Podcast Interview- Faith and Business

Welcome back to the show Schmoozers. I am David Cobby, and you are listening to another amazing episode of Schmoozing Time, the only podcast in the world inspiring proud Jews to leverage their personal brands. Before we get into the episode, make sure you're following the show on whatever platform you're listening to. You're listening to this episode on this ensures that you'll never miss another episode. It's really one thing to create a meaningful life for yourself, but it's another to do the same thing for your employees. My next guest has a track record of not only creating a successful, meaningful life for himself with various accolades, but also creating a work environment where employees feel like they can thrive. At one point in time, his company choice Recovery, was. Was ranked the best place to work in central Ohio, which also led him to becoming a finalist for Ernest and Young's Entrepreneur of the Year. He's a notable thought leader, entrepreneur advisor, and of course, a proud Jew. Please welcome to this week's episode, Chad Silverstein. Chad, how are we doing today, man?

Thank God, man. I'm doing great. David, I appreciate you having me on.

Of course, of course. It's. It's. Unfortunately, you're. You're. Are you a. Are you a big Ohio State guy or. Not really?

Yeah, of course I went to Ohio State and. Big Buckeye fan.

Okay. So I was just. I was going to say the timing of this episode could not be less poor just because of last night. I don't know if you watched the Ohio State, Maryland game, but Ohio State won at the. At the last second. And I could definitely, as a big Maryland basketball fan, I don't know how I feel about giving a platform to somebody that's an Ohio State fan today. So.

So the good news.

Be careful what you say on the show.

The good news is I wrestled at Ohio State my first year, and I'm a big wrestling fan. So wrestling was always in conflict with basketball. So we always had a little rivalry in high school about the basketball players and the wrestlers. So I'm not a huge basketball fan, but if it's Buckeyes and they want them happy.

Yeah, exactly. So, Chad. I know. I just, I. That intro, I mean, it doesn't even do justice to really who you are as a person and. And why you came on this podcast. So I feel like, to start things off, tell us about yourself. If you could give. Give yourself a two to three minute intro and how you ultimately ended up on the show today.

Sure. So I'm from Cleveland, Ohio, and I Went to Ohio State, and I started my first business during my senior year. While going to college, I got an opportunity after a summer job with a company in Cleveland at a collection agency. I was on the phones just helping them out for the summer, and I actually told the story the other night. I just found out who made the most calls in the office, and I figured, I'll make more calls than that person. And apparently that made quite an impact on the CEO at the time. And long story short, when I went back my senior year, the day before I left to go back to start school, he offered me an opportunity to work for him in Columbus. And so that led to just a journey that I never saw coming, because I obviously didn't wake up one day and say, I want to work at a collection agency. And he taught me in one day how to make a sales call. And as you know, in business, you got nothing without sales. And so I just had the gift of gab. And I literally went back to school. I took classes at 9:30, 10:30, 11:30. I came home, put on a suit, and I went door to door. And I started knocking on as many doctors and dental offices that I could possibly find. And with no money up front, no contracts, I just asked them to use my company. We'll be nice to your patients. We'll were really good. We're out of Cleveland. And in about six months, I had about 100 clients. And so that kind of just kind of set off, you know, the idea that my degree in college wasn't gonna do me much, but my success in being able to sell was gonna do a lot. And when I graduated, he offered me the opportunity to start my company in Columbus. And he was my first mentor. And it was. It was an incredible opportunity. I grew the company from there. And along the way, with absolutely no, not much of a background in Judaism, I started searching for the truth. I started, you know, kind of seeking out, you know, there's got to be more than just making a paycheck. And 2010, I hired a leadership coach from a company called Built to Lead. And his first question is, why are you here? And I said, what do you mean, why am I here? Here, like, talking to you or like, here existing? And he looked at me and he said, yes. And so I didn't know what he was talking about, but he was wondering if I knew why I was here, if I had purpose in life. And it jolted me. You know, I had. I have twin boys. And I remember saying to my wife at the time, I'm not going to be able to answer one question if they ask me anything about Judaism. It just wasn't part of my life at this point. I literally had no connection. I had no Jewish friends and I had no Jewish affiliation with anything. I stopped going to Cleveland for the, for the holidays, and I was completely disconnected, the furthest way you can go. And at the time, I had a very close friend who was my wrestling coach in high school. And we stayed in touch. And he always used to say to me, you know what the Torah says about that? And I'm like, no, what's the Torah say about that? And, you know, I didn't even know what he was talking about. And he asked me one day if I wanted to learn. And so again, I didn't know what that meant either. But before he would shut down for Shabbat on Fridays, we would get on the phone and we'd start learning. And I fell in love. I just fell in love. Everything I learned, it was so great because it just aligned with everything that I was already doing, whether it be personal, professional development, character ethics, you name it. And it just aligned. And I just, you know, when I'm into something, I don't know how to go slow. So I went all in. And I learned very quickly that was Yiddishkeit. You can't really do that. It doesn't work really well. So the rabbis that I became really close with were very sharp and very smart, and they knew to hold me back and never push me. And, you know, I guess coming from a non religious background, it worked really well. I got to do whatever I wanted. I didn't have to do anything. And so it's very different from someone who's raised religious. And so I slowly started on that journey, and then I integrated that into a way of living, a way of running my business, and a way of just being, being. And thank God today I'm an observant Jew. I'm proud of it. And it impacts every piece of my life, every person in my life, what I stand for, what I believe, and more importantly, who I answer to. Very clear picture of how I got here and where I'm going and who holds me accountable.

So Chad, I think somebody listening to the story might be like, why did Chad change so quickly? And when I'm looking at the story as an outsider looking in and I'm pretending like I. I don't know anything about Judaism, the thing that I'm thinking to myself is, why did Chad become so radical so quickly? Like, you went from, like, you said not knowing what the Torah was, which I would argue, I would hope that at least 99% of Jews know what the Torah is. But you didn't really know what the Torah was. To now becoming an Orthodox Jew, learning, wearing a keeper, all this stuff. So as. As. As an outsider looking in, you made this. This radical change. Why did you go so extreme so quickly?

It's a great question. So in every area of my life, when I'm into something, I go all in. I don't really know how to go slow. Ironically, my path in Judaism is the exact opposite. It was so slow that I had people in my life questioning what I was doing and why I was doing it. And I'll give you an example. So when I first started asking those questions, I was talking to someone once a week on a Thursday at noon, just for an hour to read a book. And I did that for two years. And I didn't do anything else. So I was really going very slow. I had no desire to be observant. I had no desire to, like, do anything. I was searching more for a spiritual path of just a connection and really answering the big questions in life. I mean, the first two questions I asked a rabbi were, what's Shema? Who's Moses? I mean, I really was starting at the basic foundation of, like, what is it that Jews believe? And I just didn't know. And I was curious. And as I started learning and asking those questions and I started to align my life with it, it just felt right. And because I wasn't forced to do anything, I never was turned off. But it actually was very slow. I mean, in two years of going in once a week, I bought my pair of. I remember when I bought my Tefillin, it took me eight months to even put it on. And I remember because I thought to myself, if I put these things on, I'm not gonna have a day where I don't put him on. And I wasn't ready for it, so I didn't do it. You know, and things like keeping kosher, things like Shabbat, you're talking years after I even started taking an interest. In fact, I remember one of my very close friends, he said to me, I don't understand why you love this whole Judaism path so much. You've never even done a Shabbat before. You have no clue how great it really is. And he's like, man, if you love it now, just wait until you taste Shabbat. And when I started playing with Shabbos, you know, like, you know, I slowly started going into it. I stopped looking at my phone on Friday night. I then extended that to a Saturday afternoon. And then, you know, but it took me years, years. And it's. And it's talk to anyone in the cure of movement, teaching people, guiding people. And they say that a Baltuva, someone who's not religious from an early age, the biggest mistake they can make is going radical and going in too soon, and they usually leave the path. And thank God I never. I never had that problem. I always went really slow. I only did what I was feeling comfortable doing. And I just took the things that were more meaningful to me and I didn't worry about everything else. And the next thing I know, you know, I look back and I'm like, whoa, I have taken on a lot. But it actually was never, never too quick. I never jolted myself. Although it did have an impact on. On my life and the people in my life that those things all did radically change over time because my life changed. Right.

