The Karol Markowicz Show: From Soviet Roots to American Policy: Eugene Kontorovich on Israel, Sovereignty, and Life Lessons

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show (The Karol Markowicz Show)

Title: From Soviet Roots to American Policy: Eugene Kontorovich on Israel, Sovereignty, and Life Lessons
Date: September 5, 2025
Host: Karol Markowicz
Guest: Eugene Kontorovich (Professor at George Mason Law, Senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, Heritage Foundation)

---

Episode Overview

This episode features a rich, personal, and policy-oriented conversation between Karol Markowicz and Eugene Kontorovich, highlighting his journey from Soviet childhood to American academia, his take on U.S. foreign policy (particularly toward Israel and international institutions like the U.N.), and the life philosophies that guide his work. The discussion intertwines personal anecdotes, cultural insights from a Soviet immigrant’s perspective, and reflections on Jewish history with serious commentary on U.S. sovereignty and the pitfalls of international bureaucracies.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Soviet Roots and Early Career in America

• Background: Both Karol and Eugene share ex-Soviet backgrounds, having immigrated at a young age.
• Early Ambition: Eugene’s drive appeared early; at 14, he proactively secured a journalism internship at the Princeton Packet, later working at The Forward at 15, and then writing for major publications like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post.
• Quote:
  • “I was a very cocky... kid. So there's an amazing scene in Jerzy Kaczynski's... Being There... [who] rises to the top... by unawareness... This is you. I was unaware. What a snot. No skill.” — Eugene Kontorovich (06:03)

2. Transition to Legal Academia

• Motivated partly by a desire for a “deeper body of knowledge” and inspired by his father (a professor), Eugene chose the legal academic path, teaching at George Mason, Chicago, and Northwestern.
• His academic and policy interests began merging, leading to a career that bridges scholarship and public policy.

3. Work at the Heritage Foundation

• Dual Focus:
  • U.S.-Israel relationship, emphasizing mutual benefits.
  • Reclaiming U.S. sovereignty by pushing back against international bodies like the U.N. and ICC.
• Think-Tank Model: Prefers actionable ideas over theoretical inactivity—“not interested in just thinking in a tank.”
• Quote:
  • “So we try to come up with policies to inform our nation's policymakers... but also to translate the ideas... into actionable policies.” — Eugene Kontorovich (08:52)

4. Critique of U.S. Support for U.N. Institutions

• Eugene criticizes continued U.S. funding of U.N. missions like UNIFIL, calling it antithetical to ‘America First’ ideologies.
• UNIFIL Example: U.S. funds 28% of the budget, essentially subsidizing Chinese and French troops in Lebanon, failing its main mandate (disarming Hezbollah).
• Inertia and Immunity: The UN, he argues, has an “amazing institutional permanence... inertia is the UN’s superpower. It’s both too big to fail, too bureaucratic... almost immune to reform.”
• Quote:
  • “UNIFIL is like the least MAGA thing ever... The U.S. provides 28% of the budget... supposed to disarm Hezbollah... Instead, Hezbollah amassed hundreds of thousands of missiles... It's hundreds of millions of U.S. tax-payer funds.” — Eugene Kontorovich (09:39)
• He notes most politicians, even those claiming to be “America First”, don’t engage with this critique due to a despair about the UN's unchangeability or simply because the issues aren't widely visible.

5. Soviet Upbringing and Attitudes Toward Success

• Both discuss parental perspectives on prestige, success, and earnings—rooted in Soviet immigrant pragmatism.
• Karol: Dismisses the importance of elite colleges in favor of financial security for her children.
• Eugene: Notes Soviet prestige was closely tied to the party and job placement rather than wealth, but success and self-sufficiency were always stressed.

6. Jewish Historical Perspective & Fears

• Eugene carries a historical awareness as both a scholar and a Jew; he celebrates the unprecedented safety and access Jews currently have to their ancestral lands, but worries about losing these gains.
• Quote:
  • “We live in the best time to be a Jew... the safest time, the most stable time... My fear... my grandkids would look at me one day and say, grandfather, you had all this and you lost it... You could travel the whole country. What do we have?” — Eugene Kontorovich (18:36, 20:03)
• He urges vigilance in preserving these hard-won advantages for future generations.

7. Cautious Optimism and Historical Humility

• He cautions against grand “solutions” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, advocating a “first, do no harm” approach.
• “When you are in the top 0.1% of historical well-being, we can see more ways down than up. It is truly a messianic sensibility that thinks you're going to break through the ceiling of history and create a new as yet unseen up.” — Eugene Kontorovich (22:19)

8. Personal Reflection and Advice

• Younger Self: Eugene would advise reading as much as possible before having kids, being less self-satisfied, and not discarding vinyl records, as “these things, you never know what the wrong thing is.”
  • “Don’t throw away the vinyl.” — Eugene Kontorovich (23:21)
• For Listeners: Don’t take things personally; practice detachment, knowing other people’s behavior is about them, not you.
  • “In general, don't take things personally... Something should have to really rise to some kind of horrible moment... to justify ruining one's enjoyment of life for.” — Eugene Kontorovich (27:08)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "[UNIFIL] is kind of like the UNWA of Lebanon... the U.S. provides 28% of the budget... they're paying the salaries of Chinese troops, French troops... supposed to disarm Hezbollah... instead, Hezbollah amassed hundreds of thousands of missiles..."
  — Eugene Kontorovich ([09:39])

• “...in the Soviet Union, it wasn't so much about money. There was a greater intertwinement... because prestige only came from the party... But it was still like what you could get. Yes, you made the same salary, but what your salary could buy was different.”
  — Eugene Kontorovich ([14:28])

• “We live in the best time to be a Jew... And my fear... my grandkids would look at me one day and say, grandfather, you had all this and you lost it.”
  — Eugene Kontorovich ([18:36], [20:03])

• “First do no harm. And when you are like in the top 0.1% of historical well-being, we can see more ways down than up.”
  — Eugene Kontorovich ([22:19])

• “Don’t throw away the vinyl.”
  — Eugene Kontorovich ([23:21])

• “...don't take things personally... everyone’s going through some kind of difficulty... cultivating a kind of detachment... In short, don't take things personally... don’t ruin your mood for strangers on the Internet for sure.”
  — Eugene Kontorovich ([27:08])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:52 – Introduction to Eugene Kontorovich and his early life/journalism beginnings
• 07:28 – Path into academia; reasons for choosing law over other interests
• 08:12 – Role at the Heritage Foundation and policy focus
• 09:11 – Critique of continued U.S. support for the U.N.; discussion of UNIFIL
• 14:13 – Soviet values, success, and views on education and money
• 18:36 – Jewish historical perspective and existential concerns about losing current freedoms
• 22:19 – Philosophical stance on conflict resolution and historical humility
• 23:21 – Advice to younger self and lighthearted reflections
• 25:28 – Final advice for listeners: cultivating detachment, not taking things personally, using yoga for mental clarity

---

Conclusion

This episode delivers a substantive mix of personal immigrant experience, policy depth, and broader philosophical themes. Kontorovich blends his expertise in international law with reflections shaped by Soviet roots and deep historical awareness, offering listeners nuanced critiques of U.S. foreign policy, meditations on Jewish security, and practical life advice grounded in emotional intelligence. The tone is candid, occasionally humorous, yet always thoughtful—making for a compelling and instructive conversation.

Transcript

[Eugene Kantarovich]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Advertiser]

In business they say you can have better, cheaper or faster, but you only get to pick two. What if you could have all three at the same time? That's exactly what Cohere, Thomson Reuters and Specialized Bikes have since they upgraded to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure OCI is the blazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development and AI needs where you can run any workload in a high availability, consistently high performance environment and spend less than you would with other clouds. How is it faster? OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second cheaper. OCI costs up to 50% less for computing, 70% less for storage and 80% less for networking better. In test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and and higher bandwidth versus other clouds. This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads right now with zero commitment. Try OCI for free. Head to oracle.com strategic that's oracle.com strategic.

[PayPal Advertiser]

Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[Nintendo Advertiser]

Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless and if you haven't made.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

The switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should 1. It's $15 a month. 2. Seriously, it's $15 a month.

[Lenovo Advertiser]

3.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

No big contracts. 4.

[Lenovo Advertiser]

I use it.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

5. Are you. Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a [e-mail] switch upfront.

[PayPal Advertiser]

Payment of 45 per 3 month plan 15 per month equivalent required new customer offer first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See mint mobile.com Ah come on.

[Carol Markowitz]

Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

[Lenovo Advertiser]

Still using yesterday's tech Upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultra Light Ultra powerful and built for serious productivity with Intel Core Ultra processors, blazing speed and AI powered performance. It keeps up with your business, not the other way around.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Whoa.

[Carol Markowitz]

This thing moves.

[Lenovo Advertiser]

Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech [e-mail] Lenovo Lenovo unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra Processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device.

[GoDaddy Advertiser]

Running a business online. Look legit and own your own brand with professional tools from GoDaddy. Instantly build trust with your customers and boost your credibility with an email that matches your domain so people know you mean business. There's never been a better time. Just go to GoDaddy.com GDnow and choose from a wide variety of popular domains. To find one that's right for you, pair that with a professional email that works for all your business needs from daily communications to email marketing and everything in between. That's a little price for a lot of credibility. For a limited time, get a domain and matching professional email for just 9.99cents a month for one year. Go to GoDaddy.comGdNow and look legit with GoDaddy. That's GoDaddy.comGdNow again. GoDaddy.comGdNow there's never been a better time to choose the domain and email that's right for you. New customer purchases only products Auto renew separately. See terms on site GoDaddy.comGdNow welcome back.

[Carol Markowitz]

To the Carol Markowitz show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Eugene Kantarovich, professor at George Mason Law and senior research fellow at the Margaret Thatcher center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation. So nice to have you on, Eugene.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Thank you, Carolyn. I love how you say my name.

[Carol Markowitz]

Did I do it right? I felt like I, you know, I had, I had to do the Russian pronunciation. You and I obviously have one or two things in common. We were both born in the Soviet Union and got out of there as fast as we could. So I think we both worked for.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

The New York Post at some point.

[Carol Markowitz]

Oh, yeah. I mean, I continue to write a column for them and I know you write for them as well. Tell me about your journey to get to this thing of ours that we do, this public living and pontificating.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Okay. So I got to that journey pretty early. So I was born in the Soviet Union and my parents came when I was a little child. I was naturalized in Media County Courthouse outside of Philadelphia when I was 10 years old. Still have a memorable experience. Grew up in the suburbs, very normal kind of stuff. Was always interested in writing in journalism. And I think when I was 14, I took, I took a train and rode my bicycle and into the offices of the Princeton Packet, which was the Princeton local newspaper, and asked for a job. And remarkably, I got one.

[Carol Markowitz]

Really? At 14, they were like, okay, yeah.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Like a summer internship. It was Fine, Impressive. But I was very aggressive and wanted to write articles. And so I pushed my way kind of into that. And then I got noticed through a circuitous route by a man who became a great friend of mine, Seth Lipsky, who hired me to work at the forward when I was 15 and started working.

[Carol Markowitz]

How are you working at the forward at 15? What is that?

[Eugene Kantarovich]

I was a very cocky, and I was a very kid. So there's an amazing scene in Jerzy Kaczynski's. In the book version, in the Peter Sellers version of Jerzy Kaczynski's being there, where Peter Sellers is this either badly autistic or retarded man who grows up a very sheltered life. He's a gardener for probably his father. And then he's thrust into the world and doesn't really understand anything. But by being very simple and offering lots of gardening metaphors, he rises to the top of Washington politics. And in the last scene, he is taking a walk, and he gets to a pond, and he just continues to walk across it. And it's a metaphor for how he walks across society by simply his unawareness. So this is you. I was unaware. What a. What a snot. No skill. I started writing for the Wall Street Journal, and then I interned there. And then I worked for the New York Post. Writer for college. So I started writing and publishing newspapers quite early. My father was a professor, so I always wanted to be a professor. Also. I became a professor, and then I continued writing. And then I kind of started combining things. And some of the, you know, topics I started doing academic work on happened to be of public interest. And so I. That's. That's. I never really intended to do this.

[Carol Markowitz]

But how do you end up a law professor from that?

[Eugene Kantarovich]

So then I wanted to be. I always wanted to be a professor because I wanted some kind of deeper body of knowledge. My father was a professor. Seemed like a nice life. And I wanted something kind of that seemed to allow for leisure and low stress, like writing about the Israeli Arab conflict. Turns out very calm work.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

So I went to law school and then embarked upon the path of being a legal academic. So I started teaching at George Mason, then I went to Chicago in Northwestern. Been around.

[Carol Markowitz]

So what kind of work do you do at the Margaret Thatcher center for Freedom for Heritage? What's the senior research fellow there all about?

[Eugene Kantarovich]

So I think every. Every researcher kind of makes their own portfolio, but my work focuses on kind of two areas. The US Israel relationship, which. Which I think benefits the United States a great deal. And also reclaiming sovereignty for the United States by pushing back on dysfunctional international institutions like the un, but also maybe the icc, other examples. So, you know, there's different models of a think tank. I'm not interested in just thinking in a tank. I could do that as a academic.

[Carol Markowitz]

Sure.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

So we try to come up with policies to inform our nation's policymakers, to advance the arguments really, but also to translate the ideas. So I come up with ideas you get like as an academic, but to translate them into actionable policies.

[Carol Markowitz]

I saw you post recently about how the UN and the US continually funding the UN is like the antithesis of America First. I think that's 100% correct, of course. But why do you feel like not a lot of people are making that argument? Why even the American firsters are sort of like, well, the UN said the UN does. You know. How come that's not a more widespread thought?

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Because I don't want to psychoanalyze.

[Carol Markowitz]

Psychoanalyze. Come on.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Yeah. If you truly believe in MAGA and you're skeptical of US overseas enterprises. So today, I happen to be posting today specifically about something very timely. Unifilm, which is a UN peacekeeping mission. And UN peacekeeping was supposed to be the glory of the un. They were originally supposed to have these armies under their control, like real UN armies, which would go and stop wars on behalf of the un. It turns out nobody really wants to die in someone's complete strangers war. And that didn't really. No one wants to give the troops to this. So that didn't really happen. But UNIFIL is like the least MAGA thing ever. It is. The US provides 28% of the budget more than any other country. So they're paying the salaries of Chinese troops, French troops, and they were supposed to disarm Hezbollah. That was kind of their original. That was their mandate. Instead, Hezbollah amassed hundreds of thousands of missiles and started launching them in Israel from positions based almost always right next to UNIFIL posts. So UNIFIL is kind of like the UNWA of Lebanon. More deliberate. And it costs hundreds of millions of dollars of US taxpayer funds with us. And in between letting Hezbo set up camp next to their positions, they also teach gender integration classes for. Of course they do Lebanese armed forces, which is a laugh. We don't get to make many jokes in this field. Subtle. That's a laugh. So this is a country where they can't even integrate like the Shia and the Sunni. And they're going to do. But even here. So we're hoping that President Trump will veto it because it's actually an area where the US can just kill the mission. But the UN has created this amazing institutional permanence that is to say, inertia is the UN's superpower. And it's both too big to fail, too bureaucratic for anyone truly to comprehend, and created to be almost immune to reform. So I think maybe the one reason, I think maybe some America first people don't talk about as much as maybe they should. Sandra. Michael either does, by the way.

[Carol Markowitz]

Sure. Yeah.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Is because there's almost like a despair. Like it's, like it's inevitable. Another, you know, another reason is because it kind of tries to. It's below the radar in which we lose our sovereignty and spend our funds on this.

[Carol Markowitz]

What other path do you think you would have taken, if not into public policy, into writing, had you not gotten the job at 14 and you hadn't met Seth Lipsky? What would a plan be for Eugene look like?

[Eugene Kantarovich]

I think I would have been some kind of academic. I had all sorts of academic interests. Earlier in life. I was interested in Roman history, art criticism, economics. But my father explained to me when I was in college and thinking about graduate school so that while I might not mind eating last night's pizzas, well, now with a whole bunch of roommates, at some point, either I or my wife or my kids would resent.

