Lior Arussy

Lior Arussy is one of the world’s leading authorities on customer experience, transformation and change, and founder of transformation firm Strativity Group. Arussy helped some of the world’s leading brands write their next chapter in their story through transformative process.  Arussy’s clients include Mercedes-Benz, Delta Airlines, Royal Caribbean Cruises, BMW, Cadillac, Novo Nordisk, MasterCard, The Met, Thomson Reuters, HSBC, E.ON, FedEx, SAP, and Johnson & Johnson, among others,

Recipient of several awards, Arussy is the author of ten books including Dare To Author! and Next is Now: 5 Steps for Embracing Change – Building a Business that Thrives into the Future. Arussy has also written over 400 articles for publications around the world.

Summary

Lior Arussy, a leading authority on customer experience and transformation, emphasizes the power of storytelling in driving change and mobilizing people during his conversation with host Javi Rosenberg. Arussy argues that businesses do not thrive solely on data or figures; rather, they require compelling narratives that resonate with their audience. He illustrates this point through the common New Year’s resolution scenario, where individuals, motivated by the story of change, commit to healthier lifestyles only to revert to old habits within weeks. This highlights a fundamental truth: facts alone do not inspire lasting transformation. Arussy shares his journey from the tech world into consulting, where he realized the importance of change management over merely implementing technology. His firm, Strativity, combined various disciplines to provide comprehensive solutions, ultimately aiding major brands like Mercedes Benz and Delta Airlines in their transformative journeys. The essence of his message is that to foster genuine change, one must craft a story that ignites passion and purpose, enabling individuals and organizations to embrace new realities and overcome resistance to change.

Story

Lior Arussy, a leading authority on customer experience and transformation, emphasizes the power of storytelling in driving change and mobilizing people during his conversation with host Javi Rosenberg. Arussy argues that businesses do not thrive solely on data or figures; rather, they require compelling narratives that resonate with their audience. He illustrates this point through the common New Year’s resolution scenario, where individuals, motivated by the story of change, commit to healthier lifestyles only to revert to old habits within weeks. This highlights a fundamental truth: facts alone do not inspire lasting transformation. Arussy shares his journey from the tech world into consulting, where he realized the importance of change management over merely implementing technology. His firm, Strativity, combined various disciplines to provide comprehensive solutions, ultimately aiding major brands like Mercedes Benz and Delta Airlines in their transformative journeys. The essence of his message is that to foster genuine change, one must craft a story that ignites passion and purpose, enabling individuals and organizations to embrace new realities and overcome resistance to change.

Takeaways

• Lior Arussy emphasizes that we live in stories, not just numbers or facts, which mobilize people to action.
• He argues that successful startups must prioritize change management alongside their technological developments.
• Arussy believes many startups fail to recognize the resistance to change from potential customers.
• He suggests that true competition for startups is not other companies, but rather the inertia of customers.
• Arussy's experience shows that transformation requires belief in the future and a compelling narrative.
• The importance of empathy in consulting and change management cannot be overstated for successful outcomes.

Companies:

• Mercedes Benz
• Delta Airlines
• Royal Caribbean Cruises
• BMW
• Johnson & Johnson
• Strativity Group
• Impact CX

Links:

Lior's website: www.LiorArussy.com 

Lior's Imprint CX: www.ImprintCX.com

Lior's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liorarussy/

Instagram: @LiorStrativity and @LiorArussy

Latest book: https://www.amazon.com/author/dare2author

Leave a review: https://podchaser.com/DesigningSuccessfulStartups

Tech Startup Toolkit (book): https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Startup-Toolkit-launch-strong/dp/1633438422/

Site with all podcasts: https://jothyrosenberg.com/podcast

Jothy’s non-profit: https://whosaysicant.org

Jothy’s TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNtOawXAx5A

Chapters:

• 00:13 - The Power of Stories
• 05:55 - The Evolution of Strativity: A Journey in Change Management
• 11:57 - Understanding Customer Resistance in Startups
• 18:21 - Embracing Change Through Storytelling

Hello, I'm Javi Rosenberg, the host of Designing Successful Startups, where today's guest is Lior Arousi.

