Multitasking - on The Shabbat Show

[Music] hello everybody welcome to another episode of the shabbat show so sorry for our delay today we had a couple of technical issues that thank god we're able to work through and we are with you today we're with you now and we have an incredible show coming up too so stick with us thanks for being here and we look forward to spending the night together tonight we're going to be talking about something that is on the minds i believe of all of us especially now the world thank god is opening up as all of the restrictions start to roll back we are now getting back to life getting back to travel getting back to traffic i was in lakewood this afternoon my ways told me i'd be home in two hours over three hours later we got home it's traffic again it's going and coming managing life kids work we're back in this world of having to make everything balance what we're going to do tonight is up if you're coming in from the north from our partners and friends from canada you still have a couple more months from what we understand the lockdown but you still have this issue as well it's the issue of multitasking a lot of things demand our time how do we balance it all and we got to show all about that tonight this time is a commodity that we just can't get our hands on we look at some people that somehow figured out how to do so much and we look at them with disbelief how do you manage it all and that's the question we're going to ask to some people that are incredibly incredibly busy tonight so stick with us we've got a great show of course we've got kahoot tonight so please feel free to get ready to go get your kahoot app ready it's not we have a little bit of time for it i'm just getting you prepped for kahoot and of course we want to hear from you so feel free to give us a shout out on zoom or on my facebook page we'd love to reconnect to our community and and wish you a shabbat shalom okay let's get going our first guest is an incredible incredible individual dr daniel roth is with us he joined the new jersey retina in 2000 and 2000 he graduated from michigan university in new york city where he was valedictorian he received his md from the yale university school of medicine he's a clinical associate professor of ophthalmology at the university of medicine and dentistry of the new jersey rutgers robert wood johnson medical school he's on the medical staff of robert roy johnson university hospital new brunswick and the monmouth medical center southern campus in lakewood new jersey dr roth has been elected by his peers for inclusion in top doctors and best doctors of america and has received awards for his scientific achievement dr roth has published more than 80 papers in peer review literature as well as numerous articles textbook chapters and scientific abstract he's learned in prominent yeshivas in montreal new york new zealand and received his rabbinic coordination from the previous chief rabbi of montreal he has co-written two monumental books on jewish law and regards it if you're exhausted just listening to that he's living it dr roth thank you for joining us on the show charlie thank you for having me it is an honor to have you and we've known each other for a long time i didn't know you you did all of this you know you you come across so cool calm and collected i didn't understand the extent of what is pulling at your time uh constantly so let's just begin a little bit with this idea of pressure you're a doctor and doctors i think are unique in other other people have this as well but doctors have a unique pressure in the fact that they're dealing with people's lives with health so share with us a little bit about how you begin to manage your time to accomplish what you're doing with all of your responsibilities well it's interesting because going back even reflecting back in the past when i was a kid i always wanted to be a doctor from my youth maybe because i loved my community nutrition i liked the sciences and then when i got more into learning i wanted to be involved in learning and torah and it was a big dilemma i went to speak to a lot of rabbis at the end i decided to go professional into medicine but i always wanted to be involved in learning teaching on campus i was involved giving different classes and things when it came to medicine it's overwhelming you have to know so much i remember on one medical school interview they compared it to standing in front of a fire hydrant turning on the hose and saying okay swallow there's so much information being bombarded in you you really have to know it or at least as much as you can in order to make good decisions i guess i thrive on the idea of being kind of like a captain with people coming with problems and trying to figure it out using the intellectual and emotional connection with people in order to try and take care of them so there's a certain adrenaline intensity and you know sometimes especially these days it's not like in the old days where you just had a few patients you know and you had time to see them now it's all about volume there's a certain amount of pressure about seeing a lot of people i mean i'll see uh as many as 50 60 patients in a day wow a lot of patients and yet at the same time each one is in front of you and that's all that exists when you're there i guess time management is about at least for me is about being the moment at the moment and being completely at the moment and then compartmentalizing so that when you're in the next moment now you're in that moment so the base matters are trying to be completely there when i get to the office i'm completely not only with the 15 patients that are five few patients that are waiting but with that patient sitting in the chair so let's delve into this for a second because this is very wise advice that's very difficult right the idea that part of time management is allowing yourself to be fully invested in the things that you're doing so that you can be more successful at the things you're doing so you don't have to do them again or you don't have the issues that come with not being fully present where it is and it's an incredibly important point that i wanted i'm happy you brought up because i want to double click on it with you how do you do this meaning so many times in my life let me give you an example of my religious practice right there are many times in my life where i am praying i believe in god i believe in prayer i believe that prayer helps me get the thing that i have to do after prayer i believe that to my core and i know that if i pray properly what will happen in the afternoon will be different i believe that and yet even if i'm pumping myself up on the way into the synagogue and i stand before the creator of the universe somehow i i just thoughts and i gotta and i get pulled totally so what techniques