Speaker 1: Welcome to Destiny.
Speaker 2: Now here's your host, Cliff Dunning.
Speaker 1: You ever wonder what makes a company success popular that
Speaker 1: produces products or services that you're always wanting to purchase
Speaker 1: or be a part of, or use. Our discussion today
Speaker 1: on Destiny has to do with spiritually intelligent leadership. This
Speaker 1: is a new topic that's to come up and it
Speaker 1: follows what we think. What my guest today thinks is
Speaker 1: how our ancestors acted when they were in harmony with nature,
Speaker 1: with the cosmos and so on. And we're able to
Speaker 1: treat their workers, their labor for with a level of
Speaker 1: care and consciousness that not only improved the work environment
Speaker 1: but made the work more satisfactory to the employee. Hey,
Speaker 1: this is Cliff, your host of Destiny, and today we're
Speaker 1: talking about tools for transformation. But on a business side,
Speaker 1: we're speaking to a former CEO of a Silicon Valley company.
Speaker 1: And here in California, the Silicon Valley is thought of
Speaker 1: to be the incubator for revolutionary ideas, products, services, and
Speaker 1: the production of companies like Google, Yahoo, Apple, Computer and
Speaker 1: so on. And I actually worked for PayPal for many years,
Speaker 1: which used to be owned by Elon Musk and others.
Speaker 1: And I worked for Microsoft, and I worked for Apple
Speaker 1: Computer and during the dot com craze, who could write
Speaker 1: a proposal on a napkin and literally get funded the
Speaker 1: next day. It was so incredibly nutty. But things have
Speaker 1: changed since then. But there's still are companies, tech companies
Speaker 1: that are incubated and then funded by venture capitalists companies.
Speaker 1: And what we're going to learn about today is when
Speaker 1: you launch a tech company, you have to have a
Speaker 1: lot in place otherwise known as spiritually intelligent leadership. And
Speaker 1: when we say spiritual, we're talking about some of the
Speaker 1: fundamentals of human decency, work, environment, productivity, and care when
Speaker 1: you're in an office now. I although I worked in
Speaker 1: many various companies for years, I was never one to
Speaker 1: work for big corporations. In fact, when I worked with PayPal,
Speaker 1: there were a couple of thousand employees and what they
Speaker 1: used to call what they still call campuses. These are
Speaker 1: large multi story buildings and each of them had their
Speaker 1: own cafeteria, recreational room. In some cases they had places
Speaker 1: where you can get your get a massage, you can
Speaker 1: get your shoes, or you're excuse me, your clothing pressed,
Speaker 1: dry cleaned. I guess you could call it, but those
Speaker 1: days are not the same. People companies don't spend that
Speaker 1: kind of money anymore. Although I have a friend that
Speaker 1: still works with Google. He's been there now, Oh it's
Speaker 1: going on fifteen years, and they still have meals for free,
Speaker 1: and they still have lounge areas and sleeping areas and
Speaker 1: all kinds of really cool giveaways, all kinds of really
Speaker 1: cool benefits that are just make the job much more creative,
Speaker 1: I guess, but the payoffs so that they expect a
Speaker 1: lot more out of it. You need to spend longer
Speaker 1: hours there. But what we're going to learn today is
Speaker 1: that as more of the future CEOs and business administrators
Speaker 1: are trained in these spirit spiritually intelligent leadership roles, they
Speaker 1: are looking at a holistic type of company where again
Speaker 1: the employees are treated with a great deal work respect,
Speaker 1: they are inspired to do more creative work. And what's
Speaker 1: happening is we're going to see a whole different level
Speaker 1: of manufacturing and product development and services here in the
Speaker 1: United States that are the future. And you'll hear a
Speaker 1: little bit about what we can expect in the coming
Speaker 1: decades using spiritual intelligent leadership. So today's program is spiritually
Speaker 1: intelligent leadership, and my guest is Yosi amram Hey. The
Speaker 1: Earth Angeance final tour of the year is held in
Speaker 1: Guatemala this year, and people were wondering, well, why are
Speaker 1: you just going to Mexico. What has happened in Mexico
Speaker 1: is that they have outlawed ceremony by shaman, by native people.
Speaker 1: Anything to do with ritual is not allowed anymore. They've
Speaker 1: also reduced the ability to climb, to touch, to integrate
Speaker 1: with the pyramids, with the temples, with the archaeological parks.
Speaker 1: And we are moving to Guatemala for this final tour
Speaker 1: December first of the twelfth and I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1: We are allowed by the Guatemala government and the archaeological
Speaker 1: community to connect, to sit, to meditate, and to activate
Speaker 1: these pyramids. This tour is really for you, to give
Speaker 1: you a chance to integrate, to meditate, and to work
Speaker 1: with these sacred energies. This tour features archaeologists, features shaman,
Speaker 1: features research investigators, and it offers you an opportunity to
Speaker 1: climb the pyramids. For all the details. For more information,
Speaker 1: go to Earth Ancients dot com forward slash tour and
Speaker 1: check it out. This is really a very rare and
Speaker 1: wonderful opportunity to connect with the ancient Mayan pyramids. Come
Speaker 1: out and join us Earth Ancients, dot Com forward slash
Speaker 1: tours area. I have worked in the Silicon Valley, but
Speaker 1: we've never had a guest talk about corporate America before
Speaker 1: and the spiritual nature of a company, and if this
Speaker 1: is even possible. My guest is Yo c Amram. He
Speaker 1: is a former CEO. He's now a clinical psychologist who
Speaker 1: specializes in CEO leadership and his story is fascinating. The
Speaker 1: book we're talking about is Spiritually Intelligent Leadership, How to
Speaker 1: Inspire by being Inspired, and this is a good one.
Speaker 1: I think it's a good fit for Destiny, and we're
Speaker 1: going to learn all about building a company in Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley and some of the spiritual aspects that can go
Speaker 1: along with it. So, Hey, Yoshi, welcome to Destiny. Great
Speaker 1: to see you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Cliff, Cliff, thank you. I'm delighted. Then, thanks
Speaker 2: for your kind introductory words. And let's see if we
Speaker 2: can get inspired today and inspire each other.
Speaker 1: Talk about your your upbringing. You open the book with
Speaker 1: your not only your childhood, but also the migration to America.
Speaker 1: What was the inspiration and you don't really This is
Speaker 1: interesting because in the book you don't really say why
Speaker 1: you wanted to come to America other than and my
Speaker 1: thinking after reading part of the book, you wanted to
Speaker 1: have the American dream. You wanted to be able to
Speaker 1: launch yourself in a more spectacular method than perhaps staying
Speaker 1: in Israel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, great, I'll try and answer that. So. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was born and raised in Israel, and like all
Speaker 2: young men, I was drafted into the military in this
Speaker 2: crazy war torn part of the world. Luckily it was
Speaker 2: peaceful time and I was a math and science nerd kid.
Speaker 2: So now it's kind of pacifist in my leanings. But
Speaker 2: to my surprise, I had the fastest promotion record in
Speaker 2: the history of my regiment and got all these leadership awards.
Speaker 2: But despite excelling it, this command and control model, it
Speaker 2: really chafed it my soul. The pressure of the military.
Speaker 2: The command and control is necessary in battle. You don't
Speaker 2: have time to get into a conference room and do
Speaker 2: some whiteboarding and brainstorming. Someone has to call the shots
Speaker 2: and move in a coordinated fashion, just like you do
Speaker 2: on the football field. If you will so so and then.
Speaker 2: But the pressure creates a cohesive environment where people really
Speaker 2: care about each other and will give their lives because
Speaker 2: you have shared destiny to use your word. As a community,
Speaker 2: as a group of people, you're bonded together, but the
Speaker 2: individual is kind of suppressed. And I had the crazy
Speaker 2: idea of like, how do we build an organization that
Speaker 2: facilitates and supports the growth of the individual, letting them
Speaker 2: express their unique talents and gifts and grow and actualize
Speaker 2: and do that within a community in organizational settings. So
Speaker 2: that became my overarching dream. And so how was I
Speaker 2: going to do that? I was going to someday build
Speaker 2: a company, start a company. And these days Israel is
Speaker 2: known as startup nation, and there's all the ventures, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But in my days, which was just you know, a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago, No, it's been a lot more
Speaker 2: than that. You know that, none of that existed in Israel.
