Episode 4! Emunah Pancakes & Joe Montana

What if balance isn’t a buzzword but a map you can actually use? We take an honest look at ambition, family, and faith, then lay out a clear approach that turns values into calendar choices. No clichés, no hustle-for-hustle’s-sake—just a framework you can apply today.

We start with Emuna as the anchor and build outward into fifteen practical life domains: reflection, learning, joy, thought, character and emotions, service, sacred time, spouse and children, relationships and community, health, self-care, finances, material realities, and professional concerns. By scanning these domains, you stop guessing and start deciding. We talk about coaching through the lens of Joe Montana and Bill Walsh to show how a good coach doesn’t nitpick mechanics; they spark better execution where it counts. That shift helps you protect what matters and still perform at a high level.

Along the way, we get tactical. There’s a “return all calls within a day” rule that compounds trust. There’s a simple presence technique—choose your next thought—to pull you out of rumination and back into action. And there’s a non-negotiable reminder that business will be there when the kids are grown, but childhood won’t wait. Schedule family first where possible, then fit work with discipline. Real estate might be the profession, but identity is bigger—parent, partner, learner, neighbor—and balance comes from honoring the whole picture.

If you’re ready to move from intention to rhythm, press play, take the domain inventory, and make one concrete change before the day ends. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a better map, and leave a review telling us which habit you’re adopting this week.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Without further ado, Dad Lefko, I'd like to welcome you in to the Cassap and Canyon podcast. Episode four. It's a beautiful day here in Lakewood, and I reckon it's a beautiful day down there in Virginia, probably a little bit warmer. Episode four, here we go. Dad, good morning. How are you? Doing great. Smash that like button, Michael. And don't forget to smash the like button, like Dad said. Hit the subscribe button and absolutely destroy that donate button. Um we are. That tickles me. We it's you know, it's how the uh the young uh Gen Z, that's how they talk on these type of shows, I think. All right, now I know. The object of today is audacious. The goal of today is outlandish, but we're gonna get it done. We're going to kind of segue from last con last week's conversation or two weeks ago conversation of work-life balance, how to be successful in the things that really matter, which is in the career, but also in juggling uh family, friends, golf, uh, you know, sitting outside with a Gamora and a beer, work-life balance. And I think that you have the most incredible framework to get this done. You have a name for a dad? Do we call it Mr. Leco's 15 steps to success? What is the name of it?

Warm Welcome And Housekeeping

From Work–Life Balance To A Framework

SPEAKER_01 3:04

They're not mine. They're not mine. I have a own coach. You know, we all we all need we can't see each other ourselves the way other people see us. There's just no way. If you look in the mirror, it's an interesting thing. If you look in the mirror, your left eye looks at your left eye. But when someone's looking at you or you're looking at someone else, your left eye looks at their right eye. We can never see ourselves the way someone else sees us. And I once heard an idea that a coach, especially for the professional football player, for an example, back when I heard this, do you ever heard of a quarterback Joe Montana on the all-time greats? He uh he won a couple Super Bowls with a coach named Bill Walsh. And the person who gave us this example said, Bill Walsh doesn't tell Joe Montana where to put his fingers on the football. What Bill Walsh does is he says something to Joe Montana that makes him play better on Sunday. So the concept of everybody having someone to coach us is huge, no matter how old you are. So my my my coach uh talks about life balance often. One of the things, by the way, that you it one thing builds on another. You know, in in learning, you you talk about that all the time, that one thing builds on another, that one year builds on another, that the partial of the week is is the next year in the helix of partial learning. So, so when we talk about life balance and the the different things that we think about in life balance, and we talk about all the talked about five things before that you that take time for a young married man like yourself is family and your learning and your business and your house and you. Those are five important things. And time, because of how limited it is, only 168 hours in a week, no matter who you are, uh you you it'll take more time, each one of them will take more time than the week has. So you have to figure out how to balance that out. And the balancing act is the trick. Uh and it builds on something that we started off on when you talked to us, I think, in episode two, about time management, uh, time being a big component of life balance. And so that's that that's the challenge. You've asked me questions about how to deal in each in different real estate opportunity transactions, relationship matters, how to get from this step to the next step, how to get to uh to a deal, which then leads to a closing. You've talked about these different things in in real estate. Real estate is your profession, but it's not who you are.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Who you are is uh is the is the uh is the aspiring rabbi and ambitious realtor who's a good father. Go to that. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

But it it you're you're a your mixture of all the different things that that make up Michael, that make up Kevin, that make up our listeners. Each one of us is as unique as a fingerprint. Wait, you know what?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

You know what irks me about all that? You know what irks me about that? How come people how come nobody calls me back if time is of the essence? How come nobody answers the phone? How come it takes so long for people to play ball?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

First of all, time is not of the essence with everyone, but time is limited with everyone. And everyone has different priorities and you know. Uh I think I have it written down actually. I think I keep it with me. If I can find it, I'm gonna read it to you now. Go ahead and ask me your question.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Uh my question is I want to hear step one of the 15 steps of how to make life and business work.

