The Coach Daniel Ratner Podcast

Self Love or Self Hate: Building Self-Esteem

• By Coach Daniel Ratner

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Let me know your thoughts about the podcast. Thank you for listening!

We explore how low self-esteem is not a fixed trait but the absence of light, and how shifting our gaze from comparing ourselves to others to inner purpose restores confidence. Stories, Torah insights, and practical tools show how to protect joy, lift others, and pray with clarity.

• framing self-esteem as light versus darkness
• culture-driven comparison and beauty standards
• symptoms: avoidance, risky behavior, poor relationships
• how social media flexing lowers others’ self-esteem
• choosing inner circles over public performative sharing
• building fences around happiness and curating inputs
• forgiveness as release from inherited pain
• rejection therapy and small kindnesses to grow confidence
• defining core values through gratitude and responsibility
• exercise as mood medicine and mindset reset
• prayer formula: recognize, praise, ask, thank

Please leave a review on Amazon for Sunscreen Love by Coach Ratner. Type “Coach Ratner Sunscreen Love” on Amazon, scroll to the bottom, and click “Leave Review”


SPEAKER_00:

Today we're gonna walk out of here happier than we came when we came in. That's the goal for this class. When you come to my classes, I have a goal for you, whether it's relationships, whether it's vampires, for you to become in my class. This class is about basically raising your self-esteem and becoming the happiest people we can be in life. I want to first start with a few community service announcements. I forget in these classes, I get so involved in the classes, I forget to announce certain things. So I have a WhatsApp route. If you want to get on it, just if you have a camera, uh you can get off anytime. I usually announce special events, special classes, or when I have books that are coming out. I think I don't post a lot very rarely, but if you want to get on after class or now, you can you can uh use your phone for that. And today's book we're talking about is called Never Feel in Loved Again. It's available on Amazon. I have a few copies here. And then uh next week we're doing a class on emotional vampires. This book is available here also for purchase. And then today's next week's class also we're doing, I'm actually calling it the Ten Commandments of Marriage. And what I'm gonna do next week, because this is a part of this room, we do the Ten Commandments. I really shouldn't have done the class this week, but whatever. I made a mistake. What we're gonna do is we're gonna take the Ten Commandments and we're gonna compare them to marriage. Because just like the Ten Commandments, you have, you know, two tablets, five are from man to God, and the second five are man to man. Why didn't God just make one tablet? Why two tablets, right? Because if you had one tablet, you have an order, and like they're both important. You know, the first three of the second tablet are basically between uh actions, you know, do not kill, do not do adultery, do not steal. These are actionable items. And the fourth of the second tablets is uh do uh do not bear false witness, which is a uh speech. So you have action and you have speech, and the last of the Ten Commandments is do not covet, which is thought. So it creates everything, and so in the Ten Commandments, I found that I can talk about marriage in all the Ten Commandments. It's all based on sunscreen love. If you do not have a copy of this book, it is free of copies here. All I ask, and I have not been good about this, I need to believe, I'm gonna, I don't have it in yet, but I'm gonna put in a um got winning next week. Uh a QR code to the reviews. So I've given out 2,000 books and I have like 15 reviews. So I'd like to have it'd be great if you read the book and you happen to have it and read it and enjoy it or don't enjoy it, it doesn't matter. I still need reviews because it shows people reading the book. So if you have the book, if you don't have it, it's free, it's here after class. Anything else? Jacob, anything else I can talk about?

SPEAKER_03:

Sure.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_03:

You had posted to write a review.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

But I don't I didn't know how.

SPEAKER_00:

Like I didn't I I put a link after that. Did you?

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, I didn't see it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you go to Amazon. I think you have to spend fifty dollars a year on Amazon in order to leave a review.

SPEAKER_03:

I can do that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I most people I assume, you know, not everyone does, but like I think you have to do that. I think that's the rules. I'm gonna have I I just wasn't smart about it. I should put the links, the QR codes in here, but I don't I don't see a link. You don't see a link? No, there's no link.

SPEAKER_02:

Unless you I don't know if you didn't put it or I did, I posted it. This is I saw this.

SPEAKER_00:

I posted it, I know I posted it. Let's see. Everybody wash now boots.

SPEAKER_02:

Unless there's a secret group that I'm not a part of.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, no, no, no. Okay. I don't see putting it on here.

SPEAKER_01:

I thought it's just if you purchase the product and it's a verified purchase.

SPEAKER_00:

There's two there's verified purchase if you buy the book, which you're more than welcome to do. Or if you don't verify, it doesn't say verified purchase, it says review. You know, it is not on here, and I will lean that or do after class tonight.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, perfect.

SPEAKER_00:

But if you go to the book, if you type in Coach Ratner Sunscreen Love or Coach Ratner, and you go to the bottom, it says leave review. I mean it's not hard to find.

SPEAKER_03:

