TRANSCRIPT
*Transcripts are auto-generated and reviewed for accuracy, but there may be some errors in punctuation or words. Listen to the podcast at https://rabbidaniellapin.libsyn.com/ for clarification
The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Biz Plan 2024: Coffins or Cradles.
Date: 01/12/24 Length: 37:41
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Greetings, happy warriors. And thank you for being part of the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show where I, your rabbi solemnly dedicated myself to revealing to you how the world really works. Thanks for being part of the show. And thank you for doing all you do do to help promote it and get the word out and you're doing a great job. And I very much appreciate it. Have you ever noticed that you meet somebody, and they just suck all the energy out of you? Sometimes you say to somebody, how you doing? And the person's not so well. And your heart just sinks because, you know, you're now going to be subjected to a list of all the ills that ail this person at the moment. And if truth be told, you don't really want to hear that, you know, unless it's your child. But if it's a friend and associate and acquaintance even a stranger, no, you don't want to hear that at all. It's gloomy. And life's just too short to hang out with gloomy people.
Daniel Lapin 1:19
Well, the name of today's show is Business Plan 2024: Coffins or Cradles. And the point is that how you view the future impacts your present. What do you think tomorrow will be like, has a real effect on your today. And you can see how that might work. Right? Because if you see a tomorrow of gloom and hopelessness, nothing but a catalogue of calamity, it's going to be very hard not to project that you'd have to be an extraordinarily good actor. You really you belong on the stage, if you can do that. Because you know how sensitive we humans are to the moods of other people. We spotted, we spotted very quickly, we can really tell you to how somebody else is feeling very, very quickly. And so anybody who develops this picture of a hopeless tomorrow, a tomorrow filled with pain and hopelessness and torment and torture, it's gonna be very hard for that person to project optimism and good cheer. On the contrary, such a person will project pretty much what he's been thinking about the future, not optimistic at all very pessimistic. And that means that, well, it means that people are going to try and avoid you is what it really means. Because nobody wants to hang out with gloomy downer people who suck all the energy out of their environment. And so yes, if you develop the feeling that tomorrow is hopeless, if you develop the feeling that the future is really awful, then it's going to be very difficult for you to be somebody that other people want to be around. And you know, that almost without exception, every victory you've won, every achievement you've attained, every joy you have experienced, every happiness that has been part of your life has always come about through the collaboration of at least one other person. It might be a spouse might be a parent, a sibling, a good friend, a partner, but it's almost unheard of, for great moments in our lives to come about when we're utterly alone and isolated. And so to develop a perspective of the future, that is a pessimistic perspective, and a perspective filled with disaster and downers. Well, it's gonna be tough for you to retain close connection with other people because you're making it too unpleasant. You're making a too emotionally costly for other people to be around you. And that's really an important thing to understand. So, we've got to ask ourselves, looking ahead, do you see coffins or cradles? Do you see life or do you see death? Now, imagine if you would, that you're interested in making a bit more money. You look Think for a side hustle. You're good with wood. And you're okay with tools. So you set up a workbench in your basement, we invest in a saw, a planer, a drill press, a router, a set of good chisels, a miter jig, and a few other things you figure you need.
Daniel Lapin 5:23
And what do you do? Well, you subscribe to this podcast, of course, is what you do. And, and this is my reminder to go ahead. It's a big favor for us, it really helps with the the numbers and our subscription numbers are going up. So please hit that subscribe and become an official subscriber of the show, we'd love that. And while you're at it, you might also want to visit the website Rabbi Daniel lapin.com. And think about becoming a member. Because as soon as you become a member, you gain access to a vast boatload of ancient Jewish wisdom that is behind the membership wall. And this information, it's hours and hours and hours of material, audio and video, it's reading material, it's hundreds and hundreds of of principles and articles and courses everything. And you get access to that when you become a member, a happy warrior. And that way you are able to improve your five F's, the things we all really care about our families, our finances, our fitness, our friendships, and our faith. And everybody knows that when we speak about our finances, that's not just your bank account, it's your possessions. It is your relationships with people that make it possible for you to build your finances. It might be your boss might be your employer might be your employees. But there's a whole world there under the earth, of finance, and family. You know, that's not just your parents and your siblings and your no family is everything of an intimate nature, including including your intimate physical relationships, because that is an asset that is what makes family right. That's exactly what it's all about. So the reason we created a brand new book called The Holistic You, the reason that book exists, is to help people understand what fits into each of these five apps. And, more importantly, how they affect one another.
