145. Dennis Prager on Choosing Happiness and Stepping out of The Victim Mindset

This week Colette has a very special guest, Dennis Prager, Author and Radio Personality, co-founder of PragerU, a nationally syndicated radio talk show host and columnist. An author of nine books, his most recent publication is a multi-volume commentary on the Torah called The Rational Bible.

A Fellow at Columbia University’s School of International Affairs, where he did graduate work at the Middle East and Russian Institutes, he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the U.S. Delegation to the Vienna Review Conference on the Helsinki Accords, and by President George W. Bush to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. He holds an honorary doctorate of law from Pepperdine University.

A highly sought-after speaker and frequent cable news show guest, Dennis has lectured all over the world. He is known as one of America's most respected conservative thinkers.

In this episode Colette and Dennis talk about choosing to be happy and the necessity for gratitude. But this conversation is so much more, Dennis shares his thoughts on our recent generation and why they are statistically the most depressed generation and what needs to be done to change this.

He shares a personal story about his son to make a point that stepping out of the victim mindset is the path to a happier life.

And what we need to teach our children is self-control first which will lead to self-esteem.

There's so much here!

Episode Highlights:

04:01 Every one has two natures: have human nature, which is universal and there individual nature and why this matters.

08:20 Dennis speaks about his books and his philosophy on writing

10:00 There are people who don't ache to be happy

15:14 The key component to unhappiness and what is necessary to create a happy life

21:14 Dennis' life work and the writing of his five volume explanation and commentary of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the five basic books of the Bible.

31:04 "Self control is infinitely more important than self esteem. Raise your child to engage in self self control. Then the self esteem will follow"

To dive in to Dennis Prager's work:

Website: https://www.prageru.com/

PragerU 5 minute videos: https://www.prageru.com/series/5-minute-videos

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prageru/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prager-university/

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Connect with Colette:

Instagram: @wellnessbycolette

Website: love-colette.com

Thank you for listening to the Limitless Healing podcast with Colette Brown! It would mean the world if you would take one minute to follow, leave a 5 star review and share with those you love!

In Health,
Colette

Transcript

[00:00:00] Colette Brown: Welcome to the Limitless Healing Podcast, where everyone is welcome to take a front row seat and listen in on inspiring conversations, stories of healing, and action steps to help you live your best life. My name is Colette Brown, and I'm passionate about all things wellness, mind, Body soul inspired by my own personal transformation from unwell and not knowing where to turn to thriving and flourishing and motivated to help you do the same.

[00:00:28] Colette Brown: I share this platform with medical doctors, wellness practitioners, chronic illness survivors, meditation and mindfulness gurus, innovators of products from food to technology and more. Think of it as a one stop shop for wellness resources where you can listen to professionals from around the world to help you thrive.

[00:00:48] Colette Brown: Join me Mondays and Wednesdays while sipping a cup of tea or making your favorite meal as we explore the world of wellness together. This is the Limitless Healing Podcast. I'm starting this podcast off a little different than usual with a story. A few months back, I was coming from Europe with a layover in New York and was tired from travel and I saw somebody that I recognized, a celebrity of sorts.

[00:01:15] Colette Brown: I live in Los Angeles and I've always erred on the side of letting people that you recognize just be. But that day, I felt very compelled to say something. I wanted to talk to this thought leader who is a truth and happiness seeker. You may be wondering who I'm talking about. He teaches that happiness is both a moral obligation.

[00:01:36] Colette Brown: And a choice rather than a fleeting emotion. Some less known facts are he's a classically trained conductor that has conducted at the Santa Monica symphony at the Walt Disney concert hall. During the seventies and eighties, he played a critical role in advocating to help move Jews out of the Soviet union.

[00:01:54] Colette Brown: He's an author, father, husband, advocate for truth and happiness, [00:02:00] community leader. And builder and so much more. It is my great honor to welcome Dennis Prager. Welcome. 

[00:02:08] Dennis Prager: That was a beautiful introduction. Thank you. I just want you to note commenting on your comment about leaving public figures alone at airports, for example.

