The Shabbat Show- Episode 27: Shabbat & Business - Can They Co-exist?

episode of the shabbat show shabbat shalom please welcome master shabbat shalom back tell us where you're watching from we love connecting with you like this each and every single week now last week's show was such a super duper hit and we got a lot of questions about this recipe so we're going to go ahead and roll tape show you the recipe in case you missed it and then i'm going to answer your questions [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] okay yum yum yum i wish i had that ready now i so so want to eat that now the number one question you guys were asking was how to turn this into a vegetarian or technically it could be a vegan dish very simple just omit the ground beef and replace it instead with either cooked lentils for protein and or chops mushrooms mushrooms will give it that meaty umami flavor and i think it's going to be absolutely delicious now if you're having a little trouble fitting back into your clothes i'm talking to myself okay just like me maybe you want to swap out the white rice for either brown rice or even quinoa which has like a lot of protein it's a nice super green so enjoy this i hope that you go ahead and make it now whether you love meat or you're a vegetarian or you're a vegan and now stay tuned for the most amazing shabbat show and don't worry i'm going to be back at the end of the show so keep watching till the very end with an amazing seasonal challah recipe stay tuned [Music] hello everybody welcome back to the shabbat show oh so great to be back with you again another week i feel like it's like a whole new world do you feel that way like if you come post holidays you feeling that that whole world is like we're like in a new space for those of you around in the northeast this week we finished out the sukkot holiday it was like 68 degrees on sunday and then monday the day afterwards was like cold and rainy it was like the beginning of a new chapter and now we're back into our world you know there's a great line from a great rabbi named rabbi destler who said that you're not really supposed to go through the holidays the holidays are supposed to go through you and the whole goal of these holidays the whole goal of having a season of holidays is not that we can just take a break from our lives eat a whole lot more take more time off from work see our families more introspect pray whatever whatever whatever that's not really it all of that stuff really is that when we come out of these holidays regardless of the level of observance regardless if you observe one or all when we come out of these holidays we have to be a little bit different we have to be different people and one of the ways that we're different is we get closer to the ideal what is this ideal god is driving us towards somewhere there's a there's a purpose and one of the things that god keeps on telling us is i put you in this earth because i want you to have the ideal i want you to have it all he wants us to not only be physically in this earth he wants us to be spiritual beings to live in both worlds to have our feet nested and planted in this ground but to have our eyes and our hearts in a much greater place to balance physical and spiritual to be able to go deeper when we need to and to live a physical life we were placed here many of the commandments and the mitzvot that we did in the past few weeks and months were physical things but at the same time to strive in our own ways at our own levels for more spirituality for a deeper existence for a deeper meaning in everything that we do in our families and our careers in our days our weeks and our years and when you take a break and you introspect the level that the holidays bring the real goal is that break that immersion brings us back to now now this is life life is post holidays life is mid-october when you when we're here now we're supposed to take something with us be bigger be stronger be better be deeper this is the balance of our lives increasing spirituality looking at the world not for what it is but for the deeper purpose of why i do what i do and a lot of this show is about that because this is the show that's going to take us if you will and begin the process throughout the entire season and one of the things we're going to speak about today is the whole concept of shabbat itself it's a shabbat show but really balancing shabbat with life is the question how do we do that how do you give up a seventh of your work life what is that how do you balance that intensity of spirituality with your life but it's more than just shabbat it's this whole concept of doing things right it's about looking at the world in a very specific way check out this video from jerry seinfeld it's always good to start jerry about just how to balance what we do and what we have with what makes us happy check this out [Applause] i love advertising because i love lying in advertising everything is the way you wish it was i don't care that it won't be like that when i actually get the product being advertised because in between seeing the commercial and owning the thing i'm happy and that's all i want tell me how great the thing is going to be i love it i don't need to be happy all the time i just want to enjoy the commercial i want to get the thing we know the product is going to stink we know that because we live in the world and we know that everything stinks we all believe hey maybe this one won't stink we are a hopeful species stupid but hopeful but we're happy in that moment between the commercial and the purchase and i think spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless low-quality misrepresented items and services is an excellent use of your energy because a brief moment of happiness is pretty good i also think that just focusing on making money and buying stupid things is a good way of life i believe materialism gets a bad rap it's not about the amount of money nothing's better than a bic pen a vw beetle or a pair of regular levi's if your things don't make you happy you're not getting the right things this will all be in my new book soulful materialism which is in the planning stages at this moment is that true isn't that totally true it's the stuff that we chase that we think makes us happy it doesn't make us happy we're going to talk about this today we've got a great show coming up for you stick with us to the end uh it's got so much happening here for those who are not with us that you think should be with us just send them the link to the shabbat show.com and get them going on the show we've got jessie and michelle revivo from toronto on the show we've got bruce leon from chicago on the show we've got a great partner and friend project inspire the real estate and hotel mogul alan isaac gross is on the show we got videos and inspiration and of course we've got a jamie geller on the show come back later on please if you can if you're able to via facebook or on zoom send us a shout out we would love to sort of give shabbat shalom again to those that are coming in i want to just do a few right now while we get going of course the good and bolton family shabbat shalom ozzie from baltimore shabbat shalom to of course very importantly to a wonderful person who is right now that is the need of our prayers her name is aviva shayna khanna she's actually the niece of noah weinberg please have her in mind for the filos and spatula of course to that family to jody and toby berkel shabbat shalom to you guys and to everyone else please feel free to tap in we'd love to see you again um of course we're going to talk mindflex that's coming up this week check out uh the what what's happening this week uh last two weeks ago we actually had rabbi anthony gordon on here on the show and he shared his wisdom he'll be speaking about spiritual time management for those that are interested please check that out it's october 20 and 21 9 pm uh of course we've got the one-on-ones thank god there's been an uptick continue coming new year new opportunity to keep on growing one-on-ones if you want a specialized person this is custom learning here's how we like it in this world bespoke learning 97 000 text 101 to 97 or just go to projectinspire.com and you'll find a way to connect there and of course you can check this out and the longer interviews as well um that'll take place in the show um at the shabbat show dot com okay let's begin uh we're gonna start with an incredible guest jesse and michelle revivo of the spudnik snack company these are they are owners and operators of the snack food manufacturing company called star brand production their brand is spudnix they manufacture a large variety of kettle chips and popcorn michelle's all also owns a woman's entrepreneurial platform called twp the women's plat panel that brings entrepreneurial women together each month with incredible panelists uh there we go hi charlie hello welcome to the show how are we doing mr harare thank you for having us oh my god it's so great that you're here for full disclosure i love them very much we've had shabbat meals together up in toronto in harare north the bloom family and jesse and i were brothers on the trip in israel so hardcore it's great to see you guys and have you on talk to us a little bit before we jump into the spirituality part give us a little bit about how you got into this business like how did you get into the snack business well it's crazy story actually uh well 15 years ago i'll tell a little bit and then i'll hand it over to jesse 15 years ago um we got involved with the event business i was an esthetician by profession and uh we somehow got involved with the event business we started a company called called party props and we started doing farm but mitzvahs and kettle chips are my favorite snack food so i wanted to create a way to entertain guests on location so we created a chip theater we started manufacturing our own potato chips classic chips with a barbecue size fryer and we created a chip theater where we would season and serve warm kettle uh potato chip on location and that kind of stemmed to building up retail locations and malls and wow yeah yeah that's incredible i just i love those stories of individuals making things happen you know from their ideas into life now along the way from what i understand is that you've also changed the way you interact from a spiritual perspective as well right whether it's with shabbat other things take us through that a little bit about how you started where you are and a little bit of that journey i don't think i ever told you the story charlie but it's a really a spectacular story um it goes back to when we started becoming bale chuba when we started becoming practicing jews 13 14 years ago probably we've always been entrepreneurial we've always owned businesses that's what keeps our blood pumping it it keeps us wakes us up in the morning um and so um 13 or 14 years ago was no exception we had multiple businesses we brought together a snack food concept where we had potato chips on one side and ice cream on the other side of this retail kiosk and we put them out in all these malls across um ontario and across canada now you guys are a lot of people familiar with a franchise model we kept this corporate which means michelle and i owned all these stores which means we serviced all these stores and we had co-packers making chips for us we had co-packers supplying us with product so we didn't worry about the back end we just wanted to sell the product right so we had all this retail and as you can imagine knowing full well retail operates primarily on the weekends where people go shopping friday saturday sunday so you're asking can business in shabbat coexist and if you asked us 14 years ago absolutely not how could i keep shabbat i'm friday saturday sunday i'm out delivering product i'm dealing with staff i'm that's where i'm making my money my money on monday to thursday nothing right so um we decided you were mentioning earlier that some of the tribulations we decided and i remembered vividly coming into the family room we were just getting started we weren't really you know kind of dabbling in mitzvahs here and there definitely not from racial but definitely not people who were trying to do mitzvahs but once in a while just being a little bit more aware listening to some lectures of our rabbi online and then one day i came to michelle and i said mish i think it's time to keep shabbat and she looked at me and said okay so what does that mean what do we do yeah how do we keep shabbat and i said you know what i don't know but let's start with the lights right now we're not supposed to turn off the lights the lights are off limit everything else is good but baby steps we'll do the light thing and then we'll see where it goes so long story short the la the next probably two or three months of our lives crazy was a roller coaster it was absolute mayhem everything around us was seemingly falling apart our business partnerships we were in two of them at the time both of them came to an end not of our doing but our partners doing we got phone calls from each partner for different reasons very serious meetings um and both partnerships dissolved we were beside ourselves we didn't we wouldn't know what to think like puppets we were like puppets in a show as if like hashem was running the show we were just puppets we got a phone call with a store in one mall we've been trying to sell it for probably over a year or two yeah and no bites suddenly we get a phone call somebody wants to buy the store no questions asked full asking price unbelievable suddenly i get a phone call from another landlord who says guys i need you to spend tens of thousands of dollars if you want to keep that store it's a marginal store they weren't willing to give us anything in return we had to make a choice we found ourselves over the course of the next few months shutting down certain stores selling off other stores getting out of relationships business partnerships our whole world was unraveling in front of us it was terrifying to say the least the moment we decided to keep shabbat like we we had often opportunities where we where we went for coffee we pulled ourselves out of the situation we blocked out all the noise and we just reflected on what was going on and we we somehow brought it back to literally the day the shabbat that i said on the show returning we're not touching the lights wow so fast unbelievable and now we're in a position just a few months after where all of the retail has been handed off yeah and now we're in the business of supplying all of the retail that exists so slowly but surely from that point probably over a matter of a year or two we ended up going into the background we ended up saying you know what we don't need to rely on manufacturers anymore let's get into manufacturing business let's start supplying all these kiosks in these retail stores that we've opened up and so um that's what we did and now today thank god we find ourselves um running a both hashem a very large facility where we uh we manufacture uh snack food there we go i hear it i hear it crinkling let's see it almost fine i'm hearing beautiful shameless plug i love i love it so let me ask you one question before we have to go give us in in a couple of words give us um what what it means to you now give us how it feels that this is now you you've made you did something huge you did something that's it's massive you took a step for spirituality without the the catch underneath without the net what does it feel like now that you have this as part of your life well personally i'll tell you charlie and everyone else like at the beginning of this whole experience it was very nerve-wracking for me and i'll tell you honestly after having thank god three children shabbat and keep and being observant means the world to us to me especially like i couldn't ask for anything more honestly yeah so from life changing perspective it's it's uh and i tell this to a lot of people before shabbat we couldn't imagine keeping shabbat before shabbat right it was so difficult to turn off our phones it was so difficult to shut down our computers is so difficult to disconnect from the world but now there isn't an amount of money in the world that you can offer us to turn on our phones to turn off technology it just doesn't equate it's not guys thank you so much for being on the show you're i'm like i got chills i'm loving the story i got much but just so you know i got my story for the shabbat table now just letting you know that you know we will be passing on your products okay semi-products exactly we'll tell it over but thank you so much for being on thanks for who you are what you do what you stand for and really when when i hear it from you it makes it more special for me so thanks so much for what you've done and shining your light on this world thanks for having awesome good to see you guys and thank you so much and that's exactly this is what we're talking about this idea of having it all really to step into one direction and to take a physical life and not give it up but to only increase this concept of spirituality there's a line that i will not forget that just came out of this interview where before shabbat they couldn't imagine keeping shabbat and once they keep shabbat they couldn't imagine not all the money in the world and that's what we were talking about and really this is beyond shabbat it's doing the right thing it's living a certain life there's a great story that that we saw this week that i want to share about a rabbi in a plant that just lived a certain way that manifested and ended up really making a difference in his life check this out there's a kosher meat factory in argentina comprised of several buildings the entire complex is surrounded by a tall chain link fence and everyone enters through an iron gate in the front the owner kamen roque is a very hard worker he's the first one in every morning and the last one out every evening domingo the guard at the front gates knows that when common leaves in the evening he could lock the gate and go home one evening in november 2007 common was leaving good night domingo he called out to the guard you can knock up now no domingo said not everyone has left what are you talking about coming asked everyone went home two hours ago not true domingo replied rabbi berkowitz is still inside maybe you just didn't see him leave common said believe me i am positive he is still inside domingo insisted we better go look for him kalman knew that domingo was reliable and took his word seriously he jumped out of his car and they both rushed back to the compound he searched the large main factory room where rabbi berkowitz wasn't there they ran into the office building but he wasn't there either they searched the truck dock and the packing house going from room to room finally they came to the huge walk-in refrigeration room where the meat was stored and kept frozen they opened the door and to their shock and horror they saw rabbi berkowitz on the floor coughing and shivering trying desperately to breathe he had been locked inside they ran over to him lifted him off the floor and helped him out of the refrigerated room past the thick heavy door that had been locked behind him they wrapped blankets around him and made sure he was warm and comfortable kamen roachayak was shocked domingo he asked how did you know that rabbi berkowitz was still inside there are over 300 workers here every day domingo said every morning when that rabbi comes in he greets me and says hello he asks how my morning is going and wishes me a wonderful day he shows me respect and makes me feel important and every single night when he leaves he says thank