Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Inspire Club EP #25 -Gideon Pridor
10 Plays2 years ago
In this episode we talk with Gideon Pridor, Chief Marketing Officer at Workvivo.
Gideon Pridor is Workvivo’s interim CMO and chief storyteller. Gideon is a veteran marketing leader with a track record of growing disruptive startups into global leaders, that redefine their markets. Before Workvivo (and a well-deserved sabbatical) Gideon was VP Marketing at TravelPerk, One of the world’s fastest-growing SaaS companies, Perfecto (acquired by Perforce), and others.
Gideon is a frequent speaker at industry events, an HRtech enthusiast, and a startup mentor helping companies build their story and tell it to the world.
We hope you enjoy it.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, hello, welcome back to the latest episode of our podcast, The Inspire Club, brought to you from inspiring workplaces.
00:00:09
Speaker
It's me again, your host Ruth Dance, and I'm here in the south of England today in the middle of Storm Eunice that is battering the UK. So if you hear gusts of wind and maybe bins flying around and trees coming down in the street, that's exactly what's going on here around me today. I'm really excited for today's guest who is not in the middle of Storm Eunice in the UK. Today's guest is joining us from Barcelona in Spain.
00:00:37
Speaker
And he is going to be talking to us all about his experiences, his background, his travel, there may be some elements of travel in there, and what he's doing as a chief marketing officer. So I'm delighted to introduce today's guest, Gideon Preidor, his friends, and we are one of his friends. We all call him Gideon.
What is WorkVivo?
00:01:00
Speaker
So Gideon Preidor is a chief marketing officer at WorkVivo, and WorkVivo is an incredible employee experience.
00:01:06
Speaker
platform and app that is used by more than half a million people all over the world right now. I'm sure, Giddy, you can tell us a little bit more about what work Thievo do and a bit of you use it, but welcome. Hello. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm in Barcelona. We don't have any flying bins problem over here.
00:01:25
Speaker
Hey, that's great. Nothing flying around over there. I bet it's beautiful sunshine, is it? Sort of. Here, if it has a little bit of a drizzle, we freak out, you know? But that's a different reality. Anne, Giddy, you've not always been based in Barcelona, have you? No, no. I'm originally from Israel, where I spent most of my life. After that, I lived in Boston for a few years with Perfecto, a startup that I was working in.
00:01:54
Speaker
And from there, about eight years ago, we moved to Europe. And since then, we're here in Barcelona. My wife told me she's from here. She told me in Boston that she is delighted to move to Europe. But if we're going to another place where Celsius meets Fahrenheit at minus 30, then this is becoming a long distance relationship. So we find ourselves in sunny Barcelona.
00:02:16
Speaker
It's either we stay in Barcelona in a long distance relationship or... Exactly. Well, that does sound quite enticing. When I'm sat here in the middle of Storm Eunice right now in England, I'd much rather be over in Barcelona. Amazing. So talk to us a little bit about how you've ended up with Work Vivo, Giddy. And I know you've traveled a lot and you've involved in so many things. So how did you end up with Work Vivo and exactly what do Work Vivo do?
Post-COVID Workplace Challenges
00:02:44
Speaker
So I'll start with the second question, if that's all right. As you said WorkVivo, we like to call ourselves an employee experience app, which is very timely. It's a platform that is designed, is built to connect people, employees in the workplace on an emotional level, wherever they work from, at home, in the office, in between, or
00:03:08
Speaker
in the front line, you know, the people that have historically been sort of disconnected to companies' culture and vibes just doing their jobs.
00:03:17
Speaker
Now post COVID, the workplace has changed in the most radical way compared to anything that we've seen in the past. And this meaningfully connecting people, when you read the stats about a huge rate resignation, 60% according to work, we roll survey wanting to leave their jobs. It has to do with the core of this is lack of emotional connection. We all sort of became zoom zombies and suddenly felt a lot of the types of inter-human
00:03:44
Speaker
communications that we had in an office environment that got completely lost. And this is what's driving this great reset or great resignation. WorkVivo is a platform designed to solve that and act as a center of gravity for everything that has to do with employee communications.
