Episode 54: Preparing for the Blessing - Securing a Financial Future | With Shani Bell, real estate entrepreneur and owner of the Bell investment group

00:00 Speaker 1 Our life’s shlichus includes many areas that we have to juggle, including, of course, finances. I’ve known Shani Bell for ages, and I can’t believe I’m only now sitting down to record an episode with her. Shani works with families to help them understand how they can generate passive income that will give them much more financial peace of mind and mental space. I asked Shani for the most practical, accessible knowledge she has about her field, and here it is for you. If you found this episode valuable, you’re welcome to pass it on and share it with anyone you care about. To follow me on Instagram, search for Chani Moskowitz. To follow my status, book workshops and talks, or find digital programs on life-changing tools from Chassidus and the field of health, it’s all, all at 050-850-5770. The intro, and then we’ll get started. How can we turn our lives into lives of shlichus, full of meaning? I’m Chani Moskowitz, born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and now continuing my shlichus in Karmei Gat, Israel. In this podcast, we’ll meet different women who bring their shlichus to a variety of fields, and through them, help each of us find and define our own shlichus in the world. Because living the lives we were created to live is as good as it gets. Shlichus as a way of life. We’re starting right now. Welcome to another episode of the podcast Shlichus as a Way of Life.

01:27 Speaker 2 Wonderful.

01:28 Speaker 1 And today we have a special guest here. Shani, how are you?

01:31 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem. How are things?

01:33 Speaker 1 Boruch Hashem. I think a lot of the girls know you from different places, but I know you from the high school hallways. Isn’t that something?

01:39 Speaker 2 Exactly.

01:40 Speaker 1 I think—

01:41 Speaker 2 It’s funny how... you know people from school, from childhood, and then you see where life takes them.

01:47 Speaker 1 Yes.

01:47 Speaker 2 And how they manage to make an impact in the world.

01:49 Speaker 1 I was just thinking that I don’t think I’ve seen you in a decade or more.

01:53 Speaker 2 Yes.

01:54 Speaker 1 S-since I finished twelfth grade, and—

01:56 Speaker 2 Come on, you were on shlichus. You weren’t here.

01:58 Speaker 1 That too, true. And how much has changed, how much you’ve been through. How much I’ve been through. It’s crazy.

02:03 Speaker 2 Totally, totally.

02:04 Speaker 1 So it’s lovely to sit down together.

02:05 Speaker 2 It really is.

02:06 Speaker 1 I’ll give a little background for the girls who don’t know you. Y-you’ll introduce yourself, but why did I invite you? So Shani works in the whole field of—correct me in a minute.

02:18 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:19 Speaker 1 Real estate and investments and all that. What struck me about you was that you start by talking about the need: why this matters to everyone. We’ll expand on that and talk about it. And that’s why it was important to me to bring you on, so the girls could really hear about it and know, because these are things that sometimes, you know, you suddenly meet a woman of fifty who says, “Wow, I never thought about that in my life.”

02:39 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:40 Speaker 1 “Look how much I missed out on.”

02:41 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

02:42 Speaker 1 Things that are really basic. And there was a second thing I wanted to say, but I’ve forgotten it. So I’ll hand you the microphone and...

02:50 Speaker 2 Uh...

02:50 Speaker 1 Let’s get to know you.

02:51 Speaker 2 That reminds me: when I was starting out twelve years ago, when I entered the world of real estate—can you hear me?

03:01 Speaker 1 A little.

03:02 Speaker 2 Yes.

03:02 Speaker 1 Bring it closer to you, yes.

03:03 Speaker 2 When I entered the world of real estate, after I’d helped people and found apartments and things, a developer said to me, “Why don’t you buy an apartment for yourself?” And suddenly it dawned on me that it was even possible. Like, how had I not thought of that until then? It’s exactly what you’re saying: people say, “How did I not know this sooner?” So, yes, absolutely. For anyone who doesn’t know me yet, I’m Shani Bell, married and a mother of three daughters. I’ve been working in real estate for the past twelve years. Today my company works in real estate development. We build in Israel, we build in Cyprus, and we buy multifamily complexes in the United States. Our second arm is an investment firm that supports families, and that’s our main focus. Because ultimately, my journey begins and ends with the fact that I grew up in a home without financial means. An amazing home, yes? It had all the emotional support, the heart, the warmth—truly a wonderful home—but not financial means. And I always had this feeling that I would save them. When I grew up, I would have enough, and I would be the one to come along and save them in the end. I remember that even back in school, I would sit with your sister, I would sit with friends at school, and I’d tell them, “But I don’t understand. We have to study, study, study, study, and then get accepted somewhere, get a degree, and then get accepted somewhere, and only then start earning and slowly work our way up the food chain.”

04:50 Speaker 3 So even then, you were questioning the—

04:51 Speaker 2 I was. I said—

04:52 Speaker 3 What was wrong with the system.

04:53 Speaker 2 Something about it just didn’t make sense to me. I always said, “This doesn’t make sense to me.” Now, to be honest, because I came from a home without financial means, I was also looking for shortcuts in some ways. So when everyone went to seminary afterward to study teaching, I couldn’t afford to, because my parents didn’t have the means to pay for me to study for—

05:12 Speaker 3 Wow.

05:12 Speaker 2 A degree. So I said, “Okay, I’ll find my own way to do it.” I remember going to work at the Ministry of Defense for a year, and then I moved to a telecommunications company. At that company I suddenly discovered what I was capable of, and I advanced really quickly. Then I had a customer who always told me that selling real estate was easier than selling phones, and little by little, I found my way into real estate.

05:37 Speaker 3 So you discovered you were good at sales, good at that whole field, and went—

05:41 Speaker 2 Exactly.

05:41 Speaker 3 For the big thing.

05:42 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. Really good at sales, at influencing people, at management, those sorts of things. Listen, we didn’t know. We really came from the periphery, from Kiryat Gat. You haven’t encountered the world out there yet. After high school, you go on to institutions to study teaching, then you get married, then children, and then—

06:00 Speaker 3 Right.

06:00 Speaker 2 You don’t always discover your abilities along that path.

06:04 Speaker 3 We grow up in a kind of sheltered environment. It has its drawbacks too; sometimes it limits you... In general, I ask, why don’t they teach this in school?

06:12 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

06:12 Speaker 3 Why don’t they teach this in school?

06:13 Speaker 2 You know, once, at my daughters’ Chabad school here, they announced that on a certain day they were starting a home economics class. I said, “Wow, how wonderful!” I sent the principal a message: “Home economics! How wonderful that you’re bringing this into the school.” And she wrote back that it was a cooking and baking class.

06:32 Speaker 3 That’s it. I think that’s the fancy name for a—

06:35 Speaker 2 Yes.

06:35 Speaker 3 Cooking class.

06:37 Speaker 2 So, like—

06:37 Speaker 3 How funny.

06:38 Speaker 2 So I’m saying, even “home economics” became cooking and baking. In other words, that’s the woman’s place in our community.

06:43 Speaker 3 There went—

06:44 Speaker 2 Yes.

06:45 Speaker 3 All our hopes.

06:45 Speaker 2 All our hopes. So I told her, “No, listen, you have to bring in more content like this.” And she said, “Come, come sit with us. Let’s think about it, let’s think about it.” So yes, listen, it’s a dream. Ultimately, it starts with the Ministry of Education, not the school.

06:56 Speaker 3 Absolutely. So let’s—let’s start with the basics. You’ve actually given me an idea for an interesting question: if you had forty-five minutes in a classroom of eleventh- or twelfth-grade girls to give them a sort of capsule of everything you think it’s important to know before entering real financial life—

07:16 Speaker 2 Wow.

