How Laughing at These Money Mistakes Made Me Rich with Naftali Horowitz / Let Talk Business Podcast

just because you know the guy personally doesn't mean you should trust him with your money welcome to the let's talk business podcast a project of the PEX group gain valuable actionable ideas from the world's top Business Leaders to help you take the next step in your business journey and now here is your host Manny Hoffman coming to you from the PX headquarters in Brooklyn New York this is the podcast for No Nonsense advice to help you learn grow and lead today I'm so excited to welcome back my good friend and past guests of the Le business podcast naftuli harwitz Nafi harwitz is a managing director and financial adviser at JP Morgan and author of the best selling book you revealed as a managing director of the nation's largest Investment Bank nauli has learned a lot about the nature of success he's also a man with a mission to help guide Jews to a greater understanding of themselves their challenges and their hidden potential both in face-to-face meetings and in popular lectures across the world in our interview we discussed many many important topics first we speak about the important not to sell yourself without bashing your competition as you work for your business understanding bring real value to your business instead of bashing the competition number two we discuss how a person really knows what their full potential is and knowing that you are on the right track it's so important to understand your full potential and being on the right track we also discuss finding and achieving true fulfillment life every person needs to feel fulfilled and how you could find true fulfillment and last and most important the importance of gratitude for your happiness this and so much more only on the L business podcast let's get right to our conversation with naft [Music] harwitz reali Hartz thank you so much for joining me on the let business podcast my pleasure Manny so not a lot of people that were a guest on the show come back on the show I think it's the second time we're doing that um and this is uh strictly straight up from the requests from people that are listening to the show regularly said you know what I think there's you had him on so so long ago that it's time to bring him back because so many things change in society and stuff like that and and people are more healthier for knowledge and so on and so forth so thank you so much for making the time in your busy schedule my pleasure so I want to start first obviously your background is is is a you know wealth management and and we we're living now in a little bit of a downturn market in general and yes we had some bumps in the roads and the the you know the the econom is always a cycle we had a lot of people that had a lot of money and unfortunately they finding themselves that they don't have the money that that they had in the past we have people living paycheck to paycheck what is stuff that you would say to your neighbor's kid that's starting off and having his first job and maybe making a little bit more than he needs to live what would be the dos and don'ts for somebody when it comes to managing their the money that the income so we are we are living in a little bit of a downturn for some people for some people it's a a big upturn in my business this is a we have a fantastic market right now you know there's a little a little bit of a disconnect between the stock market performance and what the average person is experiencing especially at the cash register um and then there are areas like real estate and other areas that are interest rate driven um that are really suffering right now so you know as what I say to young people is Soak this all up because this is normal um Cycles are normal and you know just like in the stock market when the market goes down it's hard to imagine that it'll ever go up and when it goes up it's hard to imagine it'll ever go down the same is true with earnings um people you know people project into the future that whatever is happening today whether that's bad things will never get better and they kind of lose hope and then people that are doing very well as they did the last three or four years just think that the good times will continue to roll and then they find themselves in a downward cycle and they are in debt they they haven't accumulated any wealth whatsoever many people are coming to me today who were making million dollars or more over the last five years and now they are literally earning nothing because they were in real estate or other things like that and surprisingly they haven't saved any money they don't have a year or two's worth of money saved up to get them through this period so the answer is Cycles are part of they're part of life the economy is is is a little bit of a roller coaster and I've learned that even when it's down it will come back up and when it's up it will come back down so we need to really think about that and be very very humble in spending money that we don't need to even when things are good and then the second thing is is that it's very difficult to go backwards once you inflate your standard of living once you accelerate your spending once you get used to certain things it's very very hard to go back and I always tell people even if you think things are going to continue and even if there's a reasonable belief that they will just realize that if you ever had to downscale if you ever had to pull back on your spending the the shame and the pain of having to pull back is going to far outweigh the pleasure that you may be getting for this quick moment when you upgrade so people that are taking car leases people that are buying homes and mortgages is and but overextending themselves people that are buying things that they don't absolutely need especially ones that are going to have ongoing maintenance costs you really want to think about