The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:06 - 00:00:41:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Intelligence matters. And in the context of leadership, we often think about that intelligence in terms of emotional intelligence or interpersonal intelligence, perhaps. Today, though, we're talking about spiritual intelligence. Now, we're not talking about religious belief or fervor and or the opposite of those things, but we're talking about behaviors, behaviors that transcend those things and set us apart from those leaders who and set apart those leaders who can inspire themselves and others, inspire ourselves and others.

00:00:42:01 - 00:01:13:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership podcast, where we are helping leaders grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger difference for their teams, organizations and the world. If you are listening to this podcast, you could be joining us in the future for live episodes on your favorite social channel. You can do that and get access to when we're doing those live streams and therefore interact with us and even get this valuable information sooner by joining our Facebook or LinkedIn groups.

00:01:13:05 - 00:01:38:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Just go to Remarkable podcast dot com slash Facebook or remarkable podcast dot com slash linked in today's episode is brought to you by our remarkable masterclasses pick from 13 important life and leadership skills to help you become more effective, productive and confident while overcoming some of the leader's toughest challenges. Learn more and sign up at remarkable master class dot com.

00:01:38:12 - 00:02:06:18
Kevin Eikenberry
And at this juncture, I will bring in our guest. You can now see him. His name is Dr. Yossi Amram. Let me introduce him to you. He is a distinguished psychologist and executive coach catering to CEOs, entrepreneurs and other influential leaders and a pioneering researcher in the field of spiritual intelligence. He holds both an MBA from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Sophia University in Clinical Transpersonal Psychology.

00:02:06:20 - 00:02:46:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Prior to psychology and executive coaching, during a 13 year period, he founded and served as CEO for two highly successful tech companies that he led through successful IPOs, valve search and individual ink. Prior excuse me, Beyond executive coaching, he serves as a psychologist, working with individuals, couples and groups. He is the author of the book Spiritually Intelligent Leadership How to Inspire by Being Inspired, which offers a compelling roadmap that equips us with the means to connect with the true source of our power and presence within ourselves.

00:02:46:11 - 00:02:51:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Yossi, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so glad that you're here.

00:02:51:03 - 00:02:57:06
Yosi Amram
Thank you, Karen. I'm excited and psyched to be here. Yeah.

00:02:57:07 - 00:03:17:07
Kevin Eikenberry
So now I can quit reading something and I can look at you. And so we can. We can dive in. And I'm so glad that you're here. When I got your book and took a look, I said, Yeah, this is a is an important topic. And so I was excited that you said yes to join us. And so here's where I want to start.

00:03:17:07 - 00:03:37:07
Kevin Eikenberry
I mean, I read a bit of a bio. There's a lot more to any of us than a short bio, really, though. Tell us a little bit about your journey specifically as it relates to how you end up doing this work and how you end up sort of pioneering this idea of spiritual intelligence.

00:03:37:08 - 00:03:40:21
Yosi Amram
Okay. Well, hopefully I won't take the whole time to cover that.

00:03:40:22 - 00:03:41:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, don't do that.

00:03:42:01 - 00:04:07:08
Yosi Amram
Okay. So you'll keep me honest if I'm going on and on, right? But yeah, I was born and raised in Israel, and like all Israeli good Israeli men, I was drafted into the military and despite being shy and introverted and so on, I found myself excelling in leadership. And somehow I got all these awards and had the fastest promotion and track record in the history of my regiment.

00:04:07:08 - 00:04:29:08
Yosi Amram
Luckily, it was a peaceful time and I didn't have to engage in combat. And the way our crazy world right now is. It was a peaceful time. But still, you know, the military is a command and control model. What you're trained and and that's effective and powerful and needed when you're in battle, you don't have time to building consensus and so on.

00:04:29:10 - 00:05:04:23
Yosi Amram
So it's effective in the military. But fundamentally it chafed that my soul there's something in me that didn't really like that. And so I resolved and got interested, Can you build organizations and make effective teams and groups function in a way that supports the individual, that raises our spirit and in more humane way? So that became sort of my lifelong pursuit, and that led me to the desire to become an entrepreneur and build some companies and see what kind of cultures and environments and leadership paradigms I could do.