you so much have a pleasant evening he never misses a night and i wait for his kind words hundreds of workers pass me every day morning and night and they don't say a word to me they show me no respect or recognition rabbi berkowitz does i knew he came in this morning and i was sure he hadn't left yet because i was waiting for his friendly goodbye for the evening one of the most important things we can give a person is honor and respect when you show a person that you care about their well-being you infuse them with life rabbi berkowitz appreciated the value of every person and because he validated life he merited life rabbi berkowitz's life was saved because of his genuine care and concern for another human being every human being is made in the image of god and has infinite value khabib adam shanniv how precious and dear is every person the mishna tells us because he is created in god's image the greatest gift we can give others doesn't cost us a penny is the gift of love and recognition showing others we respect and value them [Music] incredible concept and it's really true it's spirituality is not just in one area but it's how you live how you talk how you value every human being the next guest that we have is someone that's very important to me personally and to this whole organization mr allen isaac gross is a has been and is a partner of project inspire in so many levels he's the chairman and ceo of gfi capital resources group and he brings over 40 years of real estate experience to the company gfi's property management portfolio currently manages close to 16 000 residential apartment students across the country among his many accomplishments it includes the development of the ace hotel in new york an internationally praised and award-winning boutique hotel mr gross's recent strategic development of the beekman hotel in residences in downtown manhattan has changed the environment over there the beekman has received multiple awards including travel and leisure magazines best hotels in new york state and trip advisors best five star hotels in new york city 2017. mr gross is not only an established entrepreneur but also serves his community by guest lecturing universities real estate symposiums and various other organizations and i can tell you personally from having the honor of knowing him for as long as i do he is one of the most dedicated people to the jewish community and to the jewish people he was very close with a torah's founder of noah weinberg and in many ways carries his legacy with everything he does i had a chance to catch up with him earlier this week and talk about him and his ability to build this incredible business while maintaining a commitment to spirituality check out this interview so isaac thank you so much for joining us on the show it's an honor to have you it's my pleasure charlie being with you anywhere is a pleasure thank you talking to you anytime is a great pleasure i feel the same way thank you thank you and you know many times when you speak to people that are observant that have kept shabbat it's it's a challenge for people and and it's an opportunity for people and and people speak about what it means to them but but sometimes you meet somebody who really started their career earlier than the current time you know you started in the 1970s and you built a business a real estate company that has to navigate the modern world and compete and grow in the modern world where sometimes you have to be available at all times to get the deal or to close the transaction so from your perspective as a founder of a large real estate company as a builder of something how has shabbat played a role in your career has it helped you has it hurt you what is your what is your perspective on someone who has along the way always balanced both words both worlds i think by people knowing that uh i'm showman shabbat i'm observant gives them a distinct feeling that i'm very disciplined because they know i don't compromise it's funny because you know a lot of the things that i do involves personalities and involves chefs and involves restaurants and hoteliers and different uh very prominent people and um everybody knows i don't compromise there's nothing that moves my shabbat and you know the word around my office for instance is mr gross what time do you go into your cocoon we want to know exactly how long we got with you and um it's not a negotiable item i don't care from with a banker i don't care if i'm with a politician or with a with a star or anything like that they know that the time comes i'm out of it and how how along the way um has that evolved were you when you started were you like that were you um able to make those decisions or at least share in the same way that you could later on as you grew in your career well you know i started in a law firm and in the early seventies i should say it was very difficult you didn't find a lot of guys walking around with a yamaka it was non-existent in fact uh most people that were looking for jobs at that time had a difficult time because the interviewer would make it a point you know somehow to fish if he can count on you on saturdays for hours or not i think the most important message was whether i'm gone or not or here or not there i will always make up my time and i will always respect your time it's not going to be used as an uh an avenue of me to get out of work so uh at the beginning i did not uh publicize the fact that i'm a showmashabis and and um uh observant and over time as people got to know me i got more and more comfortable uh with not only can i use this as an opportunity to show them who i am but an opportunity to really get people warmed up that what it really means it really means what kind of life i leave and make them more comfortable with who they are dealing with um i'm predictable i'm disciplined um i think that i i answer to a higher you uh higher being i am respectful i try to do the things that are right because that's the life i lead and it's very funny because one of my best friends is a roman catholic and everybody looks at us you know when we're at a meeting together which one of us is more religious [Laughter] and and it's very funny because he is very disciplined you know he's a guy that studies every night songs and he'll call me up and ask me to interpret uh a passage why what when where and it's very it's it's a fascinating life to lead when they know who you are and what they can count on and what they're going to get yeah you know it's interesting that you say that and i think it's a misconception that people have we live in