I didn't see that. Okay, I'll start.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it should be there on the very bottom. Let's go, baby. Let's rock and roll. Let's get this done, baby. So the reason why I wrote the book on self-esteem and why I could teach classes on it is because when you're teaching classes about relationships and dating and marriage, and this is a big issue in the world today. You have, I'm gonna say it's probably more with young women than men, but it's an issue with everybody that if you don't love yourself, you're gonna have a hard time loving somebody else. And a lot of this is a common feeling in the world today. I don't love myself, if I find a guy, I'll be happy. And not only will this relationship, only will you still be unhappy, you're gonna make him unhappy, and the relationship's gonna fall apart. It doesn't mean it's gonna fall apart. These are there are worse things in a relationship like narcissism or you know, uh the than low self-esteem, but it makes it really hard to have a passionate-loving relationship when you don't love yourself. Because how can you put an effort into somebody else when you don't love yourself? So in 2021, the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, came out with a report, staggering, that one out of every three teenage girls had seriously considered attempting suicide. Think about that for a second. One out of three had seriously considered attempting suicide. And the rate for boys was half that. We mean one out of six. We live in one of the best times in the history of the world. We have access to food and medicine and shelter and information. We have everything that our fingertips. Our bubbies had to go to the, you know, how to go to the creek to get water. Yet we live in a time with more therapists per capita, more people antidepressant than any time they enter the world. What is going on? What does self-esteem mean? Let's first get into it. What does self-esteem mean? Do do do do do do do. I'm gonna wait for an answer. What does low self-esteem? What does self-esteem mean? Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh I guess the self-esteem is how you do yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Wasn't a trick question. Very easy. You can speak up. Thank you so much. And so low self-esteem would mean that you don't feel good about yourself as a person. It means you don't feel good. And by the way, we all go through this in our life. I believe it starts, this is my opinion. I remember I grew up in Virginia, Alexander, Virginia, and I back in the when I was little and the winter time was cold. It's freezing now this year. Oh my gosh, it's so cold back home. I mean, look at the weather forecast every night, like below nine degrees, eight degrees. And I go to the bus stop in the morning, and really this first, second, third grade, my wife, my mom, my wife, my mom would say to me, I wasn't married in first grade, that's weird. Anyway, I my mom would say to me, put a cold hat on, put a warm hat on before you go to the bus stop. Else you're gonna catch a cold. Okay, mom, put a hat on, go to the bus stop. Somewhere around fourth, fifth, sixth grade. I can't pinpoint it, but you know what I'm talking about. What happens? What do I say to my mom?

unknown:

You're like, no, I don't need it anymore.

SPEAKER_00:

Why?

SPEAKER_01:

Because you start to become think you're independent.

SPEAKER_00:

Not just that, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01:

Hat hair?

SPEAKER_00:

Not hat hair.

SPEAKER_01:

You think you know better.

SPEAKER_00:

No, mom, I'm gonna look like the go ahead.

SPEAKER_01:

You're insecure about what people think about me.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm insecure about what people think about myself. Because I start to um become aware of girls. You know, you start to get that age, we're like, ooh, girls, right? Huh?

SPEAKER_02:

Don't blame us.

SPEAKER_00:

No, I'm blaming you. No, no, no, no. It's ourselves, right? It's ourselves. Because the biggest prison you can put yourself in is worrying about what other people think of you. And it is a prison, and we put ourselves into it. And so, what I want to do is turn my mess into my message. This is what this book is this class is about. And by the way, I don't believe it exists. This is my personal opinion. Low self-esteem doesn't exist. And you know how I have a clue from this? When I read the beginning of the Torah, and it starts off with In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And God said, Let there be light. The Torah says that there is darkness upon the surface of the deep. Which means darkness existed before there was creation. I believe low self-esteem is just having a lack of light in your life. What do you what is what's that what's that opinion? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01:

And what if you do have a lot of light in your life?

SPEAKER_00:

Isn't it more like an internal perception of your reality? It is an internal perception. It is Jason, your own goggles of yourself, what you think about yourself. No one else is viewing you that way. You're saying like your glasses, like how you perceive the world should be with light. With light and have light in your life, which means find a way, bring light into your life. Look, we can we can um black out the windows in this room, turn the lights off, and be completely dark in the air. And you when you light one little tiny birthday candle, what happens? The whole room lights up, right? And so we, if we bring light into our life, we'll be happier people. So this class is broken down to three different parts. The first thing we're gonna do, I don't know if we're not gonna do the whole thing, but we're gonna uh we're gonna break it down to starting off with symptoms of low self-esteem. These are things that we do in our life when we have low self-esteem. And I'm not looking at you or me, we all do these things. And some of us do more than others. It's just recognizing what they're coming from. And the second part of the class, which is actually very important, we're gonna discuss ways in which you cause low self-esteem in other people. And the reason why this is so important, because once you become aware of your happiness, once you become aware of other people's happiness, you become more aware of your own happiness. Because when you start saying, you know what, if I say this, it might come across wrong, I shouldn't write that, and you become aware of other people's feelings, your own feelings become more in tune. And then lastly, we're gonna go through different ways in order to connect to cure your low self-esteem. There's 12 different ways, I'm not gonna go through all of them. But again, I really believe that it doesn't exist. You know, it's interesting. The speed of light. Anyone know the speed of light? Anyone? Bueller? No one gets this joke.

SPEAKER_01:

Ferris Bueller?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I'm aging myself, you know. It's actually pretty funny. Do you see the movie that Ferris Bueller is off? Fair Spueller?

SPEAKER_02:

Many, many, many years ago. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a pretty funny thing. Yeah. What's the speed of light? 300 and 186,000 miles per second. What's the speed of darkness? You get my point? Darkness doesn't exist. It's just an absence of light. You get that my point? So we want to do, we're gonna bring light into your life. In the Torah, the right represents, and this is very important that we're gonna talk about the right hand represents spiritual and the left represents the physical. Jacob showed the significance of using his right hand and blessing by placing on the head of Ephraim, whose tribe was thereby destined to become greater, even though Manasha was older. Right is synonymous with goodness and brightness, and left is awkwardness and clumsiness. And we're gonna look at this word right here, and we're gonna break it down a little bit. And this word is spelled nega. It is with uh an ion. Right? Nungimelion. This means, this is the word nega. This is used in Parsha Tatriya when when um the Jews start getting sorous, right? Skin disease. It's used when you when you you get it when you have lush and hora, right? When you're speaking evils, talking gossip with other people. This is the word nega. It's called an affliction. But what's interesting about this word, what's this last letter? Ion. What does that mean? The word iron is a letter, also is a word in Hebrew. It means eyes. The left side, we just talked about the left side being uh, we saw but the left side representing the physical and the right side representing, I mean the spiritual. And we take that I and we make it from the left side and we get rid of it, and we put it in front, and we put it on the right side, we have the word oneg, which is pleasure. So if you can take change your vision of yourself, if you can change your goggle of yourself, you can change how you feel about yourself. Any questions? Okay. And we see that when when it's so funny because like we're reading about the Jews coming out of Egypt, and Yosef was in, you know, becomes the viceroy of Egypt. How did he become viceroy? How was it that he went from a lonely slave, right, to a viceroy?