07:16 Speaker 3 And I’ll add that a lot of us start adult life really young.

07:21 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

07:21 Speaker 3 Boruch Hashem, at a young age you’re already a mother of one, a mother of two. Suddenly everything is moving so fast, and you realize your expenses have—

07:29 Speaker 2 The cost of living is going up.

07:30 Speaker 3 Yes, they’ve raced past your income, and—

07:33 Speaker 2 Of course.

07:33 Speaker 3 Suddenly a bag at the store costs twice as much.

07:36 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

07:36 Speaker 3 It’s crazy, it’s crazy.

07:38 Speaker 2 Listen, the cost of living is going up, and our money is losing its value. But if I were in eleventh grade now—if I were invited to speak at our high school—I think that out of forty-five minutes, I’d spend at least thirty-five talking about mindset and tools, and in the last ten minutes I’d get practical about how to do it. Because when I got married—and my husband, by the way, had been in kvutza and then went into the army—you don’t have much. That’s their path in Chabad too, and—

08:08 Speaker 3 Right, one thing leads to the next.

08:09 Speaker 2 One thing leads to the next. You finish kvutza, get married, go into the army, and it’s three hundred shekels until the first child comes along. It’s like—

08:16 Speaker 3 Exactly.

08:17 Speaker 2 There isn’t really... Again, maybe the world is moving in a different direction. By the way, that’s not a bad thing. There’s something very beautiful about it, because it’s also what shaped us. I think I’ll start with the basics for a moment, okay? I came from a family that became religious, not a Chabad family. My grandfather was a Chabad chossid, and it was very important to him that we study in Chabad schools. And at home there was everything. Some of us went to Chabad schools and some didn’t, and that created a lot of confusion. I mean, who am I? Which path is right for me? Chabad, Rabbi Nachman, Sephardic, maybe something more open? All my uncles were settlers who wore knitted yarmulkes. What’s the right path? At school they would always teach you that this was the right path, and at home they’d tell you, “No, that’s not right; this is right.” And I remember that at some point, around ninth or tenth grade, I said to myself, “Wait a second. You need to choose your path. You need to choose the path you want.” There was a real period when I felt like someone who had grown up far from religion and was saying, “I choose a religious life.” I felt myself going through a process of choosing this school, this way of life. And the reason was very simple. I would always talk about it, including later, after I met Shalom and everything. There’s something about growing up to be someone who influences others rather than being influenced. There’s something about growing up knowing that life isn’t just, “You did mitzvos, so you’ll go to Gan Eden; you committed sins, so you’ll go to Gehinnom.” The world is much more than that. It’s not as though there’s a judge watching you all day and wagging his finger at you. Life really is about love. There’s a loving Father, and there’s something about raising a child from the start with the approach

10:04 Speaker 2 of “Go make a difference in the world, because you are a light, and your light can reach more and more people. Every bit of light you bring into the world affects countless people, even in future generations, and our entire people.” From the very beginning, you’re raising leaders.

10:19 Speaker 3 It amazes me that you recognized that at such a young age.

10:22 Speaker 2 Yes, I was born with an old soul. I always say I was born—

10:25 Speaker 3 While some of us are still dealing with ninth grade.

10:27 Speaker 2 Yes. I was born that way; I was always like that.

10:30 Speaker 3 Wow.

10:31 Speaker 2 Always wondering about life—how things work and all that.

10:36 Speaker 3 Already thinking about your children.

10:37 Speaker 2 Yes. And I was always thinking about what kind of home I wanted. It was very clear to me that it would be a Chabad home, that I would marry a Chabad chossid, and that we would raise our children in that way. It was always very important to me to raise children who would be leaders, because they would have an impact, because I would have an impact, because they would have an impact. It gives you tremendous strength to step outside yourself.

10:59 Speaker 3 Absolutely. It’s key. Listen, most people at that age sit around waiting for someone to tell them what to do, feeling like victims of their circumstances: “I’m stuck, things have gone wrong for me, I’m in high school, I’ll just get through it and finish.” And then suddenly to come and understand that you’re here to realize your full potential—that’s the goal. It’s not just for someone who’s a trailblazer. No, it’s what every single person needs to do.

11:25 Speaker 2 It’s there even at the most basic level. For me, in my everyday life, it’s about every person I sit with. What can I do here? What lesson can I offer and pass on? Or what do I need to receive? That’s a lesson too. But it carried over into my life after I got married. I said, “Okay, my husband is in the army earning three hundred shekels, and I have no financial resources. My parents didn’t help me, not even with the wedding, and we’ve already had to take out loans. But I’m going to save this family.” And I thought: What’s the difference between me and someone who earns ten million shekels? What’s the difference between us? We have the same number of hours in a day. We probably have the same abilities too. I was fortunate that I really believed in my own abilities, even though I hadn’t yet put them to use. Right? So we have the same abilities, we probably have the same twenty-four hours in a day, I have Hashem with me, and there’s no difference between us. I just need to learn to think the way he does.

12:22 Speaker 3 How did you come to think—how did you even get to a place where you could think that way?

12:26 Speaker 2 I don’t know.

12:27 Speaker 3 I think it really was that strong desire to—

12:30 Speaker 2 Yes, a strong desire.

12:31 Speaker 3 How do you get there?

12:32 Speaker 2 Look, it may have come from hardship. When you’re a child and you say, “I’m going to save my parents, I’m going to save my family, I’m going to save them,” you start looking for a solution: How am I going to do that? So it may have come from a place of survival, of hardship. But one of the things I thought about when I got married, and then when our first daughter arrived, was how to give my children the tools they’d need, more than just giving them money—though helping your children financially is important too. As you said, it always comes back to leadership. For me, education, a leadership mindset, and the children are my first priority. I could talk for hours about education alone. But I was always thinking about how to give my children the tools for an abundance mindset. Because if I give them those tools, when they need to go out into the world, they’ll already be much stronger. They’ll also be able to earn money and acquire property and whatever they need, especially with the cost of living as it is. That was where my thinking came from. It wasn’t about accumulating money, because money itself is just paper. There’s no point to it in itself. Its real value is in what it can buy us in life, what it makes possible for us. And—

13:44 Speaker 3 That’s very important to understand, because money is often treated like a dirty word.

13:48 Speaker 2 Like something materialistic.

13:49 Speaker 3 In that sense, yes. As though—what? There are so many important things in life, and health, and... Right.

13:58 Speaker 2 Yes, “The main thing is health.” You know what people say: “The main thing is health. Just give me health.” Why just health? You can have that too. Both health and—

14:03 Speaker 3 No, health really is the main thing. But I also think financial hardship affects your health in some way.

14:10 Speaker 2 It affects your emotional well-being, and that affects your health.

14:13 Speaker 3 Stress, all of that—

14:13 Speaker 2 Of course.

14:14 Speaker 3 Though, again, we should qualify that and say that someone sitting on millions can also be stressed.

14:18 Speaker 2 Just as much.

14:18 Speaker 3 A wealthy woman, yes. So it really is about your mindset, your mindset.

