Inside ArtScroll - Season 3 Episode 10: Nachi Gordon

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome back to Inside Art Scroll where the books you read and the people who write them come to life. Today we are joined by Nahi Gordon, founder of Meaningful Minute and the author of Meaningful Minute, a book published by Arts Girl several years ago. Thank you, Naki, for being here. Thank you for having me. It's quite a treat. I know this is a kind of a little different for you. I feel like I'm in the hot seat right now. You're in the hot seat. I'm nervous. Nah's usually used to doing the interviews. Yes. Yes. But over here, we want to learn a little more about what you do, of course. Now, let's start with the book. The book came out a few years ago. It was adapted from your meaningful minute videos video clips. Tell us a little about the book and before we get into the specifics of meaningful minute for those few people who never heard of it tell people what you do. So um as it pertains to the book you know meaningful minute the organization that uh cuts up content and sends it out via WhatsApp started in 2017 not too long ago. feels like a long time ago, but it's not too long ago. And um we barome quickly, you know, created a a large audience. Um at that point, uh we were sending out our videos via WhatsApp and Instagram to over 25,000 people. I was in camp monk in the summers and I went over to and I know Gdalai's lads for many years repay lots for many years and surely Besser had visited the grounds one one day and we just you know had mentioned the idea of a meaningful minute book and we had a meeting us three and we you know we decided to run with it to sort of take these videos that um people are watching and loving throughout their day and putting it in in a in word in where they can just read short ideas and concepts and just um think about them, discuss them, walk away with with concrete, you know, solid pointers. Um so we released this book, I believe it was in 2019. I don't I don't know for sure, but it was I think it was around that time. And uh it's one of one of the proud moments of my life being able to No, it's amazing. A beautiful book with beautiful quotes and inspiration. Now 2017, we're doing this conversation in 2022. It's five years. You went from having an idea to take small video clips and send it out. And today you have a tremendous following of literally tens of thousands of people all over the world who you reach. How did you go from concept to reality to reaching so many people? Yeah. So, you know, the following is there. I think it was honestly I started meaningful as a hobby. It's something that I um felt like I would enjoy myself. So, it started like that and it's it began to snowball and we went from focused on creating those minute clips to um making a few events in different different cities. Um done really really nicely bringing in top speakers. Uh we then decided, you know, let's sort of create our own platform, our own app. uh we went ahead and and did that and you know to date the app has around 30,000 downloads and our our mobile app serves as a social media that's dedicated to Torah thoughts and ideas and just meaningful content overall. Uh whereas if you look at Twitter or Instagram or other social media platforms, it's filled with not meaningful content most of the time. Um, our platform gives rabbis and speakers and uh male speakers, female speakers the ability to use social media in a in a safe way and and reach an audience um in a safe space but has that still social media feel and vibe where they're posting in real time, they're interacting with with people who are following them. So that was sort of you know a different another idea that we had. Um Mosha Majeski is is one of the people who's very involved in in getting behind that project. From there, you know, I started the meaningful people podcasts where uh we interview different personalities each week. Uh which bar is one of the top podcasts in Judaism. We have over 70 episodes I believe that are out already and it it gets around, you know, 35 to 40,000 downloads and and views each week. So, um, and and then off of that, you know, we just we we pivoted and we transitioned to be, you know, meaningful minute with a rebrand, with a new logo, uh, with office space, with a staff of seven employees, uh, focused on creating meaningful content um, in whatever form that may be. That could be in in in uh, in a form of a vlog, it could be a podcast, it could be um, a documentary, a film that we have coming out uh, shortly with Schlam Z. You say create content and that's your goal. If you don't mind me asking, are you a business? Are you a nonprofit? So meaningful, are you a stuck organization? What are you? So meaningful minute is a is a 501c3. We're a nonprofit organization. Um at at our core, we operate like a business. We we take our um our goals and our and our missions very seriously. And we have, you know, plans on how to um execute them. you know, we have project managers, graphic designers, social media managers. Um, it's incredible. We have we have just like Arts Girl, meaning has an amazing team that I'm able to sit here and there's so much that's being done from um our social media manager that I just got the stats earlier today. In the past two weeks, we reached 2.6 million people on Instagram alone. That's just one platform alone. The unique people, 2.6 million