My Dilemma

Part of my vision in business is: "doing business differently" and it comes from the "coach" part in me. it’s a long story to define what's "differently" but I don't feel that I want to explore it now but I do want to lighten part of it …………and my personal dilemma……..
The part which I want to explore now is the "Human Part" or How can a venture capital destroy (or build) the vision of entrepreneurs (people who built new companies) . we try to see the people behind the idea and not only D' idea. We try to give everybody a fair chance to present his/her idea and we do take them seriously. once a week we sit on our deal flow and review the meeting we've done and the decisions of " GO no GO" and apparently we say no to most of them (we can only invest in 8-10 companies during the next 2-3 years and we see around 5-10 New companies a WEEK!!!)) . it turn out that I am saying NO to more the 90% of the people I meet, those who built their vision, have passion to successes, those who left their job in order to built new companies, leave secured places or just follow their dream…………and for those talented ones we say no!, No, its not a good idea, NO, it doesn't suit our criteria. No……….no……………no…………

and these people are exactly the people which I work as their coach and encourage them to DREAM, think FAR, think BIG , think PASSION………………………
for all those whom we met and said no, don't get it personaly, don't let it get you off your track and vision - try to figure out what went worng,why you didn't succeed but if you belive in your idea keep on going..........

can you see my dilemma?

have you ever force yourself to laugh?

Being a coach is being part of a community, something which I usually avoid doing – being part of a community!! Me! why? I wonder it’s a weak part of me……maybe I will practice with my coach about it??
I finished the fundamental course of CTI Israel few months ago but I didn't participate in the community events of CTI, maybe because our group from the course meet every two months……….
Two days ago I decided to join the community evening………I came after my weekly massage ( I do it every week for the last year and it changed my life), and was very skeptical like we many times do, aren't we?
I must tell you it was joy……..two people introduced them self to the community – one guy Dori Ben Hanoch (a CTI coach and a lecturer) who returned to Israel after 20 years abroad talked about his vision which was magic, and a wonderful woman, Philar, who was sometime so embarrassed( I hope I spelled her name right) told a bit of her story …….she was fun and interesting to listen to and than the highlight of the evening which was "laugh yoga" guided by Anna Ledrman (thank you Anna). I must say at the beginning it was difficult to force yourself to laugh but it took few minutes and all of us (when we got rid our cynical sight) were laughing like drunk/stone people.
I took some short video but couldn't upload them to the blog(I believe some will say thanks god)– those who would like them can send me mail and I promise to send it.

i love coaching and hate saying goodbye

I never mentioned the work I am doing in our Venture Capital Fund – Jerusalem Capital, I will do it some day in the future.
I want to talk about me as a coach or batter say what is the most difficult thing in coaching for me..…saying Good bye.
Since coaching is limited by means of number of meetings (usually 12-15 meetings) I found myself saying good bye to three of my trainees in the last two weeks.
I started w/them few months ago and we went through wonderful journey, each one was different, two of them were by phone only and one was face to face. We explored different ways, we touched plenty of good things, we touched few difficult places but with those three we got some interesting insight about their life and discover their lighthouse or vision. It wasn't the same with every one of them but it was magic with each one of them. I know why I love coaching………I love the intimately of being with people with almost no barriers, I love what I learn about myself during the work we do but I hate saying good bye – I might need a coach for me 
I don't know if they read my blog , but here is the time and place to tell you, K. K. and B. ,thank you for being so open with yourself and thank you for giving me the opportunity to escort you for a short time in your journey.
I took two weeks off from new clients but I feel I am ready for my next one………….