do you use so that when you're standing in front of a patient you're not thinking i got 10 more i got to give a class i got oh my gosh my wife asked me to pick up what are you using to get your mind fully sort of enveloped in the moment so i would say that what allows the person or allows me at least to concentrate on the moment is there's a problem solving a person's questions it's something that's drawing all of my intention or brain power to address it and truthfully if i'm distracted on something even though i'm studying then i may lose the moment and i wish i couldn't say this but i have to i'll have to completely agree with you charlie i'm in the same situation when i go to daven and because i feel badly because sometimes i'm involved in a lot of good things but because i'm involved in good things and they may be mixed with maybe taking care of patients they may be you know taking care of my family maybe some important research project but to make sure that that doesn't jump into my head during dominating is hard because during prayer when you're standing in front of god praying it's it's really sometimes difficult to to be focused on the attention of what you're doing with the cognition that god is standing in front of you and you're talking to him right um sometimes taking even a few moments a few seconds of pause during prayer sometimes like i'll say a longer silent prayer the the silent amida that we stand when you say when we when we stay when we stand in synagogue and we say that prayer and true and i sometimes it takes me longer and i found songs feel guilty because like my son or somebody thinks oh he had a lot of intent because his prayer was longer sometimes because i was distracted and i'd say i need a few moments a few seconds to pause and get back into the focus of concentration to have a cognition that i'm standing and having conversation with god let me ask one more question because there's so much that i want to ask you about but i i really want to double click on this point as well that you had we had mentioned this in your bio earlier about this balance between you you you you're learning torah you were ordained rabbi you've written books that are torah books you know in life sometimes people think we have to make a choice and if you if you go into two different areas you can be a jack of all trades and a master of none you're spending time in the spiritual world the world of torah the world of of jewish knowledge and in the world of medical knowledge how do you find that balance how do you switch so to speak on and off if if those are switches even between spiritual pursuits and more i guess material or scientific pursuits so the one point is like we said before being in the moment when you're in that moment and the other is being willing to really be busy my day starts at 6am goes till midnight there's not a lot of down time now part of that 6am to 12 to midnight is spending quality time with my wife spending quality time with my children studying with my son you know trying to be together for dinner time dinner time different things but it's all scheduled my biggest problem is i don't really schedule enough exercise and because it's not scheduled it doesn't happen you gotta see a doctor you gotta have a doctor tell you that yeah seriously but i have to schedule because if i don't schedule it it just there's always 10 things that i don't get to so it's important to kind of make sure that you have an organized run through your day um but be honest with you sometimes in my life some periods of my life i couldn't do as much in the middle of medical school or training you know i definitely made it my business to study torah but sometimes i'd be on call for a 36 hour shift during residency and it'd still go and i'd study with my study partner at night but i'd be falling asleep but i still felt i'll go even though i'm falling asleep i want to be there because it's important to be there but at other times like now i changed my schedule where i took a bit of a cut and salary and i created more time to study torah in order to be able to accomplish more in those areas i also make choices i made choices to do a little less research even though i've done a lot more research and publications in the past i still am involved in it i still teach medical students presented in research meetings but not as much as i did or would have because that's a choice i made to do a little less of that and maybe a little more on the religious side that's a very good point by the way and how i want to i want to sort of make sure this is clear which is there are also times in one's life where they have to sort of go to one area or the other and so sometimes in life you find yourself in a situation where let's say work isn't as demanding use this as an opportunity to delve into other areas and sometimes in life work is more demanding don't worry there will be a time towards the future where you may have some more time and so not only is life right in front of us it's also dynamic into the future and so just to be open to changes of situations and schedules as a way to try to accomplish more in life than just down one path exactly amazing doctor thanks so much for joining us all that you do for shining your light on this world thank you for having me it's a pleasure great time thank you that was dr roth incredible incredible stuff and and really to be able to to take in all the things that he's been saying um especially being able to be focused in the moment this is a critical piece of time management wherever you are you don't have to be as busy as them wherever you are is where you are and the way you get there is your mind is trying to figure look you already said he's problem solving he's thinking about it right that concept of being fully invested by trying to um be be one with what's in in front of you just standing there is not going to work he's got to be here organizing and prioritizing so we're going to build into all these different ideas and these concepts throughout the show but i want to sort of take each piece as we meet each person uh our next here's i want to just play for everybody a promo for our next guest check this out it allows me to sleep at night when i ask myself have i done all that i could do for you as my clients we handle thousands of cases every year we have a dedicated staff of attorneys here everyone has one goal and that is to ensure that our clients are happy with the performance we put forward our goal is not simply to just charge you a fee make one appearance and be done with your case instead i'm looking to get the best result possible that often means going back to court numerous times people hire us to do the best and that's what you have to do every single time we're constantly improving just to make sure our clients are getting the