Ep 98Dovid Lichtenstein: A Jewish Billionaire's Advice on Money and Life
"Excuse me, what's credit?" How a broke kollel guy bought his first house with $3,000
Dovid Lichtenstein
Dovid Lichtenstein: A Jewish Billionaire's Advice on Money and Life
with Dovid Lichtenstein
Reputation is not what people say when you're successful. Reputation is people look at you when you've failed.
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Quotes
“Labor without a vision is just exhaustion.”
“We learn more from adversity than from success.”
“Credit cards are like sugar. You can get happy in a hurry.”
“I am enough and I have enough.”
“I've sat with some of the wealthiest people in the universe and their level of unhappiness equals any other demographic.”
“If you're just going to come home at night and do more work and more work, something inside of you is going to die and it's not going to be your pinky.”
Takeaways
- 1 There are two kinds of poverty: lacking food, shelter and clothing, and earning less than your neighbor. His family had the first covered and never suffered from the second, because money meant little to his parents and in-laws.
- 2 Selling encyclopedias door to door taught him that labor without a vision is exhaustion and that everything needs a story.
- 3 While in kollel he went to apply for food stamps, tore up the form instead and chose real estate because it needed no degree. He views fear as the biggest obstacle to crossing life's bridges.
- 4 With no credit history, he used $3,000 of wedding money as security for passbook loans at several banks, built credit, got credit cards and bought his first two-family house for about $91,000. Then he refinanced and bought again, growing to 18, 47, 70 and 400-unit buildings. (His story, not a recommendation to fund a purchase with credit cards.)
- 5 He kept his old friends and never joined a fast crowd. Money is a tool, like a doctor's tools. People who need labels to tell them who they are are missing something.
- 6 He moved out of Lakewood when his lifestyle no longer matched his neighbors', out of fairness to them.
- 7 Curiosity drives growth: asking "why not?" moved Lightstone from apartments into retail outlets, hotels and later logistics. He keeps a thick book of his mistakes.
- 8 He bought Extended Stay Hotels for about $8 billion in 2007, at the market peak. When the crisis cut values by about 50%, he put it into bankruptcy to keep payroll running despite a bank executive's threat, then personally paid a $100 million guarantee.
- 9 Envy has no end: even the richest person can envy someone with a working family. Saying "enough" frees time for what matters. Honor you'd give yourself is worthless, and fans' applause isn't much better.
- 10 He keeps working for the challenge (like sharks that keep fish strong on a long voyage) and because money is a powerful tool. The Rambam worked as a physician, and many great rabbis had trades. Balance hishtadlus with bitachon, and use Shabbos to return to yourself.
- 11 Raising children with wealth can take away their chance to make their own mark. Most of his children built their own startups.
- 12 Give with leverage and mostly anonymously. After October 7 he started "We Are Off the Page" short videos to teach Torah to Jews with no background.