Are you ready to meet my coach?
In this episode I share why I am inspired by my spiritual trainer, international speaker, educator and author Ruchi Koval- who cultivated a program designed to make me the judgmentally-leanest, non-meanest, finding-a-better-way-than-to-fight-machinist I have ever been!
In her book Soul Construction: Shape Your Character using 8 Steps From The Timeless Jewish Practice of Mussar, we embark on a soul-searching journey into exploring how our relationships can serve as compasses guiding us toward our best selves. Ruchi shares her profound insights on recognizing a wise friendship, the strength in accepting others, and the transformative power of taking ownership of our mistakes.
Our discussion takes a deep dive into the intricacies of mutual respect and admiration, while also shedding light on the tricky terrain of constructive feedback versus criticism that diminishes growth. Ruchi artfully guides us through these nuances, setting the stage for a better understanding of how to foster generosity and exercise restraint in our relationships. Our conversation takes an enlightening turn as we mull over the impact of our words, and the importance of silence as a counterbalance.
We conclude with a heartening exploration of the concept of happiness, and how refining each of these eight character traits enables us to work through the process to attain it.
Ruchi is the Co-Founder and Director of the Jewish Family Experience in Cleveland, Ohio. She has written Conversations with God, Soul Construction and is in the process of completing her third book.
You can follow Ruchi on Instagram, Youtube, Facebook and on her website www.OutOfTheOrthobox.com
You can purchase Soul Construction on Amazon https://a.co/d/fTby4Yo
Do you have some feedback, thoughts or questions?
Want to be a guest on my show or have an Honorable Mensch to nominate?
Connect on Instagram @SchmoozewithSuze
Subscribe to the Schmooze with Suze Podcast for your dose of #Culture, #Values and #GlobalCitizenship... with a side of #chutzpah...
Don’t forget to leave a review if you enjoyed this episode.
Please LIKE, SUBSCRIBE and SHARE.
Thank you for helping us grow!
Are you ready to meet my coach?
In this episode I share why I am inspired by my spiritual trainer, international speaker, educator and author Ruchi Koval- who cultivated a program designed to make me the judgmentally-leanest, non-meanest, finding-a-better-way-than-to-fight-machinist I have ever been!
In her book Soul Construction: Shape Your Character using 8 Steps From The Timeless Jewish Practice of Mussar, we embark on a soul-searching journey into exploring how our relationships can serve as compasses guiding us toward our best selves. Ruchi shares her profound insights on recognizing a wise friendship, the strength in accepting others, and the transformative power of taking ownership of our mistakes.
Our discussion takes a deep dive into the intricacies of mutual respect and admiration, while also shedding light on the tricky terrain of constructive feedback versus criticism that diminishes growth. Ruchi artfully guides us through these nuances, setting the stage for a better understanding of how to foster generosity and exercise restraint in our relationships. Our conversation takes an enlightening turn as we mull over the impact of our words, and the importance of silence as a counterbalance.
We conclude with a heartening exploration of the concept of happiness, and how refining each of these eight character traits enables us to work through the process to attain it.
Ruchi is the Co-Founder and Director of the Jewish Family Experience in Cleveland, Ohio. She has written Conversations with God, Soul Construction and is in the process of completing her third book.
You can follow Ruchi on Instagram, Youtube, Facebook and on her website www.OutOfTheOrthobox.com
You can purchase Soul Construction on Amazon https://a.co/d/fTby4Yo
Do you have some feedback, thoughts or questions?
Want to be a guest on my show or have an Honorable Mensch to nominate?
Connect on Instagram @SchmoozewithSuze
Subscribe to the Schmooze with Suze Podcast for your dose of #Culture, #Values and #GlobalCitizenship... with a side of #chutzpah...
Don’t forget to leave a review if you enjoyed this episode.
Please LIKE, SUBSCRIBE and SHARE.
Thank you for helping us grow!
What is Musar or Musar Musar? The best definition I can think of is character development. So let's go back to basics. Ethics of our fathers, or pure Kavot Asel harav uknel hachavar v'havey dan et kol ha'adam l'kafschut. Literal translation Make for yourself a rabbi, buy yourself a friend and judge all men with the benefit of the doubt. I remember learning this as a kid, and only the last part made sense. I could judge anyone with the benefit of the doubt, but like can I opt out of my parents' choice of a rabbi and synagogue? Does my allowance have to go towards playground payroll? And that's what we're going to tackle today.