00:04:01
Speaker
So it doesn't replace the likes of Slack or Teams, it connects to them, but it lets you adopt a way of communication that's much less hyperactive. We do too much Slack, too much email, and it gives you more of like an asynchronous place of communication where people could give each other recognition like, hey,
00:04:20
Speaker
good job, job well done, or happy birthday, or I'm posting something and I'm automatically connecting it to a company value, or a company goal, or the company purpose, or I can introduce a new employee and you can meet people online. In this reality, some people joined a new workplace a year ago and have never met a living soul. Since COVID, it became so critical all of a sudden that it really runs the gamut from
00:04:48
Speaker
customers like some of the biggest Fortune 500 brands in the world to startups that use it in order to connect everyone. Yeah, and so timely, like you say, that
00:05:01
Speaker
need for human connection was critical pre-COVID but the highlighted need and the effects it's having on us by not being able to have that and like you say that true connection, meaningful connection with each other and with the company, not just comms.
Growth and Cultural Shifts at WorkVivo
00:05:21
Speaker
Yeah, super, super timely. Have you seen quite a big uptake? Sure. Yeah, we've been growing over 100% year on year and the pace keeps picking up. The reason is that COVID pushed companies up the maturity curve or if you want a better way to think about it off a cliff and everybody needs to build their airplane on the way down because
00:05:47
Speaker
It's here. The future of work became the present of work. It's here. We are already hybrid. It's not like a McKinsey and like a Gallup talking about the future of work 15 years from now. It's here. It's now. And it's not working. It's not working. People are depressed. They are not happy. And I read this amazing article and the author called it, not the great resignation, but the great awakening because there is no going back.
00:06:13
Speaker
People don't want to go back to what it was, it's an awakening. And suddenly, it's a new reality. Companies, leaders that are bold enough in order to cross the chasm and take the leap towards something else, we call it open communications, giving you a vote, letting you participate, letting you be a part. If you're bold enough to do that and allow your employees to have a seat at the table,
00:06:36
Speaker
You have a chance of making the digital first office far greater than before, have the frontline employees connected, radically reduce employee turnover, which is the number one business cost in the world. But the ones are just expected to sort of work, pass. This is just a phase. They're in for a big surprise.
00:06:57
Speaker
you know, the redistribution of human sort of capital. And the leaders that don't get this are going to see, they're going to pass what, you know, you can think about what happened to companies like Kodak that didn't embrace, you know, the tech revolution. That's what's going to happen to these companies. Yeah.
00:07:18
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I love that analogy that you've been pushed off a cliff. There's no going back down that cliff. You need to build your plane on the way back down. And yeah, absolutely. I hear so many organisations talking about just people in life, actually, just talking about, oh, we're getting back to normal. But we're getting back now. We're starting to go back to how it was, or it seems like it might all nearly be over now.
00:07:43
Speaker
That's not true. There's no going back. There's no over. This is new and embrace it. This is so different and amazing advice. Be bold and be brave and you'll see the results, but sit comfortably and you're in for a shock.
00:08:00
Speaker
Some really great nuggets of advice in there, Giddy, and super inspired me on this early morning here in the UK. And then my next question, I guess, was how did you end up rework Vivo?
Gideon's Career Journey to WorkVivo
00:08:15
Speaker
So I've been building and leading marketing teams for forever, mainly B2B, software as a service. The previous company I've been with, Travel Perk, a global company based out of Barcelona, one of the two biggest disruptors in business travel, huge trillion and a half dollar industry. It was a great journey. We were there for three years. We were the fastest SaaS company in Europe for three years consecutive.
00:08:42
Speaker
And I joined when we were like 20 people. After three years, we were like 850. So I left right before COVID and sold a part of my equity as well, which sort of gave me the opportunity to think about stuff differently and chase what I want after working very hard for a long time. And I understood it's part of the, one of your random advice that I got once from a guy on a plane, by the way,
00:09:11
Speaker
that I invested most of my career, like most people, investing 80% of your time and 20% of what you're good at. And I want to reverse that. I want to spend the rest of my life spending 80% of my time on the 20% that I'm exceptional at.
00:09:27
Speaker
And I started to sit at some boards and advisory boards on an advisory level with some companies early stage, the stage that I like. I became an agent investor myself and invested in about 10 to 12 companies and early stage we see. I like the early stages a lot. There is a lot of storytelling to be done there and storytelling is the heart of what I do and what I like the best.
00:09:50
Speaker
And I joined Work Hero originally as an advisor, but then it was sort of like a match made in heaven because A, I really, really subscribed to the mission of that company. I saw it firsthand and this emotional connection, emotional commitment needs to be built and be empowered by technology. And this company really, really has it right.
