Michal Oshman
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Episode Information
Maggie and Hannah welcome Michal Oshman to the podcast. Michal has overseen international leadership and team development at Facebook and is currently the Head of Company Culture, Diversity, and Inclusion at TikTok Europe. In part one, Michal shares how her childhood inspired her to write What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?, what she’s learned about herself during the pandemic, and why there’s ‘nothing more complete than a broken heart’.
About Michal Oshman: Michal is Head of Company Culture, Diversity, and Inclusion at TikTok Europe and was formerly responsible for international leadership and team development at Facebook. Throughout her career, Michal has trained and coached hundreds of tech leaders. She served as an officer in the Israeli Defence Forces and has three university degrees in psychodynamic and systemic thinking, sociology, and anthropology. Michal lives with her husband and their four children in London, UK. What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid? is Michal’s first book.
Read The Transcript
Joe Pardavila:
Welcome to Magnify Your Impact, presented by ForbesBooks. Each week, our hosts, Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes, talk with business leaders powering their company success with a secret ingredient, purpose. Here's Maggie and Hannah.
Hannah Nokes:
This week, Maggie and I are so happy to welcome Michal Oshman, the Head of Company Culture, Diversity and Inclusion at TikTok Europe. Michal has trained and coached hundreds of tech leaders. She oversaw international leadership and team development at Facebook, and has served as an officer in the Israeli Defense Forces. Michal lives in London with her husband and four children.
Hannah Nokes:
This is a global group today. I'm here in the U.S., in Austin, Texas. Michal, you're in London. Maggie is in Doha, Qatar. So we're really excited to have this conversation representing folks from all over the globe today.
Maggie Miller:
I want to mention that Michal is also the author of the new book What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid?
Maggie Miller:
Michal, we're so excited to be with you. You just have such a fascinating life journey. I want to start with this beautiful book, which we've started to dig into. In the book you asked the core question, of course, what would you do if you weren't afraid? You use the secrets of Jewish wisdom to help others discover a life filled with purpose and joy. It's so wonderful to have you here today. Love to hear a little bit about what motivated the book.
Michal Oshman:
Thank you. And it is wonderful to be here with you today. I love that we're all in a different place in the world. I'm just holding my cup of tea, because it's quite cold in London today. It just feels like a conversation that I've been looking forward to.
Michal Oshman:
In order to share with you why I wrote the book and what was the motivation, I need to share with you a little bit about myself. I'll try to do it really fast. But just to give context for the listeners, I'm originally from Israel. As you said, I live in London, but I'm Israeli. I was raised in Israel in the '70s by my grandparents, who were Holocaust survivors. My early years were all about pain and loss and guilt.
Michal Oshman:
My grandmother Chana... This is always hard to share. My grandmother Chana jumped off the train that was on the way to Auschwitz. She was very brave and very strong, but also lucky. She was one of the, I think, hundreds of people that jumped off many, many trains that were on the way to Auschwitz. She felt something horrible was going to happen, and she jumped. She injured herself, she was shot at, but she survived the Holocaust. And like hundreds of thousands of people in the late '40s, early '50s, she had to start life all over again. She met my grandfather, who was also a survivor, and they helped raise me.
Michal Oshman:
So I was raised by, on the one hand, huge appreciation for life that was taken away from their families, because they were almost the only survivors from their own families, but also a huge amount of sadness and fear. My grandmother felt, I guess, huge purpose in sharing with me the Holocaust stories. The first memories that I have are of death and pain and loss. It didn't help that I am also the daughter of a forensic pathologist, who was the head forensic pathologist of Israel for, I think, 15, 20 years. And during the time of terror attacks in Israel, I was exposed to death, to things that a young girl and teenager shouldn't really see. But life is life, and those things happened.