Speaker 1:Hi, I'm Suez here with your weekly dose of culture, values and identity and where we tackle those topics others may consider off limits. A little about me. I'm a busy Gen X mom who, quite frankly, wanted to grow up like the Brady Bunch, but how could I be raised in the shadow of Schindler's List? So this means I've spent a lifetime navigating these mixed messages we get hit with daily. You know those conversations where we wonder if it's safe to speak our minds. Can we share our experiences, voice our fears and concerns, or should we just keep our mouths shut? Well, too bad, I need to know, but I'm no expert so I'm going to schmooze the experts and get their thoughts. Why so? When we engage with our kids, colleagues or the countless committees we interact with, we can do it with competence, kindness, confidence and maybe a bit of humor. If this sounds like your cup of coffee, welcome to Schmooz with Suez. My life experience of vocabulary have become more refined and I realize that nuance matters and while learning and relearning the same things over and over is crucial, which brings me to today's guest, ruchy Koval.
Speaker 1:Ruchy Koval, mrs Ruchy Koval, is the co-founder and director of the Jewish Family Experience, a family education center and Sunday School located in Cleveland, ohio. She is the mother to seven children, is a certified parenting coach, runs Jewish character development groups for women and is a motivational speaker and blogger. Her first book, conversations with God Prayers for Jewish Women, is in its second printing. Her second book, soul Construction shape your character using eight steps from the timeless Jewish practice of Mussar, is a staple to enhancing your practice of living a life that is soulful. She is in the process of writing her third book and she offers two Zoom classes a week. Google her. I want to welcome Ruchy Koval. Hi, ruchy, hi, ruchy. Hi, it's so good to talk to you.
Speaker 2:It's so awesome to be here.
Speaker 1:So let's go back to the basics Make for yourself a rabbi. What is this whole thing talking about, and how does it relate to character development? Why do I need somebody to show me, to teach me? Why do I have to keep my friends in some kind of transactional relationship? What does this mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a fair question. I think that in our culture there is a great awareness that we need help for a lot of things and I think our generation, I think we've kind of arrived with that. A lot of people understand that they need coaching, a lot of people understand that they need therapy. I mean, a lot of people still don't understand that, but we've made great progress. I think that's the culture. We have to take care of our bodies, we have to take care of our minds, but I think what a lot of people don't yet know is that we also need support to take care of our souls, and that we don't have to go it alone.
Speaker 2:And when I say soul, right. So what do I mean by that? Your soul is the part of you, that's essentially you right. Like if my body would change, if I would have a different face or I would have different arms or different color eyes, or I would be taller, shorter, fat or skinny or whatever, I would still be me right, because the meanest that's me is the internality of me, my thoughts and my feelings and my opinions and my ambitions and my desires, my drives right. All of that is my soul. It's the unchangeable essence of me and a lot of people never really think about soul development.
Speaker 2:They kind of think of it as like this sort of finite package, like what you got at birth. That's what you have, and they don't really know that you get to improve on that. Like that when you got at birth, that's just the starting line and then you get to move with it for the rest of your life to develop it, to refine it, to grow it, to stretch it, and also that you can and should get support for that. You don't have to figure that out by yourself. How do you get support for that? So the teaching that you just mentioned is how you get support for that With a mentor. Right, that's a rabbi. It means somebody. It doesn't have to technically be a rabbi. The word rabbi in Hebrew actually, which the English word comes from this word, is raw. The word raw in Hebrew means great.
Speaker 1:Something that's great. Raw means many also. Yes, right.
Speaker 2:Because that's a great number, right. So a raw is somebody that has more greatness than you and that, when you attach yourself to somebody who has more greatness than you, more wisdom than you, that's going to help you develop your soul. Thank you, and that's one relationship. That's a vertical relationship, right, that's somebody that you look up to. You need them, they do not need you. You rely on them, they do not rely on you. That's a mentor.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that means that they can give you their objective opinion. They can relate to you from a higher level. It's a macro perspective, which is what we need to get an honest awareness of ourselves sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, we're getting like a helicopter view of our life because it's somebody that's on a higher plane and they can see us objectively in a way that we cannot see ourselves. Yeah, the second piece is the friendship piece. Right, so a friendship is what we call a horizontal relationship. This person is squarely on my plane. It's mutual. I rely on you, you rely on me, I share with you, you share with me, I support you when you need support, you support me when I need support. And that is another vital yet different relationship from a mentor, right, a friend can hold you accountable. A mentor, you go to a mentor when you need them. Right, like a consultant, yeah. But a friend is kind of like they see all your garbage, like they know, you know when you're kind of kind of going off the rails, right. So I love what you said about playground payroll. That's literally the funniest expression. So I want to pause and comment on why it says you should acquire a friend, or this teaching actually, in Hebrew it says canela chakhaver, canela bye.
Speaker 1:It's transactional.
Speaker 2:Bye a friend. I mean, I know you can buy followers on Instagram, but I didn't know you could actually buy friends. Okay, right.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying the Torah was way ahead of everyone else with the buy friends. They knew that someday you would be able to buy friends by the tens of thousands for a low, low price. Yeah, everything can be found in the Torah. It's true, isn't that crazy.
Speaker 2:So what the word actually means is it means an investment and it means that, just like when you buy something, you spend time researching it. You know you're going to be sinking in money, so you want to do it mindfully and carefully, like this is a commitment right. And sometimes with our friendships we don't put in that kind of mental energy, we just sort of I don't know. A lot of times friendships just happen Like on cross control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like kind of the lowest hanging fruit, like we curpled for soccer together. So now we're friends. You know we met at the kids pediatricians so we're friends, but does that elevate you?
Speaker 1:Does that relationship elevate you?
Speaker 2:What kind of relationship?
Speaker 1:elevates you.
Speaker 2:Right, so sometimes it does. Sometimes we meet people by accident and it's like a totally basher, meant to be kind of thing. You know, we're like, wow, like this person came into my life for a reason. But sometimes we find ourselves in these sort of like, as you put it cruise control relationships and they're not really developing our soul. Sometimes, actually, the opposite is happening. Sometimes they pull us down to, like, our lowest common denominator, draining. So, yes, so that's why the Mishnah, the teaching, tells us like invest in your friendships, take the time and the mental energy and, yes, the resources. Sometimes friendships cost money to maintain. If you have a really good friend that you have a soul connection with, yes, fly across the country when they're sitting, shiva, you know, because those friendships are absolutely worth investing in.
Speaker 1:That's such a good point. So when we talk about friendships in that capacity, it was something that how did I come to meet Rakhikova? It starts with women, it always starts with women. Somehow, right In the movie my big fact, greek wedding the man, he's the head, but the woman she's the neck. And so the neck she tells the head where to go, and so the neck sends me to Israel, to the momentum program.
Speaker 1:And when I say it starts with women. What I mean is that this journey of soul searching, soul seeking, spiritual evolvement really required me to take a look at myself away from my family, as an entity on my own right, because I had become so entrenched in motherhood, in wifing in my career, that I maybe lost myself for a minute and I needed a reminder. And so, being in the environment of hundreds of women of different shapes, sizes, colors, forms, attributes, you're able to see parts of yourself in everybody and the sharing becomes raw, it becomes communal, it becomes great. And Rukhi was a trip leader on this program and it started off with you talking about the character development that comes from taking your the Chaim Rakhatov.
Speaker 1:It was what your inherent quality and character traits are right, and that sometimes the challenges that life affords us is really us having to work out a muscle that we really need to strengthen because we're not that organically. And so in friendships, sometimes I find that I pick friends you know, like we tell our kids, like, pick your friends wisely, and sometimes we forget that we're on a cruise control sort of relationship with people who may not be adding. So how would you describe a wise choice, friend? What kind of investments are you talking about making?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'll answer your first question first. What is a wise choice friend? First of all, friendships should be mutual. So if you're always pursuing someone and they're not reciprocating or responding, you know it might be time to seek elsewhere.
Speaker 2:A friendship should be mutually satisfying, you know, and look, we all have different tiers of friends, but the kind of friend that we're talking about, the friend that's gonna help you be your best self and you're gonna help them be their best self, you know, I mean, some people are flaky, some people are busy, some people are just not that into us. We have to learn to let those people somewhat drift so that we're not spinning our wheels chasing something that's not happening. A friend is somebody who brings out the best in us, that when we are with them, the best part of ourselves comes to the foreground. You know that we admire them, but not like in a mentor way. We admire them in a like oh you're just like me kind of way, and when I see you act so beautifully, it makes me realize that I can also act that beautifully Inspired and inspiring.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, that's a great way to put it, because you know some friends like when you get into like self-improvement mode or you wanna try something new, they kind of make you feel dumb about it. You're like what really, that's what you're doing. You know that's not. That friend does not fit this category. That's a friend who's diminishing your desire to be your best self.
