Career Yoga

"I want to make a difference and speak about what I believe and I will do it everywhere I can." Ishai was interested in making a political difference for many years. He went into the academia because he wanted people not to be able to tell him that he doesn't know what he's talking about. And he really went for it: He teaches law and public policy at University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government. In addition to that he played a role in the Israeli politics by supporting politicians: He was the chief speechwriter to the President of Israel, Shimon Peres.He was Chief of Staff to the Speaker of Knesset, Chief of Staff to the Acting President of Israel, and director of the economic advisory team to the Head of Opposition. As part of his current pursuit to transition from academia into front-row politics, which he defines as: "becoming relevant in the Israeli discourse", Ishai is initiating projects (still in stealth mode) that will strengthen weaker populations in the Israeli society. In this conversa

"It's not only about breastfeeding, I'm nurturing a baby." Adi Altschuler is a known entrepreneur in Israel, she founded Krembo Wings, Zikaron Ba Salon and is working in Google. Being used to lead many things at the same time, and investing most of her time in promoting her social projects, becoming a mom a few months ago, created a lot of change in the way she experiences life, career and her priorities. In our conversation with her she shares about some of the wrong assumptions she started with, the corrections she made on the way and invites additional women to take the leap into motherhood.

Nilli is the Co-Founder and CEO at VCforU, a technology platform that provides tools for entrepreneurs to create material for investors; and helps investors get the best deal flow. VCforU offers entrepreneurs a questionnaire that automatically transforms into a concise and designed one pager that sends a clear message to investors. In this episode we talk about the common mistakes entrepreneurs make when building their investors deck, the most important things to include and additional golden rules that can help any person that is currently working on presenting his business to investors.  

Lior Frenkel is the Co-Founder of nuschool, undigitize.me and author of the book "I want it all". He gives talks, does consulting projects and and manages the "new world people" community. All of his work is focused about the way to make a living and fulfill yourself in the new world of work. Each one of Lior's projects is created and managed in a community focused model which is constantly engaging its followers offering them products, benefits and igniting discussions. "Your career looks more like campaigns than projects. We call this profession of yours, being a thought leader." Hearing this definition Lior smiled and said: "I'm not there yet". In our conversation with him we talked about his path of becoming a thought leader, his thesis about the new world: "All the knowledge our parents taught us about how to make it in life is no longer relevant" and about what is relevant for one to know for making a living and being happy in today's world.

"What am I? A podcaster? An engineer? An author? A business owner?" Ran Levi's podcast, "Making History" is the most popular podcast in Israel with million of downloads. His company is a podcast network which is offering popular podcasts in various topics and successfully monetized by selling relevant ads. That is the result of Ran's focused effort. In the past, Ran used to podcast late at night, after coming back from his day job and putting his kids to sleep. "I paid a big personal price for trying to do everything: for eight years I kept my day job as an engineer, gave talks, wrote two books and had my podcast." In this conversation we talk about the illusion of the times we live in of being able to do everything, the professional and personal price one is paying for not choosing and how to choose your main focus; one step at a time. No one loves choosing, even Ran says that "If I could still do all of these things I probably would" but for making history (double meaning) we must choose our main focus

When Asaf Zamir was a kid, his answer to what he wants to do when he grows up was simple: " I want to be the prime minister" 30 years later he is the first Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv municipality, leading the "Rov Ha Ir" party which he Co Founded and heading the education department in Tel Aviv. When it comes to managing a city, most people would say that leading education is the most challenging and important topic to lead before becoming the mayor. Today, when asked about running for national politics he says that Israeli politics is too much of a sacrifice for him; one must sacrifice values for joining one of the existing parties. "What gives me passion os seeing things I believe in actually happen" which is the biggest advantage of being in local politics- your immediate impact. In our conversation with Asaf we talk about his career path, his feelings towards his work, the yes and no's for going to the private sector and his dynamic definition of success. In the middle of our interview he mentioned it

"Everybody just assume that everybody is straight" Rinat Kapuza came out of the closet on the same year she moved to Tel Aviv and entered the tech world. She started as a receptionist and climbed the professional ladder; today she is the HR director of Cybereason a growing company with over 300 employees. In our conversation, Rinat is sharing with us her personal journey of coming out of the closet, and we discuss about the role the work place is playing in supporting people from the LGBT community. Should one talk about his sexual preference in a job interview? How come data shows that lesbians are doing better at work than straight women? We talk about these questions and additional ones with brutal honesty.

Lior Tavori and Tal Wolfson, both served as senior economists at the Israeli government. Nowadays, they are partners in a successful business, creating economic thought pieces for organizations and are sharing their thoughts and learning in one of Israel's leading podcasts. Both their business and their podcast are called: "Added Value". In our conversation with them we talked about the excitements and disappointments they experienced in serving the public sector, about the kind of economical impact they can make in the private sector and about the different career possibilities one can develop in the field of Economy.

Sarah Tancman was an analyst in a governmental office but than something unexpected happened; "Sometimes women tend to imagine things. Especially when they're pregnant." This is what Sara Tancman's doctor told her at the hospital, when she came to examine the situation of her twin embryos since she felt something was going wrong with the pregnancy. She was on her 5th month and since she knew better than that, she decided not to listen to the doctor and went to the emergency room. That day she lost her babies. Contemplating what the doctor told her: "Nothing is wrong" and that "Women tend to imagine things" Sarah realized her mission in life was to influence the way the health system is interacting with women. Sarah always wanted to work for social change, and this incident exposed her to a problem that is not being addressed. Previously working as an analyst in a governmental office, and now working in leading a change in Israel, we are talking with Sarah about her life changing incident, the major shift s

Roei Deutsch is the Co- Founder of Jolt, a market place for live talks, given by industry professionals to teams that want to foster a culture of continuous learning. Jolt's thesis, called "Chapterships", is built on the fact that millennials, while looking for a job, prioritize learning and growth in the work place. Rather than trying to retain employees, employers should acknowledge this need millennials have, and integrate work and learning opportunities in the work place. 91% of millennial employees say they don't expect to hold a job for more than 3 years. "Chapterships" is a methodology Jolt developed that gives an answer for this challenge by redefining the employment deal. If you ever felt guilty by being bored in your job and wanting to pursue a different path every 2 years, you should listen to this episode, and start feeling good about yourself. You are not abnormal, you are a millennial.

Jackie Donner is an oxford graduate and has been a lawyer for 15 years at top firms in London and in Israel. She was on her path of becoming a partner in the law firm she worked for and than....she gave birth and became a mom to three amazing children. This transition made her feel the glass ceiling of her career: she had to choose between getting promoted or spending the enough time with her children. Over the years it is what made her co-found:"Law Flex", which is following the trend of flexible working and allowing lawyers to continue to serve top firms on their own terms, working from wherever they want and whenever they want. Today law flex is serving 130 lawyers and providing law services to top firms all over the world. This episode talks about work life balance, the future of flexible work and the challenges and opportunities that being a parent brings to your career.

Noam Gershony served in the Israeli Defense Force as a pilot. Back than he could more or less predict how the rest of his career would look like:"After my military service, I would probably work in high tech or fly in a commercial company, like most of my army friends." But than something unexpected happened; During the Lebanon War his helicopter collided with another helicopter, an event which killed his co-pilot and left Gershony injured. He went through intensive medical rehabilitation but life for him was never going to be the same. Looking to get his life back on an active track, Noam started playing wheelchair tennis, initially as a hobby. Quickly enough he realized he could become a leader in the field, and indeed in on 2008, he won the gold medal at the Paralympics. Nowadays, Noam gives motivational talks all over the world about how to deal with crises and how to deal with change. In this episode we talk about the challenges of waking up to a whole new world, and the opportunities that are present

Shiry Zofnat wanted to be a builder ever since she was a child. Her long career included working for Donald Trump, WeLive and renovating world known hotels, including the Chelsea hotel in New York. In some of the companies she worked for she was the first female engineer hired, and was the only female on the site. Asking her boss to: "not treat her like a girl", she became an excellent engineer and her career was blooming. But for her it wasn't enough, she wanted to become involved in the business side and initiating projects, and this is how she started working with Donald Trump, and later joining other big projects, managing assets of over 1billion dollars. Than she decided to follow her heart, and move to Israel. Where she could go deeper into her passion; co-living. In this episode we talk about the new kind of real estate and the opportunities it brings.