00:05:05:01 - 00:05:25:14
Yosi Amram
So I studied engineering. I went to M.I.T., I went to Harvard to get business. But ultimately that led me to start these two companies you mentioned. The first one was called Individual Inc, and individual was a concept. It was the first company to do two personal newspapers. You would get on your fax machines. Kevin Morning News.

00:05:25:20 - 00:05:29:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay. Some people, some people got to Google fax machine. Just say it.

00:05:29:16 - 00:06:04:19
Yosi Amram
Yeah, yeah. No, it's great. This is in the late eighties, early nineties, but you would have your personal newspaper news page on your fax machine and you would tell our software which articles were relevant or not. It would learn. And it's using machine learning already, you know, we weren't calling it exactly then that. But anyway, the point was individuals stood for the individualization and personalization of the content, but it also was an organizational philosophy that supported the growth of each individual in a team context.

00:06:04:21 - 00:06:33:04
Yosi Amram
So I was very passionate about it. The company grew and went public and so on, and I was healthy and I made millions of dollars. But somehow, somewhere inside of me something wasn't fulfilled. And I had worked 60, 80 hours a week. I was burning myself out. And even though I attained all the success I dreamed of, something inside didn't quite feel satisfied.

00:06:33:04 - 00:07:05:20
Yosi Amram
And I entered what's called the Estate of Dark Knight of the Soul and the spiritual Emergency. That woke me up to our interconnectedness and shifted my perception from being an independent, separate individual to being part of this interconnected wholeness. And that led me. It was a crisis. I got pushed out of the company because I was really in this expansive state and I had all these visions of the future, all of which came true.

00:07:05:20 - 00:07:28:08
Yosi Amram
But I wasn't grounded. That spiritual emergency turned actually into a manic episode, and so my board was kind of freaked out and put me on a leave of absence and so on. So that changed the direction of my life. But it woke me up to the reality of our interconnectedness and got me interested in what these spiritual states were.

00:07:28:10 - 00:07:53:10
Yosi Amram
So ultimately, then I made enough money. I became an angel investor. I was coaching other entrepreneurs and CEOs, and I could give them the best advice. But unless they did the inner work, they couldn't really accepted because their egos were in the way and so on. So that led me to decide to become a clinical psychologist so I can work with people at a deeper level and haven't been involved in leadership.

00:07:53:10 - 00:08:16:23
Yosi Amram
Like you mentioned, I knew a lot about emotional intelligence and all the work that's been done with Daniel Goleman and prior to him some academicians that developed the concept that showed that emotional intelligence contributes to leadership and well-being in life. Right. And I was interested in in spirituality and how to inspire and then I heard the term spiritual intelligence.

00:08:17:00 - 00:08:25:05
Yosi Amram
I was like, wow, that would be a beautiful parallel to emotional intelligence. But what is spiritual in terms great? You put it in the.

00:08:25:10 - 00:08:28:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Head, I put it up there. So so yeah, so.

00:08:28:07 - 00:08:55:05
Yosi Amram
So then got me on to this journey of what is it? So I had to do all the academic research to define it and find a way to measure it. Because if you want to show that it contributes to leadership effectiveness, you have to find a way to define and measure it and operationalize it. So that was my research that now has received over a thousand academic citations defining what spiritual intelligence is and how to measure.

00:08:55:05 - 00:08:59:11
Yosi Amram
It was the first academically validated measure. You might.

00:08:59:11 - 00:09:20:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Start there. Yeah, sorry, I could stop you. So I'm going to do that. So let's start there. Give in the intro. I said, We're going to talk about spiritual intelligence and it's not about religious belief necessarily. So what is it? So that everyone's grounded as we move forward and talk about the dimensions of it here in just a second.

00:09:20:14 - 00:09:47:05
Yosi Amram
Awesome. Awesome. Thank you for that question. And pausing me. So spiritual intelligence is very analogous to emotional intelligence, but it's different. What is emotional intelligence is the ability to draw on emotional resources and information to help regulate and manage our own and others emotions. So that's kind of broadly the definition. So what by analogy, what are what is spiritual intelligence?

00:09:47:05 - 00:10:19:18
Yosi Amram
The ability to draw on spiritual resources and embody qualities that have been held by all the world's wisdom traditions and use that to enhance our functioning and well-being in daily life. So what are these qualities? These are qualities like purpose and service and gratitude and joy and beauty and integrity and higher self and intuition. Forgiveness. These are qualities that throughout the ages have been looked at as virtues that lead to better life.