Speaker 1:So anytime you're in a situation where you're and I'll give real life examples you know if I've ever tried to do like a not a diet I'm not a dieter, but a healthy eating or if I go on a drink, fast right, there's somebody who says to me like, really, and without being judgmental, they're clearly being judgmental and they make me question whether me bettering myself is like is that a value? Other people's opinions of me should be none of my business in the first place, but that's clearly not a friend. Anyone who makes me feel like improvement is somehow not the best choice. That, right away, should be a red flag right?
Speaker 2:Well, yes, and I also think that sometimes, like you know, maybe your friend doesn't think that that's so good for you, but a good friend will still respect, you know, unless it's harming yourself, right, that friend will still respect your space to do that, you know, even if that's not their definition of improvement, right, that they'll still respect your space to do so. A friend doesn't make you feel bad about yourself. A friend makes you feel good about yourself. A friend will also help you be your best self by sometimes making you uncomfortable. Making you uncomfortable is not the same thing as making you feel bad about yourself.
Speaker 1:Explain the difference.
Speaker 2:Okay. Making you uncomfortable is, let's say, you say to your friend oh my gosh, I just got together with my mom and she drives me crazy, and I no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Now your friend thinks is thinking that you didn't really handle that situation so well. Okay, a good friend, this is what the Muscer Techs teach us. Love you enough to tell you the truth, how and when you're willing to hear it, how and when you're able to hear it. So making you feel bad about yourself looks like this yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I kind of feel like you messed that one up.
Speaker 1:That's not a supportive friend, I didn't gain anything from that.
Speaker 2:Right, right, you just shut down. You're like well, I'm not gonna be telling you. I stopped next time. This is what a supportive friend looks like In the moment you validate and support. Oh my God, I'm so sorry to hear that. Oh, so frustrating. I'm so with you. I get it. How can I support you through this?
Speaker 2:Maybe later, maybe the next day, maybe the next week, your friend will call you up and say hey, I've been thinking about our conversation and I kind of have some thoughts. Are you open to hearing them? And then, if you say yes, then your friend says because I love you so much and I care about you and I care about your relationship with your mom, I kind of feel like maybe if you would have responded like this or like that, it could have gone better. And I'm only telling you this because I care about you and I have to say sometimes people use that line and it just really strikes not insincere, like I have your best interest in mind, but you can tell Sometimes it's not the words, that you can tell if this person is coming from a place of sincerity and caring or if they're coming from a place of judgmentalism. You know, the same way when somebody empathizes with you, you can tell if it's coming from pity or compassion.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Pity. Nobody wants pity. Oh my God, you poor thing. Now that doesn't feel good, right, Compassion is. I'm with you, I hear you, I support you. Pity is, ooh, I'm distancing myself from this awfulness, Right, you know. So too. A good friend who cares enough about you to be honest with you when you mess up will manage to leave you feeling maybe uncomfortable because you have to now rethink some of your patterns, but ultimately leave you feeling loved.
Speaker 1:That makes so much sense. Are you familiar with Dr Edith Eager? She says you have to be he Of course I'm obsessed, me too. So you have to feel it, to heal it, and I find that the more discomfort I feel it means that there's something I need to work on. The older I get, I think when I was younger, when I was in my twenties, I was very defensive and every time I felt uncomfortable, the defensiveness would come up first and I would defend my actions before truly thinking like really did I do the right thing? Because with age comes the wisdom and I am wise now. I'm wise like an owl on a potato chip bag, not like how many licks to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop. I'm working towards that level of wisdom, but right now, as a potato chip bag person, I have found that the greatest resource I have.
Speaker 1:And let's go back to your book, soul Construction. The reason this is impactful to me is yes, pick it up, I have one too. I have a signed copy. I have a well-worn out copy. I have one. That's in a case. The reason I love this book is because it is so short. So when I recommended to people right away, they give me that glazed over. Look, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm totally gonna get it. And I send them the Amazon link and the first thing they do is tell me how short the book is, how many pages, or how short it is to listen to on the audio.
Speaker 2:I was actually surprised when I got my first shipment of my book. It's 170 pages, but it's like a small book and I was like, oh my gosh, it's so small and I was a little disappointed because I spent so much time on it. And my husband's like oh no, no, no, no, this is a good thing, this is a good thing.
