Caryn Seidman-Becker

He had one sibling who went to Israel and one sibling who was here.

So to come at 17 years old

bottom of a boat, the USS Constantinople, to not speak the language, to have no money, to work in a hardware store that he ultimately took over Seidman Hardware, which was across from the Barclays Center.

That's hard.

Everything else seems a lot easier when you have that perspective.

He used to tell me to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, keep on moving.

That's just very empowering when you see what he'd been through and lost a lot of family and was optimistic, loved this country, had enormous gratitude, positivity, joy, fun, never angry.

at what had happened to his family.

I believed in the art of the possible.

He put his family through college.

They were all successful, went on to build families.

And my dad served in the military.

My uncle did to do right by our country.

I have gratitude and I have belief in the art of the possible because I've seen it.

I am.

One of my favorite sayings that I keep on my cell phone, I saw Shimon Peres speak right before he died.

And he said, optimists and pessimists die the same way, but they live very different lives.

And I thought that that was a very powerful statement.

If you don't have optimism, if you don't have hope, what do you have?

Clear started as a response to 9-11 when Congress at the time stood up TSA.