unique people and that's on Instagram alone. And um the platform has continued to grow. You know, WhatsApp is is very popular, WhatsApp status, WhatsApp broadcast, and uh we're just trying to keep up with the demand, but we are a nonprofit organization. We are funded by thousands of of our users and and you solicit donations from the users. Are you actively fundraising? We we will reach out. We our fundraising is a little bit different than probably the typical organization. I think most organizations are probably probably you know 80% um big big money 20% crowdfund meaningful minute really is I would say 95% crowdfund 5% big money donate donations so which is an amazing amazing thing to see is that in the past year we've had over 3,000 people donate and that could be anywhere from $50 $200 to $18 But we have a large loyal base of people that love, you know, what we're doing, that see the service that we've created and um are interested in seeing it grow and grow every single day. Now, the cynics might say, you know, meaningful minutes sounds like a nice idea, but it's a bite-sized piece of inspiration. Is that something that could really change people? It's something that could have a a lasting impact on people who learn muser for years and years and years to change one meda to make some kind of change in their life that will be meaningful and over here you're kind of packaging it in a minute. Do you ever hear from cynics who say you know there's not really much here? So I mean perhaps in the beginning that was you know what we were doing was foreign to the market. So it could be in the beginning that was that was an idea but I think now our our uh philosophy and our our mission is that it starts with a minute. you know, we we all have, you know, uh I think 1440 minutes in our day and um you spend your time doing all sorts of things and if you could just take 60 seconds to watch some sort of clip that we send out that we carefully curate and are making sure it's it's hitting that spot for you, ultimately it'll lead to it'll lead to more inspiration and more motivation for you to take in the other content which you're creating which is more than a minute. It's it starts with a minute, you know, the drops of the rock, you know, imagine watching uh 60 seconds every single day for four years and it make an impact. It has made an impact. If if it didn't, we probably wouldn't still be doing what we're doing. Right. Right. Right. Have you heard real stories from people who say, you know what, I've I watched something, I read something, I saw an interview and and it made a colossal impact on 100%. I think one of the biggest impacts um I've that had that had at me because again meaning film minute for me was a hobby for a little bit a stretch of time probably for the first seven months eight months that I was doing it and you got married after you came up with the idea right yeah I got married around probably a year or so a year in after after the launch and your wife was on board with the project yeah she she loved it she's actually probably one of the only people who who didn't really know about it before we had started dating and you still married her of course that's why you know if I All right. Um, so I was reading an issue of Mishbaka magazine and surely best had written a cover cover story about a Ramy Klein and his daughter Mali who passed away Al Shalom and by by Shiva Amy writes how there was a lot of noise, a lot of people saying a lot of different things and there was a lot of chaos. He had just lost his daughter and a clip came to him which he would watch every single day for meaningful minute. And this one was a video of a man and it gave him the words in the to sort of um fortify and and speak out about you know the issues that he think exist and how we can you know better address them. And when I read that again this is something I was doing as a hobby. I was not I was not yet married then or engaged. I was a young a young uh guess called kid and I was like wow like this this could actually make an impact and it does make an impact. We get messages. I get messages every single day of people saying that, you know, the minutes themselves, the podcasts, the the uh the app, the the short videos that we are putting out. um just really attacking and and and working with Jewish media, Torah content, you know, taking the the technological concepts and ideas and advances that existed in society and imple implementing it in the firm world in the Jewish world. You know, gone are the days where we need to like look look where we're sitting right now. This is this is beautiful. You know, art school gets it. But gone are those days where we need to be um creating low quality. We can we can do so much more. You definitely raised the bar. I I hope so. I hope so. And and and since we've started, there's many others that have started and it's I I love it. I love seeing it. Um I consider this just the beginning for myself, for me, for my organization. I think there's so much that we're working on. I I I have a many meetings throughout my day um just discussing different projects that we're working on. And I always I always discuss with with different donors and people who are involved that you know Adme come up to Hashem or and Hashem's gonna look at us and he say well if you look to your right there's 100,000 Jews that we're from but you could have they were waiting for their