Speaker 1:It's like easily digestible, so easily digestible. So let's talk about the eight character traits that matter the most and how building upon them like building blocks will help improve our lives.
Speaker 2:Alrighty. So this book is about character development, as Suzy said. Now there are an infinite number of character traits. I mean, if you think about Renee Brown, who's a psychology researcher, she researches emotions. I mean she lists hundreds of emotions in her books, which many of them are also character traits, like anger is an emotion and a character trait, compassion is an emotion and a character trait, et cetera. So for my book I just picked eight of them.
Speaker 1:I just I don't know, felt like that was a good number. They were the best eight ones. Because you picked the top eight, I did.
Speaker 2:I picked the eight that I felt that most people need the most and know the least that they need the most. That's why I picked those eight Awareness.
Speaker 1:So they're like the most. What's that? I said awareness. They are not self-aware, and so we're presenting them with the opportunity for self-awareness. If you're going to start here and that's how you break down the book actually, you describe each one of these so sorry.
Speaker 2:Right, so the character traits are forgiveness, so the ability to move past the hurts that other people have done to us so sorry. Forgiveness is a second chapter. The first chapter is favorable judgment. So looking at other people and being able to give them a positive spin, a positive view, and I go through different levels of doing that. There's easier ways, there's harder ways. I go through how judgment affects us badly. So we could be happier, more serene people if we would quit judging. And it's a very practical chapter. They're all very practical.
Speaker 1:They're all very practical and easy to implement. Yeah, you give how, two guides. This is literally like she says. There's a beginner, intermediate and advanced level in that first chapter of how to elevate your opportunities for favorable judgment. Which, like a muscle, Once you start working out that muscle, what happens to a muscle? If I worked out, hypothetically speaking, what would happen? Because I work out this muscle plenty All day. I'm working out these two and my gut. Now that we know that the brain and the gut are closely connected, I feel less bad that my gut is expanding like my brain right? See, you're getting an ab workout too. You didn't know. But talk about how favorable judgment. Once you start doing it, what happens?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it is. It's a muscle and it feels very, very foreign in the beginning and it hurts. And then, the more you work it out, the easier it gets, the more comfortable it feels and it starts to become a habit and then you don't have to think about it so hard.
Speaker 1:And when you can judge favorably, what can you do more easily? Forgive, which is the second chapter Exactly.
Speaker 2:Forgiveness and moving on. The forgiveness chapter also talks about how to apologize, which a lot of people get wrong. A lot of people are like I'm sorry if you're offended. Yeah, that's not an apology. I'm sorry that I did X, that's an apology. I'm sorry that you, or I'm sorry if anything, not an apology.
Speaker 1:No, that's defensiveness. So we have to take ownership of our mistakes if we're going to grow Right. You can't. What do they say? Like being aware is like being stupid. You don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 2:So I always say the problem with self-awareness is that if you don't have it, you don't know that you don't have it.
Speaker 1:So fortunately, you can buy this book and in eight easy chapters you can learn, you will find out, you'll find out real quick if it sounds like it's gibberish to you. So after forgiveness All right.
Speaker 2:so after forgiveness we go on to acceptance of others, accepting people for who they are, not trying to control them, not trying to fix them, having also like a certain serenity that the people in our lives are there for a reason and they're there to teach us something. And the sooner we can accept other people for who they are, the sooner we can have better relationships. We can even learn from difficult people in our lives and learn things about ourselves. So that's a very, very powerful chapter.
Speaker 1:It's huge. That one, I think, changed my entire relationship with my mother. That radical acceptance component forever viscerally changed me. Because the idea of just letting go and letting God is so easy in so many other places, except when it comes to people that you have that relationship with, and sometimes that's really the case the radical acceptance, it's going deep enough to say, well, I love you and I'm always going to love you and this is the box you're in and I was so appreciative that I was able to grow that muscle, what you explained again about.
Speaker 1:And because you're my trainer, that's really it. You're not just my coach, you're my trainer, you're my trainer, you're my coach. That's why I'm always talking to you I think it's sports analogies Because you're all the workout I get Ruchy and I do the Ruchy workout daily. It started off with soul construction where I was reading first every day a bit at a time and then the next go round of the book.
Speaker 1:I had my chavruta, my partnership with my sister, stephanie, and we read every day a section at a time so that we could discuss it and we can grow from it. And then we went to a second reading of this book together so that we can delve deeper Because, like I said at the top of the episode, when I learn and then relearn whether it's Torah, character development, that stage of me is a different stage of me. So I'm growing at that rate. So when we came to the radical acceptance for us, for me, a third generation Holocaust survivor with that generational drama and the baggage that comes with it, it was incredible to just see someone plainly express something that I'd never heard said at loud Like yes, sometimes life sucks and you just have to accept it and move on and keep going and be happy because we're going to get to that. That's the last chapter, but after our acceptance, chapter is yes.
Speaker 2:So after acceptance comes generosity, and we talk about learning how to be a giver, how to give other people, how to bond with other people, how to become one with other people. And all of this involves giving, it involves sacrifice, it involves compromise, but not in a sense where you view it as like I'm giving up a part of me for someone else, but rather I'm giving up a part of myself as me, so that I can have a greater dimension of me in a relationship with another human being. So I'm not sacrificing me for you, I'm sacrificing me for us.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's not me versus you, it's me and you versus the issue, the problem yes, and exactly, and about emotional intimacy, sharing yourself with another human being, really like being willing to be vulnerable with another person, to share your ideas, your vulnerabilities, your fears. To really let other people in to your inner world, because very often people shut that part of themselves down. It feels too scary and to also make ourselves trusting for other people to have that kind of vulnerability, to make ourselves safe for other people that if they share with us their fears and vulnerabilities, we won't use that against them but we'll support them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that's reciprocity and relationship. That's the essence of how we want our societies and communities to interact with each other, and as we do that, from one relationship to the next, relationship that grows.
Speaker 2:Yes, and a big part of that and it's just one of the things I talk about in my relationships classes is that before we do something, we should ask ourselves is what I'm about to say or do going to bring us closer or further apart? Because generosity is also about not just giving to other people, but being willing to restrain what we wanna say if it's going to diminish the relationship.
Speaker 1:So say to my daughter sometimes, when she comes to tell I don't know if you had a teller, but I have a teller. She likes to tell her brother and before she comes to me with that look on her face, I say are you gonna be a helper or a herder? Is what you're gonna tell me. Are you doing it to keep him safe and help him, or are you doing it to get him in trouble and hurt him?
Speaker 2:That's such a cool question. I love that.
Speaker 1:So is that similar in essence to what you're suggesting is? What I'm about to say or do going to bring us closer together? Am I a helper?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think that that question that you just said are you gonna be a helper or a herder Is actually really valuable for adults. I think sometimes people are just chit chatting and they're just sharing information and it's like why am I sharing this information? Am I being a helper or a herder? I love that.
Speaker 1:So the follow up statement to that which goes to my husband sometimes is if you're not gonna be a helper, don't be a herder. What that means is that he'll sometimes see them interacting and want to get involved. And I question, because me I'm the primary caregiver. I know when to back off, when too well, going at it, he sometimes feels like maybe I can lend my due sense worth and I'm like eight and 11, don't really want your due sense worth. Are you sure you're gonna be a helper?
Speaker 2:That's funny, Right? I mean because, if you really boil it down, a helper is generous and a herder is selfish.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, it goes back to the generosity. Or I should say I don't like to label people.
Speaker 2:A helper is acting generous and a herder is acting selfish.
Speaker 1:Right. These are not character traits that we possess. Like I tell my children, you are not bad, you didn't make the best choice right now. Those are choices that we have. Every chapter that you're talking about is a choice. Every single chapter in your book is something that we can actively work on fine tuning, and like the pop-up ads, like the algorithm on our social media feed. And I'll tell you another funny thing after this, Ruchy Coval Movement that's what I call you, you're my Coval Movement. It is, it's a whole JFX, it's the whole mindset that you started by changing yourself, working on yourself to work on your family, your family to work on your community, your community to change your city, your city to change the world. It's how your book begins and ends In 170 pages. It's doable and that's what the crux of all of this boils down to. For me, it was having that movement where I was working on this algorithm. I was changing my algorithm.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So after generosity we move on to Okay.
Speaker 2:So after generosity, we've got speech. Now I wrote this chapter on speech, on the power of speech and our words, and I found that this chapter was twice as long as all the other chapters, so apparently I had to a lot to say about speech, ironically. So I actually decided to divide it into two chapters, one about speech and one about its opposite trait, which is silence. Oh yes, Right.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize that was one originally one chapter Was originally one chapter, Wow. And then you realized I should shut up for half of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the truth is that they're the only two traits in my book that come presented as opposites, but there's so much to say about each one. So constructive speech is about, you know, using our words to mend and to heal, and some really powerful and positive phrases we can say to people, expressing our admiration for them, expressing our unconditional love for them, validating them. You know, like what we were saying before about the friend, if they're struggling in their relationship with their mother, you know, before you shine your light of wisdom on the situation, you can validate and support them and just make them feel heard and seen. You know, and these are just words, but they're words that are extraordinarily powerful. So it's using your words to make people feel valued, to make them feel seen and heard, and not to criticize or control, which doesn't, you know, help anybody. So that's basically my chapter on positive speech and about how it's really hard to know sometimes if we're saying too little or too much. You know, sometimes it's really hard to know.
Speaker 2:Obviously, every person comes into this world with a default mode. Some people are naturally loquacious, they're late, they love to talk, they're extroverted, they're very comfortable. You know, some people are naturally more reticent and they're more reluctant to speak up, they're more of like a listener. You know they'll wait and just see when it's the right time to share. I talk about critiques, about criticism, using them, receiving them, sharing them.
Speaker 2:What happens when we get critiqued by somebody that it was not delivered in the most healthy or loving way, that we can still use those words to grow. You know that we can still take that feedback and, you know, kind of metabolize it and figure out what we're gonna do with it. You know, and then we you know I talk about the by yourself, a friend piece and about, you know, really leveraging our friendships, soliciting feedback from our friends, right, and saying you know, how do you think I did Like be honest with me, I really wanna know. You know, sometimes we'll do this with friends in a physical sense. You know we'll be like, okay, how does this look on me? Tell me the truth. And we really want the truth, you know, from that friend. But what if we were to do that, you know, for our soul development, you know and to say okay, I have a situation.
Speaker 1:Oh, you froze for a second. Are you frozen?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure. I'm not sure, hello.
Speaker 1:Hello, yeah, you froze for a second.
Speaker 2:Oh, where did I leave?
Speaker 1:off.
Speaker 2:You're talking to a friend, you're in a situation, yeah so, like you know where you're soliciting feedback on how you look from a soul perspective, right, right, and you'll be like, okay, here's what happened, here's what I said, here's what they said, here's what I did. Okay, tell me the truth. Was it, was that okay? Was that not okay? And I really want you to tell me the truth. So, to leverage critiques and feedback from our friends, if the goal is to become our best selves, then you don't just want your friend to be a yes man, right.
Speaker 1:Right. I always say that in my case, I always want to be the least smart person in the room. I want the people around me to be smart enough to tell me what I should do better so that I can look better, and that's essentially how we want our friendships to be. I mean, if you think about it, I think it was you who told me about the board of directors. Was it you who dropped the board of directors?
Speaker 1:And I have to give you so much credit because when I thought about it that way and we'll go to the beginning of this with the knelchah-chaveir or invest in your friendships, if you were compiling a board of directors and you had to vet them and take them seriously, why should that be any different than who my friendships are? Don't I care more about who I surround my soul, my family, my self with that? I want to create that valuable contingency of people who are my system of backup right, the board of directors. So, having that, we need to give them the opportunity for growth and silence, whether it's me being silent and shutting up or me being silent enough to listen to hear what someone who loves me enough is going to say to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, exactly. So. That's what the whole chapter of silence is about creating space with silence, being able to receive wisdom with silence, figuring out what not to say. I'm not going to say this because it's not helpful, because they can't hear it, because it's not the right time. It's not the right time for them, it's not the right time for me. There are so many reasons and about how our society really is favored toward extroverts. But really introverts who are listening more carefully are often more powerful leaders because they just take more time to think. Yeah, being the first one to speak doesn't necessarily mean that you have the right answer. It just means you were the first one to speak.
Speaker 1:And if you want to know who the two and a half people you can criticize are, you have to buy the book.
Speaker 2:That's right, you have to keep your notes.
Speaker 1:So, moving past silence we get to. We have a hard stop at 11, ladies, so you better keep it moving, I know.
