Leadership Lessons From The Great Books – Lessons in Leadership: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks w/Tom Libby and Richard Messing

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Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the

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leadership lessons from the great books podcast, episode

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number 116. I’m sorry. No. Not 116.

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117 in chronological order. It’s episode number

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117 that we’re on today. With our book

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today, a measured tactical meditation

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about the nature, purpose, and focus of leadership

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and leadership best practices through the lens of

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what I consider to be deep Judaism.

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The Bible, in particular the Torah, which is the first five books of

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the Bible, contains, understandings of the deep

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structure of reality itself, which is

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typically why people struggle with it, particularly people in leadership

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positions struggle with it today.

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And our book is going to focus

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on those first five books of the Bible

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and what leaders can learn from them.

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Look, the Bible is more than mere poetry or mere literature.

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And for a secularized postmodern culture, such as the one that

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many leaders work on or work in in the West

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in general and in America in particular today, an

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understanding of the Bible and specifically an understanding

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of the Torah can indeed reinvigorate, I

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believe, the language of leadership.

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Now, the book that we are covering today, the book that we are going to

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be talking about, is a collection of readings interpreting

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leadership best practices through the framing of the Torah. And it can

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provide a leader, I believe, who is bereft of such language

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with a map throughout the territory of leadership,

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whether they believe in the value or even the presence of an

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all knowing, all seeing, and all present,

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transcendent God or not.

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Today, we will be covering and examining

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the ideas and approaches to leadership from the

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book lessons in leadership, a weekly reading

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of the Jewish Bible by Rabbi Jonathan

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Sacks. And we will be doing all of

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this deep examination with our 2 hosts today.

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First off, my usual guest co host here, Tom Libby. Say hello,

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Tom. Hey, everyone. Welcome back. Alright. And

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a returning guest co host from both our 100th

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anniversary episode, as well as our episode I

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believe it was episode number 63, if I remember correctly, although

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you can go back and look for it where we talked about Man’s

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Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, the founder

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of the World Ethics Organization and a member of the

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Growth Graph Startup Community as well as many other different projects,

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Richard Messing. Hello, Richard. How are you doing?

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Doing great. Glad to be back. Really, really glad to be with you

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guys. So, Richard is a big fan of the show as he said in the

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100th episode. He’s really a big fan of what we’re doing here. And, actually,

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Richard was the one that recommended that we bring this

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book, onto the podcast. He actually recommended it in the 100th

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episode, and so this is an example of us taking a recommendation from

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a guest and incorporating it into the overall

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purpose of what we are doing here. Now I got to

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admit, I was not familiar with the work

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of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, nor was I familiar with lessons

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in leadership. However, when I picked it up

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and when I started reading it and when I started examining it,

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I realized what exactly was happening

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here. And so, so Richard and

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I and Tom are going to talk about this today. We’re going to

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break apart some of the lessons that are in

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this book. And because it is a

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book that is current to our time and is still under copyright, we’re not going

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to be reading directly from the book. What we’re going to be doing or what

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I’m gonna be doing for my portion is I’m going to be summarizing

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some of the ideas from the book, and then we’re going to bat them around.

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And, I have a set of questions here, starting with, of

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course, the impact of Jonathan Sacks’ work, on Richard. I wanted to

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talk a little bit about that. But then going

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into and exploring some of these ideas as

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well. So let me provide some

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framing for you if you’re listening to this podcast about what you

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can look forward to if you do pick up this book. So

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it opens up with a discussion of the book of

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Genesis and some of the lessons that can be learned from the book of Genesis.

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Now, where Rabbi Sacks begins is with the

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idea that leaders take responsibility. And he

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directly references in the first few chapters of this of the

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book, talking about the fault

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that begins the the story of man in

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Genesis, with Adam and Eve and the Garden of

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Eden and the serpent, which if some of you are familiar with the work,

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and the writing of, oh, doctor

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George doctor Jordan Peterson. He’s been running around talking

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about the book of Genesis as if he just discovered it, for about the

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last 10 years. And look, you know, we

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do need more people talking about this in the world, and I I can’t

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imagine a better person advocating for that. But

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rabbi Sacks immediately goes into the second story. He goes into

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the story of Cain and Abel, and he quotes directly when talking about

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taking responsibility for leaders from the book of

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Genesis, which I’ll read this portion just so that you know

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where we’re going here. He says the second story is more

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tragic. The first instance of sibling rivalry in the Torah leads

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to the first murder. Cain said to his brother Abel,

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and it came to pass while they were in the field. Cain attacked his

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brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, where is your brother

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Abel? I don’t know, he replied. Am I my brother’s keeper? By the

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way, pause. There is an assertion to be

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made, that the entire remainder of the

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Bible all the way through even the New Testament and into the book of Revelation

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is an answer to is God’s answer to man of that

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question. Am I my brother’s keeper?

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Which is at the core, of course, of taking responsibility. Back to the

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book of Genesis. The Lord said, what have you done? Listen, your brother’s blood cries

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out to me from the ground. Now rabbi

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Sacks takes this, and he talks about how Cain does not deny

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personal responsibility. He claims that Cain denies, and this

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is critically important for leaders, moral responsibility.

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Right? And moral responsibility exists

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at an even deeper level than just personal responsibility.

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And Rabbi Sacks,

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draws from this the idea that the responsible life is

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a life that responds. It responds not merely

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personally, but responds morally. And from

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there, he moves into the discussion of Noah and talks about

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how righteousness is not leadership and how Noah was a man of the soil.

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By the way, for those of you again who don’t know book of Genesis, Noah

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was the guy who built the big ship that you see in all the little

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kids’ books with all the little animals on it. Yeah, the ark. And he built

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this big ship.

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By the way, I believe and Richard can correct me on this. He might have

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a deeper knowledge of this even than I do. I believe that, it says

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in the Torah that, it took us something like 600 years to build the ark

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with some some nonsensically long number.

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But I might have heard that in a different interpretation. Either

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way, it took him a long time to build this boat. And he built

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the boat because, he was the most righteous person

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that God could find, the spirit of God could find in the land

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at that time. Not the best person, not the

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most moral person, not even the person who’s taking the most personal

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responsibility, but the most righteous person.

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Now, of course, the Noah builds the boat, the

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flood comes. And, while

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Noah was righteous, he was not a leader because

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after the waters receded, Noah planted a

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vineyard, got drunk, was in his nakedness,

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and then there was a transgression with one of his

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sons. Rabbi Sacks pulls from

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this in the second chapter of the book that the

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Torah sets a high standard for moral life. He says, and I

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quote, It is not enough to be righteous if that means turning our backs on

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a society that is guilty of wrongdoing. We must take a stand, we must

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protest, we must register dissent even if the probability of changing minds is

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small. That is because the moral life is a life we share with others.

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We are in some sense responsible for the society of which we are a

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part. It is not good enough to be good. We must encourage others to be

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good. There are times when each of us must

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weed. It is not good enough to merely be a righteous

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person. We must be a leader in our time as well. We must be

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our own personal Noahs. And I would even assert that as a leader,

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if you’re listening to this or just as a person living in the world, if

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you’re listening to this, I would assert that being a Noah

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involved building an ark, not for everybody in your

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neighborhood or even everybody in your community, but building an ark

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that is your family and saving those

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people that you are tasked with leading. That’s

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something also that we talk about on this podcast in the context of a lot

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of other different books, including, The Good Earth by Pearl

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Buck, which we talked with Tom about, as well as,

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lessons that we learn, about this dynamic

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from even Shakespeare, most recently The

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Tempest. We covered that on the podcast recently.

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So those are some ideas that are in the first couple of

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chapters of lessons in leadership, the weekly reading of the

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Jewish bible. And he goes through the entire book of Genesis

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and pulls from each one of those stories, Cain and Abel,

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Noah, even Abraham, and draws ideas

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about morality, draws draws ideas about courage,

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draws ideas about how to begin the leadership

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journey from this book. Now one of the other

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structural things that you’re going to wanna note if you’re reading this book is

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that he begins each chapter with the,

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I believe it’s the Yiddish, terms, that go

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along with each part of, each part of the

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Torah. Hebrew. And so Hebrew. Hebrew. Hebrew Hebrew terms? Okay. Sorry.

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Hebrew terms. Right? That begin each part of the, of the bible or

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I’m sorry, the Torah. And so, I was not familiar with

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those terms, and maybe Richard, who who’s a big fan of this book, can explain

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some little bit of some of that to us. But that’s the rough

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outline of the first, like, 5 chapters or so, some of the ideas in the

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first five chapters of lessons in leadership.

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So let me start off with this because there’s quite a lot there.

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So let me start off with this.

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I’d like to get Richard in jumping into the conversation and get Tom in as

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well at this point because I’ve done a lot of bloviating by this point,

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as is my want. I mean, it is my podcast. It does have my name

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on it. So It is ’tis your right, my friend. It is.

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Yes. And my privilege too. So I’m going to

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begin with Richard. And, Richard,

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why don’t you talk a little bit? Because you recommended this book. You strongly recommended

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this book, actually. So why don’t you tell listeners a little bit about the impact

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of this book, on your thinking about leadership behavior

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and the sticky area that you’re deeply involved in with the World Ethics

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Organization of Ethics. How has this book impacted

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you? Well, I’m

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gonna demonstrate it to you. I’ll show you.

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See that? Oh, yeah. Those are my Post

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its on this book. I’ve got more post its and bookmarks

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in this book than any other book I’ve ever read. And so,

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needless to say, this

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I’ve just learned so much from Rabbi Sacks. Just

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to tell you, I was introduced to Rabbi Sacks’

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work by a very learned

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rabbi who lives in my neighborhood. We became friends.

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We started learning Torah together. He introduced me to Robert Sachs’

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work. He bought he bought one of his books. Rabbi Sachs wrote over 30 books

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starting at the age of 40. Okay? He was enormously

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prolific. And thousands of articles,

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not documentaries, you you name it. And

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so, so I started reading the book, one of his books,

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and but then then I started then I then I looked him up on YouTube.

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And when I started listening to him on YouTube,

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I I got addicted. I could not I could I had to

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listen to everything he had to say. He is an incredible orator,

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an incredible teacher, So I’m so

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needless to say, he’s had an enormous impact on

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my thinking, my my understanding of the world,

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of of of the Bible, etcetera. So in terms of

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leadership, well,

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his his life story is a testament is a testament

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to he and he’s the I can’t think of a better example of a

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leader than him.

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He, he had no plans of becoming

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a rabbi. He he was gonna either be an economist or

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a lawyer or, you know, not a

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doctor. Not an accountant, but an accountant. Just,

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maybe a philosopher. And,

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he went he during the during in in the in 1967,

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the 67 war 67 war in Israel. But

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Yeah. So he was he was going to college at

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Cambridge. And, you know, there there were other Jews there go

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going to college there. But when the 67 war broke out, all of a

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sudden, all the Jew Jewish students started to go to synagogue, which

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wasn’t the case before that. Mhmm. And and

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and, there there was this he had this experience

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that he has to he he, Rabbi Sacks,

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had he himself at that age, he was a college student, he has

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to start learning a little bit about his heritage, because he really

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wasn’t, that wasn’t his focus. He ended

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up taking a trip to the United States during the summer,

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to visit all these, you know, the the big rabbis in the US.

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And to make a long story short, he he had a

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meeting with, it’s called he’s called the the the Lubavitcher

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Rebbe or Rabbi Schneerson, who,

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is, he’s really the only rabbi that

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I think ever ever ever lived who started a

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movement where His

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disciples would go out and establish,

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you know, synagogues around the world

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to help unaffiliated Jews, you know,

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learn about the religion. Mhmm. And so

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so in in the book, in in in in the book that we’re

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talking about, he tells the story about how he was sitting in

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the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s office. Mhmm. And,

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you know, the the, the rabbi, you know, just,

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started asking him, you know, questions about, you know, what he’s doing.

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And, you know, and then

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and they they started asking Rabbi Sacks, so what’s going on in Cambridge?

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You know, what you know, how many Jews are there? How many how many Jews

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are going to synagogue? And,

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and he said, well, it’s not very you know, it’s really not not not

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that great over there. And so the rabbi said to him,

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what are you doing about it? What are

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you doing about it? How are you taking

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responsibility? There you go. Exactly.

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What are you doing about it? Rabbi Sacks was like, you

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know, taken aback. Well, he said, Well, I find

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myself, in this situation. And the rabbi says, what do

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you mean you find yourself in this situation? You put yourself in this situation. If

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you can put yourself in that situation, you can put yourself in any other situation.

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By the time the rabbi was done with him, okay, he

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was now on a whole new career path. You know, he went

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back to England. He started learning, you know,

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learning Torah at a whole new level, and he eventually got ordained. He

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became he became a rabbi. Never never thought of

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doing this before until he met Rabbi Schneerson.

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So but he didn’t just become just a rabbi, he

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became a leader of rabbis. Eventually,

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he Rabbi Sacks became the chief rabbi of the United

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Kingdom for 22 years. Okay.

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Like I said, I know I know nothing. I knew nothing about this guy. It

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was one of those areas where, and this is a good background for all of

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us listening to the podcast because I’m going to bet that the vast majority of

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my listeners don’t know anything about this this person either.

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That’s not I mean, that’s not unusual. There’s a lot of things I don’t know

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anything about. And so, you know, the

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it sounds like the guy had a fascinating journey, personal

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journey that started from

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him being sort of personally goosed,

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I guess, into,

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into, into leadership, sort of they’re taken by

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surprise. Right. And maybe that’s why he opens up

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lessons in leadership with, you know, the idea of

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moral responsibility, right? Because that’s that is an answer to the question

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that the gentleman was asking or the other rabbi, the older rabbi, was

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asking him was the moral responsibility you’re taking for the situation that you’re in, you

301
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know, and why aren’t you doing anything about it? And he had really had sounds

302
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like he really had no he had no good answer. Exactly.

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I wanna switch to Tom for just a second. I wanna get Tom some Tom

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some of Tom’s thoughts on this. I did show Tom a version of the book.

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00:19:18,529 –> 00:19:22,210
We were recently at an event together, and I showed up with it. Ladies and

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00:19:22,210 –> 00:19:24,710
gentlemen, normally, we are not in the same room together.

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And normally, I don’t get a chance to share the books with him

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00:19:29,475 –> 00:19:32,515
physically. And so we got a chance I got a chance to do that. And

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I showed him the book, and he flipped through, and he’s like, why do you

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00:19:34,435 –> 00:19:36,915
why did you hand this to me? I say, well, just because I want to

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00:19:36,915 –> 00:19:40,675
prove to you that I actually have a physical book. Because all

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00:19:40,675 –> 00:19:43,600
all the books on the book all the books on the shelves behind you did

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00:19:43,600 –> 00:19:47,440
not prove that you had books. He had to bring he had to bring

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00:19:47,440 –> 00:19:51,040
me the copy. Had to bring you a copy of the book. So I know

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00:19:51,040 –> 00:19:54,880
I know for sure that Tom has almost no familiarity with this, with this

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00:19:54,880 –> 00:19:58,325
book. But just hearing us talking about it, what are some of your impressions or

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00:19:58,325 –> 00:20:01,684
some of your thoughts so far? Well, I I’m

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00:20:02,005 –> 00:20:05,304
first of all, Richard, I I always I always feel like

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I’m perfectly okay being quiet and just listening to you talk because every

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time I hear you speak about anything, I tend to, like,

321
00:20:13,659 –> 00:20:17,419
learn something or pick something up that I wasn’t thinking before. And and it it’s

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it’s usually very helpful for me to listen to yourself and and and people

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like you who’ve who’ve been around a little bit and have a very,

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clear pathway as to what you feel like your mission is, which is another thing

325
00:20:28,685 –> 00:20:31,645
I appreciate about you. But when I was thinking about this book, I was looking

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00:20:31,645 –> 00:20:35,005
at it more from a perspective of, like, so how does all of this translate?

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Right? And what I mean by that is, like,

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whether because I I feel like there’s lessons to be learned in

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there. Whether you’re Jewish or not is not the most relevant part of it. Right?

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It’s more about it’s more about, you know, to to

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Haysan’s point, pointing people in the right direction using a moral compass,

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using leadership to to drive,

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00:20:56,794 –> 00:21:00,475
results in the results that you’re looking for. So how how do you

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00:21:00,475 –> 00:21:04,235
how do you feel like or give me some, like, some specific examples

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00:21:04,235 –> 00:21:08,000
about how this book, like, translates into how how would I translate this into my

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business, right, so to speak? Like, if I’m trying to lead if I’m trying to

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be a leader of men, it’s the the impression that I get from him being

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00:21:14,480 –> 00:21:18,105
a a rabbi being a leader of rabbis is

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00:21:18,105 –> 00:21:21,945
is essentially the equivalent to that. Right? Like, being a leader of men, so to

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speak. So how how do some of those lessons directly translate

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00:21:25,545 –> 00:21:29,225
into into business? Well, one of the, one one of

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00:21:29,225 –> 00:21:32,880
the conclusions that rabbi Sacks came to after

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00:21:32,880 –> 00:21:36,720
meeting Rabbi Schneerson, who is one of

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the greatest rabbis, you know, in the 20th

345
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century, is that not only do,

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great leaders have a lot of followers, but

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00:21:48,044 –> 00:21:50,544
but great leaders create leaders.

348
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They create leaders. K?

349
00:21:55,325 –> 00:21:58,784
So, this this this is true in business also.

350
00:21:59,520 –> 00:22:03,120
Great business leaders. Yeah. A lot of people are reporting to

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00:22:03,120 –> 00:22:06,160
them, and a lot of people are reporting to the people who report to them,

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etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. They got this big organization. They got all these followers.