Speaker 2: So I came to the US. I went to MIT.
Speaker 2: I wanted to study engineering, develop the technology, and then
Speaker 2: maybe someday developed an idea to launch a startup. And
Speaker 2: that's kind of what happened.
Speaker 1: What was your emphasis at MIT? Was it engineering or
Speaker 1: something else?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I was electrical engineering, computer social engineering, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: But quickly I realized that I didn't really enjoy I
Speaker 2: want to be in front of computer all the time,
Speaker 2: and so I went and got my MBA pretty quickly thereafter.
Speaker 2: And then I was interested in combining technology and business
Speaker 2: and understanding market needs and then what technology enabled you
Speaker 2: to do, and and that led to the formation of
Speaker 2: my first company called Properly Individual, Inc. It was all
Speaker 2: about the individual actualizing the individual, but within a team spirit,
Speaker 2: community environment. An Individual was the first company to do
Speaker 2: personalized newspapers interactive media. This is before the Internet, so
Speaker 2: you and some of the listeners may not remember the
Speaker 2: days of fax machine. So you would get on your
Speaker 2: fax machine every morning Cliff's Morning news, and then you
Speaker 2: told our software which articles were relevant or not. And
Speaker 2: based on that we had self learning and it would
Speaker 2: adapt itself, so it was personalized news. The name Individual
Speaker 2: stood for the idea of individualizing the news for the
Speaker 2: unique needs of each individual, but also in organizational philosophy
Speaker 2: that supported the growth and actualization of each individual employee.
Speaker 2: And it started on facts, then went to email, then
Speaker 2: went to the Internet when that happened. But I'll pause
Speaker 2: there because there's a whole ramatic chapter in that transition
Speaker 2: from facts to Internet and all of what that meant
Speaker 2: for me, because it was a huge threat to the business.
Speaker 2: And you know, part of the issue with Silicon Valley
Speaker 2: is you always ride the next wave, and then you
Speaker 2: get the new technology wave and it just disrupts and
Speaker 2: threatens your business. So that's kind of what happened. Facts became.
Speaker 1: You have an IPO, it for the individual LLC. Did
Speaker 1: you get funded so that you could begin growing it?
Speaker 1: I can't remember that.
Speaker 2: Yeah I got. I went an IPO, which is a
Speaker 2: public offering, but that was later. I funded it venture capital,
Speaker 2: And that was a whole journey to get venture capital
Speaker 2: because my idea at the time was pretty radical and
Speaker 2: I had no background in publishing and so on. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I got. I got it started with some angel industors
Speaker 2: and then institutional venture capitalists, the top vses in Silicon Valley,
Speaker 2: corporate partners like Microsoft, and major newspaper chains that were
Speaker 2: interested in the future of publishing. But then I had to.
Speaker 1: Let people know that you were working roughly eighty hours
Speaker 1: a week and you're write about this in your book
Speaker 1: and you had no life. Just spill it out, come on,
Speaker 1: give us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I got kind of burned out and depressed,
Speaker 2: especially when the Internet came in and it was clear
Speaker 2: that on the information we were selling on a premium
Speaker 2: subscription basis on Facts was going to become free on
Speaker 2: the Internet. So, you know, we had a lot of
Speaker 2: revenue from the fax business and we knew it was
Speaker 2: going to die, and so we had to move to
Speaker 2: the Internet. But to do that, we had to make
Speaker 2: the information free and add supported, and that was going
Speaker 2: to cannibalize our facts business, and that was really scary.
Speaker 2: How to make that transition. I had a lot of pressure,
Speaker 2: tens of millions of dollars raised from the VC in
Speaker 2: my employees, so I got frozen with fear and I couldn't.
Speaker 2: My employees were like, Okay, what's our Internet strategy? How
Speaker 2: we're gonna move? This is the new world? And I
Speaker 2: was like, I don't know exactly. So I just wanted
Speaker 2: to hide and I took off. Oh god, I took
Speaker 2: off for two weeks to kind of take care of myself.
Speaker 2: And my employees are where did yes you go? So
Speaker 2: a little they know I was basically kind of depressed
Speaker 2: and shared and frozen. But you know, to my credit,
Speaker 2: I persisted and I had the resilience, and eventually we
Speaker 2: figured out a strategy and moved to the Internet and
Speaker 2: we became a high flying internet stock. And that's when
Speaker 2: I took my company public, and you know, our stock
Speaker 2: was rising very quickly. It was the early days of
Speaker 2: the Internet, before Google, before Facebook, and it was wide
Speaker 2: open feet and I was trying to capitalize on it.
Speaker 2: And it was one day I was trying to relax
Speaker 2: and I was getting a massage. I was lying on
Speaker 2: the massage table and getting deep to shoe massage, and
Speaker 2: I went into this deep relaxation, deep state where my
Speaker 2: ego kind of dissolved, and all of a sudden, I
Speaker 2: experienced this thing of oneness where I realized that normally
Speaker 2: we think there's the me, whatever me is. Then I
Speaker 2: have my awareness, that which I'm aware of, Like I'm
Speaker 2: right now seeing you on my screen, I'm aware of you.
Speaker 2: And then so there's the me, there's the awareness, and
Speaker 2: then there's the object of the awareness. But when I
Speaker 2: kind of relaxed and really tuned in, I realized it's
Speaker 2: all made in one thing. It's one field, one one thing.
Speaker 2: There's no separation between the self and the awareness. And
Speaker 2: the object of awareness. So that really kind of blew
Speaker 2: my mind. I opened my eyes, I was looking through
Speaker 2: the face cradle, and it looked like the floor that
Speaker 2: was under the massage table was It felt like it
Speaker 2: was inside of me. And so that just really short
Speaker 2: circuited my mind and actually threw me into a manic episode.
Speaker 2: And here I was running a public company and trying
Speaker 2: to capitalize on the Internet, and I went into this hyperactive,
Speaker 2: manic state. I was getting all these brilliant ideas about
Speaker 2: the future of the Internet, and a lot of that
Speaker 2: came true, but I was pushing my team so hard
Speaker 2: to execute on it. Everything had to be done yesterday.
Speaker 2: And my board was like, hey, you got to go
Speaker 2: chill out. We're going to put you on a ninety
Speaker 2: day voluntary leave of absence. Well there was nothing voluntary
Speaker 2: about it. They just passed the board resolution. And here
Speaker 2: I was on a leave of absence. And when that
Speaker 2: was announced, our stock price got cut in half, and
Speaker 2: there were headline stories in the Wall Street Journal and
Speaker 2: the New York Times, and.
Speaker 1: They thought you had gotten nuts and you were You
Speaker 1: were not a an on board CEO anymore. You were
Speaker 1: more of a distant memory is that why the stock tank?
Speaker 2: Well, basically, the wallstreem was like, hey, this guy is
Speaker 2: the prime mover in the visionary and the driver of
Speaker 2: this company, and all of a sudden, abruptly, he's you know,
Speaker 2: on a leave of absence. What the heck? What happened?
Speaker 2: You know? Did So they're like, you know, we're investing
Speaker 2: in much in the idea, but we're investing in the person.
Speaker 2: And when you would get this kind of surprise news,
Speaker 2: Wallstream does not look upon it favorably. So that's basically it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was nice for my ego. I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: I was the important guy and without me, the stock
Speaker 2: is worth a lot less. But it didn't really help
Speaker 2: my pocket book, you know, my bank account.
Speaker 1: So when you were on this fourth ninety day retreat
Speaker 1: or time out, whatever you want to call it, did
Speaker 1: that help or hinder you?
Speaker 2: Well? I didn't accept it. I mean I was like,
Speaker 2: no way, you guys can't tell me to take ninety
Speaker 2: days off. If you don't reinstate, institute me back and
Speaker 2: let me do the strategy I want to do. I'm
Speaker 2: going to resign. So they were like coming and hiring.
Speaker 2: I submitted a resignation letter, and I called the special
Speaker 2: meeting of the of the shareholders to kind of take
Speaker 2: control of the company to vote a new board. So
Speaker 2: it became a big drama and then they they issued
Speaker 2: a press release that they fired me after I resigned.
