to our kids and the like, things like that, so that we can kind of tie together some of the spiritual rules from this ancient wisdom, but also some of the things that I've observed in lots of my interviews with famous investors. And I thought I'd kick off actually by reading you a paragraph about Sir John Templeton that I wrote in my book, which is very appropriate here, because Templeton was probably the greatest global investor of the 20th century, but he was also a very spiritual guy. He was a devout Christian, but also passionate like you are about science, and he set up a charitable foundation that funded research into the power of prayer and virtues like forgiveness, and he was also famously frugal to an almost kind of crazy degree, you know, stapling together bits of paper to write his notes on the scrap paper and the like, and he was refused to fly first class despite being a billionaire, because he said he would never squander his money on this stuff. And so here's what I wrote just in a brief paragraph that I wanted to run by you and see if it stirred any thoughts for you. So I wrote Templeton's watchfulness over money, also stemmed from his belief that we are merely temporary stewards of God's wealth. He liked to begin meetings at his fund company with a prayer, and he saw a strong connection between spirituality and material success. If you focus on spiritual matters, you will very likely become wealthy, he told me, I never found a family that tithed 10% of their income to charity for 10 years that didn't become both prosperous and happy. So tithing is the single best investment in the world. He had even developed a new form of super tithing for every dollar I spend on myself. He said, I carefully give away 10 dollars. So it's curious what you think about, you know, this, this, there are so many ideas here, but for one, just this connection between how we live spiritually and our wealth and almost this sense that, well, this sense that they're tethered together very tightly. There's a few thoughts, but I'll start with that one, which is that if we understand that naturally, the natural state of being should be an individual with abundance, then the question is what stops that? And we capitalistically, spiritually, we would say that when the individual is not growing in the way that he or she has meant to be growing, not changing in the positive ways that he or she is meant to be changing, when that creates what we call a blockage in that flow of energy to the individual. And therefore, the understanding is that the most important work, of course, we have to do the physical work to attain well and success. But the most important work is the spiritual work because if my connection to that energy of abundance, but we call the light of the crater, is not flowing, then it doesn't matter that much. All the great input of work that I will do in the physical because the spiritual is blocked, which is the source of the blessings. What causes blockages? Well, again, to general terms, of course, when we act selfishly, when we act with ego, when we act angry, when we speak negative words, there's a whole list of actions that can many of us even intuitively know are not the right thing to do, but the understanding is, and this is why we're where the science, I would say, of Kamala becomes so important, is that it's not that God, again, it's angry at you, and therefore you're not going to have no, is that imagine that there are channels, you know, pipelines coming down into your life, and you literally put sandbags below them. Of course, the flow is going to stop. God is angry with you, but you just did an action. Like, if you went to the plumber and said, I don't know why there's no water running in my house, and it comes to your house, did you close shut off the major valve, that brings the water to your house and say, yes, I still don't understand why there's no water, well, it's looking like you're an idiot. Of course, if you shut off the main valve that brings the water to your house, you're not going to have that water in the rest of your house. So, this is the spiritual view. Again, God is not a punishing God, God is what we call the light of the Creator is a flow of energy. And when we do think that put that put that open up those channels, by being charitable, for example, by giving, by giving typing, for example, by being kind, for example, then we open up those channels. When we behave in negative ways, we close those channels. So, all that to say that, of course, if you had to understand not, of course, you need both the physical and the spiritual, but that without the spiritual, the efforts that we put into the physical work will always be limited. If our spiritual connection to that flow of energy of abundance is limited, and all we have to do is look at our weekend, our day and our life and and ask the question, how many actions do I do that are actually sogging that flow of energy, that flow of abundance? And then that will answer the question, why am I putting all this effort in at work? And still, things don't seem to be flowing, because it doesn't seem to be occurring. So, it's actually a section in the Talmud that my father's teacher would often share with him. And they asked the question, they literally asked the question, what should a person do to become wealthy? So, first, the answer, he should invest all his time and effort in work in the physical world. Then they asked the question, this is the way the Talmud works, question and answer, but many people have done that, and they did not become wealthy. So, then the answer, well, then he should spend time and effort on his spiritual work, and then he will become wealthy. But then they asked the question, a lot of people did that, and that didn't work. So, they come to the conclusion, one without the other will not work. You need both. You need the spiritual work that opened up the channels, and you need the intense physical work that allows that flow to manifest in our world. So, by the way, that is a beautiful quote from John Double that I actually want to start using, if you don't mind, in my sharing with people, but I think that is both fundamentally true, but also I think for all people who are struggling among the other, I think it's also beginning of an answer of what we can do to start opening up those channels of light. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. 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Under this meeting, Charlie said, he basically starts talking about why his hero is my monodies, this famous 12th century rabbi that you often quote, who was also obviously a pioneering doctor who, I guess, was the doctor to salad in the ruler of Egypt. I'll read you what Munga said. He said, he was talking about the dangers of being disengaged from reality and just sitting off in your ivory tower, thinking about ideology as all going to super political universities where you're just sort of thinking about ideas without actually doing anything. And he said, you can't just be dreaming how you think the world should be run and that it's too dirty for you to get near it. My hero is my monodies, all that philosophy and all that writing he did after working 10 or 12 hours a day as a practicing physician, all his life. He believed in the engaged life. And so I recommend the engaged life. You want to do something every day where you're coping with the reality. You want to be more like my monodies. So that was really interesting. Again, it's like being in the mud of day to day life. Absolutely. I don't know if I can share with you two teachings that it brings to the mind. One is there's a verse in the Bible in the Torah. It says, you should be whole. It could assume to you, which literally means you should be holy. Key condition, yes, and because I God, the creator is holy. And the Kabbalists explain that that means the creator is telling us, I am holier than you. What does that mean? So my father's teacher said, now those who have a view of spirituality, which is again, go to run away from from where everybody else is to a mountain top or to the forest and meditate and study. And that's the ultimate spiritual journey. But the creator is saying, no, that that's isn't that is above you. That is not why I put you in this world. I put you in this world so that you partake. You will become, as you said, engaged in the dirt of this world, in the filth of this world. And from that, be able to extract some some light or some some work. So certainly the Kabbalistic view is that is and without going to details, my father's teacher, Bradwine was was the virtual leader of the workers union in Israel. And the reason he took that job is because it was one of his, you know, as you probably know, historically, there has been this view amongst religious groups that the greatest sages are the ones again who spend all their time, all just in study and for sort of wisdom. He believes it and says that wisdom without work is not wisdom. That the quote is, again, ain't to obey their appearance, that if you're not living in this world, your wisdom is all for not for not. And so it's a very strong line in the Kabbalistic wisdom that the own that again, wisdom, he's not even really wisdom, cannot be considered wisdom. If it's not borne out in engagement in this world. And I'll add one more story, what am I, I'm really, I'm really, I know you know, but maybe listeners don't that the Kabbalists, especially those who are students of a great Kabbalist from Ukraine, the ball Shemtov would often give their teachings and stories. And this is one of the stories that is that is that is given. The story is about a, we know some of you might know that on this what we call the high holidays, Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur, is a time that we spiritually set up our year. It said that everything that's going to happen in that year, wealth, health, everything that's going to occur is is prepared based on our connections that occur on the high holidays or Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur. And on one of those days, the Kabbalists sat down as students afterwards. They said, I want to tell you, because he was able to see what you asked for in your prayers for the next year, and also what the heavens responded with the Creator responded. And it says to one student, he says, you know, you run an inn in those days, it was very common for people to run his inn, pub, where they had a few rooms, a billion, small, small inn, and you run an inn. But you realize that in all the hours, they get to spend running the pub around, around drunk people, around certain lower people, you don't have any time to really study, you don't have any time to really pray. You don't have time for your spiritual work. So you pray to the Creator and you said, you know what, in the beginning of this year, give me all the money that I need. Now, I don't want to be wealthy, but I just want to have all my expenses taken care. And then I can dedicate the entire year just to study, to prayer, and to spiritual work. And then the next day in the prayers, you rethought your request. And he said, you know what, if I did all my money in the beginning of the year, I might spend too much time worrying about it. And I won't really dedicate all my time to the spiritual work. So give me half in the beginning of the year, half in the second half of the year, and then I'll be able to dedicate the whole year. And then the afternoon came, and in the prayer, you reconsider your request again, and you said, you know what, I'm still afraid, and that amount of money in the beginning of the bill be too much. I'll spend too much time worrying about it. So give me even quarters, every quarter, give me all the money that I need to that quarter. So then I can not have to worry about money, I don't have to run this pub with all the drunkards around me, and I could dedicate my life to the spiritual work, and to study it to prayer. And you didn't want to know he said to his students with the heavens answer to your prayer. He said, of course, of course, he says, you think that you came into this world to be this pure spiritual being. That's not why you hear angels exist and to create rather not angels in the heavens. You're in this world to be engaged in this world, to be in the filth of this world, to be around the drunkards in the pub, and still find three minutes for some spiritual action. That's why you're in this world. And then, of course, it's to your point, and Charlie Munger's point, that the reason we're in this world, if not co-incidence, we're not here to run away from it. We're here to be engaged in it, yet, to be able to extract from it the few minutes and moments of spiritual connection and elevation. Yeah, it's funny. I was writing to someone yesterday. I always have this fantasy of a calm, peaceful life, and it never seems to happen. I'm always somewhat overwhelmed juggling to do any things, feeling stressed and the like. I'm not in the club. It's funny. You know, when I was flooring up, if you asked me what my dream life would be, it was always the same dream to go to the north of Israel. It's about the sort of the city of Cavaliers, and you know, be married with my kids, and but just study all day and all night, not engage with any person ever, which is the exact opposite of what my life is today. But because that is the truth, the truth is that we are not in this world to run away from it. We're in this world to be engaged in the mud of it and to yet extract great light and enjoyment for the one from it. I wanted to talk in more detail about how to increase our enjoyment of the money we have, because you did a very interesting podcast a couple of years ago with your wife Monica, the spiritually hungry podcast, where you talked about how to enjoy our money in a more balanced way. And you talked about growing up without money yourself and having to buy clothes in thrift shops and the like, but never having any sense of lack. And so you were saying that the most important thing is not how much money we have, but being able to enjoy what money we do have and get pleasure and fulfillment from it. So I wanted to talk in a bit more depth about how actually to do this. And the first thing you said, if I remember rightly, their whole slew of points sort of worth discussing here, but one of the things you talked about that's kind of a provocative idea is the importance of recognizing that the money is not yours in the first place, which is something that Templeton talked about there, where he talked about being a steward of God's wealth. Can you talk about that idea and why it's helpful to think this way? Yes, it's very important. So first of all, you say it's a little controversial, but the reality of course is that if you think about it for more than five seconds, you realize it's true, right? No wealthy man ever takes his money into the grave. I mean, he might be able to physically take it. It does it does him or her no good. So objectively philosophically, the money is not ours, right? That's that's just a factual reality. But more importantly, if we understand that everything is energy and more importantly than none of what we have is actually ours. And this is true again, not just of money, it's true of wisdom. How many wise people have a stroke in a second, all that wisdom what seems to no longer exist? How many times people have a car that they love and something happens, right? So the times that people think that they own something and then it goes away is, you know, 99% of the time, it might take a year or five years, 50 years, this body within which we live to think that it is mine is ridiculous because we all know that unfortunately at a certain point it no longer continues to serve us. That is all to say that the false view of that which we have acquired, which the ego wants us to take ownership of, which is this is my wisdom, this is my money, this is my car, this is my child. That thought which comes from the ego and is false, it is not is it is objectively not physically true and more importantly, certainly not spiritually true. All we are given are gifts for purpose either to enjoy to partake, to share them. When we really and truly view everything that we have as not ours, but as given to us again, for to take care of, if it's a tremendous amount of wealth, a big part of that of course will have to be its purposes to share, but it's true about wealth and even our children. Some of the greatest pain that we ever feel stands from the ego convincing us that this thing is mine and then when anybody tries to take take it away from me or succeeds in taking it away from me, that causes great pain because this thing that was mine has not been taken away from me. If you view it as no this is not this was never mine, this was never mine. It was given to me, maybe it was given to me for a day, maybe it was given to me for a week. First you have greater enjoyment of it because your appreciation for it never wanes. There's a lot, I don't want to go to this point of appreciation, which I think is that's foundational to this idea. There's a teaching that says that when we take anything, money, gifts, wisdom as our own, what we're actually doing, that this might be a deep spiritual content, we're separating its from its source. What we call the light of the Creator, that energy that is sustaining, that is flowing all the time, if we our ego convinces us, no this is my money, this is my wisdom, that thought separated from its source. What happens to a flower when you cut it off from the ground, it begins to die. That might take a day or a week or a month, but it begins to die. If we understand that the thought of ownership actually cuts away our blessing, be it our money, be it anything that we have, a weight from its source, it will of course lose its light force and therefore the pledge that we are able to extract from it. There are many reasons, but one of the reasons is so important to live with a thought, with a consciousness of not ownership, but having it for a certain amount of time, an undetermined amount of time, it first of all spiritually allows our blessings to be connected to their source, which allows them to be able to be receiving life force and therefore we continue to receive pleasure from them. Because again, why, we know this again, relationship is probably the most obvious case. And I always use this example because it's sadly true. Almost everybody on the first date is very excited. Almost everybody on their wedding day is very excited. The majority of the world by year five is not as excited, certainly, and by year 10 most people aren't happy. So let's look at that continuum, right? And I'm sure you know, Daniel Cutterman. And so he writes the fact that marriage is the silliest thing that people do because the fact and the figures tell us it's a terrible choice, right? People still continue to make it, but I think more importantly, let's go to the root of that. Why is that the reality where people have this hold for love, for relationships that almost always dies and almost always dies? And one of the reasons is because when you marry somebody, you believe that they are yours, not remembering nobody, certainly, but nothing really is evermine. And therefore I have to be earning it every single day. That appreciation can only truly stem if you truly believe that you do not own it. And if you understand that you do not own this great marriage, not on day one and not on year 10 and on year 25, then you have the possibility or I would say the ability to have the love in your relationship grow, taking that back to what we were talking about before it is it pertains to well. The second and unfortunately, I would say most people, it's an effort with questioning people that themselves, how do I view my relationship with that which I acquire? It'd be at money, be at a car, be at a house. Has my ego convinced me that it is mine? Well, that is the first step to it's dying. Now, death can come in many ways. It could be that you hold on to that money, but it doesn't give you pleasure. It could mean, of course, you don't hold on to that money. But the only way to truly maintain and to continuously be able to receive great pleasure from the money and acquisitions that we take in a slide is by remembering it is not mine. That, as we said, keeps it connected to its source, which allows the life force and energy to continue to flow through it, because money is energy, which is an important topic. Maybe we'll talk about it a little bit later, but it allows it to continue to be in that flow of energy. And therefore, I'm able to extract from it more pleasure. And secondly, which is very important, it allows me to maintain appreciation and the understanding that this thing that I have, because it's not mine, I have, wow, I woke up this morning and this million dollar is still in my bank account, or this beautiful car that I enjoy is still in my driveway. You know, I'm sure most of us remember, and I have many clear memories of this as a child when you get a new toy, right? And usually if you play with it all day and you get sort of sort of bored with it, but as a child off and you wake up the next day, it's almost like it's brand new to you and you enjoy it. That's the way our life is meant to be, whether it's our relationship to money, whether it's relationship to the physical things that we enjoy, never ownership, only use for it on the term of the amount of time. And therefore, great appreciation. If you're able to maintain those two things, which is the thought that this blessing is this gift, this money is not mine, but is connected to a higher source. And secondly, therefore, I have great appreciation and the growing appreciation for it every day that I wake up. Then that is able to maintain the energy within the money, and if the pleasure that we receive, and one more point to this, there's a verse from King Solomon, he says, that you will find often who wealth kept with the individual for their detriment. That people, there are a lot of people, and unfortunately I've met people like this, I'm sure you have, who have a lot of money, but are not able to extract great pleasure from it, or at least not the pleasure you would expect them to be able to extract from it. And that is because of these two things, they have taken ownership on it, and therefore, necessarily will lose appreciation for it. This question of appreciation is so practical and profound. And I remember several years ago, you gave a talk one Saturday where you used this wonderful phrase from the Old Testament that I think was Katon Timikol Ha-Ha-Sa-Dim, which, as I remember you translating it, was something along the line, so I'm humbled or made small by, overwhelmed by all of my blessings, all of my gifts. And I wrote it down both in Hebrew and in English to look at it every day, to kind of hammer into my brain in the sort of way that Manga talks about pounding good ideas, simple but good ideas into our brain through repetition. Because it felt to me so important as a way, a sort of practical means, instead of constantly reminding myself that there are other people who are so much richer and smarter and better looking, and I would just keep coming back and being like, no, no, no, I'm overwhelmed by all of the gifts I've been given. Can you talk about that idea, just as a very practical way to keep pounding into our head this sense that we're not coming from a place of lack but abundance? Absolutely. And it relates to something you mentioned before, and it's a quote again from the Talmud that says, who is a wealthy man, the one who is appreciative of what he or she has, right? A Samakh with a quote that is happy with what they have. And the reality is that it is, you know, again, this, I often like to talk, you know, sort of the line between fact or reality and spirituality. We know that, and there's studies on this, that the dollar amount that a person has in their bank account does not correlate with happiness. That is just a fact, right? It's studied, studied fast. So if you understand that each one of us can be wealthy, regardless of the amount, the money that we have or the amount of acquisition that we have, the only differentiator, the only differentiator is appreciation. You know, I often use the story of the guy who gets the call from the doctor, right? He had the tests, and he and the test didn't look so good. So the doctor said, we have to do this for the testing. And he gets that call, and the call doctor says, everything is okay. You don't have this disease. In that second, and we can all imagine that second, certainly those of us who are a little bit older, that we in that second, there's nothing that can bother you, right? But what changed? Literally, absolutely nothing. You were healthy before the phone call. You were healthy after the phone call. The joy that you're experiencing now, and some great joy that literally, if you're worse than it became established in the face of what it bothered you, because you're so happy right now, is you've gained appreciation for the life that you had as it was a second ago. And appreciation, therefore, is probably the most important trait that we need to develop both for happiness, but then also for wealth. But happiness, of course, is the most important thing, because if you had more wealth and you'd be sadder, then you wouldn't want that. Well, the only reason we want to achieve greater wealth is because we hope and believe that greater wealth happiness, but I'm telling you that the most important thing that you can do to attain real happiness in life is to grow your ability to appreciate, and like you said, with that verse, so it's a verse that was said by Jacob, and literally, as you said, taking that time, and by the way, the science around this as well, which you probably know that it's a site, they've done studies on this, that people who spend their Sundays creating a list of gratitude, or what they are appreciative of, live a more successful and happier life. That is a fact, because the space and the spiritual rule that the indicator or the what causes our pleasure is our appreciation for it. So what, in fact, if I know for myself, I work on many aspects, hopefully of myself, and these are the ones that I want to change, but the one thing that is always constant, that I try to wake up with every single morning, and therefore there's a cabalistic meditation that we do every single morning, that we awake in appreciation for being alive. And if any one of us truly appreciated life, the second of life that we have now, the second of life that we have next, we be the happiest person in the world. Unfortunately, the flow of life causes us to lose appreciation for all things, for all things, and we spoke about the little bit before. If I can really, really underscore this for the listeners that one of the most important things that you can do is find a way to awake in greater appreciation every single day. And you have to meditate on it, by the way, you know, and often it's, you know, you meditate on, you know, well, how would I feel that this didn't exist? You know, I don't appreciate it. A person doesn't appreciate their health. I think for a minute, for five minutes, how would you feel if you had to be in the hospital right now? A person doesn't appreciate their wife or their spouse. How would you feel right now if you were by yourself? And you'll see that you meditate on these areas of life with which you have abundance already, but have lost appreciation over time. You will see how much happier you are. And I, one test that I test myself is how often in a week do I feel overwhelmed with appreciation? Not for something new. We all can awaken appreciation for the new money that comes in, the new gift that comes in, the new relationship that comes in, of course. I'm talking about how often in a week do I sense an overwhelming appreciation for what I have? Like that verse that you said, Kathanti, Nikola Hasadim, that I could never have done the war, whatever that is, to deserve all this abundance of gifts that I have. And it's kind of a crazy thing that every single one of us is wealthy. Every single one of us has abundance, but we've lost appreciation for that which we have abundance for. And I'd like to tie that into one other important teaching, which maybe gives greater impetus, although I think being happy as a person in the world is the most important impetus. But Ravash slug says, the great cabalist and founder of the centers says that the vessel, we know that in order to have more, more money, more wisdom, more joy, you have to have what we call a vessel, desired. But he says, the vessel for my next success, the vessel for my next money, the vessel for my next blessing is my appreciation for the blessings that I have. So much so that if I to the degree that I lack in appreciation, an overwhelming appreciation for the blessings that I currently have, the abundance that I currently have, it becomes almost impossible for me to receive the next gift, the next wealth that I meant to achieve that I meant to have. It's funny. I had a conversation about these sort of topics with a famous investor named Howard Marx a few years back and Howard lost how I looked overseas, something like $170 billion and he's a multi-billionaire. And he's Jewish, grew up actually as a Christian scientist, but he's sort of on the fence about his spirituality. He's a great rationalist and also kind of very thoughtful about the larger questions of life. And he often talks about the importance of humility for him, both as an investor, but in in every area of life. And so he was saying, look, everything that's happened to me that's been good to allow me to become a multi-billionaire was all based on luck. And it started even with the fact that he got his first job, I think a bank that became city group later, but he desperately had wanted to go to Lehman Brothers, which subsequently went bankrupt. But he didn't get that job because the guy who was supposed to call him and tell him that he'd been hired got drunk and had a hangover and failed ever to call him and he only found out about it many years later. And so he was listing all of the ways in which he'd got lucky that really had nothing to do with his own efforts or brilliance or intelligence or anything. And I once gave an interview where I mentioned how he had this incredibly high IQ and it, you know, it had clearly contributed to his success. And he emailed me afterwards and he said, look, people who don't fully acknowledge their luck miss the fact that being intelligent is nothing but luck. No one does anything to deserve a high IQ. And I thought that was really interesting that even, you know, for someone like Howard Marx, it actually, it helped him to keep focusing on his on his good fortune because it made him for one thing more humble. And so protected him from what I called master of the universe syndrome where you start to believe, wow, I'm so talented and so smart that you end up overreaching and taking too much risk and blowing yourself up. Absolutely. And it really, everything that we said even before, right, the ego that comes from lack of humility, the ego that comes from the thought that I've done at that time. I mentioned this in one of my lecture. I think it was Bill Gates who said, you know, to be who will be who will be who will be who will be who became he needed millions and millions of people. There's no one person in the world who will