Ori Eisen 10 Lessons 50 Years

[00:00:03] Ori Eisen: So, I can either choose to, I want the credit for giving it to them, or I’m going to allow other people to get the credit for doing it. So, the things get done, but it’s not about me anymore. I can now do anything. And you as a listener can do anything as long as you don’t put yourself in the centre. It’s that simple.

 So, it’s all about the choice. Do you want just to get credit for the things you are able to do, and you can keep doing that, but if you want to do bigger grander things, you can, as long as you don’t insist that you get the credit for every single thing.

[00:00:38] Siebe Van Der Zee: Hello and welcome to our podcast. 10 lessons that took me 50 years to learn where we talk to businesspeople. Journalist, ambassadors, artists, sports heroes, sages, gurus, leaders, and luminaries from all over the world. To dispense wisdom for life and for business, and to provide you with shortcuts to excellence.

My name is Siebe Van Der Zee and I’m your host. I’m originally from the Netherlands living happily in beautiful Arizona in the United States. And I’m also known as the Dutchman into desert. I hope you will enjoy this program. This podcast is sponsored by PDF the Professional Development Forum. You can find more about PDF at professionaldevelopmentforum.org.

Our guest today is Ori Eisen and Ori has spent the last two decades. Fighting online crime. He is the founder and CEO of a company called Trusona based in Arizona in the United States. He is a founding member of the security canyon. Arizona’s cyber security coalition, and he holds over two dozen cyber security patents.

Prior to Trusona Ori founded the company called 41st Parameter. The company is focused on, online fraud prevention for financial institutions and e-commerce entities. 41st Parameter was acquired by Experian in 2013. Prior to that, Ori also served as worldwide fraud director at American Express and as director of fraud prevention at Verisign network solutions.

But there’s more Ori volunteers with an organization named Thorn an international anti-human trafficking organization fighting against sexual child abuse, Ori also found. Ball to All, Ball to All, a charity that donates free soccer balls to children around the world.

As they say, keep kids playing. It will help them grow healthier, happier, and at the same time, keep them out of trouble. I liked that a lot. Welcome Ori, thank you for joining us today.

[00:02:43] Ori Eisen: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:02:45] Siebe Van Der Zee: It’s really interesting to have our conversation today and listening to your lessons.

I’m also curious, of course, when we talk about cyber security, things have evolved quite rapidly. And I want to say terms like ransom ware are now part of our daily vocabulary. And, perhaps as a quick question, which it’s not easy to answer. Are we looking at solutions for cyber security or is it simply reacting to new events and new situations?

And we have to respond to, or can we prevent things from happening in the future?

[00:03:19] Ori Eisen: That’s a good question. I’d say half of it are crimes that have happened for centuries. They’re just now happening online. So those will not change anytime soon. And half of them are crimes that only available now because of how.

Our new life in the 21st century looks like. So, if before I could go from town to town and sell it tonic, that would cure everything. I would have to physically go present myself today. I can just send an email to millions of people and do the same thing just digitally. So, I don’t want to say that the problem we see we’ll go anytime soon.

I know the good guys like companies, like Trusona that I worked at are trying very hard every day to plug the holes we have in the dike. However, some of the issues we see are just as a result of human gullibility and people clicking on things because they want to see, you know, the next celebrity picture of something, not realizing they’re falling prey to some cyber-criminal.

[00:04:16] Siebe Van Der Zee: Yeah, fair points. If you think about it before we get into your 10 lessons, if you think about lessons that you have learned in life and in business, is there one that you would say that is the greatest or perhaps the first major lesson that you have learned?

[00:04:33] Ori Eisen: Yeah, it is on my list. And I’d say it’s never as bad as you think it is.

Is the greatest lesson I’ve learned. When you get hit with bad news, literally things in your brain, cause the fight versus flight emotion to come up and it looks like a life-or-death situation, but 24 hours later, 48 hours later. It’s always not as bad as you thought it is. So, learning how not to react immediately or not let the downs be so low or the highs be so high, has helped me be healthier both mentally and physically.

I wish I knew it or exercised it when I was younger, but I guess some things take 50 years to learn.

[00:05:16] Siebe Van Der Zee: What’s there a specific moment that taught you that lesson that you said, okay, I can, I can deal with this. Was there a specific example?

[00:05:24] Ori Eisen: Yeah. About 15 years ago, I found myself on a hospital bed because I was overworking myself.

I didn’t take proper vacations. I was very stressed. It was my third start up with very large Reeses. And I thought that a business comes ahead of family and business comes. Ahead of your own well-being and in that hospital bed, I just realized, you know, it just it’s the reverse. And I realized that if I would just look at things differently, think about them differently, the stress and the emotion and everything that comes with it will just not affect me.

And I’m so happy to have learned that lesson.

[00:06:05] Siebe Van Der Zee: Even though you were in the hospitals, I’m sure, dealing with a serious issue?

[00:06:11] Ori Eisen: Yeah, the, the body basically will tell you, you know what, you, you can keep doing what you want. I’m not doing it anymore. And it manifests itself in different forms. But I knew that I was not really sick.