spark to be lit up brighter. If you look to your left you'll see millions of Jews. They never saw anything Jewish in their entire lives. And if you would have just used what I created, he created all these platforms for what? For what? So it could be used for the narrate that it's used for generally. I What if Hashem says to us, well, why didn't you take those those technology that technology that existed and those possibilities and reach these millions of people? Millions of Jews are not are not seeing Alfa. They're not seeing any any anything of Jewish content. And if you could reach them just with a little bit, you never know what could light their spot. Your videos are all very very positive. It's it's telling people really how great they are, the abilities that they have, the possibilities that are out there. It's it's really it's it's a non-stop flow of positivity. There's not a lot of discussion as far as what I've seen and you'll forgive me for again going disync discussion of and about so much about accountability. It's less of that and more of the positive. You ever get people who say to you, you know, maybe it's time to up it a little and you know tell people that, you know, the the world is here for a reason. We're all here for a purpose and we're ultimately going to be held accountable. It's not always hunky dory. Not everything is, you know, is is is just fluff and positivity. You ever you ever get that? So there there are definitely um people who want more and require more and and and I hope in some capacity we are creating more content that can you know fill that f fill that need and that void. I think overall um there's this new trend and it's not that old that people need to be told that you know you have a lot of intrinsic value and I think you could ask any therapist that's operating with our practice and uh we can sit here and say well we've said it enough already and people know it already but I don't think people do know it and if they don't know if they maybe they do know it but maybe they don't feel it. So if we can talk to their emotions and create content that is finding different ways to get across these messages, I think that's what we do. I think there are times where we will get a little stronger with our messages. Um times of introspection, times that are on the heels of tragedy. Something that's special about the actual minute aspect of meaningful minute is that we're there every single day, seven days a week, Matzi Shabas, Friday, you know, every every every day we're going to send you a clip and a lot of them will pertain to what's going on in the world at that time. Whether it's meron, whether it's uh what what's happening in our surf side. Yeah. There there are we're we're living here in this world. We have our head, you know, not in the sand. We see what's going on and we try to, you know, sort of create those messages that will speak to you. We'll speak to the people and we're not pretending that things aren't going on in the world. We're not pretending that, you know, these aren't there are certain things that aren't challenges. So we we as it pertains to the actual minute, we we definitely try to stay positive. You know, we just launched this new podcast, deep meaningful conversations with Alex Flexer and Ricky Silver, both very u accomplished women from Cleveland. And they put out an episode, their first episode they put out with us was titled vulnerability and oversharing. And a lot of a lot that was discussed is when are you sharing too much? Take social media for example. Are like what's the concept of maybe I shouldn't show this or maybe I shouldn't share this. So, we're trying to as an organization give across important messages from a Torah aspect, from a Torah lifestyle aspect that can have people uh just use their brain and think that, well, maybe I shouldn't do this or maybe I shouldn't say this or maybe I should do this or maybe I should say this. But whatever we're putting out there is with the hopes of somebody having that that knowledge and that education and a different perspective and that nuance which I think is super important nowadays. Speaking of having standards, which is what you're alluding to, how do you decide through all your platforms and your writings and what and you have a a wonderful weekly newsletter you put out as well. How do you decide who qualifies to send out a message? I mean, maybe when you started, you took from whoever you could because you were just uh kind of getting your message out there. But now that you're an established entity, what's your standard as to which man or woman or child or or whoever qualifies to send out messages of or is it really just anyone who has a phone who could record themselves and could say something coherent that now you're giving them a platform to send their message out? Right. So, um it's it's certainly not the latter. It's not everybody can just send a message. We are careful with who we collaborate with as it comes to our app, our Instagram, our WhatsApp, um our podcast, wherever, whatever it may be. We're very careful. We're very careful. We want to make sure it's, you know, it's somebody that we feel can speak to the needs and the wants of people today. Um it's people who um are in line with the values and the standards that meaningful has in terms of production. Um and of course in terms of content who established those standards based so I I have