Daniel Lapin 7:59
And so, we're been speaking today about how your perspective on tomorrow impacts how good a day you're having today. So there you are, you're setting up your woodworking shop in your basement, you've got your tools. And now you're ready to start doing some woodworking projects. But first of all, you need customers. So you take a stroll down your town's High Street. And for inspiration, right, you want to walk around the main street there to drum up, maybe drum up some business. And you see a funeral parlor. Fantastic. You run in, talk to them and say, Hey, I'm a carpenter. Anything you need that I could make for you. Guy says, Hey, you think you could put together some plain wood coffins as he's got no problem with suppliers for high end bronze and brass and metal and fiberglass? I can get every single kind of Costco Do you want? But many people just want a plain pine wood coffin. Fantastic. I can turn those out for you. That's simple for me to make. Fantastic. How many would you like? Well, I'll you know, I'll buy five of them a month from you. Fantastic. Let's work out a good price that works well for you and me and we're in business. And you continue walking down the main street and you see a big store called Main Street baby and toddler depot. Fantastic. So you pop in and you go and talk to them. And you discover that they would love to stock a line of handmade oak wood cradles. Fantastic. So you negotiate a price you come back with a model and a design and the picture and and you ask them how many they'd like to buy from you and they say well, you know we think it'll catch on here. I think you know this is a traditional town. I think people are tired of the The plastic baby cradles. They want something honest, something real, somebody made out a good oak wood, fine, this is great. They are going to buy five cradles a month from you the other place the funeral parlor is going to buy five coffins from you. You're in business. And as soon as you get home from your regular day job, you go down to your basement and you start making these cradles and these coffins and you're able to sell. So that way you realize is great because you're making money serving people, whether they're coming or going as you might say. So you get set up to make Pinewood coffins and oh cradles and you have an opportunity to buy a whole big truckload of wood at a very good price. So you're going to try and figure now you can only afford to store up inventory of one. So you're going to decide should you buy the truckload of pine wood at a fantastic price? So you can make the coffins even less expensively than you have been and make more profit? Or should you rather buy the truckload of oak and make cradles? Well, in order to find the answer to that, you just check the demographics, you find out what's happening in your city or in your county or in your neighborhood or your town, you try and find out, you know, are more people dying or more people being born or more people coming or more people going, and you can figure it out, right? And so that way, you will know whether to buy your truckload of pine or truckload of oak. And then use everywhere, it doesn't really matter, right? I mean, either way is fine, because you're making money selling either coffins or cradle so whichever turns out to be the more popular thing, we'll be fine with you. And so wait a sec, that's our altogether true. Because you know, that store, Main Street baby and toddler depot, and you're selling them about five cradles awkward cradles a month, and they're getting ready because people are talking about them as a bit of word of mouth. And you've made him a nice display. And he's getting ready to up it to about eight cradles a month. So things are really looking good. And then you realize but wait, every baby, every newborn, who goes to sleep in one of your cradles is going to turn into a two year old toddler. And two year old toddlers like playing with blocks. And what is better than a nice, clean, beautiful piece of maple wood, wooden blocks. Nice symmetrical block oblongs cylinders, squares cubes. And you realize and so you go back to the the main street baby and toddler depot, and you say to them, Hey, would you be interested in a line of Maplewood blocks, we can make them in sets of 10 blocks and 20 blocks and 100 blocks depending on age of the job. God says you know what? Yeah, we'll we'll try a couple of those. See how they go. And Wales, fantastic. People love them. It's not that easy to get really nice maple wood blocks for kids to play with. And then you realize, Wait, that toddler is going to turn four or five? Wouldn't it be nice if he can have a little table and two chairs. So his mom can serve him snack after school at his own little table, his own little chair, and another little chair for his little sister who's a couple years younger than he is. And so you go back to main street, baby and toddler depot. And you say what about? Would you like to buy a little dining set for the kids? Well, the guy that really is, you know, everything you make has been selling so nicely. And you deal with him. So uprightly and the whole thing is working out? Well. He says you know what? Sounds like a good idea. Let's give it a try. Let's put one on the showroom floor. See what people make of it. And your woodworking business is growing. Because everybody who is a customer for your cradle, remembers the name, your brand name that you're building and you're creating. And then when they see toward blocks made of the same by the same maker they're interested in then little furniture set more interested because you building a relationship and everyone who sleeps in one of your cradles is a future customer for other things you're going to be able to make and sell them out of wood. But nobody who you sell a coffin to is going to have any follow up orders. That's just a reality. So a Every time you see a pregnant lady, you give a great big smile, right? Because there's a future customer or walking down the road. But when you see a funeral procession, and while that mean you weren't invited might mean you sold a coffin to that car, the person in the car leading the procession. But that's all.
