Jewish Secrets to Wealth, Business & True Meaning | Wealth Over Riches ep.1 - Rabbi Avi Hoolin

Welcome to our all new podcast on hidabout where wealth over riches. I'm here today with Jonathan Rand Balchuva business mogul. Being the CFO of Stray Path, that company ended up selling for over a billion dollars. So Jonathan, I don't know if you're ready for this question. You ready? >> I hope so. I'll try. I'm I'm about to get into your kishkas. >> A lot of us were struggling. You know, life is not easy. Life is full of challenges. Share with us your strongest struggle both in your personal life >> and in your business life. >> It's a great question. I'm really glad you brought it up because there is this facade. It's really a facade that people these external things and yes, everybody struggles. Everybody has challenges. I definitely have had and continue to have a lot of personal challenges and challenges in different parts of my family. I'll I'll tell you some some I'll not get into here but uh I uh you know when I made that transition to be become Orthodox I went like maybe 95% over a long time to becoming kosher and when I was you know to the world very kosher I had a very strong I'm a little embarrassed to say but this is not my worst sin either I'm just going to say out there very strong taup for McDonald's fish and after I was like shabas kosher everything still I would be I've been on a trip, you know, and see if McDonald's fish I'd sneak in there and have McDonald's fish and every year yam kapor fish and other things too. It's not but it it it took a very long time and I was a tremendous safer um called mktabas drive for truth talks about the behind where you have to move. I really used that safer to work on that like this. You get such great ideas from some sparum and teachers and all that. Anyway, I don't believe I'll lead a McDonald's fish anymore, but it maybe took eight or 10 years for me to every year try to stop. And there other things I have other struggles and this idea of slowly getting better. I'm a huge fan of that. The idea of how you could, you know, use benefit from taking Roshanapor so seriously. It's such a gift to us to really be forgiven. You have to come in, you know, looking at yourself carefully. Judaism makes you work if you take it seriously. >> Where was there a place that you felt that there was something in business which was a real >> struggle? That's a great question. I tell anybody getting into business seriously that I'd say a third to half of what you deal with is unexpected problems and how you deal with them kind of separates the men from the boys. I've seen people who can't handle pressure and they just don't go as well. I feel like I was probably okay at handling pressure. But then with my, you know, Torah beliefs, it helped me a lot. But I had two situations. If I have time, I I'll tell you both. Um, one, we were one time at Main Street, the company we sold to the London Stock Exchange. Uh, but early on, we had an investor was going to give us $5 million, a professional venture capitalist, and they went very far. They made a term sheet with us. And then in the process of which is very unusual if you get a term sheet not for them to invest and they backed out and they said it was because of meow >> and that was a very difficult difficult thing. I went to the founder and I said I we had a disagreement on how I was looking at the business. They felt I should be saying this and that and I felt that was not the way to do it. They they disagreed with me. I went to the founder and said look I don't want to mess you up if you I don't think they're right. I want to help you. If you want me to leave, I will just resign it immediately because I don't want to mess up your business. And that was that took a lot of thought and in you know my own personal struggle to say like do I kind of argue that they're no good or do I and I I I felt it was the right thing to do to let him choose and he uh felt that he did not want to work with that venture capitalist and I should stay on. But I really let like I I gave him the choice and that was that was a difficult >> feeling. I remember I heard a great story similar to that idea that somebody made a mistake in a company that cost the company half a million dollars. So he felt like ah you know you feel low about yourself. You know it hurts. So he wanted to resign the next day and the boss called him in. They looked him in the eye. He said do you really believe that after I invested a half a million dollars in you cuz you'll never make that mistake again. I'm going to let you leave and give it to another company. No way. Just one more question because there's going to be a lot of I I hope young viewers watching this and a lot, you know, people really need motivation today. You know, really people, a lot of people are trying to find meaning and purpose and that's why it's so important this conversation because you're someone that besides for >> being successful in the business world, what was so much more important to you is your meaning and purpose in your life. And that's what I really want to share with the viewers. But it's a lot it's hard for a lot of guys to find that, especially kids in colleges and starting off at work and it's hard to get motivated. People fall, people have hard times. What do you think is a good motivating factor that could really help a person start pushing forward? >> Great question, very important. I think if someone can believe that if I grow in Judaism, it's going to be good and not weird and I'm not separating myself. I'm not become different. I'm the same guy just more evolved. I'm not like, "No, there's no cult and brainwashed and all that." Just make a relationship. Get to a Shabas dinner. Find a friendly rabbi. There's amazing rabbis who really understand people. Make a friend. Go to whatever you like. Let's say you're intellectual. Get some learning done. If you like the singing and the shabas dinner, just push yourself with the idea that it's going to be good. And it might not be every time as good, but know that this is an area that's as someone who's like I was saying before, if you're all business and not spirit, it's not as good. You can't have it all that way. We need that. You can do both >> and you really try to grow in Judaism. Let the let your journey begin with you going for it. See where it takes you. >> So true. Like I like like if anybody has kids and go on a kalamaya trip and they could spend like a ton of money on amusement park, but they came with the wrong attitude and the thing is a flop. And then you go with the right pump and the right perspective and like wow it's like amazing because you just went to the park and ate sandwiches. Now every time I speak to this guy he tells me like Baroo Hashem I just happened to be in the right company just like at the right time. Just it just happens to be every company that he gets involved in hits heavy. He got involved with the next company called Main Street and that company sold for I think over $400 million and now they're on to a third company called Groundfloor Energy. Now besides for these great business successes, Jonathan is Rand is a person that gave gives his nishama for Klis both in supporting institutions but not only that a lot of times you have businessmen that you say you know what I'll hit you with a check but am I going to give my time is the question. He actually comes he currently teaches in Orsameak boys in Gimari. He has Gimar group and he also teaches in Tel Aiv. What's the name of the Torah? >> Torah Tech in Tel Aviv both educationally in Gimara and at the same time he teaches business ethics. Thank you Jonathan. Jonathan, would you mind opening up for us a little bit about your background? >> Glad to. Thank you, Rabbi Hulen. Yes. Um I was born uh in a Jewish family, Jewish mom, Jewish dad. parents got divorced when I was young. My mom got remarried and I was raised by my mom and technically my stepfather uh in a reformed Jewish household and I didn't know that there was something else like uh Orthodox. I didn't hear about a lot of things. I liked being Jewish. I didn't know about a lot of the halas that I know now. But still, my mom told me a thousand times she wants Jewish grandchildren. Marry a Jewish girl. In the reformed shul temple really we call that I went to I was kind of the poster boy. Like I learned how to read phonetic Hebrew phonetically when I was 16 and 17. I taught the troublemaker 12-year-olds how to have their bar mitzvah. But just to put it into perspective, I never even heard of a paritfillin. So reform is just a very different thing than what I've come to really know and appreciate as Torah based Judaism. Um and uh there's many steps that brought me to feel that there's something much more than reform and make some changes in my life where I started to believe differently and observe differently. And I'm super grateful that I made that change. I was influenced by a lot of people and a lot of reading and a lot of uh just ideas about life. But uh ended up that uh I um now consider myself about still working to get everything down right, but it's a great path and I'm super super excited to be here. And >> what brought you to actually decide that you're going to become a mainstream orthodox? >> Yeah, I had several experiences. Um, I'd say the first influence was what I looked at things what I call scientifically. Like I started to just understand the like Darwin theory of evolution that I felt there's no way that the human eye and the whole human system balancing when you're walking just evolved randomly from a one cell amoeba. Just didn't make any sense. And then uh I looked at the universe. I happen to like earth science. I saw the stars. I was on the beach one night and the moon rose and I realized that moon is affecting the tide by me and the stars and I just felt there was something guiding this whole thing. Kind of like this science approach that there had to be a creator. It just wasn't random. And then that perled with over a two-year period I met many people who told me the history of the Jewish people is unbelievable. that we've had so many uh enemies trying to destroy us and yet we're best known in the world for so many things and invented so much science and literature and impacting so much of life that uh I think many people probably know the Mark Twain quote when he says all those other nations are gone but the Jew lives on and I felt that something supernatural was happening for the Jews and that's when it started to hit me that there's something going on for us and I looked into it deeper the first religious concept I heard was something called hashkah pretis which at that time took me a long time to even remember how to pronounce that means that god supervises the details there's no such thing as a coincidence and I related related to that a lot and I just started to have a layer of looking at things that it wasn't random that there was a design and that there was something above nature that was helping the Jews survive and thrive and that was really the beginning of my path towards sed kite >> interesting I'm saying it's such an Actually, it's an interesting debate just on the side. Like today in Kiraov, there's a big debate how many people need the emotional appeal more than the intellectual. So, I'm just curious on your thoughts on that. >> I went through this period in life where I saw people beard, you know, the whole thing, and I'd go up to them, I'd say, "Excuse me, do you mind if I ask you a couple questions about Judaism?" And some would be like, "Uh, no thank you." Others, I really got in these huge conversations. And one time I did that to the Kabad Rabbi of Cincinnati on an airplane and I was working for Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati at the time. Um it was the the one of the big jobs to get after uh Wharton Business School to go work at PNG in Cincinnati. And he said, "Sure, sit down." So I I sat next to this rabbi and then he invited me for shabas and I probably went to him maybe 30 times out of the 52 Shabases of the year and that's where I really started to learn. That's what it said. you know, you said, you know, the emotional like I I didn't come in through the challenge. I started, you know, through like science and thinking, but then when I got to chant, you know, that put me over the top. >> It's funny you mentioned the big beard. I had a kid I have a kid in my class actually. >> He's like growing, staging, learning everything. >> So he looks at me and like the only thing he's from like some place out in Hobbit. So who's there? It's only Kabad. So he looks at me, he's like, "Are you a rabbi?" I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "So where's your long beard?" But okay. Wow, that's really amazing. So it really was an intellectual experience, but little by little you grew more emotionally. So as a person becoming religious, how do you feel that impacted your life? >> I am so thankful that I found Torah Judaism. I feel there's so many layers that adds to my life really. When you mention that I like to help other people, not just writing a check. It's really that I feel like it is a treasure. Such a treasure. and the kids like me who grew up without it. I feel I was so fortunate and blessed to be the one out of 100 or whatever the numbers are defined it but many many layers just for example my my uh feelings of thankfulness to people and Hashem and the is very very strong. I would walk around with a lot of gratitude and I also try to walk around with a lot of the the principle of Gamsuva that this too is for the good many things everyone has bigs up and downs big up and downs in life but when when you know that when you believe that Hashem is there and it's actually helping you even though this not your plan A and it maybe wasn't even your plan B and please God we don't have really tragic things there are tragic things it's harder to deal with but let's say someone loses a job you know and you think you're all upset you're like oh I'm going to get another job it's going to be okay I needed this I'm going to grow somehow it just adds so much and the holidays there's such depth to the holidays. Every shabas is like a vacation and that's an interesting thing. At first I remember I felt chabas I started to feel shabas was true and I had to keep it and it was a bit of a burden and then it grew. I actually heard a speech here in Jerusalem many many years ago that someone said Shabas is a palace of time and slowly maybe in two or three years I started to so love Shabas and just come into it and you know you put away everything and just focus on the bigger things and nice times and have pleasure in a holy way. So there's just so many aspects to uh Yiddish kite that I feel enhance my life, enhance my viewpoint, help me with the ups and downs of things. I've got deeper connections. When you learn with someone, have a good kusa. You get closer. I I feel like really I feel every Jew has this. They've won the lottery. They've got the ticket. You just have to take it out and play it. >> Okay. Amazing. There's just like in a direct way like I definitely hear from your response that it definitely changes, you know, your life in general and realizing hashkah and and happiness and also shabas. Anything specific about learning? Let's say a guy says, "You know what? I want to be religious and keep Shabas and do the mitzvot, but how important it is for me to actually have a kabuta in the morning or at night." Like, do you feel that the learning itself? How do you feel the learning impacted you? >> I'd say two very important ways. One, in a way that you can't even really understand. You like connect to Hashem. You connect to that guy. My very best friends are guys that I've learned with a lot. Something happens that you just your soul and your mind and your spirit is into it. And then separately, I feel it was a side benefit that I did not even know about. I was told I I was working in a company with a lot of religious people and I was just about choo and they all said to me I was religious without having really gone to yeshiva and they said you've got to learn. You've got to learn. I never knew what happens on the other side of those doors. When I finally went there, it took a while to click for me to start to get the the kamar. But then there's