That we do not live in facts.

We do not live in numbers.

We live in stories.

Stories mobilize people.

Facts do not.

I'll give you a very simple example.

We are on December, December 11 today.

And very soon, at the end of the year, millions of Americans are going to go on this scale.

On January 1st, they're going to look at the number, they're going to hate the number, they're going to absolutely commit to change the number.

And by January 30th, they'll go back to their regular regimen of eating and exercise, which is not healthy.

Leora Russi is one of the world's leading authorities on customer experience, transformation and change, and founder of transformation firm Strativity Group.

Arusi helped some of the world's leading brands write their next chapter in their story through transformative process.

Arusi's clients include Mercedes Benz, Delta Airlines, Royal Caribbean Cruises, BMW, Johnson & Johnson, among others.

Recipient of several awards, Arusi is The author of 10 books, including Dare to Author and Next is now five steps for embracing Change.

And here is Lior.

Hello, Lior, how are you?

I'm doing well.

How are you, Jyothi?

I'm good, I'm good.

We're having a big rainstorm today.

We are having some of that rain over here.

Not as a storm, but you know what, it's part of the four seasons.

We need to appreciate them all.

We do, we do.

And I certainly, I myself really enjoy the four seasons.

I would like to start by just asking you where are you originally from?

And to also tell us where you live now.

So I was born in Israel and spent my, you know, early parts of my life in Israel.

Eventually I met an American girl and got married and spent most of, you know, most of the last three decades in the, in the United States.

Lived in different places from Cleveland to California to New Jersey.

And we are talking right now from Angle, New Jersey.

When you were in your, in your late teens in Israel, did you serve in the idf?

I did serve in the IDF as well.

It's mandatory and like anybody else did my part.

I was a medic, so I was more busy with saving lives that way.

And it was a privilege to do that.

That sounds great.

That sounds great.

Very, very pleased to hear that Right now you have a firm called Strativity.

Am I?

Am I?

Is that how you say it?

You pronounce it correctly, but I no longer own it.

I sold it a couple of years ago, but that's what I started.

That's my main flagship success.

So I'm currently involved in another, I'm involved in a couple of startups, I invested in some and I'm part of their go to market strategy.

I'm either on the board or board of advice and I'm involved in another startup called Impact cx.

So that couple of them that I'm.

Actually involved in, well that one that you just mentioned is that one that you founded, you created.

I'm a co founder with others and the chairman of the company.

And where did the idea for that one come from and what does it do?

Actually?

Impact CX was born on the success of, was sold to private equity after about 18 years of success and growth and so on and so forth.

And actually the message came from analysts who felt that our voice still needed in the marketplace because creativity was adapted by the private equity to other purposes.

So I received several messages from analysts saying, you know, we're missing that voice, we're missing that capability and would you reconsider?

So I joined forces with some previous people who worked with me and Impact CX was born.

Imprint cx.

Sorry, it's a lot easier to found a company when you have some people that you've worked with before and you know and you trust and you can start something new again with them.

Absolutely.

I mean, look, I went through several startups in many, many different industries.

So early on in the mid-90s, I was involved in a startup that was in the software, retail and we were doing what is known as comdex, the predecessor to ces and we reinvented the wheel because we did not know what we were doing.

We just had a great idea.

And after that I was in cybersecurity again, brand new area and again I needed to reinvent the rules.

And then two stints in larger technology companies where I learned a lot about how to do things like the big guys.

And then I started structivity which was again, I'm moving to consulting.

How do you charge for it?

How do you engage with clients?

How do you build credibility?

So yeah, when Imprint CX came, you know, at that point we already had the models and the business approach and everything else nailed.

So it was a more joyful journey than the discovery of journeys of the unknown paths.

So when you were with strativity for that, you know, 18 year period, it you said in your bio that you helped some major, major name brand companies.

And I'm assuming it's during that period of time, what was it like to work for them?

And were, were all of the experiences positive or were there some war stories?

So if I may, I'll give you a little bit of a background how strativity was born.

And then I was in the technology world, okay?

And like any other technologies, we're in love with our technologies.

We think they are going to save the world and the world is just waiting for us, and so on and so forth.

And one of my clients, after installing the technology, failed miserably.

And I had a conversation with him and he said, lior, even a fool with a tool is still a fool.

And the conversation with him changed my life in a profound way because I realized as a technology oriented person, I was so involved and in love and obsessed with my technology and I believe that the world was ready for it.

And in reality is I wasn't in technology business.

I was in the change management business.

And I couldn't help them because I didn't have the tools to help them actually be successful with that.

And what we invented at strativity is something that didn't exist before.

It wasn't a traditional consulting business because what I did there is I took discipline from research combined with change management, combined with consulting, combined with training, combined with branding.

And I was able to look any CEO in the eyes, say, you want to have a transformation in your business?

Whatever the reason is, I can walk you through all of it.

Until the last employee in the organization is trained.

Not McKinsey, not Bain, not Accenture, not Deloitte.

None of them dare to do what we did.

And I remember having a conversation with Brian Tracy and he said to me, lior, good luck.

This is the holy grail.

I don't believe anybody can do that.

And we did it.

We did it 400 times.

We did it again and again and again.

We have proven that we can do that.

We price it differently.

It was flat fee and so on and so forth.

So how did it work there, by the way?

The joke in the industry was always that I am punching about my weight.

The people told me that to my face, some of my competitors.

And I said, there's no such a thing as about my weight if I'm not delivering value and if I'm delivering value.

So guess what?

I'm doing exactly what I promised my clients and it doesn't matter what my size is.

I don't need quarter million consultants to do that.

And we were going against Deloitte.

We're going against ey, we're going against Accenture.

So how did it feel on a spectrum between an imposter syndrome and an absolute conviction that we have what they need?

We were always operating on that spectrum and we made sure all the time to measure our success and our impact on our clients.

So when we came to the next one, we were confident we can do it and we could guide them.

And I'll give you one example.

There was an rfp, there was a bid where we were competing against Deloitte EY ourselves and one smaller boutique firm.

And the boutique firm was so desperate to win this that they actually lowered their prices 70% below our prices.

It was a desperation fire sale.

We have to win that account and decline.

The prospect told us, like, look, you're 70% above what we have from this place.

And I said, you know, guys, I'm not going to compete, but I will show you what you're missing.

But I will not compete and I will not, I'll not play that game.

And eventually we won the business.

It was a $20 million contract.

We won that business against the competition of 70% below.

So it took a lot of building the confidence and measuring our success and results in order to be able to be confident in one of very major clients who otherwise have the choice of nobody will ever get fired for hiring Deloitte or EY or IBM or whatever.

As long as you deliver, as long as you're confident, as long as you're willing to learn, as long as you're willing to listen.

I always told them, it's not about the number of people ahead, it's the number of people you need to get your solution done.

And we have them.

Some of these were the, like I said, the big, huge name brand companies.

Yeah.

Aren't they sometimes difficult to work with?

So the question often been asked a bit differently because when we work with the smaller guys, they said, we can't afford what these other guys are paying you.

So how are you going to work with both of us?

And internally, we call it, there's always the bureaucracy factor.

So to get a decision done in a smaller company is much faster than if you need to get it done in a large.

So you need to factor in the bureaucracy factor of a lot of more and more and more discussions like that.

And there was, by the way, a conversation once when a CEO approached me at the end of a project, multimillion dollar project, and he said to me, lior, how come you didn't fire us?

We were such a difficult client.

And I said, you were a difficult client.

So he said, so why didn't you fire us?

Because we had a clause that we can fire a client if they're not serious about execution.

Our reputation was execution was not consulting or reports or anything else.

We wanted our clients to change.

So I said to him, I said two things.

A, I've been on this journey hundreds of times, so I know what to expect.

So what was difficult for you or life threatening for you was for me just another milestone.

I knew where what we going to.

And I said, the second thing is, I guess I believed in you more than you believed in yourself.

And that's part of what I bring to the table.

So our real.

I have to tell you, if you bring the traditional consultants, they're going to be rational.