Daniel Lapin 15:24
And what's worse is that grandparent who is being buried in one of your Pinewood coffins, admittedly, but that grandparent is no longer around to buy a nice hand made oak wood cradle for their granddaughter. And so you realize that there is a very big difference between cradles and coffins. Yes, you're making money coming and going. But you're making much more on the cradles, because you're building business relationships that go on into the future. So selling the coffin is fine for today. But selling a cradle is wonderful for tomorrow. When you see many pregnant ladies, and many mothers at the park with lots of their kids, you feel optimistic about the future. But if all you see are lots and lots of funeral processions, you start wondering about how viable your business is. And indeed your whole life, you don't really have to move. I mean, if all you're doing is selling coffins, that's not much of a business. Unless you can scale it and sell them in the next town. Well, that may be what you have to do. But there's a totally different feeling of optimism that surrounds you, when you are dealing with the future have lots of babies, compared to when you're dealing with a future of lots of funerals. It's totally different. for very good reason. A future of more cradles and coffins is not only good for making money and growing in economy, though, that's obviously very important. It's also good for generating optimism about the future, you're much more likely to marry and raise a family and invest in long term projects, if you see more cradles than coffins. And this is one reason that so much of our new book I told you about the holistic you, you is devoted to understanding the connection between finance and family. Can I ask you to think about two different boys? I want you to compare and contrast these two boys? Let's call them Tom, and Jerry, shall we? Now Tom, is the middle of five siblings. Jerry is an only child. As a matter of fact, Jerry is a an example of what we call the four to one syndrome, four to one. What's the 421? was very simple. How many grandparents did Jerry have? For? Right, because his mother had two parents and his father had two parents. So Jerry had four grandparents, how many parents did he have? Well, to a mother and a father. And how many Inggeris generation? Just one. Now, think about how many people you know, who are single children and who are four to one hours. And you'll see very often, very often that single child, that single post that person you knows a single child actually has a mother who has a single child and a father who was a single child. And that makes them one of the four to one cohorts. Let's go back to Tom, shall we? Tom has happily married parents who've been married for many years. Jerry? Well, Jerry's mom is single. She divorced Jerry's dad years ago. So you can begin to see the contrast between Tom and Jerry. And if you are fortunate in your neighborhood, you know lots and lots of Tom's and not a lot of Jerry's. But sadly just because I follow these figures and these demographics, There's an awful lot of Jerry's in the United States of America. And there are an awful lot of Jerry's in the United Kingdom. Let's watch their life continuing, not surprisingly, because there is no hear me well on this, there is no more reliable statistic for positive outcomes in children, then being raised by a married mother and a father. Really, I mean, if, if public policy people were really serious about wanting to reduce youth Crime and Delinquency, and all the school failure, and every all the bed pathologies, all they would have to do is focus on making sure that people are married before they have children, and stay together and raise their children together. In a successful family and a happy marriage. That's all you got to do. And so you won't be shocked to hear that Tom goes through school very successfully. Whereas Jerry drops out of high school at in the in the 10th or 11th grade, Jerry is out of school. Now, Tom, after he finished his high school, he goes on to go to trade school. And in trade school, he learns to be a crane operator. And then he gets apprenticed to a crane company, and then he gets certified. And then he has a really good job operating a crane. And for heaven's sake, you know, he's not even 21 yet. That's fantastic. Jerry, on the other hand, because he dropped out of school, seems to go from one minimum wage job to another. And what's more, Jerry is or has already had some encounters with law enforcement. Tom's older two siblings get married. Right. He's got an older sister and an older brother, they get married. When his while he's at the lovely wedding of his older sister. Tom meets a girl who is a cousin of his new brother in law. So his sister is marrying this nice guy who is going to be Tom's brother in law. And at the wedding is this lovely girl who tells Tom, she's a second cousin of the bride groom? Well, Tom and his girls start seeing each other. And, and Tom's parents like her very much, and Tom siblings like it, and that that's a huge help for Tom in that situation. And meanwhile, over by Jerry, Jerry has been hit with a support claim by a woman who claims that Jerry is the father of a kid she's just had. And Jerry is the same age as Tom. Jerry is also only about 21. And that's what his life is looking like. Let's go back to Tom. Tom marries this girl, he met at his oldest sister's wedding a week after the