what happens if God forbid things turn back what happens if I need to unload this asset what if this what the bank takes away this asset what's if my car gets repossessed um you know cuz there's no guarantee that you're not going to have to go backwards so it's best to be very hesitant before you go forward and accelerate your spending what would be a healthy balance so obviously um people always you know on the flip side of this what you just said they say if I'm making money I want to enjoy life I want to use it to things that give bring me pleasure and enjoyment so what is a healthy balance on that so you have to be realistic with yourself I mean look in a lot of people say this to me I have a relative who made a few dollars two years ago pulled up here in a car that cost $1400 to lease and I said to him whatat are you doing with this car and he goes I want to enjoy life I want to enjoy life so yeah you want to enjoy life I understand that but you know you have to realize that enjoying life today unless you are wealthy is going to mean enjoying life less at some point in the future so there's always two sides to the coin what will give you more enjoyment the three years that you have this car and probably the thrill of it wearing off after three or four months and then it's just another car or turning around 25 30 years from now and having potentially a million dollars in an IRA or an account that you wouldn't have had otherwise and all the while knowing that you did the right and disciplined thing so I think people have to refine their taste for where they receive their enjoyment and what's the definition of enjoyment when you're a child in ice cream con is enjoyable when you get a little bit older maybe it's a PA roller blades and then when you get married and you start becoming responsible fiscally responsible and responsible to your children and your future I think you have to uh sort of refine your taste for enjoyment so I tell people I enjoy buying assets I enjoy watching my assets grow I enjoy doing responsible things for my with my money I enjoy giving charity I found that the shallowness of that that quick enjoyment of everybody turning their heads when I drive down the street because I'm the first one to have a certain car and then three months later everybody has the same car I kind of find that childish at this point and again you want to enjoy life pick your enjoyment there are really really good ways to enjoy life that are far more responsible than blowing all the money you earn but that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy life to some degree again you have to have a list of priorities priorities one is you better be putting money away you better have enough money put away each year so that one day you don't wake up at 65 or 70 and say oh no how am I going to retire so you better start thinking about retirement the day you go out to work because that's that's the right way to do it playing catchup late is going to be very very difficult so after you've done everything that's responsible now you have choices you want to go out enjoy yourself you want to spend $25 $30,000 on a vacation that's your choice if you want to save it up so you can invest in a piece of real estate at some point that's your choice I prefer the latter but if somebody wants to do the former that's up to them as long as they did everything that was responsible up until that point so this is very valuable and it's also very important and true because you know you could do way more things when you saved up money because now you have the money to spend then you you know you spent it all out and now you don't have choices because it's gone correct I guess I I want to go a little bit deeper in this and and maybe you could advise because a lot of our listeners are living paycheck to paycheck now in inflation and I've spoken to many many many people when we speak about financial goals in life and savings and profit first model and stuff like that it says I'll gladly do it you know but if I make my calculation on a spreadsheet I just don't have anything left you know I I at one point I sat with a couple coup of young guys and I actually created the spreadsheet and then people started asking me for that spreadsheet and I actually put it up on a website for our listeners www.pg.com budget which is this blank Excel file to just plug in the numbers see where you start off with and you know what the responses most of the responses were it's not adding up the inflation is so high in cost of living in tuition is not adding up what are you telling for somebody like that so I don't generally work with people like like that um through the work I do with living smarter Jewish we have counselors that do that you know but in my years with msila and now with living smarter Jewish you know the first thing is we have to figure out where your money's going how much money you're earning and where your money's going there are people who are literally not spending extra money they're living paycheck to paycheck but they're living paycheck to paycheck responsibly not the living paycheck the peg check with two car leases and vacation once or twice a year and eating once a week or twice a week if if you're if you're that kind of person then of course you're living paycheck to paycheck but you don't need to be living paycheck for paycheck so if you're a person who doesn't eat out doesn't take vacations doesn't have two car leases and you're still living paycheck to paycheck well there's only one solution you have to gain more skills and improve that paycheck and that comes to a conversation about what's your career what are you doing what what's the upside in this career I mean really realistically as your family grows and as expenses grow how are you going to continue to outpace inflation and the cost of living that's going to go up plus safer retirement the time to do that is when you're