353
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But the greatest leaders are the ones that

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take the people that report to him and transform them into

355
00:22:18,595 –> 00:22:22,275
leaders. Mhmm. That’s the key thing. That’s

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00:22:22,275 –> 00:22:25,955
the difference. It’s interesting that you say that because I always try to I

357
00:22:25,955 –> 00:22:29,340
always try to get people to understand that that that

358
00:22:29,340 –> 00:22:33,179
hot up and coming person should never be a threat to you.

359
00:22:33,179 –> 00:22:36,620
I I I teach people about this in sales all the time. That the, you

360
00:22:36,620 –> 00:22:40,140
know, the best sale if you’re a sales manager and you’re thinking that that number

361
00:22:40,140 –> 00:22:43,925
1 sales guy or girl is gonna replace you or if you’re fearful of

362
00:22:43,925 –> 00:22:47,525
that, you’re in the wrong position. Right? Like, you should be

363
00:22:47,525 –> 00:22:51,285
encouraging that. You should be looking at that and saying and I always I always

364
00:22:51,285 –> 00:22:54,005
thought of it even for myself back in the day when I was, you know,

365
00:22:54,005 –> 00:22:57,809
first getting into the business world. I wanna train my replacement

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00:22:57,950 –> 00:23:01,789
because I don’t want there to be a hesitation to promote me. Right? Like,

367
00:23:01,789 –> 00:23:05,389
I actually saw that firsthand where a person was ready to be

368
00:23:05,389 –> 00:23:09,070
promoted, but they were held in the waiting blocks because there was nobody

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00:23:09,070 –> 00:23:12,915
ready to replace them. And they didn’t ever think of it, like, from that

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00:23:12,915 –> 00:23:16,755
perspective of, like, I’m gonna be held back

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00:23:16,755 –> 00:23:20,434
because nobody is gonna be able to so so companies do that on

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00:23:20,434 –> 00:23:23,795
occasion where they have somebody ready to be promoted, but they don’t do it because

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there’s nobody ready to fill that spot. And I always thought of it the opposite

374
00:23:27,480 –> 00:23:31,240
going, I want somebody ready to fill my spot because I want that first

375
00:23:31,240 –> 00:23:35,080
open slot to be mine. Like, I want that promotion ready for me, and I’m

376
00:23:35,080 –> 00:23:38,600
not worried about it. So to your point, I guess that’s kind of the beginning

377
00:23:38,600 –> 00:23:42,255
stages of that thought process with the with this book, right, where he’s basically

378
00:23:42,255 –> 00:23:45,935
talking about creating leaders because as you move

379
00:23:45,935 –> 00:23:49,315
up the ladder, you need somebody to replace the ladder rungs,

380
00:23:49,695 –> 00:23:52,735
and you can’t just throw people in there. You have to they have to be

381
00:23:52,735 –> 00:23:56,175
ready for it. In other words in other words, if

382
00:23:56,175 –> 00:23:59,890
you’re creating leaders, you are

383
00:23:59,890 –> 00:24:03,029
also creating yourself to be even a greater leader.

384
00:24:05,090 –> 00:24:08,929
That’s what you’re saying. Because now you you you’re gonna get promoted to even, like

385
00:24:09,169 –> 00:24:12,865
Right. Yeah. So yeah. Exactly.

386
00:24:13,565 –> 00:24:17,405
So in order for me to obtain more responsibility, I have to be able

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00:24:17,405 –> 00:24:20,765
and willing to to train the person to replace me. Now that being

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00:24:20,765 –> 00:24:24,605
said, because this did this actually did happen to me once or twice where

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00:24:24,605 –> 00:24:28,050
I would have the person ready and a spot would open up

390
00:24:28,050 –> 00:24:31,890
laterally, and they would take them from underneath me and put them in there, which,

391
00:24:31,890 –> 00:24:35,090
by the way, for me was great. I I I still had no problem with

392
00:24:35,090 –> 00:24:38,550
it because I always always, had that next That’s

393
00:24:38,850 –> 00:24:42,315
that’s a feather in your cap. Right. And I was always looking for the next

394
00:24:42,315 –> 00:24:46,155
next person up. Right? Like so I would always have a secondary person that

395
00:24:46,155 –> 00:24:49,195
I knew would be the next person I would wanted to train. Like, I I

396
00:24:49,195 –> 00:24:52,395
was always looking for that person, I guess, is my my point. So he Well,

397
00:24:52,395 –> 00:24:55,750
one of the things you might one of the things you might take into consideration

398
00:24:56,770 –> 00:25:00,150
is is that maybe there is even a higher a higher,

399
00:25:01,650 –> 00:25:04,630
level, which might be that

400
00:25:05,490 –> 00:25:09,265
you’re you’re creating leaders not for your own

401
00:25:09,265 –> 00:25:13,105
personal gain, not so that you can get promoted, but you’re

402
00:25:13,105 –> 00:25:16,865
creating leads because it’s the ethical thing to do, just because it’s

403
00:25:16,865 –> 00:25:20,625
the right thing to do. Oh, we’re gonna get

404
00:25:20,625 –> 00:25:24,240
into ethics. There’s no possible

405
00:25:24,240 –> 00:25:28,000
way we can’t with Richard here. We’re gonna get into ethics. Don’t don’t

406
00:25:28,160 –> 00:25:31,920
have no fear. Something that something but something

407
00:25:31,920 –> 00:25:35,140
that occurs to me or and something that occurs to me is that,

408
00:25:37,125 –> 00:25:40,505
what, Tom, what you’re talking about and Richard, what you’re supporting

409
00:25:41,765 –> 00:25:45,605
only works if the individual who is in that

410
00:25:45,605 –> 00:25:49,365
position where they can either be promoted up the chain

411
00:25:49,365 –> 00:25:52,490
or even promoted laterally. But let’s talk about the person who can be promoted up

412
00:25:52,490 –> 00:25:55,930
the chain because they’ve been prepared for it. This is a

413
00:25:55,930 –> 00:25:59,470
person whose ego is in the correct spot.

414
00:26:00,330 –> 00:26:03,930
And the challenge that I see, before we go back to the book

415
00:26:04,170 –> 00:26:06,090
and we’ll talk a little bit about this when we jump into the book of

416
00:26:06,090 –> 00:26:08,875
Exodus because we’re going to try and jump around the book a lot. And fortunately,

417
00:26:08,875 –> 00:26:11,915
Richard’s got it all he’s got it all post it noted, so he’ll know where

418
00:26:11,915 –> 00:26:14,975
we’re going, which is good.

419
00:26:16,635 –> 00:26:20,395
But the challenge of having your ego in

420
00:26:20,395 –> 00:26:24,200
the right place is a real issue, particularly today

421
00:26:24,200 –> 00:26:27,720
in our organizations. And we’ve we’ve we’ve seen this in the generational shift

422
00:26:27,720 –> 00:26:31,500
over. That’s happened in organizations and cultures where the baby boomer generation,

423
00:26:32,280 –> 00:26:34,919
for good or ill, we we can talk about whether it was a good thing

424
00:26:34,919 –> 00:26:38,565
or a bad thing, but the fact of the matter is didn’t prepare good secession

425
00:26:38,625 –> 00:26:42,465
plans for the 2 generations behind them. And now you have 2 generations of

426
00:26:42,465 –> 00:26:46,164
people coming into the workforce into leadership positions who

427
00:26:46,625 –> 00:26:50,465
not only weren’t prepared by dent of

428
00:26:50,465 –> 00:26:53,179
having a succession plan, But now,

429
00:26:53,880 –> 00:26:57,659
weirdly enough, aren’t preparing the generation behind them.

430
00:26:58,039 –> 00:27:01,639
And so you see from in general, this is

431
00:27:01,639 –> 00:27:05,015
not to crap on the baby boomers. I’m not doing that. I’m just saying the

432
00:27:05,015 –> 00:27:08,315
behavior overall of a particular generational cohort

433
00:27:09,015 –> 00:27:11,975
was to believe, and you see this in politics, by the way, was to believe

434
00:27:11,975 –> 00:27:15,735
that they’re irreplaceable and can never be. They can never the the

435
00:27:15,735 –> 00:27:18,410
vac the seat will never be empty. Because the seat will never empty, there’s no

436
00:27:18,410 –> 00:27:22,250
reason to prepare somebody, and thus, when I go by the

437
00:27:22,250 –> 00:27:25,370
way, I’m surprised that I’m gonna go. If I’m a boomer, I’m surprised that I’m

438
00:27:25,370 –> 00:27:29,130
going to go. I’m shocked that that well, I’m gonna say it

439
00:27:29,130 –> 00:27:32,445
for the this particular podcast episode. I’m shocked that god will take me.

440
00:27:33,005 –> 00:27:36,465
Every boomer is shocked. Well, almost everyone.

441
00:27:37,804 –> 00:27:41,404
But the fact of the matter is when you’re shocked, you don’t prepare a succession

442
00:27:41,404 –> 00:27:44,924
plan. And so you’ve got the ego of not preparing the succession plan to have

443
00:27:44,924 –> 00:27:48,400
somebody replace you, but then you’ve also got the

444
00:27:48,400 –> 00:27:52,160
the inappropriate placing of ego among people who should be

445
00:27:52,160 –> 00:27:55,920
ready to replace you behind you. This is a huge problem

446
00:27:55,920 –> 00:27:59,680
in organizations right now because along with the

447
00:27:59,680 –> 00:28:03,495
ego comes with selfishness and all of this and the knowledge grabbing

448
00:28:03,495 –> 00:28:07,335
and the greed of of of power or the greed to hold on to

449
00:28:07,335 –> 00:28:11,174
power, some of which we see in our organizations today, which is leading

450
00:28:11,174 –> 00:28:14,635
to some of the dysfunctions that we’re seeing, which is leading to unethical behavior.

451
00:28:16,460 –> 00:28:19,820
Thoughts on this assertion from either Richard or Tom? Well,

452
00:28:19,820 –> 00:28:23,360
capitalism is based on the notion

453
00:28:24,140 –> 00:28:27,740
of self interest. Sure. Yeah. That’s the

454
00:28:27,740 –> 00:28:31,485
fundamental idea. Right? Everybody’s interested in themselves,

455
00:28:31,625 –> 00:28:34,845
and let’s create a, an economic system

456
00:28:35,705 –> 00:28:39,225
where people can fulfill their self interest, and where there’s a level

457
00:28:39,225 –> 00:28:43,065
playing field. Mhmm. Right? And and and so when you have

458
00:28:43,065 –> 00:28:46,830
a whole culture, a whole the whole basic infrastructure

459
00:28:46,970 –> 00:28:50,809
based on self interest, the ego is gonna, you know, it’s

460
00:28:50,809 –> 00:28:54,409
gonna empower the ego. The ego is to a

461
00:28:54,409 –> 00:28:58,009
100% interested in itself. That’s that’s Right.

462
00:28:58,009 –> 00:29:00,990
Right. And and, you know, that’s the that is the dark side of capitalism.

463
00:29:02,325 –> 00:29:06,165
The the upside of capitalism is we have this wonderful tool called Zoom where we

464
00:29:06,165 –> 00:29:08,165
can all talk to each other and not be in the same place at the

465
00:29:08,165 –> 00:29:11,845
same time. No. I’m not saying capitalism is I’m not

466
00:29:11,845 –> 00:29:15,225
saying capitalism is a bad system. Sure. I’m just saying that,

467
00:29:16,760 –> 00:29:20,600
actually, what I’m saying is that if you don’t have an ethical

468
00:29:20,600 –> 00:29:24,440
framework to go along with capitalism or any system, by the way, any

469
00:29:24,440 –> 00:29:27,880
system that doesn’t have an ethical framework is going to implode

470
00:29:27,880 –> 00:29:31,475
eventually. Sure. So Yeah. Yeah.

471
00:29:32,335 –> 00:29:34,034
Tom, on the succession idea,

472
00:29:36,335 –> 00:29:38,674
why is why are succession plans so hard?

473
00:29:43,390 –> 00:29:47,150
I’ve never and and as a leadership consultant, I’ve never gone into a meeting

474
00:29:47,150 –> 00:29:50,990
about a succession plan working with an org where everybody anybody was happy about any

475
00:29:50,990 –> 00:29:54,585
of it. Like, nobody was happy. The people who are succeeding aren’t

476
00:29:54,745 –> 00:29:57,544
happy, and the people who are having to give up and allow other people to

477
00:29:57,544 –> 00:30:00,365
succeed, they are not happy either. Nobody’s ever happy and never.

478
00:30:01,304 –> 00:30:05,065
Yeah. I I think part of it again, I think to to Rich’s

479
00:30:05,065 –> 00:30:08,740
point a couple of times to it, it kinda depends where like, it depends on

480
00:30:08,740 –> 00:30:12,039
what you’re talking about. Right? Succession planning for a company

481
00:30:12,100 –> 00:30:15,940
that’s smaller family owned and, like, and you’re

482
00:30:15,940 –> 00:30:19,539
looking to, you know, take your son or daughter and you’re gonna put them in

483
00:30:19,539 –> 00:30:23,304
in that CEO seat and you’re gonna basically groom them from the time

484
00:30:23,304 –> 00:30:26,745
they’re teenagers and to run the company is very different

485
00:30:26,745 –> 00:30:30,505
than a company that’s been in business for a 100 years, and it’s had turnover

486
00:30:30,505 –> 00:30:33,225
here and there. Like, all kinds of CEOs come and go and all of a

487
00:30:33,225 –> 00:30:36,980
sudden, like, it’s just very different. The the reality of it is though,

488
00:30:37,360 –> 00:30:40,260
to what you’re talking about earlier, is that

489
00:30:41,519 –> 00:30:45,220
anytime you start talking about succession planning, everybody

490
00:30:45,279 –> 00:30:49,075
involved, to your point earlier, Richard, they’re always going to think about

491
00:30:49,075 –> 00:30:52,515
their best interest first. They just do because that’s the

492
00:30:52,515 –> 00:30:56,195
way it works. Right? Like and I I was

493
00:30:56,195 –> 00:30:59,875
told once, and I I thought I thought this was pretty fascinating. I was told

494
00:30:59,875 –> 00:31:03,610
once that in in any sort of negotiation or negotiating practice, whether it’s

495
00:31:03,610 –> 00:31:07,450
succession rate or anything else, that if everybody is miserable, you did your job

496
00:31:07,450 –> 00:31:11,049
well. Like, there should be no like, it’s

497
00:31:11,289 –> 00:31:14,845
and and I said, well, if everybody’s happy, shouldn’t that be a

498
00:31:14,845 –> 00:31:18,625
job well done as well? And they said no. Because usually,

499
00:31:18,924 –> 00:31:22,765
if you get a board of directors of, you know, 12 people and everybody

500
00:31:22,765 –> 00:31:26,605
seems to be happy with it, then something’s wrong with the agreement. Like, something’s

501
00:31:26,605 –> 00:31:29,929
wrong with that succession plan because there there’s

502
00:31:29,990 –> 00:31:33,750
no way that everyone to your point, Haysan, when you said everybody’s miserable. Right?

503
00:31:33,750 –> 00:31:37,590
Like, everybody’s miserable when you walk in the room. It’s it’s because they always feel

504
00:31:37,590 –> 00:31:41,130
like there’s money left on the table or stocks left on the table or

505
00:31:41,429 –> 00:31:45,255
something titles, money, salary, something.

506
00:31:45,255 –> 00:31:48,375
There’s always something that they feel like they didn’t get quite enough of. But if

507
00:31:48,375 –> 00:31:52,135
everybody is equally miserable, then you probably did a really good job of making it

508
00:31:52,135 –> 00:31:55,835
fair and equitable. Right? Like, that that’s the so

509
00:31:56,149 –> 00:31:59,509
I think I think it’s okay to be upset or miserable about the

510
00:31:59,509 –> 00:32:03,269
excess succession plan as long as you’re as long as you understand that the the

511
00:32:03,269 –> 00:32:07,029
plan is in place for a reason and there’s some ethics driving it and

512
00:32:07,029 –> 00:32:10,415
that everybody is going to take some sort of, like, backseat

513
00:32:10,795 –> 00:32:14,635
to whatever the greater good is, then I think you did your job.

514
00:32:14,635 –> 00:32:18,155
I think you did your job and you did it well. I think it’s again,

515
00:32:18,155 –> 00:32:21,675
I think and by the way, typically, if everybody’s happy, that

516
00:32:21,675 –> 00:32:25,250
means the the person that got the short end of the stick is

517
00:32:25,250 –> 00:32:29,010
either the lower level employees or the customers. Like, one of those two

518
00:32:29,010 –> 00:32:32,850
people who have no voice at the table typically get the short

519
00:32:32,850 –> 00:32:35,330
end of the stick. And that was the point they were trying to make when

520
00:32:35,330 –> 00:32:38,995
they said if everybody in the boardroom’s happy, you probably did something wrong. You did

521
00:32:38,995 –> 00:32:42,355
something wrong. And that’s and they were talking from an ethical standpoint. Like, they were

522
00:32:42,355 –> 00:32:45,655
talking about it from that complete stakeholder capitalism

523
00:32:45,875 –> 00:32:49,475
versus just plain driven by the dollar

524
00:32:49,475 –> 00:32:53,230
capitalism. Right? Yeah. So, again, it’s it’s but, anyway

525
00:32:53,710 –> 00:32:57,070
Well, it sounds like it sounds like there’s something paradoxical going on

526
00:32:57,070 –> 00:33:00,830
there, which, doesn’t surprise

527
00:33:00,830 –> 00:33:03,970
me given the fact that the human condition is fundamentally paradoxical.

