Career Yoga

It is not easy to end projects, especially successful ones. In the last two years we recorded 44 episodes: we had over 38,000 downloads from more than 35 countries across the world. We started our podcast when we started our friendship- we had so many questions about the right way to manage our careers in the 21st century and we wanted to partner on this research project. Although we have a lot more to learn, we reached a conclusion; how do you manage a career in the 21st century? Similar to a yoga practice; listening to the body, combining constant challenge and persistence. Throughout the episodes we had the privilege to interview fascinating people and learn from them valuable lessons about decision making, passion and courage. For this final episode, we recorded a conversation in which we summarize our learnings, talk about what’s next, and share the top insights from our best episodes, including some samples from them. This is an episode for anyone that wants to hear the essence of some of the lessons learned on this podcast and to summarize the journey with us. We want to thank all of our listeners and interviewers. It was a wonderful ride. May we all continue and practice our career yoga.

Roni Dori is an independent Journalist, and has been since 2006. She is intrigued mainly by current cultural issues. Roni was a staff member of the Galeria magazine, a supplement of “Ha’aretz” for four years. After quitting her day job, she became an independent journalist, initiating her own stories. Her articles appeared in: Ha’aretz, Calcalist, Mako, TimeOut Tel Aviv and others. In our conversation with her we talk about the advantages and challenges of being an independent Journalist, the day to day work of independent journalists, pricing and her personal agenda.

Gil Ackerman is a passionate Food & Beverage Consultant and Entrepreneur for the past 13 years and excels in culinary growth and innovation. Gilgul Culinary Productions is an exceptional catering company with an international presence. The company is creating unique culinary experiences for private and corporate clients around the world. Gil's professional background is in psychology and production. In this episode we talk about what led him to the F&B path, how to build a brand around experience and customer service, the opportunities of today and the secret sauce that allows him to have a successful company with an international presence. This is an episode for people who are committed to making a living out of their passion. Gilgul’s story is an inspiration for this.

Tal Shavit is a Senior Consultant at McKinsey and Co., where she focuses on people and culture related topics in organizations around the world. Prior to that, she served as the Executive Director at Seeds of Peace Israel. With a professional background in conflict resolution, Tal always received feedback as being a 'people person', allowing people around her to feel good, communicate better with each other and feel safe. Professionally, these are called: soft skills. Although research shows that in some corporate environments, soft skills are more important than “hard skills”. But when people think about the typical business consultant, they imagine the analytical person, who prioritize numbers over people. In our fascinating conversation with Tal, we talk about the importance of soft skills in corporate environments, how company culture influences the bottom line and how many resources McKinsey invests in developing their understanding in soft skills. She also shares about the changes happening now in the business world and about the momentum for people with soft skills to join and lead the business world.This is an episode for people who love people, and are wondering about the value of that skill.

As part of the ongoing debate of whether to focus on one field in your career or engaging in a variety of fields, Guy Seemann is sharing with us the idea of being an Expert Generalist. Expert Generalists (a term coined by Orit Gadiesh, chairman of Bain & Company) study widely in many different fields, understand deeper principles that connect those fields and then apply these principles to their core specialty. After nearly 10 years in both American and Israeli government, Guy Seemann became an entrepreneur and started various organizations in the fields of politics, pharmaceuticals and the arts, just to name a few:Rethink Pharmaceuticals, The Stage and Kol Ole. His current project, titled The American Question, is a documentary film. Guy believes he breaks the mold of an entrepreneur where industry specific expertise is what everyone is looking for. Expert Generalists are taking the things you’re strong in extrapolating it for different fields you’re passionate about. In our conversation with him he shares the challenges and opportunities in pursuing multiple passions and how to etablish projects that converge the different fields altogether.

