Joy of Reinvention

Liat Ben-Zur: Once you lose that institutional name
behind you, suddenly you become nobody.

Liat Ben-Zur: And that is very vulnerable, right?

Liat Ben-Zur: That's very scary.

Liat Ben-Zur: But it's also liberating because clients
now, they're not hiring the institution.

Liat Ben-Zur: They're not hiring that name anymore.

Liat Ben-Zur: They're hiring me and my judgment.

Liat Ben-Zur: And, and suddenly the work, um,
the name on the work is my name.

Joy Chik: Welcome back to Joy of Reinvention,
and this is where we recognize

Joy Chik: knowing moments, make bold choices,
and share the journey and the wisdom

Joy Chik: that power our transformation.

Joy Chik: I'm your host, Joy Chik.

Joy Chik: If you're new here, please
subscribe to this channel.

Joy Chik: The question I'm living is: What
changes when we stop working for an

Joy Chik: institution and start working for
ourselves, start betting on ourselves?

Joy Chik: For accomplished leaders who left
respected institutions, the next

Joy Chik: move can seem almost automatic.

Joy Chik: Another executive role, a bigger title,
a new company, and a new team to lead.

Joy Chik: And when I left Microsoft after 28
years, that path was available to me,

Joy Chik: and for a while, it was a path that other
people naturally expected me to take.

Joy Chik: But my knowing moment was not that
I wanted a different corporate role.

Joy Chik: I wanted to work for myself, and I began
creating work under my own name and

Joy Chik: advising, serving on boards, learning
to invest, and building this show,

Joy Chik: and that is a different kind of bet.

Joy Chik: My guest today is Liat Ben-Zur.

Joy Chik: Liat and I worked together at
Microsoft, including our shared

Joy Chik: push towards a passwordless future.

Joy Chik: And today, she is an advisor and serves on
several public and private company boards.

Joy Chik: She has also just published her new book,
The Bias Advantage: How Unconventional

Joy Chik: Leaders Gain Power in an AI-Driven World.

Joy Chik: Liat now advises, writes, and creates
under her own name, and I cannot

Joy Chik: think of a better person for this
conversation about working for ourselves.

Joy Chik: Liat, welcome to Joy of Reinvention.

Liat Ben-Zur: Thank you.

Liat Ben-Zur: Thank you, Joy.

Liat Ben-Zur: It's great to be here, and I'm
really happy that you invited me.

Joy Chik: Awesome.

Joy Chik: So Liat, first, I just want you to take
me to the moment that when you final real-

Joy Chik: realized that you did not want your next
chapter to be just another corporate role?

Liat Ben-Zur: You know, I, I didn't
really have that moment.

Liat Ben-Zur: It was never like an aha moment.

Liat Ben-Zur: What changed for me was more the
problem that I wanted to work on.

Liat Ben-Zur: I was lucky enough to help lead the launch
of the first commercial generative AI

Liat Ben-Zur: product at Microsoft with, with Bing, and,
um, I got this, like, extraordinary front

Liat Ben-Zur: row seat to what generative AI was gonna,
was gonna do, and I quickly realized

Liat Ben-Zur: that this is going to absolutely disrupt
how we interact, um, with the world.

Liat Ben-Zur: I mean, it was already changing
how we defined search and how we

Liat Ben-Zur: were thinking about the internet.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, so it was really clear to me that
this is gonna be pretty disruptive

Liat Ben-Zur: for every industry out there.

Liat Ben-Zur: And I, and I remember thinking

Liat Ben-Zur: I don't think most companies, including
even Microsoft at the time, have any idea

Liat Ben-Zur: about what's coming and how big this was.

Liat Ben-Zur: So I started doing a bunch of
work on AI outside of work.

Liat Ben-Zur: I started having conversations with
the CEOs and leadership teams and

Liat Ben-Zur: boards and, and one conversation
led me to advising a new AI startup,

Liat Ben-Zur: and that led to another startup, and
that led to a, a later stage company.

Liat Ben-Zur: And folks who, you know, knew me
recommended me to others that were

Liat Ben-Zur: struggling with AI, and before
I knew it, I, I kind of built

Liat Ben-Zur: somewhat of an advisory business.

Liat Ben-Zur: And

Liat Ben-Zur: I was starting to see patterns
across a lot of these conversations.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, I, I started to notice that
buying and testing these AI tools and

Liat Ben-Zur: trying to figure out what are the use
cases for AI, that was the easy part.

Liat Ben-Zur: The hard part was changing how a
company actually operates because of AI.

Liat Ben-Zur: How does it change your workflows?

Liat Ben-Zur: How does it change leadership?

Liat Ben-Zur: How does it change, um, the, the
organizational structures that you have?

Liat Ben-Zur: And I started to discover, like,
really similar AI transformation

Liat Ben-Zur: problems across healthcare, tech
companies, financial services,

Liat Ben-Zur: genomics, other consumer businesses.

Liat Ben-Zur: And I remember I was, like, laying in
bed, reflecting on all these different

Liat Ben-Zur: conversations that I was having with
these clients and I was starting

Liat Ben-Zur: to connect the dots between the
challenges, you know, that they were

Liat Ben-Zur: experiencing and the, the direction
and guidance that I was suggesting.

Liat Ben-Zur: So I started, I started writing.

Liat Ben-Zur: I started really reflecting and
writing about those conversations,

Liat Ben-Zur: the learnings, the observations from
all these different engagements.

Liat Ben-Zur: And again, like, before I knew
it, I suddenly had a pretty

Liat Ben-Zur: big blog and social following.

Liat Ben-Zur: Folks were finding it really helpful.

Liat Ben-Zur: I chose the work that I found
important and that gave me energy.

Liat Ben-Zur: And then working for myself kind of became
a vehicle for, for doing more of it.

Joy Chik: You know, I love that, Liat.

Joy Chik: Like, my equivalent of that journey,
I think it was a stem from, wow, I'm

Joy Chik: so, exactly like you said, you know,
running multi-billion dollar business.

Joy Chik: It's successful.

Joy Chik: So on one hand, actually, I feel it
was good that I'm leaving business and

Joy Chik: the people and team in a great spot.

Joy Chik: So I just decided, you know, I don't want
to work for another corporate anymore. I

Joy Chik: want to, like, do something different,
uh, to create something from scratch.

Joy Chik: Um, the…

Joy Chik: Was there any moment that you realized
you just, uh, didn't want another

Joy Chik: institution to hand your next identity?

Joy Chik: Because the one thing I find is letting
go my corporate role is my fancy title.

Joy Chik: Who, uh, who, who am I now without that
title or some kind of, you know, br-

Joy Chik: you know, Microsoft, such a brand, like
a, a known institution to backing me

Joy Chik: versus now I'm completely on my own,
which is changes the identity completely.

Liat Ben-Zur: Yeah.

Liat Ben-Zur: I, I definitely had that, that feeling.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, but I, I didn't really feel like,
uh, a specific desire to not move

Liat Ben-Zur: into another institution per se.

Liat Ben-Zur: Again, like, there are a lot
of things about operating

Liat Ben-Zur: at scale that I still love.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, but, you know, what I quickly
learned and what I feel to this day

Liat Ben-Zur: is that I'm just really loving, um, a
lot of the newness of this, this phase

Liat Ben-Zur: of my career, and there's, there's
three aspects that in particular I

Liat Ben-Zur: have a really hard time giving up.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, the first one is I am meeting
such interesting and incredible

Liat Ben-Zur: leaders in companies and sectors
that I would never have had the

Liat Ben-Zur: chance to work with in my prior life.

Liat Ben-Zur: I love that.

Liat Ben-Zur: The second thing that, um, is really
interesting working as an AI advisor

Liat Ben-Zur: is, you know, just the, the breadth,
that cross-company perspective

Liat Ben-Zur: of how is AI impacting different
sectors is very, very valuable.

Liat Ben-Zur: Because what I'm getting to learn
is what a lot of these, you know,

Liat Ben-Zur: AI labs and, and, and scalers are
struggling with is, you know, how

Liat Ben-Zur: is AI disrupting each industry?

Liat Ben-Zur: What are the patterns, um, across
the industries that the successful

Liat Ben-Zur: companies, uh, uh, are seeing?

Liat Ben-Zur: What are the struggles that almost
all of these companies have?

Liat Ben-Zur: Where, where are all of the AI
pilots kind of hitting a wall?

Liat Ben-Zur: What are the reasons
they're hitting the wall?

Liat Ben-Zur: How do you unlock that?

Liat Ben-Zur: And all of those lessons I'm able
to carry into my next conversation.

Liat Ben-Zur: So that level of visibility is,
is pretty priceless, especially

Liat Ben-Zur: for someone who sits on boards.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, when you're advising a
lot of different leaders and

Liat Ben-Zur: you're able to come with that.

Liat Ben-Zur: I think the, the last thing is
just having the time on my hands to

Liat Ben-Zur: really get my hands dirty with so
many different AI tools and agents.

Liat Ben-Zur: Like, we are in a very unique era
right now where AI is m- is moving

Liat Ben-Zur: so fast, and every day it feels
like there's another, you know,

Liat Ben-Zur: version of an LLM that's released.

Liat Ben-Zur: There's another agent that's out there.

Liat Ben-Zur: There's another tool that you gotta try.

Liat Ben-Zur: And I also have time to reflect
on the learnings and to write

Liat Ben-Zur: about them and to share them.

Liat Ben-Zur: And I don't think I could have
ever written that book, um,

Liat Ben-Zur: if I was working full time.

Joy Chik: You know, like, that is so true.

Joy Chik: That during my sabbatical I tried,
you know, to creating this podcast.

Joy Chik: I've been starting to both
learning a ton of AI tools.

Joy Chik: Frankly, even the podcast, I use a ton of
AI tools- Oh, sure … to try to help me.

Joy Chik: And also working with startup, but
really starting to have more the

Joy Chik: breadth across different industry.

Joy Chik: And then my equivalent is more
in cybersecurity, fintech, some

Joy Chik: AI infrastructure, if you will.

Joy Chik: So I kinda starting to love the
breadth, uh, for, um, you know,

Joy Chik: of advising versus the depth of
the role that I was focusing on.

Joy Chik: Uh, and the last but not least,
the, the in control of our own time.

Joy Chik: The knowing moment here is not
necessarily corporate leadership is wrong.

Joy Chik: It is really realizing that, you know,
the next title, uh, in that case can be

Joy Chik: impressive, but it still takes away from
us, like, the life that we now want.

Joy Chik: Taking me to maybe a moment or
story, like, what was that first

Joy Chik: bold decision that made it real?

Joy Chik: Like, to be honest, like, even just
me, for example, deciding to leave

Joy Chik: Microsoft, now it sounds like it's done.

Joy Chik: Okay, I'm, I'm glad I did it, but
it was really scary at the moment.

Joy Chik: So what's your equivalent
experience of that?

Liat Ben-Zur: I think for me, a consequential
decis- decision is, is when I started

Liat Ben-Zur: treating my insights and my judgment
and my experience as the product.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, initially I think advisory work
can easily feel like something that

Liat Ben-Zur: you're doing while you're figuring out
your next executive or corporate move.

Liat Ben-Zur: But as the work kept on growing,
um, I was having more fun and I

Liat Ben-Zur: was learning and I was loving it.

Liat Ben-Zur: And I'll, I'll tell you something.

Liat Ben-Zur: I think we as executives, when you've
been, when you've been an executive,

Liat Ben-Zur: especially in large corporate America
for a long time, um, it's definitely

Liat Ben-Zur: a very stressful job and it's not
easy, but, but it also sometimes

Liat Ben-Zur: feels like you're on autopilot.

Liat Ben-Zur: Like, you know what you're doing.

Liat Ben-Zur: You, you know what the big challenges are.

Liat Ben-Zur: It starts feeling very, um, streamlined,
and you're, you're, you're not, like,

Liat Ben-Zur: really mentally challenged as much.

Liat Ben-Zur: And when, when you s- shift to this
new world, every day you're learning.

Liat Ben-Zur: Every day is something new.

Liat Ben-Zur: So it's very refreshing.

Liat Ben-Zur: It's a very, very refreshing feeling.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, I was sitting with a
bunch of leadership teams.

Liat Ben-Zur: I was wrestling with, you know, all kinds
of the biggest questions that they had.

Liat Ben-Zur: Where should we place our AI bets?

Liat Ben-Zur: And, and I'm realizing, hey, I don't
need to sit inside of one company to

Liat Ben-Zur: do the kind of work that I care about
and the stuff that gives me energy.

Liat Ben-Zur: And so I really started to
treat LBZ Advisory as a real

Liat Ben-Zur: business rather than, let's say,
a bridge to whatever comes next.

Liat Ben-Zur: And that requires a mindset shift.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, because when you're in a really
big company, you know, Microsoft or

Liat Ben-Zur: Qualcomm or anything like anything
else, you have a, an enormous amount

Liat Ben-Zur: of institutional power behind you.

Liat Ben-Zur: The brand is opening doors, right?

Liat Ben-Zur: The…

Liat Ben-Zur: There's teams, there's infrastructure.

