July 28, 2025 • 29 mins
Yosi Amram Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist, a CEO leadership coach, and a best-selling and award-winning author.
Yosi is a pioneer researcher in the field of spiritual intelligence whose research has received over 1000 citations. As an Amazon best-selling author of the book Spiritually Intelligent Leadership: How to Inspire by Being Inspired, which won the Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal, Yosi is committed to awakening greater spiritual intelligence in himself and the world.
Previously the founder and CEO of two companies he led through successful IPOs, Yosi has coached over 100 CEOs, many of whom have built companies with thousands of employees and revenues in the billions. With engineering degrees from MIT, an MBA from Harvard, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Sofia University.
In This Episode
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Yosi is a pioneer researcher in the field of spiritual intelligence whose research has received over 1000 citations. As an Amazon best-selling author of the book Spiritually Intelligent Leadership: How to Inspire by Being Inspired, which won the Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal, Yosi is committed to awakening greater spiritual intelligence in himself and the world.
Previously the founder and CEO of two companies he led through successful IPOs, Yosi has coached over 100 CEOs, many of whom have built companies with thousands of employees and revenues in the billions. With engineering degrees from MIT, an MBA from Harvard, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Sofia University.
In This Episode
If you’d like to support The Trauma Therapist Podcast and the work I do you can do that here with a monthly donation of $5, $7, or $10: Donate to The Trauma Therapist Podcast.
Click here to join my email list and receive podcast updates and other news.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-trauma-therapist--5739761/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Trauma THEAPIS podcast. My name is Gamcpherson.
I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
those who have been impacted by trauma. Here we go,
So five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome
back to the podcast. Very excited to happ as my
guest today, Doctor yos amram jos Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Thank you Gray.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
I'm delighted to be with you and enjoying your smile
right now.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I appreciate that. So. Doctor Emrem is a licensed clinical psychologist,
a CEO leadership coach, and a best selling and award
winning author. He's a pioneer researcher in the field of
spiritual intelligence whose research has received over one thousand citations.
As an Amazon best selling author of the book titled
Spiritually Intelligent Leadership, How to Inspire by Being Inspired, which
(00:51):
won the Nautilist' Book Award Gold Medal. Yosi is committed
to awakening greater spiritual intelligence in himself and the world.
All right, you see just a small bit about you
before we could going and share with our listeners where
you're from originally and where you are currently.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Originally from across the Big pond in Israel. I grew
up in Israel, a war torn part of the world,
which is right now going through some horrific situation. But
I grew up and had the I don't know what
to say that, the privilege, the horror of having to
(01:31):
serve in the military, but fortunately it was peaceful time.
So but that was a very impactful period in my
life that led me to the interest in leadership and
then got me to start some companies, etc. But then
I shifted my life and career. Now in the West
coast of California in San Francisco Bay Area near Santa Cruz,
(01:52):
and I'm a psychologist and a therapist in addition to
a leadership coach.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
SOOT talk about the shift and specifically spirituality and how
and when that came into your life and what it means.
How are we defining that?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Okay, great, hopefully I won't take the whole podcast to
but yeah, just going back a little bit. So, I
served in the military. I started as a math and
science nerd kid, but to my we was shy and introverter.
But to my surprise, I won all these military leadership awards,
but the military chafed it. My soul as a command
(02:36):
and control model, which is necessarily and effective in battle,
but not inspiring the best and bringing people to their best.
So that led me to my lifelong dream of building
an organization based on more humanistic principles, which got me
to be the founder and CEO of a couple of
tech companies. I had the good fortune of taking both
(02:57):
of them public, but along the way I was overly
driven and identified with the business, and I got experience
what you might call a dark knight of the soul
or clinically it was more of a depression. But out
of that, through my persistence, et cetera, I had this mystical,
you might say, magical experience of an awakening while receiving
(03:21):
a massage, getting relaxed and so on, and my ego
dissolved and I experienced my interconnected oneness and looking through
the face cradle, I felt like and saw that the
floor was really inside of me. So that dissolved sort
of this normal frame that I look at the world
(03:41):
where we're all separate beings here and there. I'm here,
it's all separate objects, and that kind of blew the
circuits of my mind and threw me into a manic
episode in addition to the spiritual awakening, which led to
my significant trauma because I was the founder, CEO, chairman
of the public company that I started, but I kind
(04:03):
of lost grounding in the midst of it and got
my board to push me out, put me on a
quote unquote voluntary leave of absence they called it. There
was nothing voluntary about it, but I lost my baby,
and that led me to ask the questions what happened?
Why was I so identified with the business, Why did
I burn myself out? What was this experience of awakening?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Was it real? Was a delusion?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
And that got me to go back and get a
PhD in clinical psychology. And then I discovered the term
spiritual intelligence, which I was excited by because I knew
about emotional intelligence and all the benefits that it had,
but nobody really operationally defined what spiritual intelligence is and
how to measure it, which you need to do in
(04:49):
order to study it. So that's the path I set
on to do, and that was my doctoral research and
defining it, looking at what it is, how to measure it,
and then looking at how it contributes the leadership and
a variety of other positive outcomes.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
All right, Hang on a second. So you you just
in a matter of two minutes, covered a whole span
of incredible depth and and and years. So wow, let
me just jump back to being in the military. You
found yourself as a very strong leader, and you mentioned
(05:30):
the word soul. There was soul in there. What what?
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I was chafed at my soul? It's it's a soul
crushing environment.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I see, I see. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, So even though I was good at it, I
didn't like it.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
What did What were you connecting in that role? How
are you connecting in that role as a leader.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
That's a good question.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Uh well, one thing that I learned is the name
orance of both. Looking at the people that I found
the strong leaders that were inspiring, one of the qualities
they had is they had confidence in themselves and in
the people that they lead.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
So they projected this idea that I believe in you.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I believed this, you could do a lot more than
you believe about yourself, and that inspires people to stretch themselves.
So I saw that in my regiment commander. It was
a very I don't remember his name, but his face
is planted in my psyche and his blue eyes he
was a short, medium built man, and so it taught
(06:37):
me one thing, which is the importance of believing in people.
So that that's one aspect. But you know, as I said,
the military, as a commander, you look at people as hardware.
I had to inspect their soul and their socks to
make sure they took their showers, whatever, because people were
(06:58):
so exhausted and.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Stretched, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
But that's dehumanizing, and so I felt that, you know,
there are beautiful aspects of it in terms of believing
in people, creating a sense of camaraderie and where people
you know, you hear stories with soldiers will jump on
a hand grenade that's exploding to protect their their friends,
so there's a real team building and connection. But there's
(07:24):
also soul crushing experiences that are dehumanizing. So all of
that kind of reflecting and massaging all of that in
my psyche led me to want to build an organization
that brings out the best in people as individuals, but
also still connects them in a community with a shared purpose,
which the military is good in installed instilling, because we're
(07:47):
all in this together, our survival depends on it. But
in corporations, you know, you get a lot of politics
and toxicity and egos and so on. So how can
you build an organization that brings out the best in
each individual but still gives them a sense of identity
and belonging as part of a community with a shared
(08:08):
sense of purpose, mission, vision, and values.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So I hope I'm making sense.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
You are you are, And let's kind of segue into
spiritual intelligence and the birth of that in you or
the awakening of that in you. What was resonating for
you about that?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Well, as I said, I had this spiritual awakening experience.
But even though I had this awakening experience, I wasn't
very grounded. I didn't integrate it into my life. So
you know, that created a spiritual opening. But this is
the importance, like to understand the difference between spirituality and
spiritual intelligence, much like there's a difference between emotionality and
(08:55):
emotional intelligence. If I asked you, guy, do you know
people in your life that are emotional? You probably could
think some, but it might not be the best most
complementary description. People that are emotional might be dramatic, they
might be actually dysregulated, etc. But then emotional intelligence came
(09:16):
and bridge this dichotomy between emotion and reason, and we
can use emotions. So what is emotional intelligence is the
ability to draw on emotional information and resources to help
us function better. Now, if you look at the spiritual world,
you have a spiritual person, and that could be a
spiritual belief system, you know, like I believe in God,
(09:39):
I believe in reincarnation of the soul, the eternity of
the soul, whatever those are belief system, and then you
have spiritual experiences. I could be walking in the woods
in the forest and I could feel one with nature,
I'm no longer a separate entity or whatever. That would
be an experience. I could be meditating, my ego dissolves,
I feel the space, someone would everything whatever. Those are experiences.
(10:02):
But what spiritual intelligence is interested in is how can
I then live my life drawing on spiritual qualities and resources.
So that's when I'm in a team meeting, instead of
getting my ego hooked and trying to prove myself right,
I am trying to do what is right. You know,
when I am in a discussion or an argument with
(10:26):
my partner's.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Spouse, the same thing.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
How do I bring empathy and compassion connection forgiveness. When
I'm driving on the freeway, I'm in this metal box
called the car, which tends to make me feel like,
you know, I'm kind of shielded from everybody else, and
I'm in competition on how I get on and off
the freeway. So it's a very isolating and brings out
(10:49):
the worst in people. But you know, if I can
connect into my interconnectedness with all the other drivers on
the road who are also rushing to get home and
rush after work in rush hour whatever, then it comes
my nervous system and I feel connected and less isolated,
and it's more likely to all behave and in more
(11:11):
adaptive ways for me and for the group. So I'm
trying to highlight the difference between a spiritual belief, a
spiritual experience, and spiritual intelligence. So maybe I should still
define more succinctly what I mean by spiritual intelligence, because
I said emotional intelligence is the ability to draw on
(11:32):
emotional resources and information to help functioning and well being.
By analogies, spiritual intelligence is the ability to draw on
and embody spiritual qualities and resources to help functioning and
well being. So I'll pause there. Now you might say, well,
what are those spiritual qualities and resources, and those are
(11:55):
the qualities that are universal across all the world's traditions
for thousands of years, like purpose, service, trust, gratitude, humility, integrity, presence,
and so on. And so these qualities came out as
universal in my interviews with seventy one leaders and teachers
across all the world's traditions, regardless of their cosmology or theology,
(12:19):
whether they believed, you know, that Jesus was the Messiah
or Moses went up to the mountain when the Buddha
was enlightened, or that there is a self there is
no self, whatever it is their.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Cosmology, they believe that these are the virtues.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
These are just okay, just quickly here. So what about
the belief in or the feeling that one is connected
to a higher power? Doesn't I mean, everything you mentioned,
what was it, empathy, humility, et cetera, to me doesn't
(12:57):
describe or define spirituality so much as that unique descriptor
which is that belief in a higher power or universality
or right. Isn't that what many of us think of
when we think of spirituality.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Well, some people think that, but I mean, in the
academic research I've seen and done. About defining spirituality, there
are essentially three themes. So you know, Buddhists are spiritual,
they don't necessarily believe in higher power. They they're agnostic
on that. So what spirituality generally refers to is the
(13:33):
interest in three things is the deepest meaning and dimensions
of life, and connection to the sacred and transcendent dimensions.
Now sacred and transcendent dimensions of life for somebody in
the theistic thing would be you might call higher power,
but in other traditions they might not language it like that.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
But I think where you might have been.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Heading is that, yeah, these qualities are all nice, but
what's unifying to all of them? And so yeah, and
so the point is that these qualities naturally emerge when
we are connected to our essence and the deepest place
in us of who and what we are. So if
I am connected, let's say I believe in a God
(14:21):
or a higher power, whatever you want to call it,
when I'm connected to it, you know, then these qualities
will naturally emerge. You know, I'll feel gratitude, I'll feel humidity,
I'll feel my calling, I'll feel my sense of purpose.
I'm naturally going to be pulled to be of service.
(14:41):
But again that's the difference between spiritual belief. I might
believe in the Higher Power when I go to church
on Sunday and I in that, But then do I
am I connected to that higher power? That essence, when
I'm driving on the frameway or I'm in line in
the supermarket and the person in front of is very slow,
and I get that daily practice and the embodiment of
(15:05):
these qualities.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Right, all right, let me just remind you what I'm
speaking with doctor Yo. See, I'm ram So, so what
is your mission now? What are you how are you
integrating or incorporating this into the work you do?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well, my mission is to awaken spiritual intelligence, first in
myself and in the world. I think, you know our world.
You know, we've done amazing things as humanity with our IQ,
our cognitive intelligence. We landed on the moon, we've split
the atom, we've deciphered the genome. Now we've got AI
that's smarter than many of us, including myself. We've developed
(15:44):
emotional intelligence that helped us.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
You know, be aware and manage our emotions.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
But if you look at the world, it's still pretty
messed up situation, you know, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, addiction,
suicide rates are skyrock a political polarization, environmental devastation, wars,
et cetera. So I think the missing piece is the
piece of spiritual intelligence to complement IQ and EQ emotional
(16:13):
cognitive intelligence and emotional intelligence. So I believe that's what
we need is the understanding of that at all levels,
at leadership and at all levels. So what I'm doing
and how I'm trying to promote spiritual intelligence is through
my work one with leaders. So when I work with
a leader and a corporation, the CEO typically, then as
(16:36):
they develop their spiritual intelligence, then that has a ripple
effect and affects the culture and the whole organization and
through them their employees and when they go home and
et cetera. And I'm affecting it through my research. And
then the other place is through my work with couples.
And I am working right now on a similar research
(16:56):
that I did on leadership with couples to show and
see how spiritual intelligence helps explain relational satisfaction beyond and
above what attachment theory and emotional intelligence can explain.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
So indeed, let's kind of magnify that a little bit,
because I think that would be very interesting for our
audience here. How do you work with couples in that context?
How do you assess for that? What do you do specifically?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Well, you know, there is a framework of you know,
spiritual intelligence. In my model, there's five domain and twenty
two qualities. I mentioned some of them. So let's take
one of them as compassion and you know, so I
do look at a couple through the lens of attachment.
So let's take a couple, you know, I was working
(17:52):
with recently and they were getting disregulated about you know,
one person has a history of growing up in a
family with alcoholic person parents and substance abuse, et cetera.
And then this other person, their partner was leading using
substances like ayahuasca and other things to help people in
(18:17):
their awakening and journey. But as they were looking at
getting mirror and this one person was super triggered by
this idea that this person uses substances, et cetera. And
this other person that is seeing that as her mission
to bring this work into the world, was getting triggered
because she wasn't feeling supportive. So they're trying to negotiate
(18:38):
what this is, but they were getting reactive and triggered.
So one of the things that I worked with them
on is first to help regulate themselves through self compassion.
And you know, a spiritual practice from the Tibetan Buddhist
tradition called Tong Glynn of compassion where you take in
(19:01):
the person in front of you suffering, bringing it into
your heart and send out kindness and love. So as
they did that between them, they understood that first of all,
that they're both suffering in this difficulty. So first they
had to regulate their nervous system, find their centeredness, and
a self compassion practice can be helpful in that, and
(19:23):
a cocompassion practice as a couple, which then opens their heart,
and then they could really look at the specifics of
what their disagreements are and negotiate the boundaries of what
would be an acceptable way for them to navigate through
these different views. So that's an example of a quality
(19:44):
of compassion that I consider part of spiritual intelligence that
comes in so into a couple.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
What I liked about that was finding that one of
those common denominators of compassion, and I think we all
can agree, or many of us hopefully can agree of
the profundity of having compassion not just for ourselves but
for the person sitting in front of us, right, and
(20:13):
of course that's not always easy to do. I could
imagine that that couple getting into the spirited you know,
push and pull about who who's right and who's wrong,
and you're getting in there and kind of finding that foundation.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Them, helping them regulate themselves and threaten to each other.
They're shared humanity and they understand that they're both suffering, so,
you know, and related to that is shared forgiveness. I mean,
that's so important. Like in couple's work is like you
did this and we hold resentment. So another spiritual quality
virtue you might call this forgiveness and you know, so
(20:57):
that would be another thing that becomes hugely important.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Or presence.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
You know, so many of us are so distracted these
days and so much as tugging in our attention, so
we go out on dates with our partners or whatever,
and we're looking at our phone, we're thinking about different things.
So practicing learning to be present and manage our attention
(21:21):
and intention when we are with our partners. So that's
a spiritual intelligence capacity is our capacity for presence.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
It feels and correct me if I'm wrong here, but
it feels like the world in which we're living right now,
and you kind of touch upon this is doing the
antithesis of this is pulling us away from these principles
of spiritual intelligence, and we have to like, it's like
(21:52):
we're being pulled by this undertow and have to get
back to the groundedness of the shore of compassion and presence.
Why is that so challenging for many of us?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Yes, because we have social media, we have texts, we
have so much, we have an inner vacuum. We live
in a society and a culture that teaches us that,
you know, you get yourself worth through the toys you
have or whatever, and the fame and glory and how
many likes you have on social media and and all
(22:27):
these things which are really trying to fill the inner
hole that we have in our soul. And we we
we stuff it with substances and alcohol and and social
media and money and toys and luxury and whatever. And
that's part of our consumerist you know mindset that that
(22:53):
that we grow up in. But you know, face it,
you know, twelve to eighteen month old babies pre verbal
experienced shame. You know, when our primary caretaker, you know,
simply turns away from us. You know, our mother, whoever
(23:14):
it is, might have something on the stove burning, or
someone knocks on the door, and.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
They get up, they leave the baby.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
And for a moment they were like in eye contact
and this dual unity, shared connection, and all of a sudden,
the mom gets up and leaves. Now the baby has
no model to know what's going on. But if you
look at their physiology, often they assume the reason she
left is because they're not good enough or there's the
problems with them. So we grow up with this thing
(23:43):
that's deep in our soul, is this sense of shame, inadequacy.
I'm not enough, I'm not lovable. And then we build
our lives. And that's what the ego is trying to do,
is to make us feel good about ourselves. So if
I make enough money, if I have enough sex with
enough people, or if I have you know, such and
(24:04):
such a career, I achieve fame and glory and social
thing that will make me feel good about who I
am and will compensate for this deep deficiency, that this
this hole.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
In my soul.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
And so we have that you know, deep within us,
and that's what the ego forms around. And then we
have society that's leveraging that through advertising and text messages
and social media that's trying to make us deal with
that sense of inner deficiency and lack. And so we're
(24:40):
prone for all these addictions that take us away from
but you know, we can't fill that home without going
into it with consciously and then and then we discover
our inherent beauty and radiance.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
And that's that's what I want to ask. She's me
for interrupting here in the time we have left here
as we kind of wind own, how do we reconnect?
Give us some ideas of what we can do to
allow ourselves to tap into our own spirituality spiritual intelligence
(25:22):
in that sense.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Well, we need to connect with our life force energy,
which is you know, our breath of life. Spirit comes
from Latin, the animating breath of life. So I'm just simplified.
But you know that may not be practical for many people.
For most people, what might be a better entry point
is start a gratitude practice every day.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
We know that that helps you know, you.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Go through your day, you think about what you could appreciate,
you could share that appreciation with others, et cetera. It
makes you feel connected.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
You know.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
The other thing is recognizing that each and every one
of us receives this amazing gift called life. You know,
none of us did anything to earn it. But in
addition to the gift of life, we got all these
other gifts, which is our talents, superpowers and zone of genius.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
And for each person it's unique.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
It could be you know, you seem like a good, engaged,
curious listener and that's one of your gifts, as I
feel it in this moment. And so that comes to
expression and being a good podcast interviewer.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
You know, someone else is.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Good and there's zone of genius as math and whatever
in science, and they become a programmer. Someone else is
their sense of humor and their comedian, and someone else
is writing, etc. So we want to ask life, what
has life given me as my gifts?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
And then.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Because when we actualize those gifts, we feel most fulfilled
and those are the domains we're naturally gonna be good
at and we're going to feel a sense of mastery.
And then's how we can contribute. So when you give
a friend a gift for their birthday. If you find
out a month later they never opened it and never
(27:07):
use it, it's like you're disappointed. So life kind of
gave each of us a gift, the gift of life
and all these things. It's like inviting us. Hey, I'm
giving you this package of talents. Please use them to
enhance life. So unpack your gift and use it. And
so that helps us find our calling, our sense of purpose.
(27:29):
So that would be another practice, you know, so we
can keep going on. I mean, there's these twenty two qualities.
But you know, you can't just say, Okay.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I want to be healthy. What do I do? Do
I just read a.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Book about physical fitness. Do I read a book about
nutrition and diet? Do I read a book about high
quality sleep?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Now? I gotta exercise.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
I gotta whether it's going to the gym or hiking
in nature, or whether it's you know, figuring out a
diet that is healthy from my constitution and my body.
And I don't just do it for a week. I mean,
I can go on a diet for a week a
month lose weight. I'm like, okay, I'm good, and I
can go back to eating junk food and candy and.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
To practice life practice.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
It's a lifelong thing. It's rewiring our brain.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah yeah, all right, you'll see how do people reach
reach you learn more about you, learn more about your
book again, Spiritually Intelligent Leadership. How to inspire by being inspired?
What's the best way?
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Well, the easiest way to remember, given my name is
not the easiest to remember and spell, is to go
to Awakening Spiritual Intelligence dot org. It's a nonprofit and
I host free events, et cetera. From there, you can
get to my book and there's a free assessment tool
that I offer for assessing your spiritual intelligence profile, the
(29:01):
areas of your strengths, the areas of your development opportunities.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
There are lots of other.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Resources, but you know, go to Awakening Spiritual Intelligence dot
org one word and that would be the simple thing.
Or you can go to Awakening SI just short for
Spiritual Intelligence dot org. You're trying it right now, so
hopefully it works.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
We will. We will have that link appear at the
show notes page.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
I think you can also go to yoc dot net,
which is my spooled full spelled name, but you know,
I'll save you the spelling.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Okay, we'll have all those linked up again. Yosie, thanks
so much, awesome love to have you back.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Thank you guys all right, take care,
Welcome to the Trauma THEAPIS podcast. My name is Gamcpherson.
I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
those who have been impacted by trauma. Here we go,
So five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome
back to the podcast. Very excited to happ as my
guest today, Doctor yos amram jos Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Thank you Gray.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
I'm delighted to be with you and enjoying your smile
right now.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I appreciate that. So. Doctor Emrem is a licensed clinical psychologist,
a CEO leadership coach, and a best selling and award
winning author. He's a pioneer researcher in the field of
spiritual intelligence whose research has received over one thousand citations.
As an Amazon best selling author of the book titled
Spiritually Intelligent Leadership, How to Inspire by Being Inspired, which
(00:51):
won the Nautilist' Book Award Gold Medal. Yosi is committed
to awakening greater spiritual intelligence in himself and the world.
All right, you see just a small bit about you
before we could going and share with our listeners where
you're from originally and where you are currently.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Originally from across the Big pond in Israel. I grew
up in Israel, a war torn part of the world,
which is right now going through some horrific situation. But
I grew up and had the I don't know what
to say that, the privilege, the horror of having to
(01:31):
serve in the military, but fortunately it was peaceful time.
So but that was a very impactful period in my
life that led me to the interest in leadership and
then got me to start some companies, etc. But then
I shifted my life and career. Now in the West
coast of California in San Francisco Bay Area near Santa Cruz,
(01:52):
and I'm a psychologist and a therapist in addition to
a leadership coach.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
SOOT talk about the shift and specifically spirituality and how
and when that came into your life and what it means.
How are we defining that?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Okay, great, hopefully I won't take the whole podcast to
but yeah, just going back a little bit. So, I
served in the military. I started as a math and
science nerd kid, but to my we was shy and introverter.
But to my surprise, I won all these military leadership awards,
but the military chafed it. My soul as a command
(02:36):
and control model, which is necessarily and effective in battle,
but not inspiring the best and bringing people to their best.
So that led me to my lifelong dream of building
an organization based on more humanistic principles, which got me
to be the founder and CEO of a couple of
tech companies. I had the good fortune of taking both
(02:57):
of them public, but along the way I was overly
driven and identified with the business, and I got experience
what you might call a dark knight of the soul
or clinically it was more of a depression. But out
of that, through my persistence, et cetera, I had this mystical,
you might say, magical experience of an awakening while receiving
(03:21):
a massage, getting relaxed and so on, and my ego
dissolved and I experienced my interconnected oneness and looking through
the face cradle, I felt like and saw that the
floor was really inside of me. So that dissolved sort
of this normal frame that I look at the world
(03:41):
where we're all separate beings here and there. I'm here,
it's all separate objects, and that kind of blew the
circuits of my mind and threw me into a manic
episode in addition to the spiritual awakening, which led to
my significant trauma because I was the founder, CEO, chairman
of the public company that I started, but I kind
(04:03):
of lost grounding in the midst of it and got
my board to push me out, put me on a
quote unquote voluntary leave of absence they called it. There
was nothing voluntary about it, but I lost my baby,
and that led me to ask the questions what happened?
Why was I so identified with the business, Why did
I burn myself out? What was this experience of awakening?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Was it real? Was a delusion?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
And that got me to go back and get a
PhD in clinical psychology. And then I discovered the term
spiritual intelligence, which I was excited by because I knew
about emotional intelligence and all the benefits that it had,
but nobody really operationally defined what spiritual intelligence is and
how to measure it, which you need to do in
(04:49):
order to study it. So that's the path I set
on to do, and that was my doctoral research and
defining it, looking at what it is, how to measure it,
and then looking at how it contributes the leadership and
a variety of other positive outcomes.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
All right, Hang on a second. So you you just
in a matter of two minutes, covered a whole span
of incredible depth and and and years. So wow, let
me just jump back to being in the military. You
found yourself as a very strong leader, and you mentioned
(05:30):
the word soul. There was soul in there. What what?
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I was chafed at my soul? It's it's a soul
crushing environment.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I see, I see. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, So even though I was good at it, I
didn't like it.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
What did What were you connecting in that role? How
are you connecting in that role as a leader.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
That's a good question.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Uh well, one thing that I learned is the name
orance of both. Looking at the people that I found
the strong leaders that were inspiring, one of the qualities
they had is they had confidence in themselves and in
the people that they lead.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
So they projected this idea that I believe in you.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I believed this, you could do a lot more than
you believe about yourself, and that inspires people to stretch themselves.
So I saw that in my regiment commander. It was
a very I don't remember his name, but his face
is planted in my psyche and his blue eyes he
was a short, medium built man, and so it taught
(06:37):
me one thing, which is the importance of believing in people.
So that that's one aspect. But you know, as I said,
the military, as a commander, you look at people as hardware.
I had to inspect their soul and their socks to
make sure they took their showers, whatever, because people were
(06:58):
so exhausted and.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Stretched, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
But that's dehumanizing, and so I felt that, you know,
there are beautiful aspects of it in terms of believing
in people, creating a sense of camaraderie and where people
you know, you hear stories with soldiers will jump on
a hand grenade that's exploding to protect their their friends,
so there's a real team building and connection. But there's
(07:24):
also soul crushing experiences that are dehumanizing. So all of
that kind of reflecting and massaging all of that in
my psyche led me to want to build an organization
that brings out the best in people as individuals, but
also still connects them in a community with a shared purpose,
which the military is good in installed instilling, because we're
(07:47):
all in this together, our survival depends on it. But
in corporations, you know, you get a lot of politics
and toxicity and egos and so on. So how can
you build an organization that brings out the best in
each individual but still gives them a sense of identity
and belonging as part of a community with a shared
(08:08):
sense of purpose, mission, vision, and values.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So I hope I'm making sense.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
You are you are, And let's kind of segue into
spiritual intelligence and the birth of that in you or
the awakening of that in you. What was resonating for
you about that?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Well, as I said, I had this spiritual awakening experience.
But even though I had this awakening experience, I wasn't
very grounded. I didn't integrate it into my life. So
you know, that created a spiritual opening. But this is
the importance, like to understand the difference between spirituality and
spiritual intelligence, much like there's a difference between emotionality and
(08:55):
emotional intelligence. If I asked you, guy, do you know
people in your life that are emotional? You probably could
think some, but it might not be the best most
complementary description. People that are emotional might be dramatic, they
might be actually dysregulated, etc. But then emotional intelligence came
(09:16):
and bridge this dichotomy between emotion and reason, and we
can use emotions. So what is emotional intelligence is the
ability to draw on emotional information and resources to help
us function better. Now, if you look at the spiritual world,
you have a spiritual person, and that could be a
spiritual belief system, you know, like I believe in God,
(09:39):
I believe in reincarnation of the soul, the eternity of
the soul, whatever those are belief system, and then you
have spiritual experiences. I could be walking in the woods
in the forest and I could feel one with nature,
I'm no longer a separate entity or whatever. That would
be an experience. I could be meditating, my ego dissolves,
I feel the space, someone would everything whatever. Those are experiences.
(10:02):
But what spiritual intelligence is interested in is how can
I then live my life drawing on spiritual qualities and resources.
So that's when I'm in a team meeting, instead of
getting my ego hooked and trying to prove myself right,
I am trying to do what is right. You know,
when I am in a discussion or an argument with
(10:26):
my partner's.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Spouse, the same thing.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
How do I bring empathy and compassion connection forgiveness. When
I'm driving on the freeway, I'm in this metal box
called the car, which tends to make me feel like,
you know, I'm kind of shielded from everybody else, and
I'm in competition on how I get on and off
the freeway. So it's a very isolating and brings out
(10:49):
the worst in people. But you know, if I can
connect into my interconnectedness with all the other drivers on
the road who are also rushing to get home and
rush after work in rush hour whatever, then it comes
my nervous system and I feel connected and less isolated,
and it's more likely to all behave and in more
(11:11):
adaptive ways for me and for the group. So I'm
trying to highlight the difference between a spiritual belief, a
spiritual experience, and spiritual intelligence. So maybe I should still
define more succinctly what I mean by spiritual intelligence, because
I said emotional intelligence is the ability to draw on
(11:32):
emotional resources and information to help functioning and well being.
By analogies, spiritual intelligence is the ability to draw on
and embody spiritual qualities and resources to help functioning and
well being. So I'll pause there. Now you might say, well,
what are those spiritual qualities and resources, and those are
(11:55):
the qualities that are universal across all the world's traditions
for thousands of years, like purpose, service, trust, gratitude, humility, integrity, presence,
and so on. And so these qualities came out as
universal in my interviews with seventy one leaders and teachers
across all the world's traditions, regardless of their cosmology or theology,
(12:19):
whether they believed, you know, that Jesus was the Messiah
or Moses went up to the mountain when the Buddha
was enlightened, or that there is a self there is
no self, whatever it is their.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Cosmology, they believe that these are the virtues.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
These are just okay, just quickly here. So what about
the belief in or the feeling that one is connected
to a higher power? Doesn't I mean, everything you mentioned,
what was it, empathy, humility, et cetera, to me doesn't
(12:57):
describe or define spirituality so much as that unique descriptor
which is that belief in a higher power or universality
or right. Isn't that what many of us think of
when we think of spirituality.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Well, some people think that, but I mean, in the
academic research I've seen and done. About defining spirituality, there
are essentially three themes. So you know, Buddhists are spiritual,
they don't necessarily believe in higher power. They they're agnostic
on that. So what spirituality generally refers to is the
(13:33):
interest in three things is the deepest meaning and dimensions
of life, and connection to the sacred and transcendent dimensions.
Now sacred and transcendent dimensions of life for somebody in
the theistic thing would be you might call higher power,
but in other traditions they might not language it like that.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
But I think where you might have been.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Heading is that, yeah, these qualities are all nice, but
what's unifying to all of them? And so yeah, and
so the point is that these qualities naturally emerge when
we are connected to our essence and the deepest place
in us of who and what we are. So if
I am connected, let's say I believe in a God
(14:21):
or a higher power, whatever you want to call it,
when I'm connected to it, you know, then these qualities
will naturally emerge. You know, I'll feel gratitude, I'll feel humidity,
I'll feel my calling, I'll feel my sense of purpose.
I'm naturally going to be pulled to be of service.
(14:41):
But again that's the difference between spiritual belief. I might
believe in the Higher Power when I go to church
on Sunday and I in that, But then do I
am I connected to that higher power? That essence, when
I'm driving on the frameway or I'm in line in
the supermarket and the person in front of is very slow,
and I get that daily practice and the embodiment of
(15:05):
these qualities.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Right, all right, let me just remind you what I'm
speaking with doctor Yo. See, I'm ram So, so what
is your mission now? What are you how are you
integrating or incorporating this into the work you do?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well, my mission is to awaken spiritual intelligence, first in
myself and in the world. I think, you know our world.
You know, we've done amazing things as humanity with our IQ,
our cognitive intelligence. We landed on the moon, we've split
the atom, we've deciphered the genome. Now we've got AI
that's smarter than many of us, including myself. We've developed
(15:44):
emotional intelligence that helped us.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
You know, be aware and manage our emotions.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
But if you look at the world, it's still pretty
messed up situation, you know, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, addiction,
suicide rates are skyrock a political polarization, environmental devastation, wars,
et cetera. So I think the missing piece is the
piece of spiritual intelligence to complement IQ and EQ emotional
(16:13):
cognitive intelligence and emotional intelligence. So I believe that's what
we need is the understanding of that at all levels,
at leadership and at all levels. So what I'm doing
and how I'm trying to promote spiritual intelligence is through
my work one with leaders. So when I work with
a leader and a corporation, the CEO typically, then as
(16:36):
they develop their spiritual intelligence, then that has a ripple
effect and affects the culture and the whole organization and
through them their employees and when they go home and
et cetera. And I'm affecting it through my research. And
then the other place is through my work with couples.
And I am working right now on a similar research
(16:56):
that I did on leadership with couples to show and
see how spiritual intelligence helps explain relational satisfaction beyond and
above what attachment theory and emotional intelligence can explain.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
So indeed, let's kind of magnify that a little bit,
because I think that would be very interesting for our
audience here. How do you work with couples in that context?
How do you assess for that? What do you do specifically?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Well, you know, there is a framework of you know,
spiritual intelligence. In my model, there's five domain and twenty
two qualities. I mentioned some of them. So let's take
one of them as compassion and you know, so I
do look at a couple through the lens of attachment.
So let's take a couple, you know, I was working
(17:52):
with recently and they were getting disregulated about you know,
one person has a history of growing up in a
family with alcoholic person parents and substance abuse, et cetera.
And then this other person, their partner was leading using
substances like ayahuasca and other things to help people in
(18:17):
their awakening and journey. But as they were looking at
getting mirror and this one person was super triggered by
this idea that this person uses substances, et cetera. And
this other person that is seeing that as her mission
to bring this work into the world, was getting triggered
because she wasn't feeling supportive. So they're trying to negotiate
(18:38):
what this is, but they were getting reactive and triggered.
So one of the things that I worked with them
on is first to help regulate themselves through self compassion.
And you know, a spiritual practice from the Tibetan Buddhist
tradition called Tong Glynn of compassion where you take in
(19:01):
the person in front of you suffering, bringing it into
your heart and send out kindness and love. So as
they did that between them, they understood that first of all,
that they're both suffering in this difficulty. So first they
had to regulate their nervous system, find their centeredness, and
a self compassion practice can be helpful in that, and
(19:23):
a cocompassion practice as a couple, which then opens their heart,
and then they could really look at the specifics of
what their disagreements are and negotiate the boundaries of what
would be an acceptable way for them to navigate through
these different views. So that's an example of a quality
(19:44):
of compassion that I consider part of spiritual intelligence that
comes in so into a couple.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
What I liked about that was finding that one of
those common denominators of compassion, and I think we all
can agree, or many of us hopefully can agree of
the profundity of having compassion not just for ourselves but
for the person sitting in front of us, right, and
(20:13):
of course that's not always easy to do. I could
imagine that that couple getting into the spirited you know,
push and pull about who who's right and who's wrong,
and you're getting in there and kind of finding that foundation.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Them, helping them regulate themselves and threaten to each other.
They're shared humanity and they understand that they're both suffering, so,
you know, and related to that is shared forgiveness. I mean,
that's so important. Like in couple's work is like you
did this and we hold resentment. So another spiritual quality
virtue you might call this forgiveness and you know, so
(20:57):
that would be another thing that becomes hugely important.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Or presence.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
You know, so many of us are so distracted these
days and so much as tugging in our attention, so
we go out on dates with our partners or whatever,
and we're looking at our phone, we're thinking about different things.
So practicing learning to be present and manage our attention
(21:21):
and intention when we are with our partners. So that's
a spiritual intelligence capacity is our capacity for presence.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
It feels and correct me if I'm wrong here, but
it feels like the world in which we're living right now,
and you kind of touch upon this is doing the
antithesis of this is pulling us away from these principles
of spiritual intelligence, and we have to like, it's like
(21:52):
we're being pulled by this undertow and have to get
back to the groundedness of the shore of compassion and presence.