I was causing my body to be stressed and sick. So, if you just change the stress, the body will just heal itself. And guess what? That’s exactly what happened.

[00:06:31] Siebe Van Der Zee: Important lesson to learn. And, to remember that let’s take a look at your 10 lessons that you sent me. And there are several that I’m real curious about, but let’s start with

[00:06:41] Lesson 1

[00:06:41] Siebe Van Der Zee: lesson number one, you can do anything if you don’t care who gets the credit.

[00:06:47] Ori Eisen: Absolutely. Right. The first lesson is true. You can do anything you want as long as you don’t care who gets the credit. If I want to give soccer balls to kids all over the world, I can’t go and do it myself physically.

I can’t. So, I can either choose to, I want the credit for giving it to them, or I’m going to allow other people to get the credit for doing it. So, the things get done, but it’s not about me anymore. I’ve learned this lesson from Colin Powell and when I heard the words for the first time. I honestly didn’t really understand what they mean, but every year, since then I’ve taken this lesson to heart.

I can now do anything. And you as a listener can do anything as long as you don’t put yourself in the centre. It’s that simple.

[00:07:29] Siebe Van Der Zee: Now some situations Ori, it could be that I do something, and I feel that I deserve credit for what I did. How do you compare those two?

[00:07:40] Ori Eisen: Yeah. If the motivation is to get credit, you can do some things, but they will be limited. But the lesson is you can do anything. If you don’t care who gets the credit. So, it’s all about the choice. Do you want just to get credit for the things you are able to do, and you can keep doing that, but if you want to do bigger grander things, you can, as long as you don’t insist that you get the credit for every single thing.

[00:08:04] Siebe Van Der Zee: It’s a fair point and it’s, again, it may be perhaps somewhat generational that you have to go through life with certain experience to see the bigger picture and say, Hey, as long as the result is what it is personally, I don’t need the credit.

[00:08:18] Ori Eisen: As long as it gets done. That’s what’s important.

[00:08:21] Lesson 2

[00:08:21] Siebe Van Der Zee: Lesson number two, the hardest thing to do is to do it.

[00:08:26] Ori Eisen: Correct. How many of us said, I want to lose weight? I want to go to the gym. I want to treat my kids better. I want to have time for myself. How many of us thought about these things and said these things? It’s so much difficult to do it. So, if you ever wanted to write a book, write a podcast, write a blog, go volunteer the hardest thing is to one day, put it on your calendar and do it like start after you start it’s easy, but just keep thinking about it will never get you anywhere. So, the hardest thing to do is to do.

[00:09:01] Siebe Van Der Zee: Is that something that you have done your whole life or was that also something that you learned over time?

[00:09:08] Ori Eisen: I’ve learned over time that when I looked at my notebook of all the things I ever wanted to do and my calendar of what did I actually spend my time doing that dissonance told me that if it’s not set for a date in an hour, it will be in my wish list all my life.

So, I’m winking at you and at the audience to say, you want to go volunteer, put it on your calendar, just like the meeting with your boss and the meeting with your customer. Put it that Saturday at 11:00 AM that says, go do that thing. Like block the time. Then you’ll see that you’ll start doing your dreams and living your dreams as opposed to just dreaming them.

[00:09:44] Siebe Van Der Zee: great points. I think it’s fair to say Ori that, you and I probably know quite a few people, that truly keep track of the lists that they write out. And I joke about it. I make lists of lists that I have, and it, continuously is updated. It’s not to say, well, I wrote a list for this whole year, so that should be fine in January. I update it. Is that something you do as well?

[00:10:08] Ori Eisen: I do. And when I’m approached by people who want me to invest in their new start-ups or ventures, the first thing I try to ascertain is are they a true entrepreneur or are they a want-epreneur? And there’s a big difference.

[00:10:24] Siebe Van Der Zee: That’s a good point, a good point.

[00:10:26] Lesson 3

[00:10:26] Siebe Van Der Zee: Lesson number three, taking proper vacations is a must.

You already alluded to that a little bit, but, uh, was that part of the lesson that you described that you said, Hey, you really need to get you, give yourself a break?

[00:10:39] Ori Eisen: To you personally, coming from Europe, I don’t need to say that August is a sacred month and people just go with their families to the beach and everybody in business realizes we are going to take some time off.

[00:10:51] Siebe Van Der Zee: I would say no wonder that people like to work for you.

[00:10:55] Ori Eisen: They work with me thank God, not for me. Here in America and in Western culture, we don’t know how to take proper vacations. So, if you’re listening to the podcast, maybe at the end, you’ll see a link to my blog https://www.orieisen.com  there’s start-up advice and I have a whole article about taking proper vacations and how to do it because the main fear people have is like, oh my God, something bad is going to happen at work. And I will be on vacation and people will think that I’m not a team player. But there are ways to do it where you give your second in command, the ability to make decisions.

And if there’s a crisis, they can text you or call you, but not check your email every hour and pretend you’re on vacation.