Speaker 2:All right. So the seventh chapter is renewal, and renewal is about coming back from your mistakes. It's about not defining yourself by your mistakes. It's about not allowing your mistakes to make you shamed. You are not your mistakes, you are how you react to your mistakes. It's about understanding that each of us is essentially good, that we're all imbued with a divine spark and we have this inherent goodness to us. And our mistakes are external to us, they're peripheral to us. They need to be dealt with for sure, they need to be acknowledged and recognized, but they do not need to define us. That we learn how we can learn from our failures and our setbacks and how, ultimately, god decided to give His Torah to an imperfect nation of humans. Because we need it. We need it to grow. So perfection was never the goal, growing was the goal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my daughter's first grade teacher used to say practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent, you decide what that? Means, and I look at your book in that same vein. Practice makes permanent. I'm not looking to strive for perfection, I'm not looking to try to achieve the unattainable. I'll fall short, but I can be the best me that I can be following your eight steps. And let's get to the last one, because that's my favorite.
Speaker 2:So the last one, which is also my favorite I went and saved the best for last is happiness and elusive goal that so many people are chasing after. Because I talk about, really like a practical guide to be a happier person, the connection between happiness and gratitude, the connection between happiness and faith, the ability to laugh and to reverse what seems bad and to put it in positive view. The obstacles to happiness, which is comparing ourselves to other people, the constant onslaught of materialism in our culture, this notion that somehow things will make us happy, but really that happiness is ultimately an inside job and that happiness is a choice, and that we can choose happiness even in the face of sadness, difficulty, pain, trauma. That as human beings, we have this incredible power and resilience to choose happiness. And that happiness is connected to trust, to trusting that there is a plan for this world, that things happen for a reason, that everything that I have is exactly what I need. These are the things that help us to be happier people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's true. I think it's the Buddha that says pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice, and that all comes down to our perspective. And if we see ourselves as part of the solution, I think some of it also comes down to our victim mentality versus a survivor mentality. If we see ourselves as somebody who wants to thrive and grow, right then we take the roots that we've been given and we can grow into our wings. But if you're staying stagnant in one place, what's going to happen? Not much right. That's where the moss starts to grow on the north side of the rock.
Speaker 1:Where you get a little fuzzy on the outside. So, like I said, it has been a privilege to spend time with you over the years, because now it's been years and what happened is that you started off as being someone that I admired from a distance your writings, your podcast, your WhatsApp circle but now the spiritual coaching has become such a important part of my life that I can look back and, like you said, on a scale, I can plot a graph of growth and all of it came from strengthening that muscle every single day and here's another
Speaker 1:little tidbit. If you follow me on social media, you'll know that I've changed my husband's algorithm. He handed me his phone one time to read an article and so I went to his Instagram and he's following now all sorts of thought leaders and positive newscom and a month later, all of a sudden he's telling me about. I've been screenshotting these like really powerful things that are touching my soul. Really, who's this? Adam Grant I never heard of Simon Sinek. What do you mean? The holistic psychologist, Ruhi Kovale never heard of her out of the orthobox. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:So the proof is in the pudding. You can change not only your algorithm, but when I give your book 170 pages to every person, or recommended, or start a book club my book club here, the summer book club at the Colel, starts tomorrow night I'm changing people one 170 pages at a time and it's all thanks to you bringing that out to the world. So it is a privilege.
Speaker 2:Ruhi, thank you for being my partner and helping me to share this incredible Jewish wisdom.
Speaker 1:The privilege is absolutely mine and thank you again for your time. I appreciate it. It was great to talk with you. I love to schmooze with Suze. I love to schmooze with Ruhi Kovale, valek Valium. Thank you, I hope you have a fantastic rest of the summer and I hope to see you on a momentum trip soon, thank you, thank you, it was great meeting you. Take care, and now it's time for our honorable mention.
Speaker 1:Mench is the Yiddish word for a person of integrity and honor, with a sense of what is right and responsible. This week's honorable mention is Heather Horowitz, senior Vice President of Community Development and Financial Impact Lending at Vice Star Credit Union. Heather's vision for progress and potential is closely connected to her rise and thrive mentality. Not only she is an executive, but she is an athlete wife, mother, sister and friend. Heather reminds me to get my board of directors together and slay everywhere that I go. She allows a brave space for women who are stepping back into the workspace, and she's been training for this marathon her entire life, the one where she trailblazes a legacy of contributions.
Speaker 1:If you know of someone who is the kind of Mench who should get an honorable mention, send me a note at schmoozewithsuesorg or drop me a line on Instagram. That's going to do it for us today. Thanks for sticking around. Make sure to subscribe to Schmooze with Sues on YouTube and follow me on Instagram to get your daily dose of chutzpah. I'm Sues, your well-informed smartass who's not afraid to stand up and speak out, because what's an envelope if not for pushing? Hey, stay inspired and inspired.