[Carol Markowitz]

Want something more than that. Yeah, yeah.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Don't go the path of the art historian.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's right.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

And by the way, I really admire him for telling me that because he had the presence of mind not just to completely panic and say, because that would be clearly a nightmare scenario, but.

[Carol Markowitz]

That'S actually very Soviet, wouldn't you say? Like I. I definitely tell my kids when they propose various future career paths for themselves, I remind them of how expensive they are right now and how that will only grow and things like that. But also in the last few years, there's been this whole discussion about prestige and all the best colleges and elite and all that. And for ex Soviet, for me, I don't care about elite. I care about them making money. That's the thinking. That's what I was raised with. Who cares about who thinks you're a lead or the prestigious college you went to? I don't want a prestigious college degree. And then you're, you know, making $22,000 a year like that. That does not mean anything to me.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

To a job.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right, right. Do you feel like that's the kind of background that we were raised with or did you get?

[Eugene Kantarovich]

I think my parents valued sort of success and excellence kind of, of any kind. But also yes, you had to, you know, pay to pay your bills and take care of yourself is clearly important.

[Carol Markowitz]

Part of the equation.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Yes. And so definitely in the Soviet Union, it wasn't so much about money. There was a greater intertwinement between because prestige only came from the party and you know, prestige and jobs went hand in hand because there wasn't so much salary variance. But that was more tied to success.

[Carol Markowitz]

But it was still like what you could get. Yes, you made the same salary, but what your salary could buy was different. We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Markowitz Show.

[PayPal Advertiser]

Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[Vanta Advertiser]

As a founder, you're moving fast toward product market fit your next round or your first big enterprise deal. But with AI accelerating how quickly startups build and ship, security expectations are higher earlier than ever. Getting security and compliance right can unlock growth or stall it if you wait too long. With deep integrations and automated workflows built for fast moving teams, Vanta gets you audit ready fast and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring as your models infra and customers evolve. Fast growing startups like LangChain, Rider and Cursor Trusted Vanta to build a scalable foundation from the start. Go to vanta.com iheart to save $1,000 today through the Vanta for Startups program and join over 10,000ambitious companies already scaling with Vanta. That's V A N T A dot com iheart to save 1,000 for a.

[GoDaddy Advertiser]

Limited time running a business online, look legit and own your own brand with professional tools from GoDaddy. Instantly build trust with your customers and boost your credibility with an email that matches your domain so people know you mean business. There's never been a better time. Just go to GoDaddy.com GDnow and choose from a wide variety of popular domains to find one that's right for you. Pair that with a professional email that works for all your business needs from daily communications to email marketing and everything in between. That's a little price for a lot of credibility. For a limited time, get a domain and matching professional email for just 99 cents a month for one year. Go to GoDaddy.comGdNow and look legit with GoDaddy. That's GoDaddy.comGdNow again GoDaddy.comGdNow there's never been a better time to choose the domain and email that's right for you. New customer purchases only Products auto renew separately. See terms on site godaddy.com gdnow Ah come on.

[Carol Markowitz]

Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

[Lenovo Advertiser]

Still using yesterday's tech upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 carbon ultralight, ultra powerful and built for serious productivity with Intel Core Alternative processors, blazing speed and AI powered performance. It keeps up with your business, not the other way around.

[Carol Markowitz]

Whoa, this thing moves.

[Lenovo Advertiser]

Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech [e-mail] Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device.

[Nintendo Advertiser]

A treasure trove of bananas has been stolen and it's up to Donkey Kong and his buddy Pauline to get them back. This unlikely duo is going on a world smashing adventure, using DK's destructive abilities to explore an underground world and the power of Pauline singing to activate wild transformations. Donkey Kong Bonanza available now. Rate it everyone 10 and up only on Nintendo Switch 2 game and systems sold separately.

[Carol Markowitz]

So what do you worry about? What is on your mind as a concern?