a modern world that in many ways especially in the business world is seen to be sort of sanitized from faith whereas like you not you know you just leave it leave it at the doorstep and and you come in without and i think when you are of faith or you are a person that is willing to lead with faith and to make sacrifices for faith over the course of time those people don't lose in fact what they may lost in a losing a few hours they gain back in a level of respect and understanding and dependability did you ever have moments where you were pushed to the brink did you ever have a moment where you know you it was a friday afternoon and you were like i i i can't but and you ever have those moments where on the way out going home for shabbat you were like i'm gonna lose the whole thing and i gotta go charlie i've had many many times that you know i had a terrible shabbos because i walked out of a meeting or walked out of a closing and i told them i am going to walk out and they didn't believe me because it was a time of yes and steal oh my god and i walked out and i really walked out knowing i blew this and not only my money but a lot of money was at risk and i had no choice and i had to leave and i was thinking myself maybe i shouldn't leave i should stay and i'll walk home i mean i was thinking all crying crazy things and i said you know what god i'm in your hands whatever you want to happen will happen and it's for my good and i left and it's interesting the minute shabbos was over my phone rang and it was the other the the lawyer from the other side who happened to be a non-observant jew and his client was not jewish and he just called to tell me i want you to know don't worry we'll continue it on monday and my client was very very impressed that you that you left regardless of what the consequences were and that was just a brief a bit of that interview i can tell you that if you go to the shabbat show.com i believe maybe tomorrow or early next week you must watch the entire interview in that interview isaac tells over an incredible story about when he went down to washington with the head of a bank and how it all evolved it it was awesome and you don't want to miss it so check it out on the shabbat show.com just it's worth seeing his whole interview just to get that story it's really one for the ages uh now it's time for one of our favorite times of the show of course what we do without kahoot i think one time we can roll kahoot now i think i think one time we missed it and people are like texting like what's up this is when we compete uh with our friends family and each other kahoot either get it on your computer the app just go to it um 661 4028 this is the time of the week that i make sure my mom is on which is my job as her son which i take uh pride in 661-4028 mommy i hope that you got this everybody else feel free to jump in right away while we do that and get everybody a chance to go on i want to wish a couple of shabbat shaloms to the novak family from toronto the silver's in highland park shabbat shalom to the pomeranz kids from baltimore hello hello guys thanks so much for tuning in in regards to your family uh the bandriji family of from new york miami helped pronounce that right if not please send me the phonetic spelling so i can get it right in the future stacey and al levinrad from maryland uh shabbat shalom and thank you patriots rock is on uh remember you can get onto kahoot through kahoot.it that'll get you on uh so you can get on now and sign in 661-4028 um to uh doreed shabbat shalom to henya from toronto shabbat shalom to lily from montreal quebec shabbat shalom to you to john from oxfordshire england shabbat shalom thank you so much miriam sitner we i got kahoot shabbat shalom to you to al fishman shabbat shalom or na suriya shabbat shalom to all the toronto fans i feel like there's so much toronto love coming in for the revivos they deserve it they were phenomenal shabbat shalom everybody here one or two more minutes we got elon corbin just popped in i saw uh thank you so much for joining us on the show elon to bob perlmutter shabbat shalom lincoln with illinois okay let's go to the first question let's begin here we go first question how do you say business in hebrew revac hep said essec knowing hebrew is is a value added to knowing being part of the show rev said essec or quran shabbat shalom to daryl gear from south africa to orna thank you so much shabbat shalom to you okay here it goes the first answer is essec very good very good essec let's see how we did today joel k on the board hillary mervis truly and rm rm i think rm is a constant let's go to the next question looking forward to seeing what how we do over here in the startup business world a unicorn is an unrealistic idea that is destined for failure a privately held startup company valued at over a billion a business proposal that gets a hundred percent funding from an investor or using your home as collateral for business expenses what is a unicorn shabbat shalom to michael weingrad judy hirschfeld shabbat shalom to you and thank you for all that you do anadi shai to jenny kravis shabbat shalom to dorian hausmann from boston shabbat shalom here goes the second answer is a privately held startup company at a billion dollars that's what a unicorn is so rare as a unicorn is here you go let's see how we did joel k continues to dominate mervis ajh gibbs is back and sobel okay let's go to the next question please feel free to tap into any of our shabbat shaloms here goes number three israel is the blank in world population 25th 50th 75th or the do you see the breadth of these questions i mean come on what other show goes from hebrew words to business terms to israeli population studies i mean only here 25th 50th 75th 100th which one how many people are in israel compared to the rest of the world here we go a hundredth a hundredth this was an interesting response a lot of people thought we were 50th we have very little people in israel compared let's see how we did on the scoreboard joel k continues on little dave steps up we got the novak's from toronto climbing and the mervis family okay let's go to the fourth and final question for this week's kahoot game israel ranks number 13 in the world index of starter companies with approximately how many companies how many startup companies you think israel is producing 241 368 613 or 890. just think about this number for a second they're 13th in the world of startup companies that's not per capita that's actual straight numbers it's incredible 241 368 613 or 890 how many companies is israel producing