TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Now is the Time To Reboot Your Life's Operating System
Date: 02/02/24 Length: 54:39
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Welcome, happy warriors. Welcome to the rabbi Daniel Lapin show where I, your rabbi and his wife reveal how the World
Susan Lapin 0:18
Reeeeally works. How's that? Right, good?
Daniel Lapin 0:22
That's very good. Yeah, I mean, considering you haven't had a lot of practice.
Susan Lapin 0:25
Thank you for letting me this is worth it in on your podcast this week
Daniel Lapin 0:29
I couldn't manage without you because today we want to talk about The Holistic You. And The Holistic You is written by Rabbi Daniel and Susan Lapin. So we are going to have a chance to talk about that a little bit. And and before we go much further, you know, that little button that lets you subscribe to the podcast, now would be a fabulous time to hit that and join the podcast.
Susan Lapin 1:03
And then you always will know when a new one is coming out.
Daniel Lapin 1:06
Yeah, it's, there's no as far as I know, there's no downside to it at all. So please do subscribe. And it goes without saying that it helps us obviously, subscription numbers, climbing is a very good sign for a podcast. So that would be a great thing. And also, be aware that anybody who's a part of the show is a happy warrior. And if you tell other people about the show, and you expand the show that way, you're a fantastic happy warrior. But if you actually want to join the community of happy warriors, well, you do that at Rabbi Daniel lapin.com. So be aware of that. Okay, so here's, here's the starting point. And Susan, and I, I think it fair to say we struggled on this book. That would be fair, Steve, it was hard. It was a hard book to write. We haven't had we haven't prepared the show we haven't, we're just going to talk about it and and see where we arrive. But why do you think it was so hard to write?
Susan Lapin 2:20
Well, I think like many books, we had a vision. And bringing that vision down to reality, it's very much the case of starting a business or starting a marriage or anything else, your vision is pure, and your vision, everything in your vision of what you want it to be is huge. And then all of a sudden, when you have to bring it to reality, it has to fit into real parameters. Right? And the whole idea of the holistic view, which is integrating your family fitness, faith, friendships and finances is huge. I mean, we're basically talking about like the entirety of life. And so Okay, well, we'll just do this in 200 or 300 pages. No problem
Daniel Lapin 3:01
wasn't so simple. Yeah, that's part of it. Yeah, the other part is that I find it easier, easiest to have a fairly good outline of the book, even before we started writing it. And I always assumed that the outline would would operate as follows. As Susan just said, we've identified the five areas of life, where if things are going well for you, you really have no complaints, right? So finance, friendship, family, fitness, and faith. So in other words, if you have a great intimate life, family, connections, spouse, whatever it is all of that, if that part of your life is in great shape, and you've got a terrific social life, you've got friends, and that's wonderful. And you don't have too much in the way of financial worries. So now we've covered family finance, and friendship. If you're in pretty good health, that's fitness. And if you're okay, with the boss, you're okay with God, well, you've got nothing to complain about life is good. And so those are really the five areas and, and we made it to five F's just to make it easily memorable. And and to sort of give it a an identity as it were. And so you know, you think about it, what we're talking about is how these five F's all interact with one another. And so, if you've got, shall we say five things, let's call them a B, D ABCDE, the five things and then you talk about the interconnections. You've got a B, A, C, A, D, and E, those are the first group of connections, then you've got B but you don't have say ba because we already did a b and that connections the same thing, but you got B, C, B, D, and E. Anyway, if you play around with this, you'll see you have 10 connections I thought great, simple, 10 chapters and I'm, for reasons we don't have to go into now. But we can we can tell you about it. That didn't work. And so a great deal of time went on a dead end, an outline that simply didn't work. And that and that was just really frustrating and challenging and difficult because we knew we were handing over something of inestimable value. But we got it done. And and we're
Susan Lapin 5:28
And we weren't looking to do a technical book, this wasn't an academic piece of work, we wanted a book that was really useful to people that will be enjoyable to read, readable and useful. Exactly. You're looking for something that was going to be in a sociology class, you know, a textbook that people will be forced by
Daniel Lapin 5:44
Yeah, exactly. That was the, yeah, an academic book or an intellectual book. No, we're not looking, we're looking for this to be useful to you, wherever you live in whatever country you are, whether you're a man or a woman, this wherever you are in life, even, you know, obviously, people who can who are young enough to still make changes and to shape the direction in which their life he's going, obviously, in a different situation, from a middle aged person who has fewer options, but there are still things that can be done differently from the way you're doing them to improve your life. And coupled with that, is the reality that although young people at the beginning of their lives, I mean, ideally, you know, and you only have to think of the things you wish you knew when you were 18 or 19, or 22. But the trouble is, and I know this is true for me, I, I don't know how I could have been taught these things in a way that I really would have accepted them and understood them. So on the one hand, youth is very beneficial. But on the other hand, the drawback of youth is that you don't know
Susan Lapin 7:00
a little hubris or arrogance. You're not always able to you don't have the maturity, the maturity right.
Daniel Lapin 7:10
On every level. I mean, you know, they're young people who say, you know, what I have to I'm still a teenager, I don't have to worry about my career, why should I worry about making money now, I'm in university, I'm here to have fun, I don't have to worry about making money. Now. Some really bad decisions. But you know, later on, you got to correct them. I know. And we both know, of girls who assume, again, we don't have to worry about marriage, I'm young. I'm not worrying about marriage, and I'm worrying about fun or career or whatever it is that interests you. But, but these girls assumed that marriage would just sort of happen, like, like puberty happened, you know, marriage will come along, family will come along, it never occurred to them. You know, and we're talking now, early 2024. What we're saying now would have been incomprehensible if, if somebody would have would have been saying this in 1960, shall we say?
Susan Lapin 8:15
hmm not 60, but maybe 40?
Daniel Lapin 8:17
You want to go back that far? I do well, but
Susan Lapin 8:21
I think also, you know, when, funnily enough, we used to speak about four Fs, the faith, fit finances, family, and friendship, and it was actually feedback from our happy warriors that made us add fitness. And I think that may be on one hand, it's the simplest, I mean, okay, I may, you know, maybe there's lots of ideas of how to form a family, and lots of ways you have friendships and lots of ways that people handle finances. But fitness should be pretty straightforward. To me, that was one of the biggest surprises because there's no grapefruit diet in here. We're not giving you advice. We're not telling you, here's how many minutes a day you should work out. If we needed to start with an F, but really, it was the entire physical side of the world. It was not eating as in how many calories should you and ingest and how much of that should be protein versus how much should that be carbohydrate and fat. It was that there's an there's an element of food and eating, that affects family that affects friendship, it's a wonderful way to make friends is to sit down and eat with your body. It affects its faith. Do you recognize the blessing of the food when you look at it was you know when you look at a the array of vegetables and fruits if you're fortunate enough to live in an area where when you walk into a supermarket it strikes you and during COVID For the first time for many Americans at least it was the first time many people walked into a supermarket and did not see this.
Daniel Lapin 9:51
Do you remember when were the very first time you use supermarket that didn't have stuff and
Susan Lapin 9:58
I thought yes, we went to the Caribbean Yeah. And we walk. And we went sailing in the Caribbean. And you know, you have your list and we keep kosher, which means that we can't eat everything that's there. But fruits and vegetables we can eat, and we walked into a supermarket and was like, oh, like, maybe I'm not going to be able to get carrots never dawned on me that I would not get carrots if I wanted them.
Daniel Lapin 10:22
And we know, you know, as a result of more recent sailing trips, that it's improved there as well. It's not like it was this is.
Susan Lapin 10:31
But COVID For many people was the first time in America that people saw empty shelves, yeah, and things. But that when you do walk, and you see that array, there's an that, that is this can be if we pay attention to it a spiritual moment of gratitude to God, that, you know, food could be blah, so we can get our vitamins. But we instead we have colors and smells and textures. It's an amazing thing. So Eve so fitness isn't saying, here's how you should take care of your body. It's talking really about that intersection of how our physical beings, which is how we live even, you know, there's the whole thing on bathroom usage of it, eating sexuality, all those physical things fall under the rubric of fitness, and also when they intersect with everything else. When
Daniel Lapin 11:23
we speak about faith. A connection with God is part of that, but particularly for people who aren't sure yet where they stand with God. Faith also covers everything that is not measurable in a laboratory. It covers everything in the intangible realm. It covers things that you know, like loyalty, integrity, gratitude, all kinds of important parts of life, but they have no way of being measured scientifically. And so not surprisingly, we have areas of psychosomatic disorder. And this is a well known phenomenon that people can have something disturbing them mentally, which manifests itself physically.
Susan Lapin 12:15
Also there just as there are physical allergies, right, if somebody's coming over, we don't have a cat but if we did have a cat, and we knew somebody had a cat allergy that will be something we have to take into account before inviting them. Our demeanors. People can be allergic to our demeanors as well. I'm sure we you know people as we do. Who talk you know down? How are you today? i Okay, that's an allergy you can be allergic to those type of people and you know what, you stay away from them just so I would stay away from cats if I was allergic to them. I want to stay away those are not going to be the people I choose from my friends because when you hang around people who are always angry or always complaining always, ah, it makes it it affects you and so that's another well we teach what we call fitness in the holistic
Daniel Lapin 13:11
you were teaching you to be a to know yourself and to realize that you can actually control things like your happiness, and that happiness is an attraction. It's a magnet. And and that as Susan was just saying, We you may unbeknown Bingley be deterring people from desiring to connect with
Susan Lapin 13:34
you. It also affects your finances, obviously. That's the whole point it affects and we are romantic prospects that affects your family life and affects your friendship and finances and your health. Because of course loneliness Being alone is one of the worst things physically for your body you can do. And I actually think they did a fantastic job on the cover, don't you? Well, we wanted to present that there's you there's you in the middle. And that each of these, it's not there are no lines linking them to each other because there are links to all whether they're right next to each other or not. It's sort of a almost a kaleidoscope where you could you could pivot the lens and you would see it in a different way. So I think I really liked what they did with the conference.
Daniel Lapin 14:15
They're very good. John Wiley is is a great publisher. And yeah, they did do well with this. early on. Before we went on air you spoke about Dr. Lewis Thomas of the Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute in New York, who did a lot of work on placebos and writes about placebos. And he also writes about placebo studies in Massachusetts General Hospital. And again, there you got to do as well where what you believe what is inside your soul at truly impacts what your body does. And so we're doing a lot of a lot of exposure on that because it's really, really important for you to understand in your own life.
Susan Lapin 14:59
Why One of my favorite things to talk about which when he when he was at Massachusetts General, I believe was the warts where he, he speaks about people being hypnotized to get rid of warts. And they were told they were hypnotized to get rid of warts on the right side of their body. And lo and behold, so you had hands let's I think of his hands. You had the warts, actually, on many, many of the people disappeared on the right side. And then you had one person whose warts disappeared on his left hand. And it didn't take that much research to understand that it was a person who confused right and left. But that's a fascinating thing. And we know it, we know it, you know, we accept these things. There are many things we accept in their category. And I think the whole idea of this book was take it outside the category. So for example, when a football team and you're gonna, if I probably speak, I'm probably going to reveal that I'm not a football fan. But when the team lead, you're
Daniel Lapin 15:54
not a football fan, because you've never learned the game. No,
Susan Lapin 15:56
I haven't learned the game because I'm not a football, I didn't want to have no interest. Right? So I tried, the wide there I went to I was not excited, even with someone trying to explain to me what was going on. But then when they hear your huddle before the game, and everybody gives a big shout out, you know, when the coach gives a speech, we accept that we know that right? We know that if another team had a coach who just said, Hey, guys, do your best. And everybody walks out, that team is going to be at a disadvantage, no matter how much they may have all prep both practice the same amount of time. And we we probably a lot of people have read business books that say put affirmations on your mirror, before you head out to the workday. Those work, which is really strange, isn't it, if you think about if you think only of, you know, things in a very materialistic sense, it's very hard to understand what they do. And what you believe. And it's not not enough, it's not all you have to do, it's not going to be the only thing. But what you believe actually affects who you are and what you can achieve.
Daniel Lapin 17:08
Right? Right. And so the idea literally, is to give you the inside information, the true information about how you work. And this is an insight into your complete operating system. And fundamental to that is understanding that your life is a system. And it works best, your life is happiest and most fulfilling, it's a good life, when all parts of the system are working and integrated with one another correctly.
Susan Lapin 17:47
I was just gonna say so for a younger person. So it you can't do everything at the same time. And we're not suggesting that you set a timer within an hour, you divide your 60 minutes into five parts, and you say, so I'm gonna go eight, and then B and then C and then D and then E. That's not That's not what we're saying. You talked earlier about a younger man, let's say wanting to set up a business. While there is a good time it is that is a very good idea. It's very good idea to have a financial picture and some accomplishment before you get married. That would certainly the advice of ancient Jewish wisdom. However, I mean,
Daniel Lapin 18:20
just at its most basic, it goes far, far deeper than this, as we explained in the book, but the quality of woman who will be drawn to you has a lot to do with your accomplishments. You know, I'm talking now to an 18 year old guys, 17 year olds.
Susan Lapin 18:37
But so we're not suggesting that an 18 year old guy says okay, so I should be thinking about how I'm going to contribute to the world and how I'm going to make my money. And I should also be looking for a wife. No, maybe not yet. But how you behave when you have in mind the future wife and family want, will, should be in it should be in your mind as you're focused on setting up your, your finances, because it's wrong. It's a mistake to say, well, I can just have fun right now I can behave however I want because I'm not really I'm not looking to women to get married to one. It should be in your mind already in the future. I want a healthy marriage and I want a healthy family. And so yes, how I behave, it's 17 and 18. And that area of sexuality of romance will affect what I'm able to do when I am ready. Whether
Daniel Lapin 19:34
you're a man or a woman that's B to be aware that you will most likely want to have a family most likely. I remember a doctor once said to me something very insightful and it's applicable overhead and if I told you, but it's a while back, he said He said to me, Rabbi Lapin, I know what's going on in your head, I'm telling you these things that I think you should be doing. And I know what's going on, you're thinking to yourself that you're different. And he said, and you are everybody is different, everyone is unique. But I want you to focus on the ways in which you are exactly like most other people. You're and that that was really good. You know, they
Susan Lapin 20:28
said, Yes, I
Daniel Lapin 20:29
did. I did. He said, Yeah, they said, Yeah, you know, that they're things that apply statistically, to the overwhelming majority of men, to your in your age category, or whatever. And so be aware that you're part of that cohort, whether you like it or not actually
Susan Lapin 20:46
spend a fair bit of time talking in this book about the fact that we have this dichotomy, which is that God created each human being as a unique, being right, and different from everyone else. And that actuarial science is a real science that there are ways in which we are most of us are going to, and if all you and all your friends think that you're the exception to the rule, you're wrong. By definition, you can't be sometimes there is truly each well, for each of us, each of us has something very unique. And sometimes that does mean that we do something differently than most. But if you rely on that, and if you're not able to back it up, and other people aren't able to say you know it, you're different in this way, then you're probably fooling yourself. And we one of the things we quote in this book is so many of the studies that have come out of loneliness now, and to the point that Japan and England and the United States of America are all establishing Commission's to try to combat loneliness. And that's partially because there was an ignoring we told people for such a long time. You know, work your work is what matters your career that is the prime we elevated. We met if we didn't if we did it here, that would be a big bulge.
Daniel Lapin 22:11
That's that's a good point. Yes, we we have made work and Korean, disproportionately large. Yes. Paradoxically, at a time where no at no point in history, have ordinary people lived as luxuriously and as comfortably. And I think we're also
Susan Lapin 22:30
feeling the kickback here that because we just ignored faith and, and fitness and family and friendship. We're seeing that the economy is suffering because of that. Yes. I mean, I'm the most simple level and economy that doesn't have people coming after it, that a population that's shrinking finances are going to go that's
Daniel Lapin 22:52
a huge problem. All right. The, the Scientific American by the on that topic, did the most preposterous article on saying well, yes, everyone says that declining fertility rates, declining population are bad for the economy. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. Think of how much better it is for the planet for there to be fewer people. And that will probably result in more financial opportunity as well, because there are fewer people vying for the same resources. What an unbelievable failure of understandings that may be worth talking about separately, but it's a remarkable Scientific American article. That totally I mean, it's just plain wrong, but it's anyway, it's probably one of
Susan Lapin 23:40
them, or what would you say are the most controversial things we say? Or what we raise in this book?
Daniel Lapin 23:45
Yeah, what? Well, you know, I think I mean, everybody's going to image I'm just paging through it. And looking at the table of contents. I think people will first go to chapter six, sex, pleasure and pain.
Susan Lapin 24:02
That's always an eye catcher.
Daniel Lapin 24:06
So I'm in I think, I think that's a part of
Susan Lapin 24:08
what that may be. So that may be the what catches the eye. But yes, I think we actually say things that people will struggle with, which is good, because as you always say, you don't want to massage people with warmth, but
Daniel Lapin 24:21
absolute waste of time wasted conjures up a unpleasant word picture. When you say, No, I say all the time. My job here is not to massage you with warm butter.
Susan Lapin 24:35
So for example, we discussed the fact that we get two competing messages in modern society. One is that so for example, in the workforce, well now at the point that you should prefer X, Y or Z we're into we're into, you know, dei, and you should pick people not by skills, but go back a few years when they're at least that was the idea of a meritocracy. And we were told Well, women and men are exactly the same when they come for a job interview or you're looking for somebody. It's it's irrelevant. It's in very few very few cases, if it's a man or a woman. And at the same time, we're told, Well, wait a second, you have to have sensitivity. And there's, you know, you, you have to be aware that that women and men are different than that maybe things that you said in an all male workforce aren't okay. Well, those contradict each other. Actually. It's hard. It's difficult. So we have an entire section about platonic friendships in the workforce. And I think a lot of people will have trouble with that. We have this is probably to me maybe the most controversial, that earning money means something different to abandon, it means to Oh, good, again, 99.9% of the cases. And if you add all your friends say, Well, on that point, zero 1% point 1.01 presents, you can't be because then earning money means something different. Now, that doesn't mean that women cannot earn money. It doesn't mean women should not earn money, or don't want to earn money, it means that they there should be an awareness. That means something different. Yeah. And I think put it
Daniel Lapin 26:16
another way, a man who's not making any money looks completely different to a woman from a man who is making money and the other way around women who are not making money, okay, do not look worse to a man than a woman who is making money. And
Susan Lapin 26:39
I say that in the show with this as another thing. We do that in the short term and a lot of times what's popular, what's faddish? Right now polyamory I don't you know, it's really funny. So if people I mean, I think this is how it works, actually, because all of a sudden is in an article and I guess it gets eyeballs, it gets
Daniel Lapin 26:59
Financial Times finance, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Atlantic. News. Yeah, let me let me take that a look. We need to look at it. But I thought that that's a good intro to something very fundamental in this book, which is incredibly useful. And once you have wrapped yourself around this idea, you really will benefit from it. And that is that there are two categories of information that you need for successful living. One of them is a scientific category of information. And the other is, for lack of a better term, I call it a spiritual that doesn't mean it has anything to do with God, or religion or heaven or piety. It means the opposite of scientific, to me is measurable spiritual is non measurable by anything other than a human being.
Susan Lapin 27:55
I was gonna say, when we use the word faith, it was because it starts with an F and spiritual doesn't start. Yeah. And also some people spiritual, maybe it's crystals, or maybe like, it's one of these words that sort of been come very loosey goosey. Yes, so we use faith, but really, in many ways, spiritual as a more accurate as a non physical as
Daniel Lapin 28:14
physical. That's, that's really one of the difficulties of laying out people. But anyway, that's what faith means. So in the area of scientific, for instance, our electric cars and electric airplanes a good idea. And in order to answer that, you need to probe your understanding of chemistry to understand the mechanism of storing electricity or battery, you need to understand physics, to understand the electric motors, you need to understand the first law of thermodynamics, which explains that energy can't come from nowhere. Energy always comes from somewhere. And so that explains why you can't, for instance, keep filling up your battery in your car by generating electricity from the turning wheels. We do that when the car is breaking, it's called regenerative braking. But you can't do it all the time, because that would violate the First Law thermal can't be done. So these all at no point. Can anybody in this discussion, say, Well, wait a second, my belief system would have batteries operating differently. You know, the the fact is, here's why. Batteries are really a poor propulsion force for airplanes. Here's the problem. Somebody that well, you know, I I'm a Buddhist, so I'm not trying you know, it's there is nothing spiritual about this. This is all straightforward, scientific, it has nothing to do with your opinion. It has nothing to do with your beliefs. It has nothing to do with your mood and your emotions. It's Very straightforward and scientific and in exactly the same way. There are other questions. Alright, we've looked at the question of whether electrical cars or electrical airplanes are good. How's about the topic Susan brought up? Is polyamory good? Okay, now, I even saw in some of these articles, and the New York Times has had more than one on this. It's really very interesting. But I even saw in one of the articles, somebody say, well, we rely on science for everything. So let's depend on science for finding out whether polyamory is a new and viable way of organizing human society. polyamory means a family unit of more than one husband and more than one wife, or alternatively, a couple in an open marriage, where both have relationships with other people outside of the marriage. That is also apparently part of what polyamory means. I'm not an expert. But this is what this is talking about. Now. Is science useful on this science here is about as useful as religion is on determining whether electrical airplanes are a good idea. It has nothing to do with it. And, you know, there have been attempts over the last few decades, this really didn't start until the 20th century. Pretty much. But that is the idea of psychology and psychiatry being sciences. They're not sciences, and sorry, with due deference and respect to my friends, who are psychologists, and who are psychiatrists, it isn't a science, you might pretend it is by making lists and documenting it and putting it down on spreadsheets. But in the final analysis, it's there is no way that shall we say, a patient has, shall we say shingles, and three out of five doctors will disagree about know the the observation of the symptoms of shingles are very simple and very straightforward. And everybody agrees on what they are. That's not the same when it comes to so called mental disorder. And there is no objective way of determining mental disorder. Yeah, we look it up in the DSM five, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
Susan Lapin 32:26
is different than DSM three, and it's
Daniel Lapin 32:29
exactly and even then, it depends on the interpretation or the practitioner. So. So the the idea, then is that we were recognizing that you have to take into account some of the spiritual factors. In humans, not everything is scientific. If everything was scientific, none of us would wear clothing. With designer labels, we wouldn't because that satisfy the whole fashion industry satisfies a spiritual yearning, not a physical yearning. The physical yearning is very simple protection from the weather, maintaining body temperature, and at a push, although that blends four into the spiritual arena, one might say preservation of dignity. Although nudists do try and do away with that, to suggest that if we just accustom people to being nude, it's as long as they're warm and not losing body heat, there is no problem. Turns out there is a problem. I
Susan Lapin 33:38
just feel sorry, I'm trying to find a segue. And I'm not because I really just want to suggest I really do think people need this book or should read this book. It's The Holistic You: Integrating your family finances, faith, friendship, and fitness. It's available in all those places where you get books, and it's also available on RabbiDanielLapin.com. And it even has an accompanying workbook. But the idea where I was coming with polyamory is that certain ideas, get get into society. And then all of a sudden, you know, once you know this is going to be on the cover the lead story in every newspaper and every not every but many newspapers and many magazines. It's going to become a class in university, it's going to become a topic of discussion. And you can get caught in a bad time in history where a bad idea catches catches on, man. A lot of what the purpose of this book is what we're hoping to do is to let people get A a healthy sense of themselves of skepticism to not be so susceptible to just Well, everybody's saying it. Yeah. And this basically
Daniel Lapin 34:47
is a book of of your independence. That's a very good way it makes you independent because we've all become susceptible to expert Titus, which is terrible disease, which is a sub doing your own instincts of doing your own knowledge, subduing your own experience in the face of what the experts say. And so we encourage a very healthy skepticism towards that end, depending far more on your instincts on your knowledge and your skills on your experience. And I'm
Susan Lapin 35:26
going to push back a little bit on instinct. If you're, you know, in you, when you're raised in a society, your instincts get shaped by that society. Yes, that's right. And so it's having the right instincts, it's really tuning into right,
Daniel Lapin 35:38
but to talk about mothers, for instance, who totally abandon any conviction that that they can even teach their child.