00:10:19:20 - 00:10:55:14
Yosi Amram
And so exactly as you said, spiritual does not belief in God or higher power or any belief. It's not an experience. People talk about an awakening experience that can lead to an enlightenment. It's not a momentary experience. It's the embodiment of these qualities. And so regardless of your religious and spiritual orientation, and my clients have ranged the full range from people that have been devout practitioners of a particular religion to spiritual but not religious, as many of us like to define ourselves or atheist.

00:10:55:16 - 00:11:23:21
Yosi Amram
But whether you're an atheist or a devout religious person, you know that practicing gratitude is a positive quality. Practicing compassion is a good quality. Having a sense of purpose is a good quality. Integrity is a good quality. Having intuition, tuning in to guidance higher self through your intuition is a high. So you know you can be an atheist and have quite high qualities of spiritual intelligence.

00:11:23:21 - 00:11:37:15
Yosi Amram
On these dimensions, you can bring joy and beauty to your life. You can express appreciation, all of which ties right back to leadership. Now I want to say one more thing. Okay. I'll pause there. You want to say something?

00:11:37:15 - 00:11:46:02
Kevin Eikenberry
No, because I was going ahead right where I think you're going to go. So we talked about spiritual intelligence. But how does that tied to leadership? I believe that's exactly where you about.

00:11:46:04 - 00:11:49:10
Yosi Amram
Okay, awesome. You're reading my mind. So I'm still.

00:11:49:15 - 00:11:52:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Going to be present. I'm trying to be present.

00:11:52:06 - 00:12:13:12
Yosi Amram
You are breath and then you are curious. I love it. You asked me what will make this a meaningful, valuable interaction as a deep present. Be curious. You're doing it. I'm having a ton of fun. I don't know if you can notice that I'm enjoying myself. I'm. I'm enlivened by our interaction, which is a joy. So anyway, I'll tell a bit of a story.

00:12:13:14 - 00:12:44:20
Yosi Amram
You know, when one of my first business school classes in 1982, believe it or not, was this case study at Harvard about managers and leaders, are they the same or different? What's the difference between management and leadership? Well, this was a case written by this legendary professor, Abraham Zelazny, and his point was managers make decisions, they control resources and they manage things leaders inspire.

00:12:44:20 - 00:13:16:06
Yosi Amram
That's the difference between a manager and a leader. So leaders, in their essence, inspire. So you think about what is the root of the word inspire. It's spirit. What is spirit? Spirit is the breath of life, the life animating force. So how do leaders inspire? Basically, they breathe life into and cohesion into their organization by mobilizing, meaning by having a sense of vision of where we're going, what are the values.

00:13:16:08 - 00:13:51:17
Yosi Amram
So all of that enlivens the organizations and the team around them and motivates. And and that's the life force of the team, the organization, its purpose, its goal, its cohesion. So, so spiritual intelligence is tightly related to that, because all of these qualities of spiritual intelligence that I talked about, like purpose and service and gratitude and integrity and vision, those are those are the dimensions of spiritual intelligence that directly relate to what leadership is about.

00:13:51:19 - 00:13:53:15
Yosi Amram
So I hope I'm beginning.

00:13:53:21 - 00:14:29:03
Kevin Eikenberry
So that's exactly right. So, you know, the the title of this podcast or of this livestream, if you if you tuned in, there was How to Inspire by Being inspired. So hopefully now everybody you see the connection between that promise and what we're talking about so far. So so the the big idea of your work and of the book we've just talked about now the the framework or the dimensions of this are there are seven of them in the book.

00:14:29:03 - 00:14:31:16
Kevin Eikenberry
And what I what I'd like to do is, is just have.

00:14:31:18 - 00:14:52:04
Yosi Amram
Before we dive there. Can I make a couple other points? I'm sorry to interrupt you. go ahead. I want to highlight because it was implicit in what you were saying, but I want to just kind of explicate it because I think it's crucial. So first, how to inspire by being inspired. So what's the premise here? You know, my clients come to me and people want to be inspiring leaders.

