Real Life Superpowers

In this episode we speak with Paula Davis, Founder, and CEO of the Stress & Resilience Institute, helping organizations prevent burnout, and build resilience.

Listen on RealLifeSuperPowers website: https://reallifesuperpowers.com/podcast/paula-davis-founder-and-ceo-the-stress-resilience-institute/

She’s the author of Beating Burnout At Work: why teams hold the secret to well-being and resilience. The Financial Times recently included her book in its March roundup of best business books.

Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, and many more. She’s a contributor to Forbes, Fast Company, and Psychology Today.

Her journey is one of self-awareness and empowerment.

Having experienced burnout, she left a promising law career and started exploring the topic of well-being, burnout prevention, and stress management.

She set forth on a mission to help individuals and organizations become more resilient.

She’s since trained thousands of professionals, leaders, and teams in many industries, including many of the world's largest law firms, plus work with the military training more than 40,000 soldiers and their family members.

She’s a walking testament of how when we’re attuned to ourselves we can be the best versions of ourselves and make an impact on the world while we’re at it.

We discuss:

• How to identify burnout

• What entrepreneurs need to be extra mindful to

• Job demands vs. job resources

• The importance of being self-aware and deep self-reflection

• The serendipitous way that led to her discovering the discipline of positive psychology and how her career shifted from that point on

• The power of learning from what we go through as individuals and teams

• Practicing resilience and building the “resilience muscle” (as opposed to just assuming resilience is an innate quality beyond our control)

• Encouraging teams to celebrate small wins

• ..and much more!

In addition to being inspired by her journey, this interview can help leaders identify burnout in their teams, and gain practical tips on how to navigate it. And if you think that providing the likes of yoga classes for your team is the way to go, this will hopefully make you revisit that notion as the solution goes way deeper than that, and entails true awareness and devotion.

We hope you enjoy your listen!

Zooming out, if you like listening to this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss new conversations with peak performers, serving as a reminder we can all tap into the best versions of ourselves.

You’re also welcome to follow Ronen and Noa on Linkedin

• Ronen Menipaz on Linkedin

• Noa Eshed on Linkedin

And if we may ask for a favor - please leave us a review on your native podcast app.

Some further resources:

• Real Life Superpowers podcast on Ctech

• The podcast website

In this episode we speak with Ido Safruti, co-founder and CTO of PerimeterX, a company that provides digital threat protection for businesses and is valued at nearly a billion dollars.

Listen on RealLifeSuperPowers website: https://reallifesuperpowers.com/podcast/ido-safruti-co-founder-and-cto-of-parameter-x/

The company was named number 49 on Deloitte’s Fast 500 Ranking Highlights with an incredible 3,637% Growth in just Three Years.

We discuss:

• His path to founding his own startup

• The challenge of selling a solution in the realm of protection and prevention where the pain isn’t necessarily felt till it’s too late

• How they gained their first customers and the POC process they went through

• The concept of design partnerships with users as part of a validation process. “People are extremely happy to talk when you’re not trying to sell them a product, once you move over and say OK now I have a product and I want you to buy it, they’re more suspicious and care about their time. But I know for myself, if a founder calls and says ‘hey I have an idea, I want to get your perspective on it’ I’m always happy to share some time and provide feedback”

• The importance of listening to your potential clients’ needs and challenges

• The power of human relationships

• Navigating team growth

• The cost of a wrong hire

• Much more!

There’s a lot entrepreneurs and intraprenuers can learn from this guy, we hope you enjoy your listen!

Zooming out, if you like listening to this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss new conversations with peak performers, serving as a reminder we can all tap into the best versions of ourselves.

You’re also welcome to follow Ronen and Noa on Linkedin

• Ronen Menipaz on Linkedin

• Noa Eshed on Linkedin

And if we may ask for a favor - please leave us a review on your native podcast app.

Some further resources:

• Real Life Superpowers podcast on Ctech

• The podcast website

In this episode we speak with Vik Harrison, who’s most known as the co-creator of Charity: Water, a nonprofit that provides drinking water to people in developing nations.

