SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Ask for the Skinny Podcast with a guest. I'm proud to present Rabbi Daniel Cohen. Daniel, welcome to the show. Please tell us more about yourself. What is your story?

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity. Um my name is Rabbi Daniel Cohen and uh served in the rabbinet for over 30 years at a large synagogue in New England. I have a wonderful wife, uh, six married daughters, and thank God grandchildren. That's the most important, is my family life. Um, but also um I had a crisis um early on in my life where my mom passed away from a brain aneurysm when she was 44 years old. I was in my early 20s, and I learned in that moment that life can change in an instant, that we can't take life for granted. And it led me really to help explore the idea of how do we not lead life from crisis to crisis, but how do we lead life with greater intentionality? How do we understand that there's no such thing as cruising through life, but really leading our best life? And I wrote a book, which is really what I speak about a lot called What Will They Say About You When You're Gone? Creating a Life of Legacy. How do we lead the life now for how do we want to be remembered? And I help people identify what is the best version of yourself, the life you want to lead. And then I take them on a journey of seven principles to reverse engineer your life. So you lead the life now for how you want to be remembered. And to me, you know, I think that every day is an opportunity for impact. You know, sometimes people get into these modes where this is what I'm doing. And, you know, midlife crisis is just a call to say, I was called to do something more than just what I'm doing right now. I mean, how do we really get out of the mode of just treating every day as ordinary? And how do we realize that maybe there's something extraordinary that I can accomplish? It may not be in the same job, but that doesn't mean that my life purpose is still not vital to the world around me.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Amazing. I have so many questions I would like to ask you. Um let's let let's start with uh number one. Um you you're talking about uh seven principles, or you you wrote uh a book about it. Uh but what I would like to ask you about is what is the difference between uh the mainstream media that um encourage us in uh leaving a legacy uh we have to leave something behind, something greater. And uh is that just a societal pressure or is that really as you call it the higher calling? How can we distinguish between the societal pressure of living a legacy, being a great sportsman and a higher calling? We might be just you know, someone in the neighborhood that makes everyone feel good. Maybe we were selling ice cream and just giving them the smile they need on that day, and that that that is also something that might be beneficial. So, how can we distinguish between this legacy as our society intends to um or is trying to induce in us? And what is the real higher calling? How how how would you how would you uh describe to our listeners where's the difference?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Look, I think that you know we live in a society that oftentimes celebrates um achievements that are sometimes um uh either counterfeit or transactional, or it's how many likes do you get, or how much money do you get. And it's really important to understand that those things may be alluring, but they're fleeting. You know, and I think that when it comes down to it, um I believe that everybody in their soul has a sense of what really matters. You know, at the end of a person's life, a person is not counting how many dollars they have in the bank account. They're asking, whose life did I touch? What friendships have endured? What difference have I made? And by the way, I mean, I've seen this in my own life, and we all have that, you know, to be the individual that that person needs most, let's say there's somebody who's struggling in a job, and you go out of your way to say, you know what, I'm gonna give you a piece of advice that was given to me 30 years ago, and sets them on a path that now helps solidify their life. It's only five minutes of my time, but it's changed the trajectory of their life. I recently celebrated, actually, tomorrow I celebrate the 36th wedding anniversary, years of marriage. I was set up by my sister, and I think about that. It was just a thought in her mind, but she created legacy by saying, you know what? My brother, maybe my friend Diane is the right woman for this guy. And legacy is created sometimes in the shortest of moments when your heart is there. That's really what gives a person great fulfillment in life, great meaning in life. So I think it's important not to listen to the noise of the social media, not to, in many ways, chase after those things, but really to just be quiet with yourselves, talk to people that you trust, be open to the fact that God creates opportunities for us. No encounter is random. If I meet a guy in a cab or in an elevator, in an airport, God put that person in my orbit for a reason. And my job is to make sure that that person leaves my orbit feeling better about themselves when they entered my orbit. If you lead a life with that mindset, your life is so much higher, richer, and meaningful.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Amazing. What I'm most interested in is uh you said that the the soul knows its purpose. And yes, I I would agree 100% with that, but how can we distinguish between the soul's purpose and the societal expectations?