Speaker 2: So it was a big, big s show, as they
Speaker 2: say so. But because I was determined to, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: to fight for my baby. This was my baby. I
Speaker 2: conceived it, I built it, I was the founder of
Speaker 2: the CEO, chairman and so but then you know, it
Speaker 2: really hit me and then I lost it because I couldn't.
Speaker 2: I could not. I mean, these are people that put
Speaker 2: on the board, but you know they were they were like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, you can't run a company in this state
Speaker 2: the way they were right, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm just going to ask you if you
Speaker 1: if you were to look back, would you say now
Speaker 1: that you were acting erratic and on businesslike uh to
Speaker 1: be running the company and this is why they are
Speaker 1: freaking out?
Speaker 2: Yeah totally okay. Well, but I mean by my insights,
Speaker 2: my insights were if I maybe humble say, they were brilliant.
Speaker 2: I mean the insights I had were were right on,
Speaker 2: and time only prove proven it. And the people pushed
Speaker 2: me out years later, told me, if we executed the
Speaker 2: vision and strategy would have been the next Facebook or Google.
Speaker 2: But I was erratic and I didn't know how to
Speaker 2: manage my team and the board to see it. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean they did the right thing. I mean, of course,
Speaker 2: it's painful.
Speaker 1: And let me just ask you this, would you say
Speaker 1: now as a clinical psychologist, that you were in a
Speaker 1: manic state?
Speaker 2: I think so, yeah, that was that.
Speaker 3: Was Yeah, I think, you know, and that's known in
Speaker 3: the literature that sometimes when you have a Kundolini awakening
Speaker 3: or what's called the spiritual emergency, that it can you know,
Speaker 3: destabilize you.
Speaker 2: So you can have these brilliant spiritual insights. But if
Speaker 2: you're psyche and the container is not strong enough, the vehicle,
Speaker 2: the vessel, then the vessel fracture. So you know, that's
Speaker 2: what happened. Now. Fortunately, you know, that was almost thirty
Speaker 2: years ago, twenty nine years ago, and I've worked a
Speaker 2: lot on myself and i haven't had another episode. And
Speaker 2: then I've been able to get off all the medications,
Speaker 2: all the drugs. I've been off of any meds for
Speaker 2: you know, twenty seven, twenty eight years. Sure, but you know,
Speaker 2: it takes a lot of skill and self awareness to
Speaker 2: know how to ground and cultivate this energy, but build
Speaker 2: the vessel that can contain it without it exploding.
Speaker 1: Right, But this was not only a shift for you,
Speaker 1: but also an opening to what you would call spiritual
Speaker 1: intelligence and understanding of spiritual intelligence. And this is the
Speaker 1: theme of the book. I think it's also insightful because
Speaker 1: the book is based on forty two interviews or I
Speaker 1: guess you could call interviews with CEOs that you populate
Speaker 1: the book with, and their own journeys and their own
Speaker 1: trials and tribulations and helping them become aware. So this
Speaker 1: panic attack that you had served you, but at the
Speaker 1: time nobody was prepared to deal with your issues, and
Speaker 1: you were the head of a company. So it was
Speaker 1: just I mean, as you look back, you must think
Speaker 1: of it as a turning point. Obviously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a big turning point. It was as
Speaker 2: tragic and it was a blessing in disguise, as you said. So. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So these forty two CEOs were in my doctoral research study,
Speaker 2: and I developed this measure of spiritual intelligence and then
Speaker 2: looked at how that compared to emotional intelligence, compared to personality,
Speaker 2: explained who were better more effective leaders than engendered teens
Speaker 2: with higher morale, higher commitment, and lower turnover. And indeed,
Speaker 2: even when you account for emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence had
Speaker 2: more of an effect. And since then, other researchers have
Speaker 2: taken this measure of spiritual intelligence that I developed and
Speaker 2: have shown that leaders that have a higher level of
Speaker 2: spiritual intelligence produce better financial results for their business units.
Speaker 2: So this is this is kind of triple quadruple bottom line,
Speaker 2: it's good for the financial results of the business. It's
Speaker 2: good for the mental health and well being and fulfillment
Speaker 2: of the CEO, the leader. It's good for the team,
Speaker 2: their morale, their their fulfillment, their self actualization. So you
Speaker 2: know this isn't just wooh. There's science behind this, and
Speaker 2: not just me. There's you know, many researchers around the
Speaker 2: world that have taken this work and carried it and
Speaker 2: validated and shown that spiritual intelligence increases satisfaction with life,
Speaker 2: quality of life, resilience, mental health. Now I'm doing a
Speaker 2: study with couples and looking at how spiritual intelligence helps
Speaker 2: relational satisfaction your primary romantic partnership. And it's so far
Speaker 2: from the early sample. Even though it's a it's a
Speaker 2: relatively small sample. I have so far twenty six couples
Speaker 2: that completed. My goal is to get to one hundred.
Speaker 2: But the results are already amazingly statistically significant. That spiritual
Speaker 2: intelligence by far has the biggest effect on relational satisfaction,
Speaker 2: more than attachment theory, more than emotional intelligence.
Speaker 1: Is what is spiritual intelligence? You see, give us the definition?
Speaker 1: And also did you come up with your own version
Speaker 1: of the of spiritual intelligence during or after your corporate life?
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a great question. So yeah, what is spiritual intelligence?
Speaker 2: So let's just by analogy, if you I'm going to
Speaker 2: compare to emotional intelligence. So what is emotional intelligence? More
Speaker 2: people have heard about it. So emotional intelligence the ability
Speaker 2: to draw on emotional resources to help manage emotions in
Speaker 2: ourselves and others. You know, up until that concept came,
Speaker 2: we thought there was a dichotomy between being emotional and
Speaker 2: being rational. If I said, hey, Cliff, do you know
Speaker 2: people in your life that are emotional? You know, that
Speaker 2: might not be the greatest compliment. You know, they might
Speaker 2: need the kind of people that prone to a lot
Speaker 2: of drama. They get theory and a puppy commercial. But
Speaker 2: emotional intelligence is a whole different thing, right, It's the
Speaker 2: ability to draw on these resources, use that information to
Speaker 2: help you make better decisions, show up in a better way.
Speaker 2: So what is spiritual intelligence. So spiritual intelligence is the
Speaker 2: ability to draw on spiritual resources and embody spiritual qualities
Speaker 2: that have been celebrated throughout all the world's wisdom traditions
Speaker 2: and spiritual traditions from millennia. So what are these qualities?
Speaker 2: These are qualities like purpose and service, and gratitude and trust,
Speaker 2: and humility and compassion and forgiveness. These qualities have been
Speaker 2: talked about for thousands of years, from the ancient Greeks
Speaker 2: to the Buddhists, to the hindu the Christians, the Muslims,
Speaker 2: the Jews, the Shamans. So I interviewed seventy one teachers
Speaker 2: across all the world's traditions and asked them how spirituality
Speaker 2: informs their life and how does it help them function better.
Speaker 2: And these were people that were nominated by their peers
Speaker 2: as people who walk the talk, and so these were
Speaker 2: the qualities they talked about. So the point is, and
Speaker 2: this is an important distinction, there's a difference between being
Speaker 2: spiritual and being spiritually intelligent, just like there's a difference
Speaker 2: between being emotional and being emotionally intelligent. So you know,
Speaker 2: you normally think, okay, you have spiritual beliefs. I believe
Speaker 2: in a higher power. I believe in God, I believe
Speaker 2: in reincarnation of the soul. I believe in destiny. Whatever
Speaker 2: you believe in. Okay, those are your beliefs. Important, they
Speaker 2: can inform your life. But that's a belief. And then
Speaker 2: you have experiences. I can be meditating, i can be praying.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, I'm feeling connected to a sense
Speaker 2: of oneness. I'm walking in the forest, I'm feeling one
Speaker 2: with nature whatever, I'm channeling information. This would be spiritual experiences,
Speaker 2: but spiritual in telling us how do I embody these
Speaker 2: qualities in daily lives? So I could, you know, have
Speaker 2: the greatest spiritual experience or the greatest belief. But then
Speaker 2: I show up to work in a team meeting and
Speaker 2: everybody is fighting about who's right, and instead of focusing
Speaker 2: on what's right, I'm trying to prove myself right because
Speaker 2: it's my ego. It's trying to show itself up and
Speaker 2: prove that I'm smarter, better than other people around me,
Speaker 2: or I could be have the greatest spiritual belief system,
Speaker 2: but then I get on the road and I drive
Speaker 2: like a maniac and I have o own rage. So
Speaker 2: you know, spiritual intellience is not about your belief about
Speaker 2: your experience. It's about how you live and embody these
Speaker 2: qualities in daily life. And the qualities have been talked
Speaker 2: about for thousands of years, regardless of the theology, whether
Speaker 2: you believe Jesus was the Messiah or muhammads with the
Speaker 2: final Prophet, or the Buddha was enlightened, whatever tradition you
Speaker 2: come from, you have your own belief system, but the
Speaker 2: qualities you want to cultivate are universal. So that's very exciting.
