season 2 episode 11 – community, cooperation, corporation | Dov Baron

Resources and links

Artworks and other topics mentioned during the podcast can be seen in the following links:

• Dov Baron’s website
• Brené Brown’s website
• Amanda Gorman’s TED talk
• Ayn Rand’s Wikipedia
• Snapchat’s research on generation Z
• Ken Davenport’s Wikipedia
• Jamie Mustard’s Twitter and website
• Dov Baron’s book Fiercely Loyal
• Dov Baron’s podcast

Transcripts

The transcript was produced by an AI, mistakes might appear. 

[00:00:00] Nir Hindi: Hey, Dov, welcome to the Artian podcast.

Dov Baron: Thank

you for having me. I am excited and honored to be here,

  Nir Hindi: Dov, today we are going to discuss one of the topics that I think occupied many of us, not only in the business realm, but in political realms, in, in other realms, which is leadership now, from my experience, often people kind of.

Mixed between management and leadership. And I want to hear your opinion. Do you think there is a difference between leadership and management? And if there is, what is this difference?

Dov Baron: There’s a vast difference between the two management is getting people to fulfill a bunch of tasks and holding them and yourself accountable for doing that is management part of leadership.

Of course, it is, but leadership is far more. Leadership is the transmission of a vision leadership is to share the heart and the soul of a vision that you are trying to put across to your people to engage them, to have them become champions for. And you can only do [00:01:00] that. If leaders lead now, what does that mean?

It means that leaders must go first. So, managers do not have to go first. It is like, go get this done. Lead us. Must go first. You got to be the first in the trenches. If you are going to talk about, you know, we need to take greater risks and we need to be more innovative. Well, do you have a stick up your bum in, and you are not bothering to get innovative if you are, you do not have that right.

To say that. So, leadership means you have the right to ask people to do what you are willing to do. And it is the transmission of a highly infectious vision that engages your people at a heart, soul, and mind level. So, they will go to battle for you. That is what real leadership is.

Nir Hindi: So, you already mentioned some of the qualities that probably what makes a good leader.

Now you interview, I do not know, how many leaders of the business world? I mean, I think your podcast. Yeah. It is in the hundreds.

Dov Baron:  Thousands. Yeah.

Nir Hindi:  Thousands. Okay. So, I am behind the numbers, and you speak with leaders from every aspect and you already [00:02:00] mentioned kind of the characteristics that make a good leader.

One of them I am interested to hear from you. What are the characteristics make? A good leader.

Dov Baron: You’re right. There are so many different facets, but one of the key facets for me that is vastly different than even as little as 20 years ago. Now, of course, if you are 20, that seems like a lifetime ago, but it is not very long ago in business.

But when I entered the business world, I was told very clearly that vulnerability is a weakness. Do not let them see the chink in your armor, whatever you do, pretend you understand. And you know, and then just quietly go away and find out. Never let anybody know. You do not know. That is a bad leader today.

That is a terrible leader today. A great leader today is open and vulnerable and willing to say. I do not know. Maybe you guys have a better idea than I do. Maybe all of you is better than just me and I can facilitate that. So that level of vulnerability, now that vulnerability [00:03:00] needs what we call discernment.

And what I mean by that is. When people hear this term vulnerability, you know, I have been talking about it for about 25 years in different forms and thank goodness someone like Brené Brown has brought it to the surface and really made it popular, which is wonderful. But when people hear vulnerability, they think that that’s permission to go emotionally vomit on your people.

That is not what it means. It means reciprocity of discerned. Vulnerability. So, reciprocity means I give you, give, I give you something. You give me something, not a reciprocal act. Discernment means as the leader, I must discern how much to give and how much to take. So, what does that mean? It means if I am dealing with some people who are incredibly wide open, I can talk about my childhood.

I can talk about deep philosophical questions with other people. They are not, they do not have that depth, or they do not want to, I do not want to step into that. And for them, the vulnerability might be as simple as [00:04:00] saying, I do not really know how to do this. I know I am the leader, but you. You Nir you are the expert in this.