528
00:33:08,365 –> 00:33:11,265
Well, let’s explore some of that paradox.

529
00:33:12,205 –> 00:33:15,965
Let’s, let’s let’s return to the book, lessons in leadership.

530
00:33:15,965 –> 00:33:19,105
Well, you know, there’s there’s there’s succession going on in the Bible.

531
00:33:19,860 –> 00:33:22,820
Right. And we’re gonna talk about that coming up here. This is exactly this is

532
00:33:22,820 –> 00:33:26,660
exactly where we’re going right now. So, because it’s not just succession,

533
00:33:26,660 –> 00:33:30,500
it’s also vision and purpose, which we we we probably should

534
00:33:30,500 –> 00:33:34,024
to tie together. And when you look at,

535
00:33:34,645 –> 00:33:38,485
the second set of chapters in lessons in leadership, a weekly

536
00:33:38,485 –> 00:33:42,184
reading of the Jewish bible, Rabbi

537
00:33:42,245 –> 00:33:45,924
Sacks by the way, is it doctor Sacks or is it rabbi Sacks? Which one

538
00:33:46,085 –> 00:33:48,530
or is it doctor rabbi or does it matter? It’s

539
00:33:49,630 –> 00:33:53,330
well, lord rabbi. Lord rabbi. Okay. Alright.

540
00:33:53,710 –> 00:33:57,230
Okay. Well, rabbi lord rabbi lord Jonathan Sachs.

541
00:33:57,230 –> 00:34:00,850
Lord rabbi lord Jonathan. He’s he was he was he was, you know,

542
00:34:00,990 –> 00:34:04,625
inducted into the yeah. Okay. He’s a lord. He was a

543
00:34:04,625 –> 00:34:07,745
lord. And well, he’s also a doc. He has a PhD, so he’s a doctor

544
00:34:07,745 –> 00:34:11,425
also. But Sure. Not by doctor Lord Johnson’s side. So it’s a lot of

545
00:34:11,585 –> 00:34:14,385
lot to that’s a lot to lead into. That’s a long handle as my grandma

546
00:34:14,385 –> 00:34:17,869
would have said. He he he was humble. He was humble. He didn’t have to

547
00:34:17,869 –> 00:34:21,010
throw the doctor in there also. Yeah.

548
00:34:22,750 –> 00:34:26,589
Alright. The author, let’s go with that for the moment here. Just

549
00:34:26,589 –> 00:34:28,449
gonna shorthand it a little bit,

550
00:34:30,465 –> 00:34:34,085
opens up in his discussion of the book of Exodus, which

551
00:34:34,465 –> 00:34:38,225
is probably out of the the the 5 books of the

552
00:34:38,225 –> 00:34:41,905
Torah, for me anyway, probably the most

553
00:34:41,905 –> 00:34:45,045
interesting one of, one of those books.

554
00:34:45,670 –> 00:34:49,370
And he opens up his examination of leadership

555
00:34:49,510 –> 00:34:53,350
lessons from, book of Exodus by beginning with the

556
00:34:53,350 –> 00:34:56,489
idea of, how are women

557
00:34:56,710 –> 00:35:00,455
leaders? How do how do women

558
00:35:00,455 –> 00:35:04,075
lead? What does what does female leadership actually look like?

559
00:35:04,295 –> 00:35:07,035
And he references a couple of different,

560
00:35:07,815 –> 00:35:11,015
ideas that are in the book of Exodus because the book of Exodus, which is,

561
00:35:11,015 –> 00:35:14,710
of course, the story of how Moses leads the people

562
00:35:14,710 –> 00:35:17,849
of Egypt. I’m not gonna say that people, Egypt. The people of Israel,

563
00:35:18,789 –> 00:35:22,309
out of Egypt, after 400 years of of,

564
00:35:22,630 –> 00:35:26,384
slavery. And by the way, the end of the book of Genesis,

565
00:35:27,005 –> 00:35:28,625
you know, talks about how,

566
00:35:31,005 –> 00:35:34,684
Joseph saved, the Israelites. Then the

567
00:35:34,684 –> 00:35:38,365
book of Exodus picks up 400 years later with, if I remember the quote

568
00:35:38,365 –> 00:35:42,000
correctly from from the first book of Exodus,

569
00:35:43,180 –> 00:35:46,940
how the pharaoh did not know Joseph because there had been a pharaoh that had

570
00:35:46,940 –> 00:35:50,299
arisen into, into, into

571
00:35:50,299 –> 00:35:53,039
power who did not honor

572
00:35:54,464 –> 00:35:58,305
the previous agreements and the previous No. He didn’t know. He just didn’t

573
00:35:58,305 –> 00:36:01,984
know. He he didn’t know, you know,

574
00:36:01,984 –> 00:36:05,744
this is, like, the next generation down. So Joseph is already dead. Right.

575
00:36:05,744 –> 00:36:09,365
Right? And so he didn’t he wasn’t aware of the impact

576
00:36:09,470 –> 00:36:12,829
that Joseph had, how he saved he saved Egypt. I mean, he

577
00:36:12,829 –> 00:36:16,269
saved he saved Egypt. He didn’t know. And and

578
00:36:16,269 –> 00:36:19,410
so, see, that’s the problem when you don’t know history.

579
00:36:20,349 –> 00:36:23,490
Right. Right. Which we’re running into, by the way, in our own culture.

580
00:36:23,865 –> 00:36:26,845
Exactly. Right. Exactly. And it’s gonna have deleterious

581
00:36:27,865 –> 00:36:30,345
impacts, which is part of the reason why I do this podcast the way that

582
00:36:30,345 –> 00:36:34,185
I do it. Exactly. And so That

583
00:36:34,185 –> 00:36:37,690
history, you mean? So that that

584
00:36:37,750 –> 00:36:41,430
that that pharaoh that pharaoh who didn’t know about Joseph and

585
00:36:41,430 –> 00:36:45,109
what he had done, he ended up getting very concerned

586
00:36:45,109 –> 00:36:48,490
about the population growth of the Jewish people inside of Egypt.

587
00:36:48,924 –> 00:36:52,525
Yep. And that’s when he decided, you know, to crack down on the

588
00:36:52,525 –> 00:36:56,224
Jews, you know, it’s and eventually enslave them. Right. Exactly.

589
00:36:56,605 –> 00:37:00,365
And part of that enslavement, and, Rabbi Sacks

590
00:37:00,365 –> 00:37:03,904
talks about this in the first book, women as leaders.

591
00:37:04,204 –> 00:37:05,359
He talks about

592
00:37:08,299 –> 00:37:11,900
the 3 of the people who

593
00:37:11,900 –> 00:37:15,660
were going to be great leaders of the Israelites, Miriam, Aaron,

594
00:37:15,660 –> 00:37:18,695
and Moses himself, right? And

595
00:37:20,115 –> 00:37:23,875
Jochiveth is the wife of Amran. Okay? And Amran was the mother

596
00:37:23,875 –> 00:37:27,395
of or, I’m sorry, the father of

597
00:37:27,395 –> 00:37:31,170
Miriam, Aaron, and Moses. And then he also

598
00:37:31,170 –> 00:37:34,849
talks about, Yokobed’s daughter, Miriam, right, Moses’ older

599
00:37:34,849 –> 00:37:37,109
sister. Now he does briefly

600
00:37:38,530 –> 00:37:42,230
discuss, although he doesn’t really necessarily focus on them,

601
00:37:42,495 –> 00:37:44,915
Pharoah, demanded that they kill the, Israeli or the Jewish, sons

602
00:37:56,410 –> 00:37:59,050
when they were born. And actually, I think it was kind of broader than that,

603
00:37:59,050 –> 00:38:02,030
but they really focused on the Jewish sons, in the book of Exodus.

604
00:38:02,650 –> 00:38:06,010
And the midwives, and it’s it’s even says this in the book of

605
00:38:06,010 –> 00:38:09,310
Exodus, feared God more than they fear the pharaoh. And so they basically

606
00:38:10,025 –> 00:38:12,845
disobeyed. Right? They engaged in what we would call,

607
00:38:13,865 –> 00:38:17,625
these days, civil disobedience. Civil

608
00:38:17,625 –> 00:38:21,305
disobedience. Correct. Exactly. Yes. In

609
00:38:21,305 –> 00:38:24,045
order to preserve the, the Jewish people.

610
00:38:24,660 –> 00:38:27,880
And, Rabbi Sacks points out that

611
00:38:28,980 –> 00:38:32,819
these leaders, these female leaders, including the princess of Egypt who

612
00:38:32,819 –> 00:38:36,660
raised Moses, he throws her in there as well, that he said that

613
00:38:36,660 –> 00:38:40,215
they were leaders because they had courage and conscience, which I think is 2

614
00:38:40,535 –> 00:38:43,435
2 character traits that we don’t often talk about in leadership.

615
00:38:44,295 –> 00:38:47,895
Or maybe we not maybe. We talk a lot about courage in terms of

616
00:38:47,895 –> 00:38:51,495
dodging a bullet or in terms of running into a fire. We

617
00:38:51,495 –> 00:38:55,200
don’t talk about you about courage as Brene Brown. We talk about courage

618
00:38:55,200 –> 00:38:58,960
in terms of the heart word, right, which you can

619
00:38:58,960 –> 00:39:02,640
only really do, and you can only really act out of

620
00:39:02,640 –> 00:39:06,400
courage if you have a conscience. And a conscience is more

621
00:39:06,400 –> 00:39:09,905
than just merely knowing the difference between right and wrong.

622
00:39:10,285 –> 00:39:13,965
It’s also having the willingness to act

623
00:39:13,965 –> 00:39:17,025
on the difference between right and wrong.

624
00:39:18,525 –> 00:39:21,745
And Rabbi Sacks points out that their courage is still a source of inspiration

625
00:39:21,965 –> 00:39:25,400
today. From there, he moves into

626
00:39:25,859 –> 00:39:29,380
Moses’ mission and how Moses had to

627
00:39:29,380 –> 00:39:31,560
overcome setbacks as an adult

628
00:39:33,780 –> 00:39:37,540
as he went back into Egypt. So again, for those of you who’ve never read

629
00:39:37,540 –> 00:39:41,275
the book of Exodus, Moses, is seen killing an Egyptian,

630
00:39:41,595 –> 00:39:44,575
overseer, and burying the body. The Jewish people who he is soon to lead, well,

631
00:39:44,635 –> 00:39:47,215
soon meaning 40 years after that. But spot him

632
00:39:53,480 –> 00:39:55,420
and, in essence, they,

633
00:39:57,240 –> 00:40:00,140
they drop a dime on him or they try to drop a dime on him.

634
00:40:00,839 –> 00:40:04,680
And, and Moses has to flee Egypt, right? And he

635
00:40:04,680 –> 00:40:08,355
goes to a different land. While he is there,

636
00:40:08,495 –> 00:40:12,095
he becomes a shepherd, wandering around the backside of a

637
00:40:12,095 –> 00:40:15,615
mountain where he eventually, 40 years later by the

638
00:40:15,615 –> 00:40:19,295
way, this would make Moses 80 years old when

639
00:40:19,295 –> 00:40:22,940
he sees God in the burning bush, has a

640
00:40:22,940 –> 00:40:26,380
conversation with God in the burning bush. Again, you can read the book of

641
00:40:26,380 –> 00:40:30,140
Exodus. I recommend reading it. For those of you who are listening, I’m some I’m

642
00:40:30,140 –> 00:40:33,660
doing the hessian version of the summarization of this. I

643
00:40:33,660 –> 00:40:37,484
recommend you go back and read it yourself. It’s fascinating reading. Again, even

644
00:40:37,484 –> 00:40:40,625
if you don’t believe in anything in there, it’s fascinating reading.

645
00:40:41,405 –> 00:40:44,365
But he goes, he sees the burning bush, of course, it burns, but is not

646
00:40:44,365 –> 00:40:48,045
consumed, takes off his shoes. And, of course, the bush

647
00:40:48,045 –> 00:40:51,025
tells him, go back to Egypt and tell pharaoh

648
00:40:51,730 –> 00:40:55,570
to let my people go, right, that they may be

649
00:40:55,570 –> 00:40:59,190
free to come and worship me, in essence. That’s the backside of that

650
00:40:59,570 –> 00:41:02,930
command. Moses, of course, when he

651
00:41:02,930 –> 00:41:06,775
gets this call, one of the

652
00:41:06,775 –> 00:41:10,075
first things Moses says when he receives the call to leadership

653
00:41:10,855 –> 00:41:14,615
is And I want you to just kind of imagine this in your

654
00:41:14,615 –> 00:41:17,975
head. He kind of looks around left and right and kind of goes, who me?

655
00:41:17,975 –> 00:41:21,680
What? You’re talking to this guy? I can’t go in

656
00:41:21,680 –> 00:41:25,440
there. I am a murderer. I’m sure he still

657
00:41:25,440 –> 00:41:29,200
had that floating around in his head. I am a man

658
00:41:29,200 –> 00:41:32,980
that is not righteous. I’m sure he had that floating around in his head.

659
00:41:33,435 –> 00:41:37,195
And, he also says specifically to God, I don’t

660
00:41:37,195 –> 00:41:40,875
speak well. I’m not good at talking. He might have had a speech He had

661
00:41:40,875 –> 00:41:44,575
a he had a serious speech impediment. Right. Speech impediment. Exactly.

662
00:41:45,115 –> 00:41:48,015
And God brushes aside all of his excuses.

663
00:41:48,980 –> 00:41:51,880
Every single last one of them, he swats them away like flies,

664
00:41:52,740 –> 00:41:56,099
you know, floating around like a piece of watermelon. He’s like, nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

665
00:41:56,099 –> 00:41:59,940
Nope. Nope. Nope. Oh, you have a speech impediment. That’s cool. I’m a send

666
00:41:59,940 –> 00:42:02,579
your brother with you. By the way, this is one of the first times that

667
00:42:02,579 –> 00:42:05,575
we hear, Aaron mentioned again in the Bible.

668
00:42:06,435 –> 00:42:10,035
It’s curious as to where Aaron went. I’m sure Richard has some thoughts on

669
00:42:10,035 –> 00:42:13,415
that. Those of us who read who read the Bible through a lens of Christianity

670
00:42:13,555 –> 00:42:17,075
don’t really get too much of that information. And so it’s always kind of curious

671
00:42:17,075 –> 00:42:20,410
to me. And we can talk about that later. But where Aaron went and then

672
00:42:20,410 –> 00:42:24,090
why he just showed up then? Like, okay. Where were you this entire time?

673
00:42:24,090 –> 00:42:27,850
Like, if Moses was struggling with a speech impediment, where the heck were you?

674
00:42:27,850 –> 00:42:31,610
Right? So God says, take Aaron with you. And, oh, and

675
00:42:31,610 –> 00:42:35,036
by the way, here’s a staff that you can turn into a snake if you

676
00:42:35,036 –> 00:42:38,835
throw it down on the ground. And if you pick it back up again,

677
00:42:38,835 –> 00:42:42,633
it’ll be a staff again. Go do these things. I will empower you. Go

678
00:42:42,633 –> 00:42:46,432
have a good time. Go go intimidate pharaoh. And Moses goes, well, I guess

679
00:42:46,432 –> 00:42:49,760
I’m all out of excuses, so I guess I better get on the road.

680
00:42:50,540 –> 00:42:54,000
And so he gets on the road, and he goes to pharaoh’s palace.

681
00:42:54,620 –> 00:42:58,300
And this is, of course, when things begin to go

682
00:42:58,300 –> 00:43:02,035
down. This is where he begins to have interactions

683
00:43:02,414 –> 00:43:06,095
with pharaoh, who, by the way, there is some

684
00:43:06,095 –> 00:43:09,934
indication in the Bible that he would have known pharaoh because they would have both

685
00:43:09,934 –> 00:43:12,815
grown up in the same household, and they would have had not they would have

686
00:43:12,815 –> 00:43:16,630
not been strangers to each other. Right? And so he’s,

687
00:43:17,830 –> 00:43:21,430
he’s turning a staff into a snake. The Egyptian

688
00:43:21,430 –> 00:43:25,210
magicians are doing the same thing. There’s sort of this battle of

689
00:43:25,270 –> 00:43:28,970
transcendent forces that’s going on inside of the Egyptian

690
00:43:29,375 –> 00:43:33,214
court in front of pharaoh. Pharaoh will say,

691
00:43:33,214 –> 00:43:36,974
yes. I’ll let the people go, and then pharaoh says, no. You know what? I’m

692
00:43:36,974 –> 00:43:39,855
not. By the way, it says in in the book of Exodus that god made

693
00:43:39,855 –> 00:43:43,570
pharaoh’s heart hard, which is another idea that

694
00:43:43,790 –> 00:43:47,550
rabbi Sacks explores in this book. And

695
00:43:47,550 –> 00:43:51,310
he talks about how Moses had to overcome setbacks in order

696
00:43:51,310 –> 00:43:54,865
to, particularly setbacks with his faith in order to

697
00:43:54,865 –> 00:43:58,625
continue down the path that he was going down in order

698
00:43:58,625 –> 00:44:02,305
to successfully take the Israelites out of Egypt or

699
00:44:02,305 –> 00:44:05,845
leave the Israelites out of Egypt towards the far horizon

700
00:44:06,545 –> 00:44:10,130
towards freedom. In the chapter on freedom, Rabbi Sacks

701
00:44:10,130 –> 00:44:13,109
references, of course, Abraham Lincoln and many others.

702
00:44:13,890 –> 00:44:17,650
He talks about, how Moses

703
00:44:17,650 –> 00:44:21,285
gave a great speech. And in in Exodus

704
00:44:21,345 –> 00:44:24,945
1226 through 27, Exodus 13:8, and Exodus

705
00:44:24,945 –> 00:44:28,785
1314. And he talks about how this speech is a

706
00:44:28,785 –> 00:44:32,405
counterintuitive act where Moses does not speak about today or tomorrow,

707
00:44:32,810 –> 00:44:36,490
but he speaks about the distant future and the duty of parents to educate their

708
00:44:36,490 –> 00:44:39,710
children, which has of course become ingrained in the Jewish

709
00:44:39,850 –> 00:44:43,310
tradition. Mm-mm. Finally,

710
00:44:44,010 –> 00:44:47,790
he comes to the summation rabbi Sacks does. He says Moses was the greatest

711
00:44:47,835 –> 00:44:51,675
leader because he fought further ahead than anyone else. He knew that real change

712
00:44:51,675 –> 00:44:55,515
in human behavior is the work of many generations. Therefore, we must place our

713
00:44:55,515 –> 00:44:59,355
highest priority educating our children and our ideals so they will so

714
00:44:59,355 –> 00:45:02,819
that what we begin, they will continue until the world

715
00:45:02,819 –> 00:45:05,240
changes because we have changed.

716
00:45:07,380 –> 00:45:08,119
That’s vision.

717
00:45:10,980 –> 00:45:14,520
That’s vision. Most leaders struggle with

718
00:45:14,740 –> 00:45:18,475
vision Because most leaders,

719
00:45:18,615 –> 00:45:22,295
unfortunately, fall into the trap of only barely thinking

720
00:45:22,295 –> 00:45:25,975
about tomorrow, much less 5 years from now. Matter of fact, I

721
00:45:25,975 –> 00:45:29,575
believe there is an old idea or might be old in my time

722
00:45:29,575 –> 00:45:32,390
now, but there is an idea floating around.

723
00:45:33,330 –> 00:45:36,790
And it used to be framed in the saying that the Chinese think about

724
00:45:37,089 –> 00:45:40,770
make plans a 1000 years out, whereas Americans barely make plans

725
00:45:40,770 –> 00:45:44,565
5 years out. And that is a fundamental

726
00:45:44,565 –> 00:45:48,005
difference in worldview when you think about it, particularly at a

727
00:45:48,005 –> 00:45:51,685
cultural level. But I don’t think

728
00:45:51,685 –> 00:45:55,045
leaders get the luxury of

729
00:45:55,045 –> 00:45:58,630
adopting a short term worldview. And so we talk about

730
00:45:58,630 –> 00:46:02,390
succession, right? Who will come after me? When we talk about what

731
00:46:02,390 –> 00:46:06,070
will happen in the future, leaders are or

732
00:46:06,070 –> 00:46:09,370
we should be tasked with setting the vision

733
00:46:10,335 –> 00:46:13,855
and creating a purpose. By the way, this is an ethical thing to

734
00:46:13,855 –> 00:46:17,215
do as well. Now, Moses, for his

735
00:46:17,215 –> 00:46:20,595
part, did struggle with his own people,

736
00:46:21,295 –> 00:46:24,670
you know, the second that they were out of

737
00:46:24,670 –> 00:46:27,330
slavery in Egypt, they,

738
00:46:28,430 –> 00:46:30,910
well, the second Moses’ back was turned to go up to the mountain to get

739
00:46:30,910 –> 00:46:34,530
the Ten Commandments, they decided that they were going to take his brother

740
00:46:34,590 –> 00:46:38,105
and and take down the gold that they had gotten from the

741
00:46:38,105 –> 00:46:41,165
Egyptians, melt it down into a golden calf, and worship it.

742
00:46:42,825 –> 00:46:46,045
Moses was unhappy with that. Came down from the.

743
00:46:48,630 –> 00:46:52,329
And I’m minimizing this. He’s not happy with it. He was a little bit unhappy.

744
00:46:52,390 –> 00:46:55,990
It’s a little little tweet when he came off the mountain. Never I

745
00:46:55,990 –> 00:46:59,829
never heard it described that way. There’s a little there’s a

746
00:46:59,829 –> 00:47:03,414
little less to please, let us say. Well, you have to you have to

747
00:47:03,414 –> 00:47:06,855
understand, Richard. I think cinematically, so I’m thinking of, like, Charlton Heston with the

748
00:47:06,855 –> 00:47:10,694
giant beard covered off the mountain and, like, just wrecking things left and

749
00:47:10,694 –> 00:47:13,494
right with the staff. Like, that’s the image I have in my brain. And then

750
00:47:13,494 –> 00:47:16,535
he takes the golden calf, and this is described in the book of Exodus. He

751
00:47:16,535 –> 00:47:20,050
ground it up and made

752
00:47:20,750 –> 00:47:23,410
the Israelites drink it.

753
00:47:26,510 –> 00:47:30,190
That’s some old school not even old

754
00:47:30,190 –> 00:47:32,610
school. That’s ancient school. That’s like Precambrian,

755
00:47:34,244 –> 00:47:35,605
okay, school behavior.

756
00:47:37,605 –> 00:47:41,285
And this was after, you know, the water from the rock and

757
00:47:41,285 –> 00:47:45,125
manna, and, yes, we’re in the desert and the giants and the reports with

758
00:47:45,125 –> 00:47:48,869
the spies. And I was even talking with my boy about this,

759
00:47:48,869 –> 00:47:52,630
my 7 year old about this because we’re actually reading ironically enough, we’re reading about

760
00:47:52,630 –> 00:47:56,470
Moses right now and the 12 spies. And I had to tell my 7

761
00:47:56,470 –> 00:48:00,070
year old that what is what is this the the

762
00:48:00,070 –> 00:48:03,745
lesson that we learn from the idea of the

763
00:48:03,745 –> 00:48:07,265
Israelites losing faith in the wilderness and not being able to enter into the

764
00:48:07,265 –> 00:48:10,785
promised land. The lesson we learn is that even though all these miracles

765
00:48:10,785 –> 00:48:14,550
happened from them, they still weren’t convinced. They

766
00:48:14,550 –> 00:48:17,850
still weren’t converted into believing in God.

767
00:48:18,790 –> 00:48:22,630
They still had a slave mentality. Right. I’m not going to use that

768
00:48:22,630 –> 00:48:25,850
term with my 7 year old, but yes, exactly, they still had a slave mentality,

769
00:48:25,990 –> 00:48:29,585
correct. So the challenge here with all of

770
00:48:29,585 –> 00:48:33,345
that that Rabbi Sacks lays out and all of the what is laid out in

771
00:48:33,345 –> 00:48:36,385
the book of Exodus is a very broad challenge, which is why this is an

772
00:48:36,385 –> 00:48:40,225
incredibly important chapter, I believe, in the Bible for leaders

773
00:48:40,225 –> 00:48:44,000
to read. So the question I’d like to kick off our conversation, our part

774
00:48:44,000 –> 00:48:47,760
of the conversation here with is, what is

775
00:48:47,760 –> 00:48:51,600
the challenge of vision and how can leaders behave ethically in

776
00:48:51,600 –> 00:48:55,215
perilous times, like the ones we’re living in now? We already

777
00:48:55,215 –> 00:48:58,975
mentioned the lack of knowledge of history, and we do live

778
00:48:58,975 –> 00:49:02,655
in perilous times, particularly in the West overall,

779
00:49:02,655 –> 00:49:06,495
but in America in particular. And it feels perilous to us, maybe because it’s an

780
00:49:06,495 –> 00:49:10,240
election year and a lot of weird things are happening. But in general, for

781
00:49:10,240 –> 00:49:14,079
the last 25 years, it’s felt like perilous times in America. So how does

782
00:49:14,079 –> 00:49:16,339
a leader behave ethically? How do you

783
00:49:18,079 –> 00:49:20,724
how do you not come down from the mountain and grind up the golden calf

784
00:49:20,724 –> 00:49:23,445
and make everybody drink it? Or maybe maybe we should. Maybe we should be having

785
00:49:23,445 –> 00:49:27,285
somebody do that. I don’t know. Tom or Richard? I don’t I don’t

786
00:49:27,285 –> 00:49:30,964
know. Richard’s thinking. So, Tom, do you wanna take that? You

787
00:49:30,964 –> 00:49:34,530
wanna start? Well, first of all, the I don’t know if Richard wants to start.

788
00:49:34,530 –> 00:49:38,370
Go ahead. No. I mean, it’s Tom, you wanna you wanna you wanna you want

789
00:49:38,530 –> 00:49:42,050
yeah. The Go ahead. Go ahead. You’re you’re fine. Rabbi rabbi

790
00:49:42,050 –> 00:49:45,730
Sacks says in the in in his book that, there

791
00:49:45,730 –> 00:49:49,405
there is no rule book for leadership. Right.

792
00:49:50,665 –> 00:49:54,345
Because every situation is different and unique. And and

793
00:49:54,345 –> 00:49:58,125
therefore, leaders have to be able to, you know,

794
00:49:58,985 –> 00:49:59,725
make decisions,

795
00:50:02,700 –> 00:50:06,380
you know, in the face of uncertainty, in the

796
00:50:06,380 –> 00:50:10,220
face of, you know, whatever is happening in

797
00:50:10,220 –> 00:50:14,000
the moment, number 1. Of course, you know, like you said, vision vision,

798
00:50:14,060 –> 00:50:16,240
of course, is long term. But,

799
00:50:20,335 –> 00:50:23,775
well, first of all, let me just mention that also that,

800
00:50:24,494 –> 00:50:27,954
the first chapter of the book, actually, it’s the not the chapter,

801
00:50:28,174 –> 00:50:31,730
it’s the it’s the introduction. The

802
00:50:31,730 –> 00:50:35,410
title of the introduction, the rabbi Sachs’ introduction to the book is

803
00:50:35,410 –> 00:50:38,790
called Daring Greatly. Daring Greatly.

804
00:50:39,730 –> 00:50:43,190
So, so leaders need to be able to

805
00:50:43,595 –> 00:50:46,974
face the uncertainties and the dangers that

806
00:50:47,035 –> 00:50:50,795
lurk in their world. They have to be able

807
00:50:50,795 –> 00:50:54,635
to be that kind of a person to be able to not know and

808
00:50:54,635 –> 00:50:58,470
be able to operate without knowing the answers, without

809
00:50:58,470 –> 00:51:02,070
knowing exactly how to achieve success, but willing

810
00:51:02,070 –> 00:51:05,910
to, you know, learn and bump into the world and, you know, see

811
00:51:05,910 –> 00:51:08,730
how the world reacts to their decisions.

812
00:51:09,645 –> 00:51:13,405
And so that’s one of the key, skill sets of a leader.

813
00:51:13,405 –> 00:51:17,165
If you don’t have that, then you’re never gonna be able

814
00:51:17,165 –> 00:51:20,925
to lead. Yeah. And I mean, I Yeah. He

815
00:51:20,925 –> 00:51:24,350
talks about adaptive challenges for technical or adaptive challenges.

816
00:51:24,350 –> 00:51:28,030
Exactly. Exactly. Adaptive. Exactly. Adaptive because the human

817
00:51:28,030 –> 00:51:31,870
beings themselves are, you know, they’re

818
00:51:31,870 –> 00:51:35,330
not robots. You know? They’re they’re unpredictable. They’re,

819
00:51:35,790 –> 00:51:36,610
and so

820
00:51:39,615 –> 00:51:42,035
so that’s number 1. Number 2,

821
00:51:43,695 –> 00:51:45,475
in terms of perilous times,

822
00:51:51,030 –> 00:51:54,730
you know, the Jewish people basically, you know, build 2 temples.

823
00:51:55,430 –> 00:51:58,730
Right? Those temples got destroyed. And so,

824
00:51:59,510 –> 00:52:03,270
you know, the the the leaders, had to be

825
00:52:03,270 –> 00:52:06,815
able to function and operate while this all of this was happening.

826
00:52:08,235 –> 00:52:11,915
And so, this is just the

827
00:52:11,915 –> 00:52:15,275
nature, this is the nature of the world. The world is a dangerous

828
00:52:15,275 –> 00:52:19,090
place. And I think Rabbi Sacks

829
00:52:19,090 –> 00:52:22,790
says that, a lot of most people

830
00:52:22,930 –> 00:52:26,530
wait and complain about how bad the world

831
00:52:26,530 –> 00:52:30,255
is, but leaders actually do something

832
00:52:30,255 –> 00:52:33,555
about it. They turn on the lights. They act.

833
00:52:34,575 –> 00:52:38,095
And so they don’t wait. And I think

834
00:52:38,095 –> 00:52:41,855
that’s, that’s another key attribute I think the leader

835
00:52:42,015 –> 00:52:45,030
a leader has to have. He has to be able to make decisions.

836
00:52:46,530 –> 00:52:49,670
You know, one of the problems that a lot of people have

837
00:52:50,210 –> 00:52:51,510
is being indecisive.

838
00:52:54,450 –> 00:52:58,275
Leader cannot be indecisive. He has to be able to,

839
00:52:58,755 –> 00:53:02,115
assess what’s going on around him and make

840
00:53:02,115 –> 00:53:05,954
decisions and then learn from his mistakes. And, and,

841
00:53:06,355 –> 00:53:09,555
so, I think Rabbi Sacks talks about this,

842
00:53:10,115 –> 00:53:12,420
in detail, in the book.

843
00:53:15,120 –> 00:53:16,420
I’ll give you another example.

844
00:53:20,240 –> 00:53:23,760
There’s a huge story first of all, I just want to say, just in

845
00:53:23,760 –> 00:53:27,405
general, that I don’t think there’s a book that

846
00:53:27,405 –> 00:53:31,245
describes the human condition better than the Old

847
00:53:31,245 –> 00:53:34,845
Testament, than the 5 books of Moses. It shows the

848
00:53:34,845 –> 00:53:38,605
good and the bad of man. And so that’s

849
00:53:38,605 –> 00:53:41,905
one of the reasons why it’s such a valuable book to read.

850
00:53:43,370 –> 00:53:46,270
But, there’s a story where,

851
00:53:49,130 –> 00:53:52,890
enemies of the Jewish people, the the

852
00:53:52,890 –> 00:53:56,275
the the nation of of Midian. What they

853
00:53:56,275 –> 00:53:59,335
decided to do was they decided to have their women

854
00:54:01,315 –> 00:54:04,935
go after the Jewish men and enter into immoral

855
00:54:05,155 –> 00:54:08,055
relationships with them. And so,

856
00:54:08,890 –> 00:54:12,570
unfortunately, the the the Jewish men got sucked

857
00:54:12,570 –> 00:54:16,270
into this. And because of the immorality,

858
00:54:17,050 –> 00:54:20,810
God, created a plague, created

859
00:54:20,810 –> 00:54:24,585
a plague. And like tens of thousands of Jews died

860
00:54:24,585 –> 00:54:28,345
in this plague. Now, while this was happening, one of

861
00:54:28,345 –> 00:54:32,025
the leaders of one of the Jewish tribes and one of the

862
00:54:32,025 –> 00:54:35,540
women from this other nation got together,

863
00:54:35,920 –> 00:54:39,280
went to Moses’ tent, and entered into sexual

864
00:54:39,280 –> 00:54:42,500
relations right in front of Moses’ tent.

865
00:54:44,720 –> 00:54:48,420
And then, Pincus, who was, one of Aaron’s

866
00:54:48,640 –> 00:54:52,275
either sons or grandsons, took a

867
00:54:52,275 –> 00:54:54,215
spear Oh, yeah.

868
00:54:55,635 –> 00:54:58,855
And killed sense. Yep. Mhmm. And killed

869
00:54:59,475 –> 00:55:03,315
those 2 individuals. 1 of the 1 of the leaders of 1 of the Jewish

870
00:55:03,315 –> 00:55:06,829
tribes, Mhmm. And also this woman who happened to be like a princess

871
00:55:07,290 –> 00:55:11,130
of 1 of the of the king of Midian. Mhmm. Now he

872
00:55:11,290 –> 00:55:14,349
By the way, Richard, there’s a famous painting. I believe

873
00:55:14,809 –> 00:55:17,710
either Rembrandt or Rubens painted that as a subject

874
00:55:19,115 –> 00:55:22,875
back in, like, the It’s an extraordinary story. Yeah.

875
00:55:22,875 –> 00:55:26,714
The reason it’s extraordinary is because because he did

876
00:55:26,714 –> 00:55:29,535
this, the plague stopped.

877
00:55:30,075 –> 00:55:33,920
Mhmm. So pink is he

878
00:55:33,920 –> 00:55:37,700
was able to assess. He knew about the plague.

879
00:55:37,839 –> 00:55:41,060
He knew he knew what was going on, and he decided

880
00:55:42,240 –> 00:55:46,020
this has to end. I’m gonna end it. And he killed those 2 people.

881
00:55:46,175 –> 00:55:49,315
And because he did that, he basically did it because

882
00:55:50,494 –> 00:55:52,675
this whole immorality

883
00:55:54,095 –> 00:55:57,775
was basically an attack against God. It was an attack against

884
00:55:57,775 –> 00:56:00,994
God. So God ended the plague

885
00:56:01,730 –> 00:56:05,569
and actually rewarded pancas by making him a

886
00:56:05,569 –> 00:56:06,710
priest, a Kohen.