[00:11:36] Siebe Van Der Zee: Yeah, no, I, I hear you. and I think it’s important. I think that in certain countries and you and I are both in the United States, it may be perceived a little bit differently.

Yes, you need vacation, but a long weekend should be good enough.

[00:11:49] Ori Eisen: A long weekend is not a vacation. A long weekend is the good respite. From five days of working 10 hours a day, a vacation in my book is two weeks straight without being in meetings. And I know many people who are hearing it says like, what.

Go read my blog post and ask yourself, have I ever really taken a vacation? Because until I realized it, I would steal two days here, four days there and think that not being at the office means being on vacation. That is the biggest myth. You are lying to yourself if you are somewhere else, but you’re still staring at your phone and you’re going through the anxiety of work, you are not giving yourself time off and your family and your children and your spouse. They want to be with you, not with your phone. Read it. And that is my advice.

[00:12:40] Siebe Van Der Zee: Very valuable. I need that advice my friend, I appreciate that. That’s a good point.

[00:12:47] Lesson 4

[00:12:47] Siebe Van Der Zee: Lesson number four, you can coach by just asking questions.

You never need to raise your voice. I’m sure you have some examples, I’m sure you have coached lots of people, have you been coached as well?

[00:13:00] Ori Eisen: Uh, I think life has been my best coach and I leave it at, that, I was a young man who was very ambitious and not everybody around you has to be ambitious or is ambitious.

So, it creates a dichotomy between, you know, managing and teams and so forth. But what I’ve learned is most people are good people. They want to do good work. They might not have the same drive as entrepreneurs that you can resolve anything just by asking questions and understanding the situation, as opposed to, again, raising your voice as a, as an example of how anger takes a hold of you.

And then you’re not cool, calm and collected anymore. Again, I write about that Siebe that you can untangled the most difficult situation just by asking questions and leading the other side, it could be a percent, a child or a team to understand where the frustration may lie, or the issues may lie. And it does not have to end up with anger.

[00:13:59] Siebe Van Der Zee: It’s a very valid point. I say that also because I do a lot of coaching. I’ve done it for many, many years. And when I coach individuals, of course, I want to say. That’s not for everyone to think that way. Of course, I don’t come in and say, Ori, I think you should do this. I think you should do that. You are so correct.

And it is part of the professional approach as well. I collect information from you, perhaps from other people that know you, perhaps there are other tools we can use and assessment tool. We collect the information and I enjoy it. To a certain extent, perhaps when the person that I’m coaching disagrees, with those outcomes.

And again, it’s not for me to say you’re wrong and let me tell you why it is more listening until that individual that he or she notices that I’m on the wrong track. I have to make adjustments. That is the only way in my experience to be successful in coaching. And that’s clearly part of listening, not just telling people.

[00:15:05] Ori Eisen: Exactly. We have two ears and one mouth. The ratio is very clear.

[00:15:10] Siebe Van Der Zee: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:15:11] Lesson 5

[00:15:11] Siebe Van Der Zee: Lesson number five, thinking time is underrated and there’s not enough time spent on ideation if I pronounced that correctly before action. The question for me is what do you have to do to create thinking time?

[00:15:25] Ori Eisen: Block it on your calendar, if you realize. And when you realized thinking time is just as important as doing time and my hint, or you would be, it’s more important than doing time. And I’ll give you an example in a minute, then you will block time for yourself to think, to sit, to stare, to doodle. You will get amazing idea by doing it as opposed to just being busy typing the next email. There’s a famous quote that says if I had time, I would’ve written you a shorter email or a letter, because if you just write your stream of conscience, it’s not edited. It’s not refined. You don’t get to, uh, reflect. By thinking. We get to see things that you can see if you’re in the heat of battle.

[00:16:14] Siebe Van Der Zee: It’s still difficult, perhaps for people to schedule the time. That way for thinking time.

[00:16:22] Ori Eisen: Let me ask why you see I’m practicing when you, my coaching style by asking questions. Why is it difficult?

[00:16:29] Siebe Van Der Zee: Because I’m busy. I got, I got so many things to do. And, perhaps when I’m stuck in traffic, maybe that allows me some time to think about things, but there is so much that we all have to deal with.

[00:16:42] Ori Eisen: I’ll rebuttal with this. If you think that education is expensive, try ignorance.

[00:16:50] Siebe Van Der Zee: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:51] Ori Eisen: If you’re an executive, if you’re an employee and you spend no time thinking about what you’re doing, let me assure you. You are not optimizing your time, your money, your brain, your efforts. But if you take one hour of thinking to nine hours of doing those nine hours will be so well thought out that may be easier as opposed to just working for 10 hours and not thinking about what you’re doing.

[00:17:15] Siebe Van Der Zee: Now, you’re also then alluding to perhaps a certain level of discipline, right? Because you have to, to a certain extent, train your brain to allow thinking time.

[00:17:27] Ori Eisen: Correct. Just like we should train our lives to take proper vacation time. Downtime is not really downtime. It’s not that you’re sitting there on your bum and you’re not doing anything.