00:10:11
Speaker
And B, the culture that goes top down from the founders to the rest of the company is unique. I've worked for a lot of companies. This is rare, like a bunch of people that love each other, love the purpose, love working with each other and keep surprising each other with great results that come out of alignment.
00:10:29
Speaker
you know, and lack of like ego. And I really fell in love with that. So it grew me in. And one thing led to another, the company started to grow significantly. And I found myself in there managing an amazing marketing team and enjoying every moment of it.
00:10:47
Speaker
Wow, that is just amazing. The word love came up quite a few times then, I noticed. Do what you love, work with people that you love, and love the purpose, love the culture and feel connected. It's really inspiring how you flip that 80-20 rule.
00:11:06
Speaker
and are now doing something that you absolutely love. And it's also super inspiring to hear WorkVivo, you know, practicing what they preach in, practicing what they see in other organizations, but doing it so well internally and that non-hierarchical approach that just inspires everyone. Wow, sounds like a super exciting
00:11:28
Speaker
place to be. Before I can't remember any questions and really start to dig deep and get to know you, Giddy, my first, my first, or sorry, not my first, but my most crucial question of Inspire Club, and it's our only rule of Inspire Club, is can you share a story with us of someone in your life, ideally in the world of work, who has inspired you and why did they inspire you?
00:11:58
Speaker
So I'm going to break your rule, but then I'm going to abide it. Okay. So go on outside, outside of the, that's what I do. I break rules outside, outside of my, uh, you know, uh, work, then, uh, it's a cliche, but I have to mention my mom because she's an exceptional person. She was the best exec now she's retired, but she used to be the best executive, the best manager that I've ever seen in my life. Somebody that manages a huge, huge, huge, uh,
00:12:27
Speaker
organization related to tech in the Israeli government. And everybody used to admire her, but she always used to know how to keep the balance between life and work in an amazing way. Be very clear with her people and her people adore her until this day and come for advice. She's 81 today. She's still added some boards and stuff like that. She taught me a lot about the balance between being a person
00:12:53
Speaker
Being career oriented and the importance of like combining not Separating completely your life and your work liking the people that you work with I took a lot from that So she's exceptional and one thing she taught me is to never lie We always use petty lies in our lives like oh, yeah, there was a lot of traffic She never lies like nothing and it's hard practiced for a week not saying one why is very hard But when you sort of like get over the addiction, it's like coffee and you start only saying truth
00:13:23
Speaker
then it's a very liberating feeling. As a marketer, it makes you a better marketer. People laugh and say, you're marketing, you're lying all the time. And I tell them, you don't get it. The easiest type of marketing is to lie. I can invent everything. The hardest and the best part of marketing is always telling the truth in the most accurate way to the audience listening. Never lie. So I took a lot from her.
00:13:49
Speaker
And if I have to choose, and work-wise as well, she was just an amazing, amazing executive. And if I have to mention somebody, and I really encourage you to invite him to the podcast, it's my ex-colleague and actually boss, eventually, in Travelberg. His name is JC, but he has a really long French name, Jean-Christophe Tounai-Boucalot.
00:14:15
Speaker
And he's the chief revenue officer at WorkVivo. We started as peers, me as a big marketing and him as a VP sales, and he became my boss. You could think that would be involving ego and all that, but it didn't at all. I really thought he deserves it and admired him from day one.
00:14:35
Speaker
He's a genius, he was almost a professional chess player, but he's a great combination between a guy that taught me a lot about the importance of being operational and not just giving ideas. I always have too many ideas. So always seeing the route to execute something and not just go from idea to idea. And combining that with a lot of empathy and ability to manage and motivate human beings, and a lot of people like him usually don't have that,
00:15:04
Speaker
I found that very inspiring, and I think that he made me a much better marketer, a much better executive in this sense, and he's also a dear friend. Oh, wow. JC, it's so inspiring to hear that you're so right that often people who are geniuses, like you say, are very operational thinkers, it doesn't come naturally to then think about working in an empathetic way as well.
00:15:33
Speaker
or you'll be maybe much more of an empathy led or people, decision led person and maybe lack in the operational area or not be as strong there. So yeah, that's, I'm gonna, JC, we're coming for you. We're coming for you for an episode of Inspire Club. Thanks for that, Giddy, and your mum.