most attention that their questions are being answered and that the case is being handled the right way we have literally hundreds of reviews of clients that have stood up to testify to our good work it's just the tremendous opportunity to help people when they've run out of answers it's very satisfying to know that i was able to really put the client in a much better position and hopefully help them in the long term helped thousands of clients and we stick to our guns standing by our work and just making sure that we do best by our clients our next guest is adam rosenblum he's the principal of rosemont law a legal practice with offices in both new york new jersey he frequently volunteers to mentor lawyers business owners and jewish organizations and is part of the jewish entrepreneur network he serves as the executive director of the center for jewish outreach which funds jewish programs at several university and has served as a certain staff over 15 jewish experience trips he teaches several torah classes each week primarily to alumni of his trips he's also served in the board of various jewish communal organizations over the past 12 years and is a volunteer ems dispatcher for salah clifton lawyer hatsala he's got his own non-profit as you can see busy i had a chance to catch up with him early this week check out this interview so you're an attorney you have a non-profit organization you are involved in hatsala which is a volunteer ambulance corps and probably many other things that you're involved in is that somewhat correct that is correct teaching birthright trips j inspire you know boards of various organizations so just like overarching how do you approach time management you know i have no problem telling the clients you know i'm here in the office till six o'clock that's business hours please contact me tomorrow or i will get back to you at 9 or 9 30 tomorrow um and i have people from the community that are texting me all the time hey i got a traffic ticket and my kid got in trouble uh hey can you help out with this that of the third and i say you know now i'm off this is off office hours i'd love to be able to help you but we're going to do that tomorrow and i think that a lot of times people have a hard time doing that so so what i'm hearing from you is that if you if you learn how to re-put the boundaries down right that we once had you'd be able to um in many ways accomplish different diverse things because you're not going to let everything bleed into everything else you'll actually pull put the boundaries on different aspects of your life you know you set that expectation at the beginning i'm very reachable during the day of course if there's an emergency you can text me or whatever the case may be or you can call the office and the answering service will pick up the call and that will be forwarded to myself but um you know outside of that i think for a lot of times people for some people like everything's an emergency you know i've got to reach you about this thing but i think probably 99 of the time it really isn't how do you advise is it business owners and entrepreneurs or whoever it is in terms of how to structure their business in order to help i guess get more done if i'm able to delegate and have other people that help me out with certain other things then that can free me up to do some of the passion projects right that we've talked about at the beginning of the interview and then systemization you know every business really can be systematized it really is the mantra and if a person gets to the point where things run as systems then things just become a lot more efficient and it's not just like oh what am i doing you know how do i do this oh i have to remember i have to reinvent the wheel every single time and uh you know that's something that can really help you know shabbat comes on saturday every week it's not like oh next week let's make shabbat on a tuesday instead of on a thursday no like it's like clockwork the holidays go according to a certain schedule and even though there definitely is room to color within those lines you know and maybe two or two families may do certain things on shabbat very differently but there are other things that are just part of the system and you just can't decide on your own oh i'm just going to decide to make shabbat on a tuesday this week because i feel like or you know passover falls at you know right at the same time as the football season or whatever thing and so i'm just going to do passover the week before we're going to get it done and next week i'll be free to you know attend the sports game or whatever but but here's one thing that i want to ask you about which is going to be people's blocks it's everyone's block which is when i give it to you to do you're not gonna do it as well as me like i know how to do this and i've been doing this for so long and that's why i can't do that because i'm doing this and if i give it to you to do you're not gonna do it as well as me because you don't know as much as me maybe you're a new intern maybe you're younger than me maybe you're a different family member than i am right you're not better or worse but i know how to do this thing so how do you coach people to be okay with a product that's not going to be as good as the person to have them recognize that but the time that they get is is more valuable yeah so i get that all the time and as certainly as the senior person the firm being the founder of the firm doing this for 15 years you know people calling me all the time this question that question whatever the case may be but yeah if i didn't delegate and i didn't have associates and assistant support staff people in different countries doing stuff for me you know clearly there are going to be deficiencies that come up but i think really a lot of that first and foremost boils down to ego i'm sorry to say maybe it's like a therapy thing you know person needs to because at the end of the day to think that you are indispensable irreplaceable you're the best you're the smartest nobody can do it as well as you i think to some degree that might be an ego problem that's number one and once a person gets over that and realize well maybe that's actually not true maybe i just hired a person that's actually smarter than me quicker than me and can do something even better than me and i want to tell you something there are people in this office that have a better conversion rate than me on the phone people call up when we do that you know we do the pitch and whatever and i think i'm a great salesman i spend a lot of time i've spent a lot of time honing that craft but there are definitely attorneys in this office that do it better than me and when i brought them in they didn't know anything and i trained them from scratch and we had meetings and trainings and all these types