Ilana Golan is a powerhouse trailblazer. She began her remarkable journey as the first woman commander and instructor for all F 16 flight simulators in the Israeli Air Force. From there, she transitioned into engineering, led startups to multimillion-dollar exits, became a tech investor and board director, and is now founder and CEO of Leap Academy—an award winning, globally recognized coaching and career acceleration platform. She’s impacted over 70,000 professionals across four continents, been featured in Forbes, TechCrunch, Yahoo Finance, NBC, CBS, ABC, and has built multiple seven and eight figure businesses.
Ilana joined host Robert Glazer on the Elevate Podcast to discuss her military career, lessons she learned from service, entrepreneurial success and coaching great leaders.
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Ilana Golan On Leap Academy, Coaching Great Leaders And More
Welcome to the show. Our quote is from Viktor Frankl. “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” My guest, Ilana Golan, is a powerhouse trailblazer. She began her remarkable journey as the first woman commander and instructor for an all-F-16 flight simulator in the Israeli Air Force.
From there, she transitioned into engineering, led startups to multi-million dollar exits, became a tech investor and board director. She is now the founder and CEO of Leap Academy, an award-winning, globally recognized coaching and career acceleration platform. She has impacted over 70,000 professionals across four continents, been featured in Forbes, TechCrunch, Yahoo Finance, NBC, CBS, ABC, just all the Cs, and has built multiple seven and eight-figure businesses.
Welcome, it is great to have you on the show.
Thank you, Robert. Super fun to be here.
Ilana’s Journey From Military Service To Entrepreneurship
I know you started your career in the military as the first woman tasked with training F-16 pilots. How did you get that role? I assume it formed a foundation of your leadership identity.
Back in Israel, we do have mandatory military service. It was part of the mandatory, but I was very lucky to somehow get selected for this Air Force opportunity. Within that Air Force, I found myself to be a flight instructor, what they called. Eventually, I broke the ceiling. I became the first woman to become a commander in my squad. It was a lot of steps. There was a lot of grinding.
Let us be clear, you flew the F-16s first?
You fly as well. The problem is that at that point, women were not allowed to become commanders or to become fighter pilots at all in Israel. We were all standing on the shoulders of each other, trying to break some glass ceiling somewhere. At that point, women were not allowed to be combat pilots. The only option that we could do is after a very long program that is very aligned with what everybody else is doing in the pilot school. At that point, we were basically going towards training, like Kelly McGillis, if you will, in Top Gun.
I am sure everyone understands that analogy. It is super interesting how you would train on something if you have not done it. I would not suspect that. Is that all done? Is it done in the classroom and simulators, and all combinations?
Classroom, simulators. In the military, it is very common because you have not always done all the things that you are training for, but also some of the best trainers have not been Olympians. You do not have to be an Olympian to be an incredible mentor to Olympians, but you do need to have some knowledge of a lot of things. I do agree with you, Robert. One of the reasons why I fast forward 40 years, now I am very specific about Leap Academy to have only people who walk the walk. I do believe that it is important.
Can you fly the plane?
Yeah.
You just could not be in combat. Got it.
We could not be in combat. To be really honest, when I came to the US, everybody was like, “To get a license.” I was so broke, Robert, I could not afford to get a license.
If you were on a plane, if you were on an A220 and the pilots both passed out, could you get in there and take that plane?
Very different, but you could fly.
After that, I know you had some professional roles. You dove into entrepreneurship, raising $800,000 for a startup that then collapsed when your co-founder pushed you out. Tell me about that journey. We learn a lot more sometimes from our failures than from our successes. In fact, our successes often seem like I have seen some people have really good timing and luck, and that ended up really hurting them later because they missed the story that things went well. They were not brilliant.
That is true. There are definitely some stories of failure in the military. After that, I did leap again, again to engineering and Intel, and startups. At that point, I was already vice president, doing some pretty big things. There is a reason why I am sharing that because it just shows the fall was so big. It also ties to some of the things that you talk about, because I reached that VP role. I was grinding and flying every single week.