00:14:52:04 - 00:15:13:04
Yosi Amram
And I said, what would you rather be inspiring or would you rather be inspired? And and when you realize it's like most people, we want to be inspiring, but when we focus on being inspiring, it's like we're putting the cart before the horse. We're giving away our power. Other people decide whether we're inspiring or not. It's not within our power.

00:15:13:06 - 00:15:33:02
Yosi Amram
So we have to be inspired. We're inspired. We're we're lit up by a vision and a sense of purpose. That energy then draws other to us, so we cannot inspire others until then, when we are inspired. So first thing is, we get we've got to get inspired. And and so just that's.

00:15:33:05 - 00:15:51:11
Kevin Eikenberry
I think that's right. Because at the end of the day, no, we as you said, we don't inspire anyone. They choose based on how they interact with us, what they see in us, what they experience with us. Right. Yeah, as you said. So where you knew where I was headed, which was to talk about the seven dimensions that you had in mind.

00:15:51:13 - 00:16:22:18
Yosi Amram
And so I'm going to go right there, but I'll just say one one more thing, which is that there's abundant research that started with my work that showed that leaders that have higher spiritual intelligence lead things with greater morale, higher morale, greater commitment, lower intention to quit and lower turnover. Since then, other research has shown that leaders then have higher spiritual intelligence, even when controlling for emotional intelligence, produce better financial results for their organization.

00:16:22:21 - 00:16:48:20
Yosi Amram
So now there's an ever growing body of research that shows that spiritual intelligence contributes to quality of life satisfaction, of life, even marital and relationship success and well-being, group productivity, individual productivity. So there's a growing body of research in science that that shows the benefit of this. Okay, Those were the two points I wanted to make sure we cover.

00:16:48:21 - 00:16:52:23
Yosi Amram
Now we can look at the seven dimensions that you're.

00:16:53:01 - 00:17:13:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. So what I would really like you to do and we didn't have a chance to talk about this at a time is I just want you to basically list them, give us a couple sentences about each because there's no way that we can do all of them justice in our time. And so I'm already going to say that everyone, if you've been enjoying this at all, how you wouldn't you're still listening or watching.

00:17:13:02 - 00:17:27:15
Kevin Eikenberry
So you ought to get a copy of Spiritually Intelligent Leadership. I hope you do that. So I'm just going to ask you to give us sort of a a sentence or two on each. And then I've got a couple I want to dive into and I got some specific questions I want to ask across a few of them.

00:17:27:15 - 00:17:28:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Fair enough.

00:17:28:12 - 00:17:29:05
Yosi Amram
Fair enough.

00:17:29:05 - 00:17:33:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Sure. All right. So the seven dimensions you start talking, I'll put them in the lower third.

00:17:33:04 - 00:17:59:00
Yosi Amram
Okay, Awesome. So the first one is meaning mobilizing meaning. And so that that leaders create the meaning. Why are we here? What's our purpose as an organization and what are we trying to serve? And and, you know, how do we turn difficulties into opportunities? Because every organization faces crisis and we can find meaning in our difficulty that motivates us and energize us.

00:17:59:06 - 00:18:22:22
Yosi Amram
So mobilizing meaning it's the first dimension. The second one is around grace interacting with grace. And so that would be bringing a sense of trust in the future. Now, you can't lead anybody if you don't have faith and trust and optimism that what we're doing is going to be successful. You have to express appreciation and gratitude, a sense of joy.

00:18:22:22 - 00:18:49:18
Yosi Amram
If we bring fun and joy to our activities, you know, there's more energy, there's more creativity, and we find and uncover the beauty and the creativity in our work. So all these qualities support sort of what I'm calling interacting with, with grace. Then the other dimensions are inner directed. Yeah. So the key there is we got to follow our own inner compass and, and that's how we lead.

00:18:49:18 - 00:19:18:17
Yosi Amram
We got to be rooted in ourself and our faith in ourselves and our confidence in ourselves. We're not politicians trying to appeal toward others. That's not leadership. That's followership. So leaders have to be rooted, grounded, and have faith and confidence followed their own inner wisdom. And in North Star. So that's inner directed. The next dimension is community. Yeah, great.