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Look, I think that's where faith comes in a little bit. Like if a person has no moral anchor and no higher power, whether it's through prayer and study, like we talked about, whatever that is, Torah, or a community that values those things, then you're gonna be lost. You're gonna be chasing, you're gonna be scrolling and running after this and running after that. So I think that's important to create meditative moments where you turn your phone off so you can listen to the voice inside of you, where you pray for strength and direction, where you study the Bible, where you put yourself with other people. Someone said, Show me your friends and I'll show you your future. Surround yourself with people that are running after the good stuff. And then you'll develop the fortitude and faith and direction to also, I would say, align your practices and time with your deepest priorities. Everybody wants to make a difference, but you can tell the truth about a person, which is how do they spend their money, where are they spending their time, and check and see are those allocations really aligned with who you want to be. If they're not, then recognize and be honest, the gap is there, and then make sure that you invest more in the things that really matter. And by doing that, by having a support group, by having faith, it helps you tune out all the noise of social media and tune into what your soul really is telling you to do.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

I will ask you one of my favorites uh questions. Uh, and I'm sure you're great at that, uh, being a rabbi. Uh trying so so uh, how important is it for us to have someone uh to talk to, to show us our blind spot and to help us distinguish between the noise and all these expectations and what is real and what is genius? Um I I usually ask us, I do a lot of uh interviews with coaches, um, how important is to have a coach or someone to talk to. You you mentioned the community, and I believe that is uh one of the most important things the community uh around us, how we set uh people around us, and also the latest brain studies discover that one-third of our brain is dedicated to community or social interactions. So, this is for sure extremely important. So, how important is for you to have someone that can show you your blind spot and give you some kind of accountability partnership, especially in the beginning um when we run around for uh and dedicate our time to wrong things and spend our money on wrong things, and we're trying to impress others with our money, and uh, we're trying to uh get in the circles that are not beneficial uh for us. So, how important is this sport person, accountability partner, or coach, mentor?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

I think it's finally important. Look, we all have um defense mechanisms when we're doing things that aren't necessarily the reflection of the kind of person we want to be. Nobody wants to feel bad about what they did. So we justify what we did, we don't confront what we did, we lead a life that isn't really real. We kind of create this alternate reality because we don't want to feel the pain of not doing the right thing. So we all need somebody, though, to be honest with us. We need somebody who loves us, who cares about us, but also can be honest and say, you know what, here's an area of your life maybe where I could be helpful, or maybe you should, you're not seeing it the right way, you know. Um I think look, a spouse can be a very important person in that regard. Um, we all have mentors. Like I turn to mentors for guidance, and no matter how old you are, people should just have mentors. And the notion of having a study partner, you know, somebody who you you you you grow with is very important. Um and again, that comes where for me, you know, we mentioned before the notion of the Torah, like the five books of Moses and and and faith, it's a way for me to see outside myself. And here's the key question. When somebody wakes up in the morning, and the truth is we make hundreds of moral decisions every day. Hundreds. And it's literally a few seconds when you make that decision. Do you lose your hold on one second, sorry? Do you lose your patience with somebody or do you stay calm? Do you get distracted and not really be present with somebody, or are you fully present? Do you make sure you're not cutting corners or a person moves maybe in the wrong direction? In that moment you say to yourself, here's the thing. Do I do what I want or do I do what God wants? Is it a selfish moment or a selfless moment? And the way that you stay true to transcendence, selfless, and really thinking about what God wants, it is through mentorship. It's through studying, it's realizing that there by the grace of God go I, and I have to be mindful that I have to it's have my soul drive my body and not my body drive my soul. And people need mentors, you need study, you need faith to fortify the soul. So we're not just you know allowing the body to drive to what feels good, but ultimately to do what is good.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Amazing. I have another question that I really like, and uh I'm I'm really looking forward to your answer to that. What's your take on forgiveness? How important is forgiveness in today's society? And how should we practice forgiveness towards others and towards ourselves or our past past uh sins? How important is that for personal growth and our development?

SPEAKER_01 12:54

You're saying forgiving ourselves or forgiving others? Both, both. Okay. I think that well, a few different things. I mean, first of all, one of the greatest challenges people have is that look, nobody's perfect. We all make mistakes. And sometimes we allow those mistakes to define who we are, and we kind of obsess over it, we get depressed over it, we're guilty, and we think, how in the world can I recover from this mistake that I made? It may not be interpersonal. It may mean that, you know, I should have been a little more mindful of um, I don't know, making a blessing or just being grateful. I got angry too quickly. I, you know, but at the end of the day, um I think it's important to recognize that sometimes God believes in us more than we believe in ourselves. Think about this a minute. I believe, it says in the end of the book of Psalm, Psalm 150, with every breath that I take, I give thanks to God. What does that mean? That basically means that God creates every one of us every second of the day. The fact that I'm talking to you right now and I'm able to breathe, it's because God is investing me with new life. Even though 20 minutes ago I may have made a mistake, God says, let go of that mistake. Don't define yourself by your mistakes. Define yourself by the choices you make at this moment going forward. And sometimes we lose opportunities to better ourselves because we're just thinking about what we did in the past. So forgiving oneself sincerely is one of the key ways to grow and make the most of life because nobody's perfect. But if God forgives us and says, I'll give you new life, we have to forgive ourselves. That's number one. Number two, we have to be um exhibit grace. You know, I don't want people to only judge me by my mistakes. I want them to look at the totality of who I am. Let's say I'm a person who has been a good friend. Thank God. And one time I missed somebody's birthday, or one time maybe I said something that was wrong. I wouldn't want them to look and say, that's who you are. No, that was a mistake. And sometimes relationships can be destroyed because people are, I like to say, rather than mine for the gold, people are digging for the dirt. It's very easy to dig for the dirt. And the truth is that nobody would want that to happen to us. So it's very important to be forgiving. By the way, that doesn't mean we should be doormats. If somebody is abusive, God forbid, you know, then move away from them, stay away from toxic people. But usually it's more a matter of if somebody made a mistake, just be forgiving, let go a little bit, and then try to rebuild a relationship. If the person has asked you to forgive them, don't be hard about it. Let go and try to um give them grace and rebuild the relationship.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Amazing. Can we move uh a bit back to your uh book that you mentioned in the beginning? Sure. Um, can you explain the story behind the book? Uh why did you uh uh decide to write the book? We know the every book is a huge project, it it it's an intellectual challenge. Um it there is some meaning, there's a mission of this book. Can you can we talk about this a bit?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Sure. I mean, you know, again, as I mentioned at the very beginning, I was my own personal um confrontation with death where my mom passed away suddenly. And you know, my mother was a person who clearly she was a grateful person, a very upbeat person. But when I got to the same age as my mom, my mom was 44, and this is where the book began. I asked myself, I'm 44. This is the year that my mom's life ended very um soon and quickly. And I began asking myself, am I doing the most that I can with the life that God has given me? Not taking life for granted. And as a rabbi, I've also seen many people that, you know, in a moment of crisis, they get serious. You know, somebody basically is wasting life and all of a sudden they get a diagnosis that God forbid they have cancer. They tune out all the nonsense and they get serious about life. But here's the tragedy God basically says, don't wait for a moment of crisis to recognize that every day is a gift. So I really felt my heart of hearts, I wanted to help people think about this notion that it's not about living life from crisis to crisis, but it's living life in calling. I believe that when I wake up in the morning, every human being wakes up, God says, there is something unique for you to accomplish in the world today that is different than any other soul in the universe. And every day is an unpolished diamond that God gives us. And at the end of the day, we give God back that diamond. And the value of our life is how much light did we emit from that diamond to the world around us. So when a person leads life with that intentionality, their friendships are richer, they're more grateful, they make a difference in the world on a more consistent basis. And that was really the emphasis, both on a personal and professional level, why I embarked on this journey, and you're right, of writing a book, which is not an easy thing to do, but hopefully it's been meaningful. And and I run an academy called the Legacy Academy, where I work with people all over the country and the world to help them lead this more intentional life.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Daniel, before we wrap up, please tell our listeners and our viewers where they can get in touch with you, where they can order the book. Sure. Uh where they can enroll in your uh Legacy Academy.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, thank you. So the best thing to do is to go my website, which is www.rabbi danielcohen.com. You can the best thing is is to you can get the book from there. It's on Amazon and send me an email or note about the Academy. The Academy, there's a link to it on that website of rabbi Daniel Cohen.com or it's on LivelegacyAcademy.com. But feel free to reach out. I'm here to help support people in any way.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Daniel, thank you for sharing all these amazing insights. I'm uh really looking uh forward to uh all the comments and everything that will come from this discussion. I'm sure you've helped uh a lot of our listeners um find a way how to tackle a crisis and especially how to avoid crisis and not live from crisis to crisis. So, uh Daniel, thank you for being my guest tonight and uh thank you for the God bless you.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

I appreciate your time, you're a good soul. Thank you.