I was burned out, and I was crying. I was not really happy. When a friend of mine came to me and said, “Ilana, let us start a company together.” I was just like, “That is such a good idea. I am working my ass off. At least I get to work on my own thing.” I got really excited, worked every minute of my life on this thing. All the weekends. Really slammed it.
It was incredible. It was so exciting. Again, we are living in Silicon Valley. Even the Silicon Valley story made sense. We went to investors. Yes, we raised $800,000. They were evaluating a baby at five million, which was an incredible feeling. It was not even from one tiny investor. It was like three prominent Silicon Valley investors.
When we knew the term sheet was there, I went to say goodbye to my VP role. I told everybody about the startup, about the money we raised. Within 24 hours, I lost everything, Robert. I basically lost my job, my salary, my startup, and my investment. The worst part is that I lost my identity. I did not know who I was without it. My identity was always attached to my title, to the company I was with. Suddenly, I go to places. I am Ilana, the nobody. It was really frightening.
What happened with the business that it imploded that quickly, that it all fell apart?
Nothing. He took the money. He threw me out of the business. He continued. Nothing really happened. He took the investment money. He took me out of the term sheet.
Was that his plan all along?
I do not know. The truth is, we were shocked by how fast we raised capital. When there is money involved, there are a lot of feelings that come with it. For me, I came because I thought it was less about the money. I was just really excited to work on my own thing. For him, the money did create, “If I can raise so much money so fast, maybe I do not need her.” I am very happy that it did not work out for him.
Recovering From Rock Bottom And Achieving Entrepreneurial Success
You are excited about being an entrepreneur, gave up your stable job. Both of those doors were now closed. You had an identity not tied to either of them. How both emotionally and strategically did you work your way up from that bottom?
It is important. If somebody tuning in to this is stuck and feeling trapped, it was one of the hardest moments in my life because I think for driven people, we always knew what was next. Not only that I lose that identity, but I also lost the sense of what on earth I want to do with my life. Not knowing, not having that clarity, was a really humbling experience. I could not sleep at night. I could not wake up in the morning. There was no purpose. Even when you meet somebody, you do not really have a clear story. I was snapping at my kids. My health deteriorated.
You did not like the “What do you do?” question.
What do you do? It was like, “What do I do?”
It is interesting, we all ask that reflexively. It is very loaded.
I will say otherwise. Sometimes I get anxious because they ask my husband, “What do you do?” They will never ask me. There is this thing, like we are not going to ask a woman because there are assumptions she is not doing. I have a really good story. Actually, my husband is the one who is retired. Biking all day. Can somebody ask me what I do?
The truth is, yes, that was a dark point in my life. It was a really hard question because not only did I not know what I wanted to do, or I did not know what I did not have anything that I was doing, but I also did not know what I wanted to do. I think that combination is like, “Are you this loser that is so lost?” I just felt like a complete failure. It was really hard to cling my way out of that deep end.
What was the bottom? Do you remember the day or the thought, or how you stopped? What made you start going back up?
I remember the bottom.
I can see it in your eyes.
That was painful. There were a couple of bottoms, I have to say, because I was messed up. The bottom was at some point, I had like a little cancer scare. It was not like at the end of the day. God forbid, I was fine, etc., but it was these 2, or 3 days that you are waiting for results. I remember crying in bed. Saying, “If this is it, I wasted my life.” My life was like a complete fraction of who I could be. This cannot be it. It just gave me chills. I was just at that point, I made a promise that if I get out of this mess, I just have to do something about it. I have to do something bigger in my life. That is it. That was the promise for Leap, I guess.
What did you do next? You built a few companies. You were part of some exits.
I almost forgot about that promise, like eventually life takes you, I guess. I started a company. I sold the company.
Whether you are listening or not, or want to go.
I started that company. It was acquired. I found myself investing in a lot of companies. I invested in over a hundred companies today. It was some pretty big Silicon Valley investors. I found myself mentoring in some of the biggest startup accelerators in the world, like Google and Singularity University, and Carnegie Mellon.
I was like, “This is so interesting because essentially if I think back on this moment, I was actually leaping again and again. Can I teach this? Am I the only one who lost almost everything, or can this happen to anybody else?” I was so lost that I wanted to make sure nobody else felt that way ever again. Suddenly, I was like, “It is interesting.” I do the same four steps again and again. I am a geeky engineer, Robert. We did not talk about it, but I study electrical engineering. How geeky is that?