Downtime allows you to not be distracted from the next call or text or emailing. God help us in this 21st century. There’s a lot of distraction around us. When you block time to really think, to write to ponder, you might get an aha moment. You might get an epiphany that I assure you would never happen if you just kept working

[00:18:01] Siebe Van Der Zee: Good point. Thank you to our audience. We are talking right now with Ori Eisen, a successful, global cybersecurity expert, and entrepreneur sharing his 10 lessons that he has learned.

[00:18:14] Lesson 6

[00:18:14] Siebe Van Der Zee: Ori lesson number six, begin with the end in mind. I look forward to your explanation and I may push back a little bit.

[00:18:22] Ori Eisen: I’ll tell you a very short story that my father told me. They tried to build a very large kite when they were kids and they planned to have two ropes and a bar. So, the kid could swing in the air while the rest of the kids are holding. The kite sounds like a great idea, right? Yeah. So, they worked two months on building the largest kite they could ever build.

The kite never took off. So, I’ll give you a one chance to guess why, but then I’ll tell you, so why do you think they couldn’t get this kite to take off?

[00:18:52] Siebe Van Der Zee: Maybe it was not constructed correctly.

[00:18:55] Ori Eisen: So, I usually do this with a team of like 10 or 20 people. So that’s very common answer I get. There was not enough wind, all kinds of things, but no, the kite was properly crafted, and it was strong.

And the day they tried to fly it, the wind was very, very good. And they had a volunteer kid to go up on the, everything was perfect, except for one little. The shack where they built it, the door was too small for the kite to get out.

[00:19:25] Siebe Van Der Zee: Well, this is a strange comment from my side to this example, but a famous painting by Rembrandt, the Night watch in Amsterdam. only recently they realized that the famous painting was not the correct size because in order to fit it, where they hang it into museum in Amsterdam, they had to cut off the left side and the right side, they have been able to reconstruct that just in the last few weeks.

But that’s an example that kind of fits with the kite example. In this case, we’re talking about Night watch by Rembrandt, but it comes down to that same point. I do want to want to ask though, because begin with the end in mind, that is the lesson, but how do you combine that with thinking out of the box? You’re in the process, you’re trying to develop things and there is a brand-new idea coming from the left side, the right side.

Whoa, how do you include that? Because are you saying, you know, begin with the end in mind, we already know what we want to achieve.

[00:20:28] Ori Eisen: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, let’s separate working time and ideation time or thinking time when you are ideating, you should come up with the wildest craziest ideas without thinking first about the end.

Just think about what if you could do this and once, we could do that, but once you say, wow, I really like this idea. Let’s go monetize it. Let’s go build it. Let’s go make it happen. Let’s build the kite. Now you need to think it through all the way to the end. Because otherwise you’ll have issues that you haven’t thought, oh, I’m going to get to the end, but there’s no button to push when I get to the end and forgot to price it, I’m going to get to the end.

And there’s no key to the car, right? That’s when you have to do very thorough work to make the implementation, but the thinking and ideating time should be free spirited. There are no limits to, you know, bad ideas. Good idea. And again, I’m going to go back to. You need to set some thinking time, and then when you go execute, begin with the end in mind.

[00:21:28] Lesson 7

[00:21:28] Siebe Van Der Zee: It perhaps links also to your next lesson.

Lesson number seven, uh, sharpen the saw, spend time to train your team on problem solving.

[00:21:40] Ori Eisen: Right. again, it’s one of Stephen Covey’s habits from the book, seven habits of highly effective people in that book. He describes two teams that are trying to cut trees with saws, you know, those big tree, big tree cutters.

And the question is. How would a team win in a competition? So, imagine team one says, wow, that’s very easy. Let’s just cut tree all day long. I mean, well, what is there to think about and team to decide that’s 55 minutes out of the hour, they will cut trees. And the last five minutes, every hour, they will sit down with their files and sharpen their saws.

Now, which one do you think will cut more trees at the end of the day?

[00:22:20] Siebe Van Der Zee: Sharp Saw.

[00:22:21] Ori Eisen: Yeah. And which one will be less fatigued when they go home?

[00:22:25] Siebe Van Der Zee: Yeah, the team.

[00:22:26] Ori Eisen: And if you had a gauge of happiness on your hand, which one would be happier, like had joie de vivre, right? Of course, the team that worked less hard because if you sharpen your saw, it’s working smarter, not harder, which again, ties to the other lessons I’m alluding to.

Sitting in thinking, sitting in problem solving, even somebody else’s problem may at the end of the day, give you the linchpin to solving your own problems.

[00:22:51] Siebe Van Der Zee: I’m thinking about this. And is there perhaps in your approach, something about, The difference between macro management and micromanagement, how would you describe your management style?

In, that respect?

[00:23:04] Ori Eisen: I always want to give the team a brief, the mission. Here’s what we need to do. And I can give you an example and not tell him how to do it, even though I’m urging to tell him how I want to do it. But you remember rule number one, if you want to do anything. Don’t get the credit.