And as somebody that I think Chad and I maybe have a completely different Jewish background. Right. For those of you that listen to previous episodes, I grew up on Orthodox for 18 years, still keep kosher, keep Shabbat to a degree. Not the Shomer Shabbat aspect of it, where I don't go on my phone or whatever, but I still celebrate Shabbat. And it's a very meaningful part of my life. And eventually that's something that I want to get towards again. And like you said, you alluded to at the beginning of this episode that it's one thing for somebody who's already kept Shabbat and Kosher to go even a little bit deeper and maybe start learning, you know, Chumash or whatever it is to go deeper into Judaism. It's another thing for somebody to. Who has no concept of Shabbat to come in and really go super deep into Judaism. And that's hard. I mean, you're, You're. I feel like you're doing a good job of masking it by saying it was meaningful. And it is a very meaningful thing like Shabbat to fill in. All these things in Judaism are so, so meaningful. But there had to be some sort of hardship there, right? This doesn't just happen and, oh, Kumbaya, everything's good and beautiful. Done. You're a religious Jew, end of the story. Like, keeping Shabbat very hard, keeping kosher very hard. Putting out tefill in every day very hard. So of that entire process, and I mean, let's be real here. Judaism is. Is a ever evolving process of you getting closer and closer with God each day. But of that process of where you really started to become more religious. What was the hardest part of that, man?

I mean, you hit it on the head. It was. It was really hard. And I don't mask it. I don't. Because my whole life changed and happened slowly and gradually because of the path that I took, and because I didn't just jump in and start keeping kosher. I didn't just jump in and start keeping Shabbat. I slowly leaned into it to my comfort level. And because I wasn't raised that way, it was easier for me, actually, because I didn't have the pressure of that I'm supposed to be doing this. I didn't have anyone saying that. In fact, I think just because of my secular background and my friends and the community that I was in, which was not the Jewish community at the time, and even my network of entrepreneurs, nobody was really religious. Although the non Jews are very religious. I mean, they have it in their life. It's different. It's very different. But let me tell you something. Changing the groups of friends that I was hanging around, not going to Vegas anymore, stop gambling. It was hard stuff, man. Like, my relationships changed big time. And I think that happens to people just in general when they graduate from college and they start their professional careers, they become friends with the people they work with. But I got jolted many, many, many Times. And in 2017, I went through a divorce. I married someone who was not Jewish. And it was very difficult, Very difficult. And I think embracing pain and suffering has been sort of a principle of mine, because life is hard. And you're right, being Jewish and being observant and knowing who you serve and wanting to do the right thing that you believe in. And for me, that's going to shul three times a day, praying, putting on that fill, and observing Shabbat. Well, here's what I learned about the whole experience. The Torah is an incredible tool for people because it's a guide. And as hard as it was when I was going through everything and it was just such a hard thing for me to put my phone away, I was addicted to it. I mean, I have a very addictive personality, and I'm addicted to my phone. And the thought of giving that up, it was so hard. But now it's the biggest blessing in my life. I can't imagine not getting that 25 hours a week break. And I always joke around with people because if you don't go dark, at least for a day like that, then you've literally signed yourself up for a lifetime subscription of being distracted 24, 7 every day. And if you can't get away from that for at least a day, a week, you have to question, what does that. What does that say? What does it say about the control that technology has on you? And I think I realized. And again, simultaneously with work and my professional career and my quest for personal, professional development. When you look at what influences us, back in the day, faith and family was your biggest influence. Today, it's not even in the top 10. Social media, and the people you hang around are. And that scares me. You know, it scares me for my kids. It scares me for myself. And I want to be my own biggest influence. I don't want to be influenced by social media. I don't want to be influenced by. By a group of people outside of myself. So I'm looking inward. I'm doing the hard work on what do I believe? And then I'm working really hard on closing those integrity gaps and making sure that I'm living in a way that's aligned with what I believe. And I. I have a couple truth tellers in my life that will call me out, they'll hit me with some of those blind spots, and I'm good at kicking my own butt and seeing that, you know, I believe this, but I'm doing that. And, you know, you can only deal with enough cognitive dissonance where you're living a double life in a sort of a way in your brain versus what you're living. And I always say you got two choices. You can either change what you believe. Right. Which is easy to do. I can rationalize it and change what I believe, and now it's not that big of a deal, or I can change my behavior. And that is brutally hard when you have to change your behavior because you change your behavior changes everything. And so I've done those a lot, and it does. It shifts the path. But I will say that when I look back, they were all good shifts. As hard as it was, there's a light at the end of the tunnel that you kind of free yourself. I free myself from technology once a week. I free myself from feeling like I have fomo. You know, I'm missing out on something else. And I got to tell you, man, when I shut down on Friday night and I get to be with my wife and I'm with my kids and I'm with community, and I have a relationship with God, I have to tell you, man, I love it. I absolutely love it. I know there's more than life than a rat race and making money, and I spend all day during the week doing that, and I need a break from that. God, that. That is.

I think that really resonates with. With me, and I hope it resonates with. With all the listeners, too. I. One thing that, like, really, really struck me was when you were talking about influence and how, again, we're being a little hypocritical here because we're doing this podcast to influence other people through social media. But when you really take a step back, we're all addicted to our phones. There's, like, I don't know. I don't know anybody that's not into their phone. Even. Even the. Even the people that don't have a smartphone. Right. The ability to communicate with somebody 247 is addicting. Like, our brains weren't, like, from an evolutionary standpoint. Like, we were not made to, like, initially, we did not have the thinking and capability of communicating with people from such long distances. So it's such an addicting thing. And one of the things that I actually wrote about in my college essay was this exact idea of taking a break and 25 hours. You don't touch your phone, you're with your family, you eat really good food. It's for right now, for me, it's such a struggle. It is really, really hard for me to. To. To revert to my old ways of when I was younger and I didn't have a lot on my plate doing Shabbat, it was so easy because, thank God, every week I had a Shabbat dinner. I would go to shul, I would come back, I'd have lunch, I'd hang out with my friends and family, and then, boom, Shabbat would be over. It was the easiest thing in the world. Now it's so hard because a podcast and I have a job and I have a life outside of both of those things. So for somebody like. Like me, Chad, what step do we need to take? Like what? Like, there are a lot of people out there like me that want to live a more meaningful life. And for Jewish people, I think experiencing Shabbat, number one, hands down, the best way that you can experience a more meaningful life in the scope of Judaism. So for somebody like me, what step do I need to take in order to get to that place again without actually sacrificing progress that I'm making in my job and my podcast?

Yeah. So here's here's the way I look at that one. Nobody can do it by themselves. You know what? The tagline at my company built a leap that when I'm working with people is that together we transform. And the one thing I know about the Jewish community, man, there ain't nothing like it. You know, think about this. My wife's from New York. You have a health scare in New York. In Brooklyn, in 60 seconds, Hatzalah is at your house. The ambulance, the Jewish ambulance that they have made up themselves outside of the city. Within 60 seconds, they're at your house. There are people who have died, calling 911, waiting for them to come. Where you put yourself, who you surround yourself. You know, you'll hear the cliche, oh, you're the average of the five people to hang around. There's truth to it. But it's on a deeper level. And if you don't have community, you don't have anything. And here's what I'd say about doing the hard work. The hard work is the inner work. It's getting the validation from within and not necessarily outside. And you have two choices and both of them end with just having to embrace pain and suffering. That's the truth. Because here's what happens. Either you try to fit in wherever you are and have fun because if you try to fit in, you're going to live a double life because you're going to be living in a certain way to impress other people, to fit in with them, to not stand out, to just go with the flow. It's a lot easier to live that way. And it's what most people do and it makes sense, right? It is common sense that people would do that. The problem with that is, is you're not, you're going to have a hard time living that meaningful life because you're trying to fit in and please other people. The flip side of that is living in an exceptional, purpose driven, passion filled life, right? And if you do that, you're going to stand out. You're going to be different than everyone else. Your friends are going to look at you and they're going to go, dude, what's up with you? Right? And they're not going to recognize that it's actual growth and that's a problem. So either way you, you cut it, right? Either you're going to try to fit in and you're going to have that cognitive dissonance and not feel so great and know that you're missing out on just something else is out there. There's more to life than just going to work, paying the bills, buying a car, going on vacations. I mean, it gets old. I mean, I'll tell you, man, it is a rat race. And, you know, the Torah talks about it. So, like, you know, all you have to do is go search for the truth. And, and, and when you're living it, I mean, I've experienced it. I was. My dad works with me, and I was telling him the other day, I look back at all my tax returns from when I first started out of college. My first salary was $40,000 a year. And I look back at all my salaries and. And I saw them go and go and go and hit, you know, 10 times. And if you spend a lot of money, you're not going to be wealthy because you got to make more money to spend all your money on all the things. And that's what people do. They make more money, and they have to make more to spend more. And you get caught in that loop, and then you get married, and then you have kids, and it never ends. It never ends. So life can't be just about that. Most people die with a huge nest egg that they either end up giving to someone else, or they're sitting in an older age, like, what, all this money, so they're. They're going to give it away or whatever. So that can't be the purpose of life. It cannot be the purpose of life. There has to be something more. And, yeah, I just. I think you have to make a choice, and it's a hard choice. What kind of a life do you want to live? I made that decision for myself. Now, granted, I had someone challenging me, and I had someone to kind of guide me in a long way, and then I connected with other people so that I wasn't doing it by myself. And thank God I did, because there's no way, looking back, I could have done any of it by myself. And, you know, when I was younger, I. I would judge the rabbis. I would judge the religious individuals. Ironically, I thought they were judging me, but I was judging them. But I got to tell you, my best friend said to me one day, why don't you walk into the kolal? And I'm like, what's a kolal? He's like. He's like, there are a bunch of rabbis and they're learning. He's like, there's probably someone who does outreach, just ask them questions. And I did that. And I have to tell you, I walked in there and I fell in love with these Guys, they were the coolest, most humble dudes I've ever met in my life. And they're also the most misunderstood, especially if you're not in that world. I'll give you one example. I walked in there with my wife, and they didn't shake her hand. And I remember looking at my wife, and we were like, wow, that was really rude. Really rude. And so I called the rabbi afterwards, and I asked him. I'm like, hey, what's up with that? Right? And he goes, you know, I don't need to explain myself, but I'm going to, because you're asking. He said, but when I married my wife, I made a promise to her that I will never touch another woman for the rest of my life. That you have my loyalty, my commitment, and that is my honor to you as my wife. And the way he said it to me, it seared me, because my wife and I were like, wow. Like, that is awesome. You know, with as much people who cheat on their wives and are not happy in their marriages and they seek, you know, intimacy elsewhere. I mean, look, the rate of divorce is just crazy right now. And you have these rabbis that won't even touch. Because if you. Now, if you think about it now, this is where my brain went after that conversation. I was thinking, wow, like, they're cutting it off at the root, right? So they build a fence to protect themselves from anything that happened. Because I know from a secular perspective, when you go to a party and you kiss a girl on the cheek and you give a hug and you rub against the girl or you start. Guys think more visual people, right? But these rabbis, they cut it at the root. They don't even let themselves get to that point. So if you think about that distinct difference, there's a reason why there's not as much divorce in the Orthodox community, because they're not even touching other women. It's not perfect. They got other issues. Probably everyone's dealing with something. But when I think about things like that, you know, look, you got to have some respect. You may not agree with it. You may not be your choice, but I'll tell you firsthand, when I got divorced and I remarried, I went down that path of the Jewish way of doing it. And people don't know about it. They'll judge it, and they'll say things like, oh, yeah, they're matchmakers. They set up the relationships, and that ain't what it's about. They set up the core values. They set up the foundation to make sure that your marriage is going to start off on the right foot. And what they have in the Jewish religion is called shomer nagia, meaning you don't touch. You don't touch beforehand. And I remember thinking, there's no way I can do that. There's no way I can do that. And then I read this book called the Magic Touch, and I was like, I read about it, I started learning about it, and I thought, my first marriage didn't work. I want to make my second one work. And so I decided to go all in and do it. And I got to tell you, man, it was the best experience I had to get to know this person so well before I knew I was going to be with this person for the rest of my life. And the physical part of didn't even. It didn't even. It didn't drive a wedge in between how I felt about the person because I wasn't able to hug her or kiss her, you know, And I think that when you follow the Torah, you know, it's hard to fail only because it's set up and designed in a way to work. And it worked for me, thank God. You know, I'm sure not everybody can say that, but, you know, that duality. Back to your question of just the difference between fitting in or making the hard decisions, and the advice I'd give to other people is, you got to put a stake in the ground and you got to make a decision. And so where you live, where you surround yourself, who you surround yourself with, depending on if you're going to go for the holidays or if you're not going to go for the holidays, all those little decisions add up. And, you know, for me personally, I just made a decision that I want more out of life. I want that meaning. And to be honest with you, for me, what I learned about Judaism, it's just a relationship with God, period. And depending on if you have. Have a really high level of a relationship and you want more, you might do more. And maybe you don't, and you don't, but to me, a Jew's a Jew. And I think the fact that people have labeled it reform and conservative and Orthodox, that's the problem. Those labels mean nothing. And so when people ask me, are you Orthodox? I usually say, like, what is that? What do you mean? Like, you know, I'm not sure, because we're always evolving and changing. Yes. Look at, look at your story, right? So you've done up, and it's not. Not linear. You're going to. You're going to Slide back. And sometimes you got to slide back to go forward.

Right?