ever be successful on their own, you know, whether it's the university, all the teachers in the university that he went to all the way, you know, that statement takes a village. It takes the world to make anyone person successful, which should help us both gain humility, but also realize how silly it would be to take ownership. Again, whether it's on our intelligence or whether it's on our well, yes, of course, you know, it takes certain attributes to be able to grow, but you will have to ensure we know this, right? Two people with the same level of intelligence. One will be successful. One will not be two people with the same level of desire. One will be won't be successful. So it is clearly not objectively not the physical attributes or even work of one person that makes them more successful than the others. Then the question becomes, then what is it? But at the most basic level, it would be it's not me. It's not my ego and maintaining that humility gains hopefully gives us the ability to maintain appreciation and spiritual, I believe that when we are able to maintain that humility and appreciation, we're able to grow with our wealth. And I've met many, many people who are very well-called and successful in the physical sense, but are very unsuccessful in the happiness sense. And I don't know if you would say this often a negative correlation, but this certainly is not a positive correlation. And I think it boils down to the what we would call the ego, what we would refer to as the ability to maintain humility and the ability to maintain a lack of ownership on that which we have achieved which we have acquired. Yeah, I remember this multi-billionaire famous art collector as well, David Collily saying to me once that he had all of these multi-billionaire friends who he described as poor rich people. There was a wonderful phrase and then he said he also knew plenty of rich poor people, but I love that phrase poor rich people. Right, because as we said before, being happy is correlated to how much pleasure we are able to extract from that which we have. And if I could, if I go this a little bit deeper, there's a spiritual concept here. And it's one of my favorite ones, but it might be too deep and really musical. It's too deep for me. I won't be able to understand it to point out that it's too deep. So go ahead, Michael. So the understanding is that the energy that we speak of, which we call the light to the creator, the energy that created this world, the phrase that the capitalist referred to that energy is the endless, the endless, meaning it has no end. So what that means is that if everything that exists, the shirt that I'm wearing is a microphone to which you're speaking to which we're speaking, is a part of that energy. It means that everything has the potential to be endless. Everything is part of the endless. Everything came from the endless. And therefore, everything has limitless energy within it. I'll use it even a practical example. We know that the splitting of an atom, which exists in abundance all around us within us all the time, creates so much energy. But it must mean that internally there is much more energy in everything than we are currently extracted. So when I look at my wife, when I look at my wisdom and I look at anything that I have and I understand that it is not finite, that it actually has the ability to to supply me with an endless abundance. So my relationship can give me an endless amount of pleasure, my money, no matter how much it is, and its current state can supply me with an endless amount of pleasure. When you really, and again, this is not a simple concept, nor one that is easy to actually live with, but it gives you a completely different view on all things and it gives you certainly a different view on life and on well, that every single one of us has right now in our life anything and everything that we need in abundance to be able to live a life of great happiness. The only problem is that we're not currently able to extract the endless energy from our money, the endless energy, from our relationship, the endless energy, from anything that we have. I remember there was a book that I read many, many years ago that spoke about the fact that this truly spiritual person could spend hours meditating and gaining pleasure from the roads. And that's true, right? If everything is connected to the endless energy and endless light, that means that everything has the potential, at least the potential, to give me endless pleasure and appreciation, the humility, all that are stepping stones toward being able to extract the endless energy from all the things that are ours. Let's take a quick break here from today's sponsors. Tech Vester makes investing in short-term rentals also known as Airbnb's simple, passive, and profitable. They've raised over $60 million in already-owned hundreds of successful properties that are delivering cash flow to investors each in every quarter. If you've ever considered owning an Airbnb or own one now, you know that it's a lot of work. From finding the property, designing it, renovating it, running it, dealing with guests, and everything in between. Tech Vester handles all of this for you, with a single investment earning you a targeted 8-12% cash-on-cash return and a total annual return of 17%. 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Another thing that's obviously really an important aspect of enjoying one's wealth and not feeling controlled by it, not becoming a slave to it is being able to give money away to share it. And I remember Templeton all those years ago when I met him. He was probably 83 when I went to visit him in the Bahamas for a day. And he said, look, I'm the happiest and the busiest I've ever been because now all I'm doing is spiritual. I'm viewing my money away. Using it to prove he had this very idiosyncratic mission to increase what he called the spiritual wealth of mankind a thousandfold, I think. And likewise, when I think of a lot of the interviews that I've done with famous investors, people like Joe Greenblatt, one of the most legendary hedge fund managers, he's he set up a network of some like 45 charter schools in New York City where my son Henry works as a teacher. A lot of these guys are very, very focused on giving and sharing the first person in my book, Monish Pabri uses the fact that he can make these kind of rational, dispassionate bets on stocks to lift tens of thousands of kids out of poverty across India. He's very highly intelligent kids who come from very poor families. And I wonder if you could talk about this whole concept of injecting this this flow of giving and sharing whether it's through charity or tithing or whatever and why what I've observed in these people's lives would would have a spiritual base on it. Why do these people seem happier than the investors I've seen who are just building massive collections of Ferraris and bigger private planes and bigger yachts and those guys those guys don't seem quite as happy and fulfilled to me, but maybe maybe I'm deluding myself. Well, let's say that's just saying that it's possible to have all that pleasure and also be giving that hopefully. But let's talk to the spiritual concept of tithing. And this is of course a biblical concept. This is historically always been around. And it relates back to what we were saying before that what keeps our gifts be it money, be it our relationships alive, right? Because unfortunately, we know people can have money. It could be dead money. It could be in a relationship. It could be a dead relationship. It could be with their still maintaining the facade of it. What keeps anything alive is that flow of energy. What we call the light of the creative. And we need to be actively. And that's what we said before humility appreciation connects, keeps connecting our blessings, our wealth to its source. When a person takes 10 dollars that he or she made. And consciously, and this is what needs to be the conscience of tithing, he or she says followed, I know all these 10 dollars are not mine. None of it's mine. As I work for it, yes, I'm, you know, I put in the hours, but I know that this is not mine. This is coming to me from what I would call the light to the creator of that energy. And therefore to to indicate, to clarify, to make very clear that this is not my money. I'm taking it part of it. I would take all of it, but I'll just take one tenth of it and give it towards sharing. So charity and whatever way a person chooses to use that money. What person does then is he actually connects the remaining nine dollars to their source. And therefore that money is alive. Money money is flowing with energy. That nine dollars left will give him more pleasure than somebody who has a hundred thousand dollars that is not connected to its source. That is dead money. So the purpose of tithing or the part, the importance of giving money away isn't so much because I'm doing a favor to the poor man to whom I'm sharing. More importantly, more importantly, and therefore, for instance, the Zohar, the capitalistic, basic capitalistic texture refers to a poor man as a gift, given to us by the creators. Because when I give, when I have the ability to take one tenth of my money and give it to a poor man, it gives life to the nine dollars remaining. And when nine dollars are alive, they can grow and they can give pleasure and they can give, they can give me more abundance. When they'll, when those ten dollars, if I did not give it or cut it off on their source, then they begin to die. So tithing and therefore the capitalists use the phrase get tied because in Hebrew, it's a word play, but the word tithing is the same, comes from the same root as the word wealth. So the words that they say is acer, bishvili c'etitasha, which means tied, so that you become wealthy. Again, that tithing, what it does is it actively connects the money remaining with you to its source, and then that money can continue to grow into flourish. So imagine what a person is doing by tithing, is he, you know, if you have a branch on a tree that you want it to grow fruit, by keeping it attached to the tree, it'll continue to give you fruits and abundance. When you don't give tithing or when you keep the money only to yourself, you cut it up from the source, you cut down the branch on the tree. Of course, it will not continue to bear fruit for you. So the whole purpose, the capitalistic view, and often, you know, my father would often use the phrase, the reason I give all the time is because