The Secret to a Successful Business

Business – or Charity? 

I started a business selling items, which was medium size. I had workers, and a large business space. Between all the expenses, I needed 100,000 shekels just to start making any money! Besides which, I worked like a dog 12+ hours a day. Even when I wasn’t working, I was stressed to the max about the business, and whether I would even cover my expenses that month. The only thing I had to myself was a small island of time – my hour of personal prayer every day. 

After a couple weak months, the business was failing. Suddenly I realized – I am bringing income to everyone – except myself! I am bringing money to the federal and city government. I am bringing income to a few families, and to the other business that I buy my stuff from, along with the delivery company, the owner of the building I rent from, etc. etc. Everyone was making money – except me! And I was the one suffering the most! 

I almost went out of my mind. All I could think about was how to reduce expenses. Maybe I can adjust the rental contract, maybe I can get my workers to accept lower pay, maybe I can work out a better contract for the items that I buy. Anything – just that for all my hours and hours of work, I should actually make something for myself! 

The Big Change 

On one particular day, I totally lost it at work – and realized that I had only one place to go to left. And that is straight to the field, straight to The Almighty G-d Himself. I turned off my phone, and went to my favorite place to be totally alone and speak to Hashem. I started to tell Hashem the entire story, from the beginning. I got out all of my deepest fears, worries, and my burning anger over the situation. Then, I decided to do The Law of Todah. 

After I finished my fifteen minutes of thanking Hashem for all this suffering, plus eight times Psalm 100 “A Psalm of Thanksgiving,” I felt relaxed for the first time that I could remember in a long time. A heavy burden had been taken off my heart, and off my shoulders. 

But the biggest miracle, was that I started to be able to think clearly, without being overwhelmed by a storm of negative emotions. I started to be able to hear the voice of emuna within me, directing me to where I had veered from the straight path. 

Suddenly, I realized that I am not in business with anyone in the world. As long as I think that I have a business with this one or that one, I am stuck in one gigantic mistake. In reality, I have a business with two people, and no more – and I have to get it out of my head that I am in business with anyone else. 

The first person that I am in business with, is the Creator of the World of course. Only He determines how much I will make in any given year, and only He holds the key to income. I cannot make any more money that He has allotted me. 

The second person that I am in business with, is myself. I have to work on myself. I have to try to fix my negative character traits and correct my mistakes.  I have to learn  emuna  and  work to strengthen it. I have to work harder to trust Hashem, and realize that I am ultimately in His hands, and His hands alone.  

Hence, when it comes to the business, I cannot take anyone else into consideration. It doesn’t matter how much anyone else is making. I run my business with  seata  Dishmaya  (Divine Assistance) and ignore them. Good luck – it has nothing to do with me. 

At that moment, I did teshuva and apologized to G-d for all of the thoughts that I was thinking before, which I realized were just the advice of the Evil Inclination, and were absolutely against emuna and the truth that I have learned from Rabbi Arush shlita. I decided that I was going to stop eating myself alive with thoughts about others, jealousy, etc. and instead, work on strengthening my emuna and looking absolutely only to Hashem. Enough confusions! Time to start living the truth, and simple belief in G-d. 

I then decided to do The Law of Thank You again – this time, on the suffering that I had experienced until that moment due to my lack of emuna. There is a G-d in this world, and everything that He does is for the best. My only job is to say thank you for whatever I get – and that’s it. 

The entire rest of that month, I did The Law of Thank You every day. And that month – my sales were four times higher than the best month I had ever had to date! Granted the situation in the marketplace, such a gigantic jump was completely unnatural and unheard of. I learned then, that when G-d wants to give you income, He can do so without any limitations. 

Needless to say, if I had thanked Hashem before for my suffering, now I started thanking Hashem many times over. I thanked Hashem for the abundance, I thanked Hashem for the instant and overwhelming change in situation – a total miracle. I especially thanked Hashem for enabling me to do teshuva, and to fix the root cause of the problem. I thanked Hashem for my newfound clear thinking and emuna, and for the tension which was no longer my constant companion. 

I Said Thank You and Saw Miracles! 

This is the end of the story of my close student. I want to point out of a few important aspects to this story: 

First off, we see from this the awesome power of daily personal prayer. Personal prayer gives a person stability. Even we find ourselves in the most difficult and stressful situation, we can create an island of peace within the storm. Not only can we get a much-needed break from the rat race, but we actually receive from this time newfound strength, and much needed good advice which improves the rest of our lives. The cherry on top: We receive blessing and salvation from Hashem. 

Secondly, this story teaches us some very important foundations in proper belief and trust in Hashem regarding our income. And really – the area of making a living is the litmus test of a person’s true level of belief and trust in Hashem! Each and every one of us needs to strengthen ourselves with the truth that we learn from this story, with all of our strength. 

And of course, we also learn from here the power of thanking Hashem for our suffering and doing The Law of Thank You. 

Why are you thanking Hashem? Because in every suffering, G-d  is pushing  you to strengthen your emuna, to learn something new, to change your thinking and your focus and to return to Him. If this student had not experienced those hard months, he might have never been pushed to fix the real issue – which was himself.  

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If you also have a “Say Thank You and See Miracles” story you would like to share, please send it to us! Stories may be posted on our website anonymously and sent to Rabbi Arush.  

 
Please email rachel.avrahami@breslev.co.il  with your story.