00:19:18:18 - 00:20:01:09
Yosi Amram
So it's the it's the yin and the yang. So you have to be inner directed, but you also want to cultivate a sense of community and that we're in this together. So you want move away from, you know, the animosity or the competition that exists between marketing and sales or sales and engineering, which gets polarized in organizations. So you want to synthesize these diverse points of view, enabled the healthy tension between the people that want to build the best product and most reliable product engineering and those that are want to get to market quickly and and capture the market window.

00:20:01:09 - 00:20:30:18
Yosi Amram
So it's a we're in this together, this community. We care about each other and that's the fabric that holds us together are a related and in these days there's a loneliness epidemic and for people work is their primary community. We work 40 however many hours we have more human interactions at work than anywhere else, and more single adult households than ever were.

00:20:31:00 - 00:20:54:23
Yosi Amram
So giving people a sense of belonging is super important for their motivation. Health and well-being enhance productivity. So we're in this together and that sense of community is super important. Next is presence. So, you know, the greatest thing is like if I'm interacting with you right now, I'm trying to lead you or I'm trying to sell you on something or whatever.

00:20:55:04 - 00:21:04:01
Yosi Amram
If I'm not present, I'm looking out, I'm looking at my phone, I'm thinking about, my meeting, how did I do in the last meeting? What am I going to do tomorrow?

00:21:04:03 - 00:21:12:05
Kevin Eikenberry
So wait a minute. You're saying that multitasking isn't one of the behaviors of being a spiritually intelligent leader? Is that what you're telling me?

00:21:12:07 - 00:21:39:23
Yosi Amram
Exactly what I'm telling you is that not only is it not productive, but it also increases our stress. And we do. We don't we don't do well. And, you know, we've all been in relationships where our partner, you know, we're sitting at the dinner table, you watch people at a restaurant and they're not there. And it's like, why am I here if you're not paying attention to me and I'm not interacting with you?

00:21:39:23 - 00:22:02:09
Yosi Amram
So So we have to be present and we have to be mindful of ourselves, track ourselves, how we feel and what's happening to us, track the other person, but also be clear of our intention. What is our intention in the moment? Because that that is sort of keeps us on track. So we have to hold a lot. What is my experience?

00:22:02:09 - 00:22:29:08
Yosi Amram
What is this other person, What is my agenda, what is my intention? And all of that is playing into the moment so I could be most effective. And and this is my life. I mean, my life is happening moment by moment. And there's the Las Vegas casino sign says you have to be present to win. So life passes best by if yeah and we're somewhere else and our life is gone.

00:22:29:09 - 00:22:48:17
Yosi Amram
We're not living it if we're not present. So this is a personal thing, but as a leader, you're not going to influence someone if they don't feel you care about them and you're not present with them. You're doing their review, you're good in getting feedback, you're doing your one on ones. You have to be present, otherwise you're disrespecting people.

00:22:48:18 - 00:22:52:00
Yosi Amram
They they don't care. You don't care. They don't care. Back.

00:22:52:02 - 00:22:53:07
Kevin Eikenberry
There are two more.

00:22:53:09 - 00:23:24:13
Yosi Amram
Yeah, two more. So truth. Yeah. Truth is like we have to be motivated by truth and and as opposed to our ego. So when I'm motivated by ego, I want to be right. I want my ideas to be right. When we're motivated by truth, we're open. We want to get the best ideas forward. And so if the market is telling us that the product's not working, we're not going to be, I don't care what our customers say, it's what I say.

00:23:24:13 - 00:23:51:01
Yosi Amram
This is the best. Or, you know, so we want to be open to. And that creates an environment where people want to speak their thing and the best ideas get synthesize them and come together. And then there's this intelligence that happens at the team level, and we have to put our ego aside. And all the research shows that humble leaders, good listening leaders, are the most effective leaders these days.

00:23:51:01 - 00:24:00:06
Yosi Amram
So so truth is, is is where what we're after, not our egos, grandiosity.

00:24:00:08 - 00:24:01:09
Kevin Eikenberry
The last one.

00:24:01:11 - 00:24:02:03
Yosi Amram
Is when.

00:24:02:03 - 00:24:06:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Because I'm older now, this is one of my favorites.