[00:02:17] Dennis Prager: So there's literally one airport in America that no one approached me at fittingly. We, you can get into it or not. It's not important, but Boston's Logan airport, 

[00:02:29] Colette Brown: every 

[00:02:30] Dennis Prager: other airport people come over, usually young people, interestingly, and very often people will apologize, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to say hello.

[00:02:43] Dennis Prager: And can I get a selfie, which would be a common. Greeting and I just want to say what I say to them. I consider it a great honor that people want to come over and say something or have a picture taken with me. Yeah, I have never, I never recall thinking what a nuisance. So I feel blessed that I'm in that position.

[00:03:06] Dennis Prager: So I just thought I'd share that with you. 

[00:03:08] Colette Brown: Thank you for sharing that and it's wonderful because you have allowed your life to unfold to help people seek truth, seek happiness, and you exude that in your everyday life, which means that you're making a huge impact. So I'm very thankful for you. The first thing that I love to do with guests is have them take us back to a childhood memory.

[00:03:33] Colette Brown: Maybe it's five, seven, 11, something that might have shaped you and put you on the trajectory to where you're at today. 

[00:03:41] Dennis Prager: No, no one event actually shaped me that I could think of at any event. I respond to when I analyze myself and I often look at myself from outside myself. That's why the way I don't take myself too seriously, but, and try to have a fairly accurate take [00:04:00] on me.

[00:04:01] Dennis Prager: Every one of us has a nature. We have two natures, actually. We have human nature, which is universal. They're just parts of human nature that everyone has. And there is the individual nature. Anyone who has children or even siblings pretty much knows how true that is, that we have our own nature. It was built into me.

[00:04:23] Dennis Prager: To be preoccupied with good and evil. It was not an event that triggered that. I always hated evil. Later on, I realized there's a biblical verse. Those of you who love God must hate evil. You know, if you don't hate evil, you can't love God. And I think that's, that's my favorite verse in the entire Bible now, but I hate evil.

[00:04:47] Dennis Prager: And when I was always 

[00:04:48] Colette Brown: been that way, 

[00:04:49] Dennis Prager: always been, I used to beat up bullies and my father would get called to school pretty often. I've always, I was always bigger than everybody else. I was, I'm six foot four. And I think I was six foot four in the middle of high school. And I hated kids who bullied other kids.

[00:05:05] Dennis Prager: I was never bullied because I was a kid. Unbulliable, so to speak. And I would, I would hit them if they hit a kid and I don't even really take credit for it. It's like musicians, because you mentioned my musical training, musicians who have perfect pitch. I'm not one of them. These people have been given that in their nature.

[00:05:25] Dennis Prager: They just can, that you say to them, hum C sharp. They will hum a C sharp. I find that incredible. I cannot do that. But that's built into me and I have so I wrote in my junior year in high school and I still have that Actually that diary. I wish I had kept one all my life It's one of my few regrets that I didn't but I did one.

[00:05:48] Dennis Prager: I did keep one then and I wrote I know what I want to do with my life, influence people to the good. 

[00:05:55] Colette Brown: Wow. 

[00:05:55] Dennis Prager: And, uh, as my older son said to me when he was about [00:06:00] 19 or 20, he said, Dad, you don't realize how lucky you are that you knew at such a young age what you wanted to do with your life. And he really made me aware of the fact that I am lucky.

[00:06:12] Dennis Prager: Very many people struggle with that. What am I here for? What's my purpose? I did not have that. 

[00:06:19] Colette Brown: Yeah. I think there's something powerful too, and as you said, a diary of sorts, but to really be intentional. And if you write it down, then a lot of times we do that comes to fruition because the intent is set.

[00:06:34] Colette Brown: And a lot of times as there's fleeting thoughts, then not always will it Go that way. So I love that. I would love to just dive in a little bit about your book that you wrote. It's happiness is a serious problem. And you wrote that about 25 years ago. And I wanted to know that. If you were to rewrite that today, would you write anything different?

[00:06:59] Dennis Prager: I don't think so. I've written about 10 books. I don't know the exact number. It's, I know the exact number of countries I visited. 

[00:07:06] Colette Brown: What is that by the way? 

[00:07:07] Dennis Prager: 131. 

[00:07:09] Colette Brown: Wow. Okay. 

[00:07:10] Dennis Prager: For things I count and things I don't count the number of books, but it's about 10. And I write always thinking that and even includes my weekly column of which there are 20 years worth so about a thousand on the internet.

[00:07:25] Dennis Prager: I always write Asking myself when I write it Will someone 20 years from now find this relevant and that's the way I write the happiness book was written With a deliberate notion that it has to stand the test of time And to prove my point about how deliberate I am in my writing. I Was originally contracted by random house to Right.

[00:07:52] Dennis Prager: The book. They gave me my advance. I did not have the book in on time. I had to send them [00:08:00] all the money back money. I had, of course, spent. Wow. And I then I got a new contract with Harper Collins, who ultimately did publish the book. But I won't allow something in my name if I am not proud of it. So I rather lose money than get a book in on time.

[00:08:20] Dennis Prager: And same with my Bible commentary. I'm up to the fifth of my five volumes. And, uh, I am about six years late with the publisher is fine with it. Thank God, because each volume is important. They thought it would be one volume. I thought it would be one volume and it turns out to be five volumes, but so there was nothing.

[00:08:42] Dennis Prager: That I could think of that I would change I think that I would add certain things because i've also done 25 years every week a happiness hour on my radio show and obviously There are hundreds and hundreds of different topics That i've raised so I could write a volume two, but I wouldn't change anything that i'm aware of in this book 

[00:09:06] Colette Brown: What would you add to it?

[00:09:08] Dennis Prager: So for example This is just off the top of my head one of the revelations to me in doing the happiness hour And I have an advantage almost no author has having a talk show I have spoken with is another funny piece of statistic for you I am certain I have spoken with not to but with More people than any living human being.

[00:09:34] Colette Brown: Wow. 

[00:09:35] Dennis Prager: Think of it 40 years of a talk show. 

[00:09:38] Colette Brown: Wow. 

[00:09:38] Dennis Prager: So very few people have that even if they're talk show hosts. 

[00:09:42] Colette Brown: Yes. 

[00:09:43] Dennis Prager: So I have learned so much about the human condition because people from every possible background have called my show. And I've learned so much from them. For example, I have learned there are a lot of people who don't ache to be [00:10:00] happy.

[00:10:00] Dennis Prager: It's shocking because I hate unhappiness. There are a lot of people who revel in their misery. 

[00:10:07] Colette Brown: Yes. Yes. There's a really interesting statistic about that, about teens. And they found because teens are like their phones are appendages to their bodies. And they say about 72 percent say that being disconnected from their phone brings a peaceful feeling, but 44 percent say it makes them anxious.

[00:10:27] Colette Brown: And so I wonder if that component of happiness also is correlated to the access to technology. Where it wasn't that way, like 

[00:10:37] Dennis Prager: 30 years ago, which in fact is probably something I might add if I wrote a second volume about the technology, but when I say that people, there are people who don't want to be happy.

[00:10:50] Dennis Prager: That pre exists technology, and the reason I have discovered is they get attention. The old squeaky wheel gets the grease. A lot of people. 

[00:11:02] Colette Brown: Is it that simple? Oh, I 

[00:11:04] Dennis Prager: do think to a certain extent it is that simple. There are more factors, I'm sure. But as any. Basically, happy person who has an unhappy sibling can testify the unhappy sibling probably not always, but probably got more attention than he or she did the happier sibling.

[00:11:25] Dennis Prager: So we have decided. In our society to reward the miserable because victim status Is a and I do have a I have a chapter on victim status. It's already 25 years ago I wrote about this if you think of yourself as a victim, you can't be happy But nevertheless you can get attention and now you not only get attention you are Often considered a hero if you're a victim, whether it is, when you think about it, and I don't intend to politicize this discussion, [00:12:00] but, and this is not really a political point, but the fact is there are vast number of young Americans and now not so young who have been told That their problems do not emanate from them.

[00:12:15] Dennis Prager: They emanate from society. We have produced the unhappiest generation in American history. This is not my opinion. This every poll, every piece of data suggests that there are more depressed young people than ever before. And it's been deliberately done by adults by telling them that they didn't have to battle their nature.