I would really like to hear from you that level of vulnerability, but it takes a level of not just emotional intelligence, whichever he is talking about, but more importantly, vulnerability takes a level of emotional maturity and maturity has got nothing to do with chronology. It has got nothing to do with your inner clock.

It has got nothing to do with how many times we have been around the sun. It is your ability to mature in how you respond to somebody. With emotional levels of compassion and empathy that is measured

Nir Hindi:  probably now listeners asking yourself how it say relate to us. But before we get into the, how it relates to art, maybe you can share with us a bit about your background and how did you find yourself in the world of leadership?

Dov Baron: Okay. Well, we only got a little while trying to do the short version of it. Um, the short version of it is that when I was a little kid, my mom shipped me off [00:05:00] to the rabbis because she figured I was possessed because I would talk about things existing beyond the veil, which means I saw things or imagined things that were not physically in front of me.

My mum thought I was going crazy. She shipped me off to the rabbis at Lubavitch and I started to learn. And, you know, it was very young and, and got very involved in that world. And as a young child, I was an artist. If you would have asked anybody what I was going to be, including me, the answer was artist. Uh, I was convinced I was going to be an artist. I then started studying, uh, prana yoga, taught myself prana yoga and started studying other things like that. And at 21, I left the UK where I was born. So that’s a couple of years ago and started to travel around the world to study with different spiritual messages.

I studied Vedanta, which is Hindu philosophy, Buddhism, the Dao Gnostic, and Coptic Christianity, and a bunch of other different religious philosophies found that I met all these wonderful [00:06:00] spiritual people. Who couldn’t to use a term, get their shit together? So, I wanted to study psychology. Like why these people do not understand that I started studying psychology, became fascinated with Jungian psychology.

And from there started studying attachment theory. I became a therapist. And from there I got kind of frustrated with people wanting to moan and complain and not do anything about it. So, I w okay, what is next. So, I started looking at what then was called in the 1980s, the, um, science of excellence, which today is called leadership there.

I met a lot of people who were kind of soulless. They had had all kinds of success, but not much sort of soul. So, I thought, well, how do you bring this together? And in 83, I kind of stumbled into. Quantum physics and neurosciences. And then I started to put the whole thing together and bringing that to a friend of mine, invited me to speak for his management team who knew me through a completely other business I would own businesses on three constants.

And he said, why do not you just come and talk to my people about what he goes, anything you want. [00:07:00] And that was the beginning of that world for me, of entering leadership. But from this very strange Space that allowed me to convey something in a way that was not being heard before.

Nir Hindi: Which

now kind of bring me to why I brought you on the show.

You already mentioned vulnerability, and I must mention one story to our listeners last year, Airbnb, which is one of the companies I like fire   like 3000 employees and Brian Chesky, the CEO kind of wrote very open letter about the situation, about how he feels, et cetera. And there was a lot of vulnerability in it.

Now, why am I mentioning Brian Chesky? Because Brian Chesky and Joe Gabia, both have bachelor’s in fine art. Both graduated from an art school. Brian Chesky used to paint a lot when he was a kid. And I kind of asked myself maybe the fact that he is an artist background, allowed him to be vulnerable in a space that require [00:08:00] the toughness that we always see in a business.

And last year you published a video before we knew each other. And you spoke about artists as leaders, and I am very much interested to hear why do you think artists are leaders?

Dov Baron: Thank you for asking that because I do think it is important when I say artists are leaders. I am certainly not limiting that in any way, shape, or form to business.

Artists are leaders. Now let me just recalibrate artists because when I talk about artists, I am not talking about people who paint my canvas. Although I certainly was that kind of artist. It is the writer; it is the dancer. It is the choreographer. It is the comedian. It is the actor. It is people. Well, who are in any way, shape, or form in the arts and not even for a living?

But in the arts. And because when we look at the world we live in and as we look around today at 2021, you know, we can see [00:09:00] the conflict, we can see the, the polarization, we can see all these things. And one of the things that I know for certain is li uh, artists are leaders because artists likely have the greatest level of courage of anybody.

 We as artists, awakened, the minds that are sleeping, we are the lubricant for intellectual stimulus. We are the ones who. Have people look at things in a different way. When you watch that movie and you come away and you start thinking about what that message was to you.

That was a piece of art that inspired you to question your own politics, to question your own mindset, to question your own rigidity about your mother, your father, your family, business politics, whatever it might be. And the reason that good artists are leaders.

Is because they are courageous. If you are not a courageous artist, you are not a leader, but the potential for art to lead the world is [00:10:00] insanely brilliant. It can awaken the hearts and souls and the minds of everyone. And, you know, we just saw that. Or the inauguration of Joe Biden, when an Amanda Gorman, who is this, the poet Laureate, who is 22 years old, who was beautiful.

She was beautiful. And I am not just talking about physically. I mean, she was beautiful. She was radiant her words were magnificent. Her words were a completely courageous statement.

Delivered in such a beautiful way that people on the extreme left and people on the extreme, right. And people in the middle were lifted. Art is the elevation process for the heart, the soul, and the mind. 

Nir Hindi: Yeah. It is invites so many things. I also kind of go back to Amanda and ask myself how it, 22 years old poet managed to do what business and political leaders, just on how she was able to capture these aspirations, hopes and dreams of so many people.

And we cannot see it coming from our leaders,

Dov Baron: but she was never [00:11:00] speaking from a place of politics. And that is why anybody could hear it. She spoke from a place of hope. She spoke from a place of inspiration. She spoke from a place of love. She spoke from a place that had no ideology beyond love, it was nonpolitical. It was, it had its roots firmly planted in the beauty of humanity, in the aspirations of humanity in us being better.

Nir Hindi: She, you know, I have said that in her Ted talk that poetry is bridge of languages. It is not separating languages. And what I love to think about her is kind of in state of. Divide. She unites. So, I have another question for you about leadership, because again, you speak to a lot of leaders.

And one of the things that is common perception is that business should be ruthless. And even the language is a war language. We are dominating, we are taking our competitors and you speak about leading with the heart, which in many ways, [00:12:00] Kind of contradicts.

So why?

Dov Baron:  Well, I do not know how many big businesspeople you will have on here.

But I am about to piss off some people because I think leadership must be courageous. And the, the goddess of modern Neo economics is Ayn Rand. She is seen as this great burgeoning voice of capitalism, but really, it is burgeoning narcissism. It has got nothing to do with anything else. When we look at the corporation, for instance, I do not most people do not know this, but when corporations, when that idea came about to incorporate your business, you had to incorporate your business for good of a community.

You had to say, this is what the corporation is, and this is how it serves the community. And you could not get a license if you could not serve the community in that way. So, it was about serving a community. Now it is about serving an ego. Now it is about serving a [00:13:00] bank account. Now it is about dominating and destroying.

So, what if we need a new economic platform, the gap between the extremely wealthy and extremely poor, it gets wider and wider and wider. And. Everybody in the middle is falling off the end. This is desperately sad. You know, 26 people in the world have more money than 3.5 billion. That is kind of crazy by anybody’s imagination.

So, we need to now design a new economic model that is not socialist. I am not talking about socialism. So, if you are immediately thinking that that is your bias and by the way, just to be clear, That’s simply a bias. If you cannot breach your own bias, you are not an artist because that is one of the wonderful things that artists must do is we must breach our own bias and we must encourage those who are the patrons of our art to breach their bias.

So how do you get to that? Well, one of my things as a kid, as well as my painting [00:14:00] was I was a poet and there is a line from one of my poems that is still one of my favorite lines. I am the night of nothing, a powerful place to be. If we cannot return to the nothing if we cannot return to the void where we can discover our soul. We are on a battle for things that are not ours. We are fighting for causes that are not our own and everything in our world is dominated by this need to show how magnificent we are to aspire, to have them look at us.

We become reality TV stars of our own phone, so that we, you know, do the little video and, oh, you know, I got 10,000 hits. or 10,000 likes or whatever it might be. We are all aspiring to be reality, TV stars, instead of aspiring to lift the hearts and souls of others to have a voice. And that takes.

courage.

Nir Hindi: It is interesting because you know, in the last few months I started to think about LinkedIn as a catwalk in the fashion week. [00:15:00] It is like, everyone needs to see how great they are. And if I were a devil’s advocate, I would say, yeah, that is great. But the whole ecosystem does not allow for leaders to, or potential leader to flourish unless they are ruthless, unless they are telling people what to do.

Why would you tell them how they can break the chain off?

of these?

Dov Baron: Well, so as a, in my book, fiercely loyal, which is my business book from 2015, I talked about how to keep millennials loyal. And one of the things that I am seeing for all the research that we did for that book was millennials do not have the same value system.

And by the way, gen Z, gen Z, depending on where you are, it is even more exaggerated. In fact, there is a pretty good chance that millennials will become the generation X of that time. Meaning they may fade into the background as gen Z become a dominant force. Now there will be less of them, but more powerful force because they are not.

In any way, defined by borders. They [00:16:00] do not understand borders. Borders do not make any sense to them because they have only grown up. Digital. Millennials can only remember digital, but they did not grow up. Digital gen Z did. And the interesting thing about this is that in that book I wrote about the, the Cs.

So, one of those Cs was. Community that you must build your business around the community. And now I am saying it in my presentations. I said it in the fourth C was community. Now let us make it the first C build a community in which to do business, rather than building a community around your business serve just like the original corporations did.

And people will do business with you. That will make you successful. Next one was. Cooperate inside of your business, cooperate with the people inside of your business. What does that mean? Build an entrepreneurial environment, build an environment where the entrepreneurial spirit of an individual who worked for you can feel free enough to bring value to you, to your [00:17:00] organization, to those that you serve.

3M. One of those biggest products of all time was the post-it note. Note was a mistake that came from an entrepreneur inside of a business. That is an example of it. Then on top of that is this one piece where we talk about let us imagine, and it may seem far-flung to imagine it, but it is not, let us imagine the death of competition, what you can do that, you know, this is business, you know?

No, hold on a second. What if instead of competition, if the only competition is how we can serve at a higher and higher level, then instead of competition, What we have is collaboration. So, I say Nir, what do you do? You say, oh, I am in business. I am a leader. I do, blah, blah, blah. And I, and you say to me, Dov, what do you do?

Oh, I am in business. I am a leader, blah, blah, blah. And I come to you, and I say, okay, this is wonderful. You appear on the surface label on the box to be my competitor but let us look inside of the box. Let us not look at the label. Let us look inside of the box and let us say, hold on a second, [00:18:00] you are a business leader, and I am a business leader.

How can I serve your audience better? How can you serve my audience? But how can we come together? Collaborate Kay. To create a community for our people where we evoke. Creativity within them, where we create those innovative ideas so that we serve at a higher and higher and higher level. So instead of competition, we have collaboration, we have cooperation inside of a community.

Nir Hindi: You mentioned community cooperation and collaboration, and I am thinking immediately about artists because often we tend to think about the sole genius, but often you see the artist create in when they are, surrounded. By other people when they are creating with other people in kind of this collaboration is what allow them to progress.

I think that because when Brock is one of the great examples that because of could have done it without Brock over there working with him hands in hand. So, we have community cooperation, collaboration. So, I have a question for [00:19:00] you. What would you recommend for millennial or older generation business manager slash leader to do to be ready for gen Z to lead them better, what they need to do?

Dov Baron: well,

as I said, first, this, the most difficult thing to do is to give up the familiar. That is not, um, gen X, that is not, uh, any generation that is every generation. Human beings. We are neurologically biologically wired to cling to the familiar because the saber tooth tiger could come.

And we want to make sure that we’ve know where all the safe places are. So, what is safe? Well safe equates too same if something is the same, therefore it is safe. That is the death of an artist right in the right, in the water. Right. But dead that, but there is something called incremental innovation we got an iPod instead of a cassette tapes or albums or [00:20:00] whatever. It might be a CDs; it is still incremental. And we forget that. We are always looking for that moment. But the truth of the matter is it is always incremental. So, you can measure the increments if you like, and you can measure it out and make it easier for yourself to do that.

But here is the thing gen z and on into the, this new generation that are coming up, these people who have grown up digital do not want any of your old ideas.  It is fascinating for me because the world is indirect polarity to their philosophy. Therefore, I think they are going to change the world because the world right now is becoming more nationalized, more tribal, and they are very much more global.

They, it does not because they do not understand borders. Thank God. So, if you want to prepare for them, You must create borderless environments. You must create environments that give them room to have a voice because listen, millennials, the number one complaint was they would leave a better job to go [00:21:00] work somewhere else because they wanted their voice to be heard.

And they did not think that voice was being heard here. So, they took a pay cut to go work there because somebody would listen to them. Well, you think it was a pain in the ass for millennials. I got news for you. Gen Z will abandon you in five seconds. Five seconds. If you do not listen to them, it does not mean that right.

And people that, you know, older generations that just want too great. No, they do not. They want input and then they want feedback. They want to learn. They are hungry to learn, be willing to teach them, but not as a one-way street, that’s old industrial learning. That is the Prussian schooling system that sits you down and brainwashes, you know, instead they want to be educated.

To draw out the wisdom, the knowledge that is within them become the sounding board that pulls it out of them and reveal to them the wisdom that they have. That is your number. One thing to do is to educate through in the version of a Ducat make space for [00:22:00] plow.

Nir Hindi: You are speaking it; it is kind of make me think about some of the classes that I give to executive education.

Often, I, I share with them some of the topics that gen Z is occupied with and one of them is creativity. Now, then what I found very interesting days, there is a research by Snapchat? I think they; they ran in 80% of gen Z have. I would say artistic, offline practice. Now, when I mentioned it to the old generation immediately, they are angry and they tell me, no, no, no, no.

This generation is not creative. And there is kind of, they are not opened to see their creativity and kind of trying to limit. Them to their own

boxes.

Dov Baron: Yeah. You are so right.   May I tell you a little story. I was invited to speak at a, a group here that was an incubator group for high school kids. And I was invited to speak, you know, it was a pro bono thing, and it was right in my town. It was literally walking distance from my home.

And I [00:23:00] said, absolutely. I would love to. So, I get there, and you know, there is no script, this is me. I am just going to be me. I am going to talk to these people. And, you know, they range between sort of 16 and 21. And so I, first thing I said to them when I walked in is listen, here is what I want you to understand.

The world is going to tell you who to be. Do not be it. And you are going to think, you know, who you want to be. Do not lock yourself in and be like, oh, okay. I do not understand. And I said, well, I will give you an example. When I was 10 or 11 years old, my aunt was in galleries. I wrote poetry every day, multiple times a day.

And I was always drawing and painting and all those kinds of things. Everybody thought I was going to be an artist, including me. I am not an artist. I do not in the traditional sense. I am not an artist in the way that most people would classify that. And one of the girls put her hand up and she said to me, do you miss it?

And I said, no, to miss. It means, I would think about, I should be doing it. I want to do it. I miss, you know, instead I do not think [00:24:00] that way at all. And she goes, oh, that is interesting. I carry on the rest of my presentation for over an hour. And at the end of it, I opened it up to questions and I answered some questions, and we were about to finish.

And I said, I want to speak to you. And I very same girl who asked me, did I miss it? And she said, well, I said, I want to thank you. And she said for what? And I said for your question about whether I miss the art and she said, why? I said, do you know the story of Michelangelo and David. And she said, no. I said, well, apparently, I do not know if it is true, but apparently Michelangelo was asked, how did you create David?

How did you carve David from this block of marble? And Michelangelo said, I did not, I simply removed everything else. I said, the reason I do not miss being an artist is because I am still one. My job in the work that I do with very powerful individuals in the world is I chip away everything. They are not.

To reveal the David that they are to reveal the heart, the soul of who they are. And that is [00:25:00] not an add that is a remove. So, I am still an artist, uh, is not necessarily adding sometimes it is removing.

Nir Hindi: It is a great story. I hear about Michelangelo and beautiful story for your own personality. I often think that the role of the leader is to. Take everything that is not the soul of your employee and focus on what they are, not what their skills are or whatever the degree is, or where did they grow up? I mean look beyond. Um, but yeah, I guess everything that is false. Yeah. It is, it is interesting.

You know, I am listening to us, both of us say speaking and I am, uh, I am thinking about, um, maybe a traditional MBA, probably thinking, what are you, what are you talking about? But one of the things that I learned; I came to do an. MBA after I already had few companies. And when my colleagues asked me, what is the most important class in your opinion, in the MBA.

And I told them leading people in teams, I am not going to be an accountant.  I am not going to do [00:26:00] finance. Most likely the strategy is yes, it is important, but less relevant for me, the most important aspect of a business. It is the people. And that is the hardest one to do. And,

Dov Baron: and it is also the, but it is also the most minimized Nir.

This is the problem. We insult it, and we call these things soft skill it totally. We call it soft skills and hold on a second. If there are no people, do you have a business? No, whether that is on the buying end of your, of your service or your product or on the, on the production end, you can get all the air in the world somewhere.

There must be a person who is interacting with this because I tell you if we immediately vaporize every human being, except you, you do not have a business. So why is it given such a second-class place? In the people is the number one thing I speak before organizations and groups all the time. And I say, you know, the one group I am most pissed at, and people say who, and [00:27:00] I speak like this from the stage.

And they say, sorry, I am going to upset some of your human resources, because you guys have got nothing to do with humans anymore. You become a bloody buffer zone for the legal department. That is all you are trying to do. Like why we do not have what I call a cultural department I talked about becoming a C R O, and you become a CRO, whether you are a janitor or are the CEO CRO chief relationship officer, understanding that if you do not take care of relationships, you do not have a business and relationships.

He is not about manipulating. It is about. Finding out the essence of that human being. So, they can bring their very best to work. Because if you show interest in somebody who they are to soulful level, not even beyond even their mom and dad and family and kids, but who they are in essence level, they will produce for you beyond anything you have ever imagined.

And they will do it more reasonably priced. They do not need to fight for a few pennies. They feel [00:28:00] soul fulfilled. And when we are soulfully, rich, We want to serve.

Nir Hindi:  That’s why I think artists speak to the heart, not to the pockets. It is amazing that still companies thinking only on the bonus that you get, or the perks that you get, or the, they say hotel that you stay, et cetera, which maybe at the beginning it helps, but it does not help you to maintain the people in the long run because there was always bigger company that can offer.

more.

Dov Baron: But as I said, The interesting thing is that millennials have shown us, and we have really got to pay attention to this in business. Millennials have shown us, and it will be the same with gen Z. They do not care once you hit that plateau, which at present day is set at $73,000. Once you hit that plateau. And by the way, so everybody is clear that is prorated, meaning $73,000 living in a moderate sized city in the United States.

That is $73 is higher. If you live in New York, city of $73,000 is [00:29:00] higher. If you live in San Francisco, but if you live in. Some black hole of Idaho or Kentucky and you work remotely, $73,000 is also prorated in that it is much higher. Like it is worth more. So, but once we get past that lifestyle place, we do not now we are negotiating on things that do not know nothing do with money, negotiating them.

Do I feel fulfilled when negotiating on, does my voice matter when negotiating on values, do I care about this company or are they a bunch of vampires when negotiating on relationships? Is my boss a Dick or is it somebody I enjoy? Like, that is what we are negotiating on. So, you know, even it is not long before you hit the point where you realize.

Oh, I can offer them another 20 grand a year and they will not care. That is one of the big lessons that our gen X, anybody older than gen X. So, gen X being 45 plus, and anybody older than [00:30:00] that needs to remember an all of us start thinking, oh, well, if I pay him more money, it is going to work. It. Won’t

Nir Hindi:  I have a question.

You interview many creative leaders. Tony awards, winning Broadway producer, eh, the vice president of product design at Hulu and many, many others. And I wonder, what does some of the leadership lessons you learned from these creative

types?

Dov Baron: To be honest with you, it is pretty much everything I just told you.

I’ve just, it really is. They are. You know, so for instance, they are values based. So, Ken Davenport you talked about was a Broadway producer, probably one of the most successful ones, very strong business head, but driven by something bigger called serving. Whenever there is, uh, another leader I can think of about count user’s name right now.

I can remember his name. I just cannot use it walked away from a company because of the corporate culture was no longer be fitting of where he was, where he was. The company got [00:31:00] bought out by somebody else. He was the artistic director, did amazing work. And then he felt like, okay, now I am going to become the bog.

I am going to get taken in and I am going to have to become this machine. Not going to be there. And this is a very high-powered individual. So, one of the things I have learned from those high creative leaders is yes, they can be. They understand the exchange of goods. They understand the, the monetary side of it.

Even if it is not in the accounting way, they understand the, the perception of value. But they also understand that they are driven by values, not just value. And on top of that, they also understand, this is one of the interesting things. One of my friends Jamie mustard, he is, um, he is known as the iconist, you can find his book, absolute genius, absolute genius. But what he understands is he understands. The formulaic piece of [00:32:00] art, how artworks formulaically to connect to the, the amygdala to connect to the reptilian part of the brain in a way that emotionally bonds, because business likes to think of everything as being logical and rational.

And we know that even the quote science of economics is made up. They based it on physics, but it does not have the same rules at all. Because if you want to look at the stock market, it is very simple. Are the best stocks making the most money? No. The ones that are maxed, the ones that are maximized, do the best.

What does that mean? That means the ones that are sold the best. How do you do that? You emotionally evoke people. People go, oh, well, I am very rational. I am very logical bullshit. Nobody is, I do not care who you are. You can be Spock yourself. The truth of the matter is human beings make all our decisions.

Emotionally first. And then we tell ourselves rationalize about them and that is why we call it rationalize. We rationalize our [00:33:00] emotional response to something. Artists leaders understand the science of that emotional evocation that takes place through the creative. And by doing that, bringing that in by intriguing with it.

Because. Art is seductive. Art is an emotional response that goes far beyond because it reaches into that reptilian part of them.

Nir Hindi: I have a question. And from knowing you from having all these conversations, I assume I know the answer. Do you think that creativity is a competitive advantage?

Dov Baron: I think it is probably the ultimate competitive advantage if only, and again, I want to declassify because I have had people say this to me, I am not an artist of bullshit. Human beings are born creative. You do not get to be a human. If you are not creative, now you may have classified yourself because the teacher at school said, oh, you are a terrible drawer.

And so, you think you are not an artist. Of course, you are an artist, [00:34:00] but your form. Your form may be different. And once you grasp that, it shifts everything. So, here is the question for you as you listen, ask yourself the question, where does my art show up? Where does my creativity show up? Where is it that it comes to comes to fruition?

Because I know artists who are. Amazing with numbers who are mathematicians, who are accountants, incredibly creative. And some of them have not gone to jail,

Nir Hindi:  He’s like, that is why, you know, you were talking, I am asking, do I want my accountant to be creative with my number?

That scared me a bit.

Dov Baron: Yeah. But

you know what I mean? It is like, look for that creativity. And, you know, it is interesting because we only give ourselves permission for it in certain places. So, what I mean by that is. Let us take you. I want you to think as you listen right now, when you think about the most rational hard-ass logical person, you know, I want you to think about that person [00:35:00] and think about how this creativity stuff, is wishy washy and who cares.

And nobody cares about that. And it is, you know, it is the bottom line. Okay. And, you know, I have no time for this emotional nonsense. Okay, great. Now put them in front of that one-year-old grandchild. Where is the rationale. Where is the logic has there been my baby? My baby that is under one. Hello. I have a new grandchild, you know, and I am talking full baby talk all the time.

You know, she is doing silly because that is who we are. All the rest is learned behavior. That has got nothing to do with who we are. Essence level. So, look for your creativity. Does it come out in the way that you hold your grand baby or your baby? Does it come out in the way that you speak? Does it come out in some form that you have categorized for your own emotional safety [00:36:00] as not being artistic, but when you embrace that your whole life will begin to flourish.

