Rabbi Evan Moffic discusses how King Solomon was able to amass so much in life. He illustrates 6 reasons and then relates it to our current society and how we can be similar to King Solomon. Rabbi Moffic talks about the importance of focusing in a distracted world. That focus will give us a unique advantage in achieving success. He ends with how we should collaborate with people at times and how we should choose when to say yes or no.
Announcer 0:02
Welcome to the Solomon Success Show where we explore the timeless wisdom of King Solomon and the Bible as it relates to business and investing false prophets and get rich quick schemes are everywhere. Let’s not be distracted by these. Instead, let’s go to the source, the eternal principles that create a life of peace, power and prosperity. Here’s our host, Jason Hartman.
Rabbi Evan Moffic 0:32
Welcome to the Solomon success Show. I’m Rabbi Evan malefic. I’m a friend and client of Jason’s, and he was kind enough to invite me to co host this show with him. This is a show dedicated to Biblical wisdom and how we can use that wisdom to live a life of wealth, of happiness, of freedom. This is really the only show I know of like that and It’s truly amazing because the Bible that we have what we call the Solomon success principles truly are the oldest and most effective and meaningful guides that we have for living a life of true wealth and happiness, not just wealth as a material wealth, although that’s important, but true wealth, which is time, freedom, and happiness. And one of the reasons Jason asked me to co host this is I’m a rabbi, so I’m drawing from Jewish tradition. But I draw from it in a way that speaks to people of all faiths. I’ve written books about the Jewishness of Jesus and what Christians should know about Jewish holidays. My strength as a rabbi, my passion as a rabbi is drawing from Jewish wisdom to teach people of all faiths and we need wisdom in the search for wealth and happiness. We need that more than we need any more get rich quick schemes or new techniques. I mean, those some of those new techniques, new ideas, As new thinking that’s important, but there’s a lot of time tested wisdom that we find in the Bible. And that’s what we’re going to unpack today. And we’re going to unpack that today by addressing an interesting question. How did Solomon become so rich? Isn’t that an interesting question? We know he was the richest man alive in history until maybe until Jeff Bezos, but at that time, and perhaps Solomon was more relatively wealthy, you know, we have to account for inflation, we have to account for many other factors. But be that to say Solomon was the richest man of his time, and he was also the wisest man of his time. How did he get there? We could say simply, God blessed him with wealth. That would be one kind of theological answer, a simple answer, an easy answer, and perhaps that might be the right answer. But I think we can answer it more specifically in more in depth and more in a way that gives us each of us You who are listening to this podcast who are searching for that wisdom, it can give us some good answers. So let’s look more closely at how Solomon got his wealth and how those insights his steps can help us. The first way Solomon succeeded Solomon became wealthy was through location, right. You hear Jason is quoted this many times in real estate, its location, location, location. And Solomon was the king of Judah of Israel. And the main city was Jerusalem, which is a fortified city on top of one of the world’s busiest in most productive trade routes. So in a sense, Solomon controlled the city that was in a great location, and it was a fortified city. So if people wanted to come into that city and spend the night there as they were on their trading route, they had to pay a fee. So Solomon was in the right place at the right time, kind of like that. Building I just read an interesting book about Henry Flagler, who essentially helped create the city of Miami of Palm Beach, even of St. Augustine, the modern modern resort area in St. Augustine in Flagler knew exactly where to put his hotel. And then he helped make it a great destination. But having a building a house in a great location, makes all the difference. And so the fact that Jerusalem sits where it sits, if you’ve ever been to Jerusalem, even looked at it from the sky or looked at it from maps, it’s this very protected city in a just beautiful place, hard to get to, in some ways, hard to attack, and yet also very centrally located. So Solomon, by erecting his power was really his father David, who made Jerusalem the capital of Israel. But through that great location, Solomon was able to attain great wealth in a sense by charging fees by being a great place where people stop On their way back and forth from other countries and other tribes and groups. For each of us, as we think about what is our unique advantage doesn’t actually have to be a location. What do we have, that no one else has? Do we perhaps have a certain skill? Maybe you’re really good at working with people? You’re just a great networker. How can you take that networking skill and use it to help yourself and serve others? As Solomon was able to take Israel’s great location, use it to build wealth and serve others? Perhaps you have a certain