[00:12:37] Dennis Prager: They are victims of, if you're a female, you're a victim of, of, let's see, sexism. If you are a racial minority, you're a victim of racism. If you are poor, you're a victim of capitalism. Everybody except white, Christian, heterosexual males is a victim. That, that guarantees that you will be an unhappy human being.

[00:13:02] Dennis Prager: And so we have produced a staggering number of unhappy human beings with this very destructive lie that their problems emanate from society, not from themselves. I'll give you one really powerful example. My younger son, whom his late mother and I adopted the day he was born, to a meth addict. We did not know it at the time, and he ended up being addicted to substances.

[00:13:30] Dennis Prager: It was a very difficult period, obviously. And I recently had him on my fireside chat that I do for PragerU. Now, about 350 of them I do every week, fireside chat on PragerU, and I very rarely have guests, maybe three times a year, but I had him on. He's now been sober seven years. He's married to a wonderful woman, and he does his own podcast.

[00:13:57] Dennis Prager: He's an extraordinary young man, [00:14:00] Aaron Prager, and so I asked him, I said, it's generally considered that. For an addict to desire to become what I don't know what the word is normal or sober, whatever term you wish to use. They have to hit bottom. So he said, that's correct. I said, so when did you hit bottom?

[00:14:20] Dennis Prager: And his answer, I have quoted constantly because it was so important. He said, I hit bottom when I ran out of people to blame for my misery. 

[00:14:32] Colette Brown: Wow. 

[00:14:33] Dennis Prager: That wow is correct. I am his father and I went, wow. 

[00:14:38] Colette Brown: That backs up your previous point. 

[00:14:40] Dennis Prager: Totally. 

[00:14:41] Colette Brown: That's fascinating. So what do you think are? So we know.

[00:14:45] Colette Brown: Unhappiness, like the root of the problem that, that you've witnessed, what is the key component to switch that narrative? Is it as simple as get out of yourself, like volunteer? What are the steps for somebody that is chronically in that negative space to get out and turn to happiness? 

[00:15:05] Dennis Prager: I'll give an answer, but I just want to note that I acknowledge in the book and whenever I talk about it, there are people.

[00:15:14] Dennis Prager: For whom misery, unhappiness, depression, whatever term you wish to use, is physiological. And I can't answer it for those people. They may need a physiological answer. Maybe a psychiatric drug could really help them. But for the great majority of people, it is not physiological. And for them, there are two solutions, if you will.

[00:15:39] Dennis Prager: One is that You have to adopt a whole host of different attitudes than you now have. One example, you cannot be happy if you are not grateful. There is no happy ingrate on Earth. Of the 8 billion people in the world, there isn't one happy ingrate. [00:16:00] So if you really do wish to be happy, you better get rid of your ingratitude, and you better start being grateful.

[00:16:07] Dennis Prager: By the way, gratitude is so important. It is also not only the mother of happiness. It is the mother of goodness. You can't be a good person if you're an ingrate Gratitude is on the top of the list. So that's the Intellectual change you must make then the other is i'm a huge behaviorist act x You'll feel x don't wait till you feel x to act x and that's true for anything I uh speak about religion a great deal I tell people if you want to take religion seriously don't wait for some Religious epiphany to take place act religious.

[00:16:49] Dennis Prager: You'll start feeling religious of course a lot of people don't want to be religious because they have a secular religion and they don't want to bother with a You Biblical religion. Okay. That's a separate issue, but act happy. You'll start feeling happy. It's as simple as that. So it's both an intellectual change, like the gratitude one.

[00:17:10] Dennis Prager: There are many others. That's why I wrote the book about all the, the various arenas of life that you can change to become happy. Happiness is an art. It's certainly not just a feeling so between Gratitude and other aspects not feeling a victim, but you can't be grateful if you think you're a victim So they go hand in hand and starting to act it This is when I speak about happiness to young people, they really resent my telling them, even if you don't feel happy, you should act it because they have been taught that's inauthentic, to which my answer is body odor is authentic.