14:22 Speaker 2 It’s all about your mindset. The Rebbe says that wealth and poverty are found in thought. It’s not... It’s only our thinking. At the end of the day, I can tell you that in our offices I see a great many families. You’ll see people who have everything, but inside, in their minds, they have nothing. And people who have nothing, but in their minds they have everything. It really is like that. It starts on the inside. So my approach was, “Let’s give my children an abundance mindset.” But how can I give my children an abundance mindset if I don’t know what abundance is myself? If I’ve never really experienced true abundance in life? And then, at the place where I was working, one of the clients told me, “Come to a real-estate lecture.” I went, and from there one thing led to another until I entered that world. And I kept thinking: How did that person buy an apartment for eight hundred thousand shekels and sell it for two million? Wait, that doesn’t make sense. What’s the difference between him and me? Again, it was always: What’s the difference between him and me? Why can’t I make that kind of deal? Then I said, “Wait, it’s possible. You just need to find good deals that go up in value.” So I started doing that for other people. I managed to build up capital, and little by little I did it for myself too. Today it’s already grown into major developments and projects, boruch Hashem.

15:37 Speaker 3 As I listen to you, a picture is forming in my mind: some of us look at this and say, “Well, that’s the big players’ field. There are people who know how to do it, and then there’s me.” And you come along and say, “No. If they know how to do it, I can do it too. I need to understand how.”

15:56 Speaker 2 Right. I will say that if someone looked at my life from the outside and didn’t have faith, they’d think, “Wow, that girl is—”

16:06 Speaker 3 Completely out of her mind.

16:07 Speaker 2 Completely crazy. But, I mean, my inner work every day is serving Hashem. It’s not really the real estate. Real estate is what I do for a living. I love doing it, but the real work is serving Hashem. And part of serving Hashem is believing in how worthy you are. Even when the deal is for a hundred million, it doesn’t matter. How worthy are you of landing that deal? Does Hashem want me to land this deal? Trust in Hashem. I’ll tell you more than that: even with all these very big deals, being confident and at peace, trusting in Hashem. Trust is something you have to work at.

16:40 Speaker 3 Right, you sign a piece of paper whose implications are staggering.

16:44 Speaker 2 Staggering.

16:44 Speaker 3 You’re not alone, really.

16:45 Speaker 2 Exactly. But it’s not me, it’s Hashem. I mean, it’s Hashem.

16:48 Speaker 3 That’s what I’m saying—you’re not alone, it’s...

16:49 Speaker 2 That’s exactly it. I don’t think I could have reached places like this without trust in Hashem, without emunah, and without the Rebbe. He accompanies me every step of the way, every step. There’s nothing I—there’s no deal I don’t ask the Rebbe about, and if he doesn’t give me an answer, it doesn’t happen.

17:05 Speaker 3 And what’s amazing is that, to feel that way, you first have to reach a place where you feel that it’s right, that this is the right thing for you.

17:13 Speaker 2 Yes.

17:14 Speaker 3 That you deserve it—though it’s not so much about deserving it as it is about this being your shlichus.

17:19 Speaker 2 Exactly. Because it’s not me, it’s—

17:20 Speaker 3 It’s, it’s, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu, You’re with me, right? Because I’m with You,” sort of.

17:23 Speaker 2 Yes. I’ll tell you what: it’s not about me, either. I’m not the story. I really could be happy right now with a cup of coffee and nothing else at all. I really am someone who can be—

17:32 Speaker 3 Even the way you make your coffee is so simple.

17:35 Speaker 2 No, really, I’m saying that in my day-to-day life, I’m someone who finds happiness in the smallest things.

17:38 Speaker 3 Yes.

17:39 Speaker 2 More than in the big things, I find happiness in the smallest things. I come home and my husband has made me a pot of soup—that makes me happy. It’s the truly small, simple things in everyday life. But I think that at some point, when I started making money, I said, “Wait a minute, wait, wait. There’s something we weren’t taught properly. There’s something we weren’t taught properly.” It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense that there’s this path within our community where you go study teaching and education and everything, and then you move on—you’re hired as a teacher and you advance—and people are living on five, six, seven, eight thousand shekels a month. It doesn’t make sense. Come and see: it’s possible. Here, I came from much less. See that it’s possible. And what kept growing inside me was this desire to show people there’s another way, to show people it’s possible. In fact, my investment firm today isn’t a regular investment firm, because we don’t sell projects. You won’t see me on social media marketing some project: “Come on, everyone, there’s a new project. Come buy in Cyprus. You come into the office, they tell you about the deal, you buy, and bye.” No. We guide families. There are many options families don’t know about that could help them grow financially. Now, I’ll actually start with the basics. Before I get into the practical side, let’s start with the basics. Money is a good thing. Money is an amplifier for what’s inside you. When a person has money, they can bring more of themselves, more of their shlichus, into the world. Think about it—I always invite people to think about what would happen in their lives if they were able to earn thirty thousand shekels in passive income. What happens in their lives? Imagine: you have no worries. You have enough apartments now

19:22 Speaker 2 bringing you thirty thousand shekels in passive income. You wake up in the morning, and what do you do?

19:27 Speaker 3 In other words, what would you do if you had no financial worries?

19:30 Speaker 2 Exactly. I mean, we were born into a reality where, whether we like it or not, Hashem told us there’s the material and there’s the spiritual, and we have to connect the two. We were born into that reality. But the reality is that the cost of living keeps rising, and at the end of the day you have to go to the grocery store and buy food, you have to buy a home, and you want to help your children when they grow up, to give them some kind of future. But money is losing value all the time. What do I mean? Just last year it lost five percent. Inflation—the money loses its value. So people spend all day working to earn a living, because at the end of the day you need bread and challah, and most of an adult’s waking hours go into earning a living.

20:05 Speaker 3 I mean, we need to earn more because it just keeps getting more and more... You know, as a child, it sounds so nice: someone with lots of money buys a luxury car. But no, that’s not it.

20:17 Speaker 2 Not at all.

20:18 Speaker 3 That whole way of looking at it is really wrong, because in the end, when your goals in life are material things, you’ll never be happy.

20:29 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

20:30 Speaker 3 Our minds work in such a way that we get used to things very, very quickly, and the bar keeps rising.

20:35 Speaker 2 Look, I can understand that if there’s something material you really, really wanted all your life and dreamed about, and you finally got it, it makes you happy. I can tell you there are plenty of material things I’ve bought that I still enjoy years later, and I’m glad I have them. But I will say that the pursuit isn’t happiness. The pursuit is about what might make me happy, but it isn’t happi—it isn’t happiness in itself.

20:55 Speaker 3 Yes, yes.

20:55 Speaker 2 I actually see it the other way around. I think people who aren’t happy and spend all day chasing brands and cars are people who have nothing inside, who are still poor on the inside. Because you’re trying to prove something. Why? Why do you need to prove anything?

21:09 Speaker 3 It’s something very external.

21:11 Speaker 2 Exactly, it’s very external. I—why, why do you need that? You don’t need to prove anything. But I will say—let me go back to the point that, in the end, once people understand that if I have thirty thousand shekels in passive income and I no longer need to—

21:24 Speaker 3 Explain what “passive” means. I don’t think everyone—

21:25 Speaker 2 Passive means money coming in. Say I have an apartment here, and five thousand shekels come in every month, and another property here—

21:30 Speaker 3 Income that I’m not working hours to earn.

21:32 Speaker 2 Regular income that you don’t have to work for. The month starts, and on the first of the month thirty thousand shekels in passive income comes in. I can tell you that many people would change jobs, start businesses, go to hospitals to make a difference, go wherever they could to give of themselves to the world. I once did a survey among my students. I told them, “Here’s a check for two billion dollars. Two billion dollars. Write down what you’d buy with that money.” At first they say, “We’d buy apartments and a yacht and travel around the world.” But after a year, you’ve run out of things to do. The only thing you’re thinking about is: Who can I give this money to? Who can I help? How can I make a difference and make the world a better place? Some people direct it toward women, some toward sick children, and some toward—everyone directs it toward the cause they connect with. But in the end, our natural desire is to make a difference and do good. It’s just that we’re caught up in the financial system and need to earn a living, so it becomes more complicated. In other words, our lives have become about survival, and when you’re in survival mode, you’re not thinking about how to make a difference. You’re thinking about how, right now, you can—

22:34 Speaker 3 Make it to the end of the month.

22:34 Speaker 2 ...brings home money, makes it through the month. And I say no, first of all, at the most basic level, we need to want money. Money is a good thing. Taking steps to have money is an excellent thing, because ultimately this is life, and we need to turn the spiritual into something material. This past Shabbos I read a sicha about something written in the parsha: Hakadosh Boruch Hu says, “If you do mitzvos, I will bring you abundance. Rain will fall, and you’ll have crops and food and abundance in your home, all in its proper time,” and so on. Then the Rebbe asks, “So what—is the result material abundance?” When a person does spiritual mitzvos, is material abundance the end result? And the answer is that it isn’t the result; it’s actually a means. Because when I have material abundance, I can serve Hashem with more joy. I can serve Hashem with greater leadership. There’s a kind of leadership that can then go out into the world. I can tell you about a client of mine who worked in high tech for years. For years she worked in high tech and told me, “I’m in a golden cage.” She lived on next to nothing, really, and invested all the money she earned. She invested it at a return of around five percent when inflation was five percent. In other words, she wasn’t making any money, okay? She was earning money, but the main thing was that it was somewhere, that it wasn’t going away. After she came to us and went through a fairly deep process, we managed to create around thirty thousand a month in passive income for her. She left high tech and started working in art and creative work. She writes and puts all kinds of amazing material out into the world. She works in healing the soul in all sorts of ways. And every chance she gets, she sends me a message: “I’m so glad I met you and managed to create a life like this for myself.”

24:16 Speaker 3 Wow.

24:17 Speaker 2 There’s something about that leadership going out into the world. And I always tell people, don’t think of money as something material, because it isn’t about the money. It’s about what it will allow you to give to the world. More time with your children, more time with your family, more experiences with your children. Come on, how many years do we have here? Let’s at least make the most of who we are. Life can’t be just money and work. There has to be so much more. And that’s why I say, even in the Torah, even the Kohen Gadol has to be wealthy. The Rebbe also always speaks about money coming in abundance—

24:51 Speaker 3 Jews deserve abundance.

24:51 Speaker 2 But for Jews, there’s something—each one is a child of the King. Quite the opposite: a person should want to have money. I say money is our leadership. If we’re good people, we’ll be good people. And that reminds me of a client who came to me quite a while ago. She has a makeup business, and she said to me, “I feel like this business could make ten times as much, but I also feel that if it does, my marriage will fall apart.” So I asked her why it would fall apart. And then we got to that issue of a woman earning more than her husband, of ego and... When we make ourselves the issue, make the “I” the issue, we can’t grow. But when we let go of the “I,” we can reach endless heights and leadership.

25:47 Speaker 3 Basic Chassidus, really.

25:49 Speaker 2 Exactly. Just yesterday we had an incredible conference; thirteen hundred people registered. And someone came who really has every means to succeed. She has three apartments with no mortgages and three hundred thousand in equity, and she and her husband have very good salaries. I asked her, “Okay, what were you planning to do with that money?” She said, “I want to save a little more, get to half a million, and then invest the half million.” And I say, that’s exactly the way of thinking I’m talking about. It doesn’t matter whether you have the money or not. I can give you lots of examples of people who don’t have it, who don’t have those means, and start with a hundred thousand shekels, two hundred thousand shekels, next to nothing. The real question is: am I open to opportunities? Is my mind open to seeing what I can do, or am I closed off by what I think I can’t do? And I say, if money ultimately gives us the ability to lead and brings out our leadership—and the fact is, we live material lives and need to live them—then hopefully, when we succeed and earn more, we’ll elevate it to holiness, as they say. We’ll serve Hashem with joy and raise our children better, with abundance and breathing room. That’s a good thing. Now, I think today we don’t have the luxury of living on salaries alone. On the one hand, we need money to support ourselves, and on the other hand, the value of money keeps falling. Quite the opposite: I think the lesson for this generation is to go from exile to Geulah financially too, not only within ourselves.

27:21 Speaker 3 Absolutely.

27:22 Speaker 2 Because it’s possible. It wasn’t possible before. It wasn’t possible on the scale that it is today.

27:26 Speaker 3 Not long ago I met a woman who earns a decent living and everything. She asked my advice about something she was thinking of doing, and I said, “What happened? What isn’t working about what you’ve been doing until now?” She told me, “My oldest son has started looking for a shidduch. We need to marry off our children.” And suddenly you think, wow, what a... It suddenly dawned on me what an enormous gap there is. You start a family, then the children reach the stage of going off to yeshivos, say, and expenses rise. Then suddenly you need to marry off children. If we just keep going along the same track, then...

28:03 Speaker 2 How?

28:03 Speaker 3 Where are we headed, as they say?

28:05 Speaker 2 Exactly. And it’s just—

28:06 Speaker 3 Thinking about it in advance can really change the whole picture. And more generally, as they say, may we celebrate happy occasions with a happy heart.

28:15 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

28:15 Speaker 3 So that we won’t be stressed about those things—

28:17 Speaker 2 Completely. So that we can come to a simcha and experience it as a simcha, not as—

28:22 Speaker 3 Yes.

28:23 Speaker 2 Listen, I can also say that being in a bad place financially is like being sick. It isn’t for nothing that the Torah says a poor person is considered as if dead, because your spirit is dead. You can’t allow yourselves to live that way. And yes, I want to tell people: look into it, because it’s possible for everyone. Let me really put myself—

28:42 Speaker 3 That’s the point I keep making. First of all, I think it really does take a little time to absorb that.

28:49 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

28:49 Speaker 3 Because so often we grow up with “Eat bread with salt,” with this idea of being ascetic. But that whole... it doesn’t fit our generation. What do I mean, “it doesn’t fit our generation”? I’m not dismissing Pirkei Avos—

29:00 Speaker 2 Right.

29:00 Speaker 3 But we really do see that Chassidus brought something new into the world, a mindset of abundance and all that. And sometimes it takes a little time to free ourselves from the mindset we grew up with.

29:14 Speaker 2 Yes.

29:15 Speaker 3 And then the next step is knowing that it really is possible. Knowing that it isn’t something out of reach, that it doesn’t belong to some other world separate from mine.

29:24 Speaker 2 That it’s for—

29:25 Speaker 3 The successful people, the ones who know how to do it. No, it really is relevant to every family. I’m not even talking about making it through the month, though plenty of families in Israel can’t even do that. That’s already another stage.

29:41 Speaker 2 That too.

29:41 Speaker 3 So I really want to—

29:42 Speaker 2 That too. And I also think there’s something here that, to my mind, is connected to the emunah and bitachon in the religious and Charedi communities. They’re more open-minded about real estate and investments. I see couples who have nothing and suddenly manage to acquire two or three apartments or investments—not necessarily physical apartments, but actual real estate investments. Last week, a Charedi couple from Beit Shemesh came to see me. They hadn’t managed to buy real estate, and they came to us and signed on a deal in Cyprus, as it happens. Then they left the room and he said to me, “Shani, in two years, right? This is already our fourth deal.”

30:22 Speaker 3 Wow.