00:15:52
Speaker
I mean, let's not separate work and life. Let's find a way to combine them and do what you love and to execute that so well and never lie. I'm going to make a real conscious effort today to spot
Values and Leadership in Marketing
00:16:07
Speaker
if I'm making any lies. I mean, surely we don't, right? I think I don't, but we probably do. I've actually seen it quite a lot in some really successful
00:16:20
Speaker
marketing campaigns, particularly ones that are going, let's say, viral across social media platforms and that people are starting to talk about more. They're where companies have messed up and they've told the truth and they've said, like, we messed up or we didn't do this right. And I'm starting to see some really successful organizations raise their profiles by now being completely honest and winning over the hearts and minds of their audiences.
00:16:50
Speaker
And the subjective, completely, truly authentic, transparent leadership, it's been such a prominent subject over the last year that we've been talking about. And I think that's really difficult for leaders to always get right. So we're learning a lot from your mom, Giddy. What's her name? Rina. Rina, we're learning so much from you.
00:17:17
Speaker
Thank you, Rina, for inspiring Giddy and therefore inspiring us and all of our listeners today. What now is your why? What drives you on a daily basis? Today what drives me is, and I'm really proud to say it because you have to believe me at this stage, it's true, it's not a lie. So I like
00:17:44
Speaker
always liked coaching and mentoring people. Ever since I was a little boy, that's the role that I play in all of my friends and, you know, my family's lives. I always felt they hadn't been bringing that enough to work. Because what used to drive me is what drives most people, fear or advancing to the next stage of the career, FOMO, you know, and
00:18:08
Speaker
I'm really far from that today, and what drives me is helping my people, my team, be the best versions of themselves. I know it sounds very corny, I admit that, but I really find this to be completely in harmony with achieving the business goals. The team that we have in WorkVivo and marketing is
00:18:31
Speaker
It's really, it's unreal. It's like five or six people now that do the compete with teams of like 30 and do amazing things. We have this event, Vivo Wire in two weeks to Google it. It's amazing. Speakers, Slack from all over the world. They did that. They actually started that as an initiative before I even knew about it, right? They're amazing. Now, my role there is to do what I like and help them
00:19:00
Speaker
find what they like, define their career path, chime in with my experience and get to their 20% where they spend 80% of their time. I want them to get the stuff that I feel I didn't have for the vast majority of my career trying to chase, you know, to fight windmills and chase like goals that sort of like society has put there for you.
00:19:24
Speaker
What I find is that when they do what they do well with confidence, not trying to fake everything else, then greatness, greatness happens. And we have this value in the company, like the Nirvana song, it's called, uh, come as you are. It's basically means that it basically means that if you're amazing at PR and it takes you 10 hours to do a report in Google analytics, and it takes my growth guy 20 minutes to do it, let the growth guy do it. Do PR, you know? So.
00:19:52
Speaker
I'm trying to like, that's what drives me today, helping them, you know, find their place. And a lot of the younger people need a lot of that, like a lot of that advice. And that fills me as well, because I really like that. So, and the reward is a much better team that feels trusted and keeps surprising me all the time. Oh, I love that. I love this. I just love this. Come as you are, be who you are and watch the results happen.
00:20:21
Speaker
You also need to hire the right people, right? Because if you just like, it's not, you're not like, you know, it can be just like, you know, all the lovey-dovey, you know, you need to like hire the right people. So you need to know what you need as well. If I need somebody to do performance marketing and I get somebody that is a great storyteller, but can't run a campaign, then I made a mistake in hiring. So I need to be very clear about what I'm looking for. What is the team now?
00:20:49
Speaker
where they need to get to, what is our culture, how do we roll together and then hire the right people in order to keep our mojo alive and have the luxury to allow these people to be and come as they are and help them, help keep them on that route, help them define these career goals for themselves so they could chime on my experience, they could rely on my experience and trust me, you know.
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah.
WorkVivo's Expansion and Future Goals
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah. I'm sure so many listeners right now are thinking, I really want to go and work for Giddy. I really want to go and work in WorkViva. That sounds like a- So we have like, we have a lot of open positions, like a hundred. So yeah. So like go to the WorkViva website or LinkedIn profile and just like apply. Amazing company. Yeah. And that's it. Recruit the right people and create the space for people to be who they are. Amazing, amazing, amazing. What do you think is,
00:21:41
Speaker
We talked a little bit about the articles around the Great Great Resignation and the new world that we're in now and how the future of work is here. What do you think is the number one workplace priority right now? I really honestly think that the right
00:22:02
Speaker
Technically speaking, you know, for your CIO listeners, it's moving from office first to digital first workplace. Meaning you used to have the anchor, you know, in the office and you don't. So even if you're a hybrid, people are working from different places, different models, you need to go digital first. And that means a lot of things from a technology stack, you know, point of view, a cultural point of view. And if you're talking to a chief people's officer or CEO,
00:22:29
Speaker
in this sense, then it's what I said before. The biggest challenge is finding the right ways to emotionally connect people and foster that emotional commitment and bring company culture to life in a digital first environment. So people are not just like sort of like mercenaries. You know, they say it's changing a job today is as easy as changing your Zoom account.