887
00:56:09,170 –> 00:56:13,010
And so, the point is, in terms of

888
00:56:13,010 –> 00:56:16,655
leadership, this is, this is like a, I

889
00:56:16,655 –> 00:56:20,415
think a great example of someone who was,

890
00:56:20,415 –> 00:56:24,115
didn’t have the title of a leader, right? He wasn’t a priest,

891
00:56:24,415 –> 00:56:28,089
he wasn’t a king, he wasn’t, he didn’t have any title. He was

892
00:56:28,089 –> 00:56:31,869
just someone who saw what needed to be done,

893
00:56:32,410 –> 00:56:36,089
given the circumstances and took the initiative that he took

894
00:56:36,089 –> 00:56:39,849
the lead and and did it. And I

895
00:56:39,849 –> 00:56:43,230
think leaders need to be able to

896
00:56:45,015 –> 00:56:48,695
act like this, need to be able to see what’s

897
00:56:48,695 –> 00:56:52,454
needed and and and and then provide it provide

898
00:56:52,454 –> 00:56:56,214
what’s needed. Now it just so happened that the Jewish

899
00:56:56,375 –> 00:57:00,080
a lot of the Jewish people when they saw this happening, they thought that

900
00:57:00,080 –> 00:57:03,700
Pincus, you know, should have been tried for murder

901
00:57:05,520 –> 00:57:09,280
because, you know, because he was there were laws

902
00:57:09,280 –> 00:57:12,640
against murdering people. Right? There were there were actual to Torah laws against murdering

903
00:57:12,640 –> 00:57:15,975
people. Right. But but this was an extraordinary situation.

904
00:57:16,835 –> 00:57:20,675
And, apparently, you know, he he,

905
00:57:20,995 –> 00:57:24,835
he did the right thing. Yeah. And I believe that this was just after the

906
00:57:24,835 –> 00:57:27,975
10 the second version of the 10 commandments had come down the mountain

907
00:57:28,435 –> 00:57:31,490
that, that the the challenge with the Midianite

908
00:57:32,190 –> 00:57:35,950
daughters, if I remember correctly. If I’m remembering it in my order correctly

909
00:57:35,950 –> 00:57:39,790
in in the book of Exodus, I believe that’s where that happens in the, in

910
00:57:39,790 –> 00:57:43,555
the narrative. Tom, I don’t believe you’ve ever heard

911
00:57:43,555 –> 00:57:46,435
about this before. I’m watching your face. I don’t believe you ever heard about this

912
00:57:46,435 –> 00:57:50,195
before. So what are your thoughts here? No. It’s not that I have

913
00:57:50,195 –> 00:57:53,875
it’s not that I’ve never heard of it. I mean, I I just I’m I’m

914
00:57:53,875 –> 00:57:57,570
thinking of it. My whole point to

915
00:57:57,570 –> 00:58:01,350
the like, I’m trying to translate this into business for myself. Right? So

916
00:58:01,570 –> 00:58:04,610
to to to Richard’s point at the end of that where he said, this is

917
00:58:04,610 –> 00:58:07,650
an example of where leaders have to kinda take the bull by all the horns

918
00:58:07,650 –> 00:58:11,305
and go do it. Right? Mhmm. If you go back to your original

919
00:58:11,305 –> 00:58:14,765
question is, like because your original question was more about vision

920
00:58:14,905 –> 00:58:18,505
and how, and how tough it is today.

921
00:58:18,505 –> 00:58:22,185
Right? So because things are, in your words,

922
00:58:22,185 –> 00:58:25,780
perilous, And I guess that’s by definition, depending on who you’re talking to.

923
00:58:25,780 –> 00:58:29,619
Yes. Yes. I would. But the, you know, when I look at it, and

924
00:58:29,619 –> 00:58:33,460
I I think about, like, what what why do why do why do leaders

925
00:58:33,460 –> 00:58:36,944
struggle with vision so much? I think it it really is fear.

926
00:58:36,944 –> 00:58:40,704
Right? That fear of failure. They don’t wanna make the the the

927
00:58:40,704 –> 00:58:44,464
vision too big or we were talking the other day, Hassan, about that

928
00:58:44,464 –> 00:58:48,305
that big, hairy, audacious goal. Right? Like that, you know, that pine in the sky

929
00:58:48,305 –> 00:58:51,800
kind of mentality. And I think I

930
00:58:51,800 –> 00:58:55,480
think I think I think leaders to today have a tendency to be

931
00:58:55,480 –> 00:58:58,700
shortsighted. Right? They’re looking they’re and they’re worried more about

932
00:58:59,160 –> 00:59:01,980
survival than they are about visionary,

933
00:59:03,905 –> 00:59:07,585
visionary visionary aspirations. Like but but what I don’t

934
00:59:07,585 –> 00:59:11,345
understand is why is it so difficult to under like, to to go shoot

935
00:59:11,345 –> 00:59:15,185
for that that star? Go shoot for the sky. Go shoot for the moon. Whatever

936
00:59:15,185 –> 00:59:18,085
the heck the, you know, that you’re trying to shoot for. Because

937
00:59:18,830 –> 00:59:22,510
the the worst the absolute worst thing that can happen is that you

938
00:59:22,510 –> 00:59:26,270
fail. That’s the worst thing that that happens. And

939
00:59:26,270 –> 00:59:29,870
to Richard’s point a couple of, you know, a couple of times, if you’re listening

940
00:59:29,870 –> 00:59:33,155
to this well enough and you’re hearing some of the some of the things that

941
00:59:33,155 –> 00:59:36,995
Richard’s talking about, the lessons that you learn in those failures can be very

942
00:59:36,995 –> 00:59:40,835
valuable from a business perspective. You know, you’re not talking about life and

943
00:59:40,835 –> 00:59:44,355
death in the case that you’re you’re you’re talking about the the story that you

944
00:59:44,355 –> 00:59:48,110
just told here, Richard, where he kills the 2 people. In today’s

945
00:59:48,110 –> 00:59:51,550
world, we’re not talking about life and death here. We’re talking about the survival or

946
00:59:51,550 –> 00:59:54,910
or ending of a business. And I

947
00:59:54,910 –> 00:59:58,750
guess to your point with the story, if you’re not willing

948
00:59:58,750 –> 01:00:02,345
to go above and beyond what that or or that or to do what’s expected

949
01:00:02,345 –> 01:00:06,185
or to to go outside the box, all of those lessons are

950
01:00:06,185 –> 01:00:09,484
in there. If you’re listening to this and you’re and you’re trying to

951
01:00:09,625 –> 01:00:13,385
interpret this in your in your brain as to how it relates to today’s business

952
01:00:13,385 –> 01:00:16,690
world, It’s it’s all of those things that we hear and we talk about all

953
01:00:16,690 –> 01:00:20,130
the time. He’s just giving you a visit a visualization of it in a in

954
01:00:20,130 –> 01:00:23,650
a biblical sense. But but in the in the in the modern

955
01:00:23,650 –> 01:00:27,285
day translation, it’s really fear of failure,

956
01:00:27,825 –> 01:00:31,665
not willing to go outside the box, not willing to to think of

957
01:00:31,665 –> 01:00:34,565
yourself of, you know, in a sense of

958
01:00:35,665 –> 01:00:39,359
we’re all we all have, you know, aspirations. But if

959
01:00:39,359 –> 01:00:42,880
you’re not willing to go above and beyond your day to day

960
01:00:42,880 –> 01:00:46,640
operational thought process in order to gain those aspirations, then maybe you

961
01:00:46,640 –> 01:00:50,260
shouldn’t be a leader. Maybe you shouldn’t be the person somebody’s following. So,

962
01:00:50,480 –> 01:00:52,964
you know, being able to look at yourself in the mirror and be honest with

963
01:00:52,964 –> 01:00:56,805
yourself could probably be step number 1, really. I mean, are you that

964
01:00:56,805 –> 01:01:00,325
person? I mean, it I again, when we’re talking about

965
01:01:00,325 –> 01:01:03,840
the the Torah and the biblical sense of these, these

966
01:01:03,840 –> 01:01:07,600
people supposedly were getting messages directly from God. So you don’t

967
01:01:07,600 –> 01:01:10,000
really have a choice in that whether you listen to that or not, in my

968
01:01:10,000 –> 01:01:12,880
opinion. Like, you just you listen to it. It’s the voice of God. You gotta

969
01:01:12,880 –> 01:01:16,560
go do it. Right? Well, God didn’t tell God didn’t tell Pincus to do

970
01:01:16,560 –> 01:01:20,185
this. God didn’t tell Pincus to people. He made that

971
01:01:20,185 –> 01:01:24,025
decision on his own. Well, we could we could debate

972
01:01:24,025 –> 01:01:27,065
that in a different way. I’m just saying that’s the story. I’m just saying the

973
01:01:27,065 –> 01:01:30,745
story is that I understand. I understand. But I’m saying do it, but but you’re

974
01:01:30,745 –> 01:01:34,109
right. If God does speak to you Right. And tells you to do

975
01:01:34,109 –> 01:01:37,710
something, gotta do it. Pincus could make the argument that god

976
01:01:37,710 –> 01:01:41,390
didn’t necessarily tell him to do it, but there was an an an innate something

977
01:01:41,390 –> 01:01:43,950
inside of him that told him it was the right thing to do because of

978
01:01:43,950 –> 01:01:47,789
x. Right. To me to me, that’s the same thing. That’s god telling you.

979
01:01:47,789 –> 01:01:51,434
Okay. So anyway, again, that’s debatable. We could debate that another time.

980
01:01:51,434 –> 01:01:55,135
But, again, to bring this to pull this back into today’s business world,

981
01:01:55,355 –> 01:01:58,734
all of those stories have lessons in them, that are

982
01:01:59,035 –> 01:02:02,795
translatable to doesn’t even matter what you’re doing in the world today.

983
01:02:02,795 –> 01:02:06,619
And, again, I I it doesn’t matter to me whether you’re Jewish or not. I

984
01:02:06,619 –> 01:02:09,420
mean, we’re the 3 of us here think about the the 3 of us all

985
01:02:09,420 –> 01:02:12,940
3 of us have 3 completely different religious backgrounds. Right.

986
01:02:12,940 –> 01:02:16,299
Completely different. So Right. And if if the 3 of us can sit on the

987
01:02:16,299 –> 01:02:19,925
same Zoom and learn lessons from this, then any then anybody

988
01:02:19,925 –> 01:02:23,645
can. No. No. No. Absolutely. Absolutely. No. No

989
01:02:23,645 –> 01:02:27,244
question. By the way, there are many, many

990
01:02:27,244 –> 01:02:30,924
references in Judaism that, you know, that that the

991
01:02:30,924 –> 01:02:34,560
temple was not just for the Jewish people. It was for the whole world. Yeah.

992
01:02:34,560 –> 01:02:38,000
The whole world. So this is not this is just about humanity. This is about

993
01:02:38,000 –> 01:02:41,760
the human condition. It’s not about just the Jewish people. Right.

994
01:02:41,760 –> 01:02:44,960
Right. I understand that. But I’m saying that that’s why I point out the lessons

995
01:02:44,960 –> 01:02:48,480
to be learned, not necessarily that it’s from the Torah or that it’s from

996
01:02:48,480 –> 01:02:51,905
Exodus, that I don’t think that’s the most relevant part to what

997
01:02:52,065 –> 01:02:55,585
to to why we’re talking about it. I think the lessons to be learned are

998
01:02:55,585 –> 01:02:59,425
are the most valuable port Yeah. Portion of it. Yeah. Right. We’re not we’re not

999
01:02:59,425 –> 01:03:02,865
here to promote we’re not here promoting the the bible. Right. We’re here Exactly.

1000
01:03:02,865 –> 01:03:06,109
Exactly. This is this is not this is not a course on religion.

1001
01:03:07,210 –> 01:03:10,809
No, it is not. Go ahead. I just wanted to

1002
01:03:10,809 –> 01:03:14,170
say that, the other thing that Rabbi

1003
01:03:14,170 –> 01:03:17,609
Sacks says explicitly in his book is that

1004
01:03:17,609 –> 01:03:21,225
leaders have to be able to do what’s not popular.

1005
01:03:21,925 –> 01:03:24,425
Mhmm. That’s a key

1006
01:03:25,365 –> 01:03:29,045
attribute of a leader. If he doesn’t have the courage to do

1007
01:03:29,045 –> 01:03:32,565
what’s not popular, in order to do what’s right even though it’s not

1008
01:03:32,565 –> 01:03:36,380
popular, he’s not a leader. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we see a

1009
01:03:36,380 –> 01:03:38,940
lot of that. And this is part of the reason why I believe we are

1010
01:03:38,940 –> 01:03:42,480
in perilous times because we are living through a particular

1011
01:03:45,019 –> 01:03:48,559
historic historical cultural moment in the United States

1012
01:03:48,779 –> 01:03:52,175
where it appears at all

1013
01:03:52,175 –> 01:03:55,935
levels that well, no, I shouldn’t say at all

1014
01:03:55,935 –> 01:03:59,695
levels. It appears at many levels. I will frame it that way, because there are

1015
01:03:59,695 –> 01:04:03,369
still levels where the opposite is true of what I’m about to say. It

1016
01:04:03,369 –> 01:04:06,990
appears that at many levels, we are being led by

1017
01:04:07,290 –> 01:04:10,650
individuals, not merely politicians. Those are easy

1018
01:04:10,650 –> 01:04:14,030
targets, but civic leaders, CEOs,

1019
01:04:14,330 –> 01:04:17,710
and others who are unserious people.

1020
01:04:18,765 –> 01:04:21,744
Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t mean to say that they are incompetent

1021
01:04:22,204 –> 01:04:25,565
at the particular narrow skill set of

1022
01:04:25,565 –> 01:04:29,244
specialization that they may have. Right? So, for instance, if you run a

1023
01:04:29,244 –> 01:04:32,819
bank, you may be very, very good at reading an Excel

1024
01:04:32,819 –> 01:04:36,500
spreadsheet. Cool. That’s awesome. That doesn’t

1025
01:04:36,500 –> 01:04:40,339
mean that you need to be in a leadership position. But

1026
01:04:40,339 –> 01:04:43,934
the way our times have currently run-in our

1027
01:04:43,934 –> 01:04:47,615
present historical cultural moment, because you’re good

1028
01:04:47,615 –> 01:04:50,355
at reading an Excel spreadsheet, congratulations,

1029
01:04:51,134 –> 01:04:54,974
nobody else was good at reading the spreadsheet, and now you’re the

1030
01:04:54,974 –> 01:04:55,474
leader.

1031
01:04:59,420 –> 01:05:02,940
Well, that’s a fundamentally unserious way, at least in my

1032
01:05:02,940 –> 01:05:06,300
opinion, of picking a leader. That’s number 1.

1033
01:05:06,300 –> 01:05:09,820
Because how do we know if that individual has

1034
01:05:09,820 –> 01:05:13,515
courage? Has that individual been tested? How do

1035
01:05:13,515 –> 01:05:17,355
we know if that person has vision? Has that person even

1036
01:05:17,355 –> 01:05:21,195
been asked? How do we know? We don’t is the answer to a lot

1037
01:05:21,195 –> 01:05:24,955
of those questions or rhetorical. And on any of the levels, even the

1038
01:05:24,955 –> 01:05:28,730
ones that Rabbi Sacks talks about, righteousness,

1039
01:05:29,030 –> 01:05:32,810
moral responsibility, vision, just the ones we’ve gone through, ethics.

1040
01:05:33,030 –> 01:05:36,870
Right? If you are asking, has the person who knows how to

1041
01:05:36,870 –> 01:05:39,530
read a spreadsheet well been tested in all those areas?

1042
01:05:41,415 –> 01:05:45,015
To even ask that question is considered to be being

1043
01:05:45,015 –> 01:05:48,695
too serious about leadership, which is

1044
01:05:48,695 –> 01:05:52,155
weird, by the way, because leadership

1045
01:05:52,375 –> 01:05:56,099
is such a serious act, which, of course, by not asking

1046
01:05:56,099 –> 01:05:58,920
that question leads to a fundamental unseriousness

1047
01:05:59,940 –> 01:06:03,640
in leaders that is being replicated. And I don’t

1048
01:06:03,779 –> 01:06:07,555
necessarily believe that it is those leaders’ faults. I do

1049
01:06:07,555 –> 01:06:11,075
believe it is the fault of the system that we are currently in, multiple

1050
01:06:11,075 –> 01:06:13,815
systems that we are currently in, across

1051
01:06:15,075 –> 01:06:18,915
the, as someone would say in the past, across the fruit plain of

1052
01:06:18,915 –> 01:06:22,530
the United States. I believe it is

1053
01:06:22,750 –> 01:06:26,430
the fault of some of those systems. And of course, those systems become self

1054
01:06:26,430 –> 01:06:29,890
replicating over the course of time, leading to further unseriousness.

1055
01:06:32,030 –> 01:06:35,625
That’s a real challenge, and that creates perilous

1056
01:06:35,625 –> 01:06:39,385
times because when a serious challenge comes

1057
01:06:39,385 –> 01:06:42,425
up and Tom and I have talked about this on the podcast before in the

1058
01:06:42,425 –> 01:06:46,105
context of different books. When a serious challenge comes

1059
01:06:46,105 –> 01:06:49,640
up and it always does,

1060
01:06:50,420 –> 01:06:54,260
for example, Russia moving the Overton window. Let’s just

1061
01:06:54,260 –> 01:06:57,700
use them as an example. Great. Now we’re all going to talk about nuclear war.

1062
01:06:57,700 –> 01:07:01,325
We haven’t talked about nuclear war in 25 years, but we’re gonna have unserious

1063
01:07:01,465 –> 01:07:05,165
people talking about nuclear war and tweeting about it.

