Be Proactive: Habit 1 - The 7 Habits With a Jewish Flavor - Rabbi Avi Wiesenfeld

all right welcome back to uh part two of the series we're going to be discussing the very first habit I guess if you came back you want to hear more so first of all the sh this share is sponsored with and also sponsored anonymously for somebody for his children to go out to so I want to start today's um first habit this is the very first habit it's an incredible incredible habit it's the source of everything it's the foundation of everything as we will explain and much of what we explained last time at the introduction you'll understand why very much this is the very first habit and the foundation of all the habits which is the foundation for working on ourselves to become better people which is obviously the goal of this entire Series this is an introduction Steven kovi when he introduces this uh Habit habit number one which we'll get to the name and why he starts talking about self-awareness which is a very very Jewish topic and he talks about the idea about what mood are you in how are you feeling and he explains as we're going to explain in the next few minutes that we are not our feelings we're not our moods we're not even our thoughts but the very fact that we can think of these things that's what separates us from them and let's explain so the very first habit he calls being proactive that's the first habit of the seven habits be proactive what does that mean so we're going to Define it and some of the things I'm going to say may sound like they're being repetitive but really we're trying to explain them in a very Crystal Clear manner because if you have this idea clear the rest of the seven habits the rest six rest of the six will be even clearer and easier obviously to implement as well this is the foundation of all human development anybody that wants to improve himself anybody that wants to become a better person and as we explained last time this is the core of becoming a better person that improves all relationships whether it's with yourself whether it's with your wife whether it's with your children your parents your workmates or anyone so this this principle that we're going to discuss today is the foundation of all humanit development now if you ask somebody what does it mean to be proactive how do you define the words proactive so people say it means you know be active do something you know be it doesn't mean that at all and it goes a lot a lot deeper to how we're going to explain it to be proactive and as I explains we're going to explain it in a few different levels and a few different ways to be proactive means that whatever situation occurs to me every experience that happens to me I take responsibility to respond in the correct manner in a nutshell that's what it means to be proactive it's completely the opposite to reactive reactive means to not react at all to not take any responsibility at all okay and again like I said I'm going to make this very very clear I Believe by the end of today you'll have a very clear picture of what I mean and how it affects all of our Lives all of our lives so to be proactive means that I take responsibility because I choose how I react I decide an appropriate response reactive means a personally a person is completely controlled by the situation around him so in other words because I depend on the situation around me so I take no responsibility because it's it's not my fault it's the environment it's on the situation that's around me as opposed to me okay you can see get clearer and clearer why this is the core of human um development so you know you ever met a guy who says I'm in a really bad mood the weather is so bad I'm in a bad mood I'm just I'm just in a bad mood the weather's horrible it's just so depressing I'm depressed the weather's terrible right it's horrible I guess it depends on what what place in the world that you live that you might say that more often but the idea basically is that a person says I'm in depressed I'm in a sad mood because of the weather that means you're being controlled by your situation rather than you controlling your situation so sometimes we blame things openly sometimes you know we're not going to be so bold and blame things openly um now it's okay for the weather to bother you it's fine it's okay for the out outside things to affect you and to bother you but it should not control you okay now often you shift the blame from being from you and you allow your surroundings to control your feelings your emotions and ultimately your responses as well and proactive means I take responsibility for my mood it's a very very powerful way that we act and it's based on a lot of our decisions and nothing else actually if you look at the word responsibility take the word responsibility let's break up the word and try to understand it response ability which means that the ability to choose your response basically means that highly proactive people don't blame their circumstances their behavior is a product of their own choice and that's why responsibility respon ability you have the ability to respond now it takes working on it takes working on the ability to be able to respond to every environment we'll give some examples you'll see now the obvious M to this is right the Torah tells us very very clearly that we have the choice to choose between good and bad that means every single person has a conscious way of making every choice that they make which will then translate into how they live how they act how they resp respond and how many of the thing choices that they make in life basically come upon that as well it means that the to is telling us that we have a choice of our behavior um you can either be a choice of your behavior or you can be a victim of circumstance that's that's a choice that basically most people have to make the missionary in peras tells us very clearly what's a strong person someone that's able to conquer that means it might be hard no one's saying it's easy but it means you have the choice and that's what K are telling us in a very subtle way that every single