It’s not about me. And my idea. If I will always be giving them the idea, they will just be drones that will just be they’re worker bees. They will never think for themselves, if you want to have workforce and a team that is thinking creatively, even when you’re not there, you have to let them do it. And yes, they won’t do it perfect every time.

I’m not perfect. Every time you’re not perfect every time, but if you don’t get practice, you surely will not get better. So Micro micro-managing I kind of consider 19th century way of managing people like in the army. I think with today’s generation, again, of millennials who are in the workforce, it is much better to just, um, what we are trying to do now, come with solutions of how to do it, and you can rule out nine out of 10 solutions.

They can come up with that’s fine, but it’s very different than we need to do this. And here’s how I’m telling you to go do it. Now you’re in a relationship of master and servant or boss and, you know, people who are deputized as opposed to thinking people can come up with the next great idea.

[00:24:22] Siebe Van Der Zee: Is that your thing part of modern day, thinking to say, Hey, I tell you what I see as, as a manager, as the desired outcome.

Now you team make sure we get there. I can think of quite a few people. I’m sure you can do that. Say, look, we got to reach this goal. So, I’m going to watch you, you know, every day. And I’m going to tell you every day how to do it, et cetera, et cetera. Is that a style that you think is timewise more up to where we are today, 2021?

Or is it simply advanced management experience that is not generational in that sense?

[00:25:02] Ori Eisen: Yeah. I actually think it’s both. And to be crisp, I want to say this, say that we have the goal to do XYZ. It doesn’t really matter what, and you, as the CEO already have an idea of how to do it, so let’s call it plan A.

Yeah. My advice is don’t tell your team or plan a. Task them to come up with their own plans. Now they can come up with no plan. They can come up with the same plan and you’re great. That’s what I was thinking. Let’s do it. And they can come up with plan B and C and D. Now that doesn’t mean we’re doing B, C and D.

If you don’t like it as the CEO, if you compare plan A to B, C and D, and they’re not better than you can still tell them, you know what, I’ve heard you, I listened. Let’s do plan A or do you might be better than. So, give people the chance to think for themselves, you are probably hurting the business as the CEO, by not being open to ideas that are not your own.

Again, it’s not about you. It’s not about who gets the credit. It’s about what needs to get done.

[00:26:05] Siebe Van Der Zee: I, I agree myself, but I can see that that is a bit of a challenge in organizations sometimes. Where they, they want to maintain either ownership or simply, Hey, I’m in charge. So, everything has to go through me.

But if you look at the bigger picture, I fully agree, and I can think of many examples. And I think it also fits with my Dutch heritage, right? Where, we’re all equal. And you can learn from people that have perhaps a few years’ experience, that is important to be open. But I, again, I recognize that in some, and perhaps in some industries and in some cultures, that is something that is perceived, maybe differently.

[00:26:47] Ori Eisen: Yeah. And I’ll just say one more thing. As, as a leader, I cannot be absolved from making the right decision so I can either make them for the team or I can solicit more ideas than my own, just to see if they’re better. I will still pick what I want to do. So, I don’t want you to be confused about that, but if I will only expose the team to my idea, I never even asked him, do you have a better idea?

I may be the very blocker of the company.

[00:27:12] Lesson 8

[00:27:12] Siebe Van Der Zee: Yeah, no, it’s clear. I appreciate it. lesson number eight, if there is a doubt, there is no doubt. I think I know what you’re talking about, but please explain,

[00:27:22] Ori Eisen: say that you and I are taking a road trip and there’s a doubt if I filled the gas tank or not, then there’s no doubt we should not begin the trip until we check it.

[00:27:31] Siebe Van Der Zee: Good example.

[00:27:32] Ori Eisen: If you have a doubt that something will go wrong. There’s no doubt that we’re not going to just continue. We’re going to go check something. That’s what the lesson is.

[00:27:41] Siebe Van Der Zee: How does that compared to expect the unexpected?

[00:27:44] Ori Eisen: Yes, the unexpected should always be expected. Right? I know it’s an oxymoron, but the point is, if you know that something may not be okay, so that’s the known knowns.

You should not continue with ignoring it. Right. So, think about flying in an airplane. If there is a doubt, it’s not mechanically, correct? There’s no doubt. It’s not going to take off, right?

[00:28:07] Siebe Van Der Zee: Correct.

[00:28:07] Ori Eisen: If you take that lesson. And then interpolate it to a customer project to a road trip to did I feed my kids.

Right. All those little things. If you have annoying doubt that you, that something is wrong, there is no doubt that we are going to check it and make sure we’re not proceeding full force before a further inspection.

[00:28:26] Siebe Van Der Zee: Now, perhaps I’m taking it out of context, but someone who is looking for a new job and he, or she goes through the process, interviews more interviews to it looks good.

It feels good, but you don’t know. All right. I see your smile. at the last moment, it can go the other way.

[00:28:44] Ori Eisen: Yes.

[00:28:44] Siebe Van Der Zee: How do you mentally prepare for something that you really don’t know? Yeah, the outcome of, yeah.

