Lessons - From F-16 Flight Commander to Serial Entrepreneur With 100+ Investments | Ilana Golan - Leap Academy Founder & Forbes Contributor

In this lessons episode, discover how identifying what matters most can create clarity around the next stage of a career. Learn how to define the must-haves that guide major decisions, understand how finding a zone of genius reveals where strengths can create the most value, and explore how aligning personal growth with professional opportunities makes reinvention easier. So it does take such a unique approach. I'm wondering if when you start to work with people, what is the exercise that you have them go through to figure out what is really important for them? Because I think that is probably what leads to all the right answers. Absolutely, Scott. So the very first thing is you need to understand what motivates them and what's important for them. And I think for me, this was the hardest thing. So if you if I look back 10 years ago, this was the hardest thing because if somebody driven, they always know what's the next step. They know what college they need to go to. They know, you know, like everything is always clear until it isn't. And when it isn't, you're lost. So not knowing what's next was one of the hardest moments in my life. So for me, that's the first thing that I want people to get clarity on. And it really going to be, you know, basically two things, right? One is kind of what is, you know, what are your must haps? Like what's really critical for you right now? And we'll talk about it if you want. And then what is that zone of genius that, you know, where is the secret sauce? Because when we're kids, we always try to lean on, you know, learn new things and try to be... When we're at 40 plus, 50 plus, 60 plus, we don't want to learn new tricks. We might need to learn new tricks, but we'd rather like really lean on this zone of genius. And when we do, that's where we're going to shine. So if I'm going to want to be a chef now, that's a disaster. Ask my husband. You know what I'm saying? Like, not good. Okay. No, no, but we can go into that because I think it's a very useful thought experiment for somebody who is later in their career. And actually, I think there's probably, you know, it's interesting. So you work with people that are later in their career and they're not trying to learn a ton of new things, trying to focus on what they really know best. More is a necessity. It's more a necessity because of where they're at. However, I do believe, and maybe you have ideas on this, I do believe that if even a younger entrepreneur adopted the same mindset, I think they would still be more successful. I think that maybe being young, they feel like they can learn everything and anything, and I actually think that could be a detriment to them focusing and building. You are a thousand percent correct. And the truth is, I think eventually whatever we teach in the labor academy should be part of colleges and high school. Like, you know, I don't I don't think it should be proprietary. I don't think it should be for the exclusive. Like, I really think every single person needs to have a very engineered way. to always decide what they want to do next, align their story, align their network, align their reputation, and go into the hidden market because that's where all the opportunities are. So I really do believe everyone should know this. And I do believe we're also going to have this habit of leaping again and again every year or two now. This pace of change is so vast, right? So now that we see this... People will change even within the same company. They change responsibility. They change function. They change the tech that they're working with. They change, you know, everything changes all the time. And if you're not ready to reinvent, leap, leap, leap, leap, you're going to fall behind. So first of all, I do think it's just a skill that everybody needs to, you know, to know. But the way I look specifically at the must-haves, um, If you're going to look at your career, and it was actually kind of a fun exercise to run, you're going to see that your must-haves also changed throughout your career. And it's really interesting. So the way I look at it is sometimes all we need is finance. Like all we need is to just make cash. And that's all we care about. That's our biggest priority. And it could be because we need the cash. It could be because we, you know, it brings us more confident. I wanted to make more than my husband. It really doesn't matter what it is, but cash is king, right? It's, you know, there are stages where it's more about growth. Like I want to... I want to grow in title and reputation and a responsibility to have a team. I want to learn more. I want to even think, you know, like I just want to feel like I'm growing. Sometimes it's really more about the impact. Like I just want to finally feel like I moved the needle. I make a difference, whether it's on the company, whether it's on people. whether it's some kind of a legacy, whether it's on the world, whatever, right? But I want to feel like that I'm moving the needle. And sometimes it's balanced because whether we like it or not, There are some stages in life, you know, that we, you know, the career will take a little bit of a backseat. And whether it's for kids or health or hobbies or whatever it is, it will take a little bit of a backseat. And the interesting things, and we've done this research on thousands of people, the interesting thing is, again, no career will have all four. And if somebody thinks they have all four, don't ever leave, you got this, right? Like it just doesn't exist. But if you look back, you'll see that you rotate between the two of them and you switch every few years. And one of the things that we look at is, first of all, if you just look, don't look too far because it's going to change all the time. But if you just look a year or two, what are the two must-haves that are right now critical for you to chase? Yeah. Because that defines a lot of things, right? If somebody says, I need cash right now, they can't go to entrepreneurship. Like that just, you know, that's irresponsible, right? Or if they're already working, then maybe we can start something on the side, right? But a lot of the decisions will be derived, but what are these must-haves? And based on that, we can make a lot of conclusions happen. And that becomes your compass. That becomes like a GPS that really helps you figure out what's next, but also realize it's going to change. And that's what's beautiful about it. No, I love it. And now the second piece to that equation is your zone of genius. And I'm even curious because after you had failures, you had successes. So before LEAP, you went through this whole exercise yourself, and this is probably how you built out the framework. So using even yourself as an example, how did you find your zone of genius, which allowed you to be successful? It's a beautiful question. So the truth is that success leaves clues, but we sometimes don't look at them. And I think the interesting thing with all of this is that when we think about our zone of genius, usually we look at the very specific things that are always on job descriptions, like the very specific skills. I learned computer engineering. I did this. I did coding. But the truth is a lot of times the zone of genius is not there. It's what people are already intrigued by you. what people already come to you for. Where did you get awards? Where did you shine? Where did you your eyes sparked so, you know, so much that you were like, I can't breathe. This is incredible, right? Like it's things that are not necessarily that specific skill, that specific software programming that you've done, right? Like it's something different. And it's usually a pattern that is actually you can see it in different places in your life and different places around, you know, your career. And sometimes it even goes back to your younger self because, you know, when we're our younger self, we don't boundary ourself. We don't put limitations. We don't try to give it names and we just know what works and we go chase it. When I was about five years old, I took half of my house. And when my parents were not home, which I don't know why my parents weren't home. But anyway, it makes you think. But I took a little box and I sold it outside the house because I thought that was so exciting. You know, and my parents came home like, what just happened? Like, where did everything go? I was like, oh, I sold it. I thought. So it was so entrepreneurial. Yeah. But when you really kind of look back, there's always clues. And the question is whether you're willing to look at the clues. And for me, the clues were, there's a lot of imposter syndrome that I'll have about the various things. But the one thing nobody can take away from me is that I leaped in so many ways throughout my journey from Air Force to engineer, to technical sales, to product management, to architect, to VP operations. Like I leaped so much that nobody can take that away from me. And I think when you start realizing that and suddenly people are asking me about their career and suddenly, you know, like, and I don't think myself at that point as a career coach, like I hold businesses, I invest in a hundred companies. I, you know, like that was not even a thing for me. But suddenly when I saw that, I was like, maybe that's where the pattern is. And that became the zone of genius. I love this. You know, I'm also curious. I'm also curious just because there's a flip side to leaping and there's a flip side to the things that you coach. And I just want to touch on this briefly, cause it's obviously a real concern that we can keep going and talking a little bit more about how you coach people through this transition in their life. But the flip side of this is when, when people are leaping so much, Somebody who you are coaching or working with is either going to be an executive in a company or they're going to start, some of them are going to start companies and those companies will be successful. Now, think about the employees that will eventually work for them that are switching careers and switching and starting personal brands and starting side hustles and stuff like that. Because if you do it, you know, there's going to be somebody young and ambitious that's going to be doing the exact same thing. And then you're like, now you're a CEO. You made the career transition. You're a founder. You're hiring people. And you realize that they're wanting to switch jobs every two years and they're wanting to leap themselves into entrepreneurship. From a leadership perspective, how do you manage people that are in this process, are sort of navigating their career in 2024 and beyond and doing these leaps and doing these career transitions? Because that can be massively disruptive to a business too. So first of all, I think it's a brilliant question and a very, very important one to address. I don't know if you noticed my social media, but one of my, you know, I'm a huge fan of Richard Branson. I go visit his private island. I go on safaris with him because I'm learning so much from this guy. And one of the quotes that I really love that he says is, teach them well enough so that they can leave. Treat them well enough so that they don't want to. And that became like a really big mantra for me, because the truth is I'm surrounded with a team and we have, you know, you know, a 20 something people on my team. Right. And it's almost 30 now that are that, you know, if they're going to leave every year like that's. going to suck. Because that's what I do. Putting it lightly. Right? But the beautiful thing is one of the things that we did with them is, again, speaking of treating, first of all, I want this to be their multimillion dollar mastermind. Like, I really want them to feel like they're learning. to take their career and their life and their reputation to a whole different level. And what we did with them is something called professional, personal, financial goals. And they, you know, we sat with each one of them and kind of looked at where they want to be in each one of these for one year, three years, five years. And then we basically looked at how this company can help them get there. And when you can align the company's goals with their personal, professional, financial goals, now they see the value of actually not only staying, but they see the value of realizing that this mission is what they want to be associated with this mission of changing lives and creating this massive impact in the world. That's what they want to be associated with this. That's what they want their brand to be around. And they can see how that creates this massive success for them, too. So again, for me, it's really important to walk the walk. And my team, we, you know, make sure that they build their own personal ground. We make sure that they go and, you know, do some public speaking. We make sure that they have their own shining light on them. Because first of all, I, you know, that I think that's going to make them happier. It's going to make them feel more fulfilled, but they also going to see how this place is actually exactly what they need to, you know, create a bigger tomorrow for themselves. Yeah. And yes, from time to time somebody wants to start their own, I will totally wish them luck and just know that I created a little piece of that in them. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.