00:24:07:01 - 00:24:42:10
Yosi Amram
Yeah. Wisdom. So wisdom we have to tap into wisdom. So what is wisdom is listening to our intuition. We do all all the calculus actions and the decision analysis, and we run the spreadsheets and the models and the charts and the KPIs and the Oscars and whatever. But the end of the day, critical decisions. We have to listen to our gut and we have to trust our gut as leaders, and we have to connect to our higher self that can give us guidance and we connect to our future self.

00:24:42:10 - 00:25:06:02
Yosi Amram
Oftentimes, one of the easiest access points is like when we're facing a problem, it's like thinking, okay, ten, 15 years from now that I've been successful and achieved everything I dreamed of, and I look back at that situation, what advice would that future self give me that enables me to tap into wisdom that's available right here, right now?

00:25:06:04 - 00:25:32:01
Yosi Amram
So the wisdom is, is the ability to tune into intuition, to have our higher self, to find time for rejuvenation and practices like meditation or exercise and all of those qualities that because our productivity is not tied to just how many hours we work, it's what's the quality and the energy and the vibration and the frequency that we're bringing.

00:25:32:06 - 00:25:48:06
Yosi Amram
So we have to invest in ourself so that those are all the things that support our being able to be at the top of our game where we have access to all of these resources, like our intuition, our future self for higher self. I hope I'm making sense.

00:25:48:06 - 00:26:16:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. So there's so Yossi, there's so many questions I could ask, so many things I thought about as I was reading the book. And yet, as I said, we have, we have a limited amount of time. So I've got a couple of things that I think I'm trying to think about. What what listeners might be thinking. And so one of them is you talk about about being inner directed and you talked passionately as you did about all of them about being inner directed.

00:26:16:08 - 00:26:38:14
Kevin Eikenberry
And yet many people, many wise people would say, listen, leaders must be having outward mindset. They must be focused on others and not on themselves. And I know that you agree with that, but help help people see that tension or that decay of me in a in a helpful and healthy way.

00:26:38:16 - 00:27:03:20
Yosi Amram
Yeah. No, that's a that's a great call out. So so inner directed is the ability to listen to your your higher wisdom but when you're tuned into truth and that's why you have these yin and yang qualities your inner directed, but you're also focused on an ego looseness and humility, as I mentioned, where you're motivated by by truth.

00:27:03:20 - 00:27:54:05
Yosi Amram
So all of these things go together and you are driven by by your calling, by your purpose, by service. So meaning comes from purpose and service. So it's not about your ego, it's about your purpose, your service, but you are following your inner inner guidance in North Star in service of something that's greater than you. So I hope that so and and then explains that it's you're open and you're listening to customers, you're listening to your employees, you're listening to your stakeholders, and you're taking a holistic perspective on it and you're integrating and synthesizing all of it.

00:27:54:05 - 00:28:01:16
Yosi Amram
And sometimes you have to make a call or decision, and that's where you can listen to your higher guidance. Am I making sense?

00:28:01:16 - 00:28:46:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I'm guessing that some people who are listening and saw the title how know how to Inspire by being inspired expected that a word would have been used before. Now we're 25 minutes in and and I don't believe we've said this word and so tell me tell me the connection between everything we've said and this phrase that or this word that people might people might be thinking about attitude, like, how is all of this stuff, all of the dimensions of spiritual intelligence connected to the idea of attitude?

00:28:46:22 - 00:29:18:07
Yosi Amram
Well, I think it's implicit in everything that we're talking about. It's the attitude of passion. It's the attitude of service, the attitude of of purpose. It's the attitude of vision of a better future that we're working towards that inspires us and and everything else. So it's an attitude of engagement and in care, then in passionate care. So, you know, it's not an attitude of indifference.

00:29:18:07 - 00:29:38:21
Yosi Amram
I'm cool, I don't care, you know, And it's like engagement. It's it's presence, it's care, It's it's devotion. You know, there's a vision to our purpose, devotion to our calling to serve. It's devotion to the truth. You know, that's those are deep attitudes.

00:29:38:23 - 00:30:07:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay. So one of the things you said earlier, which to which I agree 100%. In fact, I've said it many, many times, is that we are experiencing significant issues, an epidemic, if you will, of loneliness. And so my question to you is, in all the work that you're doing here and all the stuff that you've outlined for us, some of those who are listening or watching are leading teams at a distance.