30:23 Speaker 2 And I’m like, wow, this really is my shlichus. This is my shlichus. Nothing else matters to me; this is what makes me happy. I think the fact that today I bring people investment opportunities in places like Cyprus also came from that need to offer them something that will genuinely grow their wealth and generate passive income. Imagine a chareidi couple sitting with you, and the wife says to me, “Listen, I have a good job, I earn a good living, my husband learns Torah, but the cost of living is so high that I can’t... All I want is for him to keep learning Torah.” Wouldn’t you do everything you could to make that possible? You would. And when they’re ultimately able to buy a property that generates passive income, and suddenly the husband can keep learning Torah—there’s no greater shlichus than that. That’s really how I see it. And I have people who say, “We want to buy apartments for our children.” Not wait until the very end, but actually do it. There are groups within the chareidi community where buying apartments for the children is part of their outlook. So they come in saying, “It’s impossible.” And suddenly I tell them, “Wait, you own an apartment worth four million shekels with no mortgage. We can already get three apartments.” And they say, “How do you do that?” Then we work through the numbers, they get started, and they say to me, “We can’t believe it. Three of our children are covered already. Forget the fourth; he can sit in the street. We’ve got three.” I mean—

31:41 Speaker 3 Wow.

31:41 Speaker 2 Something like that. But in the end, these are people’s life goals, and it’s about being able to achieve them. I think there’s a lot of knowledge out there, and a lot of people... I look at this world of real estate and numbers, and some people have a mental block and say, “No, that’s, like—

31:55 Speaker 3 Not for me.

31:56 Speaker 2 Maybe one day I’ll get there, or my husband will deal with it.” And there are people who are really willing to open their minds and understand that it isn’t that complicated.

32:06 Speaker 3 To break through a barrier.

32:07 Speaker 2 It’s just an internal barrier. Exactly.

32:09 Speaker 3 Yes.

32:09 Speaker 2 It’s just internal. But first of all, I think that once we believe we can do it, that we’re worthy of it, that it’s possible for us, it becomes easier to break through that barrier.

32:21 Speaker 3 Right. I also think that when you hear that one woman did it, and another did it, and suddenly you’re like, “Wow, my cousin did it too,” it doesn’t seem so far away anymore. It becomes something where you say, “Let’s try it too. Let’s think about ourselves too.”

32:32 Speaker 2 Once, a woman who isn’t religious or observant at present invited me onto her podcast. She said to me, “Tell me, I have to ask you something. How does the chareidi community buy apartments? I mean, there’s no money there. Bnei Brak might be one of the poorest cities in the country—

32:49 Speaker 3 In terms of taxes, you mean?

32:52 Speaker 2 But everyone there buys apartments for their children. How does that happen?” I told her, “Listen, first of all, they spend all day in kollel. You can’t have better connections than that. One friend says, ‘Listen, I took out this kind of mortgage. Listen to what a mortgage adviser told me. He told me to do this. Listen, I bought this apartment. Look at the development over there.’” I’m telling you, I brought in a development in Kiryat Yam three months ago. One young chareidi man bought an apartment there and brought his whole yeshiva to buy.

33:16 Speaker 3 Oh, wow.

33:16 Speaker 2 It was a building where I found him an apartment. I named it after that young man. I said to him, “This is so-and-so’s building—

33:21 Speaker 3 Wow.

33:22 Speaker 2 Whatever his name was.” Yes. So, in short, what I’m saying is that there’s something within that community. You know, in the end, one person brings another. We see it in our own communities.

33:29 Speaker 3 A whole neighborhood.

33:29 Speaker 2 In the end, one brings another, and somehow that sense of community helps people break through, alongside their trust and faith in Hashem. I see that when people come to work through their finances, they trust in Hashem. Some go to a rabbi for a bracha and so on, but ultimately they trust in Hashem that the step they’re taking is a good one for them. The general public isn’t aware of this, and suddenly people reach thirty or forty without having bought an apartment. Then they say, “Wait, how is it possible? Apartments today cost two or three million. How could anyone come up with that kind of money? How could anyone take out a mortgage?” But if you had started small, built up your capital, kept going and moved forward... I see these differences. On one hand, you have people who didn’t necessarily grow up wealthy and don’t necessarily have to live in central Tel Aviv. They might even shop at three supermarkets to bring down the cost of Shabbos, yet they manage to buy apartments for their children—out of faith in themselves, faith in their values, and faith in Hashem. I think faith in Hashem gives you faith in yourself. There’s also a belief in buying property, and in the end, there are so many connections and such a strong community. On the other hand, you have a different group of people who don’t believe it’s possible, who don’t even believe such an option exists. The point is to help make it possible. I’ve worked out so many strategies in my life, with people who have absolutely nothing and with people who have a lot. Suddenly it’s a matter of changing your mindset and realizing that it’s possible. Let me tell you a story. A few weeks ago, a woman came to us who owns an apartment in Beit Shemesh worth three million shekels, with a mortgage of nearly a million shekels and a few loans as well. She pays eleven thousand shekels a month toward the mortgage and the loans. Okay.

35:09 Speaker 2 She came to us for help and said, “I don’t have any capital of my own. I don’t have anything. How can you say it’s possible for me? Where would the money come from? What am I supposed to do?” So I said to her, “Come, let me show you that it’s possible.” We looked at her mortgage and told her, “Listen, your monthly payment can stay at the same eleven thousand shekels, but I can release another seven hundred thousand shekels from your apartment for you to invest elsewhere.” And she went into two investments. Why am I telling you this? Because sometimes you don’t have to change anything in your life. You’re still paying the same eleven thousand shekels each month. What we actually did was refinance her mortgage and lower its cost, because she shouldn’t have been paying eleven thousand. Her mortgage was very expensive. We also rolled her loans into the mortgage and increased the mortgage amount—and all of it came to eleven thousand shekels a month.

35:55 Speaker 3 Like finding a treasure under the bridge.

35:56 Speaker 2 Right under the bridge. And that other woman who came yesterday—she does have the means. She came to us with three apartments worth about ten million shekels altogether and three hundred thousand shekels on the side, and she said, “I’ll save until I have half a million.” I asked her, “How much are your mortgage payments?” Those, too, came to around twelve thousand a month. I told her, “I can release another million and a half shekels for you to invest, and your life stays the same.” I mean, it’s the same monthly outlay. It’s not as though I’m saying—there are people I’ll ask, “Okay, listen, if I add two thousand shekels a month to your expenses, can you manage that?” And then they start thinking about whether they can. But for some people, the treasure really is right under the bridge. They just need to manage their finances differently.

36:38 Speaker 4 All these steps you’re talking about—the mortgage, refinancing a mortgage, releasing money—that’s exactly the part that sounds like Chinese to most people. That’s why I say knowledge is so powerful. I really want you to simplify these concepts a little and speak to the woman listening to you right now who’s thinking, “Wow, she’s in a completely different world. What does that have to do with me? I can’t make it to the end of the month. My husband and I earn minimum wage, and we can’t see how...” I mean, come on, everything is expensive. Everything, everything is expensive.

37:12 Speaker 2 Yes, everything is expensive, and prices are still going up. They’ll keep going up. I’m sure taxes will go up here after the war, too.

37:19 Speaker 4 Yes.

37:19 Speaker 2 And other costs will go up here too. There’s nothing we can do about that.

37:21 Speaker 4 So I want you to take these “magic tricks,” as I call them—because from the outside they sound like magic—and simply explain them to someone. Take a really typical case. How can a couple living on minimum-wage salaries, or even a woman whose husband is an avreich, reach the kinds of goals you usually set? I won’t define them.

