Beyond Stereotypes: The Success Principles of Jewish Communities in Business and Family

What fundamental principles create lasting success across generations? In this compelling conversation with Eric, a third-generation business leader from Charleston's historic Jewish community, we explore how cultural values, disciplined work ethic, and family-centered traditions build foundations for achievement that transcend time and circumstances.

Charleston once housed America's largest Jewish population, a surprising fact that opens our discussion on how religious freedom shaped American communities. Eric shares his experience growing up in this vibrant cultural setting, where education was paramount and traditions like weekly Shabbat created powerful family bonds. These aren't just religious practices but value systems that foster excellence – explaining why small populations like Jewish and Asian communities have contributed disproportionately to global innovation and business success.

Against the backdrop of rising anti-Semitism, we examine how ignorance rather than inherent hatred drives most prejudice. Eric's daughter's work educating fellow students demonstrates how personal stories transform understanding. The conversation shifts to how social media has fundamentally altered human interaction, potentially limiting the critical thinking and relationship-building skills essential for business success.

Eric's remarkable journey from working in his family's men's store to leading manufacturing and retail operations reveals timeless leadership principles: listen to your employees, empower decision-making, hire people smarter than yourself, and create cultures where everyone feels ownership. His third-generation company's evolution from domestic production to international manufacturing embodies the resilience required in modern business.

Whether you're building a business, raising a family, or seeking personal growth, these insights on work ethic, cultural understanding, and leadership will inspire you to create lasting value in whatever you pursue.

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Episode Transcript

narrator (00:12):
Welcome to Real People , Real Life.

Eric Krawcheck (00:16):
The Jewish population makes up 0.02% of the
population in the world and 20%of the billionaires are Jewish
world and 20 of the billionairesare jewish.
And it has nothing to do witholigarch or being criminals or
whatever.
It's because in the jewishculture people work hard, they
study hard.
Um, you know, you think aboutwhat the jewish population has
brought to society.

(00:38):
Look at your cell phone, lookat uh, you use ways you you know
.
I mean it just goes on and onand on.
A lot of things that havehappened in medicine.

Ryan Sharrott (00:51):
Well, there's a reason why discipline, religion,
family values result in successand excellence.
You see it in the Asiancommunity as well.
Once all that falls apart andany government, their number one
thing, any controllinggovernment and or dictatorship

(01:11):
or some of these terriblegovernments have been through
history First thing to do isbreak.
Break apart the family, breakapart the church or the religion
.
You know, when you break apartthe foundational disciplines,
it's really disciplines.
It's things that people havelearned to work hard at.

Eric Krawcheck (01:32):
But anyways, you ready?
I agree, I mean, I think thatit's that, but also it's also
culture and how you're raisedand how you grew up.
And I mean everybody thinks, oh, all the Jews are rich.
Well, first of all, that's nottrue.

Ryan Sharrott (01:43):
Just like everyone thinks, anyone who owns
a business is rich, right whichis not true.

Eric Krawcheck (01:47):
They're the ones who take the risk.
But the one thing in mostJewish families I can't speak
for all of them because I don'tknow all of them education is
very important, and so you workhard so that, hopefully, the
next generation can do better,and so you spend what you have
to spend in order for yourchildren to get great education

(02:08):
so that they can betterthemselves and pass it along
Right, and I think that that's.
I mean, that says a lot.

Ryan Sharrott (02:12):
Well, putting your family first, putting your
children first.
I mean you grew up.
I mean, basically, you grew upin a Jewish family.
You grew up in South Carolina,correct?
Mm-hmm?
Now I think you corrected me,because I'm like oh, it doesn't
seem like there's a lot of jewsin south carolina and you think
actually it used to be heavilypopulated yeah, charleston used

(02:34):
to have the largest jewishpopulation uh in the country,
and that goes back a long, longtime yeah, it's an early
settlement right, right, that'sexactly right and then they
moved to New York.

Eric Krawcheck (02:43):
A lot of well.
It's not that they necessarilymoved to New York, but because
of, you know, going throughEllis Island, you know all the
people that came over,especially, you know, pre-world
War II and during the Holocaust,when people were escaping
Europe, they all were coming toNew York.
So they settled in New York.
Right all coming through NewYork.
So they settled in New York.

(03:03):
So my great-grandfather on mydad's side, they all came over
from Poland back in the early1900s it was before any of the
wars and my grandfather cameover.
He was like one.
So my great-grandfather was avery religious Orthodox Jew.
So my great-grandfather was avery religious Orthodox Jew and

(03:25):
when any of the rabbis wouldcome down from New York to visit
, they always stayed with mygrandfather because he had a
kosher house and he was veryreligious.
I never knew him, I just knowthe stories of him.
Whatever, and the thing is so,there's always been a really
good Jewish population here inCharleston.
Currently we have foursynagogues.

(03:47):
We have a Chabad.
What's a Chabad?
A Chabad, so that's pretty mucha I guess you could use a
better word of organization.
They're pretty much all overthe world.
They're run by the Hasidic Jews, by the Hasidic Jews, and it's
somewhat like a synagogue, butit's like a welcoming place for

(04:08):
people to congregate.
Some of them have services.

Ryan Sharrott (04:12):
They're almost a community center.

Eric Krawcheck (04:14):
Like a community center, but a lot of them do
have services.
Like when I travel over toIndia, I've been to the Chabad
there.
It's a one-room place that yougo because it's obviously a very
tiny community.
It's more for not necessarilywell, for the few local jews
that live in india, but it'smostly for people that are
traveling whenever to go in andif they want to eat kosher or
they want to have services,because there's always a rabbi

(04:34):
there or whatever, andessentially because they don't
have, they don't take dues.
It's only donations and that'show they survive and they do
extremely well.
Um and then we also inCharleston, have the temple here
which is the oldest standing oroldest reform movement in the

(04:55):
Jewish community.
I can't remember what year itopened, but it was back hundreds
of years.
It was the oldest in the UnitedStates and Charleston was a big
community for open, but it wasback hundreds of years.
It was the oldest in uh in theunited states and that in
charleston was was a bigcommunity for freedom of
religion.
So there's so many differentreligions here in charleston and
the jews came here too for the,for freedom of religion and not

(05:17):
being.
You know, keep, keep out of thepersecution from wherever they
were living outside of the usand my family italian came
through Ellis Island.

Ryan Sharrott (05:25):
same kind of concept, mussolini and all that
and they ended up in California,my dad yeah, my dad was the
renegade and reestablished inCalifornia where I've spent most
of my life, but it'sinteresting because I grew up in
a Christian household.
I grew up in a Christianhousehold.

(05:50):
I was lucky enough, however, tohave a grandfather who was a
profound student of the Bible.
There's kind of a thing it'slike oh yeah, I'm a Christian or
I'm this religion, but they'veactually never read the book and
studied the book, and theyreally don't.
Basically, somebody at a pulpitor at a synagogue or here or
there, wherever you, can, theytell you what to think.

(06:11):
Well, my grandfather was verymuch like I want to know what
the heck's going on here.
And he his Bible.
When he died, he gave it to meand it's it's a torn rag.
There's not a page that doesn'thave notes, questions.
He would question everythingand he had a really profound
relationship with God.

(06:33):
One of the things that I foundinteresting growing up because I
would study with him everyTuesday, especially being a
teenager is his profound respectfor the Jewish community,
because it was a foundation forour religion.
And you know, and of course, wehave the Old Testament, new
Testament, your Old Testament isthe Torah right, same books,

(06:54):
though Correct.
Yeah, and it's interestingbecause even in the New
Testament Jesus doesn't dispersethe Jews at all.
He actually says he came firstfor the Jews, then the Gentiles,
and it goes into a whole bunchof things.
And I'm no expert, but I have.
I can say I've studied it frombook to book, end to end.
I've asked tons of questions,still have a million more, but

(07:16):
what I've what's weird is Inever had in my life growing up,
this anti, didn't even knowwhat it meant.
It's like I didn't see.
I just saw Jews, kind of likeChristians.
I didn't know anything about it.
They're just all.
We're all part of the same biggroup.
We all believe in the God ofAbraham.
What I've seen, that's somewhatdisturbing though, is this rise

(07:37):
there's a palatable rise inanti-Semitism and
anti-Christianity too, just thewhole Judeo-Christian thing, and
, of course, out front,especially with what's going on
today, the anti-Semitism.
That's scary.
You raised children as a Jewishperson and they've I mean, have

(08:02):
you noticed a rise in your liferecently of anti-Semitism, or
is it just something that thenews is pushing out there?

Eric Krawcheck (08:10):
And well, I know there's definitely a large rise
in anti, anti-semitism in inthe US and if you see the
percentages of hate crimes inthe last few years, I mean it's
it's never been this high inthis country.
And you know, obviously I thinkthere's a lot of reasons for
that.
But you know, obviously, withthe war and you know, with

(08:33):
Israel and Gaza, you know thewhole world is looking at that
and it's been magnified.
And you know, because of allthe protesting and everything,
it gets worse and worse and theneverybody's looking for
somebody to blame.
So you know who better to blamethan the jews?

Ryan Sharrott (08:48):
that's the way it's been for thousands and
thousands of years right it'sand it's weird, I it's.
That's one thing I don'tunderstand, and why that is
you've got you have such a small.
I mean it's point.
Is it 0.2 percent of theworld's population?
0.02 percent of the world'spopulation and there has been
jokes, hatred, you know allunder these guise of

(09:08):
anti-Semitism lies stereotypes.
I mean listen, we all havestereotypes, you know it's funny
as time goes on, what'sacceptable and what's not
acceptable.

Eric Krawcheck (09:21):
You know that kind of changes.
I mean, I'll tell you, like youknow, growing up in Charleston,
I never experienced antisemitism.
I had friends that you knowthey make comments, hey, jew boy
, stuff like that.
But I mean it was, it was morein being funny or whatever.
It wasn't like I took it as, oh, you know, he's antisemitic
because it was very closefriends or whatever.
You know, we busted balls.
Yeah, I mean exactly.
I mean you know you just youjust play around.

(09:43):
You know, looking back at it,you know, should I have said hey
, you know, I don't really thinkyou should be speaking to me
that way.
You know it wasn't that type ofsituation.
Um, I will tell you, though,like with my, you know, when my
dad was growing up and and hewould tell me, you know, kind of
in his adult life too, that youknow there were clubs or things
like that, you know.
So there was kind of likeunderneath there was there's

(10:09):
anti-Semitism, but for the mostpart Charleston is not an
anti-Semitic city.
You know we've been veryfortunate there hasn't been
protests and things at theschools, here and and on the
streets.
You know they've been.
You know, at the beginningthere was a few protests, but
really nothing crazy.

Ryan Sharrott (10:25):
You have a long history here.

Eric Krawcheck (10:26):
Yeah, and then.
So you know, there, there, likeI said, there's, there's always
going to be some, but I willsay that you know, in Charleston
you were very fortunate, but Iyou know, and I you know, I

(10:48):
travel a good bit for work.
So you big Jewish center isgoing to be more protests,
whether it's in New York orCalifornia or whatever.
But for the most part, myoldest daughter went to a
private school where she didexperience a little bit of
anti-Semitism.
People make comments or thingslike that, make comments or
things like that, but I reallyfeel like a lot of times, people

(11:08):
learn that stuff from whetherit's their parents or from their
friends, who learn fromsomething.
I mean, none of us are bornhating or or prejudiced against
somebody.
We learn that from someone andand I think that, um, what
happens is that people saythings not even thinking or
realizing what they're saying,whether it hurts somebody or
what the true meaning is behindit.

Ryan Sharrott (11:26):
Or they don't.
I think the biggest issue isthat I call it the wholesale
opinion market.
It's very easy just to agreewith a crowd and not actually do
your own research andunderstand the truth or, if the
truth is muddled, actually findout what the truth is to you.

(11:46):
You talk kids aren't racist,they're not antisemitic because
they're, they're clean slatesand they get taught these things
.
Then you have media influences,powerful power influences,
societal influences, and itbecomes convoluted pretty damn
quickly.
Societal influences, and itbecomes convoluted pretty damn

(12:07):
quickly.
And I wonder for you, let's goback.
So you know you have twodaughters and they experience
anti-Semitism.
You grew up in Charleston.
Didn't, you know, reallyexperience anything really
terrible, very similar where Igrew up, my neighborhood,
neighborhood, I mean, I, we hada black friend, I was the
italian friend.
We had, uh, you know, uh, thebritish friend.

(12:31):
He wasn't.
Britain is england we're allamericans right but we all
busted each other's balls about.
You know.
Okay, here comes the.
Uh, here comes the wop.
You know, and uh, you know.
Hey, hello, mr, are you doing?
Did you have your tea today,and you know.
But we're all friends and wejust go.
It was fun, but it's funnybecause we didn't know what any
of that stuff was, we justplayed.

(12:54):
We had a great time.

Eric Krawcheck (12:55):
And a lot of times I think that stuff comes
out in the heat of the moment.
Like you know, people get in anargument or a fight or whatever
, and then they start spewinghatred and saying things that
they shouldn't say and not evenreally think about again, like I
said, think about what they'resaying.

(13:17):
And I do think that thepercentage of anti-Semitism is
not, as it's, out of control,but I also think that the
percentage of people don't havea hatred for Jews, I think it's.

Ryan Sharrott (13:29):
You know, we have a lot of reasons why we hear so
much about it.
It's a political pawn.

Eric Krawcheck (13:32):
For sure, you know the press is on top of that
when it happens, and so youhear more about that than you
know.
The peaceful things of where,hey, you know we're, you know in
the community we're workingtogether.
You know, like my synagogue,for example, works with Mother
Manuel, where they had that guycome in there and shoot up the
church and kill people.
And you know we're, you knowthe two synagogues are very,

(13:53):
very close and they worktogether and and if there's ever
, you know, you know, if theyever pick up on something that's
going wrong, they're sharingthe information and so that
happens throughout the thecommunity and I think that
that's, you know, a good point,that you know that can.
That can calm things down andkeep things from getting out of

(14:14):
control certain times, um, butyou know, for the most part, I,
you know I do feel like, um, youknow most people are good
people and aren't anti-semitic.

Ryan Sharrott (14:21):
It's just like you know I don't think most
people aren't racist right'reprejudiced against black people.

Eric Krawcheck (14:26):
Well, do you even know why?
If you are, why are you?
I mean, it makes no sense, oryou know it's like.
You know, listen, I, I, youknow, I I judge people.