1064
01:07:05,305 –> 01:07:08,905
Give me a break. But the reason they’re unserious is because the

1065
01:07:08,905 –> 01:07:12,285
system requires them to be so, and it’s self replicating.

1066
01:07:13,170 –> 01:07:16,930
That creates perilous times. That does that stuff. I

1067
01:07:16,930 –> 01:07:20,310
call I call that a chronic human problem. Oh, absolutely.

1068
01:07:20,930 –> 01:07:24,130
But there is a way out of the chronic problem. And and one of the

1069
01:07:24,130 –> 01:07:27,750
challenges on our podcast this year that I’ve placed in front of us,

1070
01:07:28,095 –> 01:07:31,935
myself included, is to now no longer talk about problems because we know

1071
01:07:31,935 –> 01:07:35,615
what problems are. Let’s talk about solutions to the

1072
01:07:35,615 –> 01:07:39,295
problem. Because So I’m curious. You you just I’m

1073
01:07:39,295 –> 01:07:42,990
just curious. I I don’t wanna change the trajectory

1074
01:07:43,049 –> 01:07:46,269
of the theme of the podcast, but,

1075
01:07:47,690 –> 01:07:50,730
do you have a just some, like can you throw out an idea of how

1076
01:07:50,730 –> 01:07:54,509
to what kind of a solution would would turn this around?

1077
01:07:54,924 –> 01:07:58,444
Oh, yeah. I’ve got I’ve got solutions. We need to update

1078
01:07:58,444 –> 01:08:02,045
it. Alright. I I don’t wanna I don’t I don’t really wanna hijack the the

1079
01:08:02,285 –> 01:08:05,565
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Want me to be I was told I was told earlier today

1080
01:08:05,565 –> 01:08:09,089
that that the identifying the solution to the

1081
01:08:09,089 –> 01:08:12,849
problem is the easiest part. Yeah. That was told to me

1082
01:08:12,849 –> 01:08:16,609
today. The Selling it selling it to everybody. That’s the

1083
01:08:16,609 –> 01:08:20,050
hard part. It’s telling you. Implementing it. Implementing it. Implementing it and getting And then

1084
01:08:20,050 –> 01:08:23,555
implementing it. Yeah. Is the hardest part. So More than 70%

1085
01:08:23,695 –> 01:08:26,035
of all change managements and engagements

1086
01:08:27,455 –> 01:08:31,075
fail. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That’s a fact. Oh, yeah. That’s a fact.

1087
01:08:31,375 –> 01:08:35,149
Well, you could start by and, okay, here’s a simple solution to the unseriousness problem.

1088
01:08:35,149 –> 01:08:38,750
Pick a system, whichever one you want to pick, let’s say the educational system,

1089
01:08:38,750 –> 01:08:42,590
and go in and look at who are in those leadership

1090
01:08:42,590 –> 01:08:46,270
positions, look at their track records and then start firing people with the last name

1091
01:08:46,270 –> 01:08:49,345
of A. Just go every other number in the alphabet,

1092
01:08:50,205 –> 01:08:53,805
a, c, f. Your name begins with any of those letters, you’re fired.

1093
01:08:53,805 –> 01:08:57,245
Fire 15% of the people and cut their budgets by 25%, and all of a

1094
01:08:57,245 –> 01:09:00,870
sudden, everybody all gets here. So what does the

1095
01:09:00,870 –> 01:09:04,390
Bible say about this? That’s why don’t we why don’t we why don’t we talk

1096
01:09:04,390 –> 01:09:08,149
about, why don’t we talk about what, you know,

1097
01:09:08,149 –> 01:09:11,590
what what, Rabbi Sacks and the Bible what does the

1098
01:09:11,590 –> 01:09:15,205
Bible show us to teach us about this problem, this

1099
01:09:15,205 –> 01:09:18,265
problem of recurring failed leadership?

1100
01:09:18,885 –> 01:09:22,485
Yes. Recurring failed leadership. Well, in general, in the

1101
01:09:22,485 –> 01:09:26,265
Bible, not specifically Rabbi Sacks’

1102
01:09:26,325 –> 01:09:29,465
focus on the Torah, but in general in the Bible overall,

1103
01:09:30,770 –> 01:09:34,390
leaders wind up in terrible

1104
01:09:34,450 –> 01:09:38,130
places. I mean, if you read in the

1105
01:09:38,130 –> 01:09:41,729
Christianized Bible, you’ll read 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, 1

1106
01:09:41,729 –> 01:09:44,550
Kings, 2nd Kings. I mean, this is just a parade of,

1107
01:09:45,514 –> 01:09:49,114
pardon my French, but piss poor Israelite leadership. Just a

1108
01:09:49,114 –> 01:09:52,955
parade of bad kings, hideously bad kings. And so what does

1109
01:09:52,955 –> 01:09:56,574
the spirit of God do? What does that spirit do? Well, it sends a prophet

1110
01:09:56,635 –> 01:10:00,130
into the world to judge those individuals. Usually, those

1111
01:10:00,130 –> 01:10:03,650
individuals are, to paraphrase from the book of Daniel, judged and

1112
01:10:03,650 –> 01:10:06,710
found wanting. Right? And then they are eliminated.

1113
01:10:09,010 –> 01:10:12,070
Now I’m not advocating for killing people.

1114
01:10:12,865 –> 01:10:15,765
I am merely saying that that is what is the biblical

1115
01:10:16,385 –> 01:10:19,205
solution to that to to that problem. Right?

1116
01:10:19,745 –> 01:10:23,505
And usually behind that individual, because this

1117
01:10:23,505 –> 01:10:27,250
is an issue of succession as well, the sons and daughters,

1118
01:10:27,250 –> 01:10:31,010
if you read through 1st Chronicles, 2nd Chronicles, 1st Kings, 2nd Kings,

1119
01:10:31,010 –> 01:10:32,790
particularly the sons of these kings,

1120
01:10:35,650 –> 01:10:38,630
either sinned worse than their fathers. Right?

1121
01:10:39,235 –> 01:10:42,855
And very few of them corrected any of

1122
01:10:42,915 –> 01:10:46,295
the problems. Or if they did correct them, I’m thinking of Hezekiah

1123
01:10:46,355 –> 01:10:49,715
now, even if they did correct them, the

1124
01:10:49,715 –> 01:10:53,415
corrections only went so far because, talk about courage,

1125
01:10:53,810 –> 01:10:57,489
they weren’t willing to go all the way to the end. They

1126
01:10:57,489 –> 01:11:00,130
weren’t willing to do the thing all the way down to the bottom that was

1127
01:11:00,130 –> 01:11:03,730
necessary. Right. In the United States of America, where we live

1128
01:11:03,730 –> 01:11:07,270
underneath a different system, I do think that you get everybody

1129
01:11:07,565 –> 01:11:11,165
behaving more seriously if you fire 15% of people and cut a budget by

1130
01:11:11,165 –> 01:11:14,925
25% in a particular system. I think everybody all of a sudden straightens up and

1131
01:11:14,925 –> 01:11:18,605
becomes serious because it’s heads and money

1132
01:11:18,605 –> 01:11:22,090
that are driving the idea. We talked about capitalism already. That’s

1133
01:11:22,090 –> 01:11:25,930
a beginning beginning of a solution to the problem. And that was just my answer

1134
01:11:25,930 –> 01:11:29,690
to Tom’s question of what the solution to the problem is. It’s

1135
01:11:29,690 –> 01:11:32,830
funny it’s funny that you say that because we had a governor here in Massachusetts

1136
01:11:32,969 –> 01:11:36,495
at one point that when he became when he his first act as the governor

1137
01:11:36,495 –> 01:11:40,255
was basically to tell everybody to cut their budgets by I think he

1138
01:11:40,255 –> 01:11:44,094
was used 15%, not 25. But he said, I I

1139
01:11:44,094 –> 01:11:47,935
don’t care. Whatever you submitted and straight across the board, by the way, no

1140
01:11:47,935 –> 01:11:51,650
favoritism to any one department or another. Everybody’s cutting their

1141
01:11:51,650 –> 01:11:55,409
budget by 15%, and you’re laying off x number oh, I forget what the

1142
01:11:55,409 –> 01:11:59,170
number was. And everybody thought he was crazy. And the first thing, they

1143
01:11:59,170 –> 01:12:02,790
didn’t think he was serious. And he went, no. No. No. People, I’m serious.

1144
01:12:03,010 –> 01:12:06,695
You are cutting your budget by 15%, and you are reducing your

1145
01:12:06,695 –> 01:12:10,495
staff by whatever it was. I think 10% on the staff. And he goes

1146
01:12:10,614 –> 01:12:14,375
and if and if if you don’t do it, I’m gonna do it. And if

1147
01:12:14,375 –> 01:12:17,435
I do it, it’s gonna be cut by 25% 20%.

1148
01:12:17,930 –> 01:12:21,370
So you find that the whatever, however he worded it. And sure

1149
01:12:21,370 –> 01:12:25,210
enough, it all happened, and Massachusetts has been in

1150
01:12:25,210 –> 01:12:29,050
the black forever. Like like, he like, we we’re not,

1151
01:12:29,290 –> 01:12:32,915
we’re not, we’re we are a tax heavy state. Yes. I

1152
01:12:32,915 –> 01:12:36,195
do understand that part. But but we are a tax heavy

1153
01:12:37,715 –> 01:12:41,474
in in in doing so, our state is never in the red. We’re we’re

1154
01:12:41,474 –> 01:12:45,155
never in a deficit. We don’t have a a a debt, a

1155
01:12:45,155 –> 01:12:48,570
state debt, which most states do. So to your point,

1156
01:12:48,570 –> 01:12:52,410
Hassan, even in and by the way, that that governor was a business person that

1157
01:12:52,410 –> 01:12:55,950
took over. It was he had run his own businesses for a long time. And

1158
01:12:56,090 –> 01:12:59,530
so he looked at the state budget as a business decision, not

1159
01:12:59,530 –> 01:13:03,245
as a like a a, you know, a good old boys club for for

1160
01:13:03,245 –> 01:13:07,085
state, you know, you know, for for government, officials. So it was

1161
01:13:07,085 –> 01:13:10,525
very it was a very different it was a very different vibe when he was

1162
01:13:10,525 –> 01:13:14,010
governor. And, and it’s been it’s been

1163
01:13:14,390 –> 01:13:18,070
it’s even and I’m I’m regardless of your political party, and I

1164
01:13:18,070 –> 01:13:21,910
won’t even specify what political party it was, but even other the other

1165
01:13:21,910 –> 01:13:25,210
political parties that have taken control have maintained his

1166
01:13:25,855 –> 01:13:29,455
his some of his thing, like some of his programs, because it just made

1167
01:13:29,455 –> 01:13:33,155
sense. Right? So to your point, it was bold. It was fearless.

1168
01:13:33,215 –> 01:13:36,415
He didn’t care if people liked him or didn’t like him. It was like to

1169
01:13:36,415 –> 01:13:39,970
your point earlier, Richard, too, he didn’t care it was unpopular. He

1170
01:13:39,970 –> 01:13:43,730
just did it. And he just and it and everybody everybody

1171
01:13:43,730 –> 01:13:46,850
hated it until it was all said and done, it was over with, and then

1172
01:13:46,850 –> 01:13:49,430
all of a sudden, he everyone loved him when he left.

1173
01:13:50,930 –> 01:13:54,345
It was like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. You’re not running? You’re not running

1174
01:13:54,345 –> 01:13:57,545
for governor again? You’re just leaving? What? Wait. Where are you going? Like, everyone was

1175
01:13:57,545 –> 01:14:00,125
up in arms. Like, so to your point a second ago, it’s like,

1176
01:14:02,185 –> 01:14:06,025
you just you you it there there the solution the

1177
01:14:06,025 –> 01:14:09,579
solution is disruption. The solution is

1178
01:14:10,119 –> 01:14:13,719
innovative disruption. Like, you you’ve got to put a kink in the

1179
01:14:13,719 –> 01:14:17,500
chain, and you gotta stop you gotta stop the rotation of whatever

1180
01:14:17,880 –> 01:14:21,645
people think is normal or common or status quo

1181
01:14:21,645 –> 01:14:25,485
or whatever the whatever terminology you wanna use about it. You’ve gotta stick remember when

1182
01:14:25,485 –> 01:14:28,365
you were kids and one of your friends thought they were funny and they stuck

1183
01:14:28,365 –> 01:14:32,045
the stick in your front wheel of your tire in your bike? Yes.

1184
01:14:32,045 –> 01:14:34,705
Alright. Maybe that didn’t happen to you, but it happened to me a few times.

1185
01:14:34,845 –> 01:14:37,960
It that even though they thought it was funny, like,

1186
01:14:38,660 –> 01:14:42,420
it it taught you a lot more lessons than if they just watched

1187
01:14:42,420 –> 01:14:46,180
you drive by. Right? That’s true. And then and then usually those people

1188
01:14:46,180 –> 01:14:49,185
caught a punch in the mouth from me, but they they also learned something from

1189
01:14:49,185 –> 01:14:52,865
there too. But but anyway, my point. But they learned lessons too. And, you know,

1190
01:14:52,865 –> 01:14:56,545
it but, again, you know

1191
01:14:56,705 –> 01:15:00,305
Oh, and it’s it’s unfortunate. That’s I think when god when when when god

1192
01:15:00,305 –> 01:15:03,719
decides to, you know, create a plague

1193
01:15:04,040 –> 01:15:07,639
Yeah. Create a plague Yeah. You know, he’s he’s

1194
01:15:07,639 –> 01:15:11,320
he’s trying to wake people up. That’s the stick in the bicycle. That’s the stick

1195
01:15:11,320 –> 01:15:14,699
in the tire. That’s the stick in the tire. Exactly. Exactly.

1196
01:15:15,555 –> 01:15:18,935
So All I’m saying is you gotta switch people from being, unserious

1197
01:15:19,315 –> 01:15:22,915
or not taking things seriously. But people said that I

1198
01:15:22,995 –> 01:15:26,435
but but but but you people don’t even know they’re not serious, though. They don’t

1199
01:15:26,435 –> 01:15:30,195
even realize they’re not. Right. And that’s that’s what cutting that’s

1200
01:15:30,195 –> 01:15:33,980
what the the solution of cutting the number of people

1201
01:15:33,980 –> 01:15:37,600
are trimming the fat such as at work, even from a business perspective

1202
01:15:37,660 –> 01:15:41,500
does. Is it it Wakes them up. It wakes them up. Right.

1203
01:15:41,500 –> 01:15:45,184
It challenges them to wonder, am I what’s the

1204
01:15:45,184 –> 01:15:49,025
value of my role here? Am I actually living up to

1205
01:15:49,025 –> 01:15:52,784
the value of my role, or am I living below my

1206
01:15:52,784 –> 01:15:56,385
potential in this role? Do I deserve to be in this

1207
01:15:56,385 –> 01:15:59,344
role? And now all of a sudden, when you’re thinking of those kinds of questions

1208
01:15:59,425 –> 01:16:02,920
and, by the way, coming up with the answers to that, now you’re not just

1209
01:16:02,920 –> 01:16:06,300
happy go lucky, to Tom’s point, happy go lucky state worker.

1210
01:16:06,600 –> 01:16:10,119
Now you are a serious person doing a serious

1211
01:16:10,119 –> 01:16:13,905
job in a serious place. Very good. That way,

1212
01:16:13,905 –> 01:16:17,665
when perilous times show up and by the way, whether you’re serious or not,

1213
01:16:17,665 –> 01:16:21,365
they will you’re going to behave differently towards

1214
01:16:21,585 –> 01:16:25,425
that particular, event, even if it’s something as

1215
01:16:25,425 –> 01:16:29,210
circumspect as, like I said, Russia invading the Ukraine or

1216
01:16:29,210 –> 01:16:32,890
or at a state level, you know, a natural disaster shows up. I mean,

1217
01:16:32,890 –> 01:16:36,570
imagine a natural disaster shows up after you’ve cut 15% of the people or 10%

1218
01:16:36,570 –> 01:16:40,330
of the people and 50% of the budget, and now you’ve got serious people showing

1219
01:16:40,330 –> 01:16:44,175
up actually doing actually doing a storm recovery.

1220
01:16:44,955 –> 01:16:48,555
Man, they are on it, and they’re efficient, and they’re

1221
01:16:48,555 –> 01:16:52,395
focused. Right. That’s a solution to

1222
01:16:52,395 –> 01:16:55,995
the problem. If you don’t if you don’t if you don’t train yourself, the

1223
01:16:55,995 –> 01:16:59,810
world’s gonna train you. There you go. Yeah.

