Tell me about your vision. Well, my vision is
a world where each of us are feeling inspired,
connected, and empowered, and a world of greater
spiritual intelligence. If you look at our world
today, Human cognitive intelligence, our IQ has
landed us on the moon, deciphered the genomes,
split the atom. We developed AI that's smarter
than many of us, including myself. We have emotional
intelligence that lots of people know about and
are working on that have connected us to our
emotions. We're more aware. We can manage our
emotions better. But still, the world is very
chaotic and problematic. Anxiety, depression
rates are soaring. Substance abuse, addiction,
suicide rates are soaring. There's a loneliness
epidemic. There's political polarization, wars,
environmental concerns. So something is missing.
And I think what is missing is an understanding
and appreciation of our spiritual intelligence.
And that's the third missing piece. that we need
individually and collectively as a society so
my vision is a world where more of us are awakened
to our inherent potential of um our spirit essence
our life force energy and can actualize it where
we understand our interconnectedness and this
is when we feel most fulfilled most empowered
most connected and we do good for ourselves and
the world around us well tell me more about that
um like how and why like this is what is all
it's it's a lot of things i'm familiar with most
of it i'm not so okay in the chaotic world where
like ai is coming to an extent where um the knowledge
we hold as humans uh when it comes to information
would be probably obsolete because there's going
to be ways to get more and more knowledge and
how do you come into play into all this so i'm
very curious well that's a good point exactly
so when some of the things that differentiated
us get as humans get automated with with ai and
with robots we have to leverage things that that
are unique to us and that's actually when spiritual
intelligence becomes more more important so you
say well what is spiritual intelligence so a
lot of people have heard about emotional intelligence
so i'll just explain it as an analogy what is
emotional intelligence the ability to draw on
emotional resources and information to help manage
emotions in ourselves and others So what is spiritual
intelligence? Spiritual intelligence is the ability
to draw on, embody spiritual intelligence. qualities
and resources in daily life. So he said, what
are these spiritual resources and qualities?
These are things like purpose, service, gratitude,
joy, beauty, trust, humility, integrity, intuition,
things like that. These are the qualities that
through my doctoral research interviewing 71
teachers across all the world's traditions from
Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism,
Shamanism are common. Regardless of their theology
and cosmology, they're talking about the value
of compassion and forgiveness and integrity and
humility. It's these abilities to embody these
qualities in daily life, in our work meetings,
in our meetings with friends and family, and
how we drive on the freeway, and how we do shopping
in the supermarket. So spiritual intelligence
is different from spiritual belief, like I believe
in God, I believe in reincarnation, or whatever,
which is nice. Or I can have a spiritual experience.
I could be meditating. I could be walking in
the forest, and all of a sudden my ego dissolves.
I feel one with everything. There's no separation.
That's a beautiful spiritual experience. But
spiritual intelligence, how do I embody these
realizations in my daily life to express these
qualities that I just mentioned, where the rubber
meets the road in how we live? Thank you for
sharing that. What would you say is the why of
what you do this? Like, why you do this? Yossi,
what gets you out of bed every morning to keep
doing what you do? Why are you on the podcast
talking about all this? Well, this is my calling.
This is my passion to awaken greater spiritual
intelligence in myself and the world. That's
why I started this nonprofit, AwakeningSpiritualIntelligence
.org. And it's really the result of my lifelong
journey, which started in the Israeli military,
where I had the fastest promotion record in the
history. history of my regiment, won all these
awards. Luckily, it was a peaceful time. But
the military command and control model chafed
at my soul. And I resolved to someday build an
organization that inspires the best in people
and brings out the best in actualizing each individual.
And that led me to then start two tech companies
in Silicon Valley that I was fortunate enough
to take public. But, you know, in the midst of
all of that, I also had an experience called
the dark night of the soul. And that led me to
a spiritual awakening that where I realized our
interconnectedness and that we are part of one
web of life, one reality. And that blew the circuits
of my mind. It also got me pushed out of the
company I started. I was the CEO of a public
company and, you know, I couldn't contain this.
energy of awakening, the kundalini, the sense
of oneness. And my board pushed me out. It was
very embarrassing, shameful experience. The headline
stories in the Wall Street Journal, New York
Times was like, I became emotionally unstable
and so on. And all the people that were seeking
my company stopped corresponding to me and returning
my emails and my phone calls. But that led me
to try to understand. Was this real? Was this
delusion, this experience of our interconnectedness?
And that's what got me to go and do a PhD in
psychology and the interface of spirituality
and psychology. And that's how I came across
this concept of spiritual intelligence and did
the research to define it and then how to academically
validate its measurement and then show that leaders
that have higher spiritual intelligence are.
get inspired and then inspire people around them.
And then they lead teams with higher commitment,
greater morale, lower turnover. Other follow
-on research has shown that those leaders produce
better financial results for their organizations.
So it's a win -win. It's a win -win for the individual.
