Life Advice – Ori Eisen

Ori Eisen

You can do anything if you don’t care who gets the credit


Talk at Montclair State University


Radio interview in Hebrew with Shmulik Noifeld – on his show Ziporey Lila on channel Galaz – May 26th, 2022

If you want to find the bell in Adele’s Hello – here is a link. The answers below if you need them.

Listen to bells on time markers 5:06 and 5:30 and there are more.


How to be a duck – Motivational talk in Hebrew, to underprivileged high school kids, as part of the non-profit Yesh Matsav

New prayers for the 21st Century

You can quote me on these:

1)

“Thank G-d its complicated, otherwise everyone would be doing it.”

When my team tells me it will be difficult to pull something off.

2)

“You can lead a man to knowledge, but you can’t make them think.”

Based on the famous idiom: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. I can only explain to your the facts, the rationale, the thesis, the logic… but I can’t see the outcomes for you.

3)

“Not everything is worth conquering the Bastille for.”

You should fight for justice, for truth, for freedom, for peace and for what you believe in. Yet, not everything is worth sacrificing your life for.

4)

“Time will pass, when time passes.”

You can not hasten the passage of time. Healing wound will take time, that nothing can make go faster. Waiting for a vacation or a verdict is hard, but you can not do anything about it.

5)

“I feel like we crossed two different streets at the same time.”

What we just did here, and now – affected a future place/world.

6)

“Every human is a mammal, but not every mammal is a human.”

To explain a Venn diagram, every square is a quad literal, but not every quadrilateral is a square.

7)

“Don’t come with problems, come with solutions.

There are no problems, there are issues to be resolved.”

Don’t tell me “there is no more ink in the printer…” That is coming with a problem, and you just moved the monkey from your back to mine. You should tell me “we ran out of ink, and I am leaning now to get some.”

The word “problem” connotes something that may be permanent. Turn that to something temporary, by calling it an an issue to be resolved.

8)

“If I would bring him a briefcase with $1M, in $20 bills, he would ask ‘why $20 and not $100?”

Of people who see the world, half glass full. The glass is full in fact, half with water and half with air.

9)

“You will be lucky if you will get him to work for you.”

“Literally, no one would do a better job,”

Said of people you should NOT hire. Re-read the quotes…

10)

“Telling you what I did in my startup to get it acquired, is like telling last week’s lottery numbers.”

People ask about what you did to sell your business, without realizing that there are so many nuances, that its hard to use the knowledge in other situations.

11)

“I believe in happy endings. So if its not happy, it is probably not the end.”

Things will get rough. And then, they tend to get better.

12)

“I am not a religious person, yet I am a big believer.”

Folks like Spinoza and Frank Lloyd Wright saw and felt the universe and nature as the playground of the Creator. Not houses of worship, and religious leaders. As FLW said in an interview “I believe in nature with Capital N.”

13)

“Own the least, lease the most.”

I never bought a car as it is depreciates from the moment you leave the parking lot of the car dealership. Owning comes with more headaches than renting or leasing. Own the least amount of things.

14)

“Some people are so poor, all they have is money.”

Self explanatory…

15)

“If your parents-in-law gave you money for a new sofa – do they have a say in picking the color?”

Know the limits of your relationships, and the assumption of debt and rights when taking gifts.

16)

“Intelligence and happiness are diametrically opposed.”

The more you know, the more you learn how this world is both Heaven and Hell at the same time. Thus, serenity is the most important goal in life. What is most important? Serenity.

17)

“There is a last time for everything.”

On the same idea of there is a first time for everything. When you know something is not good for you, you can say it to yourself, or out loud.

18)

“Buyers are liars.”

After a sales call, you could be thinking this was a good call, they are interested, they will buy. Think again. Many times in order to avoid conflict, argument, or just say that this is not a fit – a prospect will play along and pretend there is interest. You should forecast sales only when you see a draft contract that has gone through a few rounds of red-lines.

19)

“No company goes from point A to point B in a straight line.”

All the planning, Excel models of how companies grow, usually show bar charts that are linear. That is never the case in reality. You can go through many setbacks downward, before reaching point B.

20)

“There are only two industries that call their customersusers‘: illegal drugs and software”

The source for this is not clear, and was made more popular in a Netflix show, the Social Dilemma. I was using this for over twenty years, as it captures the essence perfectly.

21)

“You can bring a man to knowledge, but you can’t make them think.”

Based on the idiom “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.”

Bio

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *