Judaism believes that people were born to work hard. And the pasuk (verse) says, “Adam la'amal yulad,” a person was born to work. But then I had the craziest realization. Every child in the world, every baby, in every culture, hears the same word as they're being born. And you know what that word is? Push! Push! They hear the nurse, the parent, someone screaming to the mother, “Push!” So the first word every baby hears, in whatever language he's going to grow up to speak, is “push.” And maybe that's the chiddush (novel insight); that's what the pasuk means. Adam, a human, la'amal yulad. He hears when he's born. Push! We were born to work hard. We were born to be able to create destiny. We were born to fight giants. But a nation that, in Egypt, had people telling it what to do, and in the Midbar (wilderness) had God feeding it and taking care of it. Not only that, every decision they ever had to make: “Should we stay or should we go? I don't know. Look at the cloud. Is the pillar of fire moving? Moshe, what do we do?” That was their life.
And my friends, there are people today who do that as well. They don't trust. They don't trust God, and they don't trust themselves. They're constantly sending people... I think the reason some people ask for advice in this life, consciously or otherwise, is not so that they can listen to that advice, as is evidenced by the fact that they ask you your opinion and then don't listen to it. They're asking your advice so that they can blame you, consciously or subconsciously: “You told me to.” I remember someone saying to me, “Before you make this decision, you should send emails to everyone and tell them this is what we're going to do. That way, if it ever goes wrong, you've covered yourself.”
We're obsessed with covering ourselves, except when it comes to tzniut (modesty); then we're not so strict on that. But we're obsessed with covering ourselves, making sure it's not my fault. You can't sue me. I think this problem is an amazing problem. It's an all-encompassing problem. Young people, old people, single people, married people, grandparents: look, see the lay of the land, decide what you feel, and then act decisively. One of my favorite lines in the world is, “We're too obsessed with making the right choice and not obsessed enough with making our choices right.” Make a choice. Don't be paralyzed. If it's the right decision, great. If it's the wrong decision, so make it the right decision. Figure out how to calibrate, how to shift, how to change.
We cannot be people who are afraid to take action, to make moves. Sit, think, and if you need to ask advice, ask not for cover but for help. Then trust yourself, trust your gut. This is not a job you need to be doing. Do another job. You don't have a job? Get a job. It's difficult for this reason? Find another job that isn't difficult for that reason, or do it even if it's difficult. I can promise you one thing. My job is not easy. We must learn to trust ourselves and to be able to act on those decisions. And what if you made a mistake? And what if the whole business goes bust? And what if you trusted and you trusted your heart and you got into a marriage and the marriage dissolved? So what? It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
I can promise you one thing. That guy who's trying to build a business and failing is 10 steps closer than the guy who is scared of his own shadow, who will never go out on his own, who will never take a risk and never bet on himself, and they will be an employee for life.