younger when you're more malleable when you can learn new skills when you can change careers you know when people come to me in their 40s and 50s and they've kind of you know hit a ceiling there's not that much I can do for them because the time to change was many many years ago so again you have to think forward people take jobs and they hope for raises they have children but they don't actually plan that one day there's no way in the world this job is going to provide me with the with the level of increases that I'm going to need to continue to spend what I spend plus inflation plus all the other expenses that come on later in life so you know sometimes it's comfortable to take a a salary job because you know you're getting your paycheck at the end of the month but there again the comfort of today May me much may lead to much greater discomfort in the future what I will just add to it and this is um this is very helpful but a lot of people they they asked me like why should I even create a budget why should I even understand where my expenses go and it doesn't add up I always tell them let me ask you a question I tell them like if if you make the the calculation and you see you offered $7,000 a year now now you know I could what could I do in my my job what could I do what could I add value to not go to your boss ask for raise because your cost of living is $7,000 more think for a moment and say what type of task could I also take over and bring more value and now you know where the Gap is it's important because if you don't know the Gap you're you're just uh you know on a cycle all year long and you're just not catching up so the the worst thing for a person in that situation is not to know because not knowing leads to Despair and despair leads to Reckless you if somebody knows that they're they're a mess they're a total mess there's no hope here anyway so what's the difference it's like somebody who hasn't cleaned up their house in six years their house reeks it's disgusting and they're eating a banana of course they're going to throw the banana peels on the floor what difference does it make right and that's the way people think about expenses they're like oh it's another $500 what's another swipe of the credit card my my life is a disaster anyway but once somebody shows them that once there's a name to the problem there's a number to the problem okay so we know what it is now we can stop planning now now you don't want that number to get bigger right let's think how we can chip away and once you start chipping away that problem you're even more even more motivated not to make the problem worse so when I was in msila we we found that awarness of the problem and the number was a great motivator for people it's just an excuse Manny people are looking for excuses not to be disciplined and you know they'll find every excuse in the world and hopelessness and I'm a lost case anyway and never add up and what's the point and my life's a disaster is the best excuse to do absolutely nothing got it let me ask you um a a topic which is a little bit could be it's a little controversial or it's not a topic that's discussed enough so let's say let's on the flip side a person is earning a nice money he's making money and now it's sitting in the bank he wants to do something MH and I know we have you know I've passed on some some leads to you in terms of obviously um there's a threshold for that but I think you passed it on to other people that could work alongside it for when it comes to investment and we've seen way too many Investments that are are gone let me use the word Ponzi scheme or just not not you know maybe the facts weren't weren't as straight I want you to share a little bit about obviously you know a lot about this space what one of the things when somebody wants to invest walk us through the thought process of a passive investor aggressive investor more you know a little bit on the on give it a little bit of knowledge on that space because I think it's so important and we see so many horror stories when it's too late in the process right all right so the horror stories come to me all the time they're they're just very disheartening um you always think that this will be the last higher story and that everybody will learn their lesson but unfortunately that's not the case so there's two two there's two things that lead to hor Stories the nicer one is ignorance okay just plain ignorance I don't know what I'm doing I trusted this person I gave them my money and they turned out to be a fraud or they turned out to be taking risk that I never thought of so the first thing I say to that is you you cannot be ignorant if you're giving somebody your money you cannot be ignorant you have to know exactly what this person's doing you have to understand the risks and if you can't do that don't invest and find somebody that's smart and intelligent and eligible to either walk you through that investment or give you something that you can understand I'm a big big uh proponent of Warren Buffett I follow him I read him I invest a lot in his company you know Warren Buffett always says if I can't understand the business model on a napkin I won't invest in it so I I tell this to people all the time don't invest the things you don't understand just walk away the second one is greed greed is really what bothers me so you know people people are looking for getrich quick schemes they're looking for ways to make outsize returns and everybody seems to believe that there's got to be something out there that offers some Pine of return I I hear people using words that if I use them I'd be in jail such as guaranteed returns or no risk I've even seen this on documents that people have given to potential investors for all kinds of invest this investment is has guaranteed double digigit returns with no risk now in Wall Street the both of those words guaranteed and no risk are absolutely illegal and they could never make their way on a document but when you get out of the regulated world of Wall Street people say all kinds of things so here's what I tell people the first thing we want understand when we're looking at an investment is what is the what is the comparable risk-free Benchmark and the risk re ventro is the is the treasury right so if the if the 10year treasury is offering 4.6% that is our Benchmark rate Now Stocks which are riskier than the uh 10year treasury obviously but a moderately risky meaning you're betting on the ENT higher US Stock Market tend to return roughly um 6% above inflation so 8 to 10% but let's use the number 9% just to keep it simple so that basically double the treasury rate and that would give you stock returns okay now somebody comes into my office and offers me 14% and tells me that this is less risky than the stock market so my question is to the guy are you just a nice person because if you're less risky than the stock market you should be offering me 8% or 7% why would you be offering me 14% with no risk so without even opening up the brochure I know he's full of it then so then the question is there's game called where's Waldo right I go where's Waldo so where's the risk where's the risk now just because this risk doesn't mean I'm going to lose all my money but I need to know where the risk is because otherwise I'm going in as an ignoramus which I just said a minute ago I shouldn't do so there's an expression if it's too good to be true it probably is and that's true with all the Investments I've ever seen that offer outsid returns now coupled with the fact that you're probably talking to somebody who's unregulated un audited unproven right so you're not you're not going into some Edge fund that has a 25e track record you're not going into something that has SEC oversight and ASD oversight you're going into Bernie maid off or to somebody else and maybe he's not a Pon scheme but you cannot expect that this has been gone through with a fine tooth comb and unless they have some very high level sophisticated investors such as institutions and Pension funds nobody really smart and alible has gone through this and made sure that it's what you say it is and this is all I hear all day long I went into this fund three years ago they promised me 12 to 14% returns they haven't made a payout in four years or two years or they did and now they stopped they send me the paperwork I read it and I go what were you thinking when you went into it so if you're ignorant don't invest until somebody smartens you up or give your money to somebody reputable who will invest in publicly traded Securities if you are greedy I guarantee you you may make your first investment or your second one at some point your greed will catch up to you and you will lose don't let greed drive your decisions don't look for outsize returns that's not the way people get wealthy they get Wealthy by not losing their money yeah and and the the the problem that we seeing a lot is it's happening um you know across all age age Gap so to speak like you could see young people do it and you could see also smart business people but I think based on the two notes that you mentioned the first part is if you can't understand it on napkin so sometimes you could see older investors they made money on one type of business and they're like they don't understand it but they trust that person for that moment or maybe there was an introduction by a person that they trusted and the second part part is is is on the on the on the greed is sometimes you see young young people that just made a a ton of money and they're trying to double that or triple that or 10 tfold that so you're a strong believer I guess in in in Secure investment um long term yes because if you're a passive investor which is what we're talking about here then you're on the outside and you have to take as many guards as you can to make sure that your money is safe and protected if you're an active investor if you're going into real estate yourself or you're going into businesses yourself that's a very different story but most people that you just described are looking for some way of to passively increase their money and there they have to be really really careful the other thing you you alluded to which is important to note is that Affinity fraud is usually Behind These I know the guy I pray with him I know his brother-in-law you know how could somebody I know or or somebody that somebody I know knows somehow hurt me well that's where most people get hurt they because that's where they drop their guard and they don't do the Propet due diligence they don't ask the right questions they're almost ashamed to ask the right questions because that seems like I don't trust you but that's not the reality when you put your money to work with somebody you have to be able to ask them every question you have to be able to call references you have to know who you're doing business with just because you know the guy personally doesn't mean you should trust them with your money beautiful I want to I want to turn to another very important topic and I know that uh it's you have a very you know big passion to it and which is called personal development I think uh when we first met we were speaking more on the sales side of things and getting a person up to their up their game so to speak in their skills on this podcast we're speaking a lot about personal development and and even though it's a it's a it's a business podcast but there's a famous quote from Dave Ramsey that a organization will never outgrow its leader which means is if there's no personal development on the leader perspective at one point the business will will stop growing uh but we're talking to Everyday People people that are just listening to the show there needs to be a structure of of where do you want to go from a from a personal development perspective and