I'm the most selfish person in the world, and I know that the only way that I can continue receiving endlessly is if I give endlessly. And that's the idea of tithing that by tithing and more importantly, the thought behind it, which is not my money, I need to make sure that whatever money stays with me remains connected to its source, and therefore I take this as a token. As an action that says, I know that all of this is in mind, I'm going to take one tenth of it, give it away, and that keeps my money attached, the branch on the tree, enabling it to bear more and more fruit, enabling it to bring more and more wealth. And therefore there's actually a verse in the Bible that says, the Creator says, test me on this, test me. I promise you that if you tithe, you will find abundance without end without limit. It's a difficult thing because I often find with charity and tithing and like personally, there's a fear of being without. There's a part of me that's like, I buy into the idea that I should give money away, I should be charitable, I should be a better person, and it will benefit me. And then there's this deep-seated, kind of underlying, simmering fear of, yeah, but what if it's not enough? What if I can't take care of my family God forbid? And I wonder how you deal with that, that lingering sense of fear and lack that you may not be okay? And what if I'm buying into this system that isn't really true? It's a nice idea. So I would put those intuitive and categories. I would definitely say a person is concerned about literally paying their bills. I would not be rushing to tithe, although there are those who do that and they do find success with that. But I think the second group is a much bigger group, right? When we're not really concerned about paying the mortgage or the electricity bills, but we still think that by giving, I lose some of it. In the first group, meaning people, there's somebody truly, truly concerned that they're not able to be, you know, they're monthly bills. I wouldn't be pushing too much towards sighting, but it's the rest of the group, which is most of the time, most of the people were, there is that extra, but the fear is if they give this maybe next month, right? There's a quote in the Zora that says, a person who has enough money for now and worries about tomorrow has no connection to the light of the creator, right? But most people are in the category of, yes, I have now, but what about tomorrow, the next day, next year? And therefore, I have to, you know, hoard it only for myself. To that group, I would say, again, as I would say, the verse says, try it, try it, give, you know, once 10% see what happens. As we said in the beginning, it has to be tried and true. Now, in your book, and I'm sure we've all heard stories of people have been very successful using this method. So I would always say, well, if so many successors with people have used it, and it's brought them success, it's saw that some indication, aside from the fact that there's also so much ancient wisdom, original around this, I would say try it as the creator says, try me and see if you do not experience greater abundance by sharing them if you don't start with 110, maybe start with one fifth or something. And to your point, which you said again before, and this is both anecdotally, and also proven by studies, that there's a reason why, to the most part, we enjoy sharing more than receiving them. That relates to the fact that the energy from which we come would be called the light of the creator is an energy that is always giving, never, never receiving for itself. And if I want more abundance, if I want more blessings, then I have to be more in line with that energy. So when my actions of sharing, what it does, and so many benefits it has to the person with which I am sharing, it puts me in contact, closer to the flow of energy of the universe, and be called the light of the creator, and therefore more abundance can come. And by the way, what I would say to those who are concerned about giving and say one tenth of their money, why not you give one tenth of your time? We all have something that we have a little bit more of that we can give. So I would maybe a person starts with one tenth of their time, that they dedicate towards sharing, because tiding again should be of everything, should be of our wisdom, should be of our money, should be of our time, should be of our love, should be of every aspect that we have. And again, I strongly believe that we will find that those actions, those small steps for those of us who need small steps of our time, or any actions of sharing that we will do, we will see the benefits of it. I wanted to talk a bit about how not to give and share, and I've been looking through a lot of your old lectures and writings and the like, and there are a couple of things that came up that I hope you can discuss. So one of them obviously is not to give and share in ways that are just designed to prop up our own ego, and there's a book of yours called Becoming Like God, where you wrote a dollar given with the conscious desire to grow, to become like God is an act of transformative sharing, a bequest of ten million dollars given for self glorification, fame, and additional power is not. Can you talk about that sense of when giving kind of is nice, but maybe it comes with not the best consciousness and where we should sort of work on our consciousness so that it's not just about, you know, making ourselves look richer, more powerful, more influential. To be clear, I think, and this happens all the time, a person is a significant amount of money to it, it's through a hospital to a museum, always do that regardless. I mean, it obviously brings benefit both to the individual, to some degree, and to the institution, of course. So I would always, I would never recommend against that, but as we look internally, each one of us, I would ask the question, if the reason why I want to share is because it would connect me to what I call that flow of the universe or the energy of the light of the creator, then it has to be true, meaning when I give, and whether it's a big check to a hospital or whether it's a, you know, a loan to my cousin, what feelings is that awakened within me? Any feelings that become attached to the ego, or on the big man, on the person who can do it, it diminishes the energy of that given, and therefore diminishes the benefit that I will receive from that given. Of course, it's always good to let people who need money. Of course, it's always good to give charity to those in the institutions that are in need, but I would bring it back to me. What will bring me the greatest benefit from this action? And the reality is that the more selfless, the more true, the more it is coming from that part of me that I found my soul that is connected to that force of sharing, the more powerful it will be for me, the more benefits that I will receive in return from that action. So any action of sharing is worthwhile, but if we talk about the ultimate, the ultimate way that we can benefit, and that's the reason we give, we do not give because simply want to be a good person, which is nice. I give and I share because I know that I need from my growth those actions of sharing, that that gives me abundance, that that gives me blessings. The purer that action can be, the more powerful it will be for me. The receiver might be just as happy with the $10 of it, the $1,000 that I give them that I, that is all from my ego and the $1,000 that I give them is truly from the place in my soul that is simply an action of sharing, but I will not receive the same benefit. And therefore, I think it's very important for those of us who are, and I hope all of us to some degree are involved in actions of sharing, that we make sure to the degree that we can, that we can receive the greatest benefit from them. And the way to receive the greatest benefit from the actions of sharing is to make sure that I am coming from the purest place, not of ego, but of a desire to share more importantly because it connects me to the source of where all of my blessings come from. There's another big issue that a lot of us wrestle with of how to give money and share with our kids without spoiling them, wrecking that desire to achieve stuff for themselves. And Warren Buffett famously said, you should give your kids enough money so they can do anything, but not enough so that they'll do nothing. And that's guided a lot of people in the investment business, so that, you know, it gives, it gives them the justification to give way a lot of money, but they still give something to their kids so that, you know, they'll have a decent head start in life. There's a concept in Kavala that I've found incredibly profound of bread of shame. And I wondered if you could talk about that and how, what it means and how basically we can give money away or help our kids or family members in ways that will actually help them rather than disempower them. Absolutely. So like you said, it's a foundational teaching of Kavala that the question, the philosophical question is asked, why are we in this world? Why isn't the world perfect? Why is there pain, suffering, death? Why do we all come to struggles in our life? If thought is good, if that quality, endless light, quality, creator is good, why is it everything good in this world? And the answer is because if everything was created in its perfected states, we would never have earned it. And we would be experiencing what is called bread of shame being bread or what is given to us without having earned it causes us to feel unhappy with it. Because our root where we come from is that light to the creator, we are all made of that light of that energy, that energy that is of sharing, that is of creating, if we came into a world created in its perfection, we would enjoy it for a while, maybe a long while, but eventually, we would come to the point where we would understand I didn't create this, I didn't earn this, my energy, my where we come from is the force that creates things that makes things better, and therefore, eventually, we would be unhappy with it. And therefore, the answer to the question, why is this world as it is? Why do we have to work so hard to make it better is because we need to earn it? Because ultimately, our soul would never be satisfied with anything that was created for us that we did not create. So it's a very important foundational theological philosophical reason for the creation of our world for, of our being