person has a choice how to react and it's up to us how we going to react or are we going to be a victim of the circumstance that we are in and the the differences between them can be lifechanging to you to all relationships that you have and to the life that you lead now to be reactive by the way let's just call a spade a spade to be reactive is the easiest thing to do it's so much easier to be reacted you ever heard a guy oh you just got me started you just push my buttons you ever you you had these things right you you got me started what do you want you said those words you got me started right you have such a thing right what does that mean that means that you're not making a conscious decision how to react you're blaming your environment you're blaming you're Shifting the blame from you to somebody else it's a very dangerous thing and it can eventually come out in many many of our relationships that we have and it's very easy to do many of us do this all the time it's so easy to shift the blame it's not us we're not to blame it's the weather it's him it's her it's as we're going to get to many different examples now it's very true genetics upbringing environment many things can affect a person right nowadays in America when somebody does something terrible he can murder someone in court they will bring in psychiatrists and they will go through his upbringing and they will decide that no he's Potter he's exemp you know why it's not his fault he's a subject to circumstances because look how he grew up look what Ty a home he had look what Ty a parents he had look what Ty Role Models he had it's not his fault that's a big problem by the way if that's how the the system of the court is working that we're never blaming a person we're just blaming him on his surroundings that's very dangerous that means anyone could do whatever he wants to blame it on everyone else and that's a very unhealthy way of living and it's a very unhealthy way of thinking and it affects many many things you know imagine a guy comes late to every business meeting and eventually his boss calls him inside and says what are you doing you come late to every meeting I understand once or twice but every meeting what's going on he says listen you have to understand how I grew up my parents were completely crazy when it came to like being punctual they drove me mad everything had to be on time we were there sometimes minutes before they drove me mad this is how I grew up I I I developed an anxiety and because of that I def could come late to every single meeting hello are you crazy you can't live life this way this not a m a person has has has a has a problem with his wife and BEC comes complaining you know I have this problem that problem because you know it's never it's never him it's always that and it's always that and it's always him her and everyone else it's never him CU we don't take responsibility it's the most unhealthy way of living and a person will never improve this is the very first step to improving and you can see why because it goes to the depths of who you are and how you react to every situation at the end of the day we all choose our responses that is what this habit is be Pro Pro active we can control our reactions yes we're not saying outside factors can't hurt can't you know help things along the way but ultimately we choose to basically make our own decisions and our own responses Stephen K gives an example he says he was giving a lecture to hundreds and hundreds of people and a lady gets up in the middle of the lecture and she starts shouting and screaming excitedly and nobody can understand makes sense anything that she's saying nobody understand what she's saying eventually she's just embarrassed you know she just sits back down and no one to sit down no one understands what you're talking about Steven kovi is intrigued where's she coming from she's very excited she's very happy what happened so he goes over turn the break and he says can you tell me explain what happened so she says unbelievable I work in an old age home and there's an old man there that I'm personally his private nurse he's the most grumpiest horrible negative it's horrible every single nurse on the ward is waiting basically for him to die we we can't stand a guy I come to work I dread going to work I come back and I'm like I managed another day I can't stand it and then you get up and saying that a person could choose he was teaching the seven habits as he did all over the world you're getting up to say a person could choose sponsor I was getting up to say are you crazy and then I realize you know something maybe you're right maybe I can choose to go into the old age home I can choose to go into work and say this is about me I don't care about him he's not going to affect who I am he's not going to affect how I behave and how I respond that's what it is and that's a very very powerful way at looking at many of the issues that we have you know stepen Cy for example I'll just give you a little bit of illustration that the difference between a proactive person and a reactive person that he says that a everyone has within their life two circles right two circles the circle of influence that's who you are that's what's going on inside and the circle of concern that's going on in the outside outside influences and he says that a proactive person is very busy with the inside it's what we mentioned last time in the HD in the introduction about on the inside before you work on the outside so he's working on his circle of influence what he can influence on himself what he can do for others how we can react in a different way how we can respond how we can see things in a different way and then there's a circle of concern which we're not ignoring we're not ignoring the circumstances or the environment that is's in but it's of little concern because it's all about the inside whereas a reactive person is always focusing more on his concern on the outside what about that what about that what about that what about that and then maybe I'll get to my inside meaning I'll work on the outside before I work on the inside that's difference between proactive and reactive a proactive person realizes that he can make his own decisions and he he basically sums up that most of the problems we have fall into three categories the category number one is what he calls Direct Control Direct Control is our own behavior and category number two is indirect control problems with other people's behavior and then he has category number three which is no control whatsoever problems that we just cannot do anything about he basically writes and again I'm summarizing a lot of this that the proactive approach is to take the first step in the solution of all of these three steps or all these three types of levels and within the circle of influence within ourselves and reach within ourselves and see how can we react and see things in a different way which will in turn affect how we respond and how we behave as a human being and he explains it in a very real way and this I think will really drive the point very very well how do you determine which one of you now Often by now many of us have figured it out which one we are and how we generally act and who we blame do we blame ourselves do we blame somebody else but in a real way he says very simple the difference is between the Haves and the bees which basically mean this there many people that are busy with the haves if only I would have a better boss if only I would have a more understanding wife if only I would have easier children if only I would have better prosa their whole life is if only I would have and then it will be better it doesn't work that way whereas a reactive person is busy right now with the bees I could be different I can react different I can see things differently I can be different I could be a different husband I could be a better employer I could be I could be a better person that person is a proactive person and that person changes the way he looks the world and he changes the way he behaves and in turn that changes all his relationships and how he is as a person and by the way the biggest proof to this and probably the first place that we find this in the Torah is yadik very simple yadik went through a terrible terrible number of years where he was sold in a pit eventually sold down to Egypt one of the worst places in the world for a sadic to be in one of the Low Places of the world and there he is in prison for doing nothing wrong he didn't do anything wrong to being in prison but there he is and he could have just cried and you know buried himself in his sorrow and said look what type of life this is where am I my brothers are who knows where and this is where I am what a terrible life I has if only I was free and if only I was this and but you know what he did the T tells us very clearly Y and this was the turnout point to his entire success whole of Yik which eventually led to CL leaving MIT everything was when ysep had sadik saw two people who were sad and he said and the T tells us clearly he went over and he said why you sad today yes is being a proactive person he's taking his situation and he's not blaming it he's being someone that looks at something I could do something I can help someone I could do something I could I can help something else and look at that happened that re resulting in a chain of reactions that led to him becoming basically the second in command to the most powerful nation in the world because he was proactive because he took his situation and he didn't bury himself in the sand and say well that's ter terrible cuz that's the environment in what can I do about it I'm sad I'm upset absolutely not he was proactive and he realized that he can do something and then is the power of a human being so one of the skills that can help us with this is number one just knowing this just the knowledge to know that we could do this is number one number two Steven kovi calls it the pause button he calls it the pause button so really comes from a balat the balat is an incredible idea and again I'm I'm abbreviating this in in a very short way you understand but the balatan explains that every human being has a within him of a beh of an animal and a a portion of that's what we're made up of we have animal characteristics and we have kadus holy characteristics and the balat writes that the of the beh that we have inside of us reacts very very quickly why an animal works with Instinct if you make a cow upset he's going to be upset like this he's not going to think about it first he's just going to be upset right cuz he's an animal he works with animal instincts he doesn't have time to think about his reactions the of the knows better and then understands one second hold on a second you need to think about this is this how you want to react maybe you don't want react in this way maybe it's going to cause negative um um reactions and who knows what the problem is is that the of Al works a lot quicker and reacts much quicker that's why this habit is very important and that's why stepen kovy calls it the pause one pause stop think for a second before you react before you even and not even talking about reacting in a physical way but even in an emotional way what's going on in your head what are you thinking the moment you see something the moment you hear something what is your reaction pause think for a moment and that often will be a major difference in understanding between between anything the kotka Reba the kotka once said we all know this saying he once said that you know when I was young I wanted to change the world then I realized now I'm not going to be able to manage to change the world I'll change my country then I can't change I'll change my Village my little village can't do that either I'll change my my household then he realize I'm just going to change myself what's what does that mean k you're responsible for cl you're responsible for all your for all your followers what do you mean you can only change yourself cuz he realized that the essence of Chang changing anybody else is within you that means first you have to change yourself and we spoke about this in the introduction at length it all goes by what's on the inside and then you can influence people on the outside the balov was once walking together with some of his tomed him and they met the local Town water carrier which was a very common thing in those days was a guy with a big piece of wood with two pales on either side and he's trudging along over there alov in front of hisim said to the water car has business and the guy straightens his just at his poll over there Rabbi my life is terrible it's an absolute disaster my back is aching me my shoulders are are completely bruised from this you know weight over here people don't respect me I walk in and they're like where are you where have you been without me they wouldn't even have water right they hardly pay me so I'm paying credit some people don't even pay at all it's a disaster I I can't cope this is it's terrible business is terrible Rabbi okay the next day the B was again walking with his with his students and they met the same water carrier and bent said no how you doing how's business today oh Rabbi business is wonderful everything is great said I understand you didn't tell me yesterday business was terrible she said Rabbi what do you mean that's true that's true I was upset but today I'm happy you know why I have a wife I have children we're healthy yeah I work hard but it's very good to work I'm busy I make money it's healthy to go out I do some exercise on the way it's wonderful and some people don't even have work so I'm very very happy bentov turned to his and he said you know what Happ happiness is not about the circumstances of our life it's about how we perceive those circumstances if we focus on the good they seem good if we focus on the aspects that seem bitter to us then basically that's what life will seem like and that's exactly what this is s and this whole the whole habit is all about and a habit means something that we have to get ingrained within us it's not something we could just do for tomorrow morning and say okay it's a habit a habit is something we can't stop doing that's what we need to imp Implement in our lives can you imagine what a different life you're going to have if you implement this very first habit forget about the rest six just this one you implement this idea that you're not a subject of your circumstances you decide everything changes your whole life changes your relationship your wife your children yeah everything changes it's unbelievable I've said of this story but I'm going to say it again I was thinking about should I say most of you have probably heard it I said it in L let say it again cuz it brings this point over again there was an article written from a lady working in an old age home a nursing home and she talks about a 92-year-old man that very well put together impeccably dressed walks in to the nursing home at 8:00 a.m. with his hair combed and his wife of 70 years passed away which made the move to the nursing home very very important and uh after many hours of waiting in the lobby of the uh of the nursing home for his room the uh the nurse comes over to him and says your room is ready Mr Jones and he smiles very very sweetly and as she's walking him to his room is a 92-year old man that's partially blind in one eye she says to him I want to tell you a bit about your room it's very nice plush blue carpet and there's a window overlooking the street there's a nice air that comes in and there's a painting on the wall that matches the carpet and there's a bedside table and she starts explaining into the room and he says oh I love it like like an 8-year-old child taking a lollipop I love it and she says Mr Jones why don't you wait till you see the room you'll actually you'll actually see what I'm talking about you'll love it even more to which he responded happiness is something you decide ahead of time whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how you arrange my room but it depends on how I arrange my mind I already decided to love it and that is a mindset that if we would live with this mindset our whole lives would change and I just want to end with one last incredible idea and please take this idea because this is absolutely unbelievable a group of Highly Successful People went to have a reunion with their old Professor that they learned in college with when they arrived the professor went into the kitchen to bring everybody a coffee now he didn't have one set of you know tea mugs or tea cups whatever it was so we had to get a random assortment of different selections of mug mugs and cups some of them were China some of them were glass some of them were patented some of them were plain and he made sure everyone got a coffee and everybody of his students sat down on the couch whatever it was and as soon as everyone had their coffee and started sipping their coffee the professor started to talk and he said notice everyone that all the nice looking cups over here have been taken leaving the plain cups behind the cheap plain ones nobody took those ones and he says it's always normal for a person to want the best for yourselves but that's the source of problems and a lot of stress in your life be assured he said that the Cup itself adds nothing to the quality of the coffee it's just more expensive and often hides the coffee so you can barely notice what you're drinking what you wanted was a coffee after all not the cup but but you consciously went for the nicer looking cup and he explained life is the coffee the jobs the money the positions that we hold in society is the cup they're just the tools they're just the tools that give a person a certain quality of life the type of cup you have doesn't Define or change the quality of life that you live sometimes by concentrating only on the cup we fail to to enjoy the coffee Savor the coffee not the cup and he ended the happiest people don't have the best of everything they just make the best of everything and that is this habit we should be Z let's look at this habit let's think about this habit for the next week and mm next week we'll meet again to start habit number two have a wonderful night