Ryan Sharrott (14:34):
It's funny because if you were to take a
look at what martin luther kingsaid today, it is judge a person
by their character.
I'm obviously paraphrasing, butevery single thing you hear
from the mouthpieces out theresaying how embarrassed he would
be, it's like, well, that's notwhat he was doing.
That's not what he was doing.
He's like actually startjudging people for merit.
Start judging people for whothey are, the way they treat you

(14:57):
People.
Don't take the time to do that.

Eric Krawcheck (15:01):
Yeah, I mean you know you think about.
Well, here's a perfect example.
So one of my very close friendslives in India.
He's a Muslim, and another verygood friend of mine who also
lives in India, he's Christian.
And another very good friend ofmine that lives in India is
Hindu and I'm a Jew.
So all four of us are sittingat a table at dinner having a

(15:21):
great time.
Now, if we can get along andhave a great time at a table
having dinner, why can't therest of the world governments
and all that stuff act like thatinstead of everybody just
trying to beat up on each other?

Ryan Sharrott (15:33):
It's called self-interest.
It's self-interest and power andgreed, corruption, and they get
that through pitting peopleagainst each other.
The race industry, theanti-Semitic industry you can
actually call it, I mean it'sindustries.
There's power behind thesemovements and, as they see them

(15:55):
slipping away, divide andconquer is really what it comes
down to, and I don't believethat.
That's where I believe thatmore people today are are less
racist, less anti-Semitic,except for we, right now, with
the anti-Semitism thing, we havethis, this skirmish.
It's not even a skirmish, Imean.

(16:16):
I'll come out and say it was aterror attack against Israel and
the way it's been reported.
Some you know, is it true whatthey're saying?
You get all these differentstories, um, and then we want
watchers, we want people tuningin and, uh, they start playing
the race game, the anti-Semiticgame, and it's frustrating

(16:39):
because you know, we've seenthis in college campuses and
what I've seen watching this isyou know, colleges should be a
place of open discussion I mean,these are young minds and it
should be a place where you'reable to sit down and discuss
different views and it's becomebasically a place of intolerance
.

(17:01):
But the education isn't there,whether it's coming from the
universities or within socialgroups.
You have people protestingabout all sorts of things,
whether it's the wars, thisIsrael, gaza thing, whatever
pops up on the news media that'scontroversial, and they get
right on the microphone and haveno clue what they're talking

(17:22):
about.
Microphone and have no cluewhat they're talking about.
You know, and and we we have,luckily, this new independent
media who actually gets outthere, puts themselves on the
line and says, okay, well, youknow, from the river to the sea,
you know what river, what sea.
You know nobody knows what thatmeans they don't.
And the problem is is that theyhave been emotionally aroused to

(17:43):
spout talking points.
Where they're coming from, Idon't know.
I do know that there areuniversities are being
investigated, funding ispotentially being pulled.
I come from California.
They're investigating Berkeley,they're investigating UCLA at
the federal level to see whatthey have done to keep some of
this antisemitism and otherthings out.

(18:06):
You keep it in control, youknow.
Hey, let's have a discussion,not let's fight and hate and do
all of this.
And who's propagating it?
That's the real question is, iswho's propagating it?
And what I've seen from some ofmy views on these college
campuses is that, you know, Itend to be more conservative and

(18:27):
the conservative view for thelast 20 years is just not
allowed.
I mean, they don't even letthese people come and talk on
campus and they should inviteand say let's have a discussion.
You're starting to see more ofit as the independent media,
like Charlie Kirk, gets outthere and has these great
discussions and seeing BenShapiro who can just kill it on
a stage, and they're lettingthem in.

(18:47):
But Ben Shapiro and them,they've been kicked off college
campuses because we don't agreewith you.

Eric Krawcheck (18:52):
Listen, there's nothing wrong with a good debate
.

Ryan Sharrott (18:54):
Of course, that's what our country is based on,
as long as it's civilized.

Eric Krawcheck (18:56):
I think it's fine and you know one thing you
know that you brought up is, youknow it, it's knowledge, and I
don't think that people really,like I was saying earlier,
understand, when they saycertain things or act a certain
way, how it affects people.
Other people did a speech infront of the whole school about
anti-Semitism and really broughtto light of things that are

(19:17):
hurtful, what things actuallymean, and so it's like educating
these kids to say, hey, this iswhat hate is, this is how it

(19:40):
grows and how it gets out ofcontrol.
So, even if it just educatesone person, I think that that's
that's a lot.
The other thing she did is shebrought in and again, this was,
you know, my, my daughter's, inlaw school now, but this was
back when she was in high school, and she brought in a Holocaust
survivor who spoke and I wasthere, and then watch these kids
just like mesmerized by justlistening to this guy is like

(20:02):
you know, I was tortured and Iwas in a concentration camp and
this is you know I survived.
Let me just tell you what wenton and people are like, oh wow,
you know, I didn't realize.
I hear about this Holocaust,but I don't know what it is,
because they don't really teachit so much.
You know it's kind of, you know, whatever it is in school, they

(20:25):
brush over it a little bit,talk a little bit about it,
really understanding about it,and so I think it's an
understanding and I don't thinkthat you should just be educated
about the Jewish religion andanti-Semitism.
You should understand what goeson with other religions and
other races and stuff.
You know of what peopleexperience and what they go
through.
And I think if people have abetter understanding they're
more accepting and notnecessarily spewing out things

(20:48):
they shouldn't say Well, it'sany relationship.

Ryan Sharrott (20:50):
Eric, right, if you meet a person, you don't
know if you eventually befriendthem.
I've known you for 30-someyears now.
When I met you I thought youwere pretty.
You were very, very business.
You were revered in what youdid.
You were very young and youwere very successful in the

(21:12):
department you were in.
There was a reputation.
You walked in and that's Ericman, that guy's you know, he's
one of our best merchandisers.
And then you know, you were inmen's suits at the time of
working with Nordstrom when Iwas over there.
But as I got to know you, youhave to listen, you learn, you
become friends.
You have to do the same thingwith people you disagree with.

(21:34):
You might not become friends,but you're going to learn
something and if you can takejust a little bit away, you know
, I say on the podcast and it'sso true that the only difference
between you today and you infive years is what you learn and
the people you meet.
If you don't learn anythingelse in the next five years and
you meet nobody else, you'regoing to be the same person you

(21:55):
were.
You haven't grown.
You know the brain gets boredthey call it the hedonic
treadmill and you need tostimulate the brain.
You need to challenge yourselfto learn new things.
You can't just sit on a rockingchair and retire.
You'll be dead in a year, youknow just.
You have to continue to liveand challenge yourself, and the
best way to do that is go again,learn things that you don't

(22:19):
know or you think are.
A certain way, I mean, Ichallenge people out there that
you know, like people thatprofess Christianity.
Oh so yeah, let's discuss,let's talk about it, because
it's not black and white.
You know, there's a lot ofinterpretations.
That's why there's so manydifferent denominations, and

(22:41):
there's kind of denominationswithin the Jewish religion too.
I mean different, I don't knowif it would be called
denominations, but like Hasidicand non-Orthodox non-Orthodox.

Eric Krawcheck (22:52):
There's different levels of
religiousness.
I guess you could say, yeah,it's non-Orthodox.