Art is not just leadership. It is the fertilizer for everything that will make you a great

leader.

Nir Hindi:  It is very strong word. So, I do not know if to ask more questions,

Dov Baron:  you can ask me anything.

Nir Hindi: So, we are getting into the end of our book as and I have two more questions to ask you.

You spoke about art is shifting perception, and I am wonder if there is an artwork that shifted your perception. I

Dov Baron: think there is probably lots as a kid. I was fascinated by a grand brown. Um, particularly his work with light. All right. I just, that moved me enormously as a kid. I never got, um, I did not understand abstract and thought anybody can paint lines or splash paint around.

And it was not until I allowed myself into the emotionality of, of it that I began to get it. [00:37:00] And it began to shift my perspective, but the art that shifts me. Every time. And so, the reason this person is my favorite artist is Dalí. I love surreal art because it is all about a shifted perception.

It is not just some acid tripping journey. It is, it is a perception shift, and art is art is acid on a canvas. But the something else in art that I want to say, because I think it is important for all of us.

I believe it is not the truth. I believe that a lot of the reasons that we shame our art, that we hide our art is because we are shamed. We are brought into an environment where art is shamed. And if we shame art and we take that on, if somebody shamed us in our art and we take it on, then we will shame our own and we will shame the art of our children and of all society.

[00:38:00] But what I know in my experience is art is born of two places. Uh, is born of the ecstatic experience. It is born of something transforming you, giving you a perception, you never had before, but it is also born of pain. It is born of something that were so radical that it shifted your perception. Art is the healing force of the universe.

It gives you a way to, to put your tears on canvas, to put your heart, your soul in the world. Not necessarily through canvas, but maybe through your business because every leader, even though they do not know, it is driven by that pain is driven by that desire to make a difference in their own life, in the lives of those they love.

And the ultimately in, in the ways of the world and every artist is driven by that every business leader is driven by that. So, art is born of [00:39:00] pain. Which changes your, your perception of reality. And it is born over an incredibly lucid moment of transformational experience that also changes your experience of reality.

And so, when I look at something like the iPod, I see a piece of art because it transformed the way we looked at things. We did not see things in the same way. When I look at nano sciences and nanotechnology, and I do my research into those areas, um, I am enthralled by the concepts of what it is teaching me about.

How my perception is this only exists big. And then it does not when I look at the universe and I studied quantum physics or astrophysics, and I start to see that, hold on a second, the space time continuum is not what I think it is. And that I live in resonant universe where I am forming the universe and the universe is forming me.

I am informing the universe and the universe is informing me. Wow. I am in this creative, delicious [00:40:00] relationship with a universe. I cannot be stagnant, even if I want to be. That is what is beautiful to me.

Nir Hindi:  Dov. First, I want to say big, thanks for taking the time and sharing all these very emotional, I think deep perceptions and thoughts, and for sharing your passion to leadership and art with me.

And with our listeners.

Dov Baron: It was my honor. And my pleasure Nir, I am sincerely grateful to you. Thank you. Not only for having me on, but for the work that you do for the artists, you bring a voice to for awakening. Remember, it is all about awakening-by-awakening others. I want to thank you for that. I want to thank you for all that you do.

And I want to encourage the people listening to understand that art is about generosity. So do not hoard this. Please share Nir’s show with the world, share it with your friends. Go online, rate review, subscribe to the show, share it with others. Let us feed [00:41:00] the creative souls of the world that are starving.

We have a creative famine going on. Not because there is a lack of creativity, just like there is no lack of food. But because there is a lack of willingness to share it. So please share this write to Nir tell him what you got out of this, write. To me, tell me what you got out of it. My email, private email, Dov [email protected].

You can write to me, write to Nir, tell us what you got out of it and what you are going to do with it, because information is worth the whole nut donut transformation comes from the application from the expense. Share be generous.

Nir Hindi: Thank you Dov. Everything that Dov mentioned, his book, his podcast, some of the talks that he mentioned, everything will be on the show notes.

Thanks again, really. I really appreciate your time here.

Dov Baron: Thank you. My friend, I look forward to meeting in person.