And so, and I've done that too, man. I, I've, I've, I've struggled with my relationship with God, and then I've had incredible times. And thank God, when I look back, I can see his hand in my life. And it's incredible when you open your eyes and look for it, because, you know, we take a lot of things for granted, a lot of things for granted.

Oh, my God.

But, you know, you lose, you lose one of those little things every day, whether it be because of an illness or because what? And all of a sudden then you're asking God for help.

Yes. Wow. You said so much there that I want to go into more. But the one that I will highlight is you talked about taking things for granted and how Judaism isn't a linear path. And I think one of the things for me is during college where I made the conscious choice, like, okay, I'm not, I'm not going to keep Shabbat anymore. Really? That's, like, when I was, like, so set on not keeping Shabbat, I realized how much I, I actually really liked Shabbat. And it's, it made me really appreciate what I had back home in Minnesota. And again, that's something I eventually want to get towards. But, yeah, I think one of the common themes that I, that I see with, with your story in particular is you're not a judgy person. Right. We were just talking about. I have a whole rant about Orthodox conservative reform. It's, it's, it all means I agree with you. It means nothing to me. And when people ask, I say, oh, I grew up on Orthodox because they know I, it usually means keeping kosher, keeping Shabbat in their eyes. But I guess another area of your life where I'm sure you, you got a lot of judgment is with your professional career and your entrepreneurial career. Yeah, you, you, you talked about how well you were in college still you're working for a collection agency, and then you were knocking on people's doors and all this stuff for collect. Like what? Like, it's just like, to me, I don't, you don't find people like that, that will, that will go do the work and, and for something that's not necessarily super sexy and exciting. So I gotta ask you, as a young entrepreneur, did you get judged a lot? And if so, how did you deal with that judgment?

Look, so, you know, when I first started my business, I had no religion in my life, right? And probably for the first ten years I didn't. So normal guy, trying to make my business work, knocking on doors, getting kicked out of offices like, you know, no, no, no, think about what I was doing. I was walking into dentists and doctor's, trying to get them to use my collection agency and I had to give my pitch in front of the patients who are sitting in the waiting room, who are the people who are going to end up in collections that I had to go. So my thought was business. And maybe won't answer your question directly, but we'll get back into it. But there's the story about, you know, how hard it is to start a business. My thought from the get go was I want to build the kind of business that I want to work in. And that was easy to do because I was working in it and I didn't like to have a boss and I wanted to build a self managing company where people can have the entrepreneur mindset. But the problem was I had no experience in business. 0. I didn't go to business school, I didn't have any experience. I never started a business before. But I knew how to lead and I was a captain on my sports team and I had great leaders in my life and mentoring me. And I knew early on, even though I didn't use these terms, I knew what it meant to have a strong core, to know what you believe and to go after something when you want it. And don't let other people get in the way and either run through them or, or figure out ways to run around them. And that's what I did. You know, I started hiring people in and I started building and training a team that I could work with, not that was working for me. And I got people running through walls for me. And I did that because I was running through walls from them first. So I was building trust from the get go, building into these young professionals entry level. And again I was entry level and I first started off at that collection agency. I was 10 bucks an hour while I was in college. I didn't get that salary until a year after where I had, you know, 800 clients. And I proved. So I think today people are expecting things to happen really fast. They expect to have this loyalty right off the bat. But at the end of the day, that's not how it works. You have to build trust. And just like in Yiddishkeit, it takes time. I mean, I have to tell you, I for 25 years never stopped building trust with my employees because the number one thing I'd hear from everybody. I'm very transparent, vulnerable. My team, and they're not used to that, but they'd hear. I would beg my employees for feedback, beg them. They were too scared. Everyone was so scared to hurt people feelings and to address conflict. And I'd hear, chad, you don't understand. You don't understand. And I'd say, look, I don't care if I understand or not what it's like to work at those places. You don't work there anymore. You work here now. So either you jump on board and you know, we use this term in my leadership program called My way is the highway, not my way or the highway. So I knew where I was going. Here's the highway. And I was asking them, come on with me, align yourself with me and let's go. And whether you're with me a year, two years, three years, I don't care. Just give me your best, I'll give you my best. And if you find something bigger and better, I'll push you out the door and we'll high five on the way out. And I think today you have most employers who are so intimidating and they're, they make people scared. They use fear and they use power and authority as a way to get what they want. And they just don't get it because that's like a way to get sabotaged. That's the way people are going to quit quietly or loudly. And you don't build loyalty that way. So early on, I just knew that it was about people, it was about relations, it was about building community within. And I poured myself into these, these individuals. And I didn't even call them employees. And I had a clear vision for where I was going. And I said, look, I'm taking you with me. And I backed it up with my actions and what I was doing. And over time, it built something really, really special. Now, you gotta imagine again, I said at the beginning, I didn't wake up one day and say, I want to work at a collection agency, right? And my employees didn't either. And so they were ashamed to tell people that they worked at a collection agency. So in 2013, I started a new company called Restart. And this company was about meaning, purpose. And what we did was, is I saw some story on the news, I thought it was pretty cool. This collection agency guy in Arizona was helping people. And so, long story short, I called the guy up and I asked him to come speak to my company, and he told me it would cost $100,000 to have him come Speak to my company and I'm like, 100 grand. I'm like, I don't think so. I said, but maybe can I just pick your brain and talk to you about, like, the ideas that I'm having? And he said, sure. And it landed on me wanting to help people find new jobs because the number one thing we heard from people were they were struggling because they either hated their job or they weren't making enough money and they were in debt. Look, I had 10,000 clients. They were turning over anywhere from 80 to 100,000 people a month in collections. And if you ask anybody if they care about their credit, they. They're going to say yes. But when you get in so much debt and you're in struggling so much financially, it's you just give up. You're just like, you're done. So I was in my leadership practice one day with my leadership team, and one of my employees said she had a vision. She wanted to change the world, change people's lives. Mine was change the perception of collections. That was my aim. I wanted to change. Everything we did would change your perception of what you think of a collection agent. She wanted to change people's lives. So, long story short, I came into her office one day and I said, you're no longer a collector. You're a consultant. And I want you to help people find new jobs. And it was a really weird thought. Here's a collection agency calling you up, saying, hey, David, you know, I. I see that you can't, you know, you're in collections. I see you're unemployed. Do you want us to help you find a job? And people were like, it was weird, right? She came to me after the first day and she's like crying, no, no one wants my help. I'm like, really? I was shocked. And, you know, I was so close to the business, I didn't quite get it. And I said, keep trying, Keep, keep going. And she found some lady who wanted her help, and she poured herself into this lady and she got this lady a job. And I gotta tell you, man, I read the love letter that she sent my company, and half my company was crying when they heard it. And the next day, There was about 100 referrals from the collector saying, help this person, help this person, help this person. And we became a collection agency that. That wasn't known as a collection agency. It was not our identity. It just happened to be what we do. And so using innovation, collaboration, creativity. And by the way, not doing it by myself, I was doing it with my team and giving them the keys to run with their ideas, not shutting them down. And we became a national outlier. We were the only collection agency in the country that were helping people get jobs so they can pay their bills and get out of debt. And I got to a point where my entire office was wallpapered with these love letters and it was like my scorecard for significance of like, you know, when I was having a bad day. And trust me, in the collection industry, I got class action lawsuits. I, I, I was sued so many times by attorneys who were looking to just pick us apart. And I walked in my office every day and got to see like, why I was in this business and what I was doing. I was building this team around me and we were making an impact in people's lives. So I don't really care what people are doing. People don't think they could do what they love and make money. I always hear people say that about like, music. You, you certainly can, you certainly, you can be in businesses that are in the music industry and you can, you can figure out ways to find what you love and do your unique ability, even at a job or a company that isn't so great or not so sexy. What you can't do is you can't find a bad leader and love working for him. So that's why for me, everything comes back to leadership. That's why I'm in that industry now. And it's sad. There, there are a few people who are, are really solid, great leaders. That's why most of America right now is miserable at their jobs and is looking for a new job.