of things so i think a lot of that is learning to put your own ego aside and then the second piece of it is what i call you know sometimes good enough is just good enough and i think for some people that are perfectionists it's much more difficult for them to be able to get over that but if you're not a perfectionist which i think is probably a good percentage of people then it's really just about trying to make peace with the fact that you know maybe maybe it's not going to be exactly perfect you know maybe there will be a mess up or something like that but most of the time it's not going to be catastrophic and not only that a lot of times the other people won't even know you know you may be a bit bigger critic the biggest critic of your people's work than anybody else is going to come into contact with them i feel this is not only important for people that are involved in business it's also people involved in their personal lives you know sometimes there are people in our personal lives that are not delivering the results that we like not because they don't want to be helpful because they don't know what to do and many times we have we're too busy to train people and to teach people and so we think it's because we're too busy but we don't realize that the time you spend investing in someone else will ultimately pay back dividends in the future yeah i agree with that completely and i also want to add that i think a lot of that also is trying to give people the confidence if they don't have it already that they can be independent and they can do it i mean think about parenting right it's almost like the parent that's sitting there helicoptering over the kid oh no no you call her this way or oh you do the assignment that way but we don't want that ultimately we want our kids to be able to be independent so we provide them the training we send them to school we role model we show them what it means to be a good person to be a jew but really what we want is we want them to be independent and so i think that that's really what it's like here you do good training and ongoing training and you your doors our doors are always open for questions etc but ultimately we want people who can swim once we teach them how to swim they can swim on their own and then we just give them the invest in them at the front end which is what you're talking about but ultimately if we've done a good enough job hiring screening hiring training and ultimately these are people that are going to be able to work independently and we're not going to have to babysit them we're not going to have to helicopter them which i think is also a big problem in the work in the workforce it's really again the ego that perfectionism i gotta you know look at every single thing this person is doing not not a single shred of paper is gonna go out of this office without my review and my okay and my initials i think that that's that's crazy i mean why hire people if you're gonna micromanage them you know it makes no sense so that was really important stuff as we build this this uh list if you will of ideas that i want all of us to walk away to the end of tonight of tips for how to be better at managing time time is something that either controls us or that we will control and we the beginning we began to discuss of being in what adam brought in in many other and including many other points was this idea of delegating but when you delegate something to other people you have to train them you have to build them you have to give them confidence i'll just do it myself now you don't control your time when you do everything yourself that concept in our lives in our business and in our personal lives things that we're doing that other people can be doing with us if we just give them the opportunity to help us saving us the time tonight we're gonna continue doing our shabbat shalom so please feel free to reach out both on zoom and on my facebook page let me just read a couple before we get to the next piece here uh andrew weinberg from new jersey shabbat shalom devore millman from boston shabbat shalom to bed zuckerbrow from smithtown shabbat shalom debbie lao for massachusetts jerusalem janet michael from calgary canada look how far in the country we've been going right now and to rita rubin from upstate we'll get to zoom next i want to share with you this incredible video we found from h.com on learning how to juggle check this out [Music] interesting concept no if you've watched that video i hope that you get if you want goodies.com to watch it if you watch that video it's interesting how in life if we don't focus on certain things then we're out of whack time management isn't just doing anything i want in a certain way it's also choosing what it is that i'm doing it's being mindful of the choices that i make to make sure that i feel from the inside that i'm balanced unfortunately tonight because of some of our tech issues we're not gonna be able to go to kahoot so we apologize for my kahoot enthusiasts and we will most definitely play kahoot again in the future i want to get to our next guest and it is a guest that i am looking forward to i got to tell you personally i remember when this our next guest was appointed to part of the the previous administration i remember watching the appointment and just being so proud to be part of the same nation our next guest is mr mitchell silk he is the immediate past assistant secretary for international markets in the u.s department of the treasury department which is a presidentially appointed and senate confirmed position i remember watching the confirmation i remember following the confirmation in that role he has designed and implemented the signature u.s whole of government infrastructure finance initiatives to assist foreign partners attract private investors private investment for infrastructure he was a senior member in the u.s negotiating team in the china trade talks and also led initiatives in financial regulation innovation expert credits and developmental finance moishe as he's known at home was a central member of the treasury's emergency response team to address the economic shock from kovid when you saw what's going on in the government well guess who was on the inside working on it it's our next guest he worked tirelessly to save hundreds of thousands of aviation jobs help support the recovery of the american economy and prior to that mitch served on the americans on the americas and asia senior leadership team of allen and ovaries premier global project finance practice and built the firm's u.s china practice and u.s private investment fund practice when she lives in borough park and along with his wife's wife is the proud parent of eight children he's been active in jewish communal matters for decades while living in hong kong from 1992 to 2005 he served as chairman