Keren Etkin is a Gerontechnologist. She holds a B.Sc in life sciences and M.A in gerontology. She has been working with older adults for almost a decade, in NGOs and in the private sector. For the past two years she has been the Gerontechnologist at Intuition Robotics- the world’s first social robot designed for older adults. In our conversation with her we talk about the meaning of being a Gerontologist, the problem of ageism, the impact technology solutions can have on older adults and Keren’s passion for the topic. This episode is for everyone, as Keren said, all of us are getting old, so we better invest in solutions, so this world stays a place we can live in. Visit her blog here : http://www.thegerontechnologist.com/

Elad is a licensed clinical psychologist. He started his career at the Public Sector, serving underprivileged communities. His job was fulfilling and rewarding, but being a father he needed to provide, so after he couldn’t afford his life financially, a few months ago he had to resign and move to the private practice. In our conversation, we are talking about the paradox that exists that the most important positions in Israel: teachers, doctors, social workers and psychologists (to name a few) are underpaid and are unable to live a dignified life. We touch the specific challenge, including time and money sacrifices, and the things Elad considered when he chose to leave. When Elad left he told his clinic: ”I’ll be back when I’ll be rich” This an episode for any person that wishes to pursue work in the public sector and is dealing with the questions about these sacrifices.

Ron Harel is a Certified Massage Therapist. Prior to that he did business development and sales at Summit Series, the world’s leading entrepreneurship community. He was also a junior partner at Lehman Brothers, as part of the private wealth management team who managed over one Billion Dollars in assets. In our talk with him we wanted to understand the transition from Wall Street to Massage therapy. Ron shares with us the various reminders he was given for living an authentic life of purpose: from losing a close friend, to reflections from family members, to joining communities that reminded him of his passion. This is an episode for any person that wants to fulfill himself authentically and go beyond society’s expectations.

David Katz says that if he would find out that working from home is bad for his business, he wouldn’t rent an office, he would close his business. We spend most of our lives working, so in his opinion, it makes no sense to pursue a career that doesn’t make us happy. The way he uncompromisingly implements it is mind blowing. David is the founder and CEO of Mixtiles. He has founded two companies and appeared on the “100 Most Influential People in Israel Tech” list. Mixtiles makes it easy to decorate walls with your photos. The company has tens of thousands of customers, and its employees all work from home. In this fascinating episode we talk with David about the culture of working from home and how to create, as a founder, a “stress-free” environment that allows freedom for the team without harming business results. We analyze the advantages, challenges, innovation and opportunities that working from home offers. This is an episode for any person that loves working from home and actually any person that manages employees. Go for it.

Maya Gura is a serial entrepreneur. She's the co-founder and CEO of Missbeez, a mobile marketplace for beauty services matching busy women with self-employed professionals. Prior to Missbeez, Maya was a founding team member at PicScout and the Co-Founder of The Gifts Project (a social Ecommerce platform acquired by Ebay). We talk about the definition of success, the importance of being the decision maker to implement your vision, the different motivations she had for starting each company and her vision for MissBeez. As Maya shares about founding three companies with rare honesty, this is an episode for people interested in the journey of an entrepreneur.

Noga Alon is an Israeli mathematician noted for his contributions to combinatorics and theoretical computer science, having authored hundreds of papers. Alon has received a number of awards, including the following: the Erdős Prize, the Feher prize, the Israel Prize and many more. Being one of the best mathematicians in the world, we talk about what it means to manage a career that requires thinking all day long, the unique challenges of solving mathematical problems and the passion and obsession of becoming, and staying, a world leader in your field. This is an episode for anyone that is interested in excelling, in deep work that requires quality thinking processes and in keeping up your game in the long term, regardless of age.