37:43 Speaker 2 Look, it really varies from one situation to another. And I will say that everyone can do it, but the path will be different for each person. There could be a couple like you described, where only the wife works and earns minimum wage, the husband studies in kollel, they can’t make ends meet, and they have no savings and no help from their parents. You can’t work magic and buy them an apartment. That’s a long way off. They need to increase their income. They need to think about other solutions and establish some stability, with a higher level of income coming into the bank, so the bank will have confidence in them and be willing to give them an initial loan to begin the process of buying an apartment.

38:21 Speaker 4 That’s one part of the process, then.

38:22 Speaker 2 Exactly. That too. So their path will be longer. But on the other hand, there are people—and I mean completely ordinary people—where both spouses work, or the wife works in high tech and the husband studies in kollel, but their salaries are a bit higher and more stable. Even without savings, they can take out a relatively small loan today, of 150,000 or 200,000 shekels, and start investing. The thing is, people always think, “I’ll buy the apartment I want to live in,” which isn’t always the best financial move, if it is at all. Quite the opposite. It’s better to start investing, build capital, grow that capital, keep growing it, and eventually, when you have enough, live in an apartment of your own.

39:08 Speaker 4 That’s very Israeli. It’s like—

39:10 Speaker 2 Very Israeli, wanting to live in a home you own. By the way, elsewhere in the world, owning the home you live in isn’t an ideology. Sometimes the idea is דווקא to rent your home and rent out a property you own, because, say, in the United States, you might get a job that’s much farther away. You want to be free. The motto there is freedom, not being beholden to the banks. You can see that when interest rates rose in the United States, a lot of people sold their homes. So there are different ways of thinking. Here, we have this idea that owning a home means security. I ask: does a mortgage mean security? Not necessarily.

39:43 Speaker 4 And the home isn’t really ours.

39:44 Speaker 2 Because it isn’t—it isn’t really something tangible. But if I borrowed money from the bank and used it to make another 100,000, 200,000, or 300,000 shekels, that can give me security. If I borrowed money from the bank and used it to bring in another 2,000 or 3,000 shekels a month, that can give me more security.

40:02 Speaker 4 Mm.

40:02 Speaker 2 In other words, if we’re talking about real financial security, we can gain much more of it through investments—provided, of course, that we invest properly.

40:10 Speaker 4 Now explain in simple terms what an investment is, for someone hearing about it for the first time. She takes a loan from the bank, which she presumably has to pay for.

40:18 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

40:18 Speaker 4 So why is it worth it for her? What does she do with that money?

40:21 Speaker 2 I’ll get to that in a moment. Broadly speaking, investing means buying assets that make financial sense—real estate assets that make financial sense—for one of two purposes: either to grow your capital or to generate ongoing income. Okay? It can do both, but usually a deal will do more of one than the other. In other words, either it will grow your capital more, or it will generate more passive income. And when I borrow money from the bank, the details vary a lot. It depends on the kind of loan: a mortgage, a regular loan, a loan against a continuing-education fund. There are various options. Ultimately, I pay the bank interest, but that interest is tiny compared with what I earn from the investment. Say I borrowed a million shekels from the bank. Okay? I’m deliberately using the example of a one-million-shekel mortgage, and deliberately assuming a high interest rate of seven percent. I paid the bank 70,000 shekels in a year on that million shekels.

41:21 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

41:22 Speaker 2 Okay? Seventy thousand shekels a year. Over two years, that’s 140,000; over three years, it’s 210,000 shekels. Three years, 210,000 shekels. With a million shekels, I could have made a profit of a million in three years. In other words, I put in 210,000 shekels and made a million. By contrast, if I’d supplied the money myself, I would have put in a million and made a million.

41:46 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

41:46 Speaker 2 But if I borrowed it from the bank, I put in only 210,000 and made a million.

41:50 Speaker 4 So it’s about knowing how to make the right deals so that it really works.

41:54 Speaker 2 So that it—first of all, absolutely. It has to be tailored to the family’s financial situation and what they can afford. Because even if I borrow from the bank, if I don’t have the money to pay the bank each month, what good is it if the investment makes me a million shekels? I’ve still lost out, because I have to take out another loan to cover my day-to-day expenses. So it has to fit your personal circumstances. In fact, I also think that people don’t—as you said, when people see investments or see the figures, they get dazzled. I think that even within the world of investing, people don’t always invest wisely. They often invest because they’re following the crowd, because their neighbor said something, their friend said something. They haven’t done a thorough check. They don’t research the company enough, the people enough, or the deal itself. And what happens is that they make investments that don’t necessarily help them grow financially.

42:36 Speaker 4 Wow, that’s really important to say.

42:38 Speaker 2 Quite often people come to me and say, “Wait, but I made five percent on my money.” And I say, “That’s great—five percent was just the inflation rate.” So then you realize you haven’t made anything. He’s thinking, “Wow, I thought I’d made money,” but no, you haven’t moved forward by a single shekel. Quite the opposite: you paid taxes to the state on that five percent you earned.

42:52 Speaker 4 And that’s nothing compared with losing all your money in places that are—

42:55 Speaker 2 In other places—

42:55 Speaker 4 Risky.

42:56 Speaker 2 Which is why it’s so important to know how to make these deals, and with whom. And ultimately, I say: don’t just follow the crowd. You need financial planning. I always say that financial planning simply helps you make more money. At the end of the day, we invest to make money—whether it’s to raise our children, to allow a son to continue learning Torah, or for whatever else lies ahead. Okay? We want to generate more money. So set yourselves a challenge: over the next three to five years, you want to make as much money as possible. You could invest only your own savings, if you have 200,000 shekels. But if you also own an apartment or have a continuing-education fund, you could invest more money and then make more over the next five years. So financial planning is critical. How much can you borrow against your properties? How much can you borrow against your continuing-education fund? How large a loan can you take? And all of this has to fit your financial capacity. That means you really can make the payments each month, or structure deals that generate income and cover the mortgage. I hope I haven’t been speaking Chinese.

43:59 Speaker 4 Japanese.

44:00 Speaker 2 Japanese. So, ultimately, what I’m saying is that you need financial planning. Financial planning will help you make more money over the coming years. But it’s not just financial planning; you also need to find really, really good real estate investments.

44:11 Speaker 4 Which is actually, if I understand correctly, how you got into this. Or which came first, the chicken or the egg? You have these investments.

44:19 Speaker 2 I got into it, first of all, because of my own needs, for my children. But it very quickly became about helping other people.

44:28 Speaker 4 No, I mean, first you guided families and found various deals together, and then you created the investments you now offer.

44:36 Speaker 2 First, I—

44:36 Speaker 4 Or was it the other way around?

44:37 Speaker 2 First, I guided families in buying secondhand apartments. I would go around on foot, looking in different parts of the country.

44:42 Speaker 4 Oh, so yes. Okay.

44:43 Speaker 2 I’d find good deals below market price, guide people through the process, and they’d pay me for that guidance. Then it just grew and grew, and huge numbers of people came to me. I couldn’t handle the volume anymore, because each apartment really did mean going around on foot. So I started taking on projects where I’d go to a developer and say, “Listen, we’re buying thirty apartments here. Give us a price. We’re buying forty apartments here. Give us a price.” That way we’d get prices below market value, come as a group, and buy, buy, buy. Over time, I built up money from all that work guiding people, and then I said, “Wait, let me create another option for investors.” Take Cyprus, for example. Let me tell you a fascinating story.

45:16 Speaker 4 First, explain what that is. Yes.