1224
01:16:59,810 –> 01:17:03,650
I mean, you know, I raised my kids, and, yes, I mean, I talk

1225
01:17:03,650 –> 01:17:07,330
to my children. Spanking is not the first thing. But you know what? If I

1226
01:17:07,330 –> 01:17:11,170
have to spank my kids, it keeps them from getting arrested. Please, I’ll spank my

1227
01:17:11,170 –> 01:17:14,845
kids all day. Right. Now you can interpret that

1228
01:17:14,845 –> 01:17:18,445
as what any way you want as you’re listening to the podcast. That’s fine. Interpret

1229
01:17:18,445 –> 01:17:22,285
it however you want. My point is and Chris Rock even made a joke

1230
01:17:22,285 –> 01:17:26,130
about this years ago. He said, you know, the comedian Chris Rock,

1231
01:17:26,130 –> 01:17:29,090
he said, you know, your only job as a father is to keep your daughter

1232
01:17:29,090 –> 01:17:32,850
off the stripper pole. That’s your only job. That’s it. And he’s

1233
01:17:32,850 –> 01:17:36,449
exactly right. That’s your job. My job is to create

1234
01:17:36,449 –> 01:17:40,245
tax paying members of society that know how to be orderly,

1235
01:17:40,245 –> 01:17:44,025
be leaders, be dependable, be stable, and by the way,

1236
01:17:44,245 –> 01:17:48,025
be serious. That’s my job

1237
01:17:48,085 –> 01:17:51,045
at the family level. And if all of us are doing that at the family

1238
01:17:51,045 –> 01:17:54,259
level, by the way, that’s a deeper solution. But if all of us are doing

1239
01:17:54,259 –> 01:17:58,057
that at a family level, now all of a sudden we have a more serious

1240
01:17:58,057 –> 01:18:01,855
society. Doesn’t mean we can’t have fun, doesn’t mean we can’t let our hair down,

1241
01:18:01,855 –> 01:18:05,652
but it means that we understand when there’s a time to be serious and when

1242
01:18:05,652 –> 01:18:09,105
there’s a time to not be serious. And we have critical thinking

1243
01:18:09,105 –> 01:18:12,945
about how to cut that, how to slice that cake, which I think we’re

1244
01:18:12,945 –> 01:18:16,304
lacking right now. In certain respects in certain respects, the world

1245
01:18:16,304 –> 01:18:19,684
itself, if, you know, if you don’t know how the world works,

1246
01:18:21,120 –> 01:18:24,960
you know, and you’re you all of a sudden, you find yourself, you know,

1247
01:18:24,960 –> 01:18:28,640
you have to you can’t pay your mortgage anymore. You can’t

1248
01:18:28,640 –> 01:18:32,400
pay your rent. You know, you get real serious. You start getting real

1249
01:18:32,400 –> 01:18:36,065
serious. Right. And and you know what? By the way, economic times will do

1250
01:18:36,065 –> 01:18:39,825
this. I mean, this is part of one of the challenges that we’ve seen, at

1251
01:18:39,825 –> 01:18:43,345
a nation state level in the United States, ever

1252
01:18:43,345 –> 01:18:47,105
since, well, just before COVID and then of course, ever

1253
01:18:47,105 –> 01:18:49,820
all after 2020. We’ve been

1254
01:18:53,159 –> 01:18:56,840
seeing, I think, a subtle shift.

1255
01:18:56,840 –> 01:19:00,040
And remember I said this isn’t at all levels. I think it’s at certain levels

1256
01:19:00,040 –> 01:19:03,020
that are very high profile, like politics, entertainment,

1257
01:19:03,639 –> 01:19:07,455
law. I think those areas, there’s a lot of fundamental

1258
01:19:07,455 –> 01:19:11,135
and seriousness. But when I go on and talk to a small business owner

1259
01:19:11,135 –> 01:19:14,655
these days, or when I talk to a medium

1260
01:19:14,655 –> 01:19:18,255
sized person who’s running an organization or a manager in a medium sized

1261
01:19:18,255 –> 01:19:21,180
organization, these people are very serious.

1262
01:19:22,280 –> 01:19:26,040
When I talk to somebody in, local government, not state level

1263
01:19:26,040 –> 01:19:29,020
government, but local government, these people are very

1264
01:19:29,720 –> 01:19:33,400
serious. And my line is very serious about the preservation of America and

1265
01:19:33,400 –> 01:19:37,175
very serious about their role in that. And I do believe fundamentally

1266
01:19:37,235 –> 01:19:40,915
that right now, that’s the structure that’s holding up all of the

1267
01:19:40,915 –> 01:19:44,114
other nonsense that we see going on in the United States. Because if those people

1268
01:19:44,114 –> 01:19:47,094
stop being serious, we’re done as a nation state.

1269
01:19:48,349 –> 01:19:51,789
We’re just done. If you wanna see if you wanna see something really serious

1270
01:19:52,110 –> 01:19:55,949
Yeah. Walk into an Orthodox synagogue during

1271
01:19:55,949 –> 01:19:59,409
a prayer service. K?

1272
01:19:59,710 –> 01:20:03,435
Yeah. You’ll see something very serious going on there.

1273
01:20:03,675 –> 01:20:04,955
I would hope so. Just like when I walk in This morning, this this morning,

1274
01:20:04,955 –> 01:20:08,175
I went to the early service. Mhmm. And I walked into the

1275
01:20:15,530 –> 01:20:19,210
the sanctuary. There was one guy there at the time. Just one guy that got

1276
01:20:19,210 –> 01:20:22,970
there early. One guy there. I walked into the sanctuary with another

1277
01:20:22,970 –> 01:20:26,490
guy who was who I never met before. I started talking to

1278
01:20:26,490 –> 01:20:29,550
him. And the guy who was there praying,

1279
01:20:30,250 –> 01:20:32,405
that’s like

1280
01:20:34,145 –> 01:20:37,985
I’m telling you. It’s Oh, yeah. Serious over here. Oh, yeah.

1281
01:20:37,985 –> 01:20:39,824
I used to get that in. I used to get that when I would walk

1282
01:20:39,824 –> 01:20:43,585
into old school Catholic churches back in the day. Like,

1283
01:20:43,585 –> 01:20:47,290
Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City used to be just But my

1284
01:20:47,290 –> 01:20:50,990
point is my point is, and this is just

1285
01:20:51,050 –> 01:20:54,350
this is I’m not saying this in order to, you know,

1286
01:20:54,570 –> 01:20:58,170
convince people they should become religious or believe in god. I mean, they but

1287
01:20:58,170 –> 01:21:01,230
if if someone believes that there was a god Yeah.

1288
01:21:01,935 –> 01:21:05,775
And there’s something called sin, which means that you’re doing something that is

1289
01:21:05,775 –> 01:21:08,994
inconsistent with God’s will that he doesn’t want us to do,

1290
01:21:09,775 –> 01:21:13,155
you get real serious. You believe that stuff, it gets serious.

1291
01:21:13,534 –> 01:21:15,554
Yep. Exactly. Exactly.

1292
01:21:17,310 –> 01:21:20,510
Alright. We’re out of the corner here. Back to the book. By the way, I

1293
01:21:20,510 –> 01:21:24,349
would recommend, just based on our conversation, if you’re listening to this

1294
01:21:24,349 –> 01:21:27,889
conversation, I would recommend you picking up a copy of Lessons in Leadership,

1295
01:21:28,190 –> 01:21:31,650
a weekly reading of the Jewish Bible, by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

1296
01:21:32,085 –> 01:21:35,785
My copy has a forward by professor Ronald Heifetz.

1297
01:21:36,165 –> 01:21:40,005
And, if you’re watching this on video, Richard’s holding up his his

1298
01:21:40,005 –> 01:21:43,845
copy of his cover. It’s the same copy that I’ve got. As I say as

1299
01:21:43,845 –> 01:21:46,745
he already mentioned, his is a little more dog eared than mine.

1300
01:21:47,450 –> 01:21:50,970
There’s a lot of good stuff in here. I’ve marked up my book, my copy,

1301
01:21:50,970 –> 01:21:54,650
and I’ll go going back and reading it again. A lot of it reflects

1302
01:21:54,650 –> 01:21:58,010
again things that we cover on this podcast all the time, things we talk about

1303
01:21:58,010 –> 01:22:01,735
on this podcast all the time. And, so we’re gonna round the corner

1304
01:22:01,735 –> 01:22:05,575
here because, Tom has to run, and we do

1305
01:22:05,575 –> 01:22:09,335
wanna be cognizant of everybody’s time today. And so

1306
01:22:09,335 –> 01:22:11,975
I’m not going to read through the whole book nor am I going to read

1307
01:22:11,975 –> 01:22:13,895
through the back half of the book and say, what I’m gonna do is I’m

1308
01:22:13,895 –> 01:22:17,490
gonna summarize a couple of different ideas that I think are incredibly important.

1309
01:22:20,110 –> 01:22:23,950
So, Rabbi Sacks talks about, a couple of different ideas from the books

1310
01:22:23,950 –> 01:22:27,790
of from book of Leviticus, in particular, of an

1311
01:22:27,790 –> 01:22:31,485
idea that struck me, that I think is important for leaders called

1312
01:22:31,485 –> 01:22:35,325
the price of free speech. Now

1313
01:22:35,325 –> 01:22:39,165
he makes the point, in referencing, from not

1314
01:22:39,165 –> 01:22:42,785
only Isaiah, but also from, Deuteronomy

1315
01:22:43,245 –> 01:22:45,265
and from Exodus that

1316
01:22:47,920 –> 01:22:51,460
one of the signs of how seriously

1317
01:22:53,760 –> 01:22:55,940
Judaism, in particular the Torah,

1318
01:22:57,120 –> 01:23:00,715
takes speech is one of the

1319
01:23:00,715 –> 01:23:04,554
prayers, that is is said. He he

1320
01:23:04,554 –> 01:23:08,315
quotes the prayer here in the book. My god, guard my tongue from

1321
01:23:08,315 –> 01:23:11,835
evil and my lips from deceitful speech. To those who curse me, let my soul

1322
01:23:11,835 –> 01:23:15,200
be silent. May my soul be to all like the dust.

1323
01:23:16,060 –> 01:23:19,740
Now that’s really interesting because one of the things that

1324
01:23:19,740 –> 01:23:22,960
we are challenged with in our social media culture is malicious

1325
01:23:23,180 –> 01:23:26,940
speech. Okay? And as leaders, we feel

1326
01:23:26,940 –> 01:23:29,435
the impact of malicious speech,

1327
01:23:30,614 –> 01:23:34,155
not only speech that is intended to deceive

1328
01:23:34,295 –> 01:23:37,655
about our motives, not just in an online context, but also in

1329
01:23:37,655 –> 01:23:41,034
person, but also the kind of speech that’s designed to impugn

1330
01:23:41,175 –> 01:23:44,520
our character. Okay? Now, in America,

1331
01:23:44,980 –> 01:23:48,739
we have a right, unlike most other countries in the

1332
01:23:48,739 –> 01:23:52,580
West, I’m thinking particularly of England and Canada that come

1333
01:23:52,580 –> 01:23:56,040
out of a more Royalist English tradition, British common law tradition.

1334
01:23:56,340 –> 01:23:59,000
In a British common law tradition, there is no protection,

1335
01:23:59,745 –> 01:24:03,105
explicit protection for free speech. However, in the United States of

1336
01:24:03,105 –> 01:24:06,785
America, there is explicit protection for free

1337
01:24:06,785 –> 01:24:10,305
speech. Matter of fact, the founding fathers, in particular, Patrick

1338
01:24:10,305 –> 01:24:13,870
Henry and others, were insistent that that be delineated

1339
01:24:14,170 –> 01:24:17,850
in the Bill of Rights for good reason, by the

1340
01:24:17,850 –> 01:24:21,530
way. Okay? Because when you delineate it, when you say the

1341
01:24:21,530 –> 01:24:25,185
government cannot take this thing away because it is

1342
01:24:25,265 –> 01:24:28,565
given to you by, as the founding fathers believed, God.

1343
01:24:29,105 –> 01:24:32,945
Well, guess what? They had some biblical backup for this. And

1344
01:24:32,945 –> 01:24:36,705
one of the points that Rabbi Sacks makes at the

1345
01:24:36,705 –> 01:24:40,085
back of his chapter on the price of free speech for leaders is this,

1346
01:24:40,490 –> 01:24:43,850
The Torah is telling us, and I underline this, that

1347
01:24:43,850 –> 01:24:47,550
malicious speech uttered in private is to be stigmatized in public,

1348
01:24:48,090 –> 01:24:51,930
and those who engage in it are to be openly shamed. To put

1349
01:24:51,930 –> 01:24:55,610
it at its simplest, as we behave to others so God behaves to

1350
01:24:55,610 –> 01:24:59,255
us, Do not expect God to be kind to those who are unkind to

1351
01:24:59,255 –> 01:25:03,094
their fellow humans. Leaders have a responsibility to reflect those values,

1352
01:25:03,094 –> 01:25:06,935
to react appropriately to lashan harah, and create environments

1353
01:25:06,935 –> 01:25:10,510
in which malicious speech is not tolerated. Malicious

1354
01:25:10,510 –> 01:25:13,950
speech doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to a freedom of speech. Of course

1355
01:25:13,950 –> 01:25:17,710
you do. You can speak maliciously if you would like, but it does not mean

1356
01:25:17,710 –> 01:25:21,550
that you are free from, as some folks politically have said in the last few

1357
01:25:21,550 –> 01:25:25,364
years, the consequences of that speech. Now that can get

1358
01:25:25,364 –> 01:25:28,264
us into cancel culture and a bunch of other different things, which

1359
01:25:29,284 –> 01:25:32,645
is beyond the ken of this particular podcast to

1360
01:25:32,645 –> 01:25:36,380
discuss. But just know leaders should know

1361
01:25:36,760 –> 01:25:39,500
that their speech has ethical implications.

1362
01:25:40,600 –> 01:25:44,199
To paraphrase from, William Shakespeare in the

1363
01:25:44,199 –> 01:25:47,800
play, Julius Caesar, the line that he puts in Julius Caesar’s

1364
01:25:47,800 –> 01:25:51,335
mouth before he goes to the senate and and is killed when he’s

1365
01:25:51,335 –> 01:25:54,935
speaking to Calpurnia. In the play, Caesar because

1366
01:25:54,935 –> 01:25:58,615
Calpurnia is trying to get him to not go. Caesar says, of

1367
01:25:58,615 –> 01:26:01,575
course, I’m gonna go to the senate. I’m paraphrasing here. Of course, I’m gonna go

1368
01:26:01,575 –> 01:26:05,000
to the senate. Always, everywhere, all the time, I am

1369
01:26:05,000 –> 01:26:05,500
Caesar.

1370
01:26:08,680 –> 01:26:10,140
Why are we questioning this?

1371
01:26:12,280 –> 01:26:16,074
Leaders, when they behave unseriously, when they do

1372
01:26:16,074 –> 01:26:19,755
not understand the weight of their speech, may

1373
01:26:19,755 –> 01:26:22,735
fall into malicious speech accidentally,

1374
01:26:23,915 –> 01:26:27,690
but they may also fall into deceitful speech accidentally. It is not

1375
01:26:27,690 –> 01:26:31,530
only the responsibility of leaders to watch out for their own speech and watch

1376
01:26:31,530 –> 01:26:35,150
out for the speech of others, but it is the responsibility

1377
01:26:35,290 –> 01:26:39,050
of leaders, I fundamentally believe, to understand what the price of free

1378
01:26:39,050 –> 01:26:42,590
speech actually is and to weigh their words carefully.

1379
01:26:43,345 –> 01:26:46,885
A core idea from rabbi Jonathan Sacks that comes out of the book of Leviticus.

1380
01:26:47,105 –> 01:26:50,785
Yes, Richard. I just want to make a I just want to make clear

1381
01:26:50,785 –> 01:26:54,485
about this issue of of evil speech in in in traditional Judaism.

1382
01:26:55,025 –> 01:26:58,610
Lush and hara, which is the Hebrew term for this. Lushan meaning language,

1383
01:26:58,610 –> 01:27:02,310
hara means means evil. The what this is essentially

1384
01:27:02,450 –> 01:27:04,950
about is saying anything

1385
01:27:05,970 –> 01:27:09,670
that kiss a negative light on somebody

1386
01:27:09,730 –> 01:27:13,405
else’s reputation or character. In in

1387
01:27:13,405 –> 01:27:17,165
traditional Judaism, it’s taught that this is

1388
01:27:17,165 –> 01:27:20,465
equivalent to murder. Mhmm. Yep.

1389
01:27:21,005 –> 01:27:24,605
Why? Because if you damage someone’s

1390
01:27:24,605 –> 01:27:28,020
reputation, that person may

1391
01:27:28,020 –> 01:27:31,860
eventually be unable to earn a living. And if

1392
01:27:31,860 –> 01:27:34,600
he can’t earn a living, he may die of starvation.

1393
01:27:36,020 –> 01:27:39,625
So it’s it’s that serious. And

1394
01:27:39,625 –> 01:27:43,165
so it’s all I just just to share with you.

1395
01:27:43,545 –> 01:27:47,005
This this is one of the most difficult

1396
01:27:47,864 –> 01:27:50,844
human inclinations to master.

1397
01:27:52,120 –> 01:27:55,500
We’re inclined to say negative things about other people

1398
01:27:56,520 –> 01:27:59,740
for various reasons. And so,

1399
01:28:02,280 –> 01:28:04,940
you know, in the secular world, we call it gossip.

1400
01:28:05,945 –> 01:28:09,705
You can destroy an organization. You want to destroy the culture of an

1401
01:28:09,705 –> 01:28:10,205
organization?

1402
01:28:13,305 –> 01:28:16,765
Gossip. Generate gossip about other people inside the company

1403
01:28:17,240 –> 01:28:21,080
and and encourage it and, you know, you could destroy

1404
01:28:21,080 –> 01:28:24,520
the company this way. So, it’s this is very

1405
01:28:24,520 –> 01:28:27,880
serious. Oh, yeah. The well, that’s the where the responsibility and the

1406
01:28:27,880 –> 01:28:31,475
ethic, around that’s where the price of free speech is. Right?

1407
01:28:31,475 –> 01:28:35,155
Again, you are free to engage in gossip. Sure. Go ahead. But

1408
01:28:35,155 –> 01:28:38,695
you’re not free from the consequences of that. Exactly. Exactly.