Avishag brings more than a decade of experience in tech venture financing, private equity and business development. She was named in The Marker 2016 list of 40 most successful promising business leaders,She had worked in the founders group in Tel Aviv, where she managed a portfolio worth $2.3 billion in VC and private investment. Originally going into VC because of her interest in impact investment, when Avishag started managing Founders groups’ portfolio, she didn’t know anyone in the VC industry in Israel. As part of the values she learned at home, she did what she usually does when she arrives to a new place; she started helping people. After meeting a lot of people in the industry, she realized the investing the time to make a phone call to every entrepreneur she had to say “no” to, instead of sending an email templates like most of the investors do, is pretty rare. And even some of her colleagues called is “not sustainable”. In this conversation we talk about the added values feminine leadership brings into the VC world, the reason the way VS’s are managed today doesn’t suit women and having women lead the revolution- the only way for real change. “What we need now is the power of women coming together and helping each other in every sector.” In the end of the episode, one of us said: “I feel empowered”. and the other replied:”Me too”.

"After the industrial revolution, Henry Ford reduced the working time for 5 days a week and 9 hours a day. That was 90 years ago. Since than- haven’t we advanced? Why do we still work 9 hours a day?” Adi Karmon Scope has two hats; she is the Co founder of fractal boutique, assisting companies in the blockchain industry doing their ICO’s, and is also the founder of the Six Movement , which believes that people should work no more than six hours a day. Coming from the corporate life, working 12 hours a day and climbing the ladder, Adi was feeling happy about her life. As she grew older, became a mom and got to know herself and her needs deeper, she started feeling conflicted with the idea of spending most of her life in an office. She became an entrepreneur, building companies in the fields of online marketing and virtual coins. As a founder, she started experimenting with managing her and her teams’ time to fit the six hours philosophy. Nowadays, she calls the six hours her religion, and is managing her life in intervals of six; six hours of work, six hours with her family, six hours with time for herself and personal duties and six hours of sleep. Although she works in a very demanding industry, her clients and her teams are all aware of this policy and this doesn’t influence her income- to the contrary, Adi believes it gives her a competitive advantage. In this conversation Adi talks about the reason everyone should move into the six hours work day, the change one needs to make in one’s life to fit it, and the importance of free time to fulfill our potential as human beings. This is an episode for anyone who feels overworked and wants to get exposed to a perspective that can change that.

“People assume artists are living their lives as free spirits, but I’m working harder than most of the people I know.” Loren started his music career at his teenage years when he started playing the guitar and than served in IDF’s orchestra. After the army, he went to pursue his music career in New York as a singer songwriter and got to work with famous musicians such as Steve Jordan and more. Four years later he came back to Israel and started producing and writing songs for the most well known artists in the country, including: Eyal Golan, Moshe Peretz, Ivri Lider, Shlomi Shabat, Rita and more. In our conversation he talks about the process of realizing music is his full time commitment, probably for the rest of his life. We talk about making a living from music, about working hard for leading in your field and about focusing on our passions. And… there is a surprise in the end. This is an episode for people who thought art could only be pursued as a hobby.

Maya Wertheimer is an actress and a personal trainer. From a young age she always dreamed of being an actress. Choosing personal training came as a surprise. At the age of 17, Maya was injured in a hit and run accident, and was on a wheel chair for several months. After a challenging process of rehabilitation, sports and yoga gave her back her power and confidence. Growing up as non athletic, maya realized the power of sports for empowerment and health and wanted to pass it forward. In our conversation with her we talk about the process of succeeding in acting; from being unknown to having followers and the advantages and challenges of pursuing two careers.

Do you sometimes feel that you wish you could make a living from something more meaningful and impactful? So did Tamara. Over a year ago Tamara Cohen decided she's moving to Israel after having a successful production career in LA, New York and London that included working with leading brands (MasterCard, Gillette, Converse) and leading artists (Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Mumford and Sons). Although she was successful in her field, she decided she wants to transition to a field that has more meaning to her. She wanted to build a social enterprise and she knew that Israel will be the best place for her to find her co-founders. The rest was unknown. She left it all and started a process of exploring a path that is led by a social mission. After meeting dozens of social entrepreneurs, impact investors and organizations - she decided the best place for her to build something meaningful is to move to Israel. Today she is leading a social business she co-founded with 2 partners, they already received an investment from a leading firm, yet the startup is still in stealth mode, so stay tuned. In this episode we talk about the definition of social impact, how do you combine "doing good and doing well" through building businesses with social impact, and about the personal transition process Tamara did that included moving a country, changing industries and becoming an entrepreneur in the peak of a different career. If you want to start working for a social impact mission and not sure what it means and what should you notice while you build yourself in this field- this episode is for you.