wedding of his younger sister. So there's all these kinds of happy events going on in Tom's family. And they're all surrounding the idea of marriage and family. So it's not hard for Tom to feel comfortable in that situation. Jerry in an attempt in an attempt to sort of start putting his life on the right track joins the military. Meanwhile, babies start arriving in Tom's extended family. And, you know, with all his siblings now married and and the grandparents around. It's like water all cradles Tom's Tom's family is busy buying cradled, like crazy. Jerry, Jerry gets married while he's in military. But Jerry doesn't want any children who knows why maybe because of his own childhood, maybe because of having been sued for support by this woman. Whatever it is, Jerry marries somebody while he's in the military, and neither of them want to bring a child into this rotten world. That's, that's what you hear when you talk to Jerry and his wife. Very different when you talk to Tom and his wife because they're getting ready to welcome their first child.
Daniel Lapin 24:56
Jerry stays in the military for a few years and then retire I was with a military pension. And he takes a job working for a security company. And he and his wife, they like taking these five day cruises down the coast from Los Angeles to Mexico, or from Florida to the Caribbean. And that's what Tom, that's what Jerry and his wife like doing. Meanwhile, Tom himself has the same number of kids that he became was part of in his family. Tom and his wife have five kids. And you know what happened? Tom's older brother's father in law, right, because they all get together family gatherings. It's a big, big family, and they have these boisterous, wonderful gatherings. And Tom becomes friendly with his older brothers father in law. And that guy is at comm is building is a land valley that he develops real estate. And he offers Todd, a job running a construction site for a big new building. So up till now, Tom has been very familiar with construction sites we use, he operates cranes. But now he gets an opportunity to be the onsite foreman of a whole new construction project. And as you can imagine, Tom is doing very well has a big family of his own. His parents live nearby all the other kids and have there about 20 grandkids so far. And Tom, his parents are having a final time. And so here are two completely separate life depictions. Right, which I made them up, of course, but you know, people like this, right? You know, people exactly like this. Not only do family and finance propel one another. But optimism is also part of the mix. Family helps one be optimistic. And add optimism brings financial stability, which produces more optimism, because it's much easier to be optimistic when you've got a few dollars in your pocket. And that helps to make family. So there is a constant positive feedback loop between finance and family. Which if you really want to understand, and you really want to incorporate those principles into your life, get yourself a copy of the holistic, you. That's all you have to do. So I'll tell you this, if you happen to be somebody who's trying to build up your finances, and you also happen to have a young family, and you've got three or four children, maybe and you're you sometimes think to yourself, this is more than I can handle. I'm a spouse, I've got to take care of my spouse, I've got two or three or four children, whatever it is, and there they all are under my feet under the age of 10. And I just don't know if I can handle this. Stop that and start reminding yourself that you actually owe a huge thank you, to your children for your financial success. It really comes from them. You know why? Because in spite of the fact that raising children is a certainly a challenge, challenging task, there's no question about it. It draws out from you your very best qualities, compassion and kindness, discipline, courage, everything, all the good things are drawn from you by your children. But a dish in addition to that, living in a house with young children cannot help but contribute to you being an optimistic person. Now, there are some people who just so soaked in the vinegar of pessimism that not even young kids can take you out of it. But most normal people, you got a group of young of your children in the house, it helps you be optimistic. And if you're optimistic, it means you're viewing tomorrow beautifully, which means that your today becomes a lot better than it might have been otherwise. So no matter how hard it is, to be raising those children, no matter how hard it is, to have a child knocking on your door and two in the morning and say, Mommy or Daddy, I'm frightened. I had a bad dream. And you've got to go now and chase giant yellow dogs out of your children's room and the kid knows they the dogs are there. They're in the closet or they're under the bed. And you know, you've got to go and help get rid. Yeah. And you've got to an important meeting at eight o'clock in the morning. And yeah, it's hard. But give a big thank you to those kids. Because they do more for you than you do for them. You through them, you brought a child into the world. And that's amazing. But they did something else, they created a parent, I'm thinking mostly in terms of father now. But the same is of course true for mothers, it's exactly the same. Don't lose sight of that tell you, I'll tell you who knows what I'm talking about. People who