Ryan Sharrott (22:55):
There's different levels of religiousness.
I guess you could say yeah,belief systems.
But the problem I find in mycommunity, in my religion, is
they don't even know what's inthe book.
They've got some talking points.
We call them CNE Christians.
They go to church on Christmasand Easter.
You know God created theheavens and the earth.

(23:16):
That's about all they know ofthe Old Testament and then they
know some key verses in the NewTestament.
If they read the whole thingthey would be blown away.
I tell everybody who claims tobe a Christian just read Genesis
, just read it.
It's the most craziest sciencefiction you'll ever read in your
life.
What it talks about it's insaneabout creation and the Noah

(23:37):
story and you know it gets theNephilim that were on the earth
and all of these I mean.
And people debate and debateand it's great because you can
debate what the meanings ofthese things are, but people
just don't know.

Eric Krawcheck (23:53):
They don't know what they actually profess to
believe.
I think everybody's differentand everybody has their own
beliefs or whatever.
You know, I mean myself and myfamily.
I wouldn't say we're definitelynot religious.
When we go to synagogue for thehigh holidays or for special
occasions, I mean I would saywe're secular Jews, we
participate and we celebrate allthe holidays and you know, we
celebrate all the customs andreally my feeling about being

(24:17):
Jewish is that, yes, you havethe customs and you have the
traditions and all that, andthen you have family and those
all kind of go together.
So, for example, like in myhouse, every Friday night we
celebrate the bringing in ofShabbat and we've done that
since my wife and I have beenmarried and we've done it with
our kids and it's just one ofthose things that we do.

(24:37):
But again, it's really to meit's more about, like I said,
the family, the customs andbeing together and just
understanding one another, andalso I think it's very important
that we're accepting of otherpeople too.

Ryan Sharrott (24:52):
No, look, you hang out with me.

Eric Krawcheck (24:53):
Right, exactly.

Ryan Sharrott (24:54):
That's about as accepting as you can get on this
planet.

Eric Krawcheck (24:56):
One thing that I want to say is that you know,
so we have known each other for30 years and you know we worked
together in in uh, california,and we moved across uh the
country into uh to to New Jersey.
Um, I'm, we're here uh and Iand I appreciate you coming to
sunny Charleston, south Carolina.

Ryan Sharrott (25:15):
That was difficult.

Eric Krawcheck (25:16):
Yeah, it's, uh, it's actually a beautiful day
today.
Of course you live in San Diego, so it's always nice there, um,
but I appreciate you coming outand there's.
There's obviously lots to talkabout, and then there's lots to
see in our city.

Ryan Sharrott (25:27):
So Well, I'm excited we're going to spend a
little time to go back tosomething you said, because
actually I want to touch on this, because this is something that
I think people need to get abetter understanding of and I
want to understand it better.
Okay, and that's the termjudaism via jew, and you brought
up secular jew, which if youthink about judaism as a

(25:50):
religion, then those arediametrically opposed words
Secular religion, I mean, and sowhat I don't quite understand
is is it considered an ethnicityor a religion?
I know there's, you know, asianJews, black Jews.

(26:12):
I know the religion, part of it, but historically in the Torah
there was the Israelites.
Well, it was actually theIsraelites, but before they went
to Israel, it was Abraham whoorganized.
It was Abraham that organized.

(26:32):
Moses took them away from Egypt, but he kind of organized it.
He's the one that got the TenCommandments, kind of started
the whole.
Hey, this is what you got to doto live a clean life.
Am I right on that, or is this?

Eric Krawcheck (26:49):
a conversation with Steve tomorrow.
I think it's probably more of aconversation with somebody
that's a professional in thisarea.
I mean, I can tell you justfrom my perspective is that
Judaism is a religion, it's aculture, it's a people, and to
me that's what it is.
It's not a race.
I don't think I think of a race, as are you white, you're black

(27:13):
, you're.
Chinese you're Indian, whateverit is, and in within the jewish
religion, just like any religion.
You said, like you said, wehave asians, we have black
people, we have indians, we haveI mean, it's everybody the lost
, lost tribe of israel, you know.
So, um, it's uh, let's put itthis way, because Judaism can be

(27:37):
complicated.
So you have the reallyreligious Hasidic Jews in Israel
who would probably look at meand go you're not Jewish and
that's okay.
They're very ultra-Orthodox bythe book.
This is what it says.
So we're going to.
You know, the Torah says to doit like this.
So that's what we're doing andwe take it literally, whereas I
would say probably more likemodern-day Jews don't

(27:59):
necessarily read it that way,but again, you know it's every.
You know, between the Reformed,conservative, orthodox, hasidic
Jews, there's all types ofreligious beliefs or whatever.

Ryan Sharrott (28:11):
I look at it kind of like the Italians right Now,
italians from Italy.
You know it's a race, obviously, but they tend to be Catholic,
a lot of Catholics, a lot of.
You know, obviously, theChristian heritage there.
You know you have the Vatican,which isn't Italy, it's its own

(28:31):
town, its own city, butobviously it's in the middle of
Italy, but it's a town, but itsown city, but obviously it's in
the middle of Italy and so, butit's a culture, right?
You know we go to church onSundays, we have a big Italian
meal on Sunday with the wholefamily comes over.
There's all this tradition,there's strong family values.
I believe 100% it comes from,you know, a deep, an early

(28:55):
belief in something withdiscipline.
You know, for us it was theChristian church, for my
grandfather the Catholic church,for my wife the Catholic church
.
But what's interesting when youlook at it, we had a foundation
at it.

(29:17):
We had a foundation.
We had what we believed wereabsolutes in our own lives
Behave this way, treat peoplethis way, don't do this, don't
do that.
And none of it was extreme.
I mean, honestly, pretty muchthe Ten Commandments, pretty
common sense stuff.
And I look at my son successfuldouble engineer.

narrator (29:37):
I'm bragging, I didn't do anything, but you know he
did all the work, but I'll stilltake some credit.

Ryan Sharrott (29:40):
I look at my three stepkids all college
graduates.
One flies for American Airlines, one is a teacher, another is a
master's in counseling forchildren All well behaved,
nobody's busted by the children.
All well-behaved, nobody'sbusted by the law.
But they also had rules andthey had strong family and they

(30:04):
had a place to go when the worldwas tough on them and we were
there to support them.
We were also there to correctthem.
We were also there to listen.
We also didn't demand.
One of the things that I alwaysdid with my son, eric, is I
demanded that he question andthen do the research, but I

(30:25):
never told him how to think.
And what I think is lost is theability to critical think.
There's just too much dogma outthere.
You know, I said earlier thewholesale opinion market.
People don't want to beostracized, so if they happen to
just fall into a group ofpeople, hey, oh, yeah, I agree
with that.
Yeah, sure, why not?
Oh, yeah, that's it.
You know, I heard that.

(30:45):
Yeah, I'm sure that.
Yeah, that's true.
Did you hear this?
And it's like a rumor meal.
But people would rather justagree and get the heck out of
there.
Then actually challenge,because challenging requires you
to think, and it also will takeyour circle of friends and drop
them down.
You'll start to realize whoyour real friends are, the ones
that can actually listen to you.

