The Difference Between Kodak & Amazon
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 20% of new businesses fail during their first two years of operation and 65% within the first ten years. Only 25% of new businesses survive for 15 years or more.
While there are many root causes for this phenomenon, two primary reasons are often cited: remaining rigid or expanding too quickly.
Too often, once entrepreneurs have completed the planning, established their business, and gained a customer base, they become complacent. Eventually, the market changes, consumer needs evolve, or competition overtakes them.
On the other hand, fast growth is what entrepreneurs crave, investors need, and markets want. Rapid growth signifies a great idea in a hot market. However, when a business expands too quickly without the same care for research, strategy, and planning, the financial drain from failing ventures can sink the entire enterprise.
Over the last few decades, many great companies have disappeared for these very reasons. For instance, Kodak was the market leader in photographic film throughout the 20th century and coined the ubiquitous “Kodak moment” tagline. Despite developing the world's first digital camera, Kodak's management was so focused on the success of photographic film that they missed the digital revolution. They failed to keep innovating and filed for bankruptcy in 2012.
Conversely, companies like Amazon and Tesla took many years before showing any profit. Through trial and error, they continuously adapted to changing markets, making slow but steady growth before eventually dominating their industries.
Setbacks, failures and challenges can become a part of our journey to greater heights. Success does not happen overnight, but it begins with small but steady steps and lots of perseverance.
The Talmud teaches: “If a person tells you, ‘I’ve worked hard but have not succeeded’, don’t believe him; if he says, ‘I’ve not worked hard but have succeeded’, don’t believe him; but if he says ‘I’ve worked hard and succeeded’, believe him (-Megillah 2a)”.
Rabbi Akiva (50 AD, Lod, Israel- 135 AD, Caesarea, Israel), began his life as a simple unlearned shepherd. Akiva once saw drops of water falling on a huge stone – drip, drop – and directly where the drops were falling there was a deep hole in the stone.
Akiva then reasoned: If a substance soft as water can penetrate a rock with slow, persistent motion, so too the Torah can slowly but surely penetrate my heart. And that was Akiva’s turning point. He promptly set off to study Torah and rose to become one of the greatest Jewish sages and leaders in history.
In this week’s Torah portion, Matos-Maasei, we learn about the forty-two journeys that the Jewish people traveled through in the desert after leaving Egypt on their way to the promised land. As the verse states, “These are the journeys of the children of Israel who left the land of Egypt in their legions, under the charge of Moses and Aaron.” -Numbers 33:1
Mitzrayim, the Hebrew word for “Egypt,” also means “borders” and “constraints.” On a spiritual level, the journey from Egypt is a journey from the boundaries that limit us—an exodus from the narrow straits of habit, convention and ego to the “good, broad land” of the infinite potential of our G‑dly soul.
The journey from Egypt is a perpetual one: what is expansive and uninhibited by yesterday’s standards, is narrow and confining in light of the added wisdom and new possibilities of today’s station. Therefore, each of life’s “journeys” is an exodus from the land of Egypt: having transcended yesterday’s limitations, we must again journey from the Egypt that our present norm represents relative to our newly uncovered potential.
Life is like bike riding uphill, we must keep on pedaling to keep our balance and make progress. In order for our Judaism to remain relevant, meaningful and enjoyable, we must continuously explore and expand our Jewish learning and performance of Mitzvot.
The Journeys of the Jewish people to Israel didn’t happen overnight. It began with one journey at a time. The Ba’al Shem Tov (1698, Okopy, Ukraine-1760, Medzhybizh, Ukraine) taught that these forty-two journeys are also the spiritual journeys we make throughout our lives. The need to balance our interpersonal relationships, career advancement and our connection with our Jewish heritage may overwhelm us.
But it all begins with one small step. Every Mitzvah that we perform, each moment that we dedicate to Torah study, every improvement we make in our professional and personal lives, despite how insignificant it may seem, puts us in touch with our own identity, connects us to G-d, brings us closer to the people around us and helps us reach our “promised land”.
The “journeys” mentioned in the Torah also include many difficult moments and challenges as well. This teaches us that setbacks are an inadvertent part of a person’s journey on earth. But when everything a person does is toward the goal of attaining the “Holy Land”—the sanctification of the material world—these, too, are “journeys.” Ultimately, they are shown to have been the true motors of progression, each an impetus to the realization of one’s mission and purpose in life.
This coming week we enter a period called the Nine Days, a time of heightened mourning leading up the fast of Tisha Be’av when the Jewish nation mourns the calamities that befell our people during the destruction of the two Holy Temples in Jerusalem many years ago. Ever since the destruction of the Holy Temples, the Jewish people have been dispersed throughout the world and have yearned to return to Israel to rebuild the Third Temple with the coming of Moshiach.
While the period of exile brought with it many challenges and persecutions, it also presents us with great opportunities as well. As the Talmud states: “The Holy One, blessed be He, acted charitably towards His people by dispersing them amongst the nations of the world”. It enabled us to serve as “a light unto the nations” by elevating and refining the world around us, by means of the Torah that we study and teach and through the Mitzvot we perform wherever we find ourselves, thereby preparing the world for the ultimate redemption. Let us do an additional Mitzvah to bring peace and prosperity to Israel and the entire world!