This is a process.
It is like the same steps again and again. Why should I not share that? It is very aligned with what you talk about, which is finding that passion to have a more fulfilled life. How do we get people to live and become the best version they can be? That is it. In 2020, I left the tech world and jumped all in to create this. Leap Academy was born.
Taking A Giant Leap With Leap Academy
What is the significance? You use the word leap a lot. Obviously, Leap Academy, how do you think about leaping and the importance of what leaping is? What does it mean for people?
This is where it came from. When I was stuck and at the bottom of my barrel, but even not only in the bottom, because every single time I was good at something, even in corporate, you get good and then you get stuck. You need some push to get out of the stuckness. The corporation has a reason for you to be stuck. You are good at it. By definition, you are going to stay there for a while because it is comfortable. For me, it always felt like I needed to reinvent myself and leap. I am an impatient creature. I always wanted, like, “How can I fast forward? How can I create the most out of what I can do in my life?”
It is like a jump and a forward. That is what a leap is.
For me, it is, yeah, it is like, “How fast can I go? How far can I go? What is the biggest impact that I can create?”
You said something earlier when we were in a conversation, and I have seen this, and this is the problem, like the worst thing is good enough. No one ever leaves good enough. You know it is the wrong track and the wrong thing, but you are paid well. It is good enough for either. The people who lose their jobs or suddenly have them taken away from them.
They are forced to, and I know everyone looks at that as the worst thing. I know someone who was in this like a safe enough place and stayed and stayed way too long. It is still digging out of that, five years later, because it was the wrong place. Being associated with the wrong people. The legacy of that is still a problem for them. Look, it is really hard to take yourself off that track when it is good enough.
It is a great question because what happened to that startup is the best thing that has happened to me in my life. At that point, I could not see it, but there was no way on earth, Robert, that I would have left my cloud data center, tech world, VP role, very high paying. No way on earth I would have left it for anything. Robert, it looked like the right choice. It looked like the right thing for me to do. That is what I built myself for twenty years.
How could I leave that? To some extent, if I had left it for a startup with the wrong partner, that would have been horrible. To some extent, I dodged the bullet, but it also gave me the biggest gift in my life to actually start asking myself, “Ilana, what on earth do you want to do with your life? How do you maximize your potential? How do you create not just a paycheck, but the life that you want with a paycheck?” Just asking those questions just changed everything in my life.
Learn how to maximize your potential and create not just a paycheck but the thing you want with that paycheck.
What is the premise of the I know the lead programs and eight week program? What are the pillars? How does it is it full-time for those eight weeks? How is it structured?
It is eight weeks in a year. The way I look at it, there are two phases of growth that people need to be in. When they want to reinvent and leap, what I call, and again, it does not mean that you need to do a huge shift. It could be that you want to get the promotions. It could be that you want to start something else, a business. It could be that most people create portfolio careers, like multiple streams of income, which is the future of work anyway.
There are two phases of growth, and people do not realize it. The first one is a pattern interrupt. It has to be really fast because the problem is that people put you in a box, cloud data center, tech, whatever, or I was in the box at Intel as a coder. They put you in a box. It is really hard to get out of the box. If you just do a little bit more, if you just post a little bit or sit on a panel, whatever, they just get used to you being a little bit better. What you want to do is almost like a kid.
Better or more differentiated?
Maybe. They do not see the magnitude of the difference. It is almost like a kid. You see them every single day. You do not notice the difference, but you see them out of the year. You are like, “What just happened?” We have to get the woe effect. Otherwise, people will still have you in that box. If you have not been seen as a leader, you will continue not being seen as a leader, no matter what you do, unless you suddenly shift.
You get such a pattern interrupt that people have to say, “Wait, I did not realize Ilana can actually be a VP.” You have to create that massive change. The pattern interrupt is really important. It has to happen in a really short time to figure out what you want to do. Get that clarity, align your story with where you are going, align the basic branding, align your hidden network to start bringing opportunities your way.
