Ep 108The Advice I'd Give My Grandchildren About Money & Life
Get things done: 'That's a great idea. Do it.'
Dr. Louis Malcmacher
The Advice I'd Give My Grandchildren About Money & Life
with Dr. Louis Malcmacher
You only get this one life, right? You got to make the most of it. And you make the most of it by doing things for other people.
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Quotes
“Life is all about risk... but you've got to put some mindfulness into it to make sure that you're not jumping off the cliff.”
“If you have opportunities that require a lot of travel, do not do it when your kids are young because your kids are only young once.”
“We live in this materialistic dream world that you've got to hold yourself back sometimes and be grounded.”
“If you want something done, ask a busy person.”
“The side hustle, you don't just need a side hustle of money, you can have a side hustle of chessed.”
“You got to start, you got to keep doing it, and eventually it catches fire, but it's about being consistent.”
Takeaways
- 1 He grew up in Cleveland, the son of Holocaust survivors who focused on rebuilding. His father ran a small shoe store. Early jobs as a janitor's helper, paperboy and day-camp counselor taught him that no honest work is beneath you.
- 2 He chose dentistry because as a kohen medical school was out. Dentistry and dental hygiene give frum families control over their time. He joined an established practice early and grew with it.
- 3 The people who build the most wealth eventually go out on their own or get equity. Take measured risks: the first step shows you the way forward.
- 4 His biggest regret was not moving sooner into new areas. Growth came when the family business shifted from dental education into facial aesthetics and facial pain (such as Botox).
- 5 Side businesses grow best inside your own field. Education led to products, and products scale far more than teaching alone. He mostly invests in his own businesses and with a few lifelong friends, not in real estate he doesn't understand.
- 6 A family business works when children bring the appetite for risk and parents the caution, with clear roles.
- 7 Cost of living matters more than salary: it's not how much you earn but how much you keep. Cleveland's lower housing costs and Ohio's tuition vouchers let families live well on less, and wealthy locals living modestly set the tone.
- 8 The Lakewood minivan story: a visitor from Israel felt embarrassed by a new rental minivan, then found everyone in Lakewood drove the same one. Materialism creeps in; stay grounded.
- 9 Mendy Klein went bankrupt early, promised the Hebrew Academy he'd pay back his children's tuition break, and later helped grow Cleveland's frum community by bringing in young families. Vision means ignoring the naysayers.
- 10 Overthinking every risk means never starting. Some kids who couldn't sit still in school went on to build companies and Torah institutions.
- 11 Get things done and stop wasting time. Dial-a-Rebbi started with one rebbi and a few phone lines. A networking convention for school fundraisers grew from 70 people to 700-800 and, by his rough estimate, helped build about $2 billion of schools.