Michal Oshman:
I was trying to be strong. I never shared all of these feelings of anxiety and fear and sadness. I was trying to make my family very proud of me and carry on. I was always trying to be the best student and the best social this, and after-school activities, and I never worried my parents. I was really trying to develop this happy girl persona externally, but internally I had very, very bad thoughts. That kind of carried on into my service in the military, as you said. After the military, I had a breakdown internally. I continued to be very effective and functional, but I found it really hard to live.
Michal Oshman:
I went to therapy and took medication. For a good 15 years, I thought that the only way I can help myself heal is through medication and therapy. I never, ever knew or considered that there is something in Judaism that can help me heal myself. I was just about to say heal my soul, but I wouldn't be able to say heal my soul, because I didn't know I had a soul. So the book is about a discovery that I made at the age of 38, which is now about eight years ago, the discovery that the ancient wisdom has a universal wisdom to share with all of us on how to overcome these challenges that many of us feel and experience, which are anxiety and fear and jealousy and sadness.
Michal Oshman:
In the book, I share this wisdom in an everyday way. I share how I used it at Facebook when I was a leader there, and now at TikTok, how I bring it to life as a mother to four children, thank God, in my marriage with my husband, how I am as a daughter. So that was the motivation for the book. I know it's a very long answer, but from now, the answers will be much shorter.
Maggie Miller:
Oh no, thank you so much. Your story is so incredible. I'm so glad that you shared that. Thank you for your bravery in sharing that as well.
Maggie Miller:
I wanted to ask you, having recently lost both of my parents in the past six months, one of the most beautiful lines in the book for me was, "There is nothing more complete than a broken heart." I'd love for you to share more about that. It just really struck me.
Michal Oshman:
Oh, I'm so sorry for your loss.
Maggie Miller:
Oh, thank you. Thank you. It was so poignant to me to read that, and just listening to you speak in other interviews, I really felt that, so I'd love for you to share more about how that feels for you and what that means for you.
Michal Oshman:
It means the world. When I learned that there's nothing more complete than a broken heart, and that only through being broken inside, which we never want to be, really, but only through experiencing this breaking can we be complete. The way to imagine this is think about a heart. This is all, of course, metaphorically speaking. If you think about a heart and this image of a heart breaking, it's only through the breaking of the heart that there is space between the pieces, between the shards, for growth. It's just the case that our breaking allows us to grow, to be more sensitive to each other and to ourselves, to be more thoughtful, to understand more what matters to us. When something difficult happens to us, it's a wake-up call to think about, "So who am I, and what am I here to do?"
Michal Oshman:
The idea of a broken heart being a complete heart is that we should probably stop obsessing about being perfect and having a perfect life. For years, I was trying to be perfect. I was trying to be perfect inside and outside. I was trying to be perfect for my grandparents that had seen the worst of human nature. I wanted to show them that life is beautiful and perfect, perfect it for them. But that's not possible, because life is not perfect, and it was never meant to be. Unfortunately, loss is part of life. But the question is, what do you choose to do with it and how do you choose to respond to it?
Maggie Miller:
Well, thank you for that. I love the metaphor of the broken heart and the pieces and space to fill with other things, so I appreciate that. Thank you.
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah, and I think that it's really interesting to think about the connection between practical Jewish wisdom and some things that have existed for hundreds, thousands of years, and connecting them to the challenges that we face today, many of which haven't changed. Where do you advise people start on that journey of looking at some of that practical wisdom and how they can apply it to their life?
Michal Oshman:
I love that question. The safest place to start is from within, I believe. I would say that maybe the first thing that helped me is learning that I have a soul, and that we all have a soul. All the people on this call, us having the conversation and anyone that will be listening to this in the future, each of us have a soul, a godly soul inside of us, and that soul is as pure as it was when it started the journey. Often, when we go through life and things happen to us in our childhood, in our adult life, we could feel like we're damaged, or we can't do this, or it's not going to work.