I didn't really fully understand the scope of the aspect of, of you helping out people that were in debt. Find jobs like, for, for you as a listener. Let me, let me just summarize what he just said. So he works at it. He builds a collection agency which collects debt from people that are, are in debt. He benefits off that, right? Because he's a third party. He's trying to get party A the money. He party A hires him to go get the money. Okay, Chad, for, for all he, for all, you know, like, he could have been like, you know what? I'm collecting my debt, collecting my paycheck, go about my life, have a great life, have a lot of money. But it wasn't enough. He flipped it upside down and said, oh, I'm going to help these people find jobs. Like that, to me, is, is just unbelievable how you came up with the concept of these are people in need that we're benefiting off of. Why don't we help them get out of this rut that we're in so that collection agencies like mine don't need. Pretty much don't need to exist anymore. Like, let's be real. It's. It's just like, it's.

People question that, like, why are you, why are you doing that? Right? But ironically, the exact opposite happened, right? So we had people. The best marketing is when people, other people are telling your story. Well, we were helping people get jobs and change their lives. They were telling our story. I no longer had to do that. So everyone was picking that up. Every client wanted to do business with us. But here's an interesting route to the, to the, to the idea. It came because I was in a leadership practice where I was popping out my vision, change the perception of collections. And one of my employees had the, had the courage to challenge me and go, well, how are we doing that? And I remember exactly what I said. I said, we're nice to people, we're nice to. We're going to be nice. We're not going to be the mean people that people think. Because there's a stereotype of collection agencies. And I remember another ploy said it's. That's not enough. Every collection agency nowadays has to be nice because they're all getting sued. What are we doing that actually is going to change people's perceptions? And that made me go back to the drawing board and create a new vision. And that's how Restart kind of, kind of was born. And I did it with these other individuals in the brainstorming. And then I remember when I came up with the idea of, like, how I wanted to do it, it just felt right. And that's what I love about being an entrepreneur, is that like, you have an idea, you can go do it, and you have to have the courage to go do it. And you gotta know that 9 out of 10 startups fail. But when you have the right purpose behind it and you include the higher power within that scenario, because I know I knew nothing about helping people get jobs and I knew nothing about starting another business inside my business. And I'll tell you what, when Covid hit, I had to send my entire call center home. So we had a call center, 100 employees, send them home. And I remember I was burnt out. I was burnt out from being an entrepreneur. I was burnt out from running the company. We had broken through ceilings and it became a lot. And I'm a visionary. I'm not an operator. So like I lost a little bit of control. So I hired someone in to come run my company. And I went home when Covid hit. And I remember thinking one, I'm never going back to that office. Which was crazy because I was an office guy. And I met. And then I realized you can work with anyone around the world, which is incredible now. And I found a guy, his name's Jacob. He's a software developer. And I spent day and night, at least 15, 18 hours a day, building an online career development app, a multi user app for career advisors, job seekers and employers so that we can help people find new jobs and do it the right way. Because I realized interviewing thousands of people, no one knows how to get a job. And if they just knew how instead of googling how to do it. And I wanted to help young professionals. And I was really passionate about helping the Jewish community because I knew so many people in the Jewish community are struggling. And the lifestyle of an observant Jew is not easy when your employer's not so keen on you taking off early for Shabbat or because the holiday's coming off and you need to take off for a few days. So I wanted to help, you know, religious Jews get an edge and have a little bit more. And it was ironic. I got a lot of resistance from people in the Jewish community about like wanting them to give. I wanted to give my app away and like give it to people. And I was going to companies and saying, look, my company, Choice Recovery has this really cool platform where we help people get jobs. And ironically it's changed our business. Your business or your non profit? You care about people, people are paying you. Don't you care about having them be happy employment? So I let other companies take restart, put a stamp on their company as a sponsor, and I gave them access to the app that I built and then they could refer their customers and I white labeled it for them so they can, they can say, hey, I'm, I work for XY company. We help people get jobs. So then Choice Recovery was doing it, another company was doing it, this nonprofit was doing it. Our Columbus Coel was offering it to people. And it was really cool. And we got to change. I mean there was thousands of people's lives changed. And I realized I don't want to be in startup world anymore. And I ended up selling that company to one of my clients who fell in love with it so that I could do more of my true passion, which is leadership coaching and working one on one with individuals and Also helping teens and kids in college. And I think a lot of people can't afford to have leadership coaches, you know, and I think I just want to extend that. That reach and that leverage to more people. But, yeah, it's a. It was a crazy journey, and it was hard. It was hard. I mean, just having to explain what we're doing and how we're doing it. You know, a collection agency calling people up and helping people get jobs. People thought we were a scam. They were questioning the integrity of it. But when you have people who are. Who are experiencing the results of that, you know, you can't fake that it's real.

I was just gonna say, like, through my. Through my job search and I mean, I. I had, I think, three or four internships throughout college, and then obviously I have a. I have a job now, but I think that could. That could have been a useful tool for me while I was in college, and I probably still will be a tool that I would be able to utilize now and in my. My young career. But it's, you know, it's.

It's sad because people think they're going to college. Like, I was talking to kids at Ohio State the other day. They told me it costs $60,000 a year out of state. Could go to Ohio State if you're in state, 25,000. And I was thinking, that is unbelievable. Every entrepreneur that I know, and I have no exceptions to this, and I don't like to say all or never, they don't care about the diploma. They don't care. All they care about is that someone has what we call in the EOS world, gwc. They get it, they want it. They have the capacity to do the job. They need someone who can do the job and fill that role. And you want a culture fit. You want someone who's going to fit in and make. Make the culture better, because people want to work around great people and they want to share a common goal, and. And that's important. And the diploma these days, especially now with, like, how everything's changing, it doesn't mean as much unless you're in a specialty and you need to graduate with something to be a doctor. That's different. But just in general, you got to question why you're going to spend all that money. And I got to tell you, on the collection side and seeing student loan debt, you're signing up for, like, decades of losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I got to tell you, the experience right now and what you can do with AI, you Know, I ran into a kid the other day who is really good with these AI tools. And now think about how crazy this is. If you're an entrepreneur and you run a business, okay, and you pay someone a couple hundred thousand dollars a year because they've been your chief executive of marketing for the last decade and they're great, well, marketing has changed. And if you can get a kid coming out of college who knows how to use all these cool new AI tools, who can run circles around the person who's been doing it for a decade, who has to unlearn what they've learned, which is not easy to do, and you could pay them 40 or 50 grand compared to 200, what do you think the entrepreneur is going to do? So I met a kid who actually got really good at building websites. And he was building websites for companies and sending it to him as his resume, saying, hey, David, I don't know if you're looking for people in marketing, but I made a website for you. And he built the dude's website based on the guy's current website. That looked nothing like what this kid created using AI tools. And he got hired at a company. Like, how genius that is, right? Like, you could do that now. And I think kids right now are so scared, they don't know what they're going to do. But you're in the best position in the world if you're a young professional right now, because there's so much good change. And we've never had access to what we have access to right now, and you gotta tap into that. And I think change is really hard for people. The storm is coming and the acute pain is coming for a lot of people who are gonna have to pivot and shift. And I don't quite understand why they're not opening their eyes to see it. But it's happening and it's already here. And I hear people say it's coming. I'm like, no, no, it's already here. Yeah, yeah, crazy.