45:18 Speaker 2 A fascinating story. This was a little before the war. A lot of the members of our investors’ club were talking about investing in Cyprus—how Cyprus was really hot and a very good place to invest. And we said, okay. Then the war began, and a lot of us in the investors’ club started saying—at first, like everyone else, that first week you don’t understand what’s happening. Everything is chaotic, you don’t know what to do, there’s a war going on. But pretty quickly we said to the investors’ club, “Guys…” We held Zoom sessions with them—sessions for encouragement and other sessions—and we said, “Friends, anyone’s financial situation here could change. Maybe your husband has been called up for reserve duty; maybe suddenly you’re running the business alone. Businesses change. Financial circumstances change. We’re here to give you everything you need, free of charge. We’re here to help you not just stay on your feet, but get through this period, because it’s a complicated time.” And then we suddenly realized there was a real need to create substantial passive income for families. Now, look, in Israel, if I buy an apartment for a million shekels, what does it generate? Even 500 shekels in rent isn’t substantial income. How do I really create substantial passive income for a family? There had been so many conversations about Cyprus, and I said, “I’m going to Cyprus.” Two and a half weeks after the war began, I was already on a plane to Cyprus. I looked at a great many deals. It was very important to me to get to know the market and study it. Eventually, I came to the plot of land we’d been discussing. It was just a few minutes from the airport and a few minutes from the sea. I saw the land, and it was possible to build private villas there. I said, “I don’t want villas. I want more than that.” So we changed its designation to apartments, and we got approval for a hundred

47:00 Speaker 2 apartments. After that, we expanded and expanded until we reached 304 apartments. It was a revolutionary change. Now, as our research there grew, we realized that the really strong market in Cyprus is tourism. There are two million residents, but four million tourists every year. So we checked a lot of properties there, including very old ones without any of the amenities we provide, and saw that apartments intended for Airbnb were rented out for nine months of the year. In other words, they were almost fully booked for nine to eleven months a year—and these were the most basic apartments imaginable. So we said, okay, let’s calculate it based not on nine months but on six. What kind of return would that give us in a pooled model? And we found that a family buying the most basic apartment there for 600,000 shekels—and they can also take out a mortgage on it—could generate around 4,500 to 5,000 shekels a month. Passively. Passive income, with a management company taking care of everything for them. And we said, “Guys, this is unbelievable.” We also suddenly realized that because of the tax policy there, a lot of technology companies are moving in. That brings an influx of students and working professionals. Intel is opening a branch there, as are Microsoft and Amdocs, and 500 technology companies are moving there. That means a lot of people in high-tech, too. We said, okay, let’s put coworking spaces in the complex and give them that option. Then we discovered that while we were improving the property, the market had risen enormously. In other words, what we’re selling people today for 130,000 euros is already worth 200,000 euros on the market. Every time we raise our price, the market rises too, and suddenly we’re seeing that people are doubling their capital there, if not more, while also earning very

48:46 Speaker 2 substantial passive income. And I say to myself, from the start, I was thinking about the investors. I wasn’t thinking, “Okay, let’s find where I can make the biggest profit, where I can make money on real estate deals right now.” I don’t travel the world looking for my place, because my place comes to me. It comes right to my door, baruch Hashem.

49:03 Speaker 5 That’s how it works. That’s how it works. Because when your inner purpose is focused on something real, then you’re aiming in the right direction, and that drives you.

49:12 Speaker 2 Yes.

49:12 Speaker 5 But when the goal is external, and I’m preoccupied with myself, then things slip through the cracks, so to speak.

49:17 Speaker 2 That’s exactly it. I think my whole story has always been about the clients and the people, in the end. And that’s why it works: because we care about them. No matter what happens. I mean, managing to make successful exits on different projects at a time when the whole market is frozen and interest rates are crazy—that’s unbelievable. It’s unbelievable. These are extraordinary things. But we’ve never seen people as money, and we’ve never put ourselves at the center. Do you understand what I’m saying? It always comes back to the why. And that, ultimately, is the real shlichus: enabling people to live better financial lives.

49:56 Speaker 5 Wow, that’s incredible. Really. You tell it so matter-of-factly: this went up, and this happened, and that happened. And I’m thinking about giving this opportunity to people who don’t understand any of it, who know nothing about it. They come to you and get the tools to do it. It’s incredible.

50:11 Speaker 2 Even with little starting capital. Look, we have investments that start at 200,000 shekels. An average family where both spouses work can afford to take out a 200,000-shekel bank loan. It’s entirely possible. I mean, it really is possible. Someone who can’t do it yet can work a little longer, get on a stable footing, and reach that point. But it’s possible for anyone. And I tell people: be the leaders of your home. Be the leaders of your family. Take these steps for your future and your children’s future, because otherwise you’ll regret not doing it. Later you’ll regret it and say, “Where was I when apartment prices were rising like that?”

50:47 Speaker 5 Yes, there’s this thing—I’m just joking—this certain type of person who always likes to say, “Look, I could have, if only I had… I have a friend who invested and made—”

50:57 Speaker 2 Yes.

50:57 Speaker 5 “But, well, somehow… fate just carries me along.” Whereas really understanding that the responsibility is in our hands, and that there’s something we can do about it—that’s what—

51:07 Speaker 2 It’s like… yes, it’s like the Rebbe says: either you’re a player or you’re a spectator.

51:12 Speaker 5 Yes, exactly. Absolutely. You can look at this whole world and say, “It has nothing to do with me; I’m on the outside.” But to really understand that it’s something… Look, even the fact that I suddenly thought of doing a podcast with you, and you’re sitting here saying this, and every woman who hears it—it’s all by Divine Providence. And I hope, I really hope, that it helps the girls.

51:31 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

51:32 Speaker 5 And—

51:32 Speaker 2 That it really helps people. Yes, I think that in the end… I think it’s not even just that we shouldn’t think… Earlier, you spoke to me about the whole idea of “eat bread with salt,” and I think that refers to something very specific. Meaning, if that’s what you have, then eat even bread with salt, but study Torah.

51:52 Speaker 5 Don’t give up Torah.

51:52 Speaker 2 But don’t give up Torah. I don’t think that’s really the way of life Hakadosh Boruch Hu expects from us. Otherwise, why did He give us abundance? After all, there is a flow of abundance. Why does a person feel that there’s abundance? Abundance isn’t only money; abundance is health.

52:03 Speaker 5 Right.

52:04 Speaker 2 Abundance is… abundance is everything. It’s being able to see, to hear, to walk. It’s your home; it’s everything. Everything is abundance. Now, I wouldn’t tell my daughter, “Be sick so you’ll appreciate your health.” So I wouldn’t say, “Be poor so that…” Or withhold money from my daughter now so that she’ll appreciate happiness. Do you understand what I’m saying?

52:26 Speaker 5 Yes.

52:26 Speaker 2 This is abundance. Abundance exists, and we need to use it as abundance. Abundance is a good thing, not a bad thing. Now, if someone takes that abundance and uses it for something bad, that’s another story. But if we’re good people and take it somewhere good—for avodas Hashem, for our inner path, for our children’s security, for educating and raising children—there’s nothing wrong with that. Just believe that it’s meant for you. Quite the opposite: I think that’s the effort a person does need to make.

52:53 Speaker 5 Completely.

52:54 Speaker 2 That’s the game, in the end.

52:55 Speaker 5 Absolutely.

52:56 Speaker 2 We’re living here in a kind of game, and this is the material-world game. You have to play it.

53:00 Speaker 5 How do—one more question I have to ask: where are your daughters in all of this?

53:05 Speaker 2 My daughters.

53:06 Speaker 5 Are they involved? You said your oldest just finished fifth grade, right?

53:11 Speaker 2 Yes. My oldest finished fifth grade, the middle one finished third, and the youngest is starting kindergarten.