Michal Oshman:
This very strong reminder in Judaism that your soul is always pure and always good and always trying to grow, it's comforting. It's reassuring. It's a leap of faith, but I choose to believe that that's the case. So I would start with the soul, and building on starting from the soul... By the way, my book is not a religious book. It's a self-help book. I take the principles of Jewish wisdom, but they're applied to anyone and everyone, regardless of faith and how you live your life. So it's a completely self-help book rather than religious book.
Michal Oshman:
But I think building on knowing that you have a soul is another very deep concept within the wisdom, which is the day you were born was the day that the world was missing you. Exactly you were missing. You were the missing part. If you think about this, Maggie and Hannah, this reminds us that the world also continues to miss us every single day, because if the world wasn't missing us, we wouldn't be here. If we weren't needed, we weren't here. And I think sometimes in life we focus on what we need, and there's a shift to think about what we're needed for. That's good for mental health and well-being, I believe.
Maggie Miller:
I love that. It makes me think of, if we're here and the world was missing us, we came to do something meaningful. I know one of the central concepts that you discuss is that we all have the chance to do something meaningful, and so how can we translate that? How can business leaders think of how to live with more joy and meaning, and bring those concepts into their companies as leaders?
Michal Oshman:
I think what you said, meaning... I just had a cup of coffee with a friend that I haven't seen for a while. We're both in our mid-40s, and we've ticked boxes. I, for sure, had these boxes that I wanted to tick. I'll be honest, I wanted my LinkedIn to look in a certain way, and whatever. I'm talking about the external, of course. But then she sat in front of me, she's a very senior leader in one of the top tech companies, and she's like, "But, Michal, but what about meaning?" She's 46, 47. "What am I going to do with the other half of my life?" I don't think we need to wait to tick all the boxes to start thinking about meaning. I think we should do it as we go.
Michal Oshman:
I feel quite passionately about the fact that often when people hear the word purpose and meaning, they connect it to this CEO or Barack Obama, these big figures that you see on TV, or you have five million followers. But meaning and purpose are everyday things. This friend was saying to me, "What's meaningful to me is that I open opportunities for my children, and I just help them think about doors that they could explore." That's meaningful to her.
Michal Oshman:
I think how I bring this to business is when I work with leaders and managers and with my team, I actually ask them, "What do you care about, and what is meaningful to you?" I share in the book how I remember coaching a couple of very, very senior, known, whatever, all the external branding leaders, and when I asked them in one-on-ones, "What's purposeful to you? What's your mission?" and they were like, "I don't know. I don't have one." It was quite powerful to see that.
Michal Oshman:
A purpose could be doing something for someone else. And purposes change. Sorry, that's my bad grammar. But you don't have just one meaning in life. This thing is dynamic.
Michal Oshman:
When I became a parent for the first time, I think that my purpose was to feed my daughter and make sure that she's safe and that she's content, and she feels her mother not too far from her. Then when my daughter became a young child, then my purpose went back to being something on a professional level. Then I went through tough... Sorry, not tough. Maybe that's a Freudian slip. But I had some periods in my marriage when my meaning was all about my marriage. So that's how I bring it to business and to the people that I work with, is just reminding ourselves and encouraging ourselves to think about what's meaningful for us.
Hannah Nokes:
How would you coach business leaders to extend that personal understanding of purpose up to the organization, so that the organization can kind of represent the purpose and meaning of the people in it, but also take that out into the world?
Michal Oshman:
Yeah. Thank you for asking this question. One of the things that I share in the book is my first day at Facebook. When I joined Facebook, you can imagine how excited I was. Facebook, now called Meta. I went through a lot of interviews, et cetera.
Michal Oshman:
On the first day at Facebook, my manager came to see me, and we were sitting together. I thought he was about to give me this list of goals and things that I need to execute on. The first thing that he asked me, the very first thing that he asked me, was, "What do you care about?" I was in shock. This manager, this leader at Facebook, and they were considering me. I got this job, and the first thing he wants to know is, what do I care about?