mathematical skill? Maybe you’re really good at running numbers, how can you use that skill? To improve your livelihood? We have to in a way look for where we have unique competitive advantages. God blesses each of us with unique skills, and part of growing part of life is discovering those skills, and discovering those skills can bring us greater wealth. Second part of how Solomon became wealthy is that he had focus. He had focus now, Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. He’s one of the most powerful books of the Old Testament. In fact, we should do a whole class a whole session on the book of Ecclesiastes eats because it is very powerful. And one of the themes of Ecclesiastes is Solomon search for focus. He goes through all these phases in life, he goes to this phase where it’s eat, drink, and be merry, where he’s a pure hedonist and just parties and indulges. And then he goes through a phase where he just works and works and works and just, you know, makes money doing all kinds of different things. And then we reach the end, where he, his sole focus is obedience to God’s will. He does what he’s put on earth to do. And that’s when he attained that greater wealth, the significant wealth, and when we focus, when we know who we are and what we’re good at And we preserve that focus, keep that focused wealth and riches will follow. True. And not just wealth and riches. I mean, we talked about that. But we also always have to remember that when I say the word wealth and riches, I’m not just talking about material wealth that’s in a way secondary. The real wealth is happiness is meaning is the relationships is the sense of a life well lived. That’s true wealth. And that can only come with focus. There’s a great saying in the in sort of internet life, business life, the riches are in the niches. And a niche is when you focus on some unique service, something only you can provide that you’re a problem that only your product fixes. So where is your focus? In a way growing up maturing is about finding that focus. One of my focus, I guess, is the plural of focus. One of my focus sigh is teaching about Judaism to people of all faiths. Of course, I teach about Judaism in a synagogue I serve a large synagogue I work hard. I teach lots of classes in the Jewish community. But one of my greatest foe sigh where I focus a lot of my attention is on providing wisdom, Jewish insights for people who aren’t Jewish, who aren’t familiar with it because I can deliver it in a open and universal way. And that’s something that I love to do. And that’s something that’s driven by books and one of the reasons people buy those books. And so if we can find where we can focus, and the enemy of focus is distraction. And we know distractions are everywhere. today. It is so easy to be distracted, or distracted by email or distracted by notifications for distracted by Facebook, there’s so many distractions. So focus is an extremely powerful, competitive advantage. If we can find our focus. We can succeed we can find that wealth we’re looking for. And God intends us to find that focus. Each of the different leaders in the Bible, they all have different focuses. They all have different folks site and their focus and their discernment of God’s Will Where they should put their attention is what leads them to holiness. Third important thing Solomon does, that helps him gain wealth. He said he relies on other people. You know, one of the great myths of America and it’s a good myth. I’m not saying that in a negative way. But one of the parts of the American Dream is pulling ourselves up from the bootstraps, self sufficiency, independence. But truly, we can never realize our full potential all alone. We need other people. And I’m not just talking about simple delegation. Simply we need people to compliment us. None of us are perfect in everything we need to rely on on the labor of others. You know that the best real estate investors as Jason has told us many times, you need to build a team. You need someone who can help with your accounting, your insurance, your mortgage, your mortgage lender, you need a team. You need people around you who can fill in the gaps that you can’t fill in so you can focus On focus again, so you can focus on what you’re really good at and where you add the most value. Solomon had a team, he brought in immigrants from the neighboring country of Tyre to help build the temple. Solomon had great advisors from other places. Solomon had a wonderful team of people that helped him build wealth. And all of us can do that. We need to benefit from other people’s expertise and other people’s work. I had a president of my first synagogue, he always used to say to me, because early in my career, I like most people wanted to do everything myself, I figured I know best I can do it, I can lead. And what he often used to say is leadership is getting things done through other people. I think about that all the time. Solomon knew how to get things done through other people. Fourth important part and this is related fourth important thing Solomon did. Solomon had a really, really good network. He He had a lot of connections, a lot of relationships that helped him grow wealthy. Now, part of the way Solomon built that that network is that he married lots and lots of women.