I, I, I was just gonna say with, with college and, and AI, I was, I was listening to a webinar the other day, and they were basically saying how kids are no longer going, like writing an essay is no longer going to be a good skill to have. Why plug it into chat? GPT does it 10 times better for you, right? There's, there's all these, like, little skills that, like, you're not going to need. And in the scope of leadership, which is a big part of who you are and your mission, your passion, we Talk about all these leader skills, right? Being a good communicator, being hardworking, caring. There's all these different skills. So as a seasoned entrepreneur, as somebody that's passionate about leadership, how do you think the typical leadership skills that people look for in a leader will change with the emergence of AI, Right?

But one thing that won't change is the number one skill. Building your own emotional intelligence, your self awareness and your communication skills. That ain't, that's not changing. It's only going to get stronger. And unfortunately for most of the college kids right now, they're moving away from that and they're so worried and scared that they're not going to be able to do certain things with AI or their job. But if you can build a relationship and speak to people and communicate, and we, in my leadership program, we call, we talk about being clear, concise and direct, always with respect, and being able to just communicate your ideas, you can never be too clear. And I think people are trying to be someone that they're not. They're trying to impress other people because they think that's what they want to hear. And what they miss out on is that you just being you. And by the way, figuring out who you are is not easy, but being very clear who you are and what you believe and then kind of living that out, people respect that. They may not agree with you and your strength might, might rub people the wrong way because you can come off arrogant, but your confidence in who you are, that's extremely important. And I believe that the biggest skill you can have is figuring out what skill you have. You know, think about this, it's incredible. So There are what, 8 billion people around the world. There's no other person in the world that's exactly like you. No person looks exactly like you. And no person has the gifts that God gave you. And so your job, I believe one of our purposes in this life is to figure out how to maximize the gifts that you've been given. And if you can't do that, that's a problem because you end up doing and trying to do things that you have not been given. And have fun. See how that works out for you. So there's a Rabbi Tatts, he does an exercise that's one of my favorites. He draw a circle, put all the things that you're really good at inside the circle. Ironically, most people are better putting things that are outside the circle, things that they're not good at, which is a great place to start if you're trying to Figure it out. Because at least, you know, I don't like to do this. I don't like to do that. But whatever you put in that circle that you've been given as a gift or that you enjoy, that you love, your job is to maximize that and do that because that's. That's the gift you've been given. And I always have everybody tell me, you know, all the rabbis will tell me that one day when we meet our Creator, we'll be shown what we could have become if we would have used the gifts that we were being given. I don't want to have that regret. I want to live that out now. Because I know now is the time that you and I, as young professionals, when we look back, when we're older, we're going to wish that we had this time back. So if you're in your prime right now, in your 20s and 30s and 40s, now's the time to figure it out. Who are you and what do you believe in? What are your best skills? And just become great at working on those. And I think on top of that, whatever those are, everyone needs to work on their communication skills. Everyone needs to work on, you know, the ability to connect with people. And I think right now, with as many free, personal, professional assessment tools that are out there, I mean, I gobble those up. Because the more you can understand about yourself, the more you'll be able to communicate to other people who you are so that you're not throwing out mixed messages. And they know. They know who they're getting when they talk to you. And it only comes when you know who you are. And that takes hard work. And most people don't want to do that hard work because they're distracted by you. Get some alone time. What do you do? You pick up your phone, you look at other people's lives. You look and see what other people are doing. You're trying to get that connection through, but you got to find time to be on your own. And it's one of the things I love about davening, is that you get that opportunity to kind of just take some time and just pray and ask for things that you want and thank a higher power for the things that you have. And it's an important thing to do. Otherwise you get caught in that race of not doing it. And the next thing you know, you look back and years have gone by, and it goes that fast. It really does.

You talk a lot about seeing other people's lives, and this idea of it's one thing to know what you are good at, but it's another thing to communicate that to other people.

Right?

And that's really where I think personal branding comes into play. When you're talking about how you tell your own story on social media or even in person. I think a lot of people are confused by this idea of branding. It's a little bit, it's a little bit confusing because you're not really putting a logo onto yourself necessarily. Sure, if you have a company, you are, but it's really like, who are you and what are you doing and how are you communicating that to other people? And one of the things that I've picked up on recently that I'm actively doing is you should be able. You should create more content than you consume. Because if you're stuck in the rut that you were talking about of sitting on your phone watching other people do the thing that you've always wanted to do, not only are you going to feel like crappy about yourself, but also you're gonna, you're gonna. Eventually that gap between you and that person is going to be ginormous. So as someone that's, that's an entrepreneur now, and you've done, I mean, let's be real, like you were collection agency, now you're working in leadership and you have all these great qualities and amazing connections. But from a personal branding perspective, right, from somebody that comes from such a diverse background, so to speak, how do you, how do you communicate that out to other people? Right? Like, you have just a wealth of experience in different areas, but you could only tell so much of your story. How do you really communicate that to other people?

