Episode 24: Staying Calm When Everything Feels Uncertain - with Avi Schron

the incredible backstory of a billionaire family, one of the American Jewish community's greatest philanthropists and a modest but powerful rise to success in the real estate world. This week with Avi Shron on Jewish Grit. Welcome to Jewish Grit. Super excited to be in the studio and welcome the host of the studio, Avi Shirron. Welcome to Jewish Grit. >> Thank you. Thank you for having me. >> And it's a pleasure to have the director of Camabes International with us in his studio. >> Right. Okay. And thank you for making it so easy for me. All I had to do is come down the elevator and I was right here. >> It's inviting guests into your studio. So Avi, Hashem has blessed you and your family with success in many different endeavors, real estate and many other things. and we'll we'll talk about that soon. But I want you to look back on your career, on your personal life, and I want you to think of a moment where you needed Jewish grit to climb out. >> So, what jumps into my head is a personal challenge um when one of my kids was uh not feeling well and had to be hospitalized for a few days with something that uh was not major, not minor, but it was somewhat life-changing. He had a type of situation that needed some continuing care and you know you're there in the hospital with a 2 and a half year old kid and um those days this was goes back 20 years ago. The hospital was not the most friendly place and there you are stuck a young parent with a with a child not knowing what's going to be. I happened to have been in a room where there was some other child patient who for some reason was just yelling on top of their lungs non-stop and you just like say what am I doing here? How do I get out of this? How do we how do what what what does tomorrow bring? And I remember specifically that typically I would go out to Davin with a minion. I would go to pray with a quorum in a shul in a in a synagogue. Uh but over there I couldn't. I had to stay with my child. So, um, I was went to the corner to pray and the only thing that I could do was cry and tears came out and I look back at that moment and you realize that when you connect with God at a moment that you're in trouble and you really feel the connection, I was able to see afterwards such interesting successes with this child, with the rest of the family because he really wants you to turn to him. And that's why he sends us challenges. He just wants God wants us to turn to him and ask him for help. And when you ask him help sincerely. And the most sincere way of asking somebody for help is when there are tears running down your your your face. Then he answers your prayers. Sometimes immediately, sometimes not. But he's listening. And then you're able to go through with life. And when I came back home and my other kids wanted to know what happened, what's going to be I said, "Listen, God g God gave us a challenge. It's as if he gave us direct instructions of what our life needs to be from here on in. And we're going to follow his instructions. Sometimes we don't have clarity as what we're supposed to do. Sometimes we do. Sometimes when you have something as clear as that, you know, God is giving you instructions. This is what you got to do day in and day out. Take care of it. I'll take care of you. And that's the way we live our life. >> Let's talk a little bit about your career. Um, at what point did you enter your family business? So I entered my family business uh after I was studying uh in collal for five years. Kell is like a post-graduate school for Talmudic studies. But then after a period of time it was time to move on and to actually get into the business world. So I joined my father's business after five years. At that time I was living in a place called Lakewood, New Jersey. At that time it was a relatively small town. I stayed there for two years living as a commuter back to uh Manhattan and then I moved to Brooklyn. So, >> did you go to college? >> I did not go to college. >> So, how does a guy who had zero, you know, professional education walk into a large real estate company in Manhattan and find his bearings? So that's a very good question and I think that the way we treat life after studying in yeshiva and studying Talmud there's so much we don't know and we have to inquire and be curious about everything in order to be able to absorb and understand the information. We have to challenge the facts on the ground and say I need to understand this better. That is really the secret to learning anything. If somebody goes to college and they may score very high on their studies because they did well in history and they have a great memory doesn't necessarily help them because whatever they learned in history doesn't pertain to to their to what they're doing in their professional career. And I taught myself accounting. I taught myself computers. I taught myself um plumbing. I taught myself electric. I taught myself engineering. And now it's 30 over 35 years later or close to 35 years later. you know, it seems like, oh, where did you go to school? How did you learn all that information? So, I went to the school of hard knocks of the University of Life. >> Were there moments like especially in the first year or two, three, you're like, oh my gosh, I have no idea what's going on. >> Of course, and it took and and I look back and and it happens all the time, even today, you know, I could get I I'm we're involved in a uh special program in New York City to put one of our buildings into a tax exemption. When I started the process, I had no idea what I was doing. I had a friend who was helping me along. Now, a few we're almost into it. I understand it. I know it. I know what they want. You know, I've read some of the documents and then you know, you learn it and then and then you become a professional in in your 30-year career, whatever that you've been involved with your company and your family's business, like with our moments in the real estate world where like people are like, "Oh my gosh, what's going to be?" Because