[00:28:51] Ori Eisen: It might be controversial to say, but I hope you will allow me to give you my life lessons, even if it’s wrong every time in the last 50 years when I’ve analysed what my gut told me to do and what I actually did.

More times than not. My gut was right. Not my head, not my brain, not my mind, not my logic. My gut knew very, very good. Don’t take this job. Don’t deal with this person. Don’t go to this shop. Don’t buy the, your gut is older than your brain. It senses things in a way that I know it’s very difficult to explain scientifically, but if you have a gut feeling about something trust it.

Even Jack Welch, the best CEO in our known universe, his book is called straight from the gut and highly suggest you listened to that advice.

[00:29:40] Siebe Van Der Zee: There are several things from Jack Welch that I apply in my business. So, I’ll, look for that particular element, but let’s say a little challenge here Ori, you go with your gut.

But you also refer to earlier thinking time. So, on the one hand, you want to think it through, you want to use your brain. And then there is your gut feeling and say, oh, I’m, I’m sure tomorrow the weather will be like this because it’s supposed to be like that. How do you combine the two?

[00:30:11] Ori Eisen: Yeah, if I, if I knew I would be a billionaire management is all about a black art of looking at numbers and data at opinion.

But having seen all that, still say, my gut tells me this is wrong, because if we would only look at data as a way to make decisions, there would not be any decisions to be made. It will be perfect. When you look at the world war two and D D-Day, it was all down to gut feeling, not about statistics and numbers and anything else because the commander and the manager have kind of feel the situation and the greatest ones are being paid for their gut feelings for take all of your life experience and put it into a decision that no other person could have seen because they don’t have the collection of the knowledge.

[00:30:57] Siebe Van Der Zee: Yeah. I mean, you’re, you’re touching on something here when you use those examples where indeed, how people behave while they’re under stress and how. People, not everybody, but people make decisions because they feel it is the best thing to do under the circumstances.

Even if they assume a very high risk, whether it is related to their job or even sometimes their family safety, if you talk about some of these examples, right? So, it, it’s a, it’s a very valid point, to go with your gut. And like you said, you have been able to compare it over time and your gut typically wins,

[00:31:35] Ori Eisen typically wins.

That’s correct.

[00:31:38] Lesson 9

[00:31:38] Siebe Van Der Zee: Now lesson number nine. And going to touch on something that I’ll bring up unless you do it already. But the lesson is family first, always.

[00:31:49] Ori Eisen: In a Trusona and in other companies I’ve worked in, we have house rules. You can look them up. They’re also on my blog. These are rules that are not open to debate. And one of them is family first. What does that mean? Say Siebe, were working with me on a team and you had a death in the family, but you still showed up to work.

And you pretend to be working and you pretend to be with us solving the mission that we’re all working on, but we all know that your mind, your heart, your body, your spirit, your entire being is elsewhere. You’re mourning. You’re grieving. Are you really helping the mission? No, you’re not. If anything, you’re not focused.

We feel for you, you are a distraction at this point. If your family needs you, you have a sick parent, sick child, somebody in the hospital, somebody who just needs time, go be with them with your entire being, go support them because they are the meaning of your life not work. And when you’re done with that, come back and be with us to go solve the mission we’re on.

But if you don’t put your family first, you’re a pretender. You’re here physically, but you’re not really here. And you don’t really understand your priorities, which will end up stressing you out and putting you in the hospital. And I don’t want to be responsible for that. Note, the lessons about taking proper vacations.

Right? You see, it’s all tied into stress management.

[00:33:15] Siebe Van Der Zee: Oh yeah.

[00:33:16] Ori Eisen: If you don’t take your family first, always, man, you don’t know who you’re working for because the most important people you work for are not in the office. They’re back home.

[00:33:27] Siebe Van Der Zee: I of course agree. it makes so much sense. And I think that sometimes, I mean, the concept of family right.

Can be broader than perhaps immediate close family. And I want to use this topic to ask you a little bit about your charitable work because family first, always. But it looks like you have extended that family, to children around the world, very serious issues. Maybe share with the audience a little bit, your thoughts on your charitable work and the big family that you take care of.

[00:34:04] Ori Eisen: Well, first of all, thank you for the opportunity. I didn’t expect to do it, and I appreciate it. In 2013, I started an organization called ball to all, and it was a result of a simple experiment and an experience I had, which I’ll share with you that changed my life. I thought that kids all over the world may not have the luxury of playing with a real soccer ball.

And again, I never experienced it because I came from, you know, a well-to-do family and I lived in the United States. Then I had one employee. His name is Nick, who was born in Kenya when I kind of bounced the idea of fame. He said, you know, I grew up in Kenya in a school that never had a real soccer ball.

So, we made it up out of not lawns and bags and dirt. I’m like, are you kidding me? Why don’t we do this? Let me go here to Scottsdale to the Walmart on, north site, I bought five soccer balls with my children, and I sent it with him to take back home. And he happened to have taken it to the very school.

He came from the pictures, he sent back Siebe, of the school with 200 kids stopping the school. Like they have never felt and seen a real soccer ball. Can you imagine. Yeah, they, the principal just shut down. The school took all the kids out of classes. They inflated the soccer balls and the joy you see in these pictures.

Is so immense. And so, touching that. I decided from that moment on, and I’ve been doing it religiously every Saturday. So tomorrow I will do the same thing is to give soccer balls all over the world to kids who cannot afford one. And I’ve been doing it now for over seven years, to be honest with you.

It’s the thing that brings me the most joy, because when you see the pictures, you can see on Instagram or Facebook or https://www.balltoall.org/ . Man, you understand what poverty is and what the fact that these kids have nothing. So, for 10 bucks, if you can give him a soccer ball, it’s like, I will give a kid, I don’t know a PlayStation or something like that.

Right. It will be the same level of joy. So, I can’t find the better use of my time when we talk about time management to do that. And I have been doing it every weekend for the last seven years.

[00:36:12] Siebe Van Der Zee: You’re a father off, I believe two children?

[00:36:15] Ori Eisen: Correct.

[00:36:16] Siebe Van Der Zee: So obviously you are involved with your family, but this additional activity ball to all but other things that you’re involved with, do you see that indeed as a, for yourself, like, uh, like an extended family, is that, is that.

[00:36:34] Ori Eisen: Absolutely. I will share this again. Might be the last life lesson that you would ask me about. So, I’ll, I’ll share it with you when we are children. We think only about ourselves. I want ice cream. I want to bicycle. I want right. We only think about I in the second phase of our life. You think about the other.

I want my mom to be happy. I want my friend to be happy. I want her to have an experience. I am now in the third stage, where it’s not about I, and it’s not even about me giving flowers to my mom, which will, you know, it’s a fun thing for me to experience, but it’s to give my mom money to buy flowers from somebody she wants to give the flowers to, for her to have the moment of giving.

So, my family is really the ambassadors I work with because I fund them every week and chart them with one thing. Go find the kids who don’t have a soccer ball. I don’t want to know who they are. I don’t care who they are. I don’t want to know their name. Just go do good. I’ll just help you have the moment and repeatedly they tell me the moment you have the, the experience you have given me.

To give a soccer ball to a kid who doesn’t have it is priceless. And you see, it’s not about me. I wasn’t there. I don’t care to get the credit. That is my family. Those people who are joining this organization to do good. And by extension, of course, every kid that we ever given a soccer ball to, which is now over 20,000 children is part of my extended family even though I don’t know their names every time.

[00:38:05] Siebe Van Der Zee: I understand, but you know what? I can see it on your face. It’s very genuine. And there is a link in a way to the purpose of our podcast, because we want to talk to. wise people like yourself who has gone through these different mountains of success and, self-evaluation to share that information with up-and-coming professionals at any age, as we always say around the world, that’s I think that’s exactly, that’s a perfect fit.

[00:38:33] Lesson 10

[00:38:33] Siebe Van Der Zee: Lesson number 10, where we’re, we’re almost there. Right? it’s never as bad as you think it is. Yep. I know why not.

[00:38:44] Ori Eisen: I know we started with it and it’s a good place to end the 10. And then you can ask me any additional question, but as a human beings, we are still carrying our DNA from thousands of years ago that if you would see a Sabre Tooth Tiger, you would start running or start to it’s a natural reaction. I would say that today, when you get an email with bad news at text message with bad news, you don’t think about it, but it’s just like the Sabre Tooth Tiger. Your brain does not know any better. It’s still reacting with fight or flight. And that puts an adrenaline in your body and stress. So even though we think we don’t live in the jungle anymore, or we don’t have animals, who can, we are reacting in the same way to news and God, you know, you read the news? Like I do. There’s a lot of good news and bad news. When you get especially bad news, if you don’t stop yourself from reacting to it, you will just be kind of being spun down into a very dark place. Again, you will literally hurt yourself by being miserable. It’s never as bad as you think it is a day later, two days later, a week later.

And you can do this test with me right now. I’m sure Siebe, when you were a child, I don’t know an ice cream dropped from your hand and you cried, and you thought it’s the end of the world. Right? And now you don’t even remember that it had. So that is the proof it’s never as bad as you think it is. As time goes by.

[00:40:12] Siebe Van Der Zee: Allow me to challenge you a little bit, because I like what you’re saying.

And I, I use a similar wisdom as far as, you know, don’t create mental baggage, you have to get over things, but there are situations and I’m sure you are aware that are really serious, Life-changing sometimes life ending and it’s not to say, well, tomorrow you’ll be fine. It will have a lasting impact.

And I’m just curious, because I know you, you understand that. When you say it’s never as bad as you think it is, my simple response would be, well, why not? In some cases. It’s really bad. You still have to deal with it with the loss of a, friend, a relative, a family member, or you missed out on that job, and you got to start all over.

You got to deal with that. You cannot say, oh, well, I’m fine.

[00:41:06] Ori Eisen: Yeah. So not that I’m not saying bad things doesn’t happen to good people because it sure does. And on the day, you learn a loved one has died. Let me tell you it’s devastating happened to me. Yeah, right at this moment, as I’m speaking to you, I am sure not as devastated as the moment I got the news and that’s the lesson.

[00:41:26] Siebe Van Der Zee: Okay.

[00:41:26] Ori Eisen: If with the moment you get the news, you’re thinking this will be like this forever and I’ll never be happy again. And I’ll never have joy. It could lead to very bad places. It’s never as bad as you think it is. Because even at the moment, if you think the world is ending, give it 24 hours, give it 48 hours and you’ll just see that the edge will be taken off.

It, it would still be bad. So, if it’s an injury or death, it will still hurt them to still be there. But in business, especially like you hear a customer is leaving you. The minute you get that email. Let me tell you it is not fun, but if you will not realize that in two days and new customer may join instead, or, oh my God, this was a mistake, and we didn’t mean it.

 I read in India on a wall once that I’ll share with the audience. Worry is a misuse of your imagination. People who worry all the time, only think about the bad outcomes. So, if you only want to delve into the bad, you will just put yourself into very dark places. Sometimes very difficult to get out of, by the way, all I’m saying is as bad as the news is, it’s going to hurt.

It’s going to be bad, but just remember, give it a day, give it two days. It will not be as bad as you currently think it is. That is the lesson.

[00:42:43] Siebe Van Der Zee: Yeah, it makes sense. I like it. I want to ask you, we’ve done the 10 lessons, but I do want to ask you another question and that is, are there any lessons that you have unlearned in life or in your career?

Anything that you decided I got to change this?

[00:43:01] Ori Eisen: Yes. So unfortunately, there’s many. We can do another 10 just about what I have unlearned. No one is born. Perfect. And again, life is a very, I don’t want to say cruel teacher, but a very cold teacher., because only after the experience you learned a lesson, as opposed to in school, you learn the lesson to get the experience.

I’ll give you, uh, if you don’t mind two.

[00:43:22] Siebe Van Der Zee: Please.

[00:43:23] Ori Eisen: One is. Some things are not worth conquering the Bastille. And the lesson here is what we think is important in any given moment of time may not be so important. We might think it’s important because we’re hurt because of ego because a competitor did something, so I think I need to do something else. Like we were very reactionary as human beings and very emotional. Not everything you should make a fight out of. There are some things that just letting it go, as hard as it may seem is actually a better course of action than fighting it out.

[00:43:55] Siebe Van Der Zee: I’m learning, still learning that then you’re, you’re absolutely right.

Sometimes it’s just not worth the fight. Even if you are convinced you are correct, and the other person is wrong.

[00:44:05] Ori Eisen: And even if you’re assured that you will win, it is not worth it.

[00:44:09] Siebe Van Der Zee: Good point.

[00:44:09] Ori Eisen: Okay, the other thing I’ll share with the business, people in the audience is that no company is an island. I had to unlearn that.

When you start your own company, you want to be there for your customers and do all those things. But no company think of what the largest companies in the world and think about the McDonald’s. They cannot do what they do on their own. They still need to have farmers to grow potatoes and they need to have all a bakers to make their buns.

Right. It’s not that McDonald’s is baking their own buns.

You have to unlearn the fact that you can’t do it on your own. And of course, picking the right partners is the opposite of this, that you also have to invest time in thinking about, but no company is an island. And if you don’t mind, I’ll give a third thing that I had to unlearn Again, especially where I came from and the culture I came from, not everything is a life and death decision, and it’s a very difficult thing to unlearn if you’re in a very stressful environment and you constantly worry, even if somebody cuts you off on the road, right. You might think that it’s a life and death situation, right because of how we react. Not everything is life and death. And then if you came from a family situation or a culture or country or an environment that is stressful, knowing how to unwind is probably the hardest thing to do, but the most healthy thing to do, because then you will get to a higher plane of thinking of operating.

And I hope even when I speak to you with my own voice, I’m trying to exude my own balance as I speak, because. We are very reactive as humans, right? If I’ll start to be very animated and very stressful just by me doing it, you’re going to do it. And you’ll because we’re tribal and that’s how we kind of got here.

So, learning how to balance and not to make anything about life and death, if it doesn’t have to be is a great thing to unlearn.

[00:46:04] Siebe Van Der Zee: I like it. I really appreciate it. And I want to, thank you for sharing your wisdom with our audience. Uh, it’s been delightful to talk and, well, I would have so many more questions and, and perhaps we can think about that, uh, do a future podcast or other type of conversation, but I really want to thank you Ori for participating. And in closing, I want to mention that you have been listening to the international podcast, 10 lessons. It took me 50 years to learn sponsored by PDF. The Professional Development Forum. PDF provides webinars, social media discussions, podcast and parties and the best of all, it’s all for free.

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Our guest today has been a global cyber security expert, Ori Eisen from Scottsdale, Arizona, sharing his 10 lessons that took him 50 years to learn and to our audience. Don’t forget to leave us a review or a comment. You can also email us at podcast@10lessonslearned.com  that is podcast at ten one zero lessonslearned.com.

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