of the jewish burial society he's also chairman of the goodies israel of america's pro-bone legal services program a nationwide network of over 400 lawyers he will be he will be publishing the first complete english translation of the caduceus levy a classic hasidic commentary on the bible later this year with arts grow check out this video on mitchell silk [Music] hey and welcome to the show it's an honor to have you on hi charlie it's great to have it i got to tell you just before i begin asking questions i just got to tell you how much i enjoyed your confirmation i watched it closely as they say in yiddish and i felt like you were like representing all of us and so thank you for who you are and what you did and all the work that nobody knows that you did during this whole culvert crisis well it's it's so kind of you and i'm i'm glad you enjoyed it um i don't remember much of it other than the fact that i was fixing quite a bit well we were we were cheering for you from all over the world thank you so much it's so great to be here and it's so great to finally meet you i i similarly and reciprocally follow you as well oh thank you i'm honored by that you know you're a partner at a global elite law practice with over 2 500 lawyers who did multi-billion dollar transactions with teams in five or more countries you're on the u.s most senior financial diplomats task with further u.s financial growth and stability issues with senior foreign government counterparts and international organizations and also had the responsibility of implementing 94 billion dollars in care act relief for the u.s airline industry impacting about 700 000 jobs and you're writing five books and you have eight children all right so tell us a little bit about either how many are you out there or how in the world do you get this hold on um well you know there there are two answers to that question um if you ask me um there's only one of me um those around me um given my schizophrenia and and other issues that i suffer uh tend to think that there's more than one of me and i think the answer to that is going to stay between myself and my therapist and that's that's a little bit of a joke to get us rolling but um it's a great question and um i really want to echo uh a number of the points that um dr roth and adam made already on prioritization and on delegation and i thought i would just run through a couple of points on relating to those issues and just relating on on how we manage um with reference to the teaching of our teachings of our sages um i mean at the end of the day this is not a new issue if you take a look at on the ethics of our fathers which was written many years ago long before our time there was a rabbi called rabbi tarfun who was uh spoke about this issue when he lived over 2000 years ago um when he said that the day is short and the task is abundant um so it's really not not a new issue at all and the way that i have found um best to approach the challenges of multiple uh pressured tasks and priorities at one time is to focus on three things prioritization we've heard about that already um putting yourself in a good environment and surrounding yourself with good people um and thirdly um remembering that the sky is the limit remembering that that we we have a purpose and it's really uh the push of remembering for me that i have a purpose um is what keeps me going a lot of the time um on the on the point of prioritization you know i have a i have a daily practice um to take stock of matters um and again the ethics of our fathers um it's it's a great title i recommend it to everybody that's watching um tells us that the learned person takes first things first and last things last um so what i do at the beginning of every day um is i make my my list of priorities for the day and i work through them and i constantly find that i have to um to regroup um during the day in order to ensure that i'm staying on task um and uh that i'm keeping up with my priorities my second point of surrounding oneself with with good person with good people and um and putting oneself in a good environment two different aspects of the same issue um each with their own dimensions but there cannot be enough said on about being a good and a nurturing leader um and one that has the trust and security so that one can delegate and so i am so with what adam said and all of his views um without that we we just simply cannot make it um and and the other dimension of that is to surround oneself with good and smart people king solomon walk with the wise and you'll be wise i would not have been able to achieve half or a quarter of what i have done and what you referred to without my team and i and i think back to the time when we were managing uh the crisis within treasury and you know i just want to throw a couple of numbers um at you and at the listeners because it was it was crazy on the pandemic hit in the middle of march complete disruption to the global economy march 27th after 10 days a very very intensive non-stop literally no sleep negotiation on the hill the secretary secretary mnuchin settled the terms of the cares act and on march 27 2020 um the president signed the bill into law on a little side point on the 10-day issue my secretary went up to the hill and he negotiated and he brought down the law in 10 days took moses 40 days okay lahav deal without without making a comparison but that act the cares act required the secretary of the treasury to do a bunch of things and one of the things that it required him to do was to get 78 billion dollars out the door under very pressured circumstances we had five days to publish rules we had 10 days to get the first dollar out the door um and i literally i literally did not sleep and so to to put these points of prioritization and delegation into action um we we sat down before we started and we slowed down in order to speed up and we went through a whole prioritization exercise it was a very accelerated prioritization exercise in order to set into place our infrastructure and all of the principles that we would use to guide the programming because the programming the infrastructure the people did not exist and so i i just can't emphasize enough how important prioritization is surrounding oneself with good people from top to bottom the secretary the senior leadership of treasury was extraordinary i and those that worked with me and under me would not have made it without such great leadership including that of my my under secretary and great friend brent mcintosh but it's really the people that were working with me in my office and under me um i had a counselor dan katz i had an executive assistant talia rubin who were my front office and we had a legion of extraordinarily dedicated career officials who really pushed through and got us to the end bottom line we were able