That needs to happen quickly because we need to create a little bit of that whoa factor to get out of the box. The second part is the muscle building. Both of them have to happen together. The muscle building is after you reinvent yourself. This is where you start building a little more executive presence, more in the hidden market, and more opportunities that come your way. Robert, do you know that?
All the coolest things are not on job boards. All the coolest opportunities, especially mid to late stage career, even if it is more executive level roles, even if it is like co-founding things, investment opportunities, public speaking boards, advisory, etc, they are never on the job board. Basically, it is more about like who thinks about you when you are not in the room. If you are not intentional or strategic about it, it is not happening.
Teaching Leaders How To Deal With Fear And Embrace Success
I am curious. A lot of them are coming into your program for transition. I assume a lot of them are like, “I am lost. I do not know what to do.” I have a friend who is a clarity coach. He has a very unique take on this. I have watched him coach some people, Phil McKernan. Do they really not know what they want to do, or do they know what they want to do and that scares them, and they are afraid to go after it?
In the land of opportunities today, when there are endless opportunities on the menu, they really do not know what they want to do because the truth is, we all have blinders on. There are two phases of this. You are right that at some point, there are also changes to fear. I am not saying fear does not exist, but I do believe there are two phases to it. The first one is what is even on the menu? There are so many ways to make income these days.
There are endless opportunities today that you might not really know what to do. Take your blinders off to find out the best course of action to take.
I was going to ask that question. I was going to say, are they clear about what they can do?
Nothing is clear. If you left corporate as a W-2 and all you could see is that director role that you do not know how to get to, or that VP that you do not know how to get to, you do not even know what is on the menu. There are endless possibilities. Nobody teaches you what are even the options are. Once you decide on an option, the fear comes in. “Can I be on a board? Can I be an advisor? Can I start a company? Can I do consulting?” All of these fears are absolutely true. Initially, they do not even know what will get them excited again.
Do you do an assessment to figure out, like you are trying to figure out what they are good at? They first need to understand.
There is a combination. The very first thing that we need to understand, and that actually changed my life somehow, is what the must-haves are. It is really interesting. People operate almost automatically, and you know that. They tend to go because that is what they have known. That is what they have been. That is what they see. Nobody usually stops and says, “What is really critical for me at this moment?”
It is going to change throughout your life all the time because life is in phases. Different phases, different things will be important for you. Sometimes it is money. I just need as much cash as possible. Sometimes it is growth. I want a bigger title. I want to feel like I am learning. I want a reputation, responsibility, fame, whatever it is. Sometimes it has an impact. I need to feel like I’m moving the needle. I want to be someone in the world.
I want my name to be known for something, making a difference. Sometimes it is balanced because I take care of kids or parents, or I want sports or whatever. For whatever reason, no job opportunity or anything will have all four of them. You will take two of these every given moment in time. You are going to need to be okay with compromising on the two that you are not chasing. Just even answering yourself what is really critical at this moment in this year or two, again, do not think long term, but if you think about it in the next year or two, or start being very clear.
You can tell me you want to start this company, but you need cash right now. These two will not happen together, no matter what. Pick a side again. It is really important to be really honest with yourself. It is not about what others, etc. There is like the zone of genius of like, what is that combination of expertise and things that you have done? What you teach.
Is that literally the Patrick Lencioni zone of genius? Is that what you use?
Sort of, yeah. A combination.
Those things you were mentioning before saying you could have balance. You could have these things. Is that an open slate, or is that an actual, like, rubric that you walk people through?
It is literally a rubric. You need to be honest with yourself. It came to me, I had these two really big opportunities right when I was as confused as it gets. It was interesting. This quad room, if you will, is what showed me that I cannot chase those, even though society expects me to, it is going to be really cool.
It is going to come with a lot of status, but it is not the right thing for Ilana at this moment of now. Realizing that changed my life. The other element that I think a lot of people do not realize is that they can experiment with careers, just like startups. You have done companies. Companies experiment all the time. People do not realize that you can actually bring this to the world of career. If you can actually really lean into experimenting with everything, it is incredible what is possible.
Someone said to me once, I think it is true, “You can have anything you want, you just cannot have it all at once.” They are trade-offs.
Isn’t that my story? No, I am kidding. I do not know. I always say that, yeah.
