Ep 31Rabbi Makes $7 Million Overnight, Loses It All in Life-Changing Moment
I'm giving you a check for $100 million. What would you do with it?
Rabbi Benjamin Blech
Rabbi Makes $7 Million Overnight, Loses It All in Life-Changing Moment
with Rabbi Benjamin Blech
Success is having whatever you want and happiness is wanting whatever you have.
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Quotes
“I want to find out how much I'm worth... Is my worth determined by the ups and downs of the Dow? That's crazy.”
“The pain of losing money is far greater than the joy of making it.”
“In school, you study before you take the test. Lesson of life, you take the test first.”
“I climbed up the ladder of success to the top floor and then I realized I was in the wrong building.”
“The work that you do is the rent that we pay God for our place on earth.”
“I have something that he doesn't have... I know the meaning of enough. (Joseph Heller to Kurt Vonnegut, as he told it)”
Takeaways
- 1 The story: after nearly 40 years as a pulpit rabbi (Young Israel of Oceanside) and YU professor, he had about $50,000 at 60. He turned it into $7 million in about a year during the dot-com boom, then lost almost all of it and went through about a year of depression.
- 2 Ego was the first mistake: feeling like a genius in a rising market. The second was refusing to sell because "it'll come back."
- 3 His turning point was hearing himself say he was calling the broker "to find out how much I'm worth." Your worth is being a rebbe, father, husband and Jew, not the Dow.
- 4 Failure can be rebbe gelt - tuition paid to life. Wall Street firms look for applicants who have failed and recovered, and MBA students voted his talk the most impactful of the year.
- 5 Know what money is for: MBA students chasing $100 million couldn't say what they'd do with it except "invest it."
- 6 Judaism isn't against wealth - Avraham was rich. But money is like fire (the coin of fire given to Moshe): it can build or destroy. Each person is only a half shekel of what they can do with it.
- 7 Tombstones never list net worth. The Rothschild story: "what I have" is what I gave away.
- 8 Advertising exists to make you unhappy with what you have. The root is lo sachmod. The glass is completely full - half water, half air.
- 9 If wealth came: take care of yourself and family first, then community, the Jewish world, then humanity. Don't give away everything, and don't spoil children.
- 10 Anyone with 100 wants 200, so the very rich can feel poorer. Most lottery winners regretted winning, except those who gave most of it away.