Speaker 1: It is, And they don't teach you this in NBA
Speaker 1: courses at all, I would think, so this is something
Speaker 1: that you have to pick up on your own, the
Speaker 1: spiritual intelligence you're defining, or pick it up in a
Speaker 1: core work or someone who is a mentor, I would
Speaker 1: think would be the best way to get it. We're
Speaker 1: gonna take a short commercial break to allow our sponsors
Speaker 1: to identify themselves and will return shortly with my guest
Speaker 1: today Josie Amrim discussing his new book, Spiritually Intelligent Leadership,
Speaker 1: will be right back. My guess today is Josie Amram.
Speaker 1: He has written a new book called Spiritually Intelligent Leadership.
Speaker 1: This is a look on how corporations can empower their
Speaker 1: workers to be more productive and to be more innovative.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you when you were interviewing these CEOs,
Speaker 1: you talk about some of them having a natural understanding
Speaker 1: or an innate understanding of spiritual intelligence. To talk about
Speaker 1: that for a minute, was that a surprise for you.
Speaker 2: Someone. Yeah. I mean the thing is they may not
Speaker 2: have used that language, so you know, but they had
Speaker 2: a sense of purpose, or they had a sense of
Speaker 2: of a calling, or they had a sense of trust
Speaker 2: in life, or they had a vision, or they expressed
Speaker 2: and acted a lot of uh, gratitude and appreciation for
Speaker 2: their employees, or they were very centered and they followed
Speaker 2: their north star. So the exciting thing is you said,
Speaker 2: they don't teach it in your MBA program. But you know,
Speaker 2: I've talked about these qualities as you know, being talked
Speaker 2: about for thousands of years throughout the ages. But now
Speaker 2: we have modern research in the field of leadership development.
Speaker 2: So Bain and Company one of the top management consulting
Speaker 2: companies in the world that works with Fortune one hundred
Speaker 2: global two thousand companies. They did a study of two
Speaker 2: thousand companies and they looked at employees and what they
Speaker 2: found and leaders, and what they found is that employees
Speaker 2: that were inspired were twice as productive as employees that
Speaker 2: were just going about doing their job to earn a paycheck.
Speaker 2: And then they looked at what were the qualities of
Speaker 2: the leaders that got employees inspired and get what they
Speaker 2: identified thirty three qualities, and over half of the spiritual
Speaker 2: intelligence qualities in my model overlapped when theirs. So these
Speaker 2: were leaders that were service oriented, they were compassionate, they
Speaker 2: were good listeners, they were centered and so on. So
Speaker 2: you have a convergence. I mean, they may not be
Speaker 2: thinking about it in a spiritual intelligence, but you know,
Speaker 2: you need you need a leader that has hope and
Speaker 2: optimism and trust in the future to mobilize people to
Speaker 2: believe that what we're doing is not feudal, that it's
Speaker 2: going to bear good results. And that comes from a
Speaker 2: fundamental trust. And then you need the leader that when
Speaker 2: you encounter difficulty or challenge you can reframe it into
Speaker 2: an opportunity for growth. And now there's this buzzword the
Speaker 2: obstacle is the way you know and and there are
Speaker 2: books like that and so on. So this is this
Speaker 2: is coming into the mainstream and it's going to take
Speaker 2: another ten years or more. It took thirty years for
Speaker 2: emotional intelligence to go from academia to the mainstream of
Speaker 2: the zeit geist because there was all this research and
Speaker 2: more understanding about how emotional intelligence helps us.
Speaker 1: Are you suggesting that this spiritual intelligence and business is
Speaker 1: eventually going to be part of corporate life, that this
Speaker 1: is the model for the future.
Speaker 2: I think so. I hope.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: I think that's our home.
Speaker 1: That's pretty ambitious. I think it's great because what you're
Speaker 1: saying is you get CEOs that are empowering their workers,
Speaker 1: and that's really important, and that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people that become CEOs or presidents of company that don't
Speaker 1: understand how to empower and trust their employees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they feel more empowered because to be spiritual intelligence,
Speaker 2: you have to connect with your spirit, which is your
Speaker 2: spark of life, the animating life force. Spirit comes from
Speaker 2: Latin spirit is the animating breath of life. So all
Speaker 2: these qualities, Actually, why do I call it spiritual intelligence?
Speaker 2: Two reasons. One is these are qualities that are common
Speaker 2: to all the spiritual traditions for thousands of years. And two,
Speaker 2: these qualities naturally emerge when you're rooted in your essence,
Speaker 2: in your life force. So when you're in touch with
Speaker 2: and you ignite that spark of life within you and
Speaker 2: then you fan that flame, then it empowers you and
Speaker 2: you start to be radiating this energy, and then people
Speaker 2: that resonate with your vision and your values style to
Speaker 2: be drawn to you. And then you have a community
Speaker 2: of people that's aligned with the shared mission, vision and values,
Speaker 2: and then everybody has a sense of belonging and there's
Speaker 2: less toxic politics and everybody's growing in the same direction.
Speaker 2: So that's exciting both for the leader who's now more fulfilled.
Speaker 2: They feel more connected and they don't have to work
Speaker 2: eighty hours a week feeling like everything rests on their shoulders.
Speaker 2: They can delegate to other people, other people help, everybody's
Speaker 2: helping each other, and people are feeling actualized and connected.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, what's the what's the future look of a
Speaker 1: company that has spiritually intelligent administrators? I mean, what kind
Speaker 1: of work, what kind of of results can we expect?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, the research shows that when companies have
Speaker 2: multiple stakeholders in mind, they're not just thinking, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: owned by my shareholders and my jobs to maximize profit
Speaker 2: when they think, Okay, I have multiple stakeholders, I have shareholders,
Speaker 2: I have to produce profit. Yeah, I have Wall Street. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But I also I have employees that I have to
Speaker 2: help them grow and feel actualized. I have customers that
Speaker 2: I have to deliver quality product. I am part of
Speaker 2: a community, and so I have to take care of
Speaker 2: the community and the environment and so on. The companies
Speaker 2: that take that approach more holistic to all their stakeholders,
Speaker 2: lo and behold, they produce better financial results for the shareholders.
Speaker 2: So you take it's kind of becomes a win win.
Speaker 2: So I think the future, this research is gonna make
Speaker 2: it and people will start recognizing, No, when I take
Speaker 2: care of my employees, they're gonna be more loyal, They're
Speaker 2: gonna work harder. Like I said, employees that are inspired
Speaker 2: are twice as productive when I take care of my
Speaker 2: customers and deliver quality products as opposed to just cutting costs,
Speaker 2: cutting corners and then I build a strong brand. And
Speaker 2: you know, the companies that do the best in the
Speaker 2: long run have strong brands that have been built on
Speaker 2: quality products and great reputations. So taking care of your customers,
Speaker 2: taking care of your employees then results in a better business.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like you're talking about an in ubation
Speaker 1: system that is new but also has very positive results
Speaker 1: and can really foster substantial growth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's basically saying, take a holistic view on
Speaker 2: this thing and a long term view, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's basically taking a systems approach and understanding how quality
Speaker 2: employees that are happy are going to deliver better quality service.