it, but it's a truth that continues to flow through life. And I'm sure most of us have real, I've had these moments, the greatest pleasures that we've had is when there was a challenge that we overcame, whether it was something that we needed to create, it wasn't given to us, right? Imagine, right, and we all know this, right? The person who, who, you know, sort of, that doesn't write their book, somebody gives them their book and they put their name on it, they don't enjoy it, they can't enjoy it, and they're deep in their art, as a matter of fact, I'm sure it starts eating away at them because it's not theirs, even though I have to get all the accolades, everybody loves your book, but they know inside, they didn't create it. So by nature, our innate nature is a nature that will never enjoy in the long term, anything that we have not created, anything that we have not heard. And therefore, when we think about ourselves and certainly true, when we think about our children, it's more importantly true. And this is true, again, whether it's about wealth or anything else in life, you have to know, and therefore, you know, it always comes back to you want the best for your children, you have to make sure that they are able, that they are given the ability to create their own life, their own well, their own success. What does that mean? It'll look different for every single person, what it doesn't look like, and this is for sure, like you said, when somebody is given a large sum of money for which they never work and did not earn, and therefore, they do not have to work to rest of the rest of their lives, that is most likely not going to give them the pleasure of life. If they never have created and simply live the rest of their lives, all of money created by others, it's not that it's wrong because we don't have moral views on this, it's just that for your child, it won't allow them to have the most fulfilling life that they're meant to have. And interestingly, I know many people, you know, this is that, you know, trust fun babies as they're called. I know some of them who've gotten deeply into the spiritual world and are actually satisfied, not because of the money that they have, but because in addition to that, they've created their own world and life for themselves. I know many people who cause a tremendous amount of pain, and I'm sure we all know stories like this, and I think the second group is larger than the first group. And if you truly understand that it is a foundational rule of life, that nobody will ever be satisfied in life, unless they have earned, unless they have created, then the question has to be not how much you give, in what ways you give, but how do I make sure in whatever way that I give, in whatever amount that I give to my children, or by the way, to anybody else, that it doesn't, by the way, I was having a conversation with somebody who was a partnership with his brother, and he's doing most of the work, the brother's doing almost none of the work and they're splitting the profits 50-50. And I said, that's fine for now, and he's probably happy for now, but in the long term, that energy doesn't work. So back to children, the thought always has to be, I want my child to be the happiest child for the rest of their lives, not in the moment that they know they got, they had their trust fund. And I know that we've all seen, and it's a spiritual and physical rule, that un-earned, un-uncreative life is one that cannot, and will not possibly bring fulfillment in the long term. So how do you set up a system, again, whatever the amount of money is, whatever the amount of time is, where you allow your child to have a desire? And I think this is the key point. The one thing that you cannot give, which you can cause reasons for it to be diminished, is desire, lack, bills desire. If there's no lack, lack doesn't have to be the fact they don't have footing, right? But it can be that there's a desire within them to do, to accomplish, to create, unfortunately, too often when you give greater change, when you give too much un-earned, then desire becomes diminished. And then even if 30 years from now, they would want to do something because the desire was not allowed to flourish in the younger years, it can lead to them accomplishing achieving, not just what they meant to achieve in this world, create in this world, more importantly, enjoy this world. So it's a very, I think rather than, which I think many parents look at, okay, I have all of this. Of course, I'm going to give it to my kids because I love them. The first has to be, I want to make kids to be the happiest kids, or have the happiest lives for the rest of their lives. I have to make sure I do not create a cycle of bread of shame because that almost never leaves to pleasure, almost never leaves to to facilitate. There's another really foundational spiritual principle that I learned in Kabbalah, but then I kept finding, whenever I looked at people in business and investing, and I wrote about it at some length in a chapter that I wrote about these two legendary hedge fund managers Nick Sleep in case the career, because everything they did was really built on the concept of deferred gratification, that the ability to defer gratification turns out to be a kind of super power. So they said, they started to invest in companies like Amazon and Costco, which were Emberk's pathway, which were prepared to think in an incredibly long-term way. And so Amazon for years, or everyone on Wall Street hated it because they didn't report any profits. They just would keep plowing their money back into the business to give their customers a better and better deal, more and more benefits through prime, whatever else it was. And same thing with Costco, where they insisted on keeping their profit margins at something like 14%, they never would mark stuff up, outrageously. And so they just kept taking really good care of their customers. And what Nick and Zag said is they called this business model scale economist Shad, and they said what it means is because these companies benefit from their scale, as they get bigger and bigger, they share those benefits with their customers. And so it becomes this kind of benevolent cycle. And I started to look at this in every area of life and to think, oh, that's amazing. This fundamental principle that we see in spirituality actually plays out in businesses. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because it's, I don't know if I'm articulating it properly, but I kept seeing it in the Old Testament as well, like you'd see, for example, that the story of Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dream and seeing seven years of abundance and then seven years of famine. So he advises Pharaoh to store surplus grain during the years of abundance. So again, it's an act of deferring gratification. Right. Interesting. So there's a foundational teaching in Kavala, which is that the way the world came into being is a process called Simtum. Simtum is the ancient word translated as restriction, which means that in order for this world to come into being, the first had to be a restriction of the light, but we call the light of the Creator. And then there was space. There was space for this world to come into being. Whereas before, everything was only light. There was no space for humanity. There was no place space for our work. That to be created as empty blank canvas where we can create, where we can be born into and so on. So it is seen that Simtum or restriction is the foundational element in creation, certain creation of braiding and therefore you might father would often use the example of the light bulb where you need the tree, what we call three columns, right? The one that receives the energy, the one the restriction energy and the one that allows the light to shine. And in order for any system to work, there has to be a receiving, there has to be giving, and there has to be restriction. And when you understand that, that is foundational and fundamental to anything, certain to the to our experience of life, but even to the creation of our world, it gives you an understanding that in order for anything to prosper, it has to have this element. It goes a little bit back when you think about it to any business that we create a person creates. And he or she received from it. Hopefully, he or she gives into it. And hopefully within that system, there's also a process of restriction or in your words, delayed gratification. The only those three elements create a perfect system. And only those three elements can create a sustained system. And therefore it's not coincidental in the cases that you shared where when you have, I think most people know that you need to give into a business and take from a business, but most people don't necessarily understand is that you need restriction in a business. And that delayed gratification, that ability to say, I won't take now so that I can take later. That is foundational and fundamental for any system. Not again, the system can last for a day for a week, for a month to five years, but for something to have an eternal ability to be self-sustaining, there has to be that element of restriction. It's true both in large businesses, but it's also true in our lives. In order, and again, there's many examples of this, but when we have, again, within our relationship, if we're taking all the time and we're not giving, that's not going to work. If we're taking and also giving, but never restricting in our relationship, it also is not sustainable. Those three elements, sharing, receiving, and restriction are foundational to anything, having the ability to be sustainable. It's funny because I actually quoted your father in this chapter because I'm talking about these guys, Nick and Zach, and how everything they do basically is built on this idea of restriction on delayed gratification. And so I say, none of this is new. In the book of Genesis, Esau, a sucker for instant gratification, trades his precious birthright to his brother Jacob in return for a worthless bowl of lentil soup. By contrast, Jacob San Joseph, a master of deferred gratification, has the foresight to set aside vast quantities of grain during the seven years of abundance, ensuring that Egypt survives the seven years of famine that follow thousands of years later, we're presented over and over with this same choice between the present and the future, the instant and the deferred. And then a little bit later, I quote your father, Ralph