[00:17:52] Dennis Prager: But I trust you take a shower regularly. So the authenticity, I'm a big believer in [00:18:00] authenticity. In other words, not being a phony, but you're not a phony. If you act happy when you're not, what you're doing is you're changing yourself through your behavior and you are not inflicting your bad moods. On others again to use the odor issue I say bad moods should be considered the same as bad breath.

[00:18:21] Dennis Prager: You don't inflict it on other people 

[00:18:24] Colette Brown: That's so well put and I I always encourage people to have some type of gratitude journal And try to write down three things every day, whatever that is to be thankful for, because when you do get in those moods where you're not feeling so good, you could always go back and reflect and see what was it that I was grateful for yesterday, last year, two years ago.

[00:18:47] Colette Brown: And it's interesting to you that you brought up religion for an example as You don't have to believe you have to start. And there is a statistic out that says that 80 percent of Americans say that religious is a shrinking role in their lives. And they feel that it puts them in opposition of the mainstream culture.

[00:19:08] Colette Brown: What are your thoughts on that? And do you think that Americans truly need to have a religion in order to bring that happiness level up? 

[00:19:18] Dennis Prager: Again, you don't need to take my word for it or any. Religious persons, a word for it, every poll, secular polls, not religious inspired polls, has noted that religious people are considerably happier than irreligious people.

[00:19:35] Dennis Prager: And it makes perfect sense, because if religion fills virtually every need, not all needs, but virtually every, First of all, it gives your life meaning, and if there is no God, every honest atheist philosopher has acknowledged, there is no ultimate meaning to life. Everything is just random [00:20:00] chance, you're here for this insignificantly small period of time, and then you have oblivion for eternity.

[00:20:08] Dennis Prager: If you take that seriously, it is not exactly a happiness inducing idea. Right? We need to be intellectually honest about this. So people, of course, they try to fill their lives with meaning because the need for meaning is greater than the need for anything except food. It's even greater than the need for sex.

[00:20:28] Dennis Prager: There are people who have little or no sex, but have meaning and are happy people. There are people with a lot of sex and no meaning and they're not happy. It's it that's easily pointed by the way, I think you should have both Nevertheless, the yearning for meaning is the greatest and so what happens is when religion dies You simply get secular religions All the isms that are out there in have replaced Judaism and Christianity in the Western world and environmentalism and socialism and Marxism and feminism, you name the ism, there's always a substitute for any of the Judeo Christian religions out there.

[00:21:14] Dennis Prager: But people have been brainwashed, and I think that's the only appropriate word because it's, they have not really reflected on it, into thinking that only dummies are attracted to religion. That if you're truly intellectually sophisticated, You don't buy any of this stuff. It's part of the reason that I've worked all of my life, and especially the last ten years, in writing my five volume explanation and commentary of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the five basic books of the Bible, to show how, in fact, an intelligent person should embrace these books, and that they have more wisdom than anyone else.

[00:21:55] Dennis Prager: Our secular universities people are finally awakening to what I knew when I was [00:22:00] at columbia at graduate school in the 1970s and that is that our universities are intellectual and moral wastelands Now people are starting to awaken to that fact And that's a good thing they're they're really they're intellectually and morally worthless Now if you have to study physics, I don't know but alternative I acknowledge that but increasing numbers of people are aware that They got nothing or actually got worse Very few parents can say I have a finer human being Now that my son or daughter went to college for four years, but many parents feel they got a worse human being after four years of 

[00:22:40] Colette Brown: coming.

[00:22:40] Colette Brown: Yeah. This is interesting. I'm glad that you brought that up. My daughter is in university right now and her complaint is with the Israeli Palestinian crisis going on on the campus. She said it's very polarizing and people can't have a conversation and it's instantaneous Yes. reaction, hostility, anger, and a lot of it doesn't even have any backing with some of the people she's trying to talk to.

[00:23:10] Colette Brown: She's called out or friends of hers that don't understand, you know, Judaism. And, um, It's, you're saying it's like the basis of the educational system, like it promotes this. There are professors too that are feeding into this and causing the division. Is there an answer in your opinion where they can be brought together to be able to speak facts and talk rationally about it?

[00:23:38] Colette Brown: Or is there not even that opportunity to? 