you know guidance from my my rebies name is Wimburgger uh I speak to him all the time constantly asking shyus making sure that um I myself am staying within certain boundaries and certain lines there it's very easy especially um the way we're positioned on on social media on Instagram we have over 40,000 followers we have videos that have over 80 90,000 views um so things happen in the world and we want to sort of chime in from a meaningful perspective perspective. Um, but some things maybe we shouldn't be chiming in on. Maybe I was going to say maybe because you're reaching out to so many people. Sometimes there's almost this Yates to dilute what you're putting out there because you want it to be you want it to be something that such a wide range of people could associate with. Sometimes when you're targeting a certain audience so then you you know you you limit yourself. We are we have a very diverse audience. We have from the the very modern orthodox to borderline maybe from not from to the to very very shocked. I was by a shabatone recently that was you were there as well and there was many many I was blown away by how many um consume the content that that meaning puts out. So we um we walk a fine line and we set with a lot of every decision that we make is is having in mind of obviously focused on positivity and I don't mean you know telling everyone that they're amazing all the time but uh focusing on positivity not trying to cancel anybody not trying to call anybody out for shortcomings um always trying to look at the silver lining and and um at the same time we we do have discussions and conversations that need to be had um on on the meaningful people people podcast. We have discussions about uh domestic violence and and things like that which we just offer again knowledge, perspective and an insight into certain ideas and concepts that maybe haven't been spoken enough about certainly not on a larger stage. Um baram I'm very blessed to be able to have been gifted from Hashem this platform this stage and I don't take that lightly. I I uh and I'm not and I'm not perfect with the decisions either. There have been times where maybe I've decided maybe let's do this and let's do that and I'll second guess and I'll think you know what maybe that wasn't the smartest move. Maybe taking a stance on this isn't the best. Um but nobody's perfect you know uh it's a learning it's a learning experience but we are just um when I say we is my staff you know like I I uh I'm one man but one man can't do the work that needs to be done for the hundreds of thousands of people that we reach. Now, meaningful people podcast you mentioned, which so many people enjoy. You mentioned tens of thousands of people watching. One thing that I wanted to ask you about is on this program, Inside Arts Girl Scroll, since we started, I've gotten mixed messages from people as far as the length of the episode. Some people tell me, I love when it's long. You really get into the kishkas of the interviewee. I want more. And other people tell me, you know, if it's longer than 20 minutes, I just I don't have the zitzv. your meaningful people podcast episodes are generally over an hour and sometimes well over an hour. What's your feedback from people as far as especially the dichotomy of the fact that you're also the meaningful minute minute person? Yeah. So you got people who have patience for a minute and then you have people who are somehow making it through over an hour. What's the feedback you get from people as far as their stamina and their ability to sit through such lengthy conversations? Right. So my my general rule when it comes to length of content is that if it is thrilling, if it's exciting, if it's good content, people will watch. You never had somebody, you know, um watch their favorite movie and say, "Yeah, but it was too long." They'll watch two more hours of it if it's incredible. You know, they they'll they love it because it's amazing content. Um, there are scenarios and topics that probably are, you know, better done with brevity, um, and just more to the point. And I I find that the less the less fluff and the less uh, warm up and landing of of, you know, of podcasts or speeches, the better. Again, you kind of you'd rather dive right into the conversation and get more or less more or less, you know, dive right in. Make sure you know big thing I always discuss with my team is ROI. you know, what's the return on our users's investment when they're watching this clip? So, as if it's a 60-second clip, their ROI needs to be like at least more than 40 seconds. There can't be, you know, just 17 seconds of a 60-second clip that's that really brings out the point. Mh. If you take an hour video, what's the ROI or and how much of it is just leading up to a point, right? It's important to lead up to a point. I don't think it's impossible to have 60 minutes of heavy heavy hitting stuff, but you need to make sure the majority of what you're putting out there is is exciting and it's uh and it's something that the viewer wants to see. I know YouTube, they uh their metrics work in a way that they they see how long people are watching videos for. Mhm. If you're watching a video for a long time, your page will end up doing better because now to count as a click on YouTube. I'm not an expert at this at all. What do you need to watch like 30 is it 30 seconds of a video for it to count as I don't know the exact time, but you definitely do need to be watching it for for a specific amount of time. Um, it's the same way on Instagram, same way on my app. You have to be watching a video for at least a few seconds for it to register as as you actually viewed it. Um, do you get any push back from people that because you're on YouTube, Instagram, and these various social media platforms that you're kind of pushing people towards technology and when there's such an effort out there, especially in the from world to protect our Mah from unnecessary exposure to these things? Do you hear that from people? Um, not really. You know, I think the people who are are for us and want the to consume the content we put out, they're holding in that in that in that dark atmosphere. They're in that atmosphere. Um, we do have again the meaningful minute app is a kosher app. It's not you don't have to be on YouTube. You don't have self-contained. You don't have to have to go anywhere. You don't have to go on the internet. It's self-contained. So, we do have that option. Um, recently we we put our meaningful people podcast and we're beginning to put some of the other meaningful minute podcasts on phone hotlines as well so people can access. Um, but by by and large for the most part we don't have that that issue. meaningful minute is is tackling the social media world and offering a a place on social media for the people who are there which is hundreds of thousands of Jews to be able to take in meaningful content to be able to learn something. Um they're there so why not let's reach them. Any of the interviews that you did were particularly meaningful? They're all meaningful, but any of them stand out to you or that you heard from people. Wow, that was that was a game changer. H, it's a good question and um I I know you don't want to insult any guest. I should have I should have an I should have an answer by now for this question. It's been asked quite a few times. Um I think an interview that sticks out to me as uh and it was I would say maybe early on in in this quest of meaningful people um was the talk we did with Rabbi Schlommo and Khani Bachner of Bonolam to be able to to meet people to see they're incredible people the strength that that they had you know to not to not have children to speak about that struggle but in that moment of in that pain that they went through to decide that they're going to help other couples whichever way possible. It's it's incredible. Over 9,000 babies have been born because of Bonolam. Wow. 9,000 babies. And from those babies, how many kids and grandkids were millions, you know, like that's that's a a crazy crazy idea. And uh to be able to sit and speak with people who did that, they took pain. They took, you know, arguably one of the worst cards that anyone could ever be dealt and they turned it into lemonade. The sweetest form of lemonade. They they turned it into such light. I I personally believe when Msiah comes, you know, we'll be we'll be walking in in, you know, behind the Bachners. What they've done what they've done is just unbelievable. So for me on a personal level to sit down and and to just I there there are a few interviews that I I had out of body experiences where I was just for forget about the mic, forget about the cameras, forget about everything that's going on, but to just focus in on what's being said. And that was one of them. Uh that was one of them to really just hear their story and and see the impact they had. Another one was Zusha. I I don't know, Gaza, Zach. They're just real people. They're just real Yidden. And I and I just really enjoyed um sitting down with them. Obviously, I don't want to insult anybody. Dr. Benji Epstein discussing mindfulness. There's so many great episodes. You know, when I set out to do meaningful people, um the idea was to sit down with these personalities that we feature a lot of meaningful pe on meaningful minute and to just get, you know, behind the scenes. It was I was by a couple of meaningful minute events that I've made in Brooklyn in the five towns and I would see afterwards a line of 40 50 girls waiting to say two words to Charlie or Ariari or Rav and just say thank you or Huawei Jacobson and I just it clicked like we need to make these people more accessible. We need we need people to understand their story and that was sort of the inception and and I'm just I'm I'm so happy that it grew to where it's been now and I'm very happy for what the future holds. Hashem, you've done an amazing job. You've taken a dream and you've brought it to fruition. And it sounds from what you said before that you're really only getting warmed up. You're just getting started. Yeah. You have you have more ideas and you're using your creativity to spread positive messages to spread messages about Hashem, about mitzvah, about a hashem. So, I just want to wish my humble brah keep doing what you're doing. Keep inspiring people. You're doing a wonderful job. and uh Cla show will continue to benefit from your creativity. Oh man, thank you so much. I really appreciate it and I I'm very humbled to be in this studio. This is special. This is special and I uh I can only hope to do 1% of the work that Art School does and the work that you're doing here. Um I I view you you guys here you guys you sadikim here at Art School as as role models and and I appreciate that what you're doing for client. Thank you so much. Heat. [Music]