I know now, especially, I mean, with the whole new administration coming in, there's so many people that are panicking. like like you see all these, yeah, move to Florida, etc. Like how do you deal with that? >> The way I tell people that I deal with it is that I sit back and I watch God's plan unfold and I'm going to have a front seat at the most exciting movie that you could ever imagine because nobody knows what's going to happen. And we're in his hands and he's in control. We try to do the best we can in order to make the right decisions at the right times and and be proactive because that's what he wants us to do. But on the other hand, the result of that is something we never really know. Most business people never really know what the result of their actions are at the time they're taking that action. I don't really believe that when um Steve Jobs started Apple and he came out with a desktop computer or the fellow who started Facebook in his dorm room for fun ever imagined that it's going to make him into a multi-billionaire but sometimes things happen. You never know. So what do we do today when things are changing? you assume that you keep on doing what you're doing and you sit back and watch the story and and and and be a a bystander and enjoy it. Don't don't stress too much over it. It's very hard to do because stresses are natural. So, um we try not to stress too much, but it it it is what it is and there's not much we could do to change it. >> What's it like working with your father? Many years ago, I think it was in 1999, I traveled on a trip to the former Soviet Union together with a very very special rabbi whose name was Rabbi Matio Solomon. Rabbi Matio Solomon is what they call a Mashki in Hebrew. Uh in English, he would call maybe a spiritual adviser to um Yeshiva BMG baso of Lakewood. And he was somebody who when you spoke to him, you always walked away with clarity. And people went to him for all sorts of advice, life advice. And he asked me what I do for a living. So I said, "Uh, I work for my father in the family business." He says, "Oh, if you would have asked me, I would have never told you to do that." >> Oh. >> So, >> and he was a man with a lot of clarity >> and my response was, "You have to get to marry my father." So, I think that answered the question. My father is unusual in the real estate business. And um there is a tremendous amount of respect first of all that he has for us and we have for him. So I'd call it mutual respect. >> Is it true that there's a whole backstory of how your father you know had a had success by finding something and returning it. Is that a true story? >> So the story is true about finding something and returning it. Whether or not that led to success that we don't know. So the story is like this. The story is that in must have been 1973 or 74, my parents lived in a two family home and the family was growing. My father was able to buy a single family home a few blocks from where he lived. We wanted to go visit this house uh before we moved in. Now, why did we want to go visit the house? Because the seller uh was an estate. An estate means that the woman who lived there passed away and her children were selling the house. She was around 95 when she passed away and her her um children were in the 70s. They lived in Florida and they were not interested in any of the contents in the house. She was a very upscale person. She was a decorator for one of the department stores. So it was a nice house. It was just at that time 25 years old. We didn't want anything from it. They didn't want anything from it. And in the purchase and sale agreement, they wrote that you are taking the house as is with all the contents. There we were. My my sister and my brothers were in the house and my little brother was six years old. Loved jumping, crawling, climbing. He was crawling under the bed and he found a paper bag with a lock box inside of it and he was very excited. He showed it to me. I was the older brother. So I had to figure out of course what was inside of it. I found some tools, broke it open and inside we found some jewelry and some bonds. Uh my sisters thought the jewelry was really cool and they wore it home, you know, these big diamonds and and uh bracelets and they walked in the house and my mother said, "Where'd you get that from?" They said, "Oh, we found it in the house. We thought it was fun to wear it." Our neighbor in that two family house was a jeweler and he took a look at the diamonds and jewelries and they were quite valuable. Uh it was worth probably around what we paid for the house. So my father didn't know what to do because on the one hand um everything in the house is ours. On the other hand, it just didn't seem right to keep something that's way over and above what they intended when they sold us the house. They never really had intention for that. So, what do you do? So, you go to the biggest rabbi in the northeast or in the world at that time. Uh, his name was Rabbi Moses Feinstein, Rabbi Mosha Feinstein, and he presented this question. So, he said he had to think about it for a day or two. And he came back with a decision that they never intended to include that in the contract of sale. People do they would have never sold it. They don't sell that. and my father gave it back. >> Your your family and just the whole business I think is the gold standard for honesty. Talk a little bit about what it means. Is is that a big part of this of the company's strategy of when you get deals which are shady or questionable things, how do you deal with it as as a family, as as an entity? >> We run the other way. That's that's really what we do. And we have found over the years that when we do things as much as we can upfront, straightforward, a word is a word, a handshake is a handshake, that's that that works for us. >> Um, another thing that your business is generosity is that share how that came down from your father. And also I'm curious to hear how you relate that over to the next generation. You have great kids. How do you how do you teach them to be generous? How do you teach