Eric Krawcheck (31:05):
You know it's true and it'll be interesting to
me.
I think social media hascompletely changed the whole
world and I don't know.
Is it for good, is it for bad?
I mean I think for the Is itfor bad?
I mean I think for the youngergeneration.
It hasn't been great.
I think they they spend moretime worrying about you know
someone's giving them a heart ora thumbs up, or you know you

(31:25):
know filming TikToks or whatever, and that that consumes so much
of the time and so much oftheir, of their brain power,
versus like when we were kidsgrowing up, we'd go outside and
we'd leave in the morning andwhen the streetlights came on,
we knew it was time to come homefor dinner right.

Ryan Sharrott (31:39):
That was it.

Eric Krawcheck (31:40):
And you know we rode around on our bikes and you
know we made forts and you knowyou hung out with all the kids
in your neighborhood and youknow you, just you created True
social networks Right.
But you created friendships, butyou also just you learn how to
use your imagination and and andcreate things.
And you know, today it'll beinteresting to see down the road
, 50 years from now, what peopleare like.

(32:03):
Where's social media 50 yearsfrom now?
Our people interacting, youknow, I think.
I think there's good andthere's bad.
I you know there's good andthere's bad.
My personal feeling is that Ithink that because there's so
much information out there nowand so much wrong information
out there now, but people lookat social media as well.
That's what I read, that'swhat's true, whatever.
And I do think that it'saffected our ability to think on

(32:31):
our own and to have our ownopinions, because we spend so
much time worrying about whatother people think and I'm not
saying that people didn't,didn't act like that before, but
now it's like it's it's nonstop.
You got that phone in your handand you're constantly what do
people think?
What are the?
You know what.
You know clicks and you knowjust on and on and on.
And I just you know, I sometimesthink you know, do the kids

(32:51):
even know how to use a telephoneanymore?
They don't even know what thatis.
I don't even think that youknow when they have their
iPhones or whatever they have,they're not even using the phone
part of it.

Ryan Sharrott (33:00):
It's always texting, texting, texting.
Well, when texting was firstinvented, the cell phone
companies that left.
They're like they got a phone.
Nobody is going to actually sitthere with the keyboard and
text when they just call.
I mean, that was the amazinginvention a phone in your pocket
and they made fun of theBlackBerry or this or that Like
nobody's going to use that.

(33:21):
Turns out that more texts goout than phone calls.

narrator (33:23):
I believe I would believe it, it's just easy so.

Eric Krawcheck (33:32):
I do think that that has a lot to do with some
of the problems that we have inthe country, in the world today,
and you know, what kind of truecritical thinking can you get
from people that are justconstantly on their phones?
And I do think I think there's50 years from now when they're
studying all this?
they're going to find yeahthey're going to see that
there's problems and there won'tbe.
You know you won't be able tosee what those long-term

(33:53):
problems are until 50 years fromnow or whatever.
But, um, I just hope that atsome point people are going to
realize, hey, you know what?
Let's talk face to face, let'shave a conversation, let's not
hide behind texts.
I mean, I can tell you,especially having girls, there's
always drama with with girlsand their roommates or their
friends or whatever.

Ryan Sharrott (34:20):
And it's text, text, text.
I'm like you know what, getfrom behind the text, because
you're going to say stuff on atext you wouldn't say to
someone's face, right?
So forget all that and you losea lot of the unspoken words.
You know, I do some remotepodcasts.
They're not as good if I cansit in front of a person,
because there's a lot being saidthat isn't being said and
you're able to understand whatthe words might mean better.
Text is very difficult Emojis,okay, whatever but one of the

(34:40):
positives, though, is that foryears and years, pretty much for
all of my growing up and yourparents, grandparents, the
information was one directionalCame from the news, came from
the newspapers, came from thechurch, came from the synagogue.

(35:01):
One of the positives that I see,and why I started this, is that
it opens up discourse.
It's not one way, so people cancomment, they can challenge
things that I say there's a wayto give immediate feedback, and
some of the platforms out therenow have these community
sections where the discourse canhappen.

(35:22):
So it's not one-way informationanymore.
There's enough people andenough experts out there that
can easily challenge the lies orthe hatred or this and that,
but it doesn't need to becensored by our government and
we'll get into that another time.
Let's talk about business,because one of the things that I
that, one of the things thatmade us friends, was a

(35:45):
commonality in working hard andbusiness.
So when I met you, I had avending machine business and I
always had little businesses.
Um, you come from a family ofbusinesses.
We met at Nordstrom.
You're a merchandiser for themen's suits department, I
believe.
Buyer, we were a buyer.
Okay, oh, you weren't amerchandiser yet, you weren't

(36:06):
that good.
No, I'm kidding.
And we mentioned this on areally popular podcast where the
two areas.
I mentioned this on a reallypopular podcast where the two
areas, if you want to make moneywith men's shoes or in suits,
but the learning curve for suitswas significantly more

(36:27):
difficult than shoes.
But anyways, we met.
Then you became the storemanager.
I ended up working with you andthen you said you went to New
Jersey and dragged me out thereand we had a blast, absolute
great time.
We worked hard but we had a lotof good fun until you quit and
left me hanging in New Jersey.
It was sad you survived, butyou quit because you know you

(36:47):
come from a family on both sidesin the clothing business Retail
and when I met you you were onthe retail side of things but a
third-generation manufacturingcompany that's on the wall there
Pearl Manufacturing and youleft and you went to the retail

(37:09):
side of things with your dad atMax's Men's Store a classic
men's store here in Charleston,south Carolina.
Does it still exist?
Did?

Eric Krawcheck (37:17):
it sell.
No, my father retired.

Ryan Sharrott (37:20):
Okay.

Eric Krawcheck (37:21):
Closed the business.

Ryan Sharrott (37:22):
How long was he in Max's Men's Store?
Actually, I believe I have apicture, so if I have it, I'm
going to put it up on the—.

Eric Krawcheck (37:27):
So Max's.
When he closed the store it wasa little over 70 years old.

Ryan Sharrott (37:31):
Wow.

Eric Krawcheck (37:32):
So my grandfather had started in 1933
and, um, it had a very good runand, uh, you know, I was there
for a bit, Um, but then I hadthe opportunity to go into the
supplier side, manufacturingside, and that's what I did at,
you know, the the um, well, kindof, uh, kind of giving my work
history, if you.
So.