Why is that so challenging for many of us?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Yes, because we have social media, we have texts, we
have so much, we have an inner vacuum. We live
in a society and a culture that teaches us that,
you know, you get yourself worth through the toys you
have or whatever, and the fame and glory and how
many likes you have on social media and and all
(22:27):
these things which are really trying to fill the inner
hole that we have in our soul. And we we
we stuff it with substances and alcohol and and social
media and money and toys and luxury and whatever. And
that's part of our consumerist you know mindset that that
(22:53):
that we grow up in. But you know, face it,
you know, twelve to eighteen month old babies pre verbal
experienced shame. You know, when our primary caretaker, you know,
simply turns away from us. You know, our mother, whoever
(23:14):
it is, might have something on the stove burning, or
someone knocks on the door, and.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
They get up, they leave the baby.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
And for a moment they were like in eye contact
and this dual unity, shared connection, and all of a sudden,
the mom gets up and leaves. Now the baby has
no model to know what's going on. But if you
look at their physiology, often they assume the reason she
left is because they're not good enough or there's the
problems with them. So we grow up with this thing
(23:43):
that's deep in our soul, is this sense of shame, inadequacy.
I'm not enough, I'm not lovable. And then we build
our lives. And that's what the ego is trying to do,
is to make us feel good about ourselves. So if
I make enough money, if I have enough sex with
enough people, or if I have you know, such and
(24:04):
such a career, I achieve fame and glory and social
thing that will make me feel good about who I
am and will compensate for this deep deficiency, that this
this hole.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
In my soul.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
And so we have that you know, deep within us,
and that's what the ego forms around. And then we
have society that's leveraging that through advertising and text messages
and social media that's trying to make us deal with
that sense of inner deficiency and lack. And so we're
(24:40):
prone for all these addictions that take us away from
but you know, we can't fill that home without going
into it with consciously and then and then we discover
our inherent beauty and radiance.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
And that's that's what I want to ask. She's me
for interrupting here in the time we have left here
as we kind of wind own, how do we reconnect?
Give us some ideas of what we can do to
allow ourselves to tap into our own spirituality spiritual intelligence
(25:22):
in that sense.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Well, we need to connect with our life force energy,
which is you know, our breath of life. Spirit comes
from Latin, the animating breath of life. So I'm just simplified.
But you know that may not be practical for many people.
For most people, what might be a better entry point
is start a gratitude practice every day.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
We know that that helps you know, you.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Go through your day, you think about what you could appreciate,
you could share that appreciation with others, et cetera. It
makes you feel connected.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
You know.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
The other thing is recognizing that each and every one
of us receives this amazing gift called life. You know,
none of us did anything to earn it. But in
addition to the gift of life, we got all these
other gifts, which is our talents, superpowers and zone of genius.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
And for each person it's unique.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
It could be you know, you seem like a good, engaged,
curious listener and that's one of your gifts, as I
feel it in this moment. And so that comes to
expression and being a good podcast interviewer.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
You know, someone else is.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Good and there's zone of genius as math and whatever
in science, and they become a programmer. Someone else is
their sense of humor and their comedian, and someone else
is writing, etc. So we want to ask life, what
has life given me as my gifts?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
And then.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Because when we actualize those gifts, we feel most fulfilled
and those are the domains we're naturally gonna be good
at and we're going to feel a sense of mastery.
And then's how we can contribute. So when you give
a friend a gift for their birthday. If you find
out a month later they never opened it and never
(27:07):
use it, it's like you're disappointed. So life kind of
gave each of us a gift, the gift of life
and all these things. It's like inviting us. Hey, I'm
giving you this package of talents. Please use them to
enhance life. So unpack your gift and use it. And
so that helps us find our calling, our sense of purpose.
(27:29):
So that would be another practice, you know, so we
can keep going on. I mean, there's these twenty two qualities.
But you know, you can't just say, Okay.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I want to be healthy. What do I do? Do
I just read a.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Book about physical fitness. Do I read a book about
nutrition and diet? Do I read a book about high
quality sleep?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Now? I gotta exercise.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
I gotta whether it's going to the gym or hiking
in nature, or whether it's you know, figuring out a
diet that is healthy from my constitution and my body.
And I don't just do it for a week. I mean,
I can go on a diet for a week a
month lose weight. I'm like, okay, I'm good, and I
can go back to eating junk food and candy and.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
To practice life practice.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
It's a lifelong thing. It's rewiring our brain.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah yeah, all right, you'll see how do people reach
reach you learn more about you, learn more about your
book again, Spiritually Intelligent Leadership. How to inspire by being inspired?
What's the best way?
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Well, the easiest way to remember, given my name is
not the easiest to remember and spell, is to go
to Awakening Spiritual Intelligence dot org. It's a nonprofit and
I host free events, et cetera. From there, you can
get to my book and there's a free assessment tool
that I offer for assessing your spiritual intelligence profile, the
(29:01):
areas of your strengths, the areas of your development opportunities.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
There are lots of other.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Resources, but you know, go to Awakening Spiritual Intelligence dot
org one word and that would be the simple thing.
Or you can go to Awakening SI just short for
Spiritual Intelligence dot org. You're trying it right now, so
hopefully it works.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
We will. We will have that link appear at the
show notes page.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
I think you can also go to yoc dot net,
which is my spooled full spelled name, but you know,
I'll save you the spelling.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Okay, we'll have all those linked up again. Yosie, thanks
so much, awesome love to have you back.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Thank you guys all right, take care,
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