SPEAKER_03:

His visions.

SPEAKER_00:

Huh?

SPEAKER_03:

His visions.

SPEAKER_00:

His visions. We don't talk about this a lot. We say, oh, he's viceroy. No, he was in jail, which by the way, it was a dungeon. I think they said it was a dungeon, a dark place, and he stopped and he recognized that the baker and the winemaker, the pharaoh's, you know, confidants, who are now in jail, are they he, in fact, the Torah says, there's not a measure. He goes, You look aggrieved, how can I help you? You know what he did? He went out of his way in a dark place and brought light to somebody else. And what happened? Two years later, he's out of jail, now viceroy of Egypt. Because he brought light to somebody else. You know, I'm I'm reading a lot, I'm reading this book called Letters to the Rebbe. And I read this last night. I wanted to bring this to you. That a lot of the letters he gets from people about going through struggles and having problems in life. And I'm gonna read this to you. I I thought it was interesting. He says, this is from the Rebbe. He says, excuse me. Hold on a second. I'm gonna have a little bit of tea. My throat's still not 100% yet. Yum. Did you eat yet? Yeah. Don't eat my fries. You can have a few. They have really good food at Aish, I gotta tell you. I'm I any of you guys at Aish? I mean, it's great. Lunch is awesome. I mean, gosh, they have so many salads and chickens, and like it's unbelievable. When I got here six years ago, I was teaching, and like the food was not very good. I used to go and get a salad at the French bakery here in town in the old city. And then eventually this got better and better and better. And I I love coming here. You know? Should bring my family. We're going out to dinner tonight. Where are you going? We're going to Aish? Isn't that for boys? That's okay. We'll we can go with sit in. To the rebellious young person, to the relious young adult, first charting their path in the world, he would explain that their youthful contrarian energy is a powerful once-in-a-lifetime force they can and must harness for the good. This is for someone who's young. You have a lot of power, you have a lot of, you have a lot of gumption, you have a lot of energy, and you can use this for good. To the business person, he would explain how they can make their work meaningful by finding opportunities to provide spiritual and material help to their colleagues and giving charity from their earnings. And I went through this when I was, I was not religious until my fifth 40s, mid-40s. And so I, Bukh Hashem, thank God bless me, that I was able to do well financially in my business. I'm a rare coin dealer. And at first I'm like, okay, after a while, I'm like, okay, I'm making money, it's great, whatever. And then once I started learning Torah, I'm like, you know what? God gave me a gift. I mean, he didn't give every God wrote us a check at birth. He wrote you a check for$5,000 and wrote you one for$10,000, right? But you never go to a bank with a$5,000 check and just say, give me$4,000, keep the change. That's exactly what you're doing, you don't reach your potential in life. And I said to myself, God gave me a gift. He gave me a gift to see coins put into the people, He gave me a gift to work hard, He gave me a bit uh gift to negotiate, He gave me a gift to understand the business and the nuances of the business. I'm gonna use that money for good. And that's why I started, you know, becoming a Baltsadaka. I remember I was I was not religious yet, and I got involved with Federation. You know a Jewish Federation? Right? And I remember I was like, I was probably in my late 30s, early 40s. I had never given money away. By the way, there's a reason why there is a Torah commandment to give 10% of your after tax net income away. Do you know why there's a mitzvah for this? It's hard! It's difficult, it's not easy. There's no mix of eight french fries. Do you know why? Because I could start although I can eat all the french fries ash. I mean, you put you put in them all, you just don't stop. It's like ridiculous. I mean I turned to an animal. I can't control myself with french fries. You know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. You've got ice cream, pizza, the same thing. Right? It's very difficult. So we're like addicted to it. This is why I make a little bit of a packet like this, so I don't eat more than this, right? Don't eat them. I'm gonna I'm gonna get I'm gonna move on. I'm gonna get into some of these things. So I'm gonna get some. So I talk about how Joseph brought light into a dark place, and we need to light it. So we're gonna go through different symptoms of low self-esteem and how they affect you. Number one is called comparing yourself to others. And we do this all the time. We're never happy with our own accomplishments, and there's and I one thing I say to my student, there's always gonna be someone better than you. Always. It doesn't matter what you do in life. Someone better looking, someone stronger, someone skinnier, someone who's more you're never gonna be the best at everything. If you are, someone's gonna become better eventually. Always striving to become a better person. I've learned something from my own life that when I was in high school, I used to play a lot of piano. I started in elementary school, junior high school, and I played a lot, and I was very good. I wasn't like, you know, great, but I was very, very good. Never said, oh, you're great, you're great. Because in my social circle between my shoulder, my high school, and my families and friends, I was an excellent piano. I used to play Gershwin, Rachmaniloff, uh Billy Joel, Elton John, Barry Manilo. At the Copa, Copa Cabana. I used to love that song. At the Coatel. The hottest spot north of the Dead Sea. At the Coatel. Anyway, that's gonna become a song someday. I gotta finish it up. So I go to this, I so I'm really good in piano, so I'm going to this all county chorus event in Virginia. And here I'm thinking I'm really good in piano, and I walk into this room full of pianos, all the accompaniments are at, and I walk in there, and by the way, before this, I was going to apply to two schools for music. My goal in life at this point in time, I'm in 10th, 11th grade, was to play on Broadway. That was my goal. I want to write music, write musicals, and play on Broadway. And I um was gonna apply to Oberlin School of Music in Ohio and the Juilliard School of Music in New York. Right? Back in the early 1980s, there was a TV show called Fame. Fame, I want to live forever, I want to learn how to fly. Hi, it was a very famous song. And I was gonna apply to the school. Not to be on the show, but to play there. I walk into this room full of pianos and my heart sank because I thought it was really good. And next thing I know, I see these young women and men playing music that was out of control. They were playing music by ear. I could play if you put sheet music in front of me, I can figure it out pretty quickly. I'm really good about that. Back then, not now. And they were playing by ear. Like any song you play, you sing, they can play it. They can switch keys on demand. I couldn't do that. I had to figure out each key. And most of these girls were like 13-year-old Korean girls. You know, like this is and they were amazing. And I the idea of me going to Oberlin and Juilliard completely went out the window. Why? Two reasons. And I learned two lessons from this. You should never listen to negative people. And the worst person you can listen to is yourself sometimes. I didn't have one in my life, you know, you can still do it, do it, code. Like, I wasn't coached then, but like no one, there was no one in my in my life telling me this thing. I didn't have Aisha Torah, I didn't have RovGov and Rabbi Dubov and Yom Tov Glazer and Dove Bear Kowe. I didn't have these people in my life. Like, I can't do it. And I never know what I can achieve. And by the way, another lesson you can learn in this is that you don't have to be the best at what you do to be successful. You just need to be good enough. It doesn't mean you should keep trying to become a better person, whatever skill you have in life. But I could have written music, I could have written on Broadway. Okay, I wasn't gonna play for the National Symphony Orchestra. I wasn't that good. I wasn't that technical, but other skills that I had that maybe they didn't have. I didn't give myself a chance because there's two kinds of regret. There's a regret when you tried something and failed. I never gave myself that chance. And this worst regret is never trying at all. So when you compare yourself to others, I when you think about the world today, we are comparing ourselves to others all the time, and how we dress, and how we do our hair. We're comparing ourselves to others. I saw a meme one time of a of a um a model, and she was from a northern Scandinavian country, and she had hairy armpits, and all the comments below were ooh gross, I would never do that. Ooh gross. Let me tell you something. Imagine MetLife Stadium, five nights in a row, Taylor Swift, sold out, five nights in a row, at the end of at the end of every concert, I love you, New York, with big hairy armpits. You know what's gonna happen? There's gonna be a social media storm for like five hours, and the next day every teenager is gonna stop shaving their armpits. And very soon you'll go to Emmys and Grammys and steal an L magazine and Cosmopolitan and all these different things, one with hairy armpits, and suddenly it'll become sexy. We are affected by the world around us. Am I making sense? You know, it used to be at one time, like if you if when you go to the checkout line at the grocery store and you see the women's magazines, what is considered beautiful in the eyes of the magazine? Is it pale or tan?