They are not going to care.

All they need to do is to finish the project, bill and go home.

We were very passionate.

We were engaged with our clients in a different way.

I remember a conversation with a client where he said, why do you care so much about this topic?

Why you're trying so passionately to convince us?

And I said, did it ever occur to you that I don't really care?

And the only reason why I'm advocating for this so passionately is because I believe it's the right thing for you.

It won't make any difference to me if you go this way or that way.

It's your choice.

I advocate for you passionately because you hired me not just for my knowledge, you hired me for my heart.

This is what's missing in your business and I'm bringing it.

So respect it.

You have a lot of experience with technology startups.

Yep.

And one of the questions that, that we met, we talked about earlier was what do you think the biggest mistake is when launching a product?

And let me just guess, it's, it's the old if, if we build it, they will come.

Is it is it is.

And I want to build on it.

Yeah.

Was one training that I always gave my salespeople.

Okay.

And by the way, if you're a startup and the CEO is the only one who can sell you, you're an experiment.

You're not a startup.

Startup is when multiple people can sell.

If all, if all the deals are going to go to the CEO, you're an experiment, yet to be proven.

When you multiply it, then it's a different story.

But I sat down with all my salespeople and I said, and this was my opening line, I want you to know that our future customers have lived peacefully without us for many years and are planning to live peacefully without us for many years to come.

You're an intervention.

You're a disruption.

You are not something they ask for.

Now ask yourself, why should they change in order to adapt to what we have?

Do not assume that we are going to make their life better and lower their costs and increase their profitability and increase efficiency.

All these things.

Assume resistance, don't assume embracing.

Assume that people are threatened by what we do.

Assume that they have years of vested experience.

I'll give you an example.

I was working with an insurance company and we were trying to introduce a new software for their underwriters.

And they have 250 underwriters, and each one of them have 20 years of experience in underwriting.

And I said to my salespeople, that's 500 years of experience that you asked them to ignore.

Think about it.

It's so embedded.

It's 500 years of doing things in a certain way.

And you are asking them to forego those 500 years because you got some punchy PowerPoint.

So I always told my salespeople, the competition is not another startup.

The competition is do nothing.

The competition is let's wait.

The competition is.

We don't have to be the first one.

This is the real competition.

Human resistance.

And what startups need to understand is as much as you invest in building your feature set, which we all know they're not going to use most of it anyway, not in the first run, you need to invest in change management, in understanding the fears of your target audience and how you're going to help them overcome those fears.

But don't you think that there's another language that a lot of people use to talk about how they're selling?

And that is, does this customer have.

And is it.

And broadly across a market, do these customers have a certain pain point that they haven't figured out a way to solve?

Well, Jati, they.

They lived with this pain point for quite some time, and they did not try to create that software on their own.

Which means the pain point was not that big that it was worth finding a do it, you know, do it yourself kind of a solution.

So do they have a pain point?

We all do.

And you know what?

No organization is perfect.

And we learn to live with our flaws and we learn to live with the good enough solution.

And even though you can scratch your head, your.

No, your ear this way, they learn to do it this way, and it's still working.

So you know what?

I would submit your consideration that while people have pain points, the question is not if I have a pain point, the question if it's urgent for me to address it now and you are trying to come and reprioritize my agenda, both financially resource wise, in order to make your solution my priority as opposed to other pain points that I have.

Guess what?

You know we did a lot of work in strativity with journey mapping and you identify a lot of pain points for customers and you cannot bold, you cannot fix them all.

So you need to prioritize.

And the way we prioritize is we call them loyalty builders versus loyalty eroders.

So there are certain pain points that even if you'll excel in them, I'll never give you good points because it's just there, you know, if your invoice is accurate, don't, don't expect me to pay you more because you have an accurate invoice.

But you know, the loyalty builders are the pain points that are going to contribute to a longer retention and a longer relationship.

So by splitting them that way there were certain pain points.

It's like just do the bare minimum, just plug the hole.

But nobody is going to replace a system.

And I'll give you jotly one more example.

Our studies are showing that over 40% of Oracle customers are not planning to move to the cloud.

In fact, most of the cloud customers are small to mid sized businesses.

They're not the large Oracle businesses and Oracle have tried in every possible way to threaten them.

They're going to stop support for the database and for this in the process.

They're still using it.

Is it a pain point?

Absolutely.

Are the user interface anything modern?

Absolutely not.

And yet they're still using it as 400.

There are still as 400 out there in insurance companies and banks.

Is that a pain point?

Absolutely.

But it's a tolerable.

It's a pain point.

We know.

Okay, fair enough.

Hi.

The podcast you are listening to is a companion to my recent book Tech Startup Toolkit how to Launch Strong and Exit Big.

This is the book I wish I'd had as I was founding and running eight startups over 35 years.

It's like a memoir of my entrepreneurial journey.

I tell the unvarnished truth about what went right and especially about what went wrong.

It's for the founder, the CEO and wannabe founders of tech and non tech startups.

You could get it from all the usual booksellers and also from the publisher@manning.com I hope you like it.

It's a true labor of love.

Now back to the show.

You're fond of saying that stories are really important in startup success.

What do you mean by that?

Well, not just.

I think my new book, Dare to Author, is based on the premise that we do not live in facts.

We do not live in numbers.

We live in stories.

Stories mobilize people.

Facts do not.

I'll give you a very simple example.

We are on December, December 11 today.

And very soon, at the end of the year, millions of Americans are going to go on this scale.

On January 1st, they're going to look at the number, they're going to hate the number.

They're going to absolutely commit to change the number.

And by January 30th, they'll go back to their regular regimen of eating and exercise, which is not healthy.

The number doesn't set people free.

The number doesn't activate people to change.

And that's my premise there.

People are stuck in old stories and as a result of it, cannot embrace the future.

What happened is, as I talk about it in the book, we see future, we see new things, and we act like victims.

We are.

Our knee jerk reaction is victimhood to future and for that matter, to new technologies.

And as victims, we try to fight, we try to fly, we try to freeze, but we are not embracing.

We're definitely not excited.

We're definitely not going to take advantage of it.

So unless you craft a story that creates a purpose for me to activate and change, I'm not going to.

Because the comfort zone and the devil I know are much, much better.

And no numbers in the world that you're going to throw at me is going to make that change.

Because the whole weight loss industry is based on the fact that you saw a number.

But still the bottom line is very different.

So just continuing with the weight loss analogy, if the doctor that you like and trust tells you a story about what your future might be like if you continue to be overweight and eat badly and don't exercise, they're essentially telling a story, correct?

Is that yes and no?

Yes and no.

Let me give you two stats since we're in the story business, okay?

Nine out of 10 people who suffered from a heart attack will go back to their old ways.

Within six months, they were at the brink of losing everything and are going back to that.

85% of the people who discover that they have diabetes, which is, by the way, the story is horrible.

Amputation, eye loss and sight loss and so on and so forth.

85% of them do not, do not fulfill the first prescription.

Okay.

Even though the numbers are very clear, when we talk about stories, we talk about self, purpose, a reason to do things.

Because we want to make an impact on the world, because we want to connect to our family, because we understand what the consequences are.

I just read, by the way, an interesting article from the professor at Yale University.

She's from the Happiness center, and, and she talks about the fact that if you want to change, take a picture of yourself in 20 years from now and ask yourself, what do you want that person to be?

And how do you want to care for that person?

And if you don't want that person to be ill or suffering, then what do you do now in order to get there?

When I talk about the story, I talk about your personal story.

I talk about purpose.

I talk about a reason to get the courage to.

To rise up, to the better version of yourself.

We all have two type of versions.

The basic version, the mediocre, the average version, the easy version, the comfort version, and the one that requires courage in order to move up to a higher version, to the exceptional performance, to the things that we care about.

And that choice requires a story.

So you've written something like 10 books, right?

Correct.

Motivates you to write the next book.

Where.

What.

What is the thing?

I mean, because a book, you could.

The book is a product too, and, and you don't want to write a book that's exactly the same as someone else's book.

And you want to write a book because you, you think it solves somebody's problems.

What, what motivates you to write a particular.

Like the, the 11th book?

What's it going to be?

The book we are talking about right now is a book I did not even know I'm going to be writing.

So this was actually something that one of my clients challenged me to write because he felt that there was a need in the market, and I did not necessarily see it.

So I give him all the credit for that, even in the book itself.

So the way I look at books is about amplification of messages and reaching out to a lot of more people than I can reach through traditional consulting workshops and speeches.

And my goal is, and this is a tricky part about a book, anybody who wrote a book will tell you that oftentimes people come to you, oh, remember that line you wrote on page 52 that inspired me to do this, this and that.

And you look at them, it's like, that's not what I meant.

But I'm glad it inspired you to do this and that.

And oftentimes what authors need to get used to is that the moment you ship that book out there, it is subject to interpretations because it's, again, people hear what they hear based on their life story, not based on what you did.

So this book was written because I ultimately understood that as I work in change management and transformation, people are struggling with how to transform past experiences into future strength and into future resilience and into embracing the future.

And I wanted to give them a tool because the book has a lot of prompt questions.

It actually guides you how to do it for yourself.

The purpose was to give people a tool to actually look at their past as a springboard for the future, not just as scars that we need to suffer, but as stars that can actually shine and shed light on the future.

So I always think about my audience.

It's not an.

It's not an innate thing in me to.

I need to write, and then I hope somebody's going to write, is going to read it.

I'm writing it because I'm trying to communicate with people that I believe I can inspire with some ideas.

I'm way behind you.

I've only written six books.

Well, more motivation to go.

But as you know, a book starts.

I love Winston Churchill's slogan, a book starts like a lover and ends like a tyrant.

You know, you love the writing, but then the editing and the changes and your editor's driving.

Driving you nuts.

What you mean by that?

And you need to explain that.

It's like, it's obvious to me, but it's like it's obvious to you because you lived it.

It's not obvious to somebody who didn't live your life.

So.

Yeah, from a lover to a tyrant.

Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah, isn't amazing.

I mean, it's like people don't appreciate that process.

They think it's, you know, you write a text, you put it on Amazon, it's going to be print on demand.

But it's like, no, it's a lot of details to bring this product to life.

And you're absolutely right about it.

And authors who love to express themselves with words sometimes find the other aspects a bit tedious and annoying and cumbersome and.

Yeah, so I've tried them all.

Look, I've done some self publishing, I've done some with Simon and Schuster, so I've experienced it on all grounds.

As much as it's not enjoyable necessarily, I do appreciate the diligent process because as authors, we want to get the word out as soon as possible, but it has to be done in the right way so the audience can actually benefit from it.

I was just going to say the same thing.

The process is challenging, but the end result is such a high quality.

Yeah.

That it's worth it.

It's absolutely worth it.

And the comments, if you, if you're lucky enough to get good comments, which I'm getting a lot of right now, that makes it, that makes all the pain totally worth it.

So, so which comment you received that kind of like, gave you that moment of, oh, it was all worth it?

Well, you're going to be really kind of.

I think you're going to be surprised.

So the audience of this book is supposed to be startup founders, startup CEOs and wannabe founders.

And one of those wannabe founders read the book and said, now I know I don't want to do it.

And, and I, and I thought about it for a while thinking, oh, no, this is.

That's not good.

That's not good.

Except.

Except then I realized, no, no, that is good.

They don't really have the.

All the right attitudes, maybe fortitude or, you know, or they're just, they're just so nervous about it and they'll, they'll have trouble if they're so nervous about it that they're stuck in imposter syndrome on everything they do.

I mean, the person just probably needs a little coaching.

Unfortunately, I don't know exactly who they are because it's just a name right.

In their review.

So changing gears slightly.

Can I just comment on that for a second?

I just.

When I came to the United States, you know, one of the, one of those slogans, catchphrases that caught my attention, I fell in love with it was if you can dream it, you can do it.

I thought, oh, this is America.

This is, you know, if you can dream it, you can do it.

And in the book, I actually dedicate a chapter to revising that statement.