Pic from Tals' 45 Party

does life ends on 45?..........NO

does life ENDS at 45? Apparently no as you can see.........
when we were at the 20ties we thought that 30ties are so OLD that they are about to die soon.....than came 40ties and now we are 45ers and still kicking.............
Tal,my dearest and generous friend invited us all to his 45 birthday. last Thursday he closed a club , only for us , and we found our self drinking and dancing all night long.the party was great the people were beautiful and its so funny to walk in a club when you know most of the people there...........not much to tell more......pictures will describe...........


more pic will come soon

Serving in the army

Eli (my commander) & Myself

The wailing wall in the afternoon

The army is Israel is a unique phenomenon. Even thought one will say there has been a lot of changes during the last decades and people don't volunteer to serve , specially in the reserve , (we call it Miluim in Hebrew), i don't see it in our team.
At the age of 44 I am entitle to quit from the army but when I see the people around me still serve I just don't feel like leaving .usually you don't find yourself hanging around in a group w/people at the age of your daughter,and people who are older than you , but I must say it is FUN.
Last summer we had a war in Israel, we spent the summer in an around Lebanon, and had flashbacks from 1982 when we as young soldiers spent our summer in Lebanon and our country got stocked there for another 18 years till 2000.
I don't serve in a fighting unit now but we do help and support the units by helping them in cretin situations. We did a great job during the last war and spent around 30 days serving .

On Monday and Tuesday we went for two days, these two days were very important by means of learning cretin stuff regarding our job in the army, but mainly was aimed on Integrating the team.
Since part of the team is young guys who joined us few months ago and part of the team is a group of people who go together for many years, you need to spent some time together in order to get to know each other better.
We went to Jerusalem, wonderful city, full of history and emotions for every Jew, Christian and Muslim but for us as Jews it is our holy city and specially the Wailing Wall. So it was a mixture of studies:professional ,historical and fun.

The Wall

At night we went out for a short drink that happened to end as a very interesting and enjoyable time .We were sitting in a bar , and after half an hour we got drinks for everybody from a guy who were sitting on the bar.
This religious guy treated us in a very generous way, from his bottom of his hurt , just because we are soldiers, we had the first round and than the second, and after the third which also included food we almost collapsed. the guy's name is Josh Fisher. Thank you Josh for your generous gift!!!

Josh with the Team

The team

We spent sometime in and under old Jerusalem, but the highlight was the time in the tunnels underneath the Muslim quarter where you can see the part of the western wall which is buried under and touch history of 2000 years ago, the foundations of the Jews heritage

Under the old city of Jerusalem

(the wall tunnels)

weekend in Israel

After few weeks of hectic work, without finding the way to relax on weekends i found myself free of missions in my TO DO list.
Tel Aviv on Fridays is the city to open you morning with, sunshine , no traffic and beautiful people .We started the morning in one of the best bakeries in TLV, L'ehamim http://www.2eat.co.il/lehem (which mean "Many Bread" in English) and than we picked Danielle , out oldest daughter who arrive from the army, from the bus station after two weeks
out of home.

Danielle

we went to have our next coffee with Tal, a very good friend who is the leading insurance broker specializing in Aviation in Israel http://www.aerospace.co.il/Content/English/English.asp

Tal Engel


we had this coffee in Matilda http://www.rol.co.il/sites/matilda/ which my partner Jacob says its the best coffee house in TLV , free parking and free WiFi , he is from Jerusalem so it doesn't count:)

one of the greats things in Israel is our weather, so i found myself driving to the sea w/Maayan my youngest (+5) and her friend Yuli to have few hours in the sun. of course no bathing suits so i found my self running trying to stop them from going into the water............wonderful day

is your VISION connected to your values?

Yuval

once every few months we are meeting , our special group whom we studied together in the fundamental course of CTI.


Its a wonderful group and every time one of us contribute to the group in a lecture. tonight it was Yuval who explained us about vision and values and the connection between them, in a nut-shell

Your vision is connected to your values!!

is that so?

is your vision connected to your values??????

it was very refreshing to participate in this evening after few weeks of hard work selling a company which i am involved in to a very big software company, we signed the agreement but no closing yet - so update yet to come.

on the above pic on the right is Erela our host for the evening

last pic from the party