Coaching, Perspective, And Performance

SPEAKER_01 7:04

It's not a step. Because, by the way, the old joke was that the man said it it takes all kinds of people to make this world, and I'm glad I'm not one of them. Anyway, anyway, um uh he should uh he should have his Nashama Shah and Ali and Shemayam every day, every minute. Um they're not steps, they're all part of uh of a of a chant that makes each one of us up. So I'm just gonna look at the different the different components of it. I'm gonna read right off of my sheet that my coach gave me, and you can you can hear this and see what I mean by this. There's Amuna at the top, and then there's Hajban, an accounting of what you do, your learning, your simcha, your thinking, your character traits and emotions. Number six is your service of Hashem. Number seven is Shabbos, Hagim, Zimmanim. Number eight is your wife and children. For the women out there, your husband and children. Nine, your interpersonal relationships and extended family. Ten, your community and your global concerns. Eleven, your health. Kind of need the the the car to move around. Yeah, can't do anything if you're sick. You could actually, that's uh for a different conversation. Number 12, you have to take care of yourself. That's probably under help. You have 13, financial, you have to pay the mortgage. Number 14, physical and material concerns, um, like aging and where you are, and then your professional concerns. So the you add all those, you look at all of those things in the chalet and you say, what are my what are my objectives? What practically can I do uh over the course of a day, a week, a month, a year to balance those things out. Because if you think about each one of them, you're those things come into mind all the time. You wake up in the morning and your thoughts go to different places of what's next. Sometimes it's uh, you know, it's more of a challenge than it is of an exciting, let's get to it, let's go. So you have to find ways to be able to uh manage those things.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

I love love it. I love that I love when in a day like today, sometimes you ask questions and you get very generic responses. Like you ask AI and it says, Oh, great question. This is something that I should suggest. It's very um artificial. I love when someone is is precise and exact, even if it's it's right or wrong, at least they told me an answer. At least they went ahead and said something. I love this. I love that I didn't realize it was gonna be uh fiddle for the full disclosure here. I I will I like to keep myself sometimes blind to the material you're gonna present on the show so it comes through. That's how Larry King used to interview. He used to learn about the person on the spot so he'd be interested, like the audience.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Right. Well, I hope this is somewhat interesting. I will tell you one thing though. Going back to my old, my old uh my old chairman of the board, Hunter Hogan, from years ago, when we talked about him and his uh his different soliloquies of how much fun the real estate business was, he he used to say to me, Kevin, I don't understand why people don't return their phone calls. You should return your phone calls. Somebody calls you, you got one day, call them back. I love that not everybody does that. But Hunter always returned his phone calls. And uh, you know, if somebody calls me, I'll call them back. What happens is that people call and they don't leave a message, so they don't really, really want to talk to me.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

You know what bothers me? People leave messages and and they say, all right, call me back, and this is my number, but it's always funny to me because it's almost always I know their phone number because we have caller ID. So why are they telling me their phone number? I know they called from that number.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

I don't know why we would spend much time on that one, Michael, but it's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

So Amuna starts at the top. Uh all all roads, I think that's mom lefko's thing, lead to Amuna.

The Five Buckets And Limited Time

SPEAKER_01 11:14

That's uh one of our dear friends' quotes that all roads lead to Amuna. You know, RubbGov, I don't know if I've told you this one, but I was listening to uh to him on Tara anytime. And uh he started off this shear a couple weeks ago, maybe not too long ago, on uh on the parsha of that time. I really don't know which one it was. So this man goes to the door and he opens the door, and there's an angel standing there, and the angel says to the man, My name is Shalom, which is peace. And here alongside of me are my friends Simcha, Sasan, Manucha, uh um uh uh Muna and uh and uh Simca. And um, we're all here to greet you. You can pick any one of us, and that'll we'll that angel will be with you every day, all the time. Guy goes, Can I ask my wife? He goes, No, don't ask your wife, just tell me who you want. I'd like to ask my wife. He goes, Okay, go ask your wife. Comes back, they make a decision. He goes, We'll take Amuna. So the Shalom the angel goes, Amuna, come on up. So Amuna comes in the door, and with Amuna comes Shalom and Simca and Sason and Manucha and Simpa and Parnasa and Haplaka. Well, those aren't angels, but but Solomon thinking. So why do they all come in? And Amuna said, and they all said, where Amuna goes, we follow.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

That's gotta be why Amuna's at the top. It's gotta be. Anyway. The Masekh is a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

He's a great presenter. Listen to him anytime.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Yeah, he's uh he's a big he's a big fan of yours. Um the Gemara in Mesehta Makos, 27A. Uh, I think it's 27A, Khafazia and I'm an Aleph describes how different prophets tried to summarize the Torah into succinct and pithy sukkim verses so that the generations as we got further from Mount Sinai would be able to remember the important themes. And it says that this prophet summarized it into 10 verses, and this prophet summarized it into five verses, and eventually one of the prophets, whose name slips my memory at this point, he says, maybe it's Sidkiahu, or maybe it was it was Zafania, I can't recall. Ahmad, he stood up and said, Sadik ba'emaso yfya. The whole thing can be summarized in one verse, which is the righteous lives with Amuna. And that's all of the Torah on one foot, all of the Torah in in one pasak. I think that uh that works nicely. Everything, it's I can almost imagine this 15-step pyramid, kinda kind of with the Amuna at the top, and it's a bunch of pancakes that are stacked, and the Amuna is like the syrup that's dripping down all over the 15 steps below. That's kind of how I picture it.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Let's have some pancakes, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Amuna pancakes. Amuna pancakes, Amuna pancakes. So then we got an episode title. What we're gonna have to do is I think we're gonna have to we're we had that goal of getting into all 15 steps. We've just barely cracked it. Maybe we'll we'll talk about that was Amuna step number one that starts at the beginning of the day. Maybe we'll talk about finish up with step one and then start step two, and we can do one or two.

Professional Identity Versus Whole Self

SPEAKER_01 14:47

It's not a step, it's a it's it's a it's an ingredient in the chalent that makes us off. And I can just tell you that that that the the objective of each wand is to find some sort of practical application for each one that you can build on. Not each one, you can make you can build on, you know, each are individuals where where we need to focus can help us. I'll tell you that the the most important thing that I I've been thinking about over the last couple of days is is that our business will be there when our kids are grown. You can't wait for you you can't wait on your child to and your wife or husband for it to be okay at some point that we can spend time together. It's got to be the time goes by so quick, especially with children, that you can't miss any of it. And once you prioritize your family where you can, because you have to provide for them, each each one of us has our obligations, wife and husband. We can't take away from how important and those times are because we don't get this day back. Today's the only today, like it or not. It's the only day we get like this. So I think that when we talk about life balance, we talk about values, priorities, and the first thing starts with what what what is it that our family is for us? And uh there's so many different things that challenge us in family. Um and uh we're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

How about I challenge you? I'm interrupting you just because I want to I want to close with a blitz and a and a high point. I'm working on Emuna today. Emuna in my life and business. How do I do that? What do I do today? What are you doing today, dad, to uh to be with Emuna today?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

That's a that's a really cool thing to think about, Michael. I love that a lot because I can tell you that that that that level is challenged. Uh I think that it has to do with something we heard from Rabbi Rieti in Norfolk last week, who came to uh came as a scholar in residence in honor of the memory of your grandmother Ann Zuckerman.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

I heard Nasama Shavanlia, shout out to my to my amazing mother who took care of all that.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yes, she did. She did a great job. Well, the the honor was ours to be able to share in that. Rabbi Rietti said it's the past is not uh is is non-existent anymore. It's the next thought. So in a MUNA, if that's the thing that we're talking about, what's the next step, then the object is to think about the next thought. How are we going to build on on what on what we're accomplishing going forward? And that is about being present for now and thinking about how to empower ourselves in the next thought. And with that, a MUNA will be, if that's our next thought, or we we focus on making that our next thought, it's nothing but empowerment. It's nothing but empowering ourselves. So I think I'd leave it at that. Michael, I appreciate the time. Uh it's always good to catch up. And uh, God willing, we'll see you soon in good health. And uh uh we'll talk more about things that you want to talk about. And hopefully uh everybody got a little bit out of this morning. I know I did.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

I definitely did, and I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow when you come up to Lakewood. Maybe we'll even have a live edition of the KK Cass Up and Kenyan podcast. Thank you for your time, Dad, and have an amazing day. Everybody go get them.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Have a good day, Michael. Thank you.