to um address the needs of 700 000 workers um the final point that i'd like to make charlie is that i'm on purpose i think one thing that keeps me going is a little mantra that i have which is the sky is the limit and what i mean by that is that we that live as orthodox jews we we have a force above us that dictates a bunch of rules and strictures and customs that we we follow uh and that guide us in our daily life and if we if we follow those rules in the right way we are pursuing a loftier and a larger purpose when i walked into treasury every day of the week i was noticeably jewish i wear a black hat i wear the suit black suit white shirt every day of the week i have other attire that identifies me as jewish you and your listeners will identify identify me by my mannerisms and by my language as jewish and i knew that every day of the week every moment every decision every action meant a reflection in one direction or another direction it meant that i was either sanctifying divinity or i was doing something indifferent and so that was an extraordinary push point i i i finally just come to a a great motivator um which i think really gets to your your point of how we deal with time management and i want to do that by referring to a wonderful lady that i never knew but who was the mother of the rabbi in hong kong you mentioned that i lived there for 13 years so rabbi moored kaiopsin has been in hong kong for over 30 years his mother woman kiana came to america from russia she spoke a little bit of english but with a very heavy accent she had 15 children she ran the school kitchen in detroit and she had five other communal jobs and she used to say two things that i think are wholly relevant to this discussion one first thing she said was if you want to get something done go to the busiest guy in town and secondly in response to people who marveled at how she was able to pull it together do all of her communal work run the school and its kitchen and keep a household of 15 children she would and asked her how she could do it she would respond very simply in russia they didn't teach us division they only taught us multiplication i love it i love it it is such great point i mean really so much to digest i'd like to if we can just the few minutes we have to delve on one of them they're all worthy of an hour long showing to themselves but there is one that i really feel that i i i'd like to to to to explore with you just for just for a minute or two um it's the idea that you're sanctifying god in your work because you're not a rabbi you didn't walk into the white house as the clergy that walked over to the secretary and said may god be with you you know good luck in god's speed you were um your your work was so to speak on the surface secular and yet it was nothing secular about it at all because it was based on your purpose and i'd like you to explore a little bit about how individuals that are non-rabbinic that are not clergy that don't are not engaged in prayer or talmud study or any study can feel the purpose because what you said was a million percent sure when you feel like you're acting with purpose you feel like you have an energy source that is deeper than than you know your own how does one maintain that that whatever i do i i'm sanctifying if you will god's name it's a tough one to answer charlie um because of the simplicity in which i i view the issue um i don't compartmentalize myself um and uh i just look at myself as a person who's here to do a job um and that job has a ton of different dimensions but it's all driven by the same purpose um we've got a we've got a tradition that tradition has been extended for over 5000 years and there's a lot of it that are set out in there a lot of it that's set out in books and there's a ton of it that we get through our what is called messiah our traditions and and that is simply what pushes me forward i don't feel that i need to be a rabbi i don't feel that i need to be a torah scholar i don't feel that anybody needs to be that in order to to fulfill that's such a divine and such a fundamental mission um that we all have and you know i didn't make this up maimonides spoke at great length about it um and he probably put it in far better terms than i do but it's an innate feeling that i have and i'm sure that it is an innate feeling that everybody else on this show and others have in the world to greater or lesser degrees and it might be that we we just need to to ponder it a little bit you know um maybe maybe that's the way to get at it uh through a little bit of contemplation um maybe the good doctor's remedy of doing a little bit of exercise maybe a little bit of yoga will help it's very hard for me to say because you know different folks you know different strokes but i i just feel that it's a fundamental innate driver that we all have and maybe it's just a question of folks refining uh their views on that issue i think that's right i think that's exactly right i think even the pondering and the contemplation that what i am doing whether it's in the home or at my job or wherever i am what i am doing is is work worthy of purpose and i think once we we connected to that i think it takes the next level i want to just thank you so much for joining us i know you're so busy thank you so much for joining us on the show and we hope to get you back again and i mean we can probably talk for for for hours and thank you for what you do and and for representing us everywhere that you go and for shining your light on this world well charlie thank you and and my immense thanks to project inspire for everything that they do and i'm i'm very happy and willing to to be on again if you guys will have me thank you again thank you so much what an incredible perspective for us to take with us um just all the pieces that he was able to bring out is so critical for us and especially when it comes to the prioritization the team that you build around you the purpose sky's the limit these are all nuggets that each and every one of us should go with our final guest is susan strauss she's a businesswoman from susan strauss design she's a well it this which is a well-established leading full-service design firm creating elegant one-of-a-kind spaces founded by susan the firm has been creating luxury living environments for clients of the most discerning tastes for over a decade working in several avenues susan strauss design firm has been valued has been a value team member for numerous restaurants corporate offices condominiums master plan community senior care facilities retail stores and residential homes she resides in lakewood new jersey with her husband and five children susan welcome to the show you hear us we got you i think yes i'm on now okay wonderful welcome to the show hi how are you so tell us a little bit about you how you got into interior