Stephie Knoppel is an entrepreneur, founder of PersonalHeroes with 12 years within Advertising industry and innovation in different countries. She is a "cool hunter" (listen to episode to learn what it means) and consults companies around the world. When Stephie's startup got accepted to a prestigious accelerator in the Silicon Valley, she decided to move there. As all places, The Valley, represented as the best place in the world for growing a startup, is not for everyone. And after several months, she felt how much this relocation was harming her, hence harming her company. "It's sustainable till you want to be authentic with yourself" In this episode we talk about the Emotional Bubble of Silicon Valley; the challenges of relocation, about not being authentic with yourself while building a company, about loneliness and peer pressure and business. And the freedom one feels once choosing himself. In this case herself. This is an episode for people that want to live an aligned life- professionally and personally.

"When you reach the age when you have less birthdays to come than what you celebrated, you start asking yourself what is the life I wanna live?" Debby Luzia, 58 years old, calls herself an "art multi-potentialite". Eighteen years ago, on her 40th birthday party she told all of her guests: "Hold on the ride is beginning" Since than she has been busy; She owns Stern art gallery in Tel-Aviv, She is author of the book "Why the Mona Lisa lost her smile - a behind the scenes review of the art world and is also an art correspondent for the Lady Globes magazine and talks about the art world on two channels on Israeli television. She is constantly working on developing new ventures, collaborations and content pieces in the art world, she is sharing with us in this conversation plans about a documentary, working with the BBC and spreading her work in Asia. In our conversation with her we talk about Debby's unique approach that allows her to reinvent herself again and again, that the world doesn't belong to the youngsters and how the new world is giving all of us the opportunity- at any age to make the life we want. Listen to this episode if you need inspiration to go out of your own box and if you ever considered age is a limitation.

Nadav Embon is the creative director at the Israeli public broadcasting corporation. His path leading to this position was quite unusual; A few years before, when Nadav realized that being a freelancer isn't for him, he felt stuck. It was more than a year that Nadav was not motivated to pursue more projects and was sick of all the responsibilities outside of the real work that come with being a freelancer. In the beginning he tried to ignore the feeling and continue business as usual since it was after several years of being a successful animator, leading big projects in the industry and making a living out of his skills. When it became impossible to ignore, he start a journey of self discovery to realize what it is that he wants to do next; after taking some workshops and talking with a few people he appreciates, he was able to identify the most important features in his next career step and following that to identify and approach the opportunity that is aligned with it. In this conversation we talk about the different steps one can take when looking for a new start, Nadav's unique journey, the real challenges of being a freelancer that people don't talk about and how to identify the right role for you that answers your needs. Listen to this episode if you are looking to do a career shift that is based on your real needs.

Eido Minkovski is a strategic and media consultant to some of the biggest high tech companies in Israel, including: Soluto, AOL, MyHeritage, Outbrain and more. "PR is not physics, it's simple: connecting people, thinking about ideas for stories and working hard. That's all." Coming from the background of night clubs and than IDF's spokesperson- he realized that connecting people is his biggest skill and decided to devote himself to the profession. He was than the spokes person for Haifa's municipality, until one day during a meeting the municipality had with an high tech company, the CEO was so impressed that he convinced Eido to leave the municipality and come and work with him. Since than, Eido built his own company and he's on his way to the top. "I want to be the biggest firm in Israel" In our conversation we talk about the relevance of PR in the world of new media, failure and the feeling of being an extrovert and needing to stay behind the scene, behind his clients.