startup companies here it goes the answer is 890 oh good a lot of guys a lot of people got this think about that number for a second wow go israel here we go let's see how we did third place the silver family continues to be part of this board second place ajh and the first place winner is the novak family in toronto they just rolled in and took the cake congratulations lots of toronto love here on the show thank you so much for joining us and being a part of it and of course it's time right now for the one and only jamie geller check out this week's video charlie thank you so much hello everybody i told you i would be back in case you missed that first segment guys please be sure to tune in on time every single week because this is the most amazing streaming shabbat show ever there i just said it okay this week we are making pumpkin challah it is officially fall it is officially pumpkin season and chala is the official food of shabbat so we are marrying these two amazing favorites pumpkin and challah into this special recipe make sure you always say hey tell us where you're watching from and ask us any questions we're here to answer them each and every week shabbat shalom [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so thank you jamie as always usually when we get to watch jamie in the beginning for those who are with us from the beginning we used to have this show on friday afternoon so when all her delicious looking food comes out i'm like that's cool i got like two hours and i'm gonna pound now i gotta wait another day jamie god bless you continue doing what you're doing for more great videos from jamie please go to jamiegala.com facebook instagram pinterest youtube twitter tick tock at jamie geller at jewelers by jamie and if her mom is watching a shout out to you in nachas our next guest is an incredible individual his name is bruce leon he's the owner and founder of four sister companies in the chicago area the tandem family of companies this this group of companies has been recognized from some of the greatest publications from cranes to chicago's largest privately held companies to inc 5000 he was ernst young's entrepreneur of the year finalist two years in a row he's the chicago area's entrepreneurial hall of fame inductee and we're not expanding his business or starting new businesses he enjoys spending time with his family especially his young grandsons who he's grooming to be lifelong cup fans he's currently serves as a board member on many philanthropic boards and different organizations and a mentor to many young professionals and it is an honor to have bruce on the show bruce welcome to the show hey charlie how are you i'm wonderful uh we don't see you yet okay hang on a second how are we doing now awesome we got you perfect all right bruce thank you so much for making the time i know you're so busy for being part of the show this week it's great to have you on thank you charlie it's really an honor to be uh with you you know i listen to your daily boost on my commute to work i hope i got some zeal this morning i got my coffee right here as you tell everybody right i appreciate that and uh you know people tell me that you're the jewish uh tony robbins i don't believe it he might be the non-jewish charlie orrery as far as i'm concerned okay but it's really a great honor and i do want to plug that you're going to be on a zoom uh in chicago event on december 7th we're always grateful when you come back to your wife's roots in chicago and the emperor foundation is going to have it and they people can get more more charlie on december 7th so good luck thank you i appreciate that and it is always going back to my to my family's roots in chicago tell us a little bit about this the tandem family of companies give us a little bit about what it is that these companies are so we can appreciate more of the the the companies that you've built so tandem is really uh what we do is we're a peo a peo we do the back office administration hr employee benefits uh for about 400 companies mostly small mid-sized companies that don't have the ability to uh have sort of the hr department that a big hospital might have or a big fortune 500 company it's become very popular in the last 10 years we've been doing it for 23 years so you know it's quite thrilling for me because i get to work with all these different entrepreneurs all these different companies i've got one company that makes the fillings for all the krispy kreme and the dunkin donuts treats i got another company that makes a wonderful liquor uh actually has the bob dylan brand um and every story and i love to hear a fourth generation business um i've got one company that has a hundred family members working inside the company can you believe that wow um and they got a long amazing company and that's a worldwide steel company and uh it's fascinating so i have a i have a great job i get to do a lot of the stuff that they don't want to do the payroll the hr the office administration the benefit plans 401ks and taking off so they can focus on their business and i get to be with great entrepreneurs which i love amazing now as as an observant jew you're running a diverse company you built a company how does your spirituality factor in shabbat how you carry yourself where does spirituality uh play into your career and how has it formed it or how have you lived in both of these worlds throughout your career it's a great question first of all it's pretty hard to follow the revivals in the uh and mr gross is amazing stories but you know when i started 10 of 23 years ago i came out of the corporate world and i really wanted to i was a balchuva and i had just begun to you know fully observant and i decided if i had my company you know i was going to do things differently and uh we closed the offices on rochester yum kippur it cost us about forty thousand dollars uh a day to do that it's just an extra holiday for my employees um i was told by a lot of people this is not a smart thing people need their payrolls done they're not gonna they're gonna resent it i've really never had a problem with that uh my staff is about 120 people internally i have about four or five jewish people so uh everybody that gets on board in my company gets about a 30-minute class in basic judaism because we do have jewish customers um i can tell you many of them know a lot about shabbat now about candle lighting time you know there's a joke in the office in the winter because payrolls get done on friday so there's some sometimes i'm cutting a little bit too close i have about a 25-minute commute and people will come in my office mr leon mr leon sunset today is at 4 35 it's one o'clock you got to leave okay um and uh and i've really never had a problem you know you go to a glass door and some of these awful sites where people can vent their anger and once in a while if somebody's been fired or something you know they'll say oh you know the company has these funny boxes on every door and the owner makes it a jewish company and but in general for 98 of the time my customers are respectful of it i've got a public company in in in saudi arabia uh that comes full headgear um into my office and uh they they are very respectful so you know i i can only say that my success i think has been due because i've brought that into the office and just like mr gross said it it does give you a certain level of respect from your uh customers that they know that you have values and you're going to bring that into the workplace you know it's interesting you know and and you know everyone who's sort of gone through this sort of understands that shabbat can potentially be a financial liability and making the stand to be to bring in that level of spirituality can create a financial challenge what does it mean to you when you are running your company to have shabbat what does it do for you as a human being knowing that you're running this company you've got to be on six days a week and then you sort of roll in to the end of the week how does it impact your life well first of all i think that there's a common you know be in the hr world and being in the world of uh of high performance executives and uh that i think there's actually a trend now in the world that you know they say even bill gates takes wednesdays off without his technology uh we all we've all heard of the book that was written uh by uh by the former senator lieberman um about shabbat uh you know it's actually a very healthy thing to recharge to let the technology go i encourage my employees to take more time off i explain to them about shabbat and what it means you know a lot of them can't believe well if i text you you know if something urgent happens uh you'll be able to text me back no i don't i shut it down in today's world people are kind of amazed but i think it's a healthy way i think we're we have to be concerned about technology taking over uh our lives and and uh it's it's it's critical that that people understand that we all need 25 hours of rest you know charlie i wanted to speak about one thing which i think you'll get a kick out of my my company is a very diverse company we have about 80 women uh we're about 40 minority we we have a lot of contracts where customers want to have hr people that speak uh bilingual or non-profits and uh you know we live in a world right now where diversity is very confrontational and uh there's a misconception out there that if everybody just you know i hear this from young people sometimes well i i don't believe in jew or gentile i don't believe in black or white or gay or straight everybody's one that's not diversity that's stepford wide world we want to live in a world that is a stew where people bring their authentic self and cultures into their environments and they respect each other and and that's real diversity and we've really pushed that and we've been challenged in the last uh in the last couple of months because it's not easy with these issues out there that are going out in in the world today that cause a lot of dissension but i want to tell you a cute story which i think you'll get a big kick out of uh i don't know if you've heard of the the books of fred factor sure it's crazy you mentioned it because i pulled it off my shelf over the holidays i just saw it and over the past two days i just went through it just this week i read the fret factor again i haven't read it since 2013. it's not great yeah i'm a part of ypo and and vistage and so we bring in these speakers like this every year we make a big client of it i am speak to my customers so three years ago mark sanborn came to my company and just like you said everybody here should get that book it's a great book it's about a postman named fred who is just an amazing guy this mark sampler can understand this postman knows everybody's name he knows their birthdays he knows their dog's names he he he knows their schedule so he can he can hide their mail when they're away and and he asked them what do you do this for because you're not only don't you make any more money you're hated at the post office because the other postman can't can't believe you and uh and he really did a study on what people that bring passion to ordinary jobs and uh he's a great guy and so he came to speak to our company and while he was sitting there outside my office i had a couple of performance issues going on and you can see i was frustrated he came into me and he said to me bruce i have to ask you a question how much time do you spend on your c players on your non your lower performers and i said boy 100 of the time how much you spend on your on your great you know the people that are fantastic i said they don't need any you know i got a guy who's been doing payroll for 19 years he drives across town on friday afternoon if somebody was late getting their pay make sure they get their paychecks on time it doesn't doesn't it just been fantastic i i don't need to spend a lot of time with him he said let me tell you about a study we did he said we found out that elementary school kids who were great well-behaved and great students by the time they got to seventh grade they started hanging out with the clowns and the misbehaviors and we found out when we asked them what was going on they said they get all the attention we don't get any attention okay and he made me a promise that every friday i would walk around and recognize the high performers so thursday night i'm sitting in my house and you know what it's like i have four daughters and they're cooking up a storm and that i'm i'm putting my hands on all the food to taste and they're chasing me out and we make hollas they're amazing college bakers and i said to them i said do me a favor make me four or five extra colas i don't want to give out kudos bars or starbucks you know uh gift cards i wanna and i went around the next day and i went to some i performed and i all of them that had you know i'd gotten customers and i put a note you know so and so called and said you're amazing and i gave them this challah i didn't know how they'd react to it well charlie we've been doing that for three years now wow is the most prized possession of my company we've