“I’m Not the Boss, I Just Work Here,” Howard Jonas. The Toby Press, $16.95 (102p) ISBN: 9781592645565
By Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D.
SAN DIEGO — Whether you’re looking for a book to read over this coming weekend that may provide you with fuel to shift from unhealthy negative feelings that you’ve been having during COVID while facing financial stress, or if you’re just seeking a positive success story blast of fuel filled with eternal wisdom, this is it!
I’m Not the Boss, I Just Work Here,” was written by the founder and chairman of the multibillion dollar publicly traded telecommunications corporation IDT, and Genie Energy Ltd, Howard Jonas. Reading his personal short and succinctly portrayed story will leave you feeling that you too can overcome barriers of clinical depression and emerge with faith and profound success.
Jonas follows the Orthodox tradition in Judaism, though he shares that he is not an expert on God. No, his expertise as he describes it, is anchored in depression.
Facing truly adverse challenges to his financial stability, his emotional stability, his family stability, he shares with his readers, “I lost hundreds of millions of dollars drilling for oil that wasn’t there and promoting technologies no one wanted to buy, but there is no mental, spiritual, or emotional depth from which you cannot rise… God is always there to help.”
His path to God, his faith, is a key ingredient in this quick, yet engrossing and engaging, read. From reading Ayn Rand, Adam Smith and Nietzsche, pondering good and evil, all the way to the Bible, Jonas’ growth is one many will identify with. At a young age he came to see, “The Bible really was God’s revealed Law. It was the source of all morality in the world.” The author believes that the central value of God is freedom, independence, autonomy. Jonas wants people to see that God believes that people have alternatives to choose from and to see that the choices they make are theirs alone.
A turning point, as I read this inspirational work, comes in Jonas seeing that “…people who’ve lived through adversity and confronted challenges are deeper people than those who haven’t. The real idea is to challenge oneself every day, by attempting to climb new mountains. Someone who lives this way, when challenges are thrust upon him, will be well prepared.” His answer to tragedy is not positive thinking and certainly not hopelessness. His answer is love.
His motivational message is that regardless of your position in life, you can ascend and achieve. He believes there are three types of people: slackers who try to pilfer off the efforts of others, ordinary people who do only what is necessary, and those who “go all out to try to accomplish the most they can with whatever God gave them.” It seems that Howard Jonas may have begun his young life by believing he was the third type of person and was taught by his father that if Joseph could become Viceroy of all of Egypt, so could young Howard.
Think about the stories you were told as a youngster and how that story guides you. Is it a story worth holding on to, promoting you, or is it holding you back?
I particularly enjoyed reading how this man hires only two types of employees: those who are passionate, possessed and exhaustive about what they do, who have a fire burning in them, and those who have had profound “failures, screw-ups on an astonishingly grand level.” Jonas tells us, “It is how we deal with the aftermath of failure and hardship that truly defines us.” Indeed, I often share with clients, “It’s not the hardship that’s the hardship, it’s the way you deal with the hardship that’s the hardship.”
Jonas describes a very personal comeback from clinical, suicidal depression that began in 1992. Like many, he spiraled, tried various medications, psychiatrists, and then a life event opened his eyes and helped turn his life around. This life event was a trip to Israel. Reading the book to understand what happened near the Dead Sea, alone is worth the investment of a bit of time – the book is only 102 pages long and fits in the palm of your hand.
As someone who has spent a lifetime helping people learn to disturb themselves less, Jonas’ comment struck home with me, “Our job in life is to continuously undertake challenges and confront evil, so that we will grow as people, and so that we can help move the world closer to the goodness, and further from the evil, that God gave us the freedom to create.” Whew!
I’ll pass along what I consider to be the key message that Howard Jonas leaves us with, “Remember that God wants us to be happy and enjoy life.” Pass this along to your family and friends, those you may attend synagogue with, and you’ll have helped our community be a better one.
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Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D., prepares a weekly D’var Torah for Young Israel of San Diego, where he and his family are members. They are also active members of Congregation Adat Yeshurun. He may be contacted via michael.mantell@sdjewishworld.com