TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: 3 Indispensable Spiritual Secrets to Building a Business
Date: 06/19/26 Length: 00:25:32
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Greetings, happy warriors, and welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, where I, your Rabbi, reveal how the world really works. Thanks so much for being part of the show, and thank you for all you do to help promote the show. And today we dive into the topic of three specific spiritual secrets to building a business, three things you can do to build a business, and the reason I say three spiritual things is because building a business is a
Daniel Lapin 0:47
supremely spiritual enterprise. There are no animals that do it, and the truth is that seldom do reprehensible rogues succeed at it. It's a uniquely human activity, and it's a uniquely human activity which does good for five different categories of people. Obviously, the builder of the business benefits as do his customers,
Daniel Lapin 1:16
and anyone who doubts that, just see what happens when shoplifting and crime drives a business out of a neighborhood, all of a sudden there are cries of distress from the neighborhood, and in some states the government of the state attempts to penalize the company for closing its store instead of clamping down on the behavior that made the company decide that the store was not profitable and needed to be closed, so yes, building a business does good for the owner of the business, and it does good for his customers.
Daniel Lapin 2:03
Number three, it does good for the employees of that business who have jobs and are enabled to support themselves by the existence of that business. And then we have the shareholders who help to finance the business, and they're enabled to earn a return on the loan of their capital, and then, and then, of course, the community in which the business is located also benefits, so obviously something which does so much good for so many people has to have a spiritual element as well, and therefore applying the spiritual roles, applying the spiritual principles has meaning. There's another reason that we know that a business is spiritual, and that is because physical activities, purely physical activities, are predictable, because the laws of physics are predictable, and so if 10 different people of different characters and different makeup and different spiritual strengths follow exactly an architect's blueprint to build a house, you will end up with 10 houses that look exactly the same. Why wouldn't they? because the nature of the builder makes no difference. The plan is there, the instructions and directions are there, and as long as they are followed diligently, there's nothing to worry about. They will all come out to be the same, and that's true for all physical activities. However, if you give 10 couples marriage training, and have them all read the same books on marriage. You're not going to end up with 10 identical marriages, because human beings are not predictable. You know why human beings are not predictable? Because they are spiritual. Animals are much more predictable. Occasionally an animal will do something unexpected. Not long ago, a horse in Central Park, New York, that had routinely taken its carriage around the park at a sedate pace got spooked, and it went off. Now, you could say that if you spook animals or horses, they will run off, and that makes it predictable, but by and large, an animal is predictable, and a human being not so much. And if you take 10 entrepreneurs and give them a business plan. You're not going to end up with 10 of the same businesses. Some will succeed, some will fail. 10 couples follow the same premarital instruction program, 10 different marriages, some more successful than others, and so we.
Daniel Lapin 4:59
Once we understand that marriage is spiritual, well, then obviously you'd want to know some of the spiritual secrets to marriage, and similarly, if we know that a business is somewhat spiritual, maybe largely spiritual, then you'd want to know some of the spiritual rules that have to go, that go into the making of a business, and that's what we're going to look at now. So, the first spiritual of my three rules for today, for today's show, the first spiritual rule is to make a covenantal commitment to building your business. If you really do want to build your own business, doing so has to be a priority. Now, the word priority is a singular word, meaning that none of us can have two or three or 11 priorities. A priority is one thing, one important thing, and I just recently became aware of a fascinating account of a particular woman who started a company called Kalshi, and Kalshi is a an online betting website where you can place money on various different outcomes, including political, by the way, and it turns out to be a much more reliable and accurate predictor than political pundits who predict the outcome of elections, and I think the reason for that is that it's the, it's the wisdom of the crowd. There's a lot of people placing bets on that website, and it's the bet is
Daniel Lapin 7:01
people are putting up real money, and so they're it's not just an opinion, they've really thought about it, and the opinion of a lot of people generally tends to be more reliable, and again I say generally, because you and I can both think of many obvious exceptions, but my point is that the co-founder is a woman called Luana Lopez Lara. She's from Brazil, and she's not even 30 years old, but she was a very high level ballet dancer as a young girl growing up in Brazil, and eventually she made her way to the United States, and to attend college here, and she got into a very good school, she got into MIT to study mathematics, and she was also continuing her high level ballet and then she realized that that doesn't work and she came to MIT and she says by her second week in Boston she went to her ballet class, and she realized this wasn't going to work. She had to decide. She either had to have a career in ballet or she had to have a career in math, but she couldn't do both. And that was this, this, this really important understanding that, yeah, you know, it's there, is such a thing as a priority, and it's not, it's not a plural, so one has to know that now,
Daniel Lapin 8:54
the, you obviously are aware of the 5f program and the 5f system, and so you might well say, now wait a sec, you know, Rabbi Lapin, you teach 5f's family, faith, finance, fitness, and friendships, so what do you mean when you say that that finance building the business is the priority, and the answer is that within that part of the framework, and so you really do have to be focused, obviously some of your time, energy, and attention and thoughts go on your family, some of it goes on faith. You can't just drop your social connections, obviously you can't drop your health, your fitness, but in the F of finance, don't be dissipated, and so the way to achieve.