unknown:

Tan.

SPEAKER_00:

Tan. Do you know at one time, if you ever watched the movie Titanic, and you see the woman, early 1900s, right? What are they wearing? They have they're dressed modestly, right? Their cleavage isn't showing, they're dressed modestly, and they have big brim hats and they have an umbrella. Why? Because if you're white and pale, you're considered beautiful. If you're tan, you're considered white trash and had to work in the in the railroads or work in the fields. And if you're a pale white woman, you're considered beautiful. What happened? Why did our things switch? Why does it switch now? Because uh society changed the way that they marketing, Madison Avenue basically changed the way we view things. They control our lives. Lives. Do you know at one time pink was a color for boys and blue was for girls? And in the 1940s. Huh?

SPEAKER_04:

I've been saying that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it was pink was pink was considered. There you go, baby. Pink was considered a stronger color. No, I'm being serious. And in the 1940s, department stores figured out they if they used one color. Some department stores decided, you know what? And then Mamie Eisenhower, this was this is where it really switched. Huh? And European countries are big countries. European. Oh, European countries. Mamie Eisenhower in 1952. She was she was the she was the first lady. President Eisenhower, inaugural ball. She comes in auger ball in 1952. She's wearing all pink with 2,000 rhinestones, and they she at that point in time, every department store started making pink a woman's color. So when you go and you get something for your baby, you have a baby girl, Mazal Tove, right? What color did he get? That wasn't decided by you. That was decided by somebody else. You said why think for yourself. That's just one. We have a lot more to go. Avoiding social interaction. And this is a very fine line. I want to tell you something. When I was in college, I used to go to Keggirs on Friday and Saturday nights all the time. Like parties. And I'd go, and there was always a guy in my dorm who would sit at home and read. And I was like, hey, Mike, you're gonna come to the gaggers? No, I'm gonna sit home and read. I'm like, what a loser, right? Because that's my impression, because I'm a guy who wants to go out and have a good time. But maybe he was staying in because he was an introvert and had more get more pleasure than my wife. She's an introvert. She gets more pleasure from staying and reading a book than going out and doing something. She's an amazing, amazing teacher. My wife's today, she could teach all these classes. Right, you know. My wife's unbelievable. But she doesn't have that drive. She has no and I I usually I told her she'd come teach with me. I said, Did you come? She goes, No, I don't want to. If people want to learn with me, they have to come to my house. And she'll sit there with you know 15 girls, 20 guys, whatever, and teach whatever you want. She's unbelievable. Oh, you're gonna know Friday night, right? So my wife's amazing. But she doesn't have that drive, she's an introvert. Now, there are people, and she's good, she has strong self-esteem. It's not because she's worried about oh, no one's gonna like me, they're gonna think I'm fat. No, and that is called low self-esteem. When you are afraid to go out to social situations because you're terrified of what people are gonna think of you. Again, it's a fine line. Self-destructive behaviors. This is another symptom of low self-esteem. Why do I put this in here? Because I had a cousin, I didn't know him, but he died in a car accident. And that the police report is a wreck, and the reality from my other relatives that he committed suicide. When you see guys drive, I'm saying guys, but girl too, I guess, driving at 2 a.m. drunk, 200 miles per hour on the highway, right? They're not, you can say they're doing it through a thrill, or you can say they maybe don't care if they're going to die. And there's a fine line between people who want to jump out of airplanes, do bunching jumping, because of the thrill of being alive. Because what is a thrill? It's when you do something and any little mistake means you die. That's considered a thrill. We'll do one more of a symptom is poor relationships. Imagine I said I have a guy for you, by the way, he doesn't love himself. Do you want to go out with him? Not a chance in the world. Who wants to go out with someone who doesn't love themselves? Okay. Now we're gonna get into ways in which you contribute low self-esteem in other people. And this is, I think, a very important part of the class. I'm gonna get right into it. Posting on social media. Now, I think one of the reasons when when social media first started, Facebook first started, was an idea of, you know, you can share your pictures. I remember when it first came out, you know, when I used to travel back before social media, I'd buy a camera, like for vacation. I'd buy a box camera, right? And when I'm done back for the trip, I'd give it to Costco or CVS, and I'd have my pictures, and where would those pictures be? They'd be on my living room table or my dining room table. So if you came out of my house, you'd see the pictures. But they weren't sharing anybody else. And Facebook started like, oh, you can share with all your friends, your 40 family friends. What happened now? How many friends do people have on Facebook?

