6 Minutes That Could Change the Next 60 Years of Your Life

Excuses Versus Real Accountability

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People be making a lot of excuses these days. And you ask them, why didn't you accomplish what you had hoped to accomplish last year? When we ourselves will have to stand in front of Hashem in a a bit over a month here, when Rosh Hashanah comes, we're going to be asked by Hashem, what did you do with the time, talents, energies, and monies that I gave you this past year? We hope that we're able to answer honestly, but excuses will never

Elul Arrives And We Get Serious

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be tolerated. We're about to come into the Khidish of Elul. Just this Thursday and Friday will be rolling in. And Elol is a time when we take life a bit more seriously. And we start to jab our samurai sword into the ground and say, enough is enough. I'm done with my excuses. It's the last month of the year, Elol is here. So let's get to work. Let's roll up our sleeves and let's get to work.

Modern Life Fuels Endless Excuses

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But generally, ask somebody about Elol, and they'll say, El to be like it was in Europe when the fish in the sea would quake at the sound of Elol. We're in America. Elol should be taken like it was in the roaring twenties of Yeshiva Asmir underneath the auspices of Rabbi Ruchham Lavovits. Now we should have an Elol like that. Eyek Yitochen, it's not possible. Ask them really about any of their hopes and dreams and how it went last year. And you will probably get one large laundry list of excuses, whether it be spiritual or physical. When it comes to why they didn't do more sales, why they didn't actually 50 deals last year? They'll say, oh, the interest rates! Nearly 7%! Oh, there was a war. Don't you know about the Strait of Hormuz? What is it, Hormez? It was a war with Iran. They'll come up with excuses upon excuses. Do you know what happened to my neighbor's cat? Anything. Anything to quell the feeling inside of that I could have done more. But El's a time when we cut

Access Is Not The Issue

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the excuses. And not only is it a time for when we cut the excuses, but if we're honest with ourselves, there has never been a time since the beginning of creation that chuva, repentance, and hatzlocha has been more attainable. You see, people normally say that nowadays everything is accessible and it's so distracting. The internet, ChatGPT, kids are opened up to all this tumma. People are distracted and pulled in a million different ways. They could go anywhere and do anything. And they use that as an excuse for why they could not accomplish what they truly had hoped to accomplish. While the truth, I may posit, is that the world being at your disposal, if you just have a bit of discipline, makes it the greatest time to shop. Makes it the greatest time to transact. There is no more excuse for that I don't have time to learn or don't know how to learn. You don't know how to read Hebrew. We have Torah in English. We have it in French and Spanish and Russian. God forbid you're blind and you want to repent and learn Torah. You can get Torah via audiobooks. You can get Torah in Braille. You wanna be a great broker or a great accountant. All the information is there for you. You can chat GPT. There is no information that you can't get, Bazamana's that what is the only thing that's lacking is a bit of discipline and actually doing it. That's what L is for. LL is a time that we have some discipline, we take life seriously, and we actually quit the excuses. I do have the time and the energy to put more time into my tiller. I do have what it takes to be a good father. I do have the mental and cognitive capacity to be healthy, to be balanced. In 2026, you can use the world being at your disposal as an excuse, or you could say, there are therapists, there are medications, there is help everywhere, there are organizations, you can get go to gemachs, you can get donations, you can do anything that you possibly can put your mind to. If you really want to do it, you can do it. It's all at your disposal. Shuva has never been closer. You can do it, and you know you can. It's just about actually doing it.

Start Today And Build New Habits

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Start today. And hergul naasateva. Do it once, it's hard. Do it a second time, it's a bit easier a third time, and eventually it just gets easier and easier and easier, but you just have to start and stop the excuses. Bundle up that laundry list of excuses, even if they seem very real to you. I hate to tell you, but they're lies and they're probably fabrications that we tell ourselves just to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. And the truth is that Ella comes and we are very capable. We can accomplish great things. And when Hashem asks us how did the past year go, and just over a month from now on Rosh Hashanah, if we really put in the work, we can tell him: look, Dad, look how much I did for you. Look how much I gave. Look how much I grew. Look how much I truly shived. And like this, maybe Hashem will give us another year to spend our time bringing glory to his holy name.