00:22:59
Speaker
So, uh, so, so in order to make that happen, uh, people company have been really caught off guard and they know, you know, read any CEO biography in history, it's all about the team, the culture, you know, it always comes to this. So you could give people free access to a meditation app or perks or send them gifts, uh, home, but it's really cute, but these are just bandits. It's an Advil. It's a painkiller.
00:23:29
Speaker
The core is emotional commitment, sense of belonging, feeling a part of something, knowing where the company is going and feeling listened to and included.
Tech and Leadership in Remote Work
00:23:41
Speaker
How to give that? That's a combination of the right stack. Conversations happen online and people can actually engage, allowing people to engage and not just be told what to do, like share, post your own content, connect to people online.
00:23:59
Speaker
Uh, and yeah, and that's, I think the biggest, biggest shift, the biggest, biggest challenge right now to work with you is helping. It doesn't solve this. We're just a vehicle. You need to have, first of all, the commitment to do this, the right leaders in order to foster that culture of recognition and so forth and the technology in order to let people, uh, give people the opportunity to have that level of conversation of communication online.
00:24:26
Speaker
without giving an advantage to people that actually physically go to the office. Yeah. Yeah. You're so right. I've worked in organizations where the offices were incredible, you know, like 360 degree views across the whole of London, the most amazing facilities, but actually the companies where I've been so strongly aligned and felt the most motivated and the most at home were
00:24:51
Speaker
I mean, the actual physical office environment was like, meh. But the culture and how I felt a part of a team and at home and I could completely be myself and I felt empowered was completely different. Yeah. Yeah. And there are lots of organizations that are desperately scrambling around right now to
00:25:14
Speaker
entice people back into this physical workspace and spend money on it so that people will come back. But your advice is so true. You can do that. But unless you've got the right technology and the right culture and the right mindsets, what's the point in having a fresh, squeaky, clean, sparkly office? Look, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that remote would work for everyone. And that's it.
00:25:41
Speaker
Hybrid is like a big code name for, we have no freaking clue. So it's going to, some companies have to be physically working together in an office. Some would be completely remote and a lot of them would find themselves somewhere in the middle giving flexibility or defined rules. It all depends. If somebody is a technician that needs to fix your intranet, he has to physically go to your house.
00:26:07
Speaker
But if somebody sells in a store, he needs to go to the store. But all I'm saying is that there is more than one way and people's expectations have changed forever, meaning they do expect all these things that we didn't have to give them before. And the companies that will prevail are the companies that are able to give that extra level of belonging and motivation and engagement.
00:26:30
Speaker
And in order to do that, you need to find more than just a physical way, which is an office where a lot of good things like this happen, you know, social circles and stuff like that. And we can't explain most of them because it's like inter human, you know, an inter human, like a sort of like a mix that is happening in an office.
Inclusion of Frontline Workers
00:26:48
Speaker
When you don't have that, you can't just wait for it to like, sort of like happen, you know, it's something that you need to give, you need to create the right environment digitally in order for these things to happen.
00:26:59
Speaker
And for people that have always been out of the office, 70% of the workers are frontline in the mine, in the retail store, in the hotel. Now today, they also want to be a part of it. They want to feel a part of it. And you have a historic opportunity right now to give it to them and not to lose 10 to 20% of them in attrition every year. Yeah.
00:27:22
Speaker
Yeah, which will have huge impact on the business. We talked a lot about your mum and about JC and about you as a leader of teams and of people. And we've touched on the role of a leader a few times here. What do you think is the most important quality in a leader? So I would say that the first one is
00:27:50
Speaker
actually inspiration, meaning a lot of people have a lot of human qualities. I was really wanting to put like empathy first or something like that, but like they're not leaders and not everybody's born to be a leader and that's fine. Like we're in a world, you know, like the American culture, you have to be a manager of as many people as possible. I talked to some like people on my teams that are like 21 and they're already showing me their route to becoming a CMO at 30, you know.