Listen on RealLifeSuperPowers website: https://reallifesuperpowers.com/podcast/vik-harrison-charity-water-the-branded-startup/

Since it was founded in 2006, Charity: Water has inspired a movement of one million supporters from 100 countries and to date, they’ve helped 10 million people around the world get access to clean water.

Vik is the brains behind the charity’s design and branding, she's played a major role in its success.

She now has her own consulting firm - The Branded Startup, where she brings all her knowledge and experience to help purpose-driven entrepreneurs and nonprofits clarify their vision and tell their stories.

We discuss:

• The challenge of balancing family and a fulfilling career

• Procrastination and overcoming fears by having faith in yourself and by setting a clear pubic deadline (which you’ll then be accountable for)

• Choosing herself at a young age, and despite her family’s objection, leaving a promising career in the advertising world to join Charity: Water

• The power of authentic storytelling and transparency

• The importance of conveying trust, confidence and control as opposed to a desperate narrative when raising money (whether for a startup or a nonprofit) - people like to take part and invest in something successful that’s working

• Warmth and competence - the two reasons we trust brands. Consider this, does your brand have warmth, does it feel human? And do you convey to your target audience that you are capable of helping them?

• The importance of switching motives, at one point or another in life, from setting up our own life to contributing to the world in a bigger way

• The difference between fear and dread

• Not settling for vague company values and making sure to accompany values and with actionable examples that bring true meaning

• Enneagram personalities

• …and much more!

If you’ve heard of Charity: Water - you probably already know why this episode is a gem. If you haven’t - you’re about to find out. And if you manage a nonprofit - this is simply a must listen.

Zooming out, if you like listening to this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss new conversations with peak performers, serving as a reminder we can all tap into the best versions of ourselves.

You’re also welcome to follow Ronen and Noa on Linkedin

• Ronen Menipaz on Linkedin

• Noa Eshed on Linkedin

And if we may ask for a favor - please leave us a review on your native podcast app.

Some further resources:

• Real Life Superpowers podcast on Ctech

• The podcast website

Episode 36 - Lisa Sweetingham (author and journalist)

In this episode, we speak with journalist and author Lisa Sweetingham. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Parade, Spin, Time Out New York, Health Affairs, and many other publications.

Listen on RealLifeSuperPowers website: https://reallifesuperpowers.com/podcast/lisa-sweetingham-author-and-journalist/

Her track record includes the coverage of high-profile murder trials and Supreme Court nomination hearings for Court TV online.

She’s super total ‫- in order to bring her first book Chemical Cowboys: The DEA's Secret Mission to Hunt Down a Notorious Ecstasy Kingpin, to life, she’s spent four years following in the footsteps of DEA agents and Ecstasy traffickers.

Among other achievements, she’s also a contributor to the New York Times bestseller Thirst: A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World, which she wrote with Scott Harrison the co-founder of charity water.

We discuss:

• Storytelling, journalism, and the search for truth

• The power of doing work that’s meaningful to you

• How having a clear mission and vision can help make self-conscious choices, what to allocate your time and attention towards

• The danger in getting too comfortable “you stop growing”

• ...and much more!

In an era of information and content overload, she’s leading an impressive career as a peak performing creator, honing her craft and putting out content that’s truly impactful.

There’s a lot that can be learned from her outlook on life. We hope you enjoy your listen!

P.S. we had a technical issue on our end with our recording equipment, please excuse the poor sound quality from our end.

Zooming out, if you like listening to this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss new conversations with peak performers, serving as a reminder we can all tap into the best versions of ourselves.

You’re also welcome to follow Ronen and Noa on Linkedin

• Ronen Menipaz on Linkedin

• Noa Eshed on Linkedin

And if we may ask for a favor - please leave us a review on your native podcast app.

Some further resources:

• Real Life Superpowers podcast on Ctech

• The podcast website

In this episode, we speak with Pat Dossett.