Michal Oshman:
Then, because I was so shocked, I guess, I said, "I care about being a mother and Jewish and Israeli." I would never in a million years normally share these things, and I felt really vulnerable. I was panicking, "Oh my gosh, he's going to think that I'm not committed because I'm saying that I care about..." all these things. But I opened up to him and I told him what matters to me and what I care about, and that allowed my manager to understand who I am and how to develop a meaningful relationship with me and how to accommodate to what matters to me. You can imagine that when you feel that as an employee, you feel like your manager and your organization, they really care about who you are, then you're going to really care about the company.
Michal Oshman:
So that's a simple but so effective way to bring this to life. Ask your people, "What do you care about?"
Maggie Miller:
That's so great. That's in line with a lot of what we talk about in terms of bringing out the superpowers of the people that work for you in terms of what they love and care abut. Just personally, for me, sitting here on this interview from Doha, Qatar, I've just really seen from traveling all over the world and experiencing different cultures... So many of the sessions that Hannah and I hold with business leaders, they're all C-suites, amazing folks externally on paper, and one of the questions that we always ask is, "What are you passionate about?" not "What do you do?" I've really taken that into my own life and meeting people, what are you passionate about instead of what you do. And you get an entirely different answer. If those things coincide, that's wonderful, but it's just such a great way to get to know what is the spark behind folks.
Michal Oshman:
I love that. By the way, I love just even the word that you use, spark, because it's so connected to soul. As a manager, as a leader, you have this opportunity to ignite that spark, and asking the right questions just completely... I'm sure that when you ask people this, their eyes go, "Whoa, let me tell you," right?
Maggie Miller:
Right. Absolutely.
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah. It strikes me that a lot of this is about being introspective and considering questions that maybe we haven't considered in the past, and inviting other people to do the same as a leader. I think in terms of being introspective, we've all learned a lot about ourselves in the last 18 months, going through this pandemic. Is there anything that you've learned about yourself in this tough season?
Michal Oshman:
Yes. Thank you for asking. I think one of the things that I learned is this thing called anxiety, which has been part of me from my first memory, is something that can... People ask me, "Are you healed? Are you post-anxiety?" It's like, "Of course not." I think this period, these last 18 months with COVID, I hate the word trigger because it's so overused, but it did really touch us in less comfortable places, sometimes for the good, sometimes for less good.
Michal Oshman:
I think that when I was in a certain situation during COVID times, I had to deal again with my anxiety, just in a different format. But what I also learned is that the things that I've learned through the Jewish wisdom actually help me develop this resilience. Actually, from the outside, not much is different reality-wise, but inside I'm learning how to deal with things a bit better, and also to remind myself that I can't control the world. I can't control the life around me. I can do my best. I can try to control my thoughts. I can do my best with my family, but there's a lot of letting go that needs to happen.
Michal Oshman:
I really practiced letting go in the last 18 months, letting go of needing to always be there for my parents. I wasn't able to be with them for a long time. I've practiced a new version of being a daughter to them. I'm sorry I'm mentioning this, because I'm really grateful that you shared your own loss. But I think being children to parents is something that all of us have been feeling a bit more during these... if you are people that still are in that position. I think it was kind of a memory of how we all have different responsibilities and we wear different hats.
Hannah Nokes:
Yeah. Speaking of wearing different hats, you're a mother of four, among all the roles you have. Tell us their ages, if you don't mind. You've talked about this concept of bitachon. Can you tell us about that, and how it plays a role in parenting and family?
Michal Oshman:
Oh, you said it so beautifully.
Hannah Nokes:
Oh, I don't know about that.
Michal Oshman:
It's a word in Hebrew.
Michal Oshman:
Yes, I have two teenagers and two younger children, so kind of two and two. I'm one of those parents that are thinking about, how can I be a meaningful mother to young adults and help them understand the world, but also not over-control them and give them what they need in order to be able to navigate life when they live their own life? So that's a lot.