Speaker 2: Think of like an airline like Southwest. You know, they
Speaker 2: created their founder was very spiritually grounded and he was like,
Speaker 2: we're going to make this airline be fun and our
Speaker 2: employees are going to have fun and joke around. So
Speaker 2: that's how they built their brand. And then you know,
Speaker 2: when you get on a Southwest flight, people were like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is a lot more fun to fly Southwest and
Speaker 2: to fly you know, some of that has changed, has
Speaker 2: gotten bigger and bigger, and he's out there. But my
Speaker 2: point is that he understood that investing in his employees,
Speaker 2: creating a culture of fun, built his brand, improved the
Speaker 2: quality of service for his customers, which made his business
Speaker 2: more successful. So it's all about thinking win win and
Speaker 2: understanding the feedback dynamics between different parts of the system.
Speaker 2: So it's actually all very rational and science based and valid.
Speaker 2: Is opposed to think spirituality Well that's woo woo. And
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know what you're talking about. Now
Speaker 2: this is grounded in science and it all makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you use these wisdom traditions, this kind
Speaker 1: of language. It might turn a lot of people off,
Speaker 1: but if you show them the results and just change
Speaker 1: the language so that they understand it, they'll buy in
Speaker 1: probably much better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, some people are turned off by the
Speaker 2: wisdom traditions. But you know, as I said, if you
Speaker 2: said emotional intelligence forty years ago, people thought you're not,
Speaker 2: so you know, like, no, you're either emotional or you're intelligent.
Speaker 2: But now we know that, you know, emotional intelligence is real,
Speaker 2: as measurable and positively impactful. And same thing about spiritual intelligence,
Speaker 2: So it's not about your beliefs, and you can actually
Speaker 2: be non spiritual if you will, and be spiritually intelligent.
Speaker 2: So I've had clients that are across the entire spectrum
Speaker 2: from devout religious practitioners of a tradition to quote unquote
Speaker 2: spiritual but not religious, to agnostic to devout atheists. But
Speaker 2: you can be a devout atheist and still have a
Speaker 2: sense of purpose and still express gratitude and you know,
Speaker 2: be humble and ego less and you know, bring a
Speaker 2: lot of presents to what you're doing as opposed to
Speaker 2: being distracted. So all the qualities I'm talking about, you
Speaker 2: don't have to believe in God or any anything else.
Speaker 2: It's just like how you show up with these qualities, right,
Speaker 2: I want.
Speaker 1: You to talk about the seven dimensions of spiritual intelligent leadership.
Speaker 1: I'm going to read them out to you, and if
Speaker 1: you give us a little highlight on each, I think
Speaker 1: our listeners will get an idea. The first one is
Speaker 1: meaning yeah.
Speaker 2: So there's a couple of qualities related to that. One
Speaker 2: is purpose, service, vision, and turning difficulties into opportunities. So
Speaker 2: you know, you have to tell people in your team
Speaker 2: and your organization, we're here, what's our purpose, what's our vision?
Speaker 2: You have to have a vision of paint the vision
Speaker 2: of the world that we're all working towards that draws
Speaker 2: us and invites us, and then it answers the question,
Speaker 2: you know, how do we add value to the world.
Speaker 2: What service are we providing? When you think about it,
Speaker 2: the word service is often associated with spirituality, but it's
Speaker 2: also a fundamental part of it. Business. Well, the business
Speaker 2: is there to serve its customers. So you have to
Speaker 2: paint a picture of the world, the future, the purpose,
Speaker 2: the vision, and then you have to create meaning out
Speaker 2: of the obstacles in the way. You know, whenever you
Speaker 2: were saying, Okay, this is our plan, is what we're
Speaker 2: going to do, it's not always going to go smoothly
Speaker 2: as you plan. Things are going to come at you.
Speaker 2: You're going to get curveballs. So instead of giving up,
Speaker 2: you have to have you know, see, I was like,
Speaker 2: what is this asking of us? We have to reinvent ourselves.
Speaker 2: We have to you know, see it as an opportunity
Speaker 2: for growth, just like in our personal lives. You know,
Speaker 2: tragedies happen, like what happened to me. I was pushed
Speaker 2: out of the company. But you know it was a difficulty,
Speaker 2: a huge difficulty, but it became a huge opportunity to
Speaker 2: reinvent my life and to do all the stuff I'm
Speaker 2: doing now, So so that that's all related to the
Speaker 2: domain of meaning.
Speaker 1: Meaning. And the next one was grace. And I was
Speaker 1: curious about grace. Uh, I can think of a graceful
Speaker 1: way of going about your business, but how do you
Speaker 1: define grace and how does it work as a spiritual
Speaker 1: intelligent aspect?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there are undergrad the domain of grace, there
Speaker 2: four qualities. One is trust, the other one is beauty, joy,
Speaker 2: and gratitude. So you're you're interacting. So as a leader,
Speaker 2: you have to have trust in the future. As I said,
Speaker 2: you have to believe that what you're doing is going
Speaker 2: to have positive effect. You're somehow going to fulfill your
Speaker 2: mission in some way. So what we're doing is not feutile.
Speaker 2: And and like I said, turning difficulty into opportunity, it's
Speaker 2: based on trust that the obstacle is actually there's an
Speaker 2: invitation to develop new skills and uh, it's drawing us
Speaker 2: to develop our capacity. So that's trust. Uh. And then beauty.
Speaker 2: You want to see the beauty that's being uncovered in
Speaker 2: your work. Now normally we think, oh it goes to
Speaker 2: nature and the forests, and I see beauty and flowers
Speaker 2: and trees. But you know, why not see beauty in
Speaker 2: a spreadsheet and how elegantly. I mean, if you're a physicist,
Speaker 2: you see beauty in a physics equation. You know it's
Speaker 2: very elegant. And so we all have different perceptions.
Speaker 1: It's important to say that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do have. But the point is you can
Speaker 2: find beauty in your work and your power presentation, in
Speaker 2: your ad campaign, in a memo that someone writes very well,
Speaker 2: or an ad copy, so that motivates you and gives
Speaker 2: you satisfaction because whenever we encounter beauty, our heart opens
Speaker 2: and we're just inspired and empowered. And then enjoy if
Speaker 2: you bring joy to your activities. And there's all the
Speaker 2: research that shows the joy and humor fosters creativity and
Speaker 2: better problem solving. So if you go to these creative
Speaker 2: design agents, sees, et cetera, you see they have these,
Speaker 2: you know, rooms for relaxing and playing foodsball and ping pong,
Speaker 2: because when people are having fun, their creativity starts. So
Speaker 2: bringing joy into your meetings, into your interaction, joking around
Speaker 2: helps the business. And then gratitude if you show appreciation first,
Speaker 2: noticing things that we appreciate improves our mood. It's not
Speaker 2: that happy people are grateful, it's that grateful people become happy.
Speaker 2: So when we express gratitude, you know, there's all the
Speaker 2: research that shows that improves our mood and improves our
Speaker 2: immune system, et cetera. And then when you express that
Speaker 2: gratitude to others through appreciation, they're motivated and then they
Speaker 2: work harder to to you know, continue to get that
Speaker 2: positive feedback.
Speaker 1: The next one is inner direction, and it's almost obvious,
Speaker 1: but perhaps there's a spiritual intelligence aspect of that one
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if you're going to be a leader, you
Speaker 2: got to follow your north star and you got to
Speaker 2: follow your your thing. Otherwise you're following them. You're a leader,
Speaker 2: not a follower. So you know, that's the difference between
Speaker 2: a leader that has a vision, that has a passion,
Speaker 2: that has a direction and that says, Okay, you know this,
Speaker 2: this is the vision and I'm confident in it and
Speaker 2: calling me and I'm following that that inner compass my
Speaker 2: my north star, as opposed to I'm a politician and
Speaker 2: I'm looking around like okay, what what what are the
Speaker 2: what do they think I should do? And I'm trying
Speaker 2: to figure out from my employees what do they what
Speaker 2: do they want me to do, or what do they think?
Speaker 2: And that's not to say we shouldn't get their input.