everybody I I believe that everybody listening to the show had not reach their fullest potential uh one of the things that um I've seen and I want to hear your take on it is a lot of people what really um puts them down is they try to measure their success against what they see maybe in their their neighbor the community and their sh and stuff like that what would be your advice of separating what my potential is where I could grow versus trying to compare myself to everybody around me I really don't find much benefit in ever comparing people to each other I think it's it's a ridiculous way to live life to look around and see what other people are doing and you know try to feel um less or more about yourself as a result um you know these these comparatives are just they're ridiculous on the other hand people could spur you to growth because when you see people taking on projects or doing things that you never imagined they could do it it it's intriguing how did he do that what made him do that I get calls like that all the time but I when I authored that book they said we would have never thought you'd be an author how did you do that I just got two calls like that last week or you know how did you become a public speaker or how did you get into Wall Street it Spurs people to think more potentially about themselves but that's not really a comparison that just seeing wow this person achieved a certain thing and I would like to do that as well the reason why it's ridiculous to compare you know people to each other is because we're we're we're just all very very different and we all have different circumstances and the guy who you're jealous of because he may be earning more money has a terrible marriage he he doesn't spend any time with his wife and kids maybe he's a shark maybe he steps on people to get there all you're looking at is the outside trappings of his success but but you don't really know and you don't know what he's willing to do or not willing to do to reach that point and I'm not saying that's all true but I'm just saying that without all the information it's it's ridiculous to do that I find this just demoralizing I I find that I like to see what other people are doing because I want to see what what what's potentially out there but then I really have to look at myself and say am I make am I maximizing All I Can Am I uh bringing out all of my potential and just because somebody else has a potential doesn't mean that I do and just because somebody else does not have potential doesn't mean that I don't have that potential so I I really spend a lot of time focusing on the road in front of me instead of the lanes to my left and the lanes to my right I really only glance there very rarely and I'd say as I've matured I almost don't glance there at all I I really don't look at what other people are doing both inside of my profession and outside in terms of success ESS in terms of where they've where they've gone if I could learn something from them I do I think people should spend more time developing themselves reading books speaking to people that can teach them how to gain certain skills and stop worrying about everybody else so I'm speaking about with um just continuing this this part of the conversation how does a person really know what their full potential is and knowing that they're in the right track even they won't know until the day is over and that means their life and even then they won't know what they could have become had they lived another 120 years the famous book The the duties of the heart writes a beautiful thing and I I'm going to use an example which is you know something that I can visualize so you know life is like a room and at the other end of the room there's a wall and from where you're standing that wall seems impenetrable it's it's brick and that seems to be your potential right that's a metaphor for your potential and then your jog is to run to that wall to get to that wall and when you get to that wall that door there's a door that opens up to an entirely new room and in that new room there's another wall on the other side and then you have to get to that wall and then when you get there another door opens up and he says that you know that's because when a person exercises their exercises their right to grow and they they make a choice to grow when they get to the end of what they can perceive as their potential growth God opens up another door Hashem opens another door and a New Vista of potential opens it's not possible for a person to fores see what they're capable of all they can see is what their next goal looks like what's that wall that's in front of me that I can go to and then I know that that door is going to open that's the problem that people have app they look at people that have reached certain Heights and they say I could never reach there well if you ask that person they themselves would have told you that I didn't think I would reach this either I never even dreamt of it all I knew is I have to grow and when I grew from A to B all of a sudden C became possible and then D became possible so I know to you it looks like I was always potential to become a y or a z and reach the Zenith of potential but I can assure you when when I was standing at a all I saw was B and I tell this to people all the time you don't you have no idea until you hit the hit b as to what C even looks like so speak to anybody who is successful at anything they will all tell you I could have never envisioned this that's how people sell themselves short so what would you say um to somebody that's in the in their life Journey so to speak and they want to grow themselves what is so obviously you mentioned the you know in in the story of of of those rooms which is a visual um way of looking at things but if they want to create goals for themselves on personal development what would be those you know where would you tell a young professional