Michal Oshman:
Bitachon, it's a very strong word in Hebrew. It's safety. It's security. It's trust. It's one of those things that you really feel safe, connected to. It helps you develop your roots.
Michal Oshman:
As a child, I didn't feel safe, and not because something was done to me horribly or by purpose. I didn't feel safe because of the things that I had seen and heard. And when you don't feel safe, it's very hard for you to grow, because the roots are not there. It's very hard for you, speaking of passion, to think about passion, because I don't know what my passion is; I'm finding it hard to breathe.
Michal Oshman:
So one of my biggest missions as a mother, and I'm completely aligned with my husband on this, is how do we help our children feel bitachon, feel safe, at home and within themselves, within their own skin? That has nothing to do with grades or academic studies or things. It's reassuring them that they are beautiful souls that are here for a journey. As their parents, we're here to help them navigate life, and I really care about this. It's something that I've spent a lot of time and energy on.
Hannah Nokes:
That sounds like a great management philosophy as well.
Michal Oshman:
Absolutely, all of these principles. All of these principles are to help humans navigate life.
Maggie Miller:
That's so beautifully said.
Maggie Miller:
Well, hang on, Michal. We have to stop here. But coming up in the second part of our conversation with Michal Oshman, the Head of Company Culture, Diversity and Inclusion at TikTok Europe, Michal shares what she hopes people will take away from reading her book What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid?
Michal Oshman:
Sometimes I hear my friends saying, "I want to meet the one" or "I want to develop my career." But if you're not going on dates, it's going to be really hard to meet. And if you're not applying for jobs, it's going to be really hard to take that step. And if you're not sharing with a colleague how they're making you feel, they will never improve how they behave to you. So I really believe in people taking small steps to try and repair the world around them.
Joe Pardavila:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Magnify Your Impact, a production of ForbesBooks. If you want to ignite purpose in your own company, connect with Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes at magnify-impact.com.
Part Two
Joe Pardavila:
Welcome to Magnify Your Impact presented by ForbesBooks. Each week our hosts, Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes, talk with business leaders powering their company's success with a secret ingredient, purpose. Here's Maggie and Hannah.
Hannah Nokes:
Welcome back to our talk with Michal Oshman, the head of company culture, diversity, and inclusion at TikTok Europe.
Maggie Miller:
Michal, I want to get back to your book, What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid? And I know you've talked about it in other interviews and that's this concept of tikkun olam. I'd love for you to talk about that and how you use it to repair and build cultures within companies.
Michal Oshman:
Yeah, lovely. Good Hebrew. So it's tikkun olam. Olam is world in Hebrew and tikkun is repair. And speaking of brokenness, the idea in Jewish wisdom and in other faiths as well is that we're here for a mission, for a reason, each of us, and we are here to repair. We are here to repair ourselves and also to help repair the world and repair by our actions. So repairing the world is the very, very deep concept within Jewish wisdom. And it actually invites and asks each of us to see ourselves in the driver's seat to be able to repair something that is not working, something that can be done better, not for perfection, but just for improvement. And that opens a lot of, I know this is something that you're passionate about, that opens a lot of space for discussion and dialogue about what needs correction, what can be better.
Michal Oshman:
And I can tell you that one of the things that I discovered in myself that could be better is how I manage my own ego and how my ego is often in my way to being the mom I want to be. I very openly in the book share, I get angry and I would maybe say something that I regret. And as a mother, I would really like to try and work on that. Not to be the perfect mom because there isn't, but how can I repair myself a little bit? It's a step. And I think in the context of the workplace, and I share this in the book, people say company culture. The word culture is very much used, but using the idea of repair, thinking about what kind of culture, what kind of environment are you creating around you?