Listen on RealLifeSuperPowers website: https://reallifesuperpowers.com/podcast/pat-dossett-navy-seal-and-co-founder-ceo-of-madefor/

Pat’s a former Navy Seal and Google exec who left Silicon Valley to start a business called Madefor - a company that helps people reach their greatest potential by forming positive habits through principles of Neuroscience, positive physiology, wellness, and health.

As a podcast about peak performance with a goal of inspiring people to tap into their true potential, we think this interview can not be more relevant.

Madefor believe a better world starts with a better you - what a great mission.

We discuss:

• What Madefor is all about, and how we actually can rewire our brain over the course of our lifetime.

• The power of small consistent steps done over time.

• Some of his insights from his challenges as a former navy seal (for example how the right mindset can make what appears to be impossible - possible).

• The correlation between peak performance and positive psychology.

• Breaking everything you do in life into small purposeful, consistent steps, and adopting a humble mindset of “crawl, walk, run”.

• The idea of a growth mindset: “when we get uncomfortable, when we find ourselves stressed or when we find that we’re having to navigate a challenging circumstance, or we’re trying to work hard to unlock problem, that feeling that we get, that resistance to the progress, isn’t a sign of us being incapable of achieving the thing we want to achieve, rather it’s a sign of ‘this is what it feels like to move towards our goal, this is what it feels like to progress, to grow stronger, to get better and if you can map that effort and that resistance and make that a positive or frame that in a positive light, very quickly you understand that it’s hard because it’s a sign you’re achieving something”.

• Focusing on process and not outcomes.

• A mission-focused mindset - evaluate everything you do under the lens of its potential contribution to the mission at hand while recognizing you’ll never have 100% certainty.

• The OODA loop - the cycle of “observe–orient–decide–act”.

• The importance of continuing to learn. “The people that have done the most, that their opinions hold a lot of weight, are the ones that never stop learning, that are always trying to figure out how ‘how can I be better? what’s different? what’s changing?’. And those that are very rigid and hold on to dogmatically ‘this is the way it’s done, it’s the way it’s always been done’, are generally people that are really dangerous to have on a team”.

• Much more!

Hopefully, this episode will help you become a better you!

Enjoy your listen!

Zooming out, if you like listening to this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss new conversations with peak performers, serving as a reminder we can all tap into the best versions of ourselves.

You’re also welcome to follow Ronen and Noa on Linkedin

• Ronen Menipaz on Linkedin

• Noa Eshed on Linkedin

And if we may ask for a favor - please leave us a review on your native podcast app.

Some further resources:

• Real Life Superpowers podcast on Ctech

• The podcast website

‎”I like founders who are trying to solve a problem they have personally.

Listen on RealLifeSuperPowers website: https://reallifesuperpowers.com/podcast/liron-rose-the-investor-in-israeli-unicorns/

They’re facing some kind of a challenge, they don’t find a solution, they don’t have a product that solves it, and they say - ok, I’m going to find a way to make this problem go away for myself. What usually happens later is that as soon as they do that and find a solution, they find out that there’s a product market fit. They’re not the only ones with this kind of a problem, there’s more people on the planet who are facing this same problem.”

In this episode we speak with Liron Rose, also known as the investor in Israeli unicorns.

He’s a serial entrepreneur and investor, with a few unicorns under his belt. His portfolio includes companies such as Similarweb, Kenshoo, Dynamic Yield, Fiverr and many more.

He’s the co-founder of After Download, a company he grew from 0 to 30M in revenue in 3 years. In 2013 he sold it to Iron Source for 28M.

He’s the founder and CEO of the Techstars Israel - the local branch of the prestigious global Fintech accelerator.

He does business consulting for global companies helping startups that are raising capital.

We discuss:

• What makes a growing startup promising from an investor’s perspective

• The importance of the team that comprises a startup

• The x-factor

• Liron’s journey to becoming a leading investor, and the unconventional career choices he made along the way

• The importance of being a pioneer

• Risk mitigation

• The endowment effect (more painful to lose something you already had than not gain it in the first place)

• Much more!

He’s very modest and there’s a lot that entrepreneurs can learn about what investors are looking for, by getting this unabridged peek inside his head.