live in those senior communities, where you have to be 60 years old or older in order to live there. And they've got them all around the country, or retirement communities, no children allowed. You can have your grandkids stay over three days a month, or whatever it is. And many, many people in those types of communities have told me that if it weren't for the fact that they've locked themselves into that situation, they would get out because they cannot stand never seen kids. And it's a great blessing, great blessing to live on a block or to live in a neighborhood or in a suburb or an area where there's lots of kids around. You live in a building, let's say you live in an apartment building and you know, most of the apartments are occupied by families with kids. You should really you should give them all a big present once a month, or once a week, whatever you want to but you really should. Because they do a lot for you. Yes, there's noise and there's kids. Yeah, all of that's true. The frustrations are there. But the huge thing that they do for you is they fill your world with cradles, rather than coffins. And that's a big thing. It's a very big thing. Now there are many countries around the world that are suffering from a birth dearth, meaning a big shortage of births, countries where there are many more coffins needed than cradles and Japan, South Korea, most of the western European nations, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Scandinavia. The coffins are more numerous than the cradles. And those I mean, that produces real problems, there's no question about it. And I've spoken in the past about the economic dangers that more coffins and cradles bring about. So I don't want to talk about that again now. But what I will say is that it makes those societies less optimistic societies. And optimism is a hugely valuable tool for building a business for building a marriage for building a family for building a society for building a nation for building a country. Optimism is hugely important. And I will tell you this that one of the reasons that one of the F's is faith, is because optimism is very much a function of faith. You will find in general, people of faith, have more optimism than people who are secular. And it's not disconnected. It's not an accident. It's certainly not a coincidence, that people of faith tend to have more children than secular people. Because family is very much tied to this idea of how you see the future. And in general, secular people tend to see the future as more hopeless, more filled with problems. Whether it's God given fuel problems, or climate change problems, or whatever it is, there tend to be problems ahead. Now, sometimes there are real problems ahead. But by and large people of faith tend to be happier about the likelihood that those problems will be solved.
Daniel Lapin 34:26
And secular people in general tend to be suffused with a sense of gloom. When I meet somebody and I and this happens to me often I meet somebody and we talk and I, I'm fascinated find out as much as I can about people's lives and and the person says, No, my girlfriend and I, we don't want you know, we just don't want children. Children produce too much carbon and their day a threat to the environment. We don't want to have children. I know right there and then I'm talking to secular people. I know, no question about it. There's no question about it. And so, these are links. These are connections that I discuss fully in our book, the holistic, you know, which I really, really, really want you to get, obviously, I've been talking about it for that reason. So there are there are different ways of making yourself an optimistic person is very important to do. And being optimistic, you know, if, if you're on the friendship level, social level, much easier to have friends, when you are an optimistic person, then when you're a gloomy, pessimistic person, much easier, much easier in romance when you're optimistic and confident than when you are filled with gloom and pessimism, and fear. All of those things all tied together. That's the whole idea of holistic being, right, the holistic view, that's why we call the book The elders, thank you. But give it a thought, you know, and see if you can't expand on your optimism. Clearly, being around children is a hugely positive and easy way of doing it. But not everyone can manage that. For a variety of reasons. Sometimes, people are estranged from their children, which is a terrible thing. Sometimes and by the way, over the the 2016 election to the present with COVID and everything else. I've been hearing of more and more people who are estranged many, many more people are telling me my children won't let my grandchildren spend time with me. What a horrifying thing. But that is going on around there. It's something to be aware of. So whatever way you can do to have a cradles rather than coffins worldview. Right think cradle not coffin and, and that optimistic tomorrow serves you very, very well for today. And I think that may be all we're going to do for today. And so, I want to wish you in the week ahead. A week of great growth, of great success in your five deaths, that you move onwards and upwards with your family and your finances, and your faith and your friendships and your physical fitness. Work on all of these things at the same time. That is what holistic living is all about. Until next week, I'm Rabbi Daniel Lapin. God bless.