Speaker 2: And so this is the paradox. You have to be
Speaker 2: strong and hold your ground and have your inner compass
Speaker 2: and at the same time be open to others' ideas. Yes,
Speaker 2: but ultimately you know, you have to discern the truth
Speaker 2: and trust your your your judgment and and then you
Speaker 2: live in integrity and alignment. And that's the discernment that
Speaker 2: you you have to to follow the truth. And so
Speaker 2: that's the inter directedness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I you use the word that I was
Speaker 1: thinking it was just vision being a critical component of
Speaker 1: inner direction. The next one is community.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, you work for many people as the
Speaker 2: primary community, and we're living in a loneliness epidemic pandemic.
Speaker 2: We're so isolated, but we're social beings, and so you
Speaker 2: want to be part of a group of people that
Speaker 2: has a shared vision, a shared purpose, shared set of values,
Speaker 2: where people care about each other and that that makes
Speaker 2: us happier, more fulfilled, and we care about each other,
Speaker 2: and in that environment, people help each other and support
Speaker 2: each other as as opposed to working across purposes and
Speaker 2: so it results in better outcome and for the business
Speaker 2: and uh more loyalty to the organization because you've built
Speaker 2: this web of trust and relationship where people care about
Speaker 2: each other and then they don't want to leave. They
Speaker 2: want to help their call their friends, their colleagues.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like the convincing the employees to carry the
Speaker 1: the vision and become a community of one of one
Speaker 1: thought the next one. The fifth spiritual intelligence leadership idea
Speaker 1: is a presence and that to me would be the
Speaker 1: you know, the CEO showing up once in a while
Speaker 1: and being available and so on. But how do you
Speaker 1: define that?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you're talking to CEO. It's a all level.
Speaker 2: I mean, right now, you know you and I hopefully
Speaker 2: we're present. I see your present. You're attentively listening to me.
Speaker 2: If if you started like looking at your phone and
Speaker 2: checking your text messages and thinking about your your next
Speaker 2: appointment or I don't know what you're going to do
Speaker 2: this afternoon, I would feel like you're you're not there,
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna I'm gonna start I'm gonna start drifting
Speaker 2: off and the quality of our interaction and creativity and
Speaker 2: collaboration is going to suffer. So I get it's at
Speaker 2: any interaction, whether it's with two team members, it's it's
Speaker 2: a manager, it's a it's a one on one. You know,
Speaker 2: we're gonna get the quality of the output based on
Speaker 2: the presence. And this is something we're all dealing with,
Speaker 2: is like everything's competing for our attention with all the
Speaker 2: social media and text messages and emails and ads, et cetera.
Speaker 2: So you know, managing our attention and being clear of
Speaker 2: our intention because otherwise you go into something and before
Speaker 2: you know it, you're on some tangent, you forget your intention,
Speaker 2: you're not paying attention, and you've wasted an hour and
Speaker 2: the hour's gone by. And so if you're in sales,
Speaker 2: let's just say, you know, I have to have an intention, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to build rapport with my prospect. I want
Speaker 2: to understand their problems so then I can come back
Speaker 2: with a proposal that fits them. So you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's crucial that I know what my intention for this
Speaker 2: interaction is. I'm trying to connect emotionally, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: create some rapport. I'm trying to understand the problem space
Speaker 2: so that we can collaborate on building a solution. So
Speaker 2: this is in business, this is the CEO everyone. It's
Speaker 2: in your family with your children. You know, you want
Speaker 2: to be present with your and you want to be
Speaker 2: present with your spouse. You know. You see people, you
Speaker 2: go to the restaurant and people are having dinner together
Speaker 2: and everybody's on their phone. I'm like, okay, now what
Speaker 2: are you doing with each other? This is your weekly
Speaker 2: date or whatever.
Speaker 1: So it's a good analogy. We're going to take a
Speaker 1: short commercial break to allow our sponsors to identify themselves
Speaker 1: and will return shortly with my guest today, you'll see
Speaker 1: Amram discussing his new book, Spiritually Intelligent Leadership. Will be
Speaker 1: right back. My guest today is you'll see Amram. He
Speaker 1: he is the author of Spiritually Intelligent Leadership. This is
Speaker 1: a look at corporate America from the lens of spiritual leadership. Uh.
Speaker 1: The sixth of the seven is truth, which I find interesting.
Speaker 1: Talk about that.
Speaker 2: Well, truth is like your openness, interest, curiosity, devotion to truth.
Speaker 2: I'm really interested in truth. I want to know what's
Speaker 2: true here. And as opposed to you know, proving myself right,
Speaker 2: I want to do what's right. So in a business,
Speaker 2: I want to know the truth. What does the market
Speaker 2: really want? What did the customers really want as opposed
Speaker 2: to my idea. I may come into the market with
Speaker 2: some sense of arrogance, like you know, Henry Ford said,
Speaker 2: people just I'll make color cars, any color as long
Speaker 2: as it's black. Well, okay, for a while you're the
Speaker 2: dominant player, you could do that, but at some point
Speaker 2: and your competitor is going to say, hey, customers want
Speaker 2: multiple colors. And so you know, you have to know
Speaker 2: what is the truth of what the market, the employees,
Speaker 2: the people you're dealing with. They have to be open
Speaker 2: and curious and interested in what's real, what's true, as
Speaker 2: opposed to just your ideas of what it is and
Speaker 2: trying to prove yourself right there trying to do what
Speaker 2: is right.
Speaker 1: It's so fun to listen to you because you're you're
Speaker 1: now a therapist, but your CEO hat is on and
Speaker 1: you're moving forward in a lecture. It's wonderful. The final
Speaker 1: topic here is wisdom, which is number seven of the
Speaker 1: seven dimensions of spiritual intelligent leadership. So how does wisdom
Speaker 1: fit into this?
Speaker 2: Well, wisdom says that you know there is our analytic mind,
Speaker 2: and we do our spreadsheets, and we do all the
Speaker 2: analysis and the models, and when you make a decision,
Speaker 2: and you got to do all your homework. But you
Speaker 2: also there are these things that are beyond the linear thinking.
Speaker 2: So you have your intuition. When you're hiring someone, you
Speaker 2: trust your intuition beyond just what their resume says and
Speaker 2: what have you. But you kind of tap into your sense.
Speaker 2: You have your your higher self. So for example, you
Speaker 2: have a problem, you don't know how to deal with it,
Speaker 2: but you have some internalized wise figure. It could be
Speaker 2: a grandparent, it could be a spiritual teacher, it could
Speaker 2: be your future self, and you ask that. So you
Speaker 2: ask yourself, Okay, fifteen years from now, ten years from that,
Speaker 2: when I've been successful, I've achieved all my things, I've
Speaker 2: made all the money I want whatever, I'm going to
Speaker 2: ask that future self of mine, how should I deal
Speaker 2: with today's problem and how did I get there? So
Speaker 2: it's ways to tap into things that go beyond the
Speaker 2: normal analytical mind that we have to do. I'm not
Speaker 2: dismissing that you got to do all the spreadsheets. You
Speaker 2: got to do all of that, but then you let
Speaker 2: go of that, like you know, Einstein or Steve Jobs
Speaker 2: or all these great creative minds, or Thomas Edison have
Speaker 2: said they did all the hard work, but their insight,
Speaker 2: their brilliance came to them, you know, in in intuitive hits,
Speaker 2: taking a shower, taking a walk, waking up from a dream,
Speaker 2: et cetera. So how do you cultivate that you know
Speaker 2: soil so that these ideas can sprout through your intuition
Speaker 2: in ways that are not explained mechanically through linear logical frames. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you gotta do the logical analysis, so then your subconscious
Speaker 2: can work in the background you get these flashes of
Speaker 2: insights and wisdom.
Speaker 1: Can you choose a couple of people that you feature
Speaker 1: in your I don't know if you are using their
Speaker 1: real names. I don't think you legally allowed to do that.
Speaker 1: But give us a case, steady one or two people
Speaker 1: who were helped when they understood that their spiritual, intelligent
Speaker 1: focus was the best way to go as a as
Speaker 1: a company leader.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know, I can tell talk about many,
Speaker 2: many stories, many cases. One of the ones I discussed
Speaker 2: in the book is the case of Ted who raised
Speaker 2: tens of millions of dollars from top venture capitalists in
Speaker 2: the valley, but his company wasn't doing so well and
Speaker 2: he had to do a bunch of layoffs and he
Speaker 2: started to feel down on himself and getting depressed, et cetera.