[00:23:42] Dennis Prager: I wrote a, uh, column, my column, as I noted, I have a weekly column. So a few weeks ago, I wrote a column that the left right divide is unbridgeable and I'm not happy about it, but I do try to acknowledge reality. If you believe I'll get to the Israel issue in a moment, but if [00:24:00] you believe that men give birth, I'm not sure how much dialogue we can have.

[00:24:05] Dennis Prager: If you think it's fair for biological men to compete with women in women's sports, you don't think that's cheating. We have such a different understanding of what of right and wrong. It is unbridgeable. That's really the perfect example. Do you think it's fair for a biological man to compete against women in women's sports?

[00:24:27] Dennis Prager: If you do, I'm happy to dialogue with you, but it's useless. I acknowledge it's useless. I have lost that hour. Had I stared into stream of water, I would have been intellectually more alive than talking to someone who believes it's fair. For men to do that because they say they're women So it's like the same holds here if you don't see the difference between israel and hamas is indistinguishable from nazis And i've never used that parallel in my life It's the first time i've ever compared a group to the nazis.

[00:24:59] Dennis Prager: The only difference between hamas and nazis is both want to eradicate jewelry The only difference is hamas Videos it And once everyone to know about it, whereas the Nazis hit it, that is the only difference between the Nazis and Hamas and so that we have professors and students who do not see the moral gulf between Israel and Hamas.

[00:25:26] Dennis Prager: Is very scary. It would be as if students did not see the difference between Britain and the Nazis in the 1930s. We have real problems. That's why your daughter needs to understand they are the pro Hamas crowd or, or the, even the neutral crowd. Oh, I can't see a moral difference between Israel and Hamas.

[00:25:48] Dennis Prager: They are, they're not, you should try to dialogue with them, but. It's pointless. 

[00:25:54] Colette Brown: Yeah. She sent me a picture of a sign that said free Hamas. And I think that kind of sums it [00:26:00] up. If you think that, yeah, I don't even know what to respond to that. 

[00:26:03] Dennis Prager: There are 2 million Palestinian Arabs who are citizens of Israel.

[00:26:09] Dennis Prager: They are the freest Arabs in the entire Middle East and the entire world of Arab world from Morocco to the Gulf of Persia, to the Persian Gulf. There are 22 Arab states, one Jewish state the size of New Jersey, and her classmates don't think that state has a right to exist. That it's an apartheid state, even though there have been Arab members of the Supreme Court of Israel, and they, they get the exact same rights and voting rights and have their own parties.

[00:26:42] Dennis Prager: By the way, fascinatingly, even I was fascinated. Reuters and others who are not pro Israel have reported that Israeli Arabs, these are Palestinians who are Israeli citizens, are more pro Israel than ever in their lifetime right now. Even they understand how evil Hamas is. It's her fellow students and professors.

[00:27:05] Dennis Prager: At her university who don't 

[00:27:07] Colette Brown: yeah, and of course, of course, there's people that are They're innocent, but they've aligned so much with hamas that they have they're in it and there is nothing Distinguishable and it's really sad. So do you think that in your opinion that there is a catalyst? For the solution there.

[00:27:28] Dennis Prager: Oh, yeah First of all, the war would end tomorrow if hamas did what the nazis did surrender And in this case also, uh, released the hostages if they, if the, if Hamas surrendered and that ended the Hamas rule, like, which is identical to the Nazi rule, because they also torture Palestinians who differ with them, there would be, if not peace, there would certainly be the end of this war tomorrow, as I said, in my video for Prager U explaining the Middle East 10 years ago, it's gotten tens of [00:28:00] millions of views.

[00:28:01] Dennis Prager: If you watched it, you would think I made it yesterday because it's all, as I said, these things are valid for a very long time. One side wants the other side dead. That's really all you need to know about the Middle East conflict. Israel does not want the Palestinians dead. The Palestinians, or many, not all, want Israel dead.

[00:28:22] Dennis Prager: That's it and should that change there would be peace tomorrow The palestinians were offered a state on five different occasions and they rejected them on every occasion So but none of this is known by your daughters even your daughter's professors don't know this because they hate israel because it's In their words an outpost of western civilization in the middle east and they hate western civilization, but they're right Israel is an outpost of western civilization in the middle east That's correct.