Daniel Lapin 10:00
This, and the way to integrate this into family and friendships and elsewhere, is through a covenant, that's what I call it, a covenantal commitment.
Daniel Lapin 10:11
Well, in what way is a covenant different from a promise? Well, a promise is just an agreement between two parties. I promised to lend you my lawnmower on Wednesday, and that's a commitment between you and me. But a covenant, on the other hand, involves at least one other party, and that may well, and often is God. So, the covenant of marriage involves the bride and her husband and God in whose eyes the couple marries, and that's one of the reasons that even in a time of intense secularized secularization, large numbers of people, I think it's a majority, still choose to marry under religious auspices, and so when you make a covenantal commitment to building your business, you are involving your family, you may well be involving God as well, and this allows you to bring them all in on your commitment, and that way they're not only witness to your commitment, but they're also facilitators to helping you keep that commitment, and so, in other words, rule number one: keep those most important to you completely in the picture. Make sure you tell your family, your friends, tell them exactly what your plans are, what your timeline is, in which you attend accomplishing those results, and, and, and update them on success, and update them on setbacks, and that way you're, you're not alone, you, your bill, your business building is taking place within a covenantal framework, and this makes it much easier to integrate your life around this business priority. Will there be times you disconnect from work and spend special time with spouse and children? Of course, will you spend special time in prayer and church fellowship? Of course, but your subsequent return to your business commitment will be renewed and refreshed, because it's all part of this larger covenantal commitment in which your business is going to be growing.
Daniel Lapin 12:33
The second spiritual principle, and you might, you might even wonder as to whether it really is a spiritual commitment, but that is to put it in one sentence, it's knowing what you do for people, and be proud of it, proclaim it, declare it. It sounds, sounds a little bit like advertising, isn't it, and sure enough, I regard advertising as a very uplifting and noble activity. I think telling people what you're able to do for them, telling people how you can help them, is a good thing, and I think most of us see it that way. The truth is that when we have the opportunity of eliminating advertising material, most of us don't do it. We're kind of okay with it, and it's interesting that online platforms that flourish on advertising do their level best to bring you advertising that is of interest to you, and people are okay with that, you know. I may well, clips, click, skip it after the first few seconds of it. It doesn't particularly interest me at the moment, but
Daniel Lapin 13:57
I do find my sort of knowledge of what's out there, and what people are coming up with. I find it enhanced by at least being aware of advertising, and so that is something we should sort of overcome any diffidence we have about that, and you should be sure that you can explain it simply. I was advising a young person a little while ago, and one of.. he was.. we were talking about his business success, or lack of business success, and he was not able to describe. never mind. In 30 seconds, I gave him three minutes, and I still didn't understand what he wanted to do, what he was trying to do, the business he was trying to create, and, and so I helped him focus in, and, and, and rule out sometimes.
Daniel Lapin 14:59
What's needed here is clarifying all the things you're not doing, so as to help focus in on the things that you are doing, but it's certainly something that you should be aware of, and that is trying to make sure that you can comfortably, proudly, and fluently articulate what it is that you do to help your fellow human beings, and that you can do that quickly and easily, and I've often pointed out that this is so important in the Hebrew tradition that Jewish names were very often identifiable because they specifically advertised what the person did, and so there were names like, and this is true in the Jewish communities in Germany, and Germany communities in France, and Jewish communities in England, and they took last names, you know, as last names became more and more common, they took last names and adopted last names that precisely told people exactly what they did for them, and so they would take Goldsmith or Silverman or Wasserman in German, that is the water supplier Drucker, that means the printer Fetterman. Right, we have a member of the United States Congress, Fetterman, a very interesting guy. That means a feather merchant, and many, many other names like that. The truth is that if you are a man, and it's obvious that I don't think I have to explain to you why I say what I'm about to say is much truer for a man than it is for a woman. Your work is one of the most interesting things about you,
Daniel Lapin 17:00
it really is, and, and, and I stress that, because I've seen so many guys who try and shed that as if it's an irrelevant part of their being. I'm much more than my work. Yeah, okay, that may be, but your work is a very interesting part about you, and that's one of the reasons that when men meet, one of the very first questions they ask one another is, you know, what do you do, what do you, what field are you in, you know, what do you do, and the real question is, how do you help humanity, you know, what it is, what do you do to help people, and you know, you, you might answer, I fix their water plumbing, I fix their teeth, I fix their legal problems, I supply them with shoes, or I supply them with paint, or I supply them with sporting equipment, or maybe I help them start their own businesses, I help my fellow human beings achieve financial independence. You'll be surprised how often people will approach you once you've successfully clarified just how it is you can help them, and that is the bottom level, that is the secret of advertising, and why I think of advertising as, good and moral, and worthwhile doing.
Daniel Lapin 18:25
You know exactly how you go about best letting people know what you can do to serve them is up to you, but do give it some serious and creative thought, and then, and lastly, the third spiritual tool to develop in order to successfully build your own business is increase the capability of your most important business building organ, so you know, imagine you are going to ask an athletics coach to give you advice about running a marathon, you know, he'd probably talk about strengthening your legs, and he'd teach you the most efficient way of moving them quickly, right? It's pretty easy to identify your legs as the most important organ in running races, however, identifying the key organ for building your business is a little harder, isn't it? So, if you realize that building a business is the real world result of practicing the 3c's communication, collaboration, and creation.
Daniel Lapin 19:49
Right, a business. What is the definition of a business? And I'm not going to waste your time giving you the official definition of the business. You'll find in economics textbooks, or the definition of business that I once got when I put the question to various heads of business schools. The answer to what a business is really simpler. It's any entity that has customers, that's all. People who pay you for your goods or services, you got yourself a business, that's all there is to it. And so you know, basically, you know, how do you, how do you make money? Well, mate, making money only happens when one human being serves another human being, or an entity of human beings, namely a corporation or a company, serves other money is made, that's the only time it happens. Well, how can that be brought about? Communication, that's what it is. When you go up to somebody and say, I have an idea for you, I have a suggestion for you, I have a deal that might make sense for you. That's communication. The next step is collaboration. The person said, "Okay, well, you know, said, 'Tell me, what.. what do you.. how would this work? All right, collaboration. And then the result, after you've communicated, and after you collaborate, will then creation.. the creation is money is created through that act, and you will see if you think of applying the three Cs of communication, collaboration, and creation. You realize the key organ is your mouth.
Daniel Lapin 21:30
You know, you've got to remember, as you've heard me say many times, that most of us prefer to do business with people that we know, people we like, and people we trust. Imagine trying to get to know somebody while refusing to talk. It's ridiculous. That is the most important way of getting to know somebody. Conversation,
Daniel Lapin 21:56
and it's obvious, right, that you'd never come to really like somebody with whom you've never ever had a good conversation. It's unthinkable, and trust keeping your word again communication, but if you've never said a word, then keeping it becomes a bit irrelevant. So, if you've ever heard people say enviously about someone, "Oh, you know, he's really got the gift of the gab, you know what an impression it makes when you can effectively articulate your point, and so you got to realize that whenever two people do business together, whenever two people buy or sell something to one another or provide a service, wealth is created at that point, and you know it doesn't take much thought to realize that that is absolutely true, because if you didn't use a gun to force them to make a deal with you to buy your, services, or buy whatever it is you're selling, then they must have agreed to it, because it benefited them. It made their position, their life, their situation better.
Daniel Lapin 23:11
Everybody in a deal values what they gain more than what they give up. That is the act of doing business, and it is the act of creation, but as I said before, before two people can create, they must collaborate, and before two people can collaborate, they first got to communicate, and this is why, just as a runner learns to most effectively use his legs, so it is that in business we learn to best and most effectively use our mouth, and to do that, and I've, I've spoken about this in the past as well. Just a reminder, read, and occasionally read aloud, so your ears hear what your mouth is saying, and, and that, that is exactly the way to go about applying these important three spiritual secrets to building a business, making a covenantal commitment to building your business, be able to articulate easily and proudly what you, what it is that you do for other people, and then number three, improve the ability of your speaking, learn to speak most effectively, and those are the three spiritual secrets of building a business, and so happy warriors. I hope that you will practice these things, and that you will thrive, and in so doing, not only will you improve your finances, but through doing these things, you will be also improving your family.
Daniel Lapin 25:00
Please, and your faith, and your friendships, and indeed also your fitness. That is how this works. Till we talk again next week. Thanks for being part of the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show. And again, make sure you visit www.RabbiDaniellapin.com/start until next week. I'm your Rabbi. God bless.