to look to see where their improvements could be from a personal perspective and even on a professional perspective as a personal and professional I really wanted the same to to me yeah personal development means knowing first of all being honest with yourself about what your weaknesses are what we don't use that word anymore it's not politically correct your areas of development are okay so if you are if you have an issue with time management if you are sloppy if you're if you find that you can't keep your word if you have an issue um listening to people if you have issues building Rapport whatever area you know I always tell my kids if there was a pill that you would pay money to buy and take that would change something about yourself then you can pretty much be sure that's an area of development so if if somebody comes into business wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute so for our listeners take two minutes and say we giving this pill for free which pill do you want to choose that's the area of development what would you want to swallow and change about yourself and that's not about your bank account it's not about how tall you are whether you have blue eyes or brown eyes it's something that matters to the success for the rest of your life so good so it might be self-esteem it might be confidence it might be communication skills it might be all of the above but you got to take one thing at a time and you got to work on it cuz that's that's why you're here you know the says the writes that if a person wants to know why they're here well they should find that area of development that's holding them back the most and they can rest assure that's what it is so personal development to me the most impactful ones are interpersonal skills our skills that how we interact with people because in business at the end of the day reputation clients it's all about people it's all about your people skills your your trustworthiness your reliability everything that you do to generate business entails people so you know are are you a good communicator do you keep your word do you look for shortcuts are you disciplined are you exacting do you try to deliver is a level of perfection are you just happy getting by you know skirting your way through you know somebody told me the other day day it was just astonishing um they placed an order with a company on behalf of a client and uh the order came in wrong and the company asked is the client unhappy or is it just you meaning that the client notice so they didn't care about whether or not their product was good or not they just wanted to know at the end of the day if they were going to be asking for a refund and like that that just shows on what level this company is operating yeah it's so true and and I think I think when when you find what the shortcom are U you're able to work one thing at a time and when you see progress that momentum is like contagious it's unbelievable it's unbelievable and people don't realize it till they actually do it and they say wait a minute I was here two months ago I had this struggling with this issue again and again and again I put my attention to it and all of a sudden I I see progress it's exactly what we said for budgeting it it's it's motivating progress is motivating beautiful so another topic which is very important and I see a lot of people are struggling but before I ask you the question I'll just I'll just ask you for your definition what is your definition of true happiness so happiness is a is a hard word it doesn't even exist in our language as you know um I think we have moments of happiness I think happiness is an outflow of other things but you know I I I don't really spend a whole lot of time thinking about how happy I am or how happy I'm not um some of my best days are days where I have zero happiness I don't use that word a whole lot what do you satisfy satisfaction I use the word satisfaction I even a deeper word I think is fulfillment beautiful so I really look at the word fulfillment at the end of my life if I had a fulfilling life a meaningful life that would be to me a Wonderful Life a happy life I I guess as an Al of fulfillment and meaning there would be a tremendous degree of happiness but life's full of sadness but sadness doesn't take away from meaningfulness um sadness and meaningfulness could be one of the same Sometimes some of the saddest things in life turn out to be extremely meaningful so let's let's talk about fulfillment so how could a person achieve a fulfilled life the first way that a person can achieve a fulfilled life is by living life as it was designed for them not trying to live life as it was designed for somebody else so to live your own life you're really only going to find fulfillment when you're living the life that was intended for you and that's really what the word fulfill is it's achieving your purpose and being here there are Universal things that are Universal for all human beings and all human kind that bring fulfillment to everybody or should bring fulfillment to everybody and things like giving to others and helping others and building the world around us and making the world a better place are things that are really synonymous with being human but over and above that there are going to be things that are unique to the individual that we're talking about so given the skill sets that God has endowed you with Hashem has given you um you're going to find fulfillment expressing those things first recognizing them bringing them forth and then actually utilizing them so take somebody who has a beautiful voice right um but he's he's shy he's afraid he he he has stage fright and uh you know this person can go through life and say yes I have a beautiful voice but there's nothing I could do about it or they could say no if God gave me this and God endowed me with this beautiful gift then I was meant to do so something with it and this person can overcome those challenges and ultimately he'll find tremendous fulfillment in bringing forth that incredible talent that Hashem gave him or her and that's true for all areas of life a person that's living a fulfilled life feels that they are number one expressing to the point where they are today what they can in terms of their skill sets and that they're developing new ones so that life isn't growing stale and that they're is more to anticipate in the future where does gratitude come into the mix gratitude is is it's extremely important gratitude is so if you want to talk about happiness or satisfaction it's literally impossible without gratitude because the definition of gratitude is that you would recognize and appreciate what you have and what was given to you people that have no gratitude don't have gratitude because they don't actually think they have anything or they belittle what they already have because they're so focused on what they don't yet have so what's it to be great grateful for people that are not grateful to their spouses people that not grateful to their Partners people that are not grateful to their parents basically are unhappy with the situation today so there's really no reason for them to say thank you the first thing is you have to recognize what you already have so if a person recognizes that they have achieved the certain level of success and that level of success is is you know something fulfilling and meaningful and important then they should thank the the the the god the Hashem that that allowed this to happen if they're not and they have no gratitude that's probably because they don't think that they're in a good place and they don't appreciate where they are so they're really synonymous and the more a person derives pleasure and satisfaction from what have the more they want to feel they feel they want to give back to those that help them get there the more people feel short changed and and unfulfilled the less they have to have gratitude for I want to ask you a followup question to gratitude because I I know a lot of people wrestle with this um what I'm just about to say which is you could look at somebody that um you know has kids has a family and then their neighbor is struggling with this issue they don't have have kids so you could have gratitude of what you have or you could have gratitude that I'm not suffering what my neighbors going through in suffering so I know it's a little deeper question than just regular um gratitude but how how could you live a life and have the proper gratitude towards what you have not to compare that maybe your neighbor doesn't even have that but rather just living your life in your own for worlds so interesting rather VNA Miller writes about this um and he says that it's really the former is important the mean when you walk down the street on your two legs and you see somebody in a wheelchair the first thing you need to do is feel sorrowful for that person and then you need to have gratitude for your legs sometimes you know we we grow accustomed to things and we take things for granted that's just natural it's natural for people to take things for granted and sometimes we have these reminders so it might be your next door neighbor and it might be the person on the street who reminds you that you have legs who reminds you that you have children and then you immediately feel gratitude that you have children now there's all kinds of reasons to be to have gratitude that you have children even without somebody else not having children the problem is you just assume that having children is just like having legs it's it's a normal part of life life we sometimes need that nextto neighbor to be the wakeup call that we can actually stop and recognize what our children are actually how additive they are to our life and sometimes we need to to look at the opposite the the re of rashab of of kabad says that we only appreciate something we only appreciate light when there's a header when there's a an opposite when there's a lack of and then we yearn for that light back a person that was born in a room that was always light doesn't yearn for it because it's status quo so it's really both if it was a given that something would always be the way it is and that it could never change it would be hard to continuously have gratitude so we need those reminders that things can change last time we spoke um it's been a while it was just about when the when the came out you revealed it to path to life of success um it's been a while since then let me let me just ask you like what were the like the highlights of the feedback you have gotten throughout the time which of the chapters and the concepts or maybe share one or two of those of the concepts that really resonated with the people um that read a book so the book's been out now for I'm thinking three years or two years I don't even remember um thank God it's going into I think it's 12th printing wow it's also been translated to yish as you know um and the other thing I would to tell you is it's also being Rewritten right now for the secular world so the book has sold thousands and thousands of copies to non-jews and I've received emails from people from around the world as far as uh Paraguay uh South Korea um so the book has really resonated with both Jews and non-jews it's being written to just make it more user friendly for somebody who doesn't understand you know Jewish words I've heard from every single part of the book I've gotten feedback um I've gotten feedback from literally every single chapter some of the things that that really resonated with people were what we just spoke about before um you know that people are capable of much more than they thought um the book also has zero tolerance for excuses for reasons to underachieve I'm very vocal about that I'm very hard on myself and I'm very hard on my reader in a nice way I think that was a