[Eugene Kantarovich]

You know, I'm a normal person. I think I worry about normal things. Money, health, kids, whatever, all the standard package. But I think my most particular concern, which I've had for quite a long time, bothers me a great deal and has guided I think many of my actions is I have a very historical approach. I always have a kind of sense of where we stand in history and we live in the best time to be a Jew I think in thousands of years. And I have a dim conception of what it was like during the Asmonean Commonwealth or the Davidic Kingdom. You know, it was probably pretty great in one sense, but like on the other hand the sanitary conditions were kind of like everywhere else. So really this is maybe the best time to be a Jew ever. The safest time, the most stable time. And in addition we have access to our ancestral land in a way that we have and that is such a small little filament of history. And it's Completely game changing philosophically how it makes us feel. You know, when you read the, you know, medieval anti Semitic writings, our lack of action.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

As Martin Gore. They're all the rage now. Vanishing position and Martin Luther.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yep. Very popular staples.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

People getting back. This is part of getting back to the roots. You know, Protocols of the Elders of Zion is like too modern. One of the things Martin Luther would, would complain about. The Jews have lost their land. They've been exiled. That proves they have lost. They have been unchosen. And they're kind of annoying because it's like they're like a loser in a game who refuses to admit lost. That's just annoying. And you. I understand that point. There's a look. They've like lost and like they still continue to say, wait, the game's not over. And it turns out the game's not over. So we live in a time where it's much easier, I think, to be a Jew. And my fear getting back to that is that God forbid, it's almost too fearful to say God forbid. My grandkids would look at me one day and say, grandfather, you had all this and you lost it. You didn't leave it to us. You could go pray in the tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. And what do we have? We have a little ghetto around Tel Aviv. Right. You could travel the whole country. What do we have? And already, you know, we see that. You know, I, yeah, people, you know, I know people who used to be able to go to Bethlehem. I know people who lived in Gaza.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

And you know, we don't have that anymore to pass down. So that's a tremendous fear and I feel we need to do everything we can to, to pass this down.

[Carol Markowitz]

It's interesting because you started kind of an on an optimistic high with things are as good as can be for Jews right now. Even though it doesn't always feel like it, it actually feels like a very dark moment for Jews in the world. But it actually is the strongest we've ever been. We've never had the ability to defend ourselves the way we do in so many ways. Not just in Israel, but also I feel like in the United States being armed, et cetera. But then you ended sort of on a pessimistic what you worry about note where you feel like we could lose it all and we need to be more careful.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

The question was worded that way, what do I worry about? So, but I think that's. They go together because we're at a high point, you know, I can see more downs than ups. So people often ask me. I give talks about Israel, international law, explain why Judea and Samaria, the west bank aren't occupied to which offer common answer. You know, it's very convincing. It's very convincing. What's the solution to the conflict then? Everyone wants a solution. When you look at history, you should first adopt a Hippocratic approach and first do no harm. And when you are like in the top 01% of historical well being, we can see more ways down than up. And it is truly a messianic sensibility that thinks you're going to break through the ceiling of history and create a new as yet unseen up.

[Carol Markowitz]

What advice would you give your 16 year old self having to do this all over again?

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Don't throw away the vinyl.

[Carol Markowitz]

Your kids might be into it someday. My teenager now is super into vinyl.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Regotten a turntable. When my daughter said to me that vinyl stuff people used to like, do you have that vinyl stuff? Yeah, I had a lot of that vinyl stuff. I had a radio show in high school. Don't get rid of the vinyl. You know, it's hard not to be a hoarder when you think about how these things, you never know what the wrong thing is. So that's, that's kind of flip, flip advice. More seriously, I think I would have told myself to be a little bit less self satisfied and smart.

[Carol Markowitz]

It served you so well. You got to walk into jobs at like 14 and 16.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

I think it was, it was probably a double edged sword. I think there were pluses and minuses but you know, just conceptually I think I would have seen the world more, a little bit more clearly. But. So that would be one, one very major piece of advice and I would, I read a huge amount of. But I would tell myself to read even more because when you have kids it's impossible. Forget about. You got to do everything to read every book before you're 25 because then you're just going to be recollecting them.

