"No, I'm not giving financial advice or something else - just a thought from this week...love your comments"
Dear Friends,
When people are discussing new businesses and ideas, financial situations and investments, you may often hear, “What’s the ROI?” Or, “How do you think we can monetize this?”
This week I thought about this concept. Sometimes you have people who have great ideas for family, business, ideas on improving the world, or some who just want to spend some time with their community and family. But then the question arises: "That's fine, but what’s the ROI?"
Let me tell you about entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, a big wine vendor who increased his father’s wine business big time, in a span of a few years. Along with many other business ventures, he now has one of the largest websites selling wines and much more. How did he do this? He would simply answer people's questions about wine on Twitter and other forums. He listened and cared. His manner drew people to him, they eventually loved what he had to say, and began coming to his website to buy from him. In one instance while he was sharing advice at a business summit, someone asked him a question about one of his strategies.
”Really Gary, tell us, what’s the ROI to that?”
His response was, “What’s the ROI of my mother?” He followed up by saying that his mother was everything to him: his passion, determination, courage, kindness. His whole approach of not giving up, his approach to truly care about the customer came from his mother.
The message that I took away from this was: Do the right thing. Be kind. Listen to others. Truly be there for others in a real way. You may ask, “What’s the ROI?" Well, you may not be able to see it right away, but I promise you will eventually be able to monetize it in a huge way. I don't mean 'monetize' literally, I mean much more: Just as you don't capitalize on an investment overnight, your 'return' on doing the right thing will return manifold, but perhaps in years to come and in ways you didn't imagine.
On Wednesday, I flew with my son to DTW airport to send him off to an overnight camp in Kalkaska MI where I went as a child. We talked, we laughed and it was just so special. Then add to this, coming back to Chabad and seeing the floods of our precious children/campers at the camp having such an incredible time. Yes, this is our 'investment' -- this is all we need.
Wishing you all a great Shabbat,
Rabbi Fishel