(37:52):
You know, as a kid, um, myparents were divorced and
remarried and and, uh, so,growing up, um, my dad had a
men's specialty store which wasMax's men's store.
Max was my grandfather and, um,you know, I would help out in
there, uh, you know, around theholidays and sometimes during
the summer or whatever, Um, andyou know, and it was, it was

(38:14):
good, it was interesting,whatever, but again, it was
never.
You know, I don't like fourwalls, I like to be on the move
and doing things all the time.
So I did, you know, I, but I didwork there.
But then I also, when my momgot remarried, she married
Herbert Berlinski, who waspresident of Burl Manufacturing,
which at the time was a pantmanufacturer, and so I would

(38:37):
work in the distribution centerduring the summer and during my
breaks from school I would workin the distribution center and
it wasn't air conditioned, so wepretty much would start at six
in the morning and end at three,and so I spent a lot of time
learning about the business justby being in the warehouse and
packing pants, shipping them outand all that, and but learning

(39:00):
what hard work is.
And, uh, you know, we, uh, youknow, growing up as kids, you
know it wasn't like here, youknow, here's a big, huge
allowance or something.
We, if we got an allowance, itwasn't a whole lot, so if we
wanted to buy things or goplaces or whatever, we had to
work.
So, you know, not only did I dothat, but then I um, during the
summer, I would, you know, inthe morning, and till three

(39:21):
o'clock I would pack pants.
In the afternoon I go, you know, right after three I go home,
take a shower, at five o'clock Igo, and I have a security.
It was a security guard, and soI was a security guard all
night and then I would do theyou know.
Then the next day I'd startover and do the same thing.
And then on the weekends I hada car waxing business and I
waxed people's cars, wash andwax and all that.
So I was always busy, you know.
Again, I wanted to earn money soI could do things that you know

(39:43):
, you're taught a work ethic,but yeah, it was a work ethic
and and um, you know that camefrom um, you know the
generations before me that yougot to work hard, and when you
work hard, there's rewards, andthose rewards, which in this
case, was that, you know, notonly was I earning money, which

(40:03):
is obviously a nice reward, butit was also learning what's
involved in hard work.
And then also, is this what youwant to do, or do you want to
work harder and go intosomething bigger and and and um
and more opportunities?
So you know, so I.
So what I started to do is Iwould go on the road with
herbert um during my breaks andwe go and visit retailers, and

(40:27):
you know, and he would sell themthe line for the next season,
whatever, and I would carry hisbags and pack his bags and all
that stuff.
But I learned a lot um along theway way, because I learned how
to talk to people and I learnedabout relationships.
And it wasn't just about goingto see the customer and learning
how to talk to the customer,which was the retailer, but it
was also learning how to talk tothe person at the front desk at

(40:47):
the hotel.
Hey, you know what, if you talknice to somebody, maybe you get
an upgrade right.
So you learn how to get anupgrade right.
So you learn how to get anupgrade.
And then you learn, you knowhow to treat people and how to
talk to people, and by treatingsomebody nice you're going to
get a lot more from somebody ifyou treat them nice and yelling
at them all the time.
And so then you get a taste,you know.

(41:07):
Then all of a sudden you'relike, oh, we're staying in a
nicer room, so you get a tasteof that.

Ryan Sharrott (41:10):
And then you know you kind packing the pants,
doing the security, watchinglearning mentors.

Eric Krawcheck (41:26):
And I'll tell you, like my dad on the other
hand, you know he worked veryhard in the specialty store.
You know, when you own aspecialty store, it's pretty
much six days a week.
They're closed on Sundays.
And I mean you know, when youown that store, I mean you have
employees, but the bottom lineis you're on that floor every
day selling.
You're there making sure thatthese relationships are being
built.
You line is you're on thatfloor every day selling, you're

(41:48):
you're there making sure thatthese relationships are being
built.
You're there making surethere's the right inventory in
the store and you're making surethat you know the customers are
taken care of, because thebottom line is, the end of the
day, it's the owner that it allfalls on.
And uh, and he did it for a long, long time and had a very
successful business and Ilearned a lot from him with this
, with hard work and and whatimportant and you know again,
taking care of your family andmaking sure they're educated and

(42:09):
all that stuff so that there'sa future down the road.
So you know, those are thedifferent types of things that I
did right through college andthen, when I graduated college,
I decided, you know, let me goout and get some experience, and
I went to work for Nordstromand I started at Tyson's Corner
back in 1989.

Ryan Sharrott (42:29):
Washington DC right yeah.

Eric Krawcheck (42:30):
Washington DC, which was their first store on
the East Coast.
And you know I worked my way upin the company from, you know,
selling on the floor.
I helped them open their secondstore on the East Coast and
became a department manager inmen's clothing.
And then I went to the WestCoast as a buyer and then a
store manager and then came backto East Coast as store manager
and I was very fortunate becauseI grew very fast, I got
promoted very fast, but Ilearned along the way,

(42:54):
especially starting on the floorand selling.
Again, it's relationships andhey, you've got to establish a
relationship.
You've also got to know how tosell and in order to sell you
got to have product knowledge,you got to understand how things
fit, you got to understandfabrications.
And you know, I feel like backthen you really they, you really

(43:14):
had to be a true salesman.
You had to understand whatyou're selling.
And I think in today's worldit's not, it's not about that
anymore.
You know it's just about itdoesn't matter what you're
selling, let's just sell it.

Ryan Sharrott (43:23):
So much stuff is moved without actually selling
it.
Very little merchandising goingon.

Eric Krawcheck (43:30):
And so from there I spent my time at
Nordstrom.
I was only there for sevenyears, but I had a full career.
In seven years I went from asalesperson to a buyer, a store
manager, I traveled, I wasinvolved in product development.
It was a lot of greatopportunities for Nordstrom.
So from there I left, I cameback to Charleston, I worked at

(43:52):
my dad's store for about sixyears and then and learned a lot
and enjoyed doing it and again,like I said, I mean the
opportunity came up to come intoBurrell.
And it wasn't that I didn'tlove that business, it was just
that because I am the type ofperson that, again, it's
difficult for me to be in fourwalls all the time.
I, you know I like to be movingand getting out and traveling

(44:15):
and seeing customers and allthat.
So when that opportunity came Ijumped on it and let's see, so
that was 24 years ago and a longtime ago.
And so you know, we werefortunate that we, you know,
sustained the business for thatlong, and we've evolved our
business and most definitely hadto evolve, whether be forced or

(44:38):
out of creativity.

Ryan Sharrott (44:39):
But the retail market, I mean, has completely
changed from when we.
When I was, I wasn't on theretail side of it at Nordstrom,
I was on the expense side, I wason the maintenance side but
kept the building running likepretty.

Eric Krawcheck (44:52):
But Can't sell goods if your building's not
running right.
So no yeah.

Ryan Sharrott (44:58):
And they had an image in everything but the
thought process of you know,stores, Nordstrom stores,
closing left and right, thewhole retail market being
flipped up on side and said, no,you know, it's almost.
Nobody saw it coming.
People call it the Amazoneffect, the Internet, there's a
million other reasons, but yougot to think fast on your feet.

(45:19):
That market changed super fast.
I mean, there were industrydisruptors coming at the retail
market left and right and if youweren't moving fast, thinking
fast, you're having to changeall the time.

Eric Krawcheck (45:34):
Yeah, absolutely as far as where there's Amazon
or all these.
All the retailers today havewebsites, all suppliers have
websites.
So every mom and pop has awebsite or whatever, because
there's a lot of business that'sdone on the web.
So the people that havesurvived are the people that
have been able to pivot andchange their business and follow

(45:58):
the course and make thingshappen.
And you know, we're kind oftalking about Nordstrom here,
but Nordstrom's done a great job.
You have their brick andmortars and they have their
outlets and then they have theironline business, which is a
tremendous business.

Ryan Sharrott (46:12):
They got in on that early in the game, I
believe.

Eric Krawcheck (46:15):
But what's interesting is that the online
business it's a good business,it's an important part of the
business, but again, just likesocial media, you're losing that
contact with people.
There is no contact with peoplewhen you're shopping online.
Customers can't touch and feelmerchandise, they can't try

(46:35):
stuff on, even if they order it,they bring it home, they try it
on, they don't really know howit's supposed to fit, and so
they're not having thatexperience.
And you know, I think aboutsome of the things that I
learned, and I was fortunate,you know, when I was at
Nordstrom that you know I was adecent salesperson.
I was in their pay setters club.
So you know one thing that Ilearned and I learned it from an

(46:58):
older gentleman that worked onthe clothing floor at Tyson's
Corner when I first startedthere and he said if you sell a
customer exactly what they want,you haven't sold them anything.
So, for example, if a customercame in and wanted to buy a Navy
suit, you showed themeverything on the rack but a
Navy suit, because you know he'sgoing to buy the Navy suit.
So do your job, be a salesmanand sell something else, and so
that's how you know, that's thementality about.

(47:19):
You know growing your business,learning from other people.
But then I also spent the timewhere I would go to other
departments and train and teachpeople.
You know how do you?
You know they want to know howdo you sell, why do you sell so
much?
How do you sell?
Teaching them about selling.
But you know, I was always abeliever in all you need to know
is one more thing than theconsumer.

(47:42):
So if a consumer comes in andthey're like, oh, I know this
fits and that, but if you know,if you're, if you have that
knowledge in your head that youunderstand everything and you're
able to share that with thecustomer, so oh, yeah, well, I
understand, you know this suitfits this way and blah, blah,
blah, I said yeah, but did youknow that this fabric is blah,
blah, blah?

(48:02):
Or did you something that'sgoing to last you 10 more years?
You know you've got to look at.
You know like and again we'retalking about clothing but you
know it's an investment.
So you know, today you've got aworld of disposable clothing.
You know fast fashion, as youcan, as people talk about all
the time, and it's like you knowyou go to some of these stores
that you know stuff is soinexpensive, go in there, you

(48:22):
wear it season, you throw it out.
You know, and you know,unfortunately that's.
You know it's what I call aWalmarting of America.
It's all about a race to thebottom and it's too bad because
you kind of lost.
I mean kind of get into thewhole political thing here but
you know you've lostmanufacturing in this country
because we can't be cheap enoughand people want stuff cheaper

(48:43):
and cheaper.
They don't care what it is,they don't care how it affects.
And you know, if you want tokind of look at like in my
business, we had a factory.
We don't have a factory anymore.
We haven't had a factory in along time, couldn't compete, and
so you know we, you know we hadto go elsewhere overseas in
order to make that happen.
But again, what's happened isso you know again, I in order to

(49:03):
make that happen.
But again, what's happened isso you know again, I think it's
so important, whatever job, youhave to be knowledgeable, to
understand what you're doing andto spend the time learning.
And I feel like if you and youhear this a lot on the news and
different stories about it.
Like the generations of youknow, someone would go work for
GE.
They'd spend their whole careerthere, right, and they get the

(49:26):
gold watch and that's greatgold-plated watch very loyal and
and that's how the world workedthen.
Now, today, I feel like um, this, you know, younger generation
will come in and you know, one,two years, they're looking to go
elsewhere.
So there's no, there's.
You know, loyalty is one thing,but another thing is, if you
jump from one company to thenext and you're not there that

(49:46):
long, what are you learning, isit?
You know?
And it becomes more about thepaycheck than it does.
It comes about looking at whatlong-term, what kind of effect
that has on you.
And you know, if you look, hey,maybe if I do stay with this
company for a lot longer, it'sgoing to benefit me so much more
down the line versus hey, thisjob's offering me $5,000 more a

(50:08):
year, I'm going to jump and goto that job or whatever.
And you know again, hard work is, you know.
Again, it was ingrained in meor whatever.
Maybe it's in my blood, youknow, and I like to be busy.
You know the Yiddish word isspookies.
You know word is spookies.

(50:28):
You know I gotta be moving anddoing stuff all the time.
And you know, if I'm not atwork, I'm at home, I'm in the
yard or I'm fixing somethingright.

Ryan Sharrott (50:31):
You know it's not like I.
You know I'm not a big relaxertype person or whatever.

Eric Krawcheck (50:32):
You need to learn to relax a little bit more
maybe, but you know, I I dothink that, um, again, I'm not
bashing this the new generationcoming up, but I do think that
you know, we've lost.
We're losing something withunderstanding that, instead of
working hard, and understandingthat you work hard and then the
rewards are coming and they'llcome to you.
Instead of today, I feel likethey want everything now.

(50:54):
In other words, there's nothingto look forward to, because
they want it all now yeah.
And maybe they don't want towork five days a week or they
only want to work at home.
And you know, I just feel likeyou feel like working at home.
I understand for certainsituations maybe you have kids
at home or whatever and you needhelp with that but not working
in your office around otherpeople and communicating and

(51:17):
learning and bouncing ideas offof other people you lose all of
that.
So where's the creativity,where's all that?
I mean, we have a, an office inindia, got 60 people that work
in that office and they'reconstantly those designers and
tailors and fabric people andand they're constantly talking
and bouncing ideas off of people.

(51:38):
And you know creativity busy andand so much.
I feel like so much activity isgoing that so much is.
So much more is getting done.

Ryan Sharrott (51:45):
Yeah, they used to call it culture.
It's all of those intangibles.
It's like what I said earlierthe new people you meet and the
new things you learn.
Well, you kind of learn a lotof new things from the new
people you meet, and so thatenvironment, I think, is
critical to business.
In my business, there's no wayI would ever work from home.

(52:08):
We were, you know, we're justnot going to happen.
There's a culture, there's a,you know, we have an open office
environment.
People can talk to each other.
If there's a problem happeningover there, you already know
about it, so we can jump in andwe can take care of things.
This just doesn't.
It's like texting your businessthe whole time.

narrator (52:27):
If you're working from home.

Ryan Sharrott (52:28):
I don't, I.
I I mean, there are raresituations, but they're seeing
the statistics and the data.
Productivity was way down.
If everybody could work fromhome, then everyone have their
own business, because they'd allbe self-starters.

Eric Krawcheck (52:41):
I mean you think about you know being the owner
of a business and what it takesto do that.
You know you have all thestresses and the headaches of
owning a business and again,like you were saying earlier,
everybody thinks if you have abusiness you're wealthy.
Well that's not the case.
No, you're wealthy with worries.
Who's going?

Ryan Sharrott (52:59):
to pay the bills?

Eric Krawcheck (53:00):
Who's going to handle these back orders?
Who's going to deal with thecustomers not happy?
Who's going to deal with thewhole shipment that came in and
it's completely wrong?
Or the whole shipment smellsbecause it got mildew in the
container on the way over, youknow, I mean it's just who's
going to deal with the computerwhen the whole computer system
shuts down.
You know those type of thingsand that's just side stuff
that's going on.
You still got to run yourbusiness right and you still got

(53:22):
to run your business right.
And I do think that you canlearn so much in your business
by listening to your people.
Listen to what they're tellingyou, because they're out there
with the ultimate customer andthe customer is telling them
something.
We don't like your fit, we don'tlike your fabrics, hey, we need

(53:42):
.
You can take retailers talkingto their buyers or whatever,
saying, hey, listen, we need asport coat at this price and
this is the type of fabrics weneed.
Or you know what?
We need these sizes.
Customers keep coming in.
They don't we don't have thesesizes.
And listening to what people aresaying, you know, just like you
know in your business.
Your guys are saying, hey,listen, we need to keep
thermostats on the truck becausewe're missing tons of business.