design and all the incredible projects that you're working on all right i have a bad connection here give me one second all right give me one second as susan gets back on i just want to review a little bit of what we just did a second ago um we'll get susan back on in one second but i really want to just double click on the last point that mitchell made that at least residential with me and before we do that hold on a second i got shabbat shalom god runs this world as susan gets back on i want to wish a shabbat you're on yes sorry about that not at all so talk to us a little bit about how you got into interior design and some of these things that you work on okay so i got into interior design um it's a passion i had always as a little kid um they you know and then i i'm originally from australia i moved here to the states i got married here um and you know i found a job and then slowly kind of led that led to my job led to a small interior design job and then it kind of like flourished from there um and the projects i work on is anything that starts from like a small home renovation to a large apartment building office buildings whatever whatever comes out um it's you know it's it's a busy career and something i'm very proud of so you know it's amazing because i have a little bit of experience in the real estate world and i know that when it comes to these things everything is deadlines every someone needs something and i'm sure many of your clients aren't like yeah get to it whenever like you know no problem i'm sure it's like let's go i need something immediately deadlines like crazy yeah it's like everybody comes in and and needs it yesterday they only remember that they needed today and it needs to be done yesterday right a lot of the stress stress of the job so so how do you how do you manage it you think i have a family of five and i can almost imagine these projects and thinking in my head exactly right everybody needs everything done perfectly yesterday that's right yeah what are some of the techniques that you use to manage all of your time so a lot of it is kind of there's there's the time management and it's the communication so we start by communicating and explaining how long the process takes and and and kind of not creating expectations that are impossible if i promise something i want to deliver and i want to deliver it well and on time um and what we do is within the company i'll sit down with my team we'll discuss exactly what needs to be done review how much time needs to it needs you know kind of for the for this for that specific project and then i'll make the commitment to the client and my number one rule is we meet that commitment um and if for some crazy real reason it's impossible for us to meet it i'll make sure to let them know in advance and let them know we might need an extra day or so um one second i want to double click on that because this is an important you made it a very important point that i want to make sure everyone hears we live in a world where everyone likes to say yes you got it it'll be done yesterday and when you say to a client i'll take your business and i know it's important to you and i'm going to charge you for it and oh and by the way you can't have it yesterday i'm going to set a date that's real which will probably be later than you want so help us navigate that because that's critical setting expectations that will almost always disappoint the person in front of you that wants it in less time because you know that if you don't set expectations then the the the lack of realism so to speak will will get in the way how do you navigate around almost if you will saying no to people so the answer is making it pretending something and making someone happy that is not realistic is a short short-term solution um i look at building long-term relationships and having building people's trust and faith in myself and my company um and that goes on on a personal level as well with my kids my family if i'm going to say if i say i'm going to be there i want to do everything in my power to be there and as soon as i start slacking on that you lose faith in the people around you so i'd rather tell them that if they trust me i'll get it there get it done when i say i'm going to get it done rather than pretending i'm going to get it done when they want it done and they're not pulling through that's a great point that's an excellent point i think people myself included all of us we like the feeling of always saying yes to everybody whenever we need it right don't remember that that little bit of disappointment on the front end will then play off and will pay dividends in the back end that's right let me ask you a question you're in the creative arena right what you're doing really is is your your value if you will is creativity now i know for myself that when you get a million things to do the last thing you want to be is creative because you just got to get stuff done so how do you balance not only getting through your day but how do you balance maintaining the creative edge as you have all those deadlines so i think that a lot of people look at me as the creative designer so people that have that creative mind are a little bit spazzed and not necessarily organized and on top of their game um it's something i worked on and it's important to me because i feel like running a business and running and being able to balance family life and business is there's nothing more important than being able to balance and and creating time and space for everything so it's you know it's it's it's hiring the right people getting the right help kind of allocating the right things to the right people and and ultimately getting the job done when you need to get it done yeah that's i think that's a that's a critical piece to this which is like you said earlier which is when you allow other people into your life it allows you the space um to to get it done and allows you to be who you're supposed to be in the moment where you're supposed where you're supposed to be correct i'm a very big believer i can't do everything myself it's impossible and i know what i'm good at and where my strengths are and i know where my strengths are not i know that there's plenty of people out there in the world that can pull through and kind of chip in in the areas that i'm kind of not as savvy or good at let them do those things and then i'll kind of focus on the things that i know i am good at so even within my office if there's certain programs and tasks that need to get done that i know i have a team member that is going to be a lot better and faster and more efficient than i'm than i am then it makes no sense for me to be sitting there and trying to get it done diligently um if i could be putting myself and my time and my effort somewhere else where i'd be much more effective