What is the real secret to building wealth?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau answers that wealth does not mainly come from intelligence, timing, or luck, the things most people credit. Does it come from those? “Not always,” he says. “It's actually one thing: stamina.”
He defines it simply: “The ability to lose everything and show up Monday morning anyway.” For the ones who made it, he says, even bankruptcy “was actually chapter two.”
What blocks stamina is fear. “The fear of losing everything is the exact thing keeping you from gaining anything,” because “you cannot play big while protecting small.” Someone who spends all his energy guarding what he has, he teaches, cannot reach for more; the one who keeps going after a fall is the one who builds.
Related concepts: Success · Entrepreneur
In A Soul at Peace: Growing Brighter, Until Full Day
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
Lasting success comes from stamina more than intelligence, timing, or luck.
Fear, vulnerability, or tension
The fear of losing everything keeps people small.
Deepest human truth
In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau calls showing up on Monday morning and keeping on with the work “a real act of faith.”
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Wealth, Work, and Divine Sustenance · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz