I never intended to go into the international telephone business. I wound up in it by accident because I was cheap and I was desperate.

My desperation sprang from the fact that Marc Knoller, my right hand, informed me that he intended to move his family to Israel. I was in a panic. He was irreplaceable. Without him I’d be back to running a marginal publishing business.

I was on the horns of a dilemma, however. He didn’t want to leave for a better opportunity. He wanted to move for reasons of religious principle. I didn’t think it would be right to try to make him stay against his conscience. I also didn’t think it would be productive. The secret to getting magic people like Marc to work with you is to share your dreams with them, to become spiritual partners, so to speak. Such a relationship is impossible if one party is being forced into it against his will. And without the relationship, the magic effort people put out when they feel they’re working for themselves stops being exerted. Then the magic dies.

I know this sounds corny, but I don’t believe there’s any power on earth as strong as a motivated human soul. This is what gives mothers, literally, the strength to lift a car that is crushing their child.

It is also the power uniquely successful people have to achieve undreamed-of accomplishments. A soul, however, is not for hire. You can hire a person’s body or mind, but the soul will only work for itself. The only way, therefore, to engage a person’s soul in an undertaking is to set things up in such a way that the person honestly feels as if he’s working for himself. Then he’ll put his soul into it. And watch out. Something that feels like fingernails on a blackboard to me is when I hear someone from IDT, especially a senior person, say he works for Howard Jonas. I always correct him, and ask him not to say that again. Rather, I ask him to say that he works with Howard Jonas. I similarly make sure to use the same words myself, and never say someone works for me.

This is not just a game of modesty, it’s how I really feel. We’re all part of a team and I need the people I hire as much as they need me. Besides that, what am I? Some kind of an overlord on a plantation in charge of a bunch of slaves? Who wants that? It’s much more exciting and productive to be working with a group of highly motivated, independent people, especially when you can feel the fire burning in their souls.