1409
01:28:39,875 –> 01:28:43,555
And the consequences of Very good. Very good. Material, right, for

1410
01:28:43,555 –> 01:28:47,320
that. All right. Let’s, let’s close out this,

1411
01:28:47,719 –> 01:28:51,559
this conversation today. And again, I would encourage you to pick this book

1412
01:28:51,559 –> 01:28:54,679
up. It’s deep. It’s got a lot of stuff in it. We just barely scratch

1413
01:28:54,679 –> 01:28:58,225
the surface. It’ll be a 6 hour long conversation. We can’t do that

1414
01:28:58,225 –> 01:29:01,985
today. If you’re a serious leader, you should read

1415
01:29:01,985 –> 01:29:05,665
this book. Absolutely. I would strongly recommend it.

1416
01:29:05,665 –> 01:29:09,425
Absolutely. By the way, it also has some excellent stuff in

1417
01:29:09,425 –> 01:29:12,950
there about followership. What is the role of following? Which,

1418
01:29:12,950 –> 01:29:16,390
again, this struck me quite deeply because most books on

1419
01:29:16,390 –> 01:29:20,150
leadership do not talk about what it means to be a good follower. They don’t

1420
01:29:20,150 –> 01:29:23,770
even touch on that topic. And, Rabbi Jonathan

1421
01:29:23,830 –> 01:29:27,525
Sacks in Lessons in Leadership talks very deeply about

1422
01:29:27,525 –> 01:29:31,225
what is the idea behind followership

1423
01:29:31,445 –> 01:29:35,045
that is reflected not only in the book of Leviticus, but also

1424
01:29:35,045 –> 01:29:38,885
in Numbers and in Deuteronomy. How can you be a great

1425
01:29:38,885 –> 01:29:42,540
leader if you don’t know how to be a great follower? Because

1426
01:29:42,840 –> 01:29:46,600
you have to be able to teach your followers how to be great followers. So

1427
01:29:46,600 –> 01:29:50,120
it’s interesting. I’m actually writing I’m batting around in my head the

1428
01:29:50,120 –> 01:29:53,260
idea of writing a second book on leadership, but about followership.

1429
01:29:54,760 –> 01:29:58,575
And and this You wanna co you wanna co

1430
01:29:58,575 –> 01:30:02,335
write it? Well, this book sort of gave me an idea, gave me some

1431
01:30:02,335 –> 01:30:06,015
thoughts, because I’ve been having trouble kind of finding a

1432
01:30:06,015 –> 01:30:09,780
door into the idea, because a lot of different places to go around it,

1433
01:30:09,780 –> 01:30:13,000
and the way that we frame this is is very structured.

1434
01:30:14,340 –> 01:30:16,980
But I wanted to find the right door. And I usually spend a lot of

1435
01:30:16,980 –> 01:30:20,020
time thinking about a book before I write it, before I find the right door

1436
01:30:20,020 –> 01:30:22,659
to to get in, but I I sure. I would love to have a conversation

1437
01:30:22,659 –> 01:30:26,105
with you offline about that. I I I suggest you talk to Harvey

1438
01:30:26,105 –> 01:30:29,785
Seifter about this because, he led an he was the general

1439
01:30:29,785 –> 01:30:33,565
manager of the of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which had no leader.

1440
01:30:33,705 –> 01:30:37,065
In other words, every every musician had to be a leader and a follower and

1441
01:30:37,065 –> 01:30:40,150
had to be able to shift them between those two roles. Yep.

1442
01:30:40,690 –> 01:30:44,449
Alright. We gotta let Tom go. So I wanna get Tom’s last thoughts before

1443
01:30:44,449 –> 01:30:46,550
we let Tom go. So, Tom, thoughts

1444
01:30:48,449 –> 01:30:51,010
on the book that we just skimmed through here and didn’t even get to the

1445
01:30:51,010 –> 01:30:54,355
whole thing. I mean, we barely covered a third of it. But thoughts on what

1446
01:30:54,355 –> 01:30:57,715
you can learn maybe as a leader for lessons in leadership before I let you

1447
01:30:57,715 –> 01:31:00,935
go here. And thank you, by the way, for showing up today. I appreciate it.

1448
01:31:01,795 –> 01:31:04,275
I’ve been on the podcast in, like, a month. I don’t know where you’ve been.

1449
01:31:04,275 –> 01:31:07,929
You haven’t been around in, like, a month. So Something happened. We had to cancel

1450
01:31:07,929 –> 01:31:11,210
one last month or something like that. I forget what I forget what happened. But,

1451
01:31:11,210 –> 01:31:14,510
anyway Next month is, science fiction, so you’ll be here for that.

1452
01:31:14,810 –> 01:31:18,349
Yeah. I I think I think, you know, like I said,

1453
01:31:18,650 –> 01:31:22,035
you know, if you if you I I I think it’s

1454
01:31:22,035 –> 01:31:25,875
irrelevant what his role in in society was. Like, the fact

1455
01:31:25,955 –> 01:31:28,535
I mean, I I don’t take away from his his

1456
01:31:30,355 –> 01:31:33,715
his title of a rabbi, but that coming from the

1457
01:31:33,715 –> 01:31:37,410
leadership perspective, it I think his title not not

1458
01:31:37,410 –> 01:31:41,170
that it’s irrelevant, but the the the lessons and the words and the

1459
01:31:41,170 –> 01:31:43,970
and the in in the things that you take out of the book are going

1460
01:31:43,970 –> 01:31:47,650
to be, you know, transcendent of any

1461
01:31:47,650 –> 01:31:51,455
religious in this particulars. I and we’ve mentioned that earlier

1462
01:31:51,455 –> 01:31:54,975
in this podcast. So I think I think for me, the the biggest takeaway is

1463
01:31:55,135 –> 01:31:58,175
and and and by the way, I I I’ve I’ve said this many times too.

1464
01:31:58,175 –> 01:32:01,935
It’s, you know, it’s it’s okay. I’m giving

1465
01:32:01,935 –> 01:32:05,739
everybody permission. It’s okay to learn lessons from people that you

1466
01:32:05,739 –> 01:32:09,420
didn’t expect to learn lessons from. I think that’s that’s probably the most

1467
01:32:09,420 –> 01:32:13,260
important thing that again, for for people who are looking at this

1468
01:32:13,260 –> 01:32:16,060
and saying, oh, this is written by a rabbi. I’m not Jewish. I’m not gonna

1469
01:32:16,060 –> 01:32:19,280
get it. That’s not that you you you gotta stop

1470
01:32:19,815 –> 01:32:23,255
that closed mindedness when you’re thinking about where you can learn lessons

1471
01:32:23,255 –> 01:32:26,955
from. And and, you know, hey, Sam. We’ve talked about this many times where

1472
01:32:27,015 –> 01:32:30,615
I’ve been doing what I’m what I do for 25 years,

1473
01:32:30,615 –> 01:32:34,430
and sometimes hiring brand new people

1474
01:32:34,430 –> 01:32:38,050
right out of college is the best thing I could do because I’m learning

1475
01:32:38,990 –> 01:32:42,830
different ways of looking at things, different perspectives, things that, you know,

1476
01:32:42,830 –> 01:32:46,670
maybe I something I did I maybe something I did when I was 25

1477
01:32:46,670 –> 01:32:50,335
years old that I don’t do anymore because I think it’s irrelevant or it

1478
01:32:50,335 –> 01:32:54,095
doesn’t matter, and they’re teaching me that they are still doing those things,

1479
01:32:54,095 –> 01:32:57,775
so why am I not still doing it anyway? The the the point is you

1480
01:32:57,775 –> 01:33:01,455
can learn these lessons from multitude multiple people, multiple layers of people,

1481
01:33:01,455 –> 01:33:05,090
and and, you know, the fact that they are either religious in

1482
01:33:05,090 –> 01:33:08,790
nature to begin with is not relevant. You should just be open and

1483
01:33:09,010 –> 01:33:12,850
and, you know, I I said something earlier about, you know and and I

1484
01:33:12,850 –> 01:33:15,650
wanna go back to this for just a half a second because you were talking

1485
01:33:15,650 –> 01:33:18,975
about solutions, a little while ago. And

1486
01:33:19,675 –> 01:33:23,515
I still say that the the the the starting point of any one of

1487
01:33:23,515 –> 01:33:26,875
these solutions is to look at yourself in the mirror and make sure that

1488
01:33:26,875 –> 01:33:30,555
you’re that you’re being honest with yourself, that you’re open with

1489
01:33:30,555 –> 01:33:34,179
yourself, that you’re open to improvement, that you’re willing

1490
01:33:34,719 –> 01:33:38,480
to take criticisms and critiques, and you’re not and and

1491
01:33:38,480 –> 01:33:42,100
you’re not gonna close off because of them. I think that’s the start of

1492
01:33:42,560 –> 01:33:46,320
all of this when it comes to either good leadership or solutions to

1493
01:33:46,320 –> 01:33:49,785
world problems or solutions to your own internal struggles to

1494
01:33:50,665 –> 01:33:54,185
if you’re if you’re not willing and, again, I don’t care who you call your

1495
01:33:54,185 –> 01:33:57,005
god, but if you’re not willing to look internal into that

1496
01:33:57,705 –> 01:34:01,350
extra, you know, that extra force, there’s a

1497
01:34:01,350 –> 01:34:04,790
problem there. There’s a problem there if you’re not willing to do that.

1498
01:34:04,790 –> 01:34:08,010
So I I think, again, I I just think that it’s

1499
01:34:09,830 –> 01:34:13,510
being open, being honest with yourself, and being willing to learn from anybody

1500
01:34:13,510 –> 01:34:16,905
that’s willing to teach is the is the three foundations of it.

1501
01:34:17,445 –> 01:34:20,965
Awesome. Totally agree. I totally agree. Very

1502
01:34:20,965 –> 01:34:24,665
nice. Yeah. Thanks. Really nice. Yeah. Well Yep.

1503
01:34:24,965 –> 01:34:28,800
Tom Libby is getting ready to, wander away. Believe he’s gonna flap

1504
01:34:28,800 –> 01:34:32,559
his wings at 5. I’m leaving on a jet plane. He’s literally leaving

1505
01:34:32,559 –> 01:34:36,000
on a jet plane. So we’ll see Tom, around the horn,

1506
01:34:36,159 –> 01:34:40,000
here next month. So with that, Tom’s

1507
01:34:40,000 –> 01:34:43,614
out. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you for having me. Richard, very nice

1508
01:34:43,614 –> 01:34:45,875
seeing you again, sir. Good to see you, Tom.

1509
01:34:49,135 –> 01:34:52,815
And there goes Tom Libby. He is getting on he is literally getting on a

1510
01:34:52,815 –> 01:34:56,094
jet plane and flying to another state. So we had to we had to let

1511
01:34:56,094 –> 01:34:59,850
him go. Richard, final thoughts on

1512
01:34:59,990 –> 01:35:03,830
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ lessons in leadership. You said it obviously it’s been

1513
01:35:03,830 –> 01:35:07,270
a very impactful book for you, influenced how you think about

1514
01:35:07,270 –> 01:35:10,970
leadership. But what can a leader, in your opinion,

1515
01:35:11,750 –> 01:35:13,745
take from this book?

1516
01:35:19,645 –> 01:35:23,025
Wow. It’s it’s just, it’s it’s so all encompassing.

1517
01:35:23,645 –> 01:35:27,485
Mhmm. Now the leadership the the thing about leadership is it’s it’s

1518
01:35:27,485 –> 01:35:31,010
one of those things. It’s it’s it’s it’s so hard to pin

1519
01:35:31,010 –> 01:35:34,449
down. It’s it’s almost like it’s his own

1520
01:35:34,449 –> 01:35:37,349
category. Mhmm. And so,

1521
01:35:40,210 –> 01:35:43,429
I think the most important thing for a leader to do

1522
01:35:44,585 –> 01:35:47,485
is is to make a decision about who they are.

1523
01:35:49,705 –> 01:35:53,304
You need to decide who you are, and what

1524
01:35:53,304 –> 01:35:56,665
you stand for, what you believe

1525
01:35:56,665 –> 01:35:59,400
in, and live true to that.

1526
01:36:00,739 –> 01:36:03,079
And, and if you do that,

1527
01:36:04,900 –> 01:36:08,119
you will acquire the leadership skills

1528
01:36:08,900 –> 01:36:12,675
that are required, that are needed, in order to bring

1529
01:36:12,675 –> 01:36:16,195
that whatever that is into the world, whatever you stand

1530
01:36:16,195 –> 01:36:18,054
for. And so,

1531
01:36:19,554 –> 01:36:22,775
I certainly was not a born leader.

1532
01:36:23,250 –> 01:36:27,010
I didn’t have any leadership skills when I was in high school or

1533
01:36:27,010 –> 01:36:30,770
college or in my early adult life. I never

1534
01:36:30,770 –> 01:36:33,990
considered myself a leader. And I never,

1535
01:36:34,850 –> 01:36:38,224
sought to become a leader. I just,

1536
01:36:39,104 –> 01:36:42,545
I think that I personally acquired some

1537
01:36:42,545 –> 01:36:46,065
leadership skills just because I needed to in order to

1538
01:36:46,065 –> 01:36:49,905
accomplish, you know, this project that I set myself on,

1539
01:36:49,905 –> 01:36:53,460
you know, having to do with ethics and, you know,

1540
01:36:53,520 –> 01:36:56,960
what it takes to make life meaningful. And,

1541
01:36:57,760 –> 01:37:01,600
which, I think boils down to living

1542
01:37:01,600 –> 01:37:04,900
a life of ethics, living a life of service, serving other people

1543
01:37:05,440 –> 01:37:09,275
for their sake, not for my sake, becoming that kind of a person,

1544
01:37:09,895 –> 01:37:13,655
and, and then to, help other people do

1545
01:37:13,655 –> 01:37:17,495
the same. And that does, that

1546
01:37:17,495 –> 01:37:21,175
requires leadership. And so, I

1547
01:37:21,175 –> 01:37:25,010
think that, if you wanna

1548
01:37:25,010 –> 01:37:28,530
be a leader because you want the limelight, you want the

1549
01:37:28,530 –> 01:37:31,750
fame, you want the fortune, you wanna be the center of attention,

1550
01:37:32,370 –> 01:37:35,810
it’s gonna be really it’s gonna be a rough road. It’s gonna be

1551
01:37:35,810 –> 01:37:39,465
really, really rough. But if you’re doing it for the

1552
01:37:39,465 –> 01:37:43,085
right reasons, because you wanna contribute, be of service,

1553
01:37:43,825 –> 01:37:46,925
and, help the world become more ethical,

1554
01:37:48,585 –> 01:37:52,360
then you will become a leader. And it doesn’t mean you’ll have a

1555
01:37:52,360 –> 01:37:55,820
title, but you will have an a tremendous

1556
01:37:56,040 –> 01:37:59,720
influence on the people around you. And a

1557
01:37:59,720 –> 01:38:02,940
tremendous amount of responsibility for

1558
01:38:03,555 –> 01:38:07,395
the outcomes and accountability, quite frankly. Yeah. For

1559
01:38:07,395 –> 01:38:10,995
the outcomes, that of of of what you are

1560
01:38:10,995 –> 01:38:13,815
doing and of how you are leading those people.

1561
01:38:15,395 –> 01:38:19,050
Exactly. Moses said to

1562
01:38:19,050 –> 01:38:20,910
God at the burning bush,

1563
01:38:22,970 –> 01:38:25,950
he said to God, he said, who am I?

1564
01:38:27,210 –> 01:38:29,150
He asked God, who am I?

1565
01:38:31,275 –> 01:38:34,975
That’s that’s you have to decide who you are.

1566
01:38:36,395 –> 01:38:40,155
And then and then live and then live that live that out. You

1567
01:38:40,155 –> 01:38:43,995
know? You have to go all in and and and and

1568
01:38:43,995 –> 01:38:47,810
then, you know, you you come you bump up

1569
01:38:47,810 –> 01:38:51,190
against, you know, your your

1570
01:38:51,250 –> 01:38:55,090
shortcomings and, you know, and the world would teach you, you know, how to

1571
01:38:55,090 –> 01:38:58,850
change. And, I think that’s the path of leadership. The

1572
01:38:58,850 –> 01:39:01,835
path of leadership is being able to go into the unknown.

1573
01:39:02,775 –> 01:39:06,614
Abraham but is that what Abraham did? God

1574
01:39:06,614 –> 01:39:10,295
just told him to leave. He said, leave your half father’s house. Leave

1575
01:39:10,295 –> 01:39:13,860
town. He didn’t tell him where to go. Stop peeling

1576
01:39:13,860 –> 01:39:17,540
grapes and hanging out when you’re 70. It’s time to get out on the

1577
01:39:17,540 –> 01:39:21,159
road. Exactly. Exactly. Get out on the road.

1578
01:39:22,100 –> 01:39:25,860
Well, getting out on the road is part of staying on the path of

1579
01:39:25,860 –> 01:39:29,275
leadership and one of the best ways to figure out

1580
01:39:29,275 –> 01:39:33,115
what the map is of the territory, well, the

1581
01:39:33,115 –> 01:39:36,715
map is not territory, is through the reading of great

1582
01:39:36,715 –> 01:39:40,555
books like Lessons in Leadership by Rabbi Jonathan

1583
01:39:40,555 –> 01:39:43,880
Sacks, as well as all the other books that we cover on this podcast.

1584
01:39:44,820 –> 01:39:48,660
So I’d like to thank Richard Messing for coming on

1585
01:39:48,660 –> 01:39:51,720
the podcast day. Also, Tom Libby for joining us.

1586
01:39:52,287 –> 01:39:56,067
And with that, well, we’re out.