00:28:17
Speaker
It's a, you don't know, like not everybody needs to be a manager or a leader, but in order to be a leader, you need to be a leader. And I think you need to have inspiring qualities. You need to have a clear vision and be able to reflect it so it's contagious, so people follow it, targets, values, and be clear enough about them so people could feel them and like follow you.
00:28:44
Speaker
That's very important and there are different kinds of people that are inspiring in different ways. Some of them are just very clear and always have answers. Some of them have stories and energies and people follow them there. They have to be people that people follow. Second thing I would put there and I talked about it when I talked about my mom, NJC, is clarity. Meaning people appreciate leaders that are clear about what they want or what good looks like.
00:29:14
Speaker
and don't confuse them too much. And the third one is human, humanity and empathy and ability to form real relationships and help people become the best version of themselves. Because like, if you get to that point, then your people will truly follow you forever and do everything for you and with you. This will be my three. Oh, beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you, Kitty.
00:29:43
Speaker
be inspiring so that people will follow you, be clear so people understand and be human so that people can be themselves, be their true selves. Wow, you said it much better than me. No, you said it. I just summarized. Your summary was so much better than mine. I like it. We'll have that up in light somewhere. We'll get that on a poster. No, but really, really, really, really,
00:30:09
Speaker
inspirational qualities in a leader. And I know that they're coming from the lessons that you've learned and the stories that you've told of your experiences. And you've made that shift to now do what you love with people that you love. You've made that conscious shift and you've been able to do that. So you now being able to relay what you see are these really important qualities in a leader is super valuable for us and for anyone listening right now.
00:30:34
Speaker
You seem pretty happy in what you're doing, but if I said for one day you could swap jobs with anyone in the world, what would you do for a day?
Personal Aspirations and Humor
00:30:44
Speaker
I'd say jobs with like Michael Chair or like Colin Jost, like writers of Saturday Night Live. Wow, why? I love it. I love like, yeah, I love like writing and I love like
00:31:00
Speaker
Comedy, I'm a very funny person. So I always wanted to be a writer for one of these shows and create satire and stuff. I'd definitely do that.
00:31:12
Speaker
And I don't have a name in mind, but I definitely like change jobs for a while, not necessarily just a day with like some kind of like a coach or mentor that like specializes with children at risk. I always love children and have a special connection with them.
00:31:31
Speaker
That, combining with my love for mentorship and coaching, would make me very happy. I still have it on my bucket list to actually do that on a voluntary basis, probably at some point. But if I could change jobs and go work a week in one of these places, helping children, becoming the better versions of themselves, be less confused, feel better about themselves, I'd definitely do that.
00:31:54
Speaker
Amazing. We have children exactly the same age, don't we? No, no, no, no. You have twins. That's like much worse. I got a bonus one on the second time around. We have a five-year-old and two-year-olds. I'm learning every day by being around them as well. I never really truly understood how a two-year-old could teach me so much about life and watching how they're now
00:32:23
Speaker
viewing the world and learning about the world and forming connections is teaching me so much that I'm now going back and reflecting on how I communicate and learn and everything in the world. Such an interesting... You know how you, like most of us in life, are struggling with knowing what we want. Simple questions like, what makes me feel good? What do I feel like? What do I want? And it's so ridiculous because you look at these two-year-olds or five-year-olds and it's so clear to them.
00:32:52
Speaker
When my first son, he's five now, when I see him until this day, knowing with vigor what he wants, feels it. No, I don't want this and this and this. I want that, right? I find myself, I'm a sensitive guy. I find myself with tears, because I find it very emotional for myself.
00:33:14
Speaker
to see how well, how strongly, how naturally he feels, what he likes and what he wants. And I'm like, shit, I just don't want to ruin that. That's my only role as a dad. Don't screw that. Don't, don't, don't like, you know, I'm sure I will at some point, but like, yeah, I find that very beautiful with kids that they just know what they want, you know?
00:33:36
Speaker
Yeah, my twins just turned two, so they're just learning to talk at the moment, and one of them doesn't speak as much as the other one, and he so knows exactly what he wants at any moment of the day, but he hasn't yet got the language to give me those exact words, and it's a really difficult conversation between the two of us. He's like, mum, try and communicate with me so strongly about what he wants, even down to the wrong color berries on the plate or something.
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah, and again, I think we could learn so much from that. Like, you know what you want and you go after that and you keep going and you work hard, even if it involves screaming at your mother. But at some point, we, like you said, we kind of unlearn these things from childhood and, oh, I'm not sure what I want. I don't know how to communicate that with people. And yeah, again, so many lessons, so many lessons and I could talk about,
00:34:29
Speaker
a life with two-year-olds with you forever, but we will spare our listeners that for now. I'm going to change this up and we're going to go into our quick fire round now, Giddy. So these are the quick answers. If you were a teacher, what would you teach? History. Wow. And are you an early bird or a night owl? Very early bird. I'm like useless at night. That might have something to do with having young children, right, as well? Yeah.
00:34:58
Speaker
Um, right. Music. Is there a song that when you, when you put it on, it really fires you up and inspires you? Well, yeah, but like I have a bunch of them, but they're all like most of them are in Hebrew. Okay. Yeah. That's okay. If it inspires you, I'm sure it will inspire us. Yeah. So, um, and in English, then I listened to Eddie better a lot. Okay.
00:35:27
Speaker
into the wild, you know, soundtrack. It's, I find it super inspiring. And lately I discovered his daughter, Olivia Vedder, I think. Olivia? I don't know. Yeah, but anyways, so really, she only I think has like a few songs out, but really amazing as well. Is there a particular song? Have No Fear. Okay. By Olivia. No, by Eddie. By Eddie.
00:35:55
Speaker
Right, we'll be adding that one to the Inspire Club Spotify playlist, also available on other platforms. Okay, what about household chores? Do you love them? Do you hate them? Depending. I like the ones that give me like a little bit of time to be with myself, you know, when you have kids, then you're missing this like alone time. I freaking hate
00:36:20
Speaker
You know what I hate the most is when you have like food leftovers and you need to put them in the Tupperware and all that and like put them in the fridge. I hate that. If she's not looking, I'd take everything and throw it. I hate that. Oh, that's the same in our house. My husband absolutely hates the Tupperware, mainly because he'll end up having a fight in the Tupperware cupboard with the Tupperware because there's no lid. I'm this close to taking all of the old ones that don't have their like, you know, their lid and just throwing all of them.
00:36:51
Speaker
But like, yeah, but she hates doing the bath for the kids and, you know, all the screaming and the towels and the pajamas. And I love that part. So like, we're... Oh, you sound like a match made in heaven. Tupperware and bath time. Yeah, that and I always do what she tells me. Okay, that's also a match made in heaven. Is there something you've done in your life, Giddy, that you would never do again?
00:37:17
Speaker
the something that I've done in my life that I'd never do again, I would. I would never start anything, anything again that I don't feel that I really want to do. I spent like, I don't know, four years studying. I remember traveling for a year and a half in South America in your, after the army in Israel, you do the army. I was like five years in the army. So it's mandatory and I stayed for a little bit more. And then you, you,
00:37:47
Speaker
I traveled for a long time in the world with a backpack. And I didn't know what I wanted to study. It was already late and all that. And I ended up studying management and economics. It was like a prestigious course. And the University of Tel Aviv was the number one university in Israel. Very hard to get accepted to, so I felt proud and in retrospective. And I finished it with really great notes, meaning I actually put effort into it.
00:38:15
Speaker
It looks like such a freaking waste of time to me today. I didn't learn anything, anything except for one thing, which is what I don't want to do when I grow up, which is also something. But it's like, why did I go there? Because it was one of the most general things, economics, management. Today I'm thinking about it. What a stupid thing to learn. Management is a first degree. I mean, you didn't even work before. So like, what are you talking about? It's stupid.
00:38:40
Speaker
But I did it because I had to go to university, I had to do this, I had to get accepted to something good. Waste of time. I like so many things. I have so many passions. I like psychology and I like history and I like teaching. Why wouldn't I give myself the gift of learning something like that for four years? I'd never start anything that I think that I just have to do.
00:39:07
Speaker
that a job that I think is a good choice, a good career choice, I do stuff that I feel a strong instinct about doing.
00:39:16
Speaker
Pat, you know, that's an incredible life lesson for you, but also incredible advice for all of us. Do what you love, not what you think you should. We don't know, but if you don't know, then it doesn't mean that you just have in big stuff like this. It doesn't mean that you just have to make a choice and do something that you feel nothing
Final Thoughts on Passion and Career
00:39:35
Speaker
about. Take some more time, take a job, and then think next semester about school. I talked to one girl that used to work on my team,
00:39:44
Speaker
And she was like 21 and she was so stressed about like, oh my God, if I take a few months off now, I already won't make it to like that semester. And then this would happen. And the whole plan of becoming CMO when you're 35 or 30, it's like, you know, you're derailing it.