Yaniv Rivlin, which is heading the Schusterman's foundation REALITY trips; delegations for Israel for young leaders from around the world, decided to take upon himself one of the hardest missions: shaping public perception about Israel. Growing up in Katzrin and feeling his horizons expanded when he went to study at Harvard; Yaniv got exposed to the immense potential a cultural experience has for changing people's perception. Yaniv believes these cultural experiences are one of the answers to Israel's problematic image around the world. He has been pursuing it ever since and is determined to continue and scale his impact following the same mission.

Can you make money from your Passion Projects? From music studios, to acting, to conservation projects in Africa; Josh Eichenbaum succeeded in a bunch of mini careers along his journey. While pursuing all of them, Josh kept dealing with the same question; How do you make money from art and social projects without compromising on your integrity and priorities?. “The moment I would rely on acting for making money, it would transform from an artistic pursuit to a trial to make a living.” Making money while maintaining a pure intention is the ideal all creatives are longing for. Join us for this discussion, in which we use the word "money" at least 30 times.

Daniel Goldstein is the head of business development at Innovation Endeavors, Eric Schmidt's venture capital firm. The fund is managing a portfolio of over 100 companies and she is leading the fund's business development efforts via partnerships with companies such as: Nasdaq, Target, Michael Kors and more. Daniel always loved connecting between people and creating value for them; a few years ago when she did BD for one startup, she was looking to scale her impact by using this skill and passion of hers in a platform that can serve a lot of start ups and reach a lot of value. She started as community lead in Innovation Endeavors. As community lead she was creating events for founders to connect them to each other and to opportunities that can help them grow their startups. Constantly looking to add more value and scale her impact, and noticing that her impact is limited as long as her title and responsibility remains "nice to have", Daniel created a position within the fund which is bridging between busines

Following 7 years as a team commander in the Israeli Air Force Commando Unit, Shachar went on to create a coffee chain in the Balkans. Being successful as a restaurant owner and not imagining himself doing anything else, Shachar experienced a hard breakup from his girl friend which led him to take a "short vacation" with his friends that completely changed his life. The short vacation became 2 years of studying at The Pyramids Del Ka, an Egyptian mystery school specializing in lucid dreaming, meditation, and Kabbalah studies. During this exploration he experienced long periods of isolation and undertook intensive silent retreats of 40 and 90 days where he discovered the importance of direct connection to our life force. In the beginning, Shachar planned to combine between business and spirituality; offering mindfulness workshops to businesses. He was on his way to do an MBA till he got exposed to "Sexual Shamanism". Today Shachar is one of the leading sexual shamans in Israel, he is leading workshops arou

Maya Shoef is an Israeli actress and is most famous for her roles as a protagonist of the Israeli television series Split and Alex: Pros and Cons. After moving to New-York to study at the "Stella Adler Studio of Acting" she decided to come back to Israel, mainly because she missed her family and friends. From a professional point of view, Maya's decision to come back to Israel was a sacrifice. No one wants to feel like he's going backwards, especially not Maya. This situation forced her to expand her horizons and to open up to another passion she was never aware of. In this chapter she talks about this transition, about having a multidisciplinary career and the opportunities and challenges it brings to her life.

Leading an extraordinary career in the Israeli media and as a demanded moderator in international conferences abroad, Dana Weiss is sharing about her uncompromising journey for self fulfillment in the traditional media industry, how she re-invented herself and created opportunities for herself to become demanded abroad- all for the sake of staying loyal to her career vision and not being led out of fear. In this episode we discuss this career era where the power for creating our own careers is ours- but with this great power, comes this great responsibility. We officially declared Dana as a career yogi. Highly recommended.

Imagine you are fulfilling your professional dream and you know that soon you will become "too old" (in your 30's) and you will have to start making a living from a different profession? Athletes, models, actors and even positions in tech all share the career challenge of having an expiration date. This leaves these professionals no other choice but to reinvent themselves in the middle of their lives after a meaningful career. These days, having this skill, is more important than ever. In this episode, Arik Ze'evi, a retired Israeli judoka , widely recognized as the country's most prominent judoka during his career. shares about the challenges of reinventing his career and about the whole new world that was opened to him while he continued to follow his passion.