00:30:07:06 - 00:30:35:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Some or all of their folks are at a distance from them, some or all of the time. Are there any are obviously everything we've talked about can connect to to wherever people are physically located. But how does give us a couple of examples of how what we've talked about specifically applies where if you're leading a team like me that doesn't see their team every day.

00:30:35:09 - 00:31:00:04
Yosi Amram
Well, I think it makes all these things that we talked about of, of connection, interconnectedness, community caring about each other that much more important. So, you know, I know companies that are doing this, they do check in times where people support each other, what's happening in their private lives and so on. Right now, you and I are at a distance the first time we're meeting live.

00:31:00:06 - 00:31:28:05
Yosi Amram
But I don't know about you. I feel connected to you. I mean, you're you're tracking to me through our body language. I feel like there's eye contact through the camera. You're nodding right now. You're smiling. Your smile makes me smile. So we're constantly influencing each other. There are these things called mirror neurons. And amazingly, that still works across our zoom or our our video.

00:31:28:07 - 00:31:51:18
Yosi Amram
So I think, you know, if we get to some agreement around why we're here, what's our purpose, what's our values, that that weaves the fabric of our connection and community, even where across the world. And and you know and if we once in a while, once a year we can gather in person doing offsite, whatever that that's all the more.

00:31:51:20 - 00:32:16:21
Kevin Eikenberry
That is exactly our team once a year. So I want to shift gears before a couple of, a couple of other things before we finish. And and here's one. What do you do? Like, it's very clear from what from the last 30 minutes that you are passionate about and care about your work. But beyond your work, what do you do for fun?

00:32:16:23 - 00:32:47:05
Yosi Amram
What I do for fun, I go dancing. I love to dance, move my body to music. It's creative expression, it's energizing. It's it's joyful. I dance with other people or whatever. I also love nature. I walk this morning it at 630 before the sun rise, I was down at the beach, near my house, walking, watching the birds, watching the sunrise, doing doing my exercises of qigong or getting my heart rate up.

00:32:47:05 - 00:33:02:13
Yosi Amram
It's just it's just beautiful. Connecting to nature. The beauty inspires me. I love to cook and I dance While I cook, I put on music and I'm dancing while I'm cooking. And. And so just.

00:33:02:13 - 00:33:07:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Don't burn yourself. Like don't have something like fly off the spoon and hurt yourself while you're doing that. And I.

00:33:08:03 - 00:33:09:02
Yosi Amram
Think.

00:33:09:04 - 00:33:20:17
Kevin Eikenberry
The only thing you knew I was going to ask you was this. And that is So tell us something. You'll see that you're reading or that you've read recently and just share something with us. If you would.

00:33:20:19 - 00:33:44:16
Yosi Amram
Okay. Well, one book I'm reading right now is kind of just for fun. It's called Shakti Leadership, and it's about sort of the feminine side or the inside of leadership. Normally we think of leadership as is the those that get in front. We have the vision and we see the future and follow me. And that's kind of a Yang quality and that's powerful and crucial.

00:33:44:22 - 00:34:11:23
Yosi Amram
But there's the other side of leadership which is leading from behind where you drop behind your team and you facilitate and support them to find their way. And so, you know, you might call that Shakti leadership. That's just the feminine energy in Hinduism. So that's one one book I was reading because I'm working on an essay about the yin and yang of leadership, which I touch on in the book, but I want to bring it together.

00:34:12:01 - 00:34:44:12
Yosi Amram
The other book I'm reading is called Giving, and it's written by one of the prominent Jewish mystic novelist. And it's the very premise is that, you know, our greatest well-being, our greatest pleasure and reward comes when we are not so preoccupied by our what we get, but by the desire to serve and give and, you know, the Hindu mystic Robinson Tagore says that beautifully in this poem.

00:34:44:14 - 00:35:12:22
Yosi Amram
I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I woke and saw that life was service I served. And behold, life was joy. So we're we're in a sleep. We're seeking joy. And then when we wake up sort of this interconnectedness that we have, then we realize that the greatest joy comes from from being of service and and removing our own egoic needs from the center of our life.

00:35:12:22 - 00:35:32:11
Yosi Amram
We're going through a Copernican revolution. You know, prior to Copernicus, as we thought that the Earth was at the center of the heat of the world, the universe. And this if you look at the sky, you see during the day, the sun is moving across, right? And you think that the earth is in the center and the sun moves around.