People with greater spiritual intelligence have
better mental health. resilience better quality
of life they're also more productive they feel
connected to themselves they feel connected to
other people and um in a world where we're feeling
this loneliness epidemic this polarization i
think This is a key antidote of what we need
individually for our mental health and quality
of life and fulfillment and what we need societally
and in our families. So many families are suffering
because there's this polarization. One person
votes this way and the other person votes this
way and they can't agree and they can't listen
to each other. And there's all this animosity
and either or thinking. That's why I'm passionate
about it. Because I think it's what's needed
for us individually and collectively. So when
you talk about the oneness of everyone being
part of one thing, what do you mean by that?
Okay, that's great. That's a good question. Something
you might hear people that are spiritual say,
oh, we're all one. well i think it's not exactly
like that if you look at my hand there's this
pinky finger and this thumb well they're they're
one hand right but they're not the same thank
god each each finger has its job and it's a good
thing i have a thumb that acts differently than
the pinky or the other fingers now you can think
about the human body there are many trillions
of cells and Each cell is unique. It has a cell
membrane. It has to keep its integrity. It has
its immune system that keeps it alive. But it's
also part of an organ, whether it's the kidney
or the liver or the thyroid. It has a function
within the organ. And then the organ is embedded
in the organism. And the organism has to function.
Each cell has to do its job within the organ,
within the organism. The cell has to worry about
its individual survival and functioning and integrity,
but also has to worry about contributing to the
overall organism. If the cell keeps itself alive,
but the organism gets cancer, eventually the
cell dies. So the same is with us. Now, each
cell in the human body has the same DNA, and
it comes from the same stem cell. But it differentiates
and takes on a unique role, a unique function.
So it is with us. Each of us are part of this
one web of life, but we're each endowed with
our unique talents, gifts, and superpowers. It's
like we have our own unique instrument that we've
been granted by life. And we want to play as
part of this beautiful symphony, part of this
bigger organism of life that we're a part of.
we are one but we're not the same we're one and
we're uniquely individual am i making any sense
to to some extent so when it comes to a single
cell right i can i can feel i can touch and i
can experience it in real life because it's there
right but when you talk about life in sense of
a bigger like a bigger picture bigger bigger
living, breathing organism? Like, what do you
mean by that as me being part of that? Well,
look at the web of life that is happening right
now. The way it looks, if I look at the plant
on my desk right now, you can't see it, but there's
a green plant on my desk. There's trees, green
trees outside. The sun is shining. It's a beautiful
day here. Now I'm going to inhale. I'm drawing
in oxygen. Where did that oxygen come from? It's
the exhale of the plant of the trees. Now I'm
going to exhale and I'm exhaling carbon dioxide.
And that's the inhale of the plant and the tree.
So the trees and the plants and I are in this
symbiotic relationship where we are one part
of larger web of life. I don't have a separate
existence. I couldn't exist without the trees
and the plants and the oxygen that's in the atmosphere
and the earthworms that are in the earth and
all of the way life connects us all, the farmers
producing the food and whatever. The way it looks
from the common human mind is like we're all
separate individual entities, like a billiard
ball or whatever, that are all distinct and have
distinct boundaries and we have nothing to do
with each other. But we need to understand this
is kind of a cap... Copernican revolution of
consciousness that happens when we realize this.
Like up until Copernicus and Galileo, we believe
that the earth is at the center of the universe
and the stars and the sun rotate around it, right?
Because that's how it looks through the day.
You see the sun move across the sky, but then
they realize, no, it's the other way around.
You know, the earth comes out of the sun and
is sustained by the sun's energy for all life.
So this is a Copernican revolution is when we
understand our interconnectedness, even though
from the egoic mindset, I'm a skin encapsulated
ego. All I am is this body and it's bounded by
my skin and I'm independent from the rest of
existence. Well, that's obviously not true. There's
no, I have no existence. On my own, without Mother
Earth, I have no life. I have no life without
the sun feeding the energy that grows all the
food and sustains this planet. So that's what
I mean. We're part of a web of life. Okay. And
from all that knowledge, then what? Well, then
like a cell in the human body, I can't just selfishly
think about. what's good for me. I have to worry
about the organism I'm embedded in, because if
the organism is sick and gets cancer, then eventually
I die. So what this means is that I can't just
say, hey, all I care is about, you know, how
much money I make and how much food I can eat,
etc. It's ultimately not fulfilling. So if there's
a virus like there was in COVID, it spread through
the whole world. It affected all of If we have
global warming and we have these environmental
disasters, it affects all of us. So I have to
figure out how can I contribute to this overall
web of life. If there are wars happening, it's
going to affect me. So I have to think more globally
and act locally in terms of what are my gifts.
And then how can I contribute to the greater
whole? Life continues to thrive for many generations,
for my children, my grandchildren, and so on.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy
that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking
forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move forward. This is going to get
more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement
as well. We'll invite people to participate in
the show. And thank you for giving us your time
and attention. Have an excellent time building
out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.