Speaker 2: So the first thing was to get him out of
Speaker 2: the depression. And you know, we did that by just
Speaker 2: getting him into a gratitude practice. And you know, so
Speaker 2: every night he thought about three things that happened today
Speaker 2: in the business that he was grateful for. And then
Speaker 2: he moved into appreciating people in real time that did
Speaker 2: something good that he was grateful for that improved them moral.
Speaker 2: And then we did this visioning exercise about, Okay, where
Speaker 2: do you want the company to be in twelve months,
Speaker 2: and really create that vi through visualization like they do
Speaker 2: that in sports. Yeah, you are in in tennis, you
Speaker 2: shooting the serve, You're going to visualize it going into
Speaker 2: that corner. Or you're a golfer, you're going to visualize
Speaker 2: your swinging and the balls landing on the on the
Speaker 2: tee in the hole, and so you want to visualize
Speaker 2: it and that lays the neural pathways in your brain.
Speaker 2: It lays the pathways in reality and you're inviting the
Speaker 2: universe to support you. So he did that with his
Speaker 2: future where he wanted the company to be, and he
Speaker 2: kind of programmed himself that that's going to be a reality,
Speaker 2: and then he started acting in that way. And then
Speaker 2: he did that down the line from his vps to
Speaker 2: their teams, so that everybody started having this vision and
Speaker 2: seeing how they are fitting into it. And that really
Speaker 2: energized everybody and motivated it. And so a little behold
Speaker 2: a year later, they pretty much achieved that that vision.
Speaker 2: So you know that that's a spiritual intelligence quality that's
Speaker 2: used in business, used in sports coaching, using a variety
Speaker 2: of other things.
Speaker 1: I can see it with the CEO, But the people
Speaker 1: down the line, how are you going to get them
Speaker 1: the vision? Is it more like a paper for this week?
Speaker 1: We want you to be thinking about the positivity of
Speaker 1: this new product, service or whatever. How do you how
Speaker 1: do you get the others to kind of follow you
Speaker 1: in that vision?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, so you you take it down the line,
Speaker 2: and so you're each manager, each coach works with their
Speaker 2: team and says, okay, this is the overall vision right like,
Speaker 2: right now we have one hundred customers. Our goal is
Speaker 2: by the end of the year, we're going to have
Speaker 2: twice as many two hundred customers. Okay, so does that
Speaker 2: what does that mean? You're in customers service, you're one
Speaker 2: of the customer service employees. And right now, you know,
Speaker 2: because we have one hundred customers, this is what you're doing.
Speaker 2: This is how many phone calls you're getting, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Now imagine it's a year from now there it's two
Speaker 2: hundred customers and you're getting you know this stuff, and
Speaker 2: so let's think through how visualize yourself dealing with that.
Speaker 2: How are you handling this? Maybe maybe we hired another
Speaker 2: person to help you, so now you have a teammate. Okay,
Speaker 2: how are the two of you working? What are you
Speaker 2: doing to make so so you bring it down to earth.
Speaker 2: You take this idea that we're doubling the business at
Speaker 2: the level of the company as the CEO. But what
Speaker 2: does that mean, you know, department by department down to
Speaker 2: each person and then so if they internalize it and
Speaker 2: then they visualize how they are fitting into this new world,
Speaker 2: then they're preparing themselves so that the customer support apartment
Speaker 2: can in deal handle twice the business. Otherwise you're going
Speaker 2: to bring all these customers, the product quality is going
Speaker 2: to suffer, and then they're all going to walk away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good one. As we conclude, you'll see.
Speaker 1: Can you provide another example of somebody perhaps who's in
Speaker 1: the incubation period, is looking for funding that you as
Speaker 1: a client, and through this visioning or this intelligence work
Speaker 1: leadership work, they were able to spawn a funding.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, it's like visualizing the
Speaker 2: product how it's being used, and then being nimble when
Speaker 2: you're launching it and you're not getting the feedback you
Speaker 2: want from customer and you're not getting the engagement, and
Speaker 2: then you're like I had this. I think I talked
Speaker 2: about this case in one of the chapters. Someone who
Speaker 2: was actually a successful entrepreneur and a previous thing he
Speaker 2: cashed out, raised, sold this company, made a lot of money,
Speaker 2: and then he started another thing and he thought, I
Speaker 2: have the Midas touch, I'm a great product designer, and
Speaker 2: he launched a new app product and he was the
Speaker 2: results from the user base was dismal, and he was
Speaker 2: like he couldn't reconcile, like I thought I was a great, smart,
Speaker 2: successful designer, and that became his egoic identity, and then
Speaker 2: he couldn't he couldn't reconcile that with the reality that
Speaker 2: it wasn't going so well. So we had to kind
Speaker 2: of go back to this truth domain, which was to
Speaker 2: let go of this egoic identity and go back to openness.
Speaker 2: Remember I said about the thing about truth is about
Speaker 2: being open. But as long as you're stuck on your identity,
Speaker 2: I'm a great designer and I have the Midas touch,
Speaker 2: it couldn't compute the reality of what the market was
Speaker 2: giving him and the customers and his identity, and all
Speaker 2: of his energy was spinning around reconciling those two things
Speaker 2: that just could so but when he let go of
Speaker 2: his idea, then he opened up and then he could
Speaker 2: be more creative and adjust and we even dart his
Speaker 2: product to get to product market fits so that then
Speaker 2: it could get the traction and raise the follow on
Speaker 2: funding and so on.
Speaker 1: So that Yeah, would you say that Silicon Valley is
Speaker 1: still kind of the epicenter for new tech environments or
Speaker 1: I mean you mentioned Israel, which I didn't know that
Speaker 1: they were a tech environment, but also there's places in
Speaker 1: Boston and other smaller places in the United States. But
Speaker 1: what would you, how would you define Silicon Valley today.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's still the epicenter hub. I mean
Speaker 2: it's like the Florence of the Renaissance. You get all
Speaker 2: this smartest people come here, and you know, the AI
Speaker 2: startups and whatever these days, a lot of them are
Speaker 2: in Silicon Valley. So, yeah, you have the biggest concentration
Speaker 2: of talent, but that's nobody has a monopoly on innovation. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Route one twenty eight in Boston, I mean a lot
Speaker 2: of it also centers around universities and where innovation comes out.
Speaker 2: So in Silicon Valley, you got Berkeley, you got Stanford,
Speaker 2: you got a lot of venture capital that provides the capital.
Speaker 2: In Boston, you have MIT, you have Harvard. In those places,
Speaker 2: but it tends to be more conservative than the Silicon Valley.
Speaker 2: It's kind of the wild West. And then there are
Speaker 2: other places in Northern Calia, North Carolina has an area.
Speaker 2: There's a part of New York I forget what it's
Speaker 2: called the and something and yeah, Israel. Israel has got
Speaker 2: the second largest concentration of public companies on the NAVSDAC
Speaker 2: beyond Salaca, and it has more patents filed than all
Speaker 2: of the EU. You know, global patents, so yeah, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of innovation there. But but it can happen anywhere.
Speaker 2: No one has a monopoly on it, whether it's Silicic
Speaker 2: Valley or Route one twenty eight in Boston or.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So exciting times, you know, there's a lot of it.
Speaker 1: They are, but our current political environment is a little repressive,
Speaker 1: I think, and we don't have as many I'm not
Speaker 1: in high tech anymore. I was years ago. But when
Speaker 1: I was involved in Silicon Valley, people from around the
Speaker 1: world came and got their Green cards and many of
Speaker 1: them stayed and you know, developed families here. But right
Speaker 1: now it's not encouraged. So yeah, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how that affects us in the long run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are good questions. I mean that's how I came.
Speaker 2: I came in on a student visa and then eventually
Speaker 2: I got a Green card and stayed, and now I'm
Speaker 2: in a US citizen. So yeah, I mean, I'd rather
Speaker 2: not go into the politics of it, but I would
Speaker 2: just say, you're right. I said, we live in exciting times,
Speaker 2: and we also live in scary times. But that's why
Speaker 2: actually we need spiritual intelligence, so you know, we we
Speaker 2: have human cognitive intelligence, which landed us on the moon.