I'm saying I'm calling a BS on that statement for the following reason.

It's oversimplifying it.

And I want to revise this statement to say if you can dream it and you're willing to put the efforts for it and you're willing to pay the price of difficulties, you have a better chance of doing it.

And I think the person who read your book basically concluded I'm not willing to put the efforts and that's okay.

And that's absolutely okay.

Don't waste people's time, don't waste investors money.

I'm glad you reached that conclusion before the damage was done.

Well, it is consistent with my goal for the book, so.

And it's a lofty goal and it's not completely realistic.

But we all know that the statistic of 8 out of 10 startups fail is pretty tried and true.

And I want the person who really reads, takes seriously and absorbs the book to be part of a group for whom 8 out of 10 startups succeed.

Yep.

And if it filters out people that aren't willing to put up with the pain, work hard at it, hit a wall and bounce off and try again, then that's going to decrease the number of people that unfortunately might not succeed.

Might fail and free the money for other people who are more serious about it.

Because VC money at the end of the day is also limited.

So one of the things we also say a lot about people that do startups is that they have grit and that may be by the way, also part of what we, what that person meant when they said, no, I'm not, I'm not going to do this.

And so where does your grit come from?

Because you, I don't know a whole lot and there's a bunch hidden in from me in your background but, but you've got grit that you know, you've already exposed to me a little bit.

I grew up in a neighborhood that will be probably equivalent in America to a slum with teachers who believe that I should not even bother to go to high school because it's a waste of my time and the waste of all of my friends time.

They told us to go and you know, either be apprentice or go to occupational school and just get like a mechanic job or a cleaner job or.

But and they did it out of a great deal of compassion to us.

They just didn't want us to frustrate ourselves with goals that we cannot achieve.

So you want to talk where my grit came from?

I've got those teachers who did not believe one bit, one iota in what I can do.

And that gave me a great deal of motivation.

I never ever attempted to go back to them and prove them wrong.

But it was in, you know, in me.

I came from a humble background where people did not believe in me.

I had to be the only one believing in myself.

And that was a driver.

That was a driver that I cannot ignore.

Some people Will say, hey, they did you a favor.

I don't need those favors.

But I'm also not ignoring the fact that it is part of my background.

I've seen a lot of poverty around me, and I did not want to be part of that either.

I wanted to give my children a better chance.

And in that regard, you know, I view my life in America as a gift, and I'm very grateful to the United States for giving me that opportunity to come and try and give it a shot.

And, you know, thank God it worked, but not without a lot of hard work.

But I'll tell you one more thing.

At strativity, we had a very interesting.

It's very relevant to the times that we're in.

We have an interesting practice that I established from day one, and that is when the holidays come, every employee receives a small amount of money to go and give to charity, whatever charity they want to give to.

And then at the holiday party, every employee would stand up and tell us, who did they give it to and why?

What's the personal story?

And it was one of the pinnacles of the year for me, because this was the time that we were not just helping our clients, but we are helping the world in a small, little way, in whatever we can do.

We could never write a big check, but we could write a small check.

And for me, this was a.

This was our way of being part of the greater community and allowing my employees to express themselves.

I don't know what it was for you, but, you know, it was dark.

We got cancellations of contract right and left.

I had to lower salaries instead of firing people.

And it was horrible, horrible time.

I remember employees came to me and said, lior, we're sure if you're going to fire us, you're going to make more money.

Now we are carrying the company and et cetera, et cetera.

Came December 1st, and everybody was watching.

Is that going to be an allowance for charity this year or not?

And even though the amount was not what it was used to be, I made a point of doing it, of making it.

So for me, establishing that the center of gravity of my life is not myself, but the ability to give it to others, which is the ultimate success in my world.

That little practice was a reminder every year that we exist for something bigger and larger than us.

There are other people who we can help, and we should always focus on the power we do have, not the power we don't have.

Lior, I love your worldview and I really want to thank you for making this podcast better.

Thank you.

I really appreciate your time.

Thank you very much.

That's a wrap.

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the Designing Successful Startups podcast.

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This is Jothi Rosenberg saying ttfn ta ta for now.