Michal Oshman:
And how can you repair even the atmosphere that's around you? These are small things that you can do that goes, they go very long. Like you said, ask people about their passion, ask people about what matters to them. Be curious, think about what you're saying, how you're coming across, but not to a level to make you feel bad about yourself, but just to a level of what's that one thing that you can repair to make everything better for everyone. These are deep, deep, ancient ideas that are as relevant that they were 3000 years ago. They're relevant today in the same way. And one of the things I think is that often we think about mental health and wellbeing and all of those things as if Sigmund Freud invented them and he had all the answers. But people have been feeling these feelings for thousands of years, as you said. It's human nature to need support, to need love, to need eye contact. And one of the things I encourage my children is to look into each other's eyes really.
Maggie Miller:
Right. Wow.
Hannah Nokes:
I love that concept of repair. And it makes me think about another concept I've been reading about lately, redemptive business or redemptive entrepreneurship, which is similar. Talks about restoration, that business has the opportunity to be additive in every way in the lives of the people that are involved in the business and in the world as a whole.
Maggie Miller:
I'm with you.
Hannah Nokes:
So we have to talk about your time serving as an officer in the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, because you're a badass. So please tell us what did you learn from that experience and how has it impacted the way that you lead at work and at home?
Michal Oshman:
So you just hit the nail. I think what I learned mostly I think is about growing up and separating from my parents. So that was quite a, it's quite an experience here when you reach 18 and your parents, or whoever you're close to, they go with you to this dispatch kind of place. And then you say goodbye, and you don't belong to them anymore, formally. You belong to the army. With all the prep that I did and the system does, it's definitely a transition. So I learned about separation and I learned about meeting hundreds of women from different parts of the country, different ways of being brought up, different narratives and pretty much spending time with them in a tent, and getting to know each other and really opening my eyes to life.
Michal Oshman:
But I also learned about leadership and I was very quickly put in a leadership position and I was responsible for not small number of women. And my responsibility included helping them adjust to army life, train them physically, mentally, communicate to them, the army, the values and the rules of engagement, and what's expected of them, and good behavior and all the morals. And it's a lot to expect from an 18-year-old girl that just two days ago, her mom used to take her everywhere and she would get lunch from... And I share in the book and I think I quite opened up in the book how some of the things that I did back then, it probably wasn't the best version of me as a leader. I was quite strict and quite, didn't find that place in me to expect fellowship without heavy authority.
Michal Oshman:
Now it's hard to do that in the army because army is a lot about authority and about the ranks on your shoulders. So it's a lot to expect from an 18 year old to be able to be in this hierarchical structure, but then bring a lot of other behaviors. But I think as I finished my three-year service, I think I learned a lesson of being able to hopefully inspire and motivate people to follow without using too much authority. That, Why Would Anyone Be Led By You? I mean, I don't think the book was out back then. But when I read Why Would Anyone Be Led By You?, the penny dropped. And I take a lot of lessons from that. I mean, it was like, I don't know, 30 years ago, maybe, but it did really influence who I am in many ways.
Maggie Miller:
Talk about tossing someone into a situation to grow up really quickly. I can't even imagine. I personally think that another way to grow up quickly is to go see yourself with other eyes and get out of the boundaries of your own country. Speaking of being a badass in another way, you have three university degrees in psychodynamics, systems thinking, sociology and anthropology. This new generation is growing up in a very different time. And at times, I hear college isn't as important anymore, or there's different lines of ways that they can live their lives. Do you think your education was a big part of your success? Or what did those experiences give to you?
Michal Oshman:
Oh, that's, I've never been asked that. I love that question. It's also very relevant because my oldest daughter, she's trying to think about her life. She's not too far from 18 now. Listen, I'd be totally honest. The way I was raised, it was very clear that you go to the army and then you study. I'm being totally honest. Those were the, even the messages didn't go, it wasn't heavy messaging from my parents, but I think the environment that, my general community that was expected. So I never really challenged that, if I'm honest. I love studying, I love learning. I know today there are other ways to learn. I think that when I studied university or college or formal kind of education was probably the main way. I know today, there are obviously other ways.