53:16 Speaker 5 I’m also asking—

53:16 Speaker 2 Aryeh[?].

53:18 Speaker 5 Because it’s interesting. There are families where they just don’t talk about money, and in your home it’s probably much more present.

53:25 Speaker 2 It is.

53:25 Speaker 5 The whole world of deals and real estate, like I said, it’s—

53:30 Speaker 2 My youngest walks around the house with a phone. You know how kids walk around with a phone and talk?

53:34 Speaker 5 Closing deals.

53:36 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. “We’ll meet,” and all that. But they do, they really do. Money is pres— Look, I’ll explain it like this. We talk about it a lot. They also see it firsthand; they experience it. They go to school, and their teachers tell them they follow me and see what I do, and that they come and invest. They talk to them about it: “How’s your mother?” “Where’s your mother?” and—

53:56 Speaker 5 In the end, their parents’ world is always part of their world. You can’t separate the two.

54:00 Speaker 2 Yes, so they’re very much living it wherever they go. “Did you hear? You’re Shani Bell’s daughter. We saw you on—” Because people see them. I share my life, and they live it, so of course it’s part of their lives. I can tell you that my oldest is very entrepreneurial by nature. With every bit of money she earned, she’d go and buy things, like supplies to learn how to do gel nails, because she wants to start a business. She’s always thinking, “Mom, maybe I’ll make cakes and take pictures of them.” She has this very business-minded way of thinking. There was a point when I said, “I don’t want this. I don’t want her getting into the business world so young, because she’s still a child. I want her to enjoy her childhood.” But when I saw that it was really coming from her, I let her pursue it and gave her room to grow. We talked about it. If she were to start a business, for example, there would be expenses as well as income, and she’d need to put money aside in case unexpected things came up. So they’re a bit more immersed in that world, and they understand it. Look, at the end of the day, they see me. I’m present at home. They see a happy mother, which to me matters more than anything, and they really appreciate it. That’s what I feel and experience: they really appreciate it and love it.

55:09 Speaker 5 They really experience the positive side of it, the way you do. It comes across, because if you live it, then...

55:14 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. They talk about it too. I can hear it in the things they say. And sometimes, you know, they open YouTube and search for Shani Bell, just to—

55:26 Speaker 5 How sweet.

55:26 Speaker 2 See their mom. So yes, they think that way; they’re very much in that world. And yes, I think it’ll be good for them. Look, I’ll tell you something about me, since we’re talking about it. It started out being for the children, after all—to give them a good life and a certain mindset and everything. I think that today, they’re living it. If you ask me whether I’ve ultimately achieved my goal, today they’re living it. They live with an awareness of abundance, with a lot of giving and a lot of gratitude in their lives. And there’s a saying we repeat at home. It’s really the—maybe I didn’t know how to put it, the heading—but one of the most important things I teach my children at home is this: at any given moment, you have all the tools you need to be happy with what you have.

56:16 Speaker 5 Wow.

56:17 Speaker 2 And we talk about it a lot, all the time. Like, “Wait, what do you have right now that can help you be happy?” I think that’s true happiness. That’s abundance, not money.

56:27 Speaker 5 Absolutely.

56:28 Speaker 2 It’s that they ultimately fulfill their potential. I see them creating and having an impact. My oldest is always volunteering at school to put on the plays that will have the greatest impact and do the most—she’s the type to take initiative. So to me, that’s everything. Ultimately, they’re taking the tools they have and putting them to use, because when I’m doing something, making something, I also feel fulfilled. To me, that’s true abundance. So I see it and experience it with them. And I think that in recent years especially, I’ve really made a point of having more experiences with them. Because, baruch Hashem, we really do have a life of abundance, but I want us to share as many experiences as possible.

57:13 Speaker 5 As opposed to, uh...

57:14 Speaker 2 As opposed to before. Because before, too—come on, even here—

57:17 Speaker 5 No, I mean as opposed to material things.

57:20 Speaker 2 Yes. No, material things too, in the end. I mean, if it’s going to the pool, that’s...

57:25 Speaker 5 That’s an experience.

57:26 Speaker 2 It’s an experience, right, but it’s—ultimately, it’s about connecting. Look, my home is a very open home. My whole family comes over a lot. There are always guests, always people. So my girls are growing up in a very lively environment, but it’s important to me to spend time with them, too. So about once a week, I go out with a different daughter, for something more, uh, more—

57:47 Speaker 5 Quality time.

57:48 Speaker 2 A personal experience with her, yes. Because they’re getting older, they’re developing, they want to understand the world, they’re already—

57:53 Speaker 5 Yes.

57:53 Speaker 2 There’s a lot going on at that age already.

57:54 Speaker 5 Right, two more teenagers, that’s...

57:57 Speaker 2 Yes. Listen, I used to have this thought: I don’t want to become a very, very successful career woman and then grow older, look back and say, “There aren’t enough children here.” As in, they’ve gone off and each one has made a life somewhere else, and there aren’t enough children around. So I had that conversation with myself, because family and children really are the essence of it for me. That’s how I see it. Family and children are what it’s all about. I think that, in the end, this is for them and because of them. So over the years I really said, “That’s it, I want them close to me. I want us to share as many experiences as possible, and I want us to have as much fun as possible.” And if life makes that possible, that’s wonderful. Listen, when I was growing up, I would never have imagined going on vacation with my parents. It just wasn’t possible. And how wonderful that it’s possible now. We’re sharing experiences together. You understand?

58:48 Speaker 5 Yes. One last question.

58:51 Speaker 2 Go for it.

58:52 Speaker 5 What’s your dream?

58:53 Speaker 2 What a great question. I’m living it, and I want to keep doing the same thing, just reaching more people. That’s it.

59:02 Speaker 5 Bringing more families to that place.

59:04 Speaker 2 Bringing more families to that place.

59:06 Speaker 5 Wow. Beautiful. Shani—

59:07 Speaker 2 To a place of creating, fulfilling their potential, and making an impact.

59:10 Speaker 5 Thank you. Shani Bell.

59:11 Speaker 2 Yes.

59:12 Speaker 5 Thank you so much for coming.

59:13 Speaker 2 Thank you so much.

59:13 Speaker 5 And thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. It was really, really important to me to have an episode like this that actually talks about— We talk—I talk a lot on the podcast about—what do I mean, “a lot”? The podcast is called “Shlichus as a Way of Life,” and it’s about how each woman can bring herself into the world, and about hearing different stories of shlichus. And I’m saying, this is an aspect we hadn’t brought in, a subject we hadn’t talked about.

59:32 Speaker 2 Yes.

59:32 Speaker 5 And it’s so, so, so important. So thank you. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

59:35 Speaker 2 Thank you so much. I say this is our shlichus, for our children and for our future. Because ultimately, we can decide—statistics say that children generally end up at the same standard of living they grew up with, even after they get married, in the same socioeconomic position. And I say the opposite. Life today gives us opportunities. We can see it. Forget about me—sixteen-year-olds today are doing incredible things on social media.

59:58 Speaker 5 Absolutely.

59:58 Speaker 2 They’re earning a lot. So what I’m saying is that the world is giving us Geulah today. I can’t stay at home and say, “I’m staying in galus.”

1:00:07 Speaker 5 Yes, you have to live it.

1:00:08 Speaker 2 You have to live it.

1:00:09 Speaker 5 Exactly.

1:00:09 Speaker 2 Look, for your future, for your family’s future, and for the future of your life, take steps.

1:00:14 Speaker 5 Really, wow. Thank you, Shani.

1:00:16 Speaker 2 Thank you so much. This was wonderful.