We hope you enjoy your listen!

Zooming out, if you like listening to this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss new conversations with peak performers, serving as a reminder we can all tap into the best versions of ourselves.

You’re also welcome to follow Ronen and Noa on Linkedin

• Ronen Menipaz on Linkedin

• Noa Eshed on Linkedin

And if we may ask for a favor - please leave us a review on your native podcast app.

Some further resources:

• Real Life Superpowers podcast on Ctech

• The podcast website

“The worst problem is when people don’t know what they want to do and who they want to be. My advice to them is go back to your childhood because when you’re a kid you don’t have the mindset that’s from society or from your parents.

Listen on RealLifeSuperPowers website: https://reallifesuperpowers.com/podcast/anastasiya-stepanova-space-journalist-engineer-human-test-subject-mars160-mission/

Hey everyone, you’re quite a clean sheet of paper and you just explore the world – if you like something – you like something.”

In this episode, we speak with Anastasiya Stepanova.

She’s an engineer at the Institute of Biomedical Problems at the Russian Academy of Sciences, a Space journalist, co-author of the book “I Wish You A Good Flight”, a test subject in first in the world female dry-immersion experiment at the Institute of biomedical problems, a Health and safety officer and crew journalist in the international project “Mars160” through which she’s spent 80 days at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah and 30 days at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station on the uninhabited Devon island in Canada.

She’s also spent 120 days in isolation as a Mission specialist in an international isolation experiment. And on top of those, she’s also a rescuer at the public search and rescue squad “SpasReserv” and an ambassador of the charity project Unity helping to send children’s dreams to space.

We discuss:

- How she ended up with such a unique career in the first place

- The power of motivation and your “why” when facing challenges

- The importance of following your passions without caving in to fear

- How to discover what you should spend your time doing that’ll make work not just about money (what would make you feel fulfilled?)

- so much more

We hope you enjoy this episode (please forgive us for the quality of sound in this episode – Anastasiya was speaking to us from her car. We think it’s still very much worth your listen!)

Zooming out, if you like listening to this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss new conversations with peak performers, serving as a reminder we can all tap into the best versions of ourselves.

You’re also welcome to follow Ronen and Noa on Linkedin

• Ronen Menipaz on Linkedin

• Noa Eshed on Linkedin

And if we may ask for a favor - please leave us a review on your native podcast app.

Some further resources:

• Real Life Superpowers podcast on Ctech

• The podcast website

Derek is a lecturer, author of Ego, Authority, Failure©, and a negotiations trainer and coach at the Black Swan Group. Some of you may be familiar with the Black Swan Group as it is managed by Chris Voss the author of the bestselling book “Never Split the Difference”.

Listen on RealLifeSuperPowers website: https://reallifesuperpowers.com/podcast/derek-gaunt-instructor-expert-coach-author-black-swan-group/

He has 29 years of law enforcement experience, 20 of which as a team member, leader and then commander of hostage negotiations teams in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

He is a hostage negotiation and incident command subject matter expert who frequently speaks at hostage negotiations and SWAT conferences across the US.

If you’re asking yourself what this has to do with you, the answer is a LOT.

Derek teaches leaders how to apply hostage negotiation practices and principles to their world.

Spoiler? It’s all about interpersonal communications and increasing performance by changing the way we think about communicating.

We discuss:

• How to smartly elicit required responses in a negotiation

• Tactical empathy - seeing things from the other side’s eyes (as opposed to trying to “walk in their shoes”).

• Deal-killers

• The power of curiosity - going into every conversation assuming you have something to learn

• The importance of determining early in the cogeneration whether you’re the “fool or the favorite”

• Asking labels - “When you say to someone it seems like you have a vision of how this is going to work out, they immediately become a narrator of how this is playing in their head, and they tell you exactly what’s important to them”

• Identifying and navigating the black swans in every conversion (the unexpected occurrences that are bound to happen)

• The advantage of empathetic listening

• Finding the real motivation when someone is asking you for something

• The core reasons for someone being counterproductive in a negotiation

• And much more!