SPEAKER_01:

Hundreds.

SPEAKER_00:

Thousands? I have two thousands.

unknown:

Two thousands.

SPEAKER_00:

Two thousands. What? No, I'm not that cool.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't need to flex on that.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm not bragging. I'm not trying to bragging. My point is I don't know these people. I don't know, I don't know most of the people. So here's the thing. When I have something happy happen in my life, I want to share with my friends and family. So what I did, I started a Ratner family WhatsApp group. Well, on that WhatsApp group are 15 of my 20 of my friends and family. My sister's on it, my uh sister-in-law's on it, like these are people who I'm very close to. And when I'm at dinner, which might be tonight, whatever, and I'm out with my family, oh, we have to stand picture, that's where I post it. I don't need to share it with my 2,000 friends who are not really friends. So when you see what I call, this is my worst, this is one of my worst pet peefs, gender reveals. What's a gender reveal?

SPEAKER_02:

Blue or pink.

SPEAKER_00:

For a guy or a girl?

SPEAKER_01:

That depends uh if you're an LA or not.

SPEAKER_00:

What's a gender reveal? You say? No. Oh, you went like this. Change it later on in life anyway. I thought I didn't mean to bear issue. What'd you say? We're not gonna get into that. Go ahead. You're my you're my guy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's just uh when two parents reveal the gender of the baby.

SPEAKER_00:

When two parents reveal the gender of a baby and they do it on social media. Huh? What did someone say?

SPEAKER_01:

Nothing. In a what way? Cringy.

SPEAKER_00:

So they say, we're gonna have a boy! Next thing you know, they have blue balloons, a blue cake, and there's jets flying overhead with blue smoke coming out. Most of you can have a boy. It's great. But having your friends can't get married and can't have children. And I'm when I teach high school classes, it's not that often. When I teach high school classes, they're gonna come yell at they're not gonna yell at me, they're gonna argue with me. Why should I care what people feel like? If they don't want to be on social media, they shouldn't go on social media. You're right. You can post what you want. You can post your pictures of having a baby, you can post your pictures of getting into Harvard. It's great. Mozletov. But once you start to think about other people, and the reason why I came up with this concept is because I have a friend in the coin business who's posting pictures with his family in Paris. He's got a bunch of girls, wife in the what business? He's in my rare coin business. It's a buddy of mine, he's a friend of mine. And he's posting these pictures of his impairment every night at a fancy beautiful restaurant. And I'm like, you know, not everyone can afford this. These are the fortune, like thousands and thousands of dollars a night. Like, not ever afford this. Maybe have some thought that maybe I'm making people feel bad. Again, you don't have to, you don't listen to me. It's uh listen, when you have awareness of other people's happiness and feelings, you'll be more aware of your own. Or people do what I call the um the humble brag. Oh my gosh, I got stuck in Frankfurt Airport last night. Thank God there was a red carpet club that could get showered at a hot meal. Right? Or some girl comes off a plane, like, oh my gosh, I haven't showered in three days, and guys are still hitting on me. Right? You're saying something in a way that's supposed to be humble but ends up being bragging. Or my worst pet peeve, and I've never done this before, is that you don't know so-and-so. Oh, you don't know Rabbi Goldberg? Oh, everyone knows Rabbi Goldberg. You don't know Rabbi Goldberg? Oh, how do you not know Rabbi Goldberg? Like, what am I an idiot? Right? Am I stupid? Like, don't make me feel bad. I don't know everyone in your social circle. I just don't. I don't do this. I've never done this. It's always I've always been I've done the humble brag before, but I've never done the, I've never done this, you don't know so-and-so. It bothers me. Usually someone's famous, someone's in the you know, you know, a famous person. Oh, I mean I remember I when the Maccabees were first big in the Jewish world, like 2012. I was like, oh, my brother's girlfriend's sister dated a Maccabees. Like we all have a connection because it makes us feel better, makes us feel like we're higher in the eyes of other somebody else. Right? We try to connect ourselves to someone famous. And I've done this myself also. I don't do it anymore. Because now I'm aware of it. Because I want to have internal happiness without a need for external validation. I don't need likes, I don't need shares. I just need a happy wife so I can have a happy life. And that comes from having positive self-esteem. Everything I do is for my marriage. I put my marriage on a pedestal and I do everything to protect it. We'll get into this next week. Strategies to cure low self-esteem. I can't see the clock in the back. What time is it back there? 1.41. Okay. These are different things that you can do to help cure low self-esteem. The first thing, and I again, you had to put you have to put a fence around your happiness. Just like in Pierre Kabos, it says, put a fence around the Torah. Why do we put a fence around the Torah? Why do we not eat chicken cheese sticks? It's parv?

SPEAKER_02:

Chicken is parv.

SPEAKER_00:

Chicken technically well.

SPEAKER_02:

Ignore it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Go ahead. So you don't get tempted. There's such a restriction on milk and meat. In fact, out of all my teach my students who are starting to keep kosher, what's the worst thing to eat? What do you think is the worst thing to eat in right if you go to tree for restaurants? Huh?