Rabbi Evan Moffic 11:11
That was one of the ways of building a network back then is through marriage. That obviously is not something we do today. We don’t marry multiple wives or multiple husbands in order to build a network that can help make us wealthy. We’ve are not at that point in human history. But the principle still applies. that a big part of success of wealth of achieving the kind of life we want to achieve is knowing the right people. Who can you go to when you have questions? Who are your mentors? Who are your partners, who are your advisors, who are your friends, all of that matters? We have to go out and build that network. In order to do that. We also have to serve others. You know, I often tell my kids to have friends you have to be a good friend. And that’s part of the same thing in a network in order to find partners in order To find people who will support you, you have to support others. There’s also something I’m not saying, you know, Solomon, married, princesses, Queens from other places in a way to attain wealth because they had wealth. I’m not saying when about your network, it’s not about finding rich people. That’s not at all what I’m saying. Although if you are gathering investments and things, it’s good to know people who have resources, I’m talking more about people who share your values, who people who will look out for your best interests or who, who you share interests with, they may not always be looking out for your best interest, people look out for their own best interest. But hopefully you can figure out a way to align those interests. So like Solomon, you have to build a team, build a network of people around you, who you can trust, who can help you find good ideas, investments to pursue if that’s what you’re doing other relationships to help you and your own business if that’s what you’re doing simple friendships. You know, Friends can enrich our own lives. So always be looking out for new networks, new relationships that we can build. Fifth, and perhaps the most important thing Solomon had, what led him to build great wealth is that Solomon had wisdom. Now, that’s kind of a vague term. What does it mean to have wisdom? Can we wish we all were wise? Well, one of the interesting things about Solomon is we know that wisdom was what was most important to him. There’s that beautiful verse. I think it’s in Second Kings where Solomon asks for one thing, and he says, God, give me a discerning heart. A discerning heart is a wise heart. Wisdom is what can help us understand what true wealth is. And perhaps the greatest thing that we often do all of us is that we confuse materials. we confuse a net worth with true worth with true wealth. That’s not what Solomon did. Solomon may have had a high net worth, but he also knew That our true wealth, our true sense of happiness comes from guiding principles, relationships, faithfulness, a larger purpose of serving others. That is wisdom. Wisdom is also the word discernment comes from the same root as to separate to distinguish between two things. And wealth is the ability to distinguish between what’s important and what’s not. The wisest people, and often the wealthiest people know what to say no to and what to say yes to, there’s an ability to discern and find that wisdom. And that’s only something that can be gained through experience. That wisdom, some of it comes from growing up around the right people. But a lot of it also just comes from experience. And so we go out and have those experiences in life in that gives us the wisdom that we need and a final bonus insight. From Solomon’s life, his service, the wealthiest people in the world right now, let’s just say Bill Gates, although he’s not the wealthiest anymore, but his products served others, they solved problems that other people had. I don’t know who said this, maybe it was your own Brook. And I also think I’ve heard other people say this, but Bill Gates did more good building Microsoft than Mother Teresa may have done in the slums of India, not saying that what she did was bad at all. It was incredible. And her selflessness is so inspiring. But Bill Gates solved problems for people through his products, and that led to great wealth. And then Bill Gates took that wealth and used it to solve other problems. We’re going to talk about that in another episode. So the wealthiest people who can then make the biggest difference in the world, figure out how to serve others. Solomon, one of the reasons we remember him is he served others and the symbol of that service is his construction of the temple in Jerusalem. His greatest act was not the wealth that he built. But the fact that he took that wealth and built this great temple a symbol of service to God, even the Hebrew word for worship. avodah also means to serve. So true wealth comes from service, service to God and service to others. And that’s what Solomon continues to teach us. Talk to you next time. Remember to leave a rating and review. If you enjoyed this episode. If you didn’t need to leave, leave a review, but if you did, I would so appreciate it. If you could, you could leave us a review on iTunes. It makes a huge difference. And I hope that I am serving you that Jason is serving you through this podcast. Sheila.
Announcer 16:43
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