What Really Counts

This is about one of our top VCs here in Israel. And when I say top it's because he was around at the beginning, and actually invested in the first startup I worked with. I'm talking about the Founder & Executive Chairman of JVP (raised $1.4B so far) and Margalit StartUp City, Erel Margalit.

In one of his latest he explained why they did their company offsite locally, instead of flying their team abroad to a fancy destination like many high-tech companies do. First of all, it's because this is a company that is very proud to be headquartered in Israel, and promoting development throughout the country - not only in the big cities. And also because they didn't want to take the flashy route at a time when things are rough for some people.

We love Erel's posts because he always puts a big emphasis on the warm and fuzzy aspects of human connection, and this was no exception. In the last sentence of the post he wrote:

In the end it is not the setting but the atmosphere of togetherness and love between people. And it's plentiful here.

My commentary on this is divided into two parts - a light part, and a heavier part.

So first - the easy part. I was really encouraged when I saw that last sentence because the entire essence of our transition to a more developed reality - it's all summed up beautifully in this sentence. The transition will be from our current individualistic state to a reciprocal system, which will allow us to access forces that are far greater than what we were each given as individuals. There are many examples of how this has been explained over the years - singularity, wisdom of the crowd, the butterfly effect, etc. None of us are surprised anymore by these very human statements Erel makes on social media, but I still wanted to highlight it.

Clearly this is a super-conscious leader that doesn't take the good vibes for granted. In a more recent post he said - "dividing is easy, connecting is hard." He believes innovation will help bridge the divides and bring about real change. I commented that whoever connects people will continue from success to success, and he replied: "Thank you so much Josia. At the end of the day everything depends on the connections and partnerships we're able to make and create. The power of togetherness is much stronger than the power of being alone."

Since he really gets it, this next part won't be hard for him, but may be a lot for others to take in.

The Engine of Human Development

What's left out of this great subject is the matter of the ego, something we're not so familiar with that hasn't really been covered. What do I mean? We see that in this era of individualism it's as if we have filled our capacity. We've started "eating" into everything we've accumulated over the course of history in a negative way: wars between nations, cultures, religions and ideologies. The going trend is that everyone doesn't agree with everyone.

And in the business arena as well, we see more challenges piling up every day - between employees, management issues, and supply issues. Difficulties that we didn't know of before and they're only getting worse. So everything Erel Margalit said is absolutely correct, but doesn't take the ego into account as a bad and separating factor. We cannot yet make the connection between the ego having this steel grip on us, and all the negative phenomena we see around us every day.

The whole idea is to get us out of the rut we are currently in, and unleash a new level of creativity that we've never experienced before.

What I'm always recommending is very simple - the integral method. First we gather groups of people together. The idea is not to deal directly with the forces that separate us, but to start working on getting closer to one another, by emphasizing what we have in common. Then instead of getting into our differences, we'll take a detour because no one can deal with criticism anymore. Since we've gathered groups of people who have all voluntarily decided they want more out of life, we can start pretending to have empathetic relationships and respect for others. We'll each feel responsible for the good of the collective. The whole idea is to get us out of the rut we are currently in, and unleash a new level of creativity that we've never experienced before.

To recap - there is hope for us, if we're starting to talk about these things. It's a sign that it exists in people's consciousness, even though we're not doing it consciously and it's still not visible. On the other hand we will have to go for it in a voluntary manner and that will be the core challenge, seeing how we deal with it. Because we can't be forced to take part. We have to agree to undergo the process.

The integral method is about reclaiming our freedom. It liberates us from the limitations of the human psyche in its current form.

I'm positive that all this sounds quite utopian, but time is not on our side. The pain and anguish we will experience, will make us want to embrace change. In our current state we're at a dead end. The integral method is about reclaiming our freedom. It liberates us from the limitations of the human psyche in its current form. And this will positively impact all aspects of our lives. Who will benefit from it the most? The business world that doesn't have the luxury of waiting to see what happens next.