TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: The Second Most Creative Thing You Can Do
Date: 10/26/2026 Length: 00:25:03
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (00:02)
Greetings, Happy Warriors, and welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin Show, where I, your rabbi, reveal how the world really works. And one way that the world really works is that things happen when you know how to help other people say yes. And so in this podcast, I wanted to present seven rules for moving people and making things happen.
And to start with, I want to ask you if you would agree with the following proposition that every moment of jubilation, every triumph joy, and every achievement you've ever experienced, every breakthrough accomplishment, every conquest, every pinnacle you've attained, yes, all those sublime peaks of life, every one of them happened because your interaction with at least one other human being went just the way you wanted it to go. If you like, you can pause here and take a minute to try and think of an exception in your life to the timeless truth I've just told you. Isn't it hard? Almost impossible, right? Impossible to think of a spectacularly awesome moment in your life that did not come about because of the collaboration or cooperation.
Of at least one other person. And that collaboration and that cooperation went just the way you hoped it would. So you can see that once you know what you really want and you convey it effectively to the other person or people, you need them to agree. You need them to say yes. And this show is about getting them to say yes. In other words, this show is about learning how to Sell, Influence, and Persuade. Look, here's a basic principle. God created human beings in complete in isolation, but capable of extraordinary creativity through properly ordered relationships with others. Perhaps that is the most important sentence I'm going to utter today. It's so important that if you'll allow me, I would like to repeat it one more time. God created human beings incomplete in isolation, but capable of extraordinary creativity through properly ordered relationships with one another.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (02:55)
Now I tell you yet another timeless truth, which is partly self-evident, but wrapping your soul around this incandescent idea will help you become indomitable. Making this understanding a part of your personality will make you incapable of being subdued, conquered, or defeated. And at this point, let me remind you, I'd really appreciate it if you'll go ahead and like this podcast. subscribe if you're not yet a subscriber. And if you're in a hurry for all the guidance on selling, influencing, and persuading, please go to rabbi Daniel Lapin.com and find the online course Sell, Influence and Persuade.
So here is the timeless truth that will help you become indomitable. If you learn how to integrate this into your life, you will become incapable of being subdued, conquered, or defeated. And here it is. Look, consider the basic question: Who are you? I'm asking you: who are you? What is your identity? What is your self-image? Well, there are two basic ways of answering this question. Let's call the first the progressive way, and let's call the second the traditional way. We could also call the first the human centric way and the second the God centric way. Or we could just call the first the wrong way, the way that does not work, and we could call the second way the right way, the way that does work. The first way is seeing people as disconnected, fragmented atoms bumping around a random world. Each atom complete in itself, completely self-defined. Each atom or each person is defined by his or her will and by his or her self-understanding. The person's identity is brought about only by whatever feelings the person has.
But above all, it is never allowed to be shaped by institutional connections or institutional loyalties. It is utterly free, that means your identity is utterly free to follow feelings. It individual autonomy is the God. You or you decide everything about who you are. Not surprisingly, family is evil.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (05:49)
Because being part of a family helps to shape your identity, doesn't it? Marriage and parenthood frowned upon, estranging yourself from your family and cutting off all relationships with your parents is the liberating ritual of this belief system. Needless to say, capitalism, based as it is on mutually beneficial relationships, is obviously reprehensible.
Just evil. Not surprisingly, groups formed around this first organizing principle tend to be lonely and poor. The second way is discovering that our identities are formed through our relationships. A complete harmonious identity is formed through relationships with family, with possessions, with friends, with God.
And with one's own being, of course. This is the reason that my five F coaching system works so well. It develops the total human being, and since we are integrated totalities, only by treating ourselves as complex interacting systems do we achieve lasting success and harmony.
Now you should be able to get a sense of why having the ability to sculpt a relationship and steer it in the right direction makes you so much like more likely to set the right goals and then to achieve them.
Let's talk for a moment about the two most creative acts. The two most creative acts of which you are capable of doing. The second most creative act is the act of leadership. You know why? Because leadership means influencing somebody else's thoughts and actions. And that can be incredibly creative. Now you want to know what the second most creative act of which you can be capable? Sure. The or the first I should say. We're talking about the second most creative act. But the first most creative act of which humans are capable, is creating a baby, of course. That's certainly ultimately the most creative thing that anybody can do. The second most creative thing anyone can do is the act of leadership. That's right, as I said, influencing how somebody else thinks and behaves. And what I have to tell you now is that the very best definition of selling is in fact leadership. That's right. You are leading somebody towards thinking a certain way and acting a certain way. The widespread misconception that sales is something that only sales professionals do is a big misconception.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (09:01)
Yes, a salesman does sell a product, but a mother persuades a child. A husband tries to persuade his wife. A pastor tries to move his congregation. An entrepreneur persuades an investor. An employee persuades his boss. A friend tries to convince another friend not to make a terrible decision. What are they all doing? They are attempting to influence.
How another human being thinks, feels, or acts. And that is a very useful definition of leadership. Leadership is not about having a title, it is successfully influencing the thoughts and actions of other people towards some destination or away from some destination. Selling, influencing, and persuading are not merely business skills.
They are the operating system of leadership. Look, as we discussed earlier, nothing of value has ever happened on this planet without two people meeting. Not a business, not an invention, not a single human life. Almost everything valuable in human civilization emerged from interaction. Even what you might think of as the solitary inventor.
Is not really solitary. His ideas come from teachers, books, competitors, customers, conversations, earlier inventions. Human beings cross pollinate. You will soon see that selling, influencing, and persuading is indeed the second most creative activity anybody can do. Leadership means changing how others think or act.
That is exactly what selling, influencing, and persuading do. People who look down on sales are looking down on leadership without even realizing it. Ideas, apps, companies all come from people cross-pollinating. Nobody creates alone. And selling and influencing and persuading is the second most creative thing we can do.
The most creative, as I said earlier, sexual intercourse. That is the most obvious and powerful example that God gave us of the creative power of human interaction, right? One person cannot produce a baby. It requires two people, and significantly, two people who are very different from one another.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (11:57)
Intercourse is the model for all human creativity for the following five reasons. Number one, it takes two people. Number two, they must be different from one another. Number three, at any moment one is giving and the other is receiving. Number four, the act of creativity is pleasurable. Number five,
The end result might have unlimited potential.
Here is another link between creative relationships and marital intimacy. Creativity frequently depends upon tension. Now, people instinctively try to relieve interpersonal tension. A capable persuader can tolerate it. He doesn't flee the tension. He embraces it and explores it. This applies to marriage and parenting, friendship and faith.
As much as business and finance. Many important conversations fail because somebody valued immediate comfort more highly than they valued eventual resolution. Difference plus relationship plus exchange can produce something that neither participant could produce alone. That is an equation.
That is absolutely inviolable. Difference plus relationship plus exchange can produce something that neither participant could ever produce alone. Nobody can lead another person effectively without knowing where that person wants to go. The bad salesman begins with his product, the good salesman begins with his customer.
The great salesman begins with his customer's aspiration. Let me give you three excellent questions to ask.
What are you trying to accomplish? Number two, what is preventing you from accomplishing it? Number three, what would change for you if we solved that problem? These aren't tricks, they're not selling techniques, these are acts of supreme service. Selling is morally honorable. I cannot serve you until I understand you. Let's look at seven basic tools.
Number one, show up. It takes two. Creation needs contact before you can connect. Get in front of people and count conversations rather than ideas. A brilliant product that meets nobody stays barren. So don't sit around going online or reading. Get out there, be there. Number two, cherish difference.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (15:09)
Two identical people, imagine your own clone, produce nothing. Seek out people unlike you, and don't sell to yourself by assuming they want what you want. Differences are where the value lies. Number three, know before you seek to be known. One of the languages in the Hebrew text of the Torah for intercourse is Yada, which means know.
So it says, for instance, in Genesis, Adam knew his wife. It's not just a euphemism, no, it's telling us something fundamental about any truly productive interaction. You have to know before you seek to be known.
Ask questions before you present. Learn other people's fears, hopes, and vocabulary. People let themselves be influenced by those who have bothered to know them. Take turns giving and receiving. Listening is not passive, it's a gift you give. Watch the rhythm of a conversation. Part of ancient Jewish wisdom says that God gave us two ears and only one mouth to say that you have to listen to twice as much as you speak. As a general rule, if you've talked nonstop for two minutes, you've stopped being creative and you've started lecturing. Number five, courtship comes before commitment. There is a natural sequence: rapport, trust, and only then the proposal. Rushing the close feels like an assault rather than an invitation. Kindle desire.
Never force. Persuasion awakens what the other person already wants. Pressure produces resentment, not results. Both sides must truly benefit, or nothing lasting will be born. Complete the act and then nurture what is born. Ask for the decision. Ask for the sale. Ask for a conclusion because conception needs completion. Afterwards, a new client is like a newborn.
Follow-up and service are how the relationship grows into referrals and repeat business. Persuade that those are the seven tools. But it all wraps around this basic idea that persuasion requires collaborative movement, not conquest. The object of selling, influencing, and persuading is not I conquered you. No, it's we arrived somewhere good.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (17:57)
And mutually beneficial together. That's the key. Leadership often advances through a succession of voluntary little yeses. The leader must care about the experience of the other person. The selfish salesman is interested only in his commission. He has fundamentally misunderstood relationship. The great sales professional takes pleasure in the benefit received by the customer. And paradoxically, that makes him more effective. Remember, people, and this is you and me and everybody, people possess remarkably sensitive spiritual instruments for detecting whether another person sees us as a real human being or merely as an obstacle standing between them and something they want. People consense. A useful principle is never be more interested in making the sale than in improving the customer's life. Never be more interested in talking somebody else into something, persuading somebody else for something than you are in making things better for them. And this is where sales becomes service and leadership becomes truly moral.
Becoming better at persuasion and selling and influencing improves every one of the five F's you constantly hear me talking about. Marriage, family, all improve, parenting, all depend upon influencing without coercing. Our world of finance, almost every increase in income ultimately requires persuading somebody.
An employer, a customer, an investor, an employee, or a business partner, or a boss. You've got to be doing it all the time. So you may as well learn how to sell, influence, and persuade. In the area of faith, faith has always been transmitted from human being to human being through teaching and personal interaction of example and persuasion. In the area of friendship, our social connections, friendships deepen.
Through conversation, reciprocal influence, and the willingness to hear and be heard. Fitness, our relationship with ourselves, even here, we do depend upon coaches, spouses, friends, communities to encourage behavioral change. And we must persuade ourselves to exchange today's comfort for tomorrow's health. So remember,
You are never just selling, influencing, or persuading. You are really creating.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (20:59)
I would love to see you enroll in our online program, Sell, Influence and Persuade, that you can absorb at your own pace. Go r read about it at our website. That's why I don't have to tell you much more about it. you go to rabbi Daniel Lapin dot com and you go to courses and you'll find sell, influence and persuade, and you'll get the hang of it. Selling, influencing, and persuading are not merely business skills. They are the operating system of leadership. And leadership is something we need in each of our five F's. Remember that two people begin with different things. They interact. Each gives, each receives, and afterwards, something exists that did not exist before. Sometimes that's a baby. Sometimes it's a business.
Sometimes it's a friendship, sometimes it's a marriage, sometimes it's a customer relationship, a job, an investment, a charitable organization, a congregation, or maybe just a new idea. That is why I always teach: human creativity is overwhelmingly relational. Human creative you don't get creative by yourself. Get rid of that dream. This is one of the reasons that.
Far more sole proprietorships fail than partnerships. Because human creativity is overwhelmingly relational. Don't try and do anything by yourself. And so the ability to sell, influence, and persuade isn't at all merely a commercial technique. No, it is one of the fundamental creative capacities that God implanted within us. That is why we call our program.
Sell, influence, and persuade. We didn't call it a sales course. Selling is only one application. It's an important one, but it's only part of the story. What Susan and I want Happy Warriors to acquire is the ability to move comfortably and confidently through the world of other human beings, to understand them, communicate with them, influence them, and when appropriate, lead them.
Because whether you are building a business, strengthening a marriage, raising children, deepening friendships or trying to bring an important idea into the world, very little happens until one human being successfully reaches another. Remember, nothing important happens until two people interact.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (23:53)
Learn to make those interactions productive, and you have learned one of the great secrets of leadership. And that is the core principle underlying all the tips and the tools and the techniques within the online program Sell, Influence, and Persuade. And you'll find that on our website at rabbidaniellapin.com.
If you haven't yet become a Happy Warrior join our community, and you'll find that we're all busy helping one another achieve success in all our five Fs. And one of the most fundamental advantages in growing our five F's is learning how to sell, influence, and persuade. And so I wish you a wonderful week, moving onwards and upwards - in your families, in your finances, in your faith, in your friendships, and in your fitness. I'm Rabbi Daniel Lapin. God bless.