[Carol Markowitz]

My kids are a little older than yours, I can tell you. You're absolutely right. Reading. My reading went off a cliff after I had kids, but it picks back up again. They hit a certain age where they don't need to be taken to the bathroom and you don't need to be constantly with them and you get to sit back and watch them hang out and you get to read again. It's quite a nice thing. Yeah, well, I've loved this conversation. This is actually my 200th episode. And I have. Yeah, 200. I have questions that I ask all of my guests, as my listeners know. And the most popular question, and the one I always end with is leave us here with your best piece of advice for my listeners on how they can improve. Improve their lives.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Okay, so first of all, I just want to say, dear listeners of the Carol Markowitz show, I'm only answering this question because I like Carol and she asked the question. I'm on her show. I would never presume, never go around telling people, whatever, what is good in life or how to lead their life. So I'm only answering because I'm being asked, not because I think I have any particular additional to share. What I think this works very well for me and I think I've gotten reasonably. Reasonably good at it. Is to. What's a good way to put this? To not be upset and react to things. Really, you know, other people's behavior is out of your control. If you're dealing with difficult people, it's almost certainly because they're having a very bad day in some way. You know, maybe they're having a fight with their wife or maybe they're having a fight with their boss. Everyone's going through some kind of difficulty and people are going to be difficult. And the only reason that we feel a friction as we go through. Ivan encountered these situations is because we had a differential expectation what that. What's the basis for that expectation. So cultivating a kind of detachment. This is, I think, very helpful. And I do yoga also, which I find to provide. Providing a great assistance.

[Carol Markowitz]

Wouldn't have expected that.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

A lot of people say that I'm a very. I go to a teacher who's very, very serious. And it's a staple of my. Of my life, actually. The. Well, and I think there's a very fundamental insight in the yoga that control of the mind is kind of essential to emotional or mental clarity. But you can't have control of the mind without achieving a certain control of the lumbar vessel in which it finds itself. So a lot of people want to just dive in and meditate and get enlightenment, but they're doing this in this machine that's making all this noise which need to quiet down first. But in general, don't take things personally. I think that would be the. In short, don't take things personally and really tell yourself that, you know, something should have to really rise to some kind of horrible moment which, thank God, we don't encounter in daily life to justify ruining one's enjoyment of life for.

[Carol Markowitz]

So that would be don't ruin your mood for strangers on the Internet for sure. Thank you so much. He is Eugene Kantarovich. Check him out on X. Follow him, read his work. He's really fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on. Eugene.

[Eugene Kantarovich]

Thank you Carol. Great.

[PayPal Advertiser]

Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations Ugh.

[Carol Markowitz]

Come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

[Lenovo Advertiser]

Still using yesterday's tech Upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultra Light Ultra powerful and built for serious productivity with Intel Core Ultra processors, blazing speed and AI powered performance that keeps up with your business, not the other way around.

[Carol Markowitz]

Whoa, this thing moves.

[Lenovo Advertiser]

Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech [e-mail] Lenovo Lenovo unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device.

[Jacob Goldstein]

Jacob this is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out [e-mail] that's O D O O.com.

[Nintendo Advertiser]

A treasure trove of bananas has been stolen and it's up to Donkey Kong and his buddy Pauline to get them back. This unlikely duo is going on a world smashing adventure using DK's destructive abilities to explore an underground crown world and the power of Pauline singing to activate wild transformations. Donkey Kong Bonanza Available now. Rated everyone 10 and up only on Nintendo Switch 2 game and systems sold separately.

[Lenovo Advertiser]

Experience Game Day in all its glory with a super big TV from Samsung. It's the best way to watch your favorite team at home. From game winning touchdowns to momentum shifting hits, Samsung TVs are designed to showcase every moment and unbelievable clarity. Even day games look great on select Samsung TVs with glare free technology, it makes sure reflections don't distract you when the sun shines brightly through your window while you're watching. And even on the biggest TVs like 115 inches big, there's no blur thanks to supersized picture enhancer. With Samsung TVs you can finally watch your favorite team on an elite screen. So get yourself the ultimate fan worthy [e-mail] super sized picture enhancer utilizes AI based formulas. Available on 85 inch and larger TVs on models QN70F and above.

[PayPal Advertiser]

This is an iHeart podcast.