00:40:02
Speaker
Like wow, you don't even know yourself. You're 21. Give yourself a freaking break. Take a few months off. It's nothing. But don't just do stuff because you think you have to. I mean, you're like following a narrative that you didn't make up, you know?
00:40:18
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I do feel like the last two years has hopefully taught so many of us that he has no idea what's around the corner in life, in work, in the way the world works. Like, why not spend your life doing something that you truly love rather than trying to tick a box? Yeah. Or, you know, a lot of people don't, can't find the romantic thing that they, their passion that they like. I'm still chasing my passions, you know, but
00:40:48
Speaker
It doesn't mean that you have to take a job that every instinct in your body tells you is not for you just because somebody told you it was right. You could do something that you reasonably enjoy or go for a company that your instinct tells you that you don't know if you love what they do, whatever, but the people feel right. Anything that feels right, it's just important to understand that some lucky people understand stuff up here in the brain and they know.
00:41:15
Speaker
understand stuff in the heart before, you know, instincts, feelings, and feelings help us understand much more, much more quickly. You just need to listen to them. And even if you don't know everything, I still feel I don't know what my greatest passions are, but I know, you know, what feels good and what feels like it's a definite no. And I'd never take that like step again.
00:41:46
Speaker
Thank you so much for sharing and being so open about these learnings because they're so inspiring. And that's really what the Inspire Club is all about and what we're about at Inspiring Workplaces. But thank you for being so inspiring. You've certainly given me a huge boost just chatting to you this morning. So I hope any of our listeners are feeling in that same way as well. I'm going to really consciously make an effort today to spot if I'm lying, even to myself.
00:42:08
Speaker
Yeah. Guinea, this is such excellent learnings.
00:42:12
Speaker
even to my kids or even just maybe even attempting to lie. I'm going to really think about those three qualities of a leader being inspiring, having clarity and being human and spend a lot more time this week really. Am I doing something that I love or because I feel like I should?
00:42:32
Speaker
I'm going to think about your mum a lot. And I'm going to invite JC to be another guest on Inspire Club. So that was going to be one of my questions is who you're going to nominate and you've nominated him already. Is there anyone else before we finish that you'd nominate to be a guest on Inspire Club? Yes, I could think I haven't talked to the guy for like a long time, but I would like to nominate a VP sales that worked with us in Perfecto. He lives in the Boston area. His name is Keith Butler.
00:43:00
Speaker
He's amazing, very senior, very impressive track record, career track record. And in a sentence, he took what we were like an enterprise facing, you know, software company, a lot of like, you know, direct salespeople all over the United States, a lot of competitiveness, you know, and
00:43:22
Speaker
a very toxic culture at some point between sales and the rest of the company and sales and sales. And this guy came in and unlike any other sales or commercial person I've seen before, he turned that like environment that was all...
00:43:37
Speaker
into a cult. It was amazing. You have to see it, like to believe it, like 150 or 200 salespeople and sales engineers in a sales kickoff. And that guy just inspiring like a freaking girl creating emotional alignment, making foes like friends. And it was just a huge transformation, especially for like a sales leader, but he had all of the boxes stick.
00:44:02
Speaker
tick ticked like the inspiration, amazing clarity about what we do, what we sell, what we're good at, how we work together, our values and empathy and ability to like actually, you know, help his leaders, help his people. He was like, you know, unbeatable really in this. So I would definitely look him up because he's something special.
00:44:26
Speaker
Okay, thank you. So JC and Keith Butler will be coming for you next. Giddy, I've just absolutely loved talking to you today. So, so much to learn, so much to share.
00:44:39
Speaker
and so much inspiration filled in this 40 minutes of Inspire Club. So I'm so grateful for your time. I'm sure all of our listeners are as well. And yeah, we'll be talking to you more I'm sure over time. Thank you to everyone that's also tuned in today to the latest episode and listen to us. If you have
00:44:58
Speaker
any feedback, if you want to hear from anyone else, or anything that you've thought from today, then do get in touch. And again, thank you from all of us at Inspiring Workplaces to all the team at WorkVivo, and especially to today's guest, Izzy Quidor. Thank you.