I remember people would come to our company. They would be like, “I want to work at your company. I do not like the big industry company that I am at. I feel like we do not have innovation. There is no job growth. There is not whatever. I really want to work at your company because I want all these things.” “Now we get down to the offer.”
“They pay like a little bit more.” I am like, “They are a public company, and the healthcare covers more of my family.” You cannot have a Franken-job. If you want the startup, hungrier company, it does not come with the big company, fringe benefits. It is great to know what you want, but yes, I will understand. You cannot have all that at once. It requires picking a side, as we talked about.
What do you want to say no to? It is so important. That awareness. What is critical for you to create an incredible life? Some of it is leaning on these values. Some of it is just really being specific about what is critical for you right now.
How To Get Into Your Zone Of Genius
You mentioned this term, zone of genius. We all hear it a lot. What does it mean to you? It is used in a bunch of different ways.
The way I look at it is every single person will have this very unique set of skills, things that they have done, like their network, things that they achieved, the challenges that they face, etc. That is where their special sauces, if you will. Again, I was a coder. Was I the best coder in the world? Not really.
You were a good coder.
Is it you who really is the thing, the zone of genius? No, it is not. You need to look at where you are competent and where is that excellent zone of genius, etc., or not competent at all. Me in the kitchen, not competent. Some areas are not yours. They are never going to be yours.
Zone of ungenius, yeah.
Between the zone of excellence and the zone of genius, I think this is where it becomes interesting and tricky, if you will. It was very clear to me from the get-go with Intel that I want to be customer-facing. As you said, I needed to experiment a little bit was “How do I get customer facing? Do I do product role? Do I do sale technical sales role? Do I do VP, whatever role? Do I do business development? What customer facing? How do I find that thing?”
First of all, this is where experimentation comes in. I could have experimented a lot faster if I knew a lot more of what I know now. Also, just understanding that, yes, there is going to take a little bit of looking for it, for the right thing to know that this is your zone of genius. When you are in that zone of genius, you can go through a lot more hardship without giving up.
There is no burnout in your zone of genius. I would say time stands still. It is easy for you, it is what you want to do, and it is energizing. Burnout tends to happen, in my opinion. I am curious about yours, is like when you are, it’s not time, it is time spent on the painful stuff. I have seen people who work 60 hours a week, and they are not burned out, because they are 58 or those in their zone of genius, then they are not burned out.
I will say something about burnout. The mindset is real. Even if you are working in your zone of genius, it is going to be a grind. From time to time, there is going to be something hard. I actually heard this. I do not know who to quote to give credit for, but she basically said everything works in threes. If you are in your zone of genius, a third of the time, you are going to have an incredible time.
It is going to be the most incredible, fulfilling, amazing life you have ever had. A third of the time, it is going to be a meh, but because you are grinding and you are doing all tasks that you are not really excited about, but they are part of this big vision, and a third of it will actually suck. It is okay, because if it is only a third, and you are eventually getting all this incredible life in between, it actually makes sense.
It sounds like launching a book. It is a lot of, I believe deeply in it, but it is a lot of suck.
Tell me about it. I am trying to finish my book, and it should be out next year.
Writing is easier than birthing. The birthing is the most exhausting. If you really want to do a mass market launch, it is the most exhausting thing that one can do because you are calling in every favor. It is you. People do not want to hear from your assistant or your firm that you hire. They need to hear from you because you are asking for a lot of help.
I know it is going to suck, but that is okay. We are going to go through this.
The Right Way To Build Your Personal Branding
We are going to embrace the suck. Look, you have had a bunch of people in your program go from VP to C-suite, like make big leaps. I am curious, what is the pattern or strategy for the people who are making those really fast leaps? What are they doing that other people are not?
The biggest thing is personal branding.
Personal branding is a very misunderstood term. It is not your Instagram handle.
It does not matter how many followers you have on Instagram, not necessarily from my crowd. I will say this, it is true, we did become a media company. You can like it or hate it. It does not really matter. If you are not embracing it, the assumption is that you do not have anything to say. However, it is the best way to control the narrative. When you want to reinvent yourself, you can promote a bigger story of yourself really fast.
Now with complete integrity, but you are emphasizing the right things according to who you are becoming or who you want to become, according to the opportunities that you want. Some of the biggest things that we have done, especially with executives, are pretty incredible at what you can do to be perceived. We had somebody who was a laid-off director from a hardware company. One of his big things, like, “I know I meant more. I do not know what, I do not know how to get there.”
“I am laid off. I do not want to start again.” That makes sense. When you are looking at it, you know that he can probably be at the C-suite, but he is not going to get a chance unless you create this massive pattern interrupt. Again, everybody will ask him, “What was your last role? You are a director. Great. Let us go back to the bubble.” What we did was basically very strategic, like he started mentoring in some startup accelerators.
He started taking some equity for advisory. He has joined a board. When he started doing that, guess what? He started to be perceived as, “Wait, like he can move companies. I did not realize that he could do that.” Suddenly, one plus one equals five. An AI company actually came to him and said, “We are looking for somebody to lead the company.” He is now the CEO of a gross AI company. It is incredible to see, but it is only because he started using personal branding in a very strategic way. You need to leverage it correctly.
Just an example, what was his focus on his personal brand?
The focus for him was how do I strategically show up as somebody who can move companies to the next level. If I am a director, I am really just managing projects, if you will. I am managing people.
Becoming the board level.
The advisor, the mentor, being in a panel, being in a podcast. Again, you do not need millions. You do not need to sell copies of your book, but you need enough to just be seen in a whole different light. Again, it creates this spatter interrupt in people’s minds that says, “Wait, I did not realize he could do this. He says really important things that I need for my company. Let us talk to him.”
He is a CEO now.
Again, it is all about the hidden network. What people need to understand, like every single cool conversation or opportunity you will ever have, it is all in the hidden market. Who thinks about you when you are not in the room? Who brings those opportunities to you? Are they bringing the right relevant opportunities for you? Again, if it is not the right opportunity, it is not the right level. It is the best way to form it. The best ways to tell a better story.
Every cool conversation or opportunity you will ever have is in the hidden market. It is found in people who think about you when you are not in the room.
The Best Type Of Networking That You Can Build
I mentioned networking a few times. I want to talk about this because I have some strong feelings on this, particularly when people are trying to make a job or a career. Every once in a while, I get the “Bob, we should grab lunch. It has been 15 years.” I am like, “You want a job. I do not really want to be your free recruiter.” I always tell people like, “I have not looked for a job in 15 to 20 years. I am probably not the right person to tell you about your resume and a job or otherwise.” When you think about networking, just find that a lot of people do it when they need stuff.
They reach out to everyone. They go to the places where they have not been before. You can just smell it like a million miles away. I always say, “If a good friend reaches out and they want a job, I have someone I have not talked to in twenty years ask me if I could help get a job for an internship for his friend’s daughter. Not at my company.” Like, “Who is hiring in Boston?” I was like, “What are you talking about?”
It is amazing how many people burn bridges because they are desperate. People need to look at networking.
Thank you for using that word, by the way. I know it is bad, but people smell desperation. They just think it is not good. It is bad.
Every conversation you have it’s like a mirror. You cannot be desperate. It is not what you want to show. It is not how you want to come across. I will say two things. First of all, the best type of networking is when you do not need it.
The best type of networking is when you do not need it.
The best time to be leap-ready is when no one makes the time to do that.
One of the things that I want people to start understanding when they are in Leap is that if you can start being a lot more intentional strategic with your career and with your personal brand, it was networking, it will change a second part of your life. It is not about grinding many hours, but it is about being really strategic with your networking, even when you do not need it or especially when you do not need it.
I will say, when you do need it, you need to remember that there has to be some kind of a win-win situation. You can come to somebody who is a really good friend for her. In the general sense, if you are leveraging somebody, you need to understand the notion of time. What I mean by this, Robert, if you were running a 50-million-dollar company, whatever it is, like 20, 50, does not matter. If you are building that monster every hour, your capacity needs to be working on something worth whatever that adds up to be, like $10,000.