Susan Lapin 35:50
Most mothers have had their instincts deadened by the education that they've received.
Daniel Lapin 35:58
We'll speak to that for a second. So
Susan Lapin 36:00
we are here's just our history a little bit, I homeschooled for about 16 years, our children. And when I started, this can make me sound very old. But homeschooling was not a commonly known word. It was, it was not something that there were lots of articles.
Daniel Lapin 36:17
It didn't really change very quickly. And
Susan Lapin 36:21
people the I, it was very fascinating to me, you know, that I was perfectly capable of teaching my children to read and to do math and, and yet, the California schools, for example, went from top literacy for years and years in years to low literacy rates, graduates of California public schools, because they were insisting on using a method of education to teach reading, that was the latest, the greatest happens also sell books, because it was new and exciting. And it was a failure.
Daniel Lapin 36:54
It did something else. Susan is a whole language reading a whole language read, it did something else. And that is it protected, the esotericism. It conferred rank and status and
Susan Lapin 37:07
being well, this is a site that I had to go to school for four years to learn how to teach your child to read, how silly can you be to think that you can feed your child and they
Daniel Lapin 37:15
discourage parents teaching their children to read? So
Susan Lapin 37:19
they've now they've revoked that actually, but if your child was in school during those years, your child was damaged,
Daniel Lapin 37:26
seriously damaged? Because, yeah.
Susan Lapin 37:29
And so when you talk about a mother's instinct, I think many women and I see this look, first of all money speaks when something is business, and yes, I am trying to get your money to buy the book. So take that into accounts also. But I think, you know, we're saying look it up and you've been listening for a while, if you think there's something valuable, then it's worthwhile money. But what happened was that a mother today, a young mother is bombarded with 1000s of dollars of things they need to keep their child safe to keep their child's mental processes functioning at their best. And somehow mothers and children ended up perfectly bright when they were literally had a corn husk doll. And, you know, that was the extent of their toys, they were safe. And they were they were, they ended up perfectly intelligent.
Daniel Lapin 38:26
I don't know if Baby Einstein is still
Susan Lapin 38:28
Oh, yeah, that was a joke. No, but people spent a lot of money on believing
Daniel Lapin 38:33
children would be handicaps if they didn't play them, these audio CDs or maybe
Susan Lapin 38:42
to watch this damaging to ability to watch videos. So I guess what I'm saying is what this is all came because I'm pushing back on your word instincts, because I think things are very easily squashed very early on.
Daniel Lapin 38:57
Let me go back to polyamory. And the science part a science will tell us if polyamory is a viable system for organizing. A small unit of society used to be a marriage and a family. But now it can be variations on the family of polyamorous family. And, indeed, the scientists have spoken, the psychologists have spoken and the psychiatrists have spoken, not all but several were quoted in some of these articles as explaining that this is a very good thing. And this gives people further options. And a a woman who is in such a relationship wrote a book which is being promoted, although also criticized in the Atlantic, interestingly enough, yeah,
Susan Lapin 39:46
I didn't read the Atlantic article, but I saw the blurb and they were saying this is elitist. Taking an advantage they have of marriage and saying, Oh, well, we're beyond that. And that was Rob Henderson's cadillac values, then it hurts people follow. Don't act on it.
Daniel Lapin 40:06
Exactly. And so if you treat the study of polyamory scientifically, and we explain why that is a complete waste, that is as about as useful as studying electrical airplanes religiously, it's absurd. That makes no sense.
Susan Lapin 40:24
Can I say that in the book, it doesn't ask people who do believe in God and believe that God created human beings. It doesn't shock us, when sometimes you have too many years. And sometimes things are coming out. Now, it comes out that there is a biological reason not to be polyamorous for example, there are studies that are coming out that show that a woman's future children are affected by every sexual encounter she has, before that baby's born. That doesn't shock us because it makes sense to us that God built us so he knows, you know, but the other way is, right. If the other way, if you turns out that physically there's a negative, that's problematic. If you've said no, the physical has nothing to do with.
Daniel Lapin 41:09
So another area, we differ from science, some of the psychologists have said, yes, it's possible that you may be feeling some anxiety, while your wife is out having a relationship with another man on Monday night. But you know, it'll bother you till Wednesday. And next time, it'll bother you till Tuesday. You work on yourself, and you, you try and diminish your concern. So you can eventually become completely Laissez Faire and blasé and almost indifferent to whatever your wife is doing, or husband or husband. And, and we say, Look, we don't deny that you can desensitize yourself, you can, but at that point, you are a seriously damaged human being, you're not an enhanced human being, you're a damaged human being. The bottom line is that part of masculinity, and part of being a man is being, for lack of a better jealous about your wife, meaning you, you are not comfortable with the notion of she being with somebody else. And that is correct. That's how it should be. It is designed as an exclusive relationship. Can you modify yourself? Not not evolutionarily, you know, any dream of being able to breed a race? That includes men who feel no jealousy about the women and about their wives? No, that's not gonna happen.
Susan Lapin 42:45
You can take the sex drive, you could breed a man who have no sex drive, which is something our society has been very effectively doing.
Daniel Lapin 42:51
We don't quite know why do we? I mean, we don't know if it's plastic in the water, or is. I'm not sure. I mean, by the way, one of the things that's been I've been reading quite a lot about this over the last couple of years, is the societal impact of hormonal birth control. Right? And amazing impact. So my there's a lot of things.
Susan Lapin 43:12
Yes, is that there is a physical component like that of chemicals. And there's also a spiritual component as the more we've been telling men, toxic masculinity, being a man is a negative, so you have to not be a man. And so we start with young boys. And we say, the more feminine you are, the better you are as a person. So I think we're reaching the end, are we reaching the end of the podcast?
Daniel Lapin 43:36
It's just, it's just one one more thing that I think has to be clarified. Yeah. And that is
Susan Lapin 43:41
before after we send people to make sure to go to Rabbi Daniel lapin.com. Well, let's do that. Okay, go ahead.
Daniel Lapin 43:48
Everybody should go to our website, RabbiDanielLapin.com. Which, by the way, one of the things you can do is communicate with us there, you can message us. And one of the things I think we'd be interested to know, is whether you would like more joint podcasts,
Susan Lapin 44:09
I was gonna say, because this is from experience that some people are saying, I just want, the rabbi wants to bring his wife on and other people are saying, hey, I really liked the interaction. And we actually have now over 400 TV shows that we did together we used to host to co host a TV show for many years on till COVID. We co hosted until COVID. We co hosted for many years a TV show on the TCT network. And we've been putting them up and our happy warriors can have access to them. And it's already over 400 shows have been put up and there is still another 100 or so to go. Where so if you do like the interaction, you can you can find that. I liked the interaction.
Daniel Lapin 44:50
That's great. All right. So look, if if somebody is trying to become an athlete, they'll tell it focus She wants to become an Olympic hurdler. think of nothing else focus only on that the trainer's will tell that'll be the program. University of Oregon used to have a very outstanding running team.
Susan Lapin 45:15
I forget when Nike was invented for that team.
Daniel Lapin 45:18
And through the trainer of the running, I forget his name, Bill, I forget his name, but, but yes, he had a lot to do with the founding of Nike, and a lot of great runners came out of that. And if you, you know, if you're interested in that, you discover that they were really discouraged from almost everything else. I mean, don't even worry about academics beyond having you know, to keep up the average that will let you stay in the program, which is pretty low in which was low. But you know, don't dream of dating seriously, don't dream of worrying about your career, focus on your athletics. When you reach a certain level, you go professional, you'll get all the money you need from endorsements, but right now, just focus. This is the message and specialize, specialize, specialize. And so it's understandable, I think that people would think that this is that this is the right way. And so if you're in your 20s, then surely you should be focused and specialized on the money on the finance side, which is another word for career, or profession or job, and, and leave everything aside. So what we, I think, persuasively demonstrate in the book is that, you know, let's say you're interested are, let's say you're interested in, in finding somebody to love, you know, you're interested in romance, you'll do better if you focus on health. And in order, if you also include health, and that's sort of self evident, right? Because your health is part of how a romantic partner evaluates you. So, okay, so I'm interested in in love, which is another word for family, and, and relationships and intimacy. Okay, that's my real priority. But wait a sec, you better also be thinking about health as well. You got to be doing that. And how about if you want to focus on health? Well, then you better also take into account finance,
Susan Lapin 47:32
maybe, maybe stick with that one. Stick with that? Well,
Daniel Lapin 47:35
I'd rather come back to because what I'm trying to show, you see, I'm going out you're trying to show I'm doing now from Well, I disagree. This is what sorry, we were we have a very good marriage, and we collaborate on it. But we don't if we if we thought exactly the same way. Wouldn't be wouldn't be much good. So what I'm trying to say is that it's easy to see why if you're interested in romance, that you should also focus on health. And if you Okay, now, I should always focus on health. But wait, that means I should also focus on finding
Susan Lapin 48:09
romance, you should also focus on friendship, because then
Daniel Lapin 48:11
you don't know where I'm going, Okay. I'm going from romance, to health, to finance. And you're
Susan Lapin 48:22
like this, and I want to go like this. Well,
Daniel Lapin 48:25
you'll have your turn to go like this very soon, I promise you. But let me let me try and clarify. What I'm trying to say is that I'm linking up the five in a certain line sequence, right? And then I can link up the fives in a totally different line the sequence right in other words, it's
Susan Lapin 48:44
why we tried to write the book from buds and butter but it did go anyway. It was it
Daniel Lapin 48:49
was hot or cold. Well, yes, that's true. But the the point is, can everybody can see that romance has to do with health is affected is affected by health. And can people see that health is affected by finance? Yeah, right.