so it's all about delegate delegating um making sure that we're managing the time and being the most efficient that i could possibly be in in you know every situation amazing susan thank you so much for joining us an incredible uh it's nice to meet you and really uh the ability to do all of this while building a business is much harder than people even realize and staying creative at the same time uh anything before you go one any techniques that you have for the balancing family in life any techniques that you have for how when you're engaged in family time you leave the business in the business so um like i said before that i i think a very big role in having my family on board with me running a large firm like i do um is communication so if i'll be you know kind of coming home late one day or having a super busy day my kids know what my husband knows about it of course but my kids will know about it they'll know that mommy's coming home late today and they feel like they're part of my life like i'll tell them i'll say okay today i'll be home approximately at six o'clock or i'd say whatever time it is they'll know about it and i'll say you can call me when you cut when you come home because i want to be talking to you i feel like the communication that i have with them allows them to kind of be part of my life when i'm within the business within the business world and they feel that mommy still cares and as much as i'm at work i still want to be with them and i feel like they don't resent it and don't and they're proud of it so as long as i communicate and and you know let everybody know exactly where i am where i'm at and you know kind of do things responsibly the balance works out very well and another big part of it is is that when i i work i'm fully at work but when i'm home i'm fully at home and when we sit down at the supper table with my husband and my kids we're all there my phone's not with me i'm focused i put all my energy towards the kids and and they know i'm i'm all theirs so i feel like if i'd be pretending to balance both at the same time i wouldn't be achieving it i wouldn't in either direction yeah or um in order to be doing best at where i'm at at that current moment i need to be focused on what i'm focusing right then and there it's amazing it's just an interesting and important point to even if you're not where you even if you're not with them the communication the knowledge of where you are and where you want to be allows them to be part of your world even if they're not actively physically with you that's an important piece of people don't understand that as you include your loved ones in your life more they feel like they're in your life more even though they're not physically with you exactly yeah and they're proud and they want to you know they want to know what's going on yeah and i think it's the only way to kind of have a healthy balance of both and have them be proud of of of what i do other than being uh being in in the family life amazing susan thank you so much for joining us in this world and thank you project inspire for the invite thank you so much what an incredible perspective that we get we just got just now so many pieces and if you hear some of the important themes that keep on coming back the ability to delegate the ability to trust people but this this is an important piece that i want to add that susan added amongst her other great pieces is the idea that you can the communication with other people brings them in your life even if they're not physically with you incredible before we wrap up i want to switch a couple of shabbat shaloms to our uh our our our loving participants to the silvers in highland park shabbat shalom tyler to the the bolton and magoon family to michael from saint louis shabbat shalom to ricky from montreal canada shabbat shalom to mark and michelle mandelman shabbat shalom to you guys shabbat shalom to our our friends the mfam from toronto shabbat shalom to the yaakov's new york city shabbat shalom to mike from st louis and everybody who's tuning in today thank you so much for joining us and really this is what shabbat's all about isn't it it's about understanding time understand what shabbat is all about what god did was he sanctified time it's all think about that where else do you have the sanctification of time usually time usually property is sanctified a temple usually objects are sanctified people are sanctified but the i think i saw this in heschel once what god gave the world through shabbat was he added a new dimension of sanctification he sanctified time now you walk into friday and as it changes into shabbat something happens it's an amazing concept time gets sanctified you can't put your hands on it but it's different because god's teaching us time doesn't control you you can sanctify time which means that you can control it you can have a if you will an ownership if you will over it you can't stop it you can't you can't guarantee how much of it you got but you have the ability to shape it to form it to stretch it and to infuse me in it that's what shabbat teaches us we go into shabbat reminds us that wait a second i have a lot more control over my time than i think and if i approach it the way these people that are if you notice something interesting what we just did each person was so thoughtful they weren't like i don't know just happens it doesn't just happen how i'm present how i communicate how i prioritize how i delegate how i train how i feel the purpose of what i'm doing each person from tonight's show was thoughtful about their time understood that they had to insert themselves if you will on their time and that gave them the clarity to how to do it for their lives there's no one answer for how to multitask or how to manage your time the answer is to be involved to be thoughtful and some of these nuggets tonight if we just run with them it may take us 10 20 30 more effective which can do so much for our lives so this shabbat as we think about what god did for us when he sanctified time let's ask ourselves what can we do to sanctify time what can we do to infuse our time with more purpose to be more thoughtful of how we use our time to be more thoughtful and what we want to accomplish and how our time adapts to that each of us each week can get a little bit wiser a little bit more efficient and accomplish a little bit more of our purpose in this world sorry again for the technical difficulties tonight but thanks for sticking with us to the end and on behalf of me and mine to you and yours i wish you a shabbat shalom i hope the next week we'd see each other in jerusalem but if not hope to see you here so we have all of us here at project inspire we wish you a incredible weekend a good shabbos and of course shabbat shalom [Music] pick you [Music] you're up [Music] is [Music] you