SPEAKER_02:

A bug. Bacon.

SPEAKER_00:

Not a bug. What'd you say? Cheeseburger. It's not a bug. No, no, because that's uh in in the tour, it says it's southern time.

SPEAKER_01:

Bugs are worse than five or six.

SPEAKER_00:

Are bugs worse than cheeseburgers? Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Look, even if it's like non-kosher beef with the dairy, then that's not even like colour of a bazaar.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it's not?

SPEAKER_01:

With kosher, it might just only be with kosher beef and kosher cheese together, then it's an issue. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, generally people generally people don't have to worry about bugs most of the time in a restaurant, right? Let's be honest. I remember when I first started keeping kosher, I go to a restaurant, I order a salad, like a non-kosher restaurant, I order a salad. I look at the lettuce in the light, like, is there bugs on me? Like, I like that's what I was doing, because I was trying to keep, I was like, but my journey of keeping kosher. You know, but I think I think meat and milk is a uh the prohibition, there are three prohibitions. You can't cook with it, you can't eat with it, and you can't benefit from it. Which means you can't own a restaurant that serves milk and meat and profit from it. You can't even benefit from it. It's a bigger restriction. So we we protect the reason why we need chicken and cheese because when you put chicken on the grill, like if chicken flies on the grill, it looks like meat. And so we protect ourselves. That is not derived, it's not from the Torah, it's rabbinic, it's rabbinic law. If you don't know the difference between rabbinic and Torah laws, it can be a problem in life. And we see this in the first chapters of the Torah. When Adam tells Eve, God tells Adam, do not eat from this tree. What does Adam tell Eve?

SPEAKER_04:

Don't eat from the tree. I was told not to go from the fruit.

SPEAKER_00:

Don't eat from the tree and don't touch it. But he didn't tell Eve that was a rabbinic law. He did not tell Eve that was a fence to protect her and protect her. So the snake says to her, she I think she says to the snake, Oh, uh, my husband says, I can't eat the tree or nor can I touch the tree. The snake, being smart, knows that that's not true. This hold one second. And the snake pushes Eve into the tree, says, look, you touch the tree, nothing happens, therefore you can eat from the tree. Yes.

SPEAKER_04:

You said it was a rabbinic law, but there was no rabbis. At that point, it's only having the mood.

SPEAKER_00:

He was a rabbi. I'm scared. No, the rabbinic law came later.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

But also the thing about the truth, like you can't cook your the you can't cook the meat in his mother's milk.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, chickens don't have nipples. You don't see chickens like breastfeeding. That's my point.

SPEAKER_04:

No, I know, but I was speaking with another rabbi and he was basically saying there's not really a reason why you couldn't have a cold burger with a cold bit of cheese. Because you're not actually cooking anything.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, I guess if we get technical, maybe you're right. I guess. I don't know. I'm not gonna quote on that one. I don't get in trouble. The rabbi said at H that I can have a cheeseburger. I'm like, you're fired. Oh, they can't fire me, I don't work here. My point is, like, no, I'm not gonna say anything, I'm not gonna get into that. Right? Don't eat a cheeseburger.

SPEAKER_04:

I'll finish with cheeseburgers.

SPEAKER_00:

So here's a strategy to cure low esteem. Ready? Let's get into this. Strategies to cure low self-esteem. Number one, understand and forgive the source. Because if you can't not forgive the source or wherever your social self-esteem is coming from, you're going to have a hard time moving on in life. It's a fact of life. Because holding on to grudges when pain is just becomes more painful in life. For example, I hold this couple tea up. How much does this weigh?

unknown:

Very little.

SPEAKER_00:

How much does it weigh?

SPEAKER_01:

Depends on how long you hold it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Depends how long I hold it. It's probably six ounces, right? If I hold it for an hour, it starts to get a little painful. Hold it for a day, I'm in severe pain. The longer you hold grudges in, you're never gonna move forward in life. And I see this all the time. I hate to say it, but I I help people out in life. Occasionally I have someone in my life who's 42 years old and they were born into a family with dysfunction. And they can't move forward, they can't get married, they can't move, they cannot move on. This is gonna be a challenge for them until they forgive their parents. And by the way, your parents did the best with the tools they had, which might not have been very much. And this is why I give a class. Did they give it this week? Yeah, Sunday gave it called Raising Superstars. Were you there? No. Because you have to know what you're doing. You go to a hospital and you give a baby. If you go to a hospital, my wife's at home. But you go to a hospital and they hand you the baby. They ask you one question. Uh, do you have a car seat? Like, where's the instruction manual? How are you supposed to raise children? No one's telling you this. And this is what I do. I teach you how to raise children. Emotionally healthy, independent children. Am I the and go? I have no idea. I don't know. People say, how do you become coach? I just teach stuff that I learned in my own life. You have to Joseph did Joseph, right? Becomes viceroy of Egypt. His brothers come down for the second time to Egypt, and he can't hold it any longer because they don't recognize him. And he says to them, I am Joseph, if my father's still alive. And what's the next line he says to them? It's not your fault. We're not gonna get deep into this, but he didn't really give them a healing, he didn't really forgive them, but he said, It's not your fault. This is all planned by Hashem. Everything was in God's plan. And this is why one of the last, we're gonna get into this in a few minutes, one of the last cures to strategy low self-esteem, is to understand how to pray. We'll get to it in a minute. Control your exposure. If it makes you feel bad, don't do it. Remove social media if you have to. You have to be the gatekeeper to your brain. No one else can protect you. No offense. Imagine you have a flower garden and the flowers are dying. Are you gonna call the seed company, right? Hey, uh seed company, your flowers stink, they're dying on me. No, what you're gonna do is you're gonna check the water and check the sunlight, nutrients. You have to check, you have to check the environment that you're in. And the problem we have sometimes in life is that we're in an environment where we feel comfortable and familiar, and we think it's good for us because it's familiar and comfortable, but it's not good for us. This is why a lot of students who come from overseas come here and they're out of their environment, which they thought was healthy, and they find very quickly, very quickly figure out it wasn't healthy, and they stay here and they learn. This is where heaven and earth meet. And this is why people come here and say, I feel more spiritual. I feel something, I feel a presence of a shem here. And the reason why, when you my mom used to have a in her windowsill, she had a cactus plant. Right? For many years. I don't know if I don't know if they died, what happened to them. They go like this, a little cactus plant. You take that same cactus plant and you put it in Arizona, in the desert where it belongs, it grows to ten feet tall. It's the same thing with the Jewish soul. When you take that soul and you take it from Milwaukee, from Chicago, from Miami, from New York, from DC, from LA, from Brooklyn, from Lakewood, from Muncie, from Five Towns, you take it and you bring it here, it's a game changer. Your soul flourishes. And this is where our environment is very important. Rejection therapy, and this is such a very important thing, that sometimes when you do things that maybe you might think are embarrassing or I get rejected, this is how you raise your self-esteem. I tell my students sometimes, I think somewhere in here obviously, maybe. Go to Joffa Street and start saying hi to everybody. Hey, how's it going? Hey, how are you doing? Hey, I like your shoes. Shalom, Manishma, hey, how you doing? It raises your confidence and your self-esteem. And people are looking at you funny, I don't care. It's not about them, it's about you. It's about raising your confidence in life. I remember when I was at Starbucks one time, a guy in front of me ordered a coffee, and I was feeling bad about myself for some reason. This is back in Maryland, America. And I said, let me buy your coffee. Two bucks. This back when it was two bucks. I changed this guy's day. I changed my day for two dollars. I one time went through the toll booth at the Delaware Memorial Bridge, back before we had fast toll. And it was like$3.75. And I go to the toll booth collector, pay for the guy behind me also, give me a 10. I changed his day. I changed my day for$3.75. You know how much a therapist costs?$375 for an hour. Maybe not any more, maybe more now, right? Maybe here in Israel it's that. Rejection therapy. Well, we're not gonna get to the next one because it really it's a whole class in itself. It's called defining your core values. What time is it? I don't think I watched it the clock. It's 1.50. It's called defining your core values. What do you stand for in life? What are your goals? Like, what do what do you what do you stand for? What do you consider when you walk into when you see a situation that makes you sick? Do you understand that something that you don't hold by? Or is it something that's good and positive? Like, this is what I want to hold by in life. You have to have your core values. I mine mine are easy. I I I used to use the word great. Who doesn't want to be great in life? And it's an acronym. It stands for gratitude. Be real with who you're thanking. You're not thanking wood, you're not thanking Mother Nature, you're thanking the creator of the universe. Now, of course, there's times in life, you come to my house Friday night, thank you coach for dinner, right? I'm making killer mazabal soup Friday night. I'm actually gonna roast the chicken first. I used to as I used to do it. I just forgot about this. My friend reminded me, I roast the chicken first with spices and wine, and I take that roasted chicken and I stick it in the soup and cook the soup for four hours. Just killer. You're gonna love it Friday night. What am I talking about my soup for? Oh! Gratitude! You're gonna thank me for the soup, coach!

SPEAKER_04:

Thanks, coach. You're gonna have to control the recipe.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I will. Thanks, coach, for soup, right? It's delicious.

unknown:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Are you gonna be the chicken or the guy who does something with the chicken?

SPEAKER_01:

Do a lot?

SPEAKER_00:

Are you gonna be the chicken or the guy who does something with the chicken? I want to be the guy who's the guy who does something with a chicken, right? I talk about a class called From Swipe Right to Wedding Night, How to Make yourself irresistibly marriageable. That when you're at a dinner table with mixtures of guys and girls, right? Singles, whatever. Whatever, it happens a lot, right? And some guy stands up after soup was served. Everyone's finished their soup. The hosts are talking to guests, whatever. Without being asked, goes around the table, picks up the bowls of soup, and brings them to the kitchen sink. What do you think of that guy if you're a girl? 20% hotter off the bat, right? You know what I'm talking about? Because he took responsibility. This is one of the keys in that class is when men take responsibility for things not being asked to do, it makes them look so much better in the eyes of girls. Eating for five foot six, twenty pounds overweight. To find your oh, so I'm talking about great. Gratitude, being real here, thanking. Take responsibility for the world, live with your end game in mind. What do I want people to see at my funeral? Oh, that guy, he he walked every NFL game there was. Oh, he had all the best cars. No. You have two things you leave in this earth, and that's your mixflash and your children, and they're both a reflection on you. That's called living with your end game in mind, and the end game in mind. And the A stands for awesome. Note that God created you to be awesome. He could have taken any nation out of Egypt. He chose us for one reason, because he saw greatness inside of us. And the greatest transformation you're gonna make in your life is when you believe in yourself as much as God believes in you. He sure as hell does believe in you. You start believing in yourself. And the last is T, it's transformation. Or Torah. Torah is not a book about guys walking through sand dunes and wearing togas. It's an instruction manual for life. This is how we do to guide our life. And it helps us to become great. And that is define your core values. You don't mind core values, you need to have your own core values. Make a list of your attributes. Think about all the things you have in your life you can't pay for. Think about that. What do you have in your life you cannot pay any amount of money for? Your parents, your eyes, your families, the ability to walk in the morning, the ability to think. We all take these things for granted. But you, I'm telling you something, I've gone through some health issues recently. When you're not in pain, there is nothing that you care about in the world. When you have, you know, I'm not gonna get into it, but when you have pain somewhere, and it's like you can't function. It's hard to do anything. So all you care about when you're happy in great shape, you want to help people, you make them soup, you're right, you want to teach them classes, you want to spread positivity throughout the world, you want to learn Torah. But when you're in pain, all you care about is getting rid of pain. That's it. You just focus on one thing. So make a list of your attributes. Exercise is so important in life. Again, we talked about this yesterday. Yesterday, I think I'm not gonna get into it. But exercise is so important. Because God gave us free drugs. They're called serotonin, melatodin, dopamine, a whole bunch of other things. I don't know them all. My doctor. But in order to access them, you have to get off your tush. See your tush all day. Guess what? It's great. You may be like you ordered dinner, one in your door dash, get a hamburger come right to you. In the olden days, we had to go to the our bubbies had to go to the water, the river to get water, we had to chop down trees, go kill an animal, we had to go plant gardens. Guess what? We're not doing anything anymore, and therefore we're not producing the drugs that God gave us that make us happy. Because they're natural drugs that we all have. I know for a fact this is true. In my late 20s, I went through a short period of having some depression. It was really from really parting too much. You know, I was whatever, I was doing too many partying, going to the beach too much. And uh I saw a doctor about it. He put me on these antidepressants for like three or four months, very light dose. And it's like, I'm not, I don't want to be on drugs in my life. And I started exercising. I started running six miles a day. Almost every day. Running, running. I lived in rest, I was running every day. Quickly, man, I'm like, wow, this is a game changer in life. Exercise is a game changer. And I never saw those drugs again in the rest of my life. The last thing about sharing low self-esteem is really we talk about prayer. But we have to have clarity on how to pray. The Torah gives us a clue. And I'm gonna give you my acronym. This is how you can never forget how to pray. Because it really, when you when you put this in a sort of order, you'll have a lot more clarity. I gotta close this for a second, a little loud. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Too much beeping going on. The word is repeat. Because if you think about any mitzvah, this is the one mitzvah you can do anytime, anywhere, as many times as you want. It's not one for Ashkenazi, it's not one for Sfarty, it's not one for uh Leviam or Koanim, it's not one for a man, not for a woman, not one based on time. You can do it anywhere, anytime, any day of the week, as many times as you want. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna learn the four steps to prayer. We're gonna end on this note. And I'm telling you, when you have a greater connection to Hashem, when you have a greater connection to the creator of the universe. In fact, a lot of depression really comes from lack of that spiritual awakening that we need to have. And when you have that spiritual awakening in your soul, you'll go through lots of you won't have these issues with low self-esteem because you'll realize God did not put you here and feel sad about yourself. Why would he do that? He gives us everything. He doesn't want us to feel bad. He gave us everything, give us life, gave us earth, he gave us sun, moon, stars, he gave us little puppies, and pizza with pepperoni, not pizza, pizza with black olives and mushrooms. I call myself. And you first have to get rid of two E's. Well, we used to, at Whole Foods in in Maryland, they sell the fake pepperonis.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's made with salt, and it's really my kids love it, I love it too. The kosher. Oh, it was it was it was uh it was a starquay. I want to get it. So that's what I mean by pepperoni, those little pepperonis. They're really good. They're salt, it's just full of salt. All is sodium, but it's full of sodium. Huh? You get rid of two E's. The first E you want to get rid of is your ego. Because in a relationship, not just with your spouse, and not just with yourself, and not just with the gem, your ego is not your amigo. It'll crush you in relationships. So you get rid of that. And then you get rid of envy. Because you need so you don't want someone in your life that has envy. Because you cannot pray to the creator of the universe when you have envy. Because you're saying, I am not happy with that car, that house, that wife, that job, that body, that whatever it is. When you're not happy with something, you're saying, God, you made a mistake. And how can you pray to the creator of the world when you're saying he's making a mistake? Those two things contradict, right? So you get rid of envy and ego, and you're left with four letters. And this is the final cure for low self-esteem, and it's all on my book, Never Feel In Loved Again. It's available on Amazon. I have a few I I give away about 995 copies. I have five left. So I used to get them on Amazon. Recognize who you're praying to. I know this sounds maybe a little simple, but you know, we pick up an art scroll, we're standing in front of the room, we're reading the art. We're not praying to the art scroll, we're not praying to the stones on that wall, right? We're not praying to the guy on the stage with a big, a big hat and a big uh talus. We're praying to the creator of the universe. Not praying to our bosses, not praying to our bodies, we're not praying to Gold Gym, we're not praying to the money or the NFL. Praying to God, recognize who you're praying to. Then you have to praise him. Praising him means that he can do anything. He can create the Milky Way, he can blade back holes, and he can create the quarter in your pocket. God can do anything. There's nothing too small or too big that he can do. And once you start to recognize it, you'll have a much better time asking for doing this next one. And it's called ask. We pray four days, five, six days a week, six days a week, pepperoni, we pray six days a week, right? We are asking for something. We're health, we're parnassa, right? Uh, shiddach, we're children, family, returning to Jerusalem, whatever it is gonna be. We're praying for something. And if you don't ask, when you're praying, when I go to David Mechar and I don't ask for something, I am not being real. And if I don't expect God to give it to me, then I am also not being real. If you're praying for a Ferrari and you really think gonna give it to you, if you don't think it's gonna give it to you, you're not being real. We pray for things we we expect to get them. If you don't expect it, again, that's your contradiction. I don't I why am I why are you praying? Don't pray. God can give you anything. And if you don't get what you want, you should be ticked off. And you have to go back and look. Maybe my motivation wasn't pure. Maybe I didn't make enough of effort. You expect God to say yes. And lastly, whatever he gives you and doesn't give you, you thank him. Because he doesn't give it to you, there's a reason why. Maybe it's not good for you. Maybe you're not ready yet, maybe you haven't done the effort. Maybe your motivation isn't pure. And when you understand these four steps, recognize, praise, ask, and thanks. You'll have a better connection to the creator of the universe. Knowing Hashem, not as faith, but as fact. He's with you. He now put us here to love our love ourselves. He believes in us and wants us to be great. May my blessing to you, may you be blessed with an abundant amount of positive self esteem and spread your radiant light back into the world. Because the greatest transformation you're going to make in your life is when you believe in yourself as much as God believes in you. Thank you very much.