wakeup call for a lot of people the people felt that they were coddling themselves too much they were wallowing in self-pity too much and that they um they really had to stop being Their Own Worst Enemy a lot of the techniques in the book people have told me have changed their lives it changed the way they interact with their spouses it changed the way they conduct business and they really really started thinking more about what they were doing and why they were doing it and I think the most important thing is a lot of people have started learning more because of the book I think that they really never appreciated how much wealth of information our Torah has and Bali muser have and and a lot of people have taken up learning and other works because they really want to take it a step further and delve deeper into self-development so I'm in the process of writing my second book with the very little free time that I have I'm also in the process of rewriting the first one as I said for the secular audiences and I've been bombarded with emails over the years people who have read the book had questions wanted you know more ideas and so on and so forth so what is the the the second book about second book is about self-esteem yeah so important so important because I I believe that um people confuse um self self-esteem with ego and they don't understand that ego is something you check at the door and self-esteem is something that you actually embrace because that pushes you forward based on your self-esteem it really tells you yes you can yes you can and go on go on go on and open that door to do more you've probably found as I have that most people that have egos don't have self-esteem oh yeah and they that's the the difference between the public Persona and the behind closed doors Persona exactly have you ever imagined when you wrote the first book um that it will have this type of an impact I wondered if anybody would read it wow I knew that the information was impactful because it worked for me and it Torah I just didn't know if people would find the book too overwhelming it's not an easy read book it's not a book you you know you sip a latte with your feet up most people that have written to me and people that I meet on the street tell me they've they've read the book at least once or twice with a highlighter and they they're GNA they continuously reread the book it's a demanding book it's a demanding book it's when I wrote it I could have written five books out of that one book I've read books like that you know where the entire book talks about just one thing like meaning or laziness I can't stand such books just an excuse to write a 300 page book and repeat the same thing 400 times so really every one of these chapters could have been turned into a book and people have turned them into curriculums in schools they expanded it more I I I I demand of the reader that they work I demand the reader that they they really think about what I wrote Because I really try to not not to write any extra words beautiful where could people find out more about you and about the book I know that you get a ton of emails but is there is there a place where you speak about the book or the concepts in the book so there's an art scroll interview which didn't have that much about the book no I think they should just go on to Amazon and read reviews and buy the book so the book is called you reveal the Torah PA to life of success um we'll link it up in the resource mentioned this episode check out the show notes at www.p group.com podcast where you'll see a transcript of this of this interview and ultimately links to by the book Let's close with a four rapid fire questions are you ready sure number one speaking about books a book that change your life man search for meeting by Victor Frankle number two a piece of advice you got that you'll never forget the piece of advice that I forgot that I'll never forget is that sell yourself but don't do that by bashing the competition beautiful number three anything you wish you could go you could go back and do differently yes I wish I would have believed in myself much earlier I wish I would have had a bigger vision for myself much earlier um I probably wasted half of my 20s maybe even more than half of my 20s just you know under selling myself and you know if I could do it all over again but of course I could I basically want to be wiser younger wow usually this is rapid fire questions I don't interrupt but this I need to interrupt for our listeners to make take note on this because listeners believe in yourself BEC and don't be your worst enemy if you believe in yourself the sky is the limit you could really change the world if you're not going to change the world at least change yourself and the world will change around you last final question what's still in your bucket list to achieve write another book without a question and I want to start at least one if not two organizations when I am retied and I'm sure by the time I get there there will be more than that but without a question I want to spend much more time helping young people achieve self-development and create curriculums and programs for that to happen beautiful thank you so much for joining us I know your time is valuable that is why in the name of our listeners will forever be grateful for sharing some of your time with us today thank you take care and that's a wrap for today's episode of the let's look business podcast I hope you enjoyed the Practical non-nonsense advice that our guest shared if you found value in listening I would be so grateful if you could share the episode with your friends and if you could give the show a festar rating on Apple podcast or wherever platform you listen subscribe to the show and get notified every time we publish a new episode The let's talk business podcast bestest is a Pex group original production until next time make it a great day [Music]