[00:28:51] Dennis Prager: In a morally normal time, that would be a compliment, not an insult. 

[00:28:56] Colette Brown: Yeah. It's yeah. Thank you for addressing that. It's something that she and I have been talking about a lot and it's always. Comforting when she can have some answers and understand that she can come home to you. You're okay. Like you're thinking is right and stay strong because this is training ground for the world and different views and understanding what's out there.

[00:29:23] Dennis Prager: She should definitely begin to learn the truth and the arguments. Just watching the PragerU videos. On the Middle East. They're all five minutes like all our videos, and they're really helpful. I'll give you two examples. One is given by the British general who headed all of the British troops in Afghanistan.

[00:29:47] Dennis Prager: So he's a British patriot and yet his five minute video for PragerU is that Israel is the most moral army in the world, which it has been. The other video is given by a black South [00:30:00] African member of the South African parliament who went to check on this question, is Israel an apartheid state? Because he lived through apartheid.

[00:30:10] Dennis Prager: So he knows apartheid and he came back from Israel saying, this is one of the great lies of our lifetime. Those are two powerful videos that probably couldn't even be shown in most of her classes at whatever university she's at. 

[00:30:24] Colette Brown: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. We'll go check those out. I'm happy to know that one of the questions I like to ask my guests toward the end, as we wrap up is if this was the last message that you had to broadcast out to the world, what would it be?

[00:30:39] Dennis Prager: I think of that a lot because I, as I said, I want everything to, that I write or broadcast or speak about to last beyond my lifetime. I think about that a lot. So, I can tell you, I can give a couple of quick answers. A lot of times people will call me, a young couple, either the mother or the father, to be, the husband or wife, and say, So, Dennis, we're going to have our first child.

[00:31:04] Dennis Prager: Give us a word of advice. And I said, okay, here goes self control is infinitely more important than self esteem raise your child to engage in self self control. Then the self esteem will follow. But if you only concentrate on self esteem, you'll have a terrible human being. So fighting yourself and your nature and human nature is a lot and the other or another if you will parting message is these are not my words, they have been attributed to GK Chesterton, but nobody can find where he said it.

[00:31:39] Dennis Prager: So nobody knows who said it. I didn't. And I never want to take credit for an idea that isn't mine, but it's a great phrase. When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing. They believe in anything. That's what we have. Only secular people say men give birth. There are secular people who know that's nonsense.

[00:31:59] Dennis Prager: But [00:32:00] only secular people say it. That should give people some, something to think about. Has the death of religion in the West produced wiser people, more honest people? I'm afraid not. 

[00:32:11] Colette Brown: That's powerful. Thank you. I have a thousand more questions to ask you and our time is limited. In light of 

[00:32:19] Dennis Prager: that, so forgive me, then let me just say to, to all your viewers and listeners, That a lot of those thousands of questions are dealt with probably in my writings and in my speaking.

[00:32:30] Dennis Prager: So they should watch my fireside chat at PragerU. It comes up each week and they could start with number one and go through number 350 or whatever we're up to. The other is my books, and especially people who think religion is for dummies. It's called The Rational Bible, and there are 5, 000 reviews of the books on Amazon.

[00:32:53] Dennis Prager: People should read what people wrote about how it has turned their life around. It's called The Rational Bible. 

[00:32:59] Colette Brown: Perfect. Yes. Yeah. I'll, I'll put everything in the show notes, and thank you so much for your generosity of time for being in the world. Speaking truth. I'm a truth seeker and you're really a light and an inspiration to me.

[00:33:15] Colette Brown: So I thank you so much for coming on and sharing. Thank you. Thank 

[00:33:19] Dennis Prager: you 

[00:33:20] Colette Brown: everyone. If this meant anything to you, please forward and share it with your friends and until next time, be well, you just finished another episode of limitless. Healing where we dive into all things wellness. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to me.

[00:33:38] Colette Brown: If you would share it with your friends and family together, we can plant seeds of hope that leads to transformation in our lives and the lives of those we love. Let's get healthy together.