them about philanthropy and sedaka? Well, the way we teach our kids anything is through um example. My father always set an example of being generous. That's that's what we feel as as Jewish people we're supposed to be doing. We're emulating God. One of the things that God did for the world is he's generous to the world. He gives every single day. He's giving to us giving to us sunlight, air, food, >> life, >> life, right, in general. And he wants us to emulate him. So he wants us to give to others also. So that's something that you know as much as possible we give and it becomes part of our culture, part of our life, part of who we are and it's not easy because sometimes you get a really nice thank you and then sometimes people are just not enough. How come you didn't give me that that much? How come I want more? Okay. So you you you know that you have to just know that you do the right thing and you can't control other people. You do the best you can. >> As savvy real estate investors and investors and other things, how do you figure out when it comes to charity where you invest your funds? >> It's really about where you personally feel that you want to make a difference within our Torah world. We like to support Torah as the highest priority. And that's something that we heard from many great rabbis. There was a great rabbi in Israel. Uh his name was Rav Shak. And I sat with him and my father when I was a teenager. He passed away, you know, probably like 30 years ago already. >> He was my rabbi. >> Oh yeah. >> Yeah. >> And he told and he told us the first place he gave to is the people who study Torah. And like we said it earlier and that's because that's the continuity of the Jewish people. The Jewish people need people to study Torah. That's what holds us as a Jewish people. So that's the highest priority. After that it's anything else. And we give to many many there are so many different good causes to give to. What makes you most proud of being a Jew? >> The culture of looking out for other people and that is something which falls short when people you know don't really feel that they are can help other people right you could walk down the street and see somebody fall sometimes people just walk by and they'll let them let them lay on the ground. I don't think that would happen if there was a Jewish person nearby. And that's our culture of helping others, helping others as much as we can. So, it really is in fact um to quote to quote um Mayor Adams, our outgoing mayor of New York City when I was at one of his fundraisers, he said, "I am so proud of you Jewish people. You have so many nonprofit organizations. You even have nonprofits for your nonprofits." Which is true. >> It is true. >> We do. We have We have so many nonprofits that they need help also. So, we have nonprofits to help them run the nonprofits. >> We have an audience of 75 or 80,000 potential people who could watch this in every type and stripe in Latin America, Australia. Hey, Australia. Um, and across the entire world. People who are starting out their lives, trying to find their spouse, trying to get their first job, trying to make things work for themselves. What's a solid piece of advice that you could tell them from your career, both personal and professional? >> Take one day at a time. And when you get stuck, try to figure out how to get unstuck. The world is full of people who just get stuck and they say, "I don't know how to go on." In our world at least, um when you have good people who you could call, who you could ask a question to, who could advise you, you could get unstuck. Sometimes you could be just be stuck in your mind even if you're not stuck physically. >> So true. And sometimes you just need somebody to tell you, "No, you're not stuck. You could do it. Try." People who get stuck and they are not willing to continue and they want to just stop and say, "I'm stuck. That's it. The road the the you know, the gate went down at the beginning of the road and I and and that's it. I I can't go anymore." There are plenty of people like that. And then there are those people who say, "Well, I happened to notice the gate went down, but 10 feet down the road, there's a hole in the gate. I could climb through and get to the other side." So, you just didn't look. You're sitting there with your blindfolds on looking at the gate going down and say, "I have to get across. I can't get across." Go down the road. Turn your head to the right. Turn your head to the left. Or ask the local guy who knows who knows his way around. Say, "How can I get across?" And he'll get you across. There's there's so many ways to get unstuck. I think looking back at my father's career in real estate, I think that was the one of the things that made him success that he's always thinking about how to get unstuck. How do I solve the problem? What is the problem? What is the solution? And sometimes you have to drill down to really identify the problem because sometimes again the problem can be in your mind and not a real problem. Or sometimes once you drill down and say, "Okay, how do I get from point A to point B?" And the problem is your car broke down. So you're going to say, "Okay, I'm stuck." But or the solution is I just have to get up to point B or I or why do I have to get to point B, right? >> Maybe I have to go somewhere else. Good point. >> And I could just walk there, >> right? >> So, >> it was a real pleasure and a joy to give you a great vibe. Great. >> I think uh there was a lot of amazing insight and we're grateful for the studio and we're grateful for the amazing things you do for the Jewish people and for the time that you shared with us. Continue on success. >> Okay. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you for listening to Jewish Grit and Ol mentorship podcast. At OLEM mentorship, we believe that everyone needs a mentor. What better way is there to tap into your personal and professional potential than with a Jewish mentor at your side? Learn more at olam.org/metorship. Don't forget to keep listening on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.