Susan Lapin 49:03
Yes, you can afford better food. I remember I went to you actually, I told you this happened to me last week in the supermarket. I just had a yen for cookies for and I went to look at the I haven't how many it's years since I've had a devil's dog. I grew up with them. But I near since I had one. And I said to myself, Oh, everything the price of everything is going skyrocketing every time I go to the supermarket on gas thing. And I thought well, I'm not going to spend and I decided what am I not going to spend more on on a box of Devil Dogs? And I said, Okay, 499 and I was thinking what I know what I'm spending on eggs, and I know what I'm spending on carrots and potatoes and Brussels sprouts and it's
Daniel Lapin 49:41
going up, up up but there's no inflation in America. It's under control.
Susan Lapin 49:45
I went to the Devil Dogs are cheap. It costs more money to eat healthy than it does to eat garbage. Yeah, that's your health.
Daniel Lapin 49:55
Now, can you hear that? If you're interested in finance, you should also be interested in friendship. Because the more people with whom you are connected socially, the better you'll gain. Some people can hear that. And can you hear that if you really want to be well connected socially, it's easier if you have a family because you have a spouse, you have somebody else, even your children build social relationships. All right. So that's one. And family depends to a large extent on faith, there are intangible aspects of building a family, and those things would fall under the faith. But in exactly the same way, we could say that if you want a great social life, you should focus also on finances, right? Well, why why did my friends care how much money I will actually everybody does, and
Susan Lapin 50:45
able to afford to invite people over for a dinner even to
Daniel Lapin 50:49
go out. I remember, you remember, there was an episode of Friends many, many, many years ago. Where they, they there were six of them, I think. And they fell into two categories as we had a few dollars, and those were struggling. And it became a social problem, right, obviously. And so it is, in each of these five things, finance, family, friendship, sadness, and faith, you can show how each one links to the next enter line. And then you can reorganize the line, and it'll still work and then reorganize the line again, it'll still work. And that brings us to where Susan was gonna go, which is forget the line, put them on a circle and connect all the points on the circle, and you get to exactly the same time I was gonna say, yeah, right. Okay. All right. So please go ahead and get the book we are pledging, holistic, holistic,
Susan Lapin 51:46
you repeat the title.
Daniel Lapin 51:47
Thank you. You're right. We're pledging our reputation on it. Because we were you know, we we worked on it really hard for but that's not the only thing. It was great. If we have you buy this book, and then you say, You know what, this wasn't worth anything, then that's about the last time we'll ever be able to send Salah books. So we're not that short sighted, we do have
Susan Lapin 52:11
one or two places where we say okay, if at this point, you feel like throwing the book against the wall, because what we're saying is so outrageous, that you can't handle it. So we're not precluding that, but we would suggest you go pick it up after you've thrown it against the wall and keep on reading, ya
Daniel Lapin 52:25
know, there's definitely going to be parts that will be infuriating to some people, not to everybody. But we we recommend that you you weigh them up very, very carefully before you reject them. Because the book is a true overview of human operating system.
Susan Lapin 52:44
And hopefully a way to help all of us get over when there are bad ideas out there, which have something to bounce those ideas against and say, Should I pay attention? There are great ideas out there also. But should I not pay attention, that you really want to have a core of yourself of understanding how the world works? daily work
Daniel Lapin 53:04
really works. That's right, The Holistic You your declaration of independence, it will restore confidence that you do understand how the world really works. Not to say you won't consult experts not to say you won't speak to specialists, of course. But the final decision is yours because you are the CEO of your life. You are the president of your life. And nobody cares as much about your family, your finances, your friendships, your fitness and your faith. Nobody cares as much about your five F system as you do yourself. Any last words? No. That's it. You have nothing to say Susan. Do you know how seldom I see you in that condition? Okay, terrific. Okay, so thanks so much for taking time with you. It was terrific to do this. And I hope we'll we'll do it again. Because we haven't even really begun to scratch the surface of The Holistic You. There's really a lot that so we'll talk about it again. But until next week, we want to wish you a fantastic week, traveling upwards and onwards in your growth trajectory in your family, your faith, your finances, your fitness, and your friendships. I'm Rabbi Daniel Lapin. I'm
Susan Lapin 54:35
Susan Lapin. God bless.