(54:02):
And every customer we go intois like well, can you replace my
thermostat?
Or your thermostat is broken,we got to go order it.
Well, think about, if you'renot listening to your guys and
you don't put them on the trucks, you're not doing a service to
your customer.
And and I think that'simportant and I also think that
if you, if you're listening toyour employees and you listen to
your customer that customerthat your business will be that

(54:22):
much better.
And I also think that you'regoing to get respect from your
employees because they're likehey, this guy's in my corner, he
wants me to earn money, hewants to help, you know, build
my business so that I can besuccessful, and and and take
care of my family.

Ryan Sharrott (54:37):
They become part of the solution, rather than you
know, rather than I'm just hereto get my paycheck, they don't
care about me.
Get them involved in thesolutions.
Get them to be owners in thebusiness.
Take ownership in yourdepartment, one of the things we
try to do.
Very clear roles andresponsibilities, very clear

(54:59):
expectations, very clearroadmaps to success, very clear
roadmaps to success.
We want people to look and say,okay, here's a roadmap to
success from your beginning allthe way to you know, management.
One of the things I don't rewardis hiring somebody and, oh,

(55:20):
I've been here for a year.
You know I want to raise.
Well, we'll do a cost of livingadjustment here and there, but
well, you're doing the samething you did a year ago.
Um, okay, why should I give youmore money?
You know and this is what Itaught my son, this is what I
was taught by my dad is thatwork equals rewards.
What and and that was, you know, whether it was money, whether

(55:41):
it was more privileges, whetherit was more privileges, whether
it was.
You know, being treated betterbecause you did good, hard days
worth of work, but the work hadto go first.

Eric Krawcheck (55:52):
Right, and you know, one thing that I do
believe in is, you know, givingownership to your employees and
like, for example, like ourcustomer service.
Lots of times they'll call meand say, well, what should I do
dealing with this customer?
I'm like, well, what do youthink we should do?
Of times, they'll call me andsay, well, what should I do
dealing with this customer?
I'm like, well, what do youthink we should do?
Or you know, you don't need tocall me to make a decision to
take care of a customer If youthink we need to take something

(56:12):
back or you think we need togive them a discount to make
them happy because of mistakesmaybe that we made, or maybe a
customer made a mistake, orwhatever.
You know, do your best to makethem happy.
You're not going to always makeeverybody happy and you know,
and a lot of times, maybe your,your um decision isn't what the
customer wants to hear.
But do what you think um is theright thing and take you know,
take ownership.

(56:33):
I'm I'm not telling you youhave to come to me with every
little thing.
I don't want to micromanage you.
That's the last thing I want todo.

Ryan Sharrott (56:38):
You got to train people to start thinking like
you.
You know delegation peoplemisunderstand that.
They think it's oh, I'm justgoing to have you do what I
don't want to do.
It's actually training somebodyand it takes a long time to
actually start thinking anddoing and being able to make
decisions on processes that thebusiness is founded on or that

(57:00):
made the business successful.
And if they understand thosethings, then you can relieve the
customer service because nowthey know.
Okay, in these situations, thisis exactly what Eric would do,
or my manager would do, or andthis is why the business is
successful.
So I feel confident that I canactually make that decision and
then they feel great.

Eric Krawcheck (57:19):
Yeah, and you know, and I also you know.
One of the best things I'veever heard is what Steve Jobs
said.
He goes I hire people that aresmarter than me.
And you know, one of the bestthings I've ever heard is what
Steve Jobs said.
He goes I hire people that aresmarter than me and you know
what.
That's the way you should do it.
You should always hire peoplethat can bring something to the
table that you can't offer.
So that way you know you'relearning, but you're also
because of that you can buildyour business and you can do
better.

Ryan Sharrott (57:38):
You can scale and you can't do it all.
This is the all-starquarterback type business where,
uh, they're the great, they'rereally good at what they do.
They start a business and thatbusiness owns them the rest of
their life.
They still work for a company.
Uh, cause when they don't showup they don't get a paycheck.

(57:59):
Uh, the business goes out ofbusiness.
They they had to be thesmartest person in the room.
They had to do all the workthemselves.
They weren't able to delegate,they weren't able to scale, and
that's one of the big myths ofentrepreneurialism and some of
you people get caught in that,something I was caught in.
I worked hard to try to get outof that and scale, but it's

(58:22):
difficult and it requiressystems.
And scale.
But it's difficult and itrequires systems, hiring people
smarter than you and being ableto understand leadership and
what it really means anddelegate and things like that.

Eric Krawcheck (58:33):
Yeah, I think that that's well put and you
know, again, it's just about youknow what's the right way to
run your organization, whatworks best for you and what
works best for your customer.
Even though we all havedifferent types of business,
we're all kind of doing the samething.

Ryan Sharrott (58:57):
I tell my group I've said it a million times on
the podcast but when we have ourmeetings every week, I say
people, we are in therelationship management business
.
That's all we do.
It happens that we do itthrough heating and air
conditioning, but never do Ihave an air conditioner.
Hand me a check.
You know, it's the people andthe trust that you build with
your customers, it's owning yourmistakes.

(59:19):
It's really it's having prideand believing in your business
first and the rewards come.
Do the work first and the moneywill follow, the respect and um
, the rewards, and you find thatthe money tends to be the least
of those rewards.
Um, as far as I mean, it'simportant to run a business and

(59:40):
make money, uh, but buildingsomething that could potentially
last, like Burl, threegenerations, that's exciting.
That's something you should beproud of and being part of and
carrying that torch.

Eric Krawcheck (59:53):
Yeah, I think that's good.
And, speaking of thirdgenerations, my partner recently
retired and so I have a newpartner which is a company
called Ballen, out of Canada,and it's interesting because
Burl is short for Berlinski.
We were founded in 1946, andBallen is short for Berlinski
and they were founded in 1946.

(01:00:14):
And they were also a trousercompany, Wow.
So it was kind of a match madein heaven, and it was nice to
kind of have that smoothtransition to work with another
company that pretty much does alot of the same things we do,
and it's been really good forour business and a lot in common

(01:00:34):
, I would think.

Ryan Sharrott (01:00:35):
going through the manufacturing business from
1946 to 2025, going on 26.
It's a long time and having asimilar path um makes a good
partnership yes and we did talk.
We talked about murder, mergersand acquisitions on another um
podcast, and that's a difficultthing to make happen taking two

(01:00:58):
companies and remarrying themand making it smooth.
Well, eric, we've had a prettygood conversation, kind of
covered a lot of topics, butit's been fun to come down here.
I'm excited to check out thetown and have some great dinner
tonight, and thank you for yourtime man, I appreciate you
coming and spending a littletime with me and always enjoy

(01:01:18):
talking to you.
Yeah, it was a good conversation.
We'll have another one for sure.

Eric Krawcheck (01:01:21):
I'll be there.

Ryan Sharrott (01:01:22):
All right, talk to you later.

narrator (01:01:25):
You've been listening to Real People, Real Life.
Our passion is to have realconversations with real people
who've made it.
Real people who've made it whodid it on their own terms.
We'll be back soon, but in themeantime, catch us on Twitter or
X at RPRL Podcast and onYouTube at Real People Real Life

(01:01:49):
Podcast.