Speaker 2: We split the atom, we deciphered the genome. We have
Speaker 2: AI that is amazingly intelligent, smarter than many of us,
Speaker 2: including myself. We have emotional intelligence. We know how to
Speaker 2: monitor our emotions. But the world looks like you know,
Speaker 2: you look, mental health issues, anxiety, depression, suicide, substance abuse
Speaker 2: are all hy rocketing. You got political polarization within families,
Speaker 2: tearing people apart, families apart, and you got wars, so
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, it's it's very scary. But we
Speaker 2: have to understand that we're all interconnected and that's part
Speaker 2: of spiritual intelligence. And that's I think to me, that's
Speaker 2: why it's so crucial that not just for business, but
Speaker 2: for the whole culture, the whole society, the whole world,
Speaker 2: for humanity to move to the next level of survival
Speaker 2: and thriving, particularly in the age of AI, when machines
Speaker 2: are gonna, you know, take over a lot of what
Speaker 2: knowledge workers do. I mean, you know, in eighteen fifty,
Speaker 2: ninety percent of humanity was involved in agriculture, but you know,
Speaker 2: with industrial machinery industrial farming, today two percent of humanity
Speaker 2: is involved in farming and because we produce enough food
Speaker 2: and then but these days most people are sitting behind
Speaker 2: us called knowledge workers. And then AI is going to
Speaker 2: take over a lot of that and people are going
Speaker 2: to lose their jobs. So what are humans going to do?
Speaker 2: And I think it's only when we develop our spiritual intelligence,
Speaker 2: these other skills of compassion and connection and so on,
Speaker 2: that we will be able to continue to survive and thrive.
Speaker 2: Otherwise we'll become obsolete.
Speaker 1: The books call spiritually intelligent leadership. My guess today has
Speaker 1: been U see Amram, What is your website?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: How can people get a hold of you?
Speaker 2: Well, I have a website. If you can remember the
Speaker 2: spelling of my name, it's not easy, it's uc Amram
Speaker 2: dot net. So y SI A M R a m
Speaker 2: dot net. And if you can't remember that, you can
Speaker 2: go to Awakening SI just SI for Spiritual Intelligence Awakening
Speaker 2: SI dot org. It's a nonprofit that I started and
Speaker 2: we host monthly events each month looking at one of
Speaker 2: the spiritual intelligence qualities with exercises and community. The next
Speaker 2: one is this Friday on intuition, and you know, last
Speaker 2: one was about presence. We talked about presence today and
Speaker 2: before that was on trust. So each month there's a
Speaker 2: free event and if you go to Awakening si dot
Speaker 2: org you can register for free, and even if you
Speaker 2: don't show up for the actual event, you will get
Speaker 2: a link for the recording on my YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: That's very generous, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we're trying to help the world get more
Speaker 2: spiritually intelligent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'll see. As we conclude, who did you write
Speaker 1: the book for? Who would you say you wrote the
Speaker 1: book for?
Speaker 2: Well, I wrote the book for anybody who's aspiring to
Speaker 2: become a better leader. And by that I mean, first
Speaker 2: and foremost lead themselves in a better life, because leadership
Speaker 2: is an inside job. So someone who wants to lead
Speaker 2: a better, more meaningful life to grow and develop psychologically
Speaker 2: and spiritually and have a stronger impact on the world
Speaker 2: than people around them. And in a sense, we're all leaders,
Speaker 2: you know, we're leaders in our communities and our neighborhoods
Speaker 2: and our families. So it's not just people that are
Speaker 2: in corporate environments or whatever, which we talked a lot about.
Speaker 2: Obviously that's one aspect of it, but it could be
Speaker 2: people in nonprofits, in government, or people that want to
Speaker 2: grow and develop their spiritual intelligence, which as I said,
Speaker 2: is applicable in many domains, not just business and organizations
Speaker 2: at work, but in families and relationships. So the book
Speaker 2: has exercises and case studies with clients. So it's not
Speaker 2: just reading the book and getting the theory. It's about
Speaker 2: doing the exercises in the work. It's not just you
Speaker 2: read a book about fitness and your fit. You got
Speaker 2: to go to the gym and do the workout, but
Speaker 2: the go to the do your push ups and sit
Speaker 2: ups and squats and what you're doing, and so same
Speaker 2: with spiritual intelligence.
Speaker 1: You'll see thank you Rick having you on the program,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate your work.
Speaker 2: Thank you, it's been a delight and an honor.
Speaker 1: If you can actually just punch in, you'll see emram
Speaker 1: am ra Am and do a Google searcher. You'll see
Speaker 1: his channel on YouTube, and everything on there is free.
Speaker 1: I don't see anything to pay for. He's got short presentations,
Speaker 1: long presentations, and the majority I would say of the
Speaker 1: themes are the spiritually intelligent leadership focus. That's what he's
Speaker 1: focusing on as an executive, as a former executive, and
Speaker 1: I mean that's why he has so many CEOs of
Speaker 1: that are in Silicon Valley. They know him, and he
Speaker 1: gave up that part of his life to become a
Speaker 1: clinical psychologist, and he flowed well, his consciousness flows really well.
Speaker 1: I mean, he probably can really help these guys that
Speaker 1: are under commit this pressure, because when you have your
Speaker 1: own company and you have somebody else's money, a venture
Speaker 1: capitalist money, you've got to produce. It's a lot of work.
Speaker 1: I worked during the dotcom era. I worked for I
Speaker 1: think two or three different dot coms, and you know,
Speaker 1: they these guys don't really know how to handle money,
Speaker 1: these these president and CEOs and these smaller companies, so
Speaker 1: they'd blow it on parties and stuff. I remember the
Speaker 1: one company I worked with in San Francisco. It was
Speaker 1: a digital storage company, and the president had an account
Speaker 1: at a local bar and we could go down and
Speaker 1: have a martini after work. I mean, they they the
Speaker 1: incentives were insane. They were totally insane. I worked for
Speaker 1: another company that was a software company that and I
Speaker 1: was a marketing manager. I would they'd flag me all
Speaker 1: over the place, and I had a I had an
Speaker 1: expense account, which is not unheard of, but you know,
Speaker 1: I could take people out for dinner and drink stuff
Speaker 1: like that. That's the way things are now. Same thing,
Speaker 1: But it seems like back then there was much more money,
Speaker 1: was much more freely spent in that environment. So fun interview.
Speaker 1: I appreciate OC coming to visit us here on Destiny. Hey,
Speaker 1: we're coming to the end of this year, but I
Speaker 1: gotta say that we have our seventh annual Grand Egyptian
Speaker 1: Tour coming up April twenty eighth through May tenth. It
Speaker 1: is gonna be a great one. It's a megalithically, it's
Speaker 1: a megalithic tour. We're gonna see some of the oldest
Speaker 1: Egyptian cities that people don't really talk about. And what
Speaker 1: I discovered a few years ago and through people like
Speaker 1: Ben Kirkwick and Christun is that these older sites have
Speaker 1: megalithic sculpture, megalithic sculpture, and so we're gonna look at
Speaker 1: some sculpture, We're gonna look at some from stonework, We're
Speaker 1: gonna look at some temples, We're gonna climb pyramids. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have a blast, and I'd love for you to
Speaker 1: join me. For all the details, all the information, go
Speaker 1: to Earthancents dot com. Forward slash Tours sign up, check
Speaker 1: it out. It is very reasonable. Our tours. Earth Ancients
Speaker 1: Tours are typically half the typical price for a normal
Speaker 1: corporate tour, and we make it inexpensive, but we peck
Speaker 1: a lot in there. Once you get to Cairo, all
Speaker 1: your flights, all your bus, accommodation's hotel, special private visits
Speaker 1: and food and drink all covered. So really really great
Speaker 1: price for a wonderful tour. From more information go to
Speaker 1: Earth Agents dot com, forward slash tours right, thanks for
Speaker 1: this program. I want to think my guest today you'll
Speaker 1: see Amron coming to us from I think he was
Speaker 1: in Palo Alto. As always, the team of Gail, tor
Speaker 1: Mark Foster and Faya out in Pakistan. You guys rock
Speaker 1: all right, take care of me well and we will
Speaker 1: talk to you next time.