Berg, saying, instead of choosing the line of least resistance, the quick fix instant gratification, the catalyst chooses the line of most resistance. Beautiful. Beautiful. Exactly. Because if you want the most abundance, you have to have the most resistance. And we know that, you know, in simple terms, if you're, if you're, if you're, you know, whether it's a bow and arrow, whether it's a catapult, the further back you pull, the further it will go. And that's the foundational spiritual teaching. So I wanted to ask you one more thing about happiness because I mean, we've talked a little bit about it already. And my, my book and the podcast called Richard Wise are happier. And, and you've often struck me as one of the most consistently joyful people I've ever met. And I remember also in one of the books that you edited a book of letters from Ralph Brandwine, your father's teacher to your father, he wrote at one point, make sure always to be joyful, which struck me as an incredible thing. It was like, wait, you can actually always be joyful. How would you manage that? And so we talked about the importance of appreciation as being a central aspect of building a happy life. It seems to me also that one of the things you talk about, a great deal is the importance of kindness. And the RAV would always say, you know, it's easy to become religious, but to become kind takes a lifetime. Can you talk about just the importance of kindness or anything else that you think is super central to building a truly happy life? So I'll talk about both with kindness and happiness. So, so kindness, it's interesting. I'm always in this, Monica, they have all often observed this. And you'll have parents, shy achieving parents who want their children to be successful. But I am often shocked at how kindness is not at the top of that list. The reality is, the reason why it's important to be kind is because, as I've said before, that energy that sustains the world, recall the light of the Creator, is a kind of benevolent energy. If you're not in tune with that energy, you're never going to be happy because that's from where we receive all of our blessings and all of our abundance. So being kind, which simply means to be aligned with the force that sustains the world, to stay sustained in the universe, is something that needs to be ingrained certainly within our children. And I am often shocked at good parents who are giving their children all the possibilities in life to be successful. But don't realize or don't remember or be certainly don't ingrained within their children, that kindness needs to be at the number one. Everything else can only flow from that. And second, as it relates to happiness, there's a section in the Zora that says that, and it says this about King David, the biblical king, it said that whenever he would want to feel connected and he was sad, he would have somebody come in and play the harp or play an musical instrument and music would bring him joy because he knew that would recall the light to the creator, that energy that brings abundance only rests on a person who's happy. That's what it says, that the light to the creator only rests on an individual who's happy. So if you want to have abundance, you have to be happy. If you want to have blessings in your life, you have to be happy. And happiness is before flows from appreciation. But if you understand, my father would often use this phrase in different ways, but he would say, it's dangerous not to be happy. Now, that might be overwhelming for some people, but the reality is again, if you realize that the blessings and light and abundance only rests on a person who's happy and maybe some people more excited to others, well, you definitely try to use your time and your energies and how do I create for myself more happiness? Because that's what draws the next blessing. That's what draws the next level of abundance. And it ties that we said about appreciation, but it has to be, I think some people even spiritual people don't often give enough weight to the importance of living a half of, I don't want to use the word forcing yourself, but really encouraging yourself and do the things that are necessary to live a happy life because that's the only place, the only state upon which the blessings that the light to the creator can rest. It seems like one of the biggest challenges is that if we're in the mud, if we're in the world, if we're trying to make money, support our families, build businesses, have an influence in the world, we get battered and buffered it a lot along the way. I mean, when I started studying about maybe 15 years ago, the very first thing that happened, I got laid off by time right in the middle of the financial crisis when I was editing the European Middle East now for conditions of time back in 2008. And I felt like absolutely crushed. And one of the big challenges is how to deal with these setbacks, these buffetings, these things where things don't seem to be going our way. And I think we all go through this, and if you could give us some sense of how you've dealt with it, because I know that I've had a devastating stroke back in 2004 and maybe eight, nine years later passed away. Your mom passed away a couple of years ago. Your beautiful son, Josh was born with Down syndrome. You've gone through lots of challenging stuff that somehow you've managed to reframe or deal within a way that's allowed you to maintain this happiness. And I wonder if you could just share with us how you do that in ways that we can emulate that might help us. I think it stems from really the found for me, the foundational, and it is the fact that I know that I am not directing my life. And that's a good thing. I think what happens too often is we think we are in total control. And when things don't go as we had wanted them, then everything's a problem. But when we understand it, we're basically a cult pilot in this journey of life. You know, call it God, call it the creator, call it the universe. But clearly, clearly, our plans, my mother would often quote this, quote, quote, this, you know, man plan and God laughs, right? That's sort of what that you would often use. And that's true. I think every person who's lived more than a day knows that, I don't know, the world, you know, what the percentage is, our 50% of our plans work out and 50% of them don't. We've also all experienced that sometimes when they don't work out, like you, you gave a few examples, they actually wind up for the betterment, right? Actually, I'm happy that that didn't happen. So it's really all about gaining that view of life. I am not in total control. I never was, never will be. There is a benevolent force, call it again, whatever force you want to call it, call it the universe. That is leaving me in a positive direction. So much of our angst, anxiety, an upset, conflicted, what I wanted to happen didn't happen. My view always, it happens to all of us. Maybe all the plans, ideas, big ones, small ones that don't work out, that go in the other direction. My first thought is there's a greater force involved in here. And I have certainty that it's going to lead me to a better place. That better place, by, you know, the examples you've mentioned, whether it's the struggles with my parents and their health and their living this world or with our son Josh and thousands of others that you and I we've all had. My first thought is there's a greater force and work here, a benevolent force. I've seen it lead me to better places, even though like I often use the example and this is true. I think of so many parents. If you asked me before Josh was born, do you want to have a son with Down syndrome? Of course, my answer would be absolutely not. If you asked me now 21 years later, are you appreciative or you thankful that you had Josh with Down syndrome as a member of yours, your son and a member of your family? Absolutely yes. The blessings that we receive immeasurable. Myself, my wife, our kids, our community. So how silly is it that I would get upset when things don't go my way? When I've seen, I've experienced time and time again in life. I've had my plans and I've had what I wanted to have and sometimes they follow through and sometimes they don't. And when they don't often, I've seen them come to a better place. If you see life as the purpose of life isn't just to stay above these sort of still waters and just get a law, but to grow, sometimes growth comes in challenges and sometimes it comes from our we ourselves pushing. But that mindset of change and growth, which is my desire, then the things that happen that you don't want to happen, you see them, you accept them as part of that greater plan, not to make you comfortable, but to make you grow. And I've both experienced that and used those experiences as the way I take in any new challenge that comes. Yes, not exactly what I would have planned for, not exactly what I would have wanted, but I've seen throughout life that these challenges often lead me to a better place. Sometimes they make me uncomfortable, but ultimately lead me to a better place. And that allows me to go through the challenges with the greater sense of peace, with the greater sense of acceptance. Yeah, and I have to say, I'm much happier today. I think that I was back in 2008 when I was working in insanely 70, 80 hours a week, managing a magazine, didn't have time to think. And I, you know, look, that getting laid off led to all of these other things, whether it was initially ghost writing books or then writing my own books and then having this podcast. And I also think there was some sense in which the crushing of my ego was very helpful because I was so busy going around the world, interviewing presidents and prime ministers and feeling like a big shot that I wasn't really open. I really did feel like my success was created by me. And once I got kind of smashed in a way that felt kind of unreasonable and unfair, it kind of, I had to sort of rebuild in a way that I never would have been as open to seeing how I needed to change, for example, so it did turn out to be the sort of a really beautiful journey. Absolutely. And then I'm sure we've all had countless moments like that. But we don't often remember them when the next challenge comes. Yeah. Michael, I'm aware that you have limited time. And I just wanted to know, is there any last point you'd like to make something big that we've failed to discuss? I would say, I mean, I think we've covered so much of this. I would say that one of the most important teachings that I give to them, that I always, I don't know if the word is repeat. But one is that every single one of us is so much greater than we currently are, and then often that we currently give ourselves credit for. I did it's one of the biggest mistakes that every single one of you, I'll talk to myself even today as I said it now. And, you know, I would say I would have accomplished certain things. You have to make a list. But my potential is endlessly greater than what it is currently now. And that drives me and excites me and inspires me every single day. Number one. And then the second one is that truly embracing the knowledge that the singular purpose for which I'm in this world is to have greater happiness, wealth, abundance every day, one day to the next. How do you achieve that? That's a whole other conversation. We've touched upon some of those points. But, but to really understand that that's life as it is meant to be, that tomorrow I am happier today than today. I am more abundant tomorrow than today. And let's find our ways to get there, but to know that that is the underlying purpose for which we're in this world. The other thing that I think for me has been hugely transformational. I've looked back on the last 15 years of studying this wisdom. It's something that I got from your father where he arrived, where he would just say over and over again, consciousness is everything. And that sense that my happiness was not going to come just externally from people thinking I was a big shot because I was editing an international magazine, or because I was living in Belgrade, you know, this beautiful area of London. It was going to have to be internal. And so I was going to have to work on my consciousness on these things like becoming kinder, becoming more loving, becoming more compassionate, more self compassionate, you know, more sharing, treating other people with more human dignity. It wasn't going to be the external stuff that I'd been chasing really for the first 40 years of my life that was ever going to do the trick. Absolutely. And here again, it's a very important fundamental teaching, which I think when I like about it, it's also logical. We know that what makes us happier and happy is not what is happening around us. You have two people in the same situation. I always use the example that was a certain very wealthy billionaire. I remember reading the article maybe 20 years ago. He had lost all of his money. He was left with only $80 million. And the article is I don't know if it was jokingly or not. How is he going to live only on $80 million? But of course, that man was terribly depressed. Well, you have somebody else who would have $80 million in a house. Maybe the happiest person in the world, at least for that moment, clearly our situation does not make us happier and happier. It is how we view it, how what our consciousness is. And therefore, as my father would always remind us, consciousness is everything. If your consciousness is right, what is happening around you is less important. If consciousness is wrong, what is happening around you is less important. We said two people in the same exact situation, one of them elated, one of them depressed. It is not the physical occurrences that usually make us make us happier and happy. It is how we receive them, what our consciousness is about them. And if I can end with a silly story. So I often like repeating it because it goes really to this point. So number of years ago, we were flying from LA to New York. I'll be forwarding the plane. I put my stuff in the overhead compartment. I'm sitting down and people are filing by and going to their seats. And a woman had a very large thing called Vendy, a cup of Starbucks, one of the sweet ones. And she's trying to put stuff in the overhead compartment and she spills her coffee all over me. And my first thought is, oh my god, for the next six hours of this flight, I'm going to have to five hours of this flight. I'm going to have to sit in sticky clothes. The second thought I had was, well, this is coming from the creator. This must be for your benefit. I don't want to sit exactly out, but it's definitely for your benefit. And I became instantly happy in that moment. I couldn't tell you the logic or reason why I needed to spend the next five minutes. But I knew that there was a greater plan and that it was only for my benefit that anything that happens and comes to my life is only for only for my benefit. Consciousness, right? So I could have been an angry person sitting there five and a half hours in a situation I couldn't change anyway. And being angry at this woman who spills her coffee on me, or I could be a happy person sitting there in my sticky clothes saying, I know this is for my benefit. Consciousness is everything. It's a beautiful note on which to end. Michael, thank you so much for joining us today. And thank you for being such a wonderful teacher of all these years. I've learned so much from you. And I often say that I learn more from you than I learned from going to college. So thank you. But of course, I didn't study very hard at college. So I will say thank you very much. I really appreciate it. It's been a real delight. Thank you so much. All right, folks. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Michael Berg. If you'd like to learn more from Michael, there are a lot of great resources, which I'll include in the show notes for this episode. For a start, there's Michael's spiritually hungry podcast, which he co-hosts with his wife, Monica. It provides very accessible advice on a lot of practical topics. I had overcome challenges and achieved greater happiness and had to build a great relationship. Michael's also the director of the Kabbalah Center, which has a terrific website that I use a lot. You can find it at kabbalah.com. It has literally thousands of lectures, videos, articles, and livestream classes with Michael and other great teachers, including his late father, Rav Berg, and his late mother, Karen Berg, who are both amazing teachers and amazing human beings. Michael's also written an array of books with titles like Secrets of the Sohar and Secrets of the Bible and becoming like God. He's also edited some wonderful books by great Kabbalists like Rav Yehuda Ashlag. And Rav Ashlag's books, particularly dear to my heart, for example, is one called The Wisdom of Truths, and another called And You Shall Choose Life. And then there's one called The Sort of Creation. And they're all just amazing books, though, I think, but for me, anyway, you can just read over and over, and you'll always learn something new. Most important, perhaps, there's a 23-volume edition of the Sohar, which is the foundational text of Kabbalah, which Michael started translating from Aramaic into English when he was 18 years old. And for me, the Sohar is really the most infinitely beautiful and rich, but also anigmatic book that I've ever encountered. I never really feel that I truly understand it, but it's just endlessly rich, and I tend to keep a volume of it, actually on my desk, pretty much all of the time, whether I'm writing or recording a podcast or whatever. And I try to read a few paragraphs from it every day. As I mentioned in my book, I think it's really helpful to find a few books in your life that you just keep coming back to again and again. And this, in a way, is the one I come back to most. And every day, I tend to play this game that I call Sohar Roulette, where I open the Sohar, more or less randomly, and just see where I'm going to land, and whether there's a lesson in that that might have particular resonance for me that day. And so this morning, I ended up opening the Sohar and reading a paragraph about the idea that everything is interconnected, everything forms one whole that we're all connected, that division in a sense is an illusion. And I think this is something that we saw in fairly practical terms during the COVID pandemic, where you couldn't really, you couldn't really trust a virus to stay on one border without leaping over the borders and affecting everyone else. And similarly, I think we're seeing it now with climate change and the impact that extreme weather events are having on all of us. And I think we also see it in the global economy, where countries like China and the US are inextricably interconnected. So in that one paragraph that I randomly selected from the Sohar this morning, it says, and I'll quote, it says, there is no division, but all is one. So to me, that's a beautiful and typically helpful reminder from the Sohar that we're all interconnected. We're all interdependent. And I think this runs through many other spiritual traditions. It certainly runs through Tibetan Buddhism, the sense of interdependence. And for me, it's a really helpful reminder that one of the great challenges of life in my mind, at least, is to diminish our sense of division and separation. And so I think a lot about how I can do that by trying to be a little more compassionate and a little kinder, but also trying to be more open to other people's points of views and to understand that I have a very limited and partial view of what's really going on in the world. And I think one of the great reminders from that passage and from studying Kabalai is just this truth that we're all in the same boat. We're all struggling at times and we all want to be happy. And in some sense, we're all deeply responsible for each other. So on that note, thank you for listening to the podcast and for being on this journey with me. And I hope for all of us, it helps us to become richer, wiser and happier. Until next time, take good care and stay well. Before we end this podcast, I want to tell you about a new position at the Investors Podcast Network. We're looking for a new host for a show millennial investing. With over 10 million downloads and counting, millennial investing is one of the world's top 1% podcast shows. You will host a stock investing focus podcast and man's social media assets. More importantly, you will join the rest of the TIP team on a journey to provide authentic and actionable investing content for the TIP community. Go to theinvestorspodcast.com slash careers for more information about compensation, job description and how to apply. That is theinvestorspodcast.com slash careers. And the financial markets. To access our show notes, transcripts or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision consult a professional, this show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.