We hope you enjoy this special episode.

And if you’re curious to learn more about him, checkout the Black Swan website and his book on Amazon.

Zooming out, if you like listening to this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss new conversations with peak performers, serving as a reminder we can all tap into the best versions of ourselves.

You’re also welcome to follow Ronen and Noa on Linkedin

• Ronen Menipaz on Linkedin

• Noa Eshed on Linkedin

And if we may ask for a favor - please leave us a review on your native podcast app.

Some further resources:

• Real Life Superpowers podcast on Ctech

• The podcast website

With millions of followers across the world through his blog, podcast “Marketing School” and social channels - it’s very unlikely you are not familiar with the work of Neil Patel.

Listen on RealLifeSuperPowers website: https://reallifesuperpowers.com/podcast/neil-patel-crazy-egg-hello-bar-kissmetrics/

He’s a New York Times best-selling author, named top influencer on the web by The Wall Street Journal, one of the top 10 marketers in the world according to Forbes, recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama no less and recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies out there. He’s the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, Microsoft, Airbnb, Google, General Motors, SalesForce, HP and Viacom grow through marketing.

We discussed:

– How he started his career at the age of 16 and what motivated him

– His approach to rejection

– What success means to him

– The significance of being (truly) passionate about what you do

– The power of creativity

– Not taking focus for granted: “if you take one thing and do it extremely well for a long time in a big enough market - you’ll build a huge business”

– The importance of going for the big TAMs (Total Addressable Markets)

– And much more

Check it out - he’s awesome and there’s a lot to be learned from listening to how he looks at life!

Zooming out, if you like listening to this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss new conversations with peak performers, serving as a reminder we can all tap into the best versions of ourselves.

You’re also welcome to follow Ronen and Noa on Linkedin

• Ronen Menipaz on Linkedin

• Noa Eshed on Linkedin

And if we may ask for a favor - please leave us a review on your native podcast app.

Some further resources:

• Real Life Superpowers podcast on Ctech

• The podcast website

In this special episode, we speak with David Benjamin, the co-author of CRACKING COMPLEXITY: The Breakthrough Formula for Solving Just About Anything Fast.

Listen on RealLifeSuperPowers website: https://reallifesuperpowers.com/podcast/david-benjamin-syntegrity-cracking-complexity-formula/

In the book, he and his co-author David Komlos, share their proven formula for dramatically shortening processes and cracking an organization’s toughest challenges.

David regularly guides leaders and their teams through their application of the formula. In this capacity, he’s become a trusted advisor to Fortune 500 companies and US government leaders on how to organize for complexity and find traction in the face of the intractable.

We discuss:

– How he and his business partner had to reinvent themselves after the dot com bubble, and how one methodology they got introduced to changed the course of their career

– How his passion for numbers and puzzles drew him to embark on a journey to formulate challenges and connect dots that made the world fall into logical sense, and made David’s vocation clear

– The magic of problem-solving and approaching them with a different lens. “Expect the unexpected, trust that as you stare at something and think about it for a long time, something is going to emerge. Answers don’t just come the first time you try, it’s about the perseverance of really digging in and committing yourself to finding an answer and trusting that it’ll come - trusting that your brain is far more active and creative than even you give it credit for, if you give it time to marinate the problem”

– The power of asking the right questions and articulating what you’re trying to solve

– Breakthrough thinking

– The importance of being passionate about what you do (and what are some good cues that you’re on track)

– How learning to listen can be beneficial

– The power of creativity

– Dealing with resistance

– The opportunity for self-growth that’s hidden in Covid-19

– and so much more!

We hope you enjoy your listen!

Zooming out, if you like listening to this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss new conversations with peak performers, serving as a reminder we can all tap into the best versions of ourselves.

You’re also welcome to follow Ronen and Noa on Linkedin

• Ronen Menipaz on Linkedin

• Noa Eshed on Linkedin

And if we may ask for a favor - please leave us a review on your native podcast app.

Some further resources:

• Real Life Superpowers podcast on Ctech

• The podcast website