00:35:32:11 - 00:35:54:10
Yosi Amram
But then we discover, no, we're not at the center, the sun is at the center we're going around and the Earth is an offshoot of the sun which sustains it and gives it energy and life. Now we live our lives. Most of us, including me, think that our ego, our separate self, is at the center of our universe.

00:35:54:12 - 00:36:21:07
Yosi Amram
And but then we wake up, we realize no, that we're just a part of this bigger organism. And the more we line ourselves in serving, the greater whole, the more fulfilled we are. It's like the heart saying, I'm the heart. I'm going to keep the best blood, the most oxygenated for myself. And that might be nice For the first 5 minutes of the heart will be invigorated.

00:36:21:09 - 00:36:44:06
Yosi Amram
But after a while, you know, the lungs are going to start atrophying and all the others systems, the brain won't work so well. So and then the heart will start diminishing and can't survive because it needs the totality. So when we're focused on our egoic needs, we're kind of disconnecting ourselves from the broader wholeness that we're embedded that we're a part of.

00:36:44:06 - 00:37:02:15
Yosi Amram
And when we on the the wellness of the whole, then we find our deepest fulfillment, and that is that's our service and our purpose. And where we use our gifts and service. So that's kind of the theme of this book about giving perfect.

00:37:02:17 - 00:37:21:21
Kevin Eikenberry
So we've been talking with Dr. Yossi Amorim, the author of the book Spiritually Intelligent Leadership. I will hold it up for those who are watching. And why don't you tell us where we can more? Where do you want to point people? Where can they get the book? Here's the chance to tell people how to connect with you.

00:37:21:23 - 00:38:10:23
Yosi Amram
Well, there's a website Yossi Amram Dot net, and that's kind of my umbrella website. It points to my coaching website for those interested in coaching that points to my psychotherapy website where I do also couples counseling. It points to a website that does has free assessments for people interested in getting a profile of their spiritual intelligence qualities. It's called intelligence, See, and so it has kind of I'm involved with multiple projects and then it's kind of the umbrella and in there there's my contact information, including my email, and I welcome people reaching out.

00:38:10:23 - 00:38:30:11
Yosi Amram
If any of this touches you or you've read the book, you have questions. I'm happy to engage. And we're part of this humanity, this human community. And I love to be in connection with with people that are passionate about leadership and making a positive impact in the world.

00:38:30:12 - 00:38:56:16
Kevin Eikenberry
So now, everyone, before we finish, I have a question for you. Everyone else, the question I ask you every single episode at the close and it is simply this. Now, what what will you take from this experience that you can go apply? Like, it's one thing to say, okay, I learned some stuff or I literally took some notes or mentally took some notes while was jogging or what driving or whatever you're doing as you're listening to our conversation.

00:38:56:16 - 00:39:18:03
Kevin Eikenberry
But that won't really change anything for you. It will change something for you if you take some action on what you learn. Maybe it's getting a copy of the book. Maybe it's one of the seven dimensions, something that Yossi said leads you to do something, to try something, to ask someone a question. To do something. That's the question.

00:39:18:06 - 00:39:43:11
Kevin Eikenberry
What will you do as a result of our time? And if you answer, if you think about an answer to that question, then this will have been of great value to you. Yossi, thank you so much for being here. It was such a pleasure to have you. I appreciate our time and your passion as well as the research based approach to this soft and squishy topic.

00:39:43:13 - 00:39:49:19
Yosi Amram
Thank you, Kevin. It's been a delightful joy and a privilege to be here with you.

00:39:49:21 - 00:40:12:06
Kevin Eikenberry
So everybody, that means we're at the close of today's episode. And so if you're watching, you can see that you can go find all of our past episodes at Remarkable podcast dot com. But if you're listening and you already are someplace where you're listening to this, which means keep listening, subscribe, tell somebody else, give us a give us a rating or go back and dip in to something in the past.

00:40:12:06 - 00:40:34:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Go check out the show notes from this episode where I will point you to some other episodes that might be of great value or interest to you based on today, as well as to get access to the books and the resources that we've shared during the course of today's episode. And just like every week, we'll be back next week with another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.

00:40:34:07 - 00:40:35:03
Kevin Eikenberry
We'll see everybody that.