been featuring the in the tribune for this uh people put up recipes i've got african americans that swear that it's the best french toast thing and they put their pictures up and and i realized that they value that challah a lot more than they would a ten dollar target gift card because it means something they know it's a special bread for me and they've all looked into the meaning of paula and so it means so much more so we we love to bring that that shabbat bring yourself to the office bring what's important don't worry about what people think because people will respect you by bringing that stuff into the office and i think you know uh we way too many people think that you know you're a jew at home and on the street you you keep a low profile i think people respect uh you for for uh for who you are and uh and for being your authentic self i completely agree and bruce thanks so much for joining us on the show and continue being who you are which is a a jew that lights up the world around you both in your company in the larger world thank you so much for joining us it's an honor to be with you thank you so much for having me thank you bruce and i love that story because it's exactly right um that i'd love that college i got such good stuff i don't know if you got material because i got the material from the show that last story was so everything was powerful that bruce said but i want to just sort of end with what he said at the end and then sort of wrap this up really is this idea that his authentic self was that khala and he was sharing himself because he was proud of himself and a lot of times in life we're worried about what people think of us we're worried that if i step into the spiritual world what'll happen to me you saw by the revivos what happened when they stepped into that world a little bit and the world started collapsing um i think it was michelle said that she felt like she was a puppet right that's such great imagery of wait what's going on i'm part of something a little bit bigger it's a little bit out of my hands and alan who allen isaac who um really walked away from the time of the essence closing because it violated his his values his principles and only to find out that that that led itself to to greater respect and now hearing it from bruce and being able to really appreciate that diversity is not being the same it's actually being different and appreciating the differences in ourselves and others and really this is what what this is about this is what greatness is about greatness is about pushing ourselves to be more to be deeper and not being worried about what someone else thinks or whether it's going to impact us in one way or the other because the deeper we go the the better our lives are that's the challenge of shabbat you know i have my own story i've been keeping shabbat thank god for the majority of my life and for a different show i'll tell you my stories through all my times of running out minutes before and but through all of that one of the most inspiring moments that happened to me came from one of the participants on the men's trips that that i'm honored to be a part of there's a man who i saw in florida i can't i didn't get permission so i can't say his name i saw him down in florida and i was having dinner with a bunch of the guys and he came over to me and he said you know i run this store it's a he's a chain of stores and he was with us in israel and he met all these people that were unplugging they were keeping shabbat they were unplugging that's not fair i'm i'm in the office on saturday why what that's not right well i think it's shabbat and i don't very similar to the regal story he said to me i came home and told my wife that i want to try it and she said it's going to destroy our our business saturday is the biggest day and he goes we'll do for six months and he jumped in and i was in florida and he came over to me and he said to me can i talk to you i said sure he goes i just got my accountant's report on the year he said at the end of six months between this store and that store this day that day goes i made the exact amount of money that i made when i had it open seven days a week and and he said it with such a with like a twinkle in his eye like what what is the spirituality thing it's real it's big i'm not guaranteeing any economic moves but all of us at whatever level we're on there's there isn't like do this then do that wherever we all are we deep down know the next step in our spirituality wherever we're holding everybody everybody has to stand and look out into this next phase of our lives everyone's standing right after the holidays and staring at the year and looking at the winter and winter's gonna be over soon we're gonna ask ourselves when we emerge from the hibernation if you will what did i did i change what did i put into my life all of us have the next level in front of us and our job is to walk with boldness to not be scared to not be hesitant to recognize that the more the deeper i go the better i am and to feel the confidence of the creator of the universe saying be deeper don't worry this world will cater to you you don't cater to this world that's what shabbat stands for shabbat stands for the proof that this world really caters to us when we do what's right when we take time to go deeper we get more than when we just stay at the surface and my blessing to to me my blessing to you and to all of us is that we strive for more with zeal with fearlessness because we know that when we step into the to greater spirituality we don't lose in the end there's only there's only one to gain so on behalf of me and mine to you and yours i want to wish you a shabbat shalom may this be a shabbat of courage boldness of fearlessness shabbat we have a minute to breathe and realize that the greatest thing i can do this winter time is to build myself and my family stronger and with that maybe just maybe next week sometime soon we get to do this show live from jerusalem the spiritual capital of the world but until then have an incredible weekend good shabbos shabbat shalom with god's help i cannot wait to see you again next week [Music] bring me back to you back into your loving arms [Music] are you listening [Music] i don't know where i am i don't know where i've been all i know is i'm standing here begging you bring me back bring me back into your loving nose so take me back take me back take me back into your lovely nose i can't do it alone bring me back to you back into your loving bring me back to you back into [Music] oh [Music] i'm [Music] my [Music] so far [Music] and