this unexpected side benefit that your thinking is so much more precise. In my case, I brought that to deal structures and understanding complicated negotiations that I could think way ahead, five steps ahead and what if this happens and that happens. So for me, it's been this combination of a much more precise way of thinking at the same time is creative. You're thinking of all the angles. A thing that's very common in the Gamarra is the Gamar will take something that's a sentence, a puss from the Torah and make an inference. Well, they said this, but they also said that without saying the words. That idea of what the inference is hugely important not just in work but speaking to my wife who's wonderful we became Baltua together was really a really beautiful story and there's there's there's a layer in your life many not just the spiritual but you're thinking you're approaching people let's even say like forgiving people you just forgive people so much quicker you know that things happen for a reason and the idea that you want to be treated how you treat people is how you hope Hashem treats you there's so many principles principles of ethical living that I really related to and it's ironic I went to Wharton you know undergrad business school University of Pennsylvania I had no ethical maybe one ethical class the things I learned about Jud in through Torah Judaism were so much how you think society should be how how people are like the best I find the best people are very much in line with Jewish values >> wow wow wow so that actually you answered my next question my next question was going to And maybe you could elaborate a little more on that is my next question was like how do you feel that Judaism or Torah learning actually helped you in business? So maybe now we could just direct on that point. Meaning I definitely heard you speak about this like definitely to my boys and I know on Torah Tech that's definitely a big topic that you like to give over like wait one second besides for changing your life this is going to help you so much in the business world. Just maybe elaborate on that point a drop more. >> Sure. Yeah. I'll I'll describe that by saying there's some conventional wisdom which I think is just so wrong when they say nice guys finish last. Completely wrong. Opportunity only knocks once. Completely wrong. When you have the perspective as a Torah Jew, I'm going to do my best. I'm going to support people. I'm not going to lose Shinhara. I never need to break shabas. You could just you have to set up your boundaries with your work environment. But it just you could go through work and knowing that like I'm going to try really hard, but the outcome is up to Hashem. It takes off a layer of pressure and you could be a mench in the workplace and um know you're doing the right thing and I have been very fortunate that that many of the deals have have been worked out and I do have some god-given talents that I'm good in some areas of business but I know there's something bigger than me that makes it work out and it's it's very humbling at the same time very gratifying. I love when I get to work with a good person. I've got some I'm speaking mostly of Jews but non-Jews as well that like get to work with someone and you're striving for a goal together. Uh it's fantastic. I feel that uh the person I am through bringing my Torah values makes me much better at work, much more accepting of the challenges. Um much more accepting of the times the deals don't work out. Uh you know, really realizing there's a lot of good that everyone adds and I add my good, but I really appreciate everyone else. just it just um I think anything someone's doing if they have the Jewish background, the Torah values, and the striving to understand that I've got to do my job as best I can, but I know Hashem's making things happen at the same time. It helps in any situation. >> What would you say if you want to give young listeners over here and everybody's trying to make a buck today and everybody's trying to figure out the right wheel and where to go and which startup to to hit and now with AI everybody's getting nervous all the business are going to fly away, right? What business advice would you give to the younger generation that's going out there and trying to trying to make some cash? >> Yeah, I'm glad you asked me that. I I feel strongly about this that you have got to be not afraid to work really hard and know who the boss is in your job and what the goal that they want you to do and be honest and and not backstab and support other people. You could really be a mench at work and succeed. And that if you want to have it all quote quote unquote, if you take on levels that you're comfortable with of the Torah and mitzvah and learning like that, you'll have a broader life. You could get what you're trying for in business. But if all you are in business, it's too much and too tense. If you set time aside for who you are as a Jew, you're going to be happier, uh, a more fulfilled person, and it's going to be better in business. I really feel the way to have it all. And I mean the money you want, the job you want, the wife you want, the friends you want is to become at your own level. I'm not telling someone to jump, you know, crazy from nothing, but find out the next step in your growth. Find out how to celebrate Shabas. Find out some learning. There's so much learning that's possible. For guys in particular, if you can get a spot in your life to take off a year or two to learn Gamarra, life changer. There's nothing as sim as as one big thing that I've done in my life. I didn't really mention that, but I was able to take a sbatical um in my mid30s in a big like downturn in one company I was at and it was just a life-cher that you just view everything different. The appreciation you could have for being a Jew and many of us do. We love our Jewish identity. But when you see what that really means, when you know what it means to really open a Gamarra and learn that, the level of appreciation you have for who we are and what is we have been given from Hashem and history, it's unparalleled. So, I hope everyone could really take the time and grow that way. What separates the winners to the not such winners? >> Work really hard. >> Okay, >> to a degree, but like if you promise I'm going to get something done by Thursday morning, you get it done by Thursday morning. If you had to stay up all night Wednesday, so you promise the wrong time, but you do it. You really try to think gamova. Some people are really smart and work hard, but they don't make it. What can you do? That's, you know, Hashem's plan for them. There are broader things besides making money. Like I know some guys who are wealthy but have a problem with their wife. You know, you got to get the whole four or five things you really need. But as far as work, try really hard. If something doesn't work, get back up, do it again. Always be thinking of opportunity, thinking how to help the other guy. Help yourself. And just know things take time. It takes time. You don't get wealthy overnight. You don't get You might have to have four deals that go sour, but you learn so much through each of those deals. I was fired from one job and I was told that I did not bring thought leadership. That propelled me to always try to bring thought leadership that helped me get on the boards of num several companies. And what I did at that job that I was fired for was exactly what was needed at the next job that was the one that was sold for over a billion dollars. So just take it step at a time. You can learn from everything. Failures are very helpful. Yeah. One failure, but you can learn a ton from them. Don't be afraid. just get up and do it again and uh >> it's gonna work. >> So, my issue with what you're saying is I definitely tasted the fire part, but I just didn't get the billion dollars afterwards. You know what I mean? But okay, it sounds like really the takeaway is over here, meaning business advice from Jonathan Rand is number one, work hard. Yeah. If you're going to be sitting there watching movies and frying the brain, it ain't going to do it right. No, I'm saying when you were grinding in the early days, you weren't you were you were putting in the What does work hard mean? Just >> you want to deliver people that are around you and your bosses think this guy's good. I can rely on him. He does a good job. He's a mench. You do that every job. Sometimes I get calls six years, eight years later from people I work with to bring me back in because of those things. I got the job done. I I delivered what I was supposed to do good way. Thank God. I was a mench. I was never back, you know, stabbing people. I was helping people. So when you get a shame to a good name and you have a reputation for providing a good deliverable for whatever that is, it's going to work out. Really the four takeaways are work hard, recognize the gamulattova, which means don't get all down because something didn't work out. See variables, meaning realize how to look at different options. And fourth, number four was time. Sometimes your biggest failure will be your success. And I actually just heard that I have a friend that owns a company called Triple Whale, which is killing it today up in Columbus. >> And he told me, he said he had to learn. They actually just launched an entrepreneurship program for for for young students. And he made out the point. He's like, "It cost me a half a million dollars of investors money to figure out how to build triple whale." >> So, it's really it's like let the time and the experience become part of you and move forward. if you chose to listen to this program that you really have something amazing that you just have to cultivate it. that we are blessed to be Jews and Jews who don't know what that really means and don't go deeper into this unbelievable rich heritage we have that again it's not going to change you and make you all weird it's going to evolve you into a better more happy person who could deal with life's challenges and have deeper relationships more simka there's just I I just hope that you can feel from my heart because my words probably aren't as good as they should be but being born Jewish is such a gift but you have to grow it so please take those steps, go to the class, meet the rabbi, do a shabas, whatever it is, just grow. Find some parts of Judaism you can love already and just let it grow. You will become just a richer, deeper, more happy person. And uh I I I wish you a lot of success in that journey. >> Wow. Thank you so much, Jonathan, for sharing your time and your experiences here. And that's why this podcast is starting off as wealth over riches as we're going to hear from people that maybe made riches but value the wealth the beauty in their life so much more. Thank you Hijab Brute listeners for listening and thank you for to Brute for a beautiful platform.