Michal Oshman:
So it's hard to answer that. I also think there's something that was really meaningful to me. I always studied and worked at the same time. So that's why I was 10 years in university. Because I always combined the what and the how, which is also my approach to life. The what was the, what I studied, but the how is like, "Okay, so what does this mean?" And very often, you go and you study all these philosophies or these ideas, and then you actually you're there. And you're working with someone with a leader or with a team or with a business. And I was a waitress for five years. So I also checked some of this in serving clients. So I love the combination of studying, but also bringing things to life and testing them.
Maggie Miller:
Sure. I think about that as in terms of bringing theory into action. So thinking of you waiting tables while you're studying sociology, there's no better way to understand people than to dive right in. And so I just think that general concept of community-based action, how can we think of something, the values and how do values come to life inside companies is so important. I love that you bring that up.
Michal Oshman:
And I think I learned as much as I did from waiting tables for five years to spending time in university, because you learn about yourself, and you learn about other people and how to read body language. And I love making people happy. So there's a huge joy in really serving clients and feeding them fantastic food. Food is a big part of my life. I like food. It's very, culturally also food matters. So I just, I love being able to combine different things generally. And every time, one element can bring more or less meaning.
Hannah Nokes:
Michal, you had so many amazing accomplishments, but I think it's coming across really clearly that you really see those as opportunities to learn and grow and prepare you for the next stage in life. What's on the horizon for you? What do you want to accomplish as a growth tool for your next stage in life?
Michal Oshman:
That's a beautiful, that's when I'm kind of sweating, right?
Hannah Nokes:
What's your five-year plan?
Michal Oshman:
I care deeply about birthing the book, What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid? I care about it because it's my mission. I really care about giving people this one more length, one more wisdom that many people would not even consider to facilitate and grow their own life. One of the ways that I finish each chapter in the book is quoting Albert Einstein that said, "If you change nothing, nothing will change." So I'm committed to changing myself and I'm committed to help change the world. At the moment, I feel that the world needs kindness. So that's my mission. And also within my community work, I'm trying to do meaningful things within communities that I am part of. My five-years plan is I guess to do it meaningfully, and to continue to be curious and to always, always learn from other people.
Michal Oshman:
My fear is to stay in my own bubble. So that's the plan at the moment. Who knows, if you ask, every time I thought about these questions when I was a bit younger, I was like, "Oh, I want to grow the family." But I want grandchildren. But there's a minute until we get there. So yeah, I think doing something meaningful, but let's see in what way.
Hannah Nokes:
Well, I think the idea of grandchildren makes us think about legacy. So do you have an idea of what you want your legacy to be? That's a big question.
Michal Oshman:
I don't know why I'm feeling a little bit emotional when you ask this. My grandmother, so all of my family are Holocaust survivors. Thank God. That's how we became a family, I guess. And one of my grandmothers, she would've been 100 a couple of months ago. And I often think about how would she read? If she knew I published this book, and I told about the stories about the Holocaust and I overcame my fears and I'm doing it and I'm bringing family and I'm bringing them on the values that she, I think she would be happy. So I guess my legacy is to realize that I'm a small part in a really long chain. And I hope that I'm playing my part as a one part of this big chain. That's what I'm trying to do.
Hannah Nokes:
Is there anything that you would like to share that's insight from your book that you would like people to know, and just in terms of how they can really tap into some of this ancient wisdom and put it into practice today?
Michal Oshman:
I think there's one thing that I didn't mention, and I really want to say it. So thank you for giving me the opportunity. I just want to make it really clear the differentiation between fear and anxiety. And when I speak about anxiety, I speak of it as, I don't know if this is a term, but this everyday anxiety, this anxiety of worried not to be smart enough or successful enough or pretty enough. All those things that were afraid not to be enough, good enough. And this everyday worry and anxiety that we're not enough. That's what I'm talking about in the book. And I want to differentiate that from the fear that you maybe touched on a little bit, that we've, fearing danger, fearing COVID, fearing a lion chasing you.
Michal Oshman:
And that fear is so real and we should take it, we should run away if a lion is chasing us and we should protect each other and ourselves when it comes to COVID. And so I'm not talking about the fear that is really here to help us stay safe. I'm talking about this fear of what if or the fear of worrying that I'm not perfect, that's what I'm talking about. And I just really, I want people to know the difference. And I also want to make sure that people don't jump on this wisdom and think, oh, that's the new thing. It shouldn't be, this shouldn't be jumped at. People should continue, of course, with whatever is helping them heal, if it's therapy or education. But my mission is just to offer this as a one more way to help you grow. And it's important that people know this.
Maggie Miller:
Yeah, Michal, I just wanted to mention, as we wrap, you talked a little bit about mental health. I mean, mental health is a big piece where you bear your soul in the book and the history of where you came from. And I think the days and times that we're living in right now, that anxiousness as you describe as there, it's so present for people. I don't think people have been this anxious for a long time. I mean, it's always been there, but it's just heightened. And so I love one of your social handles says, "My book is a gym for your soul." And I just thought that was just extraordinary. And so what are 1, 2, 3 biggest takeaways that listeners can hear you mention? And obviously, hopefully just go get your book because it's such a beautiful, extraordinary, insightful piece.
Michal Oshman:
Thank you. So I think to make it practical, which we, if we want to see change, we do need to bring things to life. I think one practical takeaway is that there is a way to replace fear with purpose. And finding your purpose very often can help you at least reduce some of the fear and some of the anxiety, because you're channeling them into something that is meaningful and purposeful for you. Sometimes it's charity. Sometimes it's learning, as you said, sometimes it's strengthening your body or your soul, serving your community. So replacing fear with purpose could be a really effective way to help us all maintain a wellbeing in our mental health. The other very practical takeaway from the book is this idea of taking action and trying to really own your life from the sense of if you change nothing, nothing will change.
Michal Oshman:
And sometimes I hear my friends saying, "I want to meet the one," or, "I want to develop my career." But if you're not going on dates, it's going to be really a hard to meet. And if you're not applying for jobs, it's going to be really hard to take that step. And if you're not sharing with a colleague how they're making you feel, they will never improve how they behave to you. So I really believe in people taking small steps to try and repair the world around them. And that's a very practical, action-oriented advice. But above it all, I think the main idea is to acknowledge the fact that we see ourselves often as body and flesh and the physical side, but that we really each have a soul, a beautiful soul that wants to grow. And sometimes when we're feeling bad, it's a signal from our soul to say, maybe you're not doing the things that I need you as a soul and try to listen to your internal self a bit more.
Hannah Nokes:
That's beautiful.
Maggie Miller:
Well, thank you for that. You are such a fascinating, light-filled person. I've just enjoyed watching other interviews of yours and just so grateful for the time and energy you've given to our listeners.
Hannah Nokes:
Yes. Thank you for sharing your story.
Michal Oshman:
Thank you. And thank you for sharing with me and actually thank you for making me feel so at ease. I feel like, just, and thank you for asking me questions I've never been asked before.
Hannah Nokes:
Oh, good.
Maggie Miller:
Well, we want A pluses too, so I'm just [inaudible 00:20:01].
Hannah Nokes:
A little perfectionist too. Thank you so much.
Michal Oshman:
Thank you. Have a good rest of day.
Hannah Nokes:
You too. Her name is Michal Oshman. She is the head of company culture, diversity, and inclusion at TikTok Europe. And her book, What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid? is available wherever books are sold.
Maggie Miller:
And that's it for another episode of Magnify Your Impact. If you enjoy the show, make sure you take a second to subscribe so you automatically get our new shows when they drop.
Hannah Nokes:
Also, if you have a minute, we'd love if you left a review, so more folks like yourself can discover the show. We'll see you next time.
Joe Pardavila:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Magnify Your Impact, a production of ForbesBooks. If you want to ignite purpose in your own company, connect with Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes at magnifying-impact.com.