Well, again, one of the things is you have other people tell it for you. And the only way you can do that is by delivering something of value. And you could talk about yourself all day long. But I believe that if you're not making other people's lives better, then you're wasting your life, period. And if you're. And if you're making other people's lives better, it's hard not to do well. It's hard not to be successful. People want to be better. People want to be a high performer. And if you can help them, if you have something, a tool, a service, whatever it is, here's what I say. Give it to them for free. Let earn it. If you're so good at what you do. You know, I hate these companies that charge you and there's no money back and you have to give them all the money up front. I Don't do that like me. Download my app for free. Come, take, go taste it. You want to meet with me? I'll give you a free test of it. You know, like I don't want you paying for anything unless you know and believe that it's going to be valuable. It may not always be a good fit. Right. But I'm going to determine up front and you're going to know real quick if you want to work with me or not. And my promise is that I'm going to make whatever we do better. And, and selfishly I say in our, in our tagline, together we transform. I'm only working with people that want to make that I want to make me better. So it's not just a one way street here. And I think that when you have that type of a collaboration, you build something that's more than just a transactional relationship. So the answer is you got to deliver value, period. And if you're not testing that out and giving it away for free, creating the content like you said, and just give away what you're good at, there are people, if you're really good at it, if they need it or they want it and you're good at it, they'll come get it. It may take time, there may be different strategies that you can take, but at the end of the day, like, you know, if you don't have anyone paying you for it, then you have a hobby. It's not a business. When you have someone writing checks and they're paying you now you got a business. And how do you get there? As a young professional in college, well, you have a thousand ways to get there. Go give it away, go test it and go figure out what people want and what they need instead of getting stuck in your own head thinking, this is what I think they need, because that doesn't mean anything. And when you can deliver it to people and they benefit from it, they'll pay you. It's not that hard. You don't have to read a book a week, you don't have to journal, you don't have to have a coach, you don't have to do anything. What you need to do is actually go get up and go do something that there are three types of people, right? There are people who do things and make things happen. There are people who kind of wait for something to happen before they go do something. And then there are the people who just watch and they wait and then they wonder, how did that happen? How did that person get there? And I Gotta tell you, like, I don't know why you'd want to be in that second or third group. Like, go make something happen. The way to get started is start before you're ready. You know, your. Your rejection and business. I heard the other day it's really cool. Your rejection is your redirection. You know, when I first started selling, I was getting literally hammered out of doctor's offices. I remember calling my dad the first day going, I don't even know where these doctor's offices are. And I. No soliciting. Get out of here. I'm like, I'm not selling you anything. Like, and, you know, you got to put your tail between your legs and. And you got to humble yourself, but you got to keep going, and you got to keep going. You got to just take that rejection and just, you know, again, if you can't sell, you're gonna have a real hard time building a business, because everything is on sales. Your salespeople should be making the most money. And hopefully, if you're a good salesperson, then you need to model the way and show people how to do it, and then they'll follow. They'll do it. I was a rogue salesperson. I did things very out of the ordinary, and it was hard to train people, but I gave them the freedom and flexibility and what I did have my experience and my knowledge, and I let them figure it out their way. As a leader and as an entrepreneur, you set the expectations. You have clear measurements, and if you hold people accountable, then you'll build a great team. If you're weak and have a weak core and you don't like to address conflict, you'll have people that are hanging around for a long time, and everyone else on the team is like, what is taking him so long to get rid of this person? And everybody knows it. And then you cut the person, and it's way too late. You've wasted all this money, and people are like, man, what took you so long? And it's really. Success falls and rises on leadership. Rises and falls on leadership is at the core of everything in a company. Where you go, your company goes. Where you go, your team goes. And if you don't have a clear vision and you're not holding your team accountable and you don't set clear expectations, you're in for a world of hurt. You know, the biggest mistake an entrepreneur can make is by not documenting their conversations and not being clear up front. And then what happens? A year into it, the employee is wondering, am I going to get A raise, you know, and then they're wondering and then they have to go address it and have an uncomfortable conversation. And when all the leader has to do up front is just tell them, here's how it works, here's what to expect. If you meet these standards and these expectations, you'll do better. If you're making us more money, we'll pay you more. But you know, I used to have employees that would come to me after a year or two and like, I've been here a couple years and I'm like, and I've paid you for a couple years. You know, like, we don't just give money and rob Peter to pay Paul. If you want to make more money, you've got to be more valuable. And so you got to over deliver. And I think it's a two way street. The entrepreneur has to over deliver and build into your employees and your employee. As an employee, you got to over deliver and show your employer that you're different so that you know, you want to force them to do something so you can become unreplaceable. So that if you were to leave that job, you know, they, they'll fight for you. And so that's always the question I always ask, like, would you fight for that, for that person? And it's a good Mason Dixon line to like determine if you're going to let someone go or care when they quit. Because, you know, look, loss aversion is a real thing. When you pour yourself into an employee and they quit on you, it's hard. It's hard. Like as an entrepreneur, it hurts. And starting over costs a lot of money and energy. I used to have turnover and my turnovers because I got rid of a lot of people who weren't the right person. But it was still hard every time I had to start over and train them and the tools and the resources. Thank God, you know, we had a great culture and people loved working there. We had, we had dozen people more than 10 years, people with those 20 years. And I think if you can get that kind of loyalty, boy, boy, the return is just awesome. Because, you know, all that hard work and caring, don't get me wrong, you'll get taken advantage of for sure. But I still, I'd still take that any day. I used to have employees get mad at me, like, why do you, why do you keep doing that? And I'm like, look, I do it the way I want to do it and I'm not going to change because of that person. They got to live with themselves. We used to loan money out to people. I had entry level employees. They financially were struggling, so I'd loan money. And once in a while you have someone screw you over. I wasn't going to stop loaning money out because one person screwed me over. You know, like, it was in my integrity, my principle to help people. And if I had the means to do it, I did. But I wasn't going to change. And I think, you know, knowing what you believe about that stuff, it has a lot to do with how you were brought up and those influences that you were talking about before. And I gotta tell you, using those excuses is an excuse because you can redefine who you are and what you believe, but you got to do the hard work and figure that out.

I love listening to the way that you think out loud about my questions, because the way that answer that you just gave me, it's like I asked you the question about personal branding, and then you took it to the next level about adding value. And then also the entrepreneur, like, absolutely phenomenal, Chad. And I think my one final question for you is, as somebody that's clearly grown a lot in your life, you've grown a lot religiously, you've grown a lot entrepreneurially. Right. There's a lot of things that you've already accomplished. The fact that you've made this transformation in business and in Judaism is unbelievable. There's not a lot of people that have really been able to totally 180 their Jewish background and also their entrepreneurial background. So it's clearly amazing that you've done that. But knowing you as somebody, that's an intense person and that wants to get things done and that has goals, like what, what's left? Like what. What else are you, like, looking to accomplish in life from not only a religious background, but also from a business background?

Yeah. And it's funny. So in my leadership program, Built to Lead, we talk about an opus. And opus. Opus in Latin is labor of love. It's pointing out. It's your. It's your Martin Luther King, I have a dream speech. And I challenge the people that I work with to, like, get clear on what your vision is. What are you. What are you aiming at? Right? And it will change. And you'll. You'll do your ebbs and flows, and then when you do, when you're. When you're breaking through ceilings, you'll see things out a little bit further. It'll change. So I launched an online app called Built to Lead, free to download. And Our aim at Build2Lead is to help people do two things. Build a strong core. And we use something called the wip. The whip is your worldview, your identity and your principles. And then we have something called the three Ps, which are your passions, your core purposes and your process. And then we're on the other side. We have what's called our opus. And our opus is our big dream. It's our vision. It is our core main purpose in life. Like a statement, like a defining statement of your work. What gets you out of bed every single day, right? Your bumper sticker. And then we have strategies and a scorecard for significance. And a scorecard is not like the KPIs in most business and the measurements with numbers and money, it's the significance. You know, how many love letters did I have? How many people's lives have I been able to touch that kind of stuff? And so the problem with our platform is that it's really expensive. Employers are paying anywhere from three to $5,000 a month for one on one coaching. But my passion was always to give it to the employees. And so when I brought built lead into my company in 2010, we started giving the gift to all my employees so they can have executive leadership. And I made it available to all in the entire company. And ironically, out of 100 people, only 20 people would come to it. Now we were paying people to do leadership training. And the reason that only 20 people showed up one's normal is because we shine a mirror on looking at who you are. And sometimes people don't want to look at that because it's not easy. It's not easy to face things you've gone through, the trauma that you've had. And so when we were doing that, we literally, as a, as a small community in that little group that was doing it, we transformed with each other, right? And I got to do that and get a front row seat with that. So what I'm doing now is now I'm trying to give that gift to more people than just outside my company. I sold my company and then I was at Ohio State, you know, a couple days ago, talking to about 50 college kids. And I said, jump in there. And so now I'm trying to expose it. And to be honest, David, my, my real passion is helping the Jewish community out because I know there's a lot of even religious Jews who don't fit into the mold of going through that program of what everyone expects of them, the yeshiva background. And then, you know, some kids struggle and there's not a lot of help, there's not a lot of outlets, there's not a lot of bridges that kind of get it. And I feel like I do get it. And I feel like I'm being called to try to, like, help those individuals if I can. So I'm connecting with other organizations and giving them access to me if they, if they want that, where I can connect with groups of kids that are struggling and trying to figure out what is it that I believe, what is it that I'm doing here, what, where do I go from here? And they're lost. And the worst part now is they're addicted to things. And any kids who are addicted and they're going through a real, real struggle, and they don't have an outlet, they don't have someone in their life that they can talk to that is the worst. If you hear that and you don't have your heart break, then something's wrong with you. Because being by yourself and having to fight that fight and not be able to feel like you can go to your parents, not feel like you have anyone to go to. So I feel like I can be that person for a lot of people. And I have to protect my time. But I've done it in a group setting where I can get kids together. And so I'm figuring that out. I'm using my, my online, the technology, all the tools to be able to deliver it on a scalable kind of a platform. And then I'm doing things like this where I'm getting the word out and letting people know that I'm there if they want to talk and connect, and if I'm a good solution that I can fit into that whatever program that they're looking for, then I'm open to exploring that. And if not, I'm not a good fit. That's cool too. But I have, I have a real strong faith that God's leading me down a path that if I do my shadowless, if I make my efforts, then things and doors will open, opportunities do come. And when I'm not focused on profit and I'm focused on purpose, man, it's a game changer. And, you know, I want to give that gift to other people to kind of see that ms, to see that truth, because there is some hardcore truth in that.

Absolutely. And just to again stress this, like, this conversation alone, the fact that you spent an hour talking to me has been a tremendous help. And I can tell you, like, I already have more clarity in my direction and in, in terms of what I want to do just from this conversation. So it means a lot to me that this is kind of your mission and, and retroactively.

Yeah.

You're helping me with my podcast also because on being a guest, but also personally, I think I've learned a tremendous amount from you.

And here's what's cool, David, is that now you and I have a relationship.

Exactly.

Which means you can, you can tag me whenever you want. And if you're struggling with something, you can call me up and I'll talk. I'll talk to you about whatever you want to talk about. And if it's business related, great. But if it's Yiddishkeit related, even better. And that's how we, that's how we grow together, right? That's. It's making those connections and it's being there for people and, you know, it's a two way street. You know, just know that door is always open for you.

I, I really, really appreciate that and anything that I, I can do to help connections with, with my past guests. Like a typical Jew will, I. I like to say on, on most of my episodes, I have a 15 second window where I can be anti Semitic and, and stereotypical. So, so here it goes. A typical Jew. This isn't that anti Semitic, but it's stereotypical. Typical Jew, right off the bat will be like, like, oh, you know, the, the Jewish geography, the connection game. Oh, I've so and so. I want to connect you with so and so. Like, as soon as we started talking, like five people popped in my head. I'm like, oh my gosh, this person would like that. This person would like that. This person needs to listen to Chad. So I'm gonna do that too. I know that help might not be as much as, as what you're offering me and what you've already done for me, but I'm. I'm happy to help out as well.

Well, you don't know, man. One, one person who sees this, our interview, and it touches them in some sort of a way. You don't know. You know, it's funny how things happen and how God has like a plan. You know, we say we plan. He LAUGHS but like, someone could download my app and a year from now, two years from now, I talk to them and I'm like, how do you even find us? And like, I saw some clip on the Internet, this guy David, you don't know. Weirder things have happened, crazier things have happened. And, you know, who are we to question anything like you know, there's a plan out there, and we're destined to do certain things, and we don't understand or see or know how it works, but you don't really have to. And that's one thing I've learned, is I don't have to have all the answers. I don't have to have all the answers. There's no way to do it. We know. We know very little. In fact, we don't even know how much we don't know.

Wow. Absolutely. So, Chad, before we get off the call, where can people find you on social media? Where can people find your app?

Most importantly, so they go to Built Lead Community. And if you go to the app store on iOS or Android and just download the Built to Lead app, it's free, just log in. And I'm still developing it. There's about. I got about. I have not even started to sell this thing yet. I mean, I worked on it all last year. I poured all of my experience and knowledge into this app. And the cool thing about Built Lead is there's other Built Lead builders. And the guy who coached me, Chet Scott, who's the founder, wrote a book called Becoming Built to Lead. And so just a real quick how this works. You come into our community, you get all of our content. We post something once a day that's like a leadership insight that just will steer you. That's our goal. And if you upgrade for a hundred bucks for the year, so we made it really cheap. You get a copy, a digital and audio copy of his book. His book is 365 daily disciplines to Master the Art of Living. And, you know, between him and I, we have over 50 years of experience of running companies, building up individuals, working with teams. Right now, he actually has nine teams at Ohio State. I was at Ohio State this week. We work with the Ohio State wrestling team, the girls and men's lacrosse team, the girls soccer team, the men's golf team, the women's and men's volleyball team. And I mean, it's incredible. So they're all doing Build to Lead, and we go there once a week. We practice like a sports team. And it's leadership training. So I took all of our stuff, my experience with my company, I put it into this app, and I did 365 videos that complement all of Chet Scott's daily disciplines so that you can go through this book with me digitally and then you can connect with me in the app. So I made it really stupid inexpensive, but an opportunity to taste what people are doing. For three, $5,000 a month. And then I'm going to start incorporating live practices where they can jump on and we can do what we do at Ohio State and what I was doing at my company. So it's really cool. I'm just developing it. I'm just kind of getting it out there. And so anyone who wants to download it and check it out again, it doesn't cost anything and you can connect with us and learn all about it. And I believe in it. I believe that people need help. You can't do it by yourself. So that, you know, you can pull up my YouTube channel and my LinkedIn. I share all my content for free. I just throw it out there. Leadership insights. And that's how I'm going to use it as a kind of a grassroots, organic way of just trying to grow the community. And you know, I'm not focused on the money, I'm just focused on that, on that impact and hopefully people will come to it. You know, they say if you build it, people will come. If I build, provide the value, I believe that it'll happen. So that's kind of what I'm doing now.

Wow. I personally, I'm going to download the app because it's something that I need myself. Like I can tell you right now I've, I'm in the process of reading like two self development books and I'm just like in a million different places. So I feel like that that's, that's helpful to me.

And I'll tell you what, as a thank you for putting me on your show, I'll buy the book for you. You get in there, I'll give you access to our private spaces and you'll go through it with me and I'll go through and we'll, we'll stay connected that way even more.

So show you, you do not have to do that. Like seriously, you, you do not have to do that. And I, I mean there's, I don't even need to tell you, but you got to share the show, guys. Like this, this episode, somebody listen a lot of my episodes, they're, they're very inspiring and I tell good stories and. But what I really want you to do is share, not share this with somebody who would like the episode for the sake of liking me or whatever the podcast. Share with somebody that needs the help. Right. We all know somebody that's stuck in their career right now. Maybe it's you, maybe you're stuck in your career right now. You're honestly, you're probably stuck in your career right now. Let's be real. Like, not everybody loves their job 100%. So share this with somebody. Share Share this episode with somebody that would would need this help to hear from Chad, right? You're hearing from somebody who has tons and tons of entrepreneurial experience who could benefit from his app. So if you want to do a mitzvah today, share this episode with somebody.

So awesome.

Thank you again for tuning into this week's episode of Schmoozing Time. Until next time, keep schmoozing.

Thanks, David.