If this conversation is not somehow also trying to help you in a way that helps you get something along the lines of the $10,000, do not ask for your time. It does not make sense. This is really, really important to start understanding how do I start getting intentional and also giving back? Again, I could not ask Richard Branson to come to my podcast if I did not really believe there is a way for me to give something back to somebody who is a billionaire. You need to be strategic about it.
You need to understand the power and balance there. I have someone asking me recently on a Substack. They want to do a trade. They have ten subscribers, and I have 150,000. It should not have to explain that, like, that is going to be difficult. You have to say to Branson, like, “Look, actually, we are going to do a big thing and use the episode to support raising $10,000 for your Branson charity or whatever.”
What is important to that other person? I am launching a book. If people say, “I would love to catch up with you. By the way, I have got this new book. I have a company in my company that could be interested.” I might take that conversation, but as I said, you have only so many hours in the day. When you reach out to someone with a whole list of the things you need.
Not thinking about them, that is not going to work.
What they are working on or what they are connecting on. It is just a poor use of networking.
It is not just a poor thing in networking. The truth is, I was guilty as charged, too. I do not think that I understood it well enough until I started doing it myself and teaching it, and seeing other people’s mistakes. There is this myth. People tell you, “Go talk to your network.” By the way, when you do not have your clarity, and your story is not straight. You do not see the person on the other side. You are actually becoming a red flag. Stop and get your act together before you go and do more harm to yourself. Again, I see it all the time with these random asks of, “Find me an internship for my grandson, daughter, whatever.”
When you do not have clarity and your story is not straight, you are becoming a red flag. Get your act together before you do more harm to yourself.
I had a story on that. That went into one of my networking articles because I was like, “Why does this 40-something-year-old guy care about this girl getting an internship?” “Why would I be like, who is hiring?” This is what they say, “Who is hiring that is good in Boston?” I am like, “Why don’t you tell me? I have not looked for a job.” When I asked what was going on, it turned out it was his mentor who helped him get his first job. It was his daughter. I was like, “You have a favor that you owe, and you are going to repay it with my currency. You and I have not had a relationship in forever.”
“Is this really the best way to create connections?” The answer is no.
I always said to people, as I have always thought about why the other person is interested. What matters for them? When I would do partnership development for my company, I would get these emails all the time. “Robert, we are really interested. You guys have great clients. We are really interested in selling our services to your clients.” “Great. Please, let us get on a phone and talk about how you can sell services to my clients.”
I am dying to take that call. What I would write to people is, “Ilana, we do this partnership stuff. I saw you do SEO. Our clients are asking us all the time for SEO firms. We are looking. They will add ones to refer. We could probably create some business for you. Maybe you have some clients that doing the same. Would it be worth getting on a phone call to talk about that?”
Now it is interesting. Thank you, Robert.
You are going to take that call. Not like, “Ilana, I would love to get on a call.” Talk about how I can sell stuff to your audience.
“I know you can sell because I have the most incredible audience.” “No, you are not getting access to them.”
Get In Touch With Ilana
“Does that work?” Look, you have a podcast, you were in the military, you are a startup founder, and you are now doing all this education. What is the thread that brings that all together for you? Have you figured out what the purpose is that is driving that for you?
Except for helping people, it is breaking barriers. I get really excited about breaking some barriers. In specifically Leap Academy, the way I look at it is like, we are to have tens of millions of people that need to reinvent themselves in the future of work, especially with AI. Everybody will start creating a portfolio career. I do not know why nobody is teaching these things. I am glad that we can be one of the fastest growing private companies in America, and to do that, and change a lot of lives.
Where can people learn about you and Leap, and your work?
LeapAcademy.com/training or LeapAcademy.com. They can write me, Ilana Golan. I am all over LinkedIn and Instagram. I am looking forward to it. Maybe we will even have a gift for people who come from Robert Glazer. We will have some fun with it.
Thank you for joining us and sharing your lessons. It has been awesome to hear about your journey and the work you are doing.
Thank you, Robert. Thanks for having me.
You can learn more about Alana and her work on the episode page at RobertGlazer.com. If you enjoyed our episode of the show in general, I have a very small favor to ask. That is, would you mind taking a minute to share this conversation with someone you think would appreciate it? That is how new users discover the show. As always, thank you again for your support. Until next time, keep elevating.
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