Liat Ben-Zur: You know, I went from turning down
keynotes and invitations to, you

Liat Ben-Zur: know, keynote at all these big events
left and right in my previous role.

Liat Ben-Zur: And now, I'm just trying to get invited.

Liat Ben-Zur: Like, it's, it's just, it's…

Liat Ben-Zur: Once you lose that institutional name
behind you, suddenly you become nobody,

Liat Ben-Zur: and that is very vulnerable, right?

Liat Ben-Zur: That's very scary.

Liat Ben-Zur: But it's also liberating because clients
now, they're not hiring the institution.

Liat Ben-Zur: They're not hiring that name anymore.

Liat Ben-Zur: They're hiring me and my judgment,
and, and suddenly the work, um,

Liat Ben-Zur: the name on the work is my name.

Liat Ben-Zur: And so I, I think there's, there's
something powerful and there's

Liat Ben-Zur: something freeing, but it…

Liat Ben-Zur: I definitely wouldn't romanticize it.

Liat Ben-Zur: I mean, it's, it's, it's not always
easy, and I don't I don't wake up in

Liat Ben-Zur: the morning fee- feeling fearless, or
I never woke up just entrepreneurial.

Liat Ben-Zur: Really, the reality is I just kept moving.

Liat Ben-Zur: One foot in front of the other, one client
after another, one new AI tool after

Liat Ben-Zur: another, learning from each one of those
and then sharing it, you know, f- publicly

Liat Ben-Zur: with others and then, you know, learning
from that, and I discovered by doing.

Liat Ben-Zur: So I would say that my confidence
and my ability to do this sort

Liat Ben-Zur: of work came from doing the work.

Joy Chik: You know, you really reminded me,
like, even though our corporate

Joy Chik: executive job is hard, but once you
know those, like, you know, you know

Joy Chik: how working the system, it sometimes
it can feel being automatic in- Yeah

Joy Chik: terms of operating the system
versus doing on your own.

Joy Chik: Like, Liat, you said use your own name.

Joy Chik: It feels need to be hard-earned, but the
same time it is freedom and it's frankly I

Joy Chik: would say it's more rewarding because it,
it's not our title or the institution that

Joy Chik: commands other people to listen to us.

Joy Chik: We have to earn it on our own
merit a- and our own in terms of,

Joy Chik: you know, the wisdom, um, that…

Joy Chik: or, or the knowledge,
experience that we can provide.

Joy Chik: Um, so I find that's both, uh,
inspiring, but also a lot of hard work.

Joy Chik: I have similar journeys, like
I don't wake up every day say

Joy Chik: like, "Yay, I'm so excited."

Joy Chik: Some days I'm like, "What am I doing?"

Joy Chik: But other days I was like, "Wow, I have
all the freedom to do what I want to do."

Joy Chik: So the bold choice here is
not simply leaving a company.

Joy Chik: It is really choosing to become your
own boss and accepting that no one else

Joy Chik: will create the role for ourselves.

Joy Chik: What did you miss the most when you no
longer have a, you know, institution

Joy Chik: like a Microsoft to supporting the work?

Liat Ben-Zur: Yeah, I think one thing you don't
really fully appreciate until you

Liat Ben-Zur: leave a big company is how much
invisible structure surrounds you.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, you know, there's, there's priorities.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, oftentimes you help define them,
but there's corporate priorities.

Liat Ben-Zur: As an executive, you don't
just have your own EA.

Liat Ben-Zur: You have a chief of staff.

Liat Ben-Zur: You have your own finance, uh,
support, your legal teams that help

Liat Ben-Zur: you make some pretty big decisions.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, there's all these rhythm of
businesses, like you mentioned, that

Liat Ben-Zur: just keep everything and everyone moving.

Liat Ben-Zur: And even when you disagree with the
system, the system kinda gives your

Liat Ben-Zur: day structure, and then suddenly when
you leave, none of that exists, right?

Liat Ben-Zur: Unless, unless you create it from scratch.

Liat Ben-Zur: And I think the hardest adjustment for
me was deciding what deserved my time.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, I could advise another company, I
could join another board, I could write,

Liat Ben-Zur: I could speak, I could work on a book,
I could explore different investments,

Liat Ben-Zur: I can have conversations with startups.

Liat Ben-Zur: I could, you know, do things that might
turn into, you know, new businesses.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, and no one tells you where
to focus or what matters most.

Liat Ben-Zur: You have to do that yourself.

Liat Ben-Zur: You have to become much more deliberate
about, you know, what you say yes

Liat Ben-Zur: to, because every single yes consumes
resources that I could be, you

Liat Ben-Zur: know, focusing on something else.

Liat Ben-Zur: So, um, so I think that, that's a lesson.

Liat Ben-Zur: And I think there's another side of
this also that I didn't expect, and

Liat Ben-Zur: that is you actually have to create
the work before anyone asks for it.

Liat Ben-Zur: I just kept writing.

Liat Ben-Zur: I did it for myself because I
wanted to be more clear, more

Liat Ben-Zur: thoughtful in my next engagements.

Liat Ben-Zur: And eventually, I started seeing
patterns across the essays and

Liat Ben-Zur: across all these conversations that
I was having with leaders, and those

Liat Ben-Zur: patterns became the foundations
for my book, The Bias Advantage.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, and that's probably the best
example of transformation for me.

Liat Ben-Zur: The book exists because I decided that
those ideas were worth pursuing long

Liat Ben-Zur: before anyone was waiting for a book
from me or, or was asking me for a book.

Liat Ben-Zur: I never imagined I
would even write a book.

Joy Chik: So part of this reinvention for, you
know, you know, advising, whether it's a

Joy Chik: board or whether it's advising startups,
how do you trust yourself to decide now

Joy Chik: that you did not trust at the beginning?

Liat Ben-Zur: Yeah.

Liat Ben-Zur: Joy, I think I, I trust my
own judgment earlier now.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, large companies train you
for a lot of understandable

Liat Ben-Zur: reasons to build consensus, right?

Liat Ben-Zur: You have data, then you have reviews,
and you bring in the stakeholders.

Liat Ben-Zur: You have to get approvals.

Liat Ben-Zur: And, um, there's, like, this
machinery around making big,

Liat Ben-Zur: consequential decisions.

Liat Ben-Zur: When you're working under your own
name, um, you have to decide for

Liat Ben-Zur: yourself, do I believe this or don't I?

Liat Ben-Zur: Is this worth pursuing or, or isn't
it, and is this worth my time?

Liat Ben-Zur: And, um, writing has made
that very real for me.

Liat Ben-Zur: Writing has also helped me clarify my
thinking so that I have more confidence,

Liat Ben-Zur: um, in the choices that I'm making.

Liat Ben-Zur: And so I'm just becoming a
lot more comfortable saying,

Liat Ben-Zur: "This is what I'm seeing.

Liat Ben-Zur: This is what I believe, and I'm
willing to, to put my name behind it."

Joy Chik: And then on a related question, who
are you becoming now that you're

Joy Chik: no longer defined by, like, a fancy
title of, from an institution?

Liat Ben-Zur: I, I think, I think I'm just probably
becoming less defined by a role.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, you know, for most of my career,
explaining what I did was easy.

Liat Ben-Zur: Like y- like you, right?

Liat Ben-Zur: I could point to a company
and, and a big title.

Liat Ben-Zur: And now, you know, I'm, I'm a, I'm
an author, I'm a board director,

Liat Ben-Zur: I'm an AI advisor, I'm a mother,
I'm a wife, I'm a daughter.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, there's probably gonna be a
bunch of things that I will be

Liat Ben-Zur: doing in three years from now
that I don't even know yet, right?

Liat Ben-Zur: I think the continuity for
me isn't the title anymore.

Liat Ben-Zur: It's the problems I'm choosing to work on.

Joy Chik: I love that I call it like, you know,
we're in a multi-hyphenate career.

Joy Chik: It's actually, it's a journey.

Joy Chik: You're never like becoming as the thing.

Joy Chik: It's just like a continual evolution.

Joy Chik: It's a continue evolving and transforming.

Joy Chik: Like, the fact about, you know, having
that curiosity, continue to learn, and,

Joy Chik: uh, we have to wear multi hat, and also
we don't even know what the future holds,

Joy Chik: just, just so, so resonate with me.

Joy Chik: And to just be able to be comfortable with
that journey, I think that probably is

Joy Chik: the most important to me is my takeaway,
is, uh, be comfortable with the unknown.

Liat Ben-Zur: I would even say, like, if we're
honest with ourselves, the unknown

Liat Ben-Zur: is becoming bigger because of AI.

Liat Ben-Zur: Totally.

Liat Ben-Zur: AI is, AI is changing things so fast.

Liat Ben-Zur: If you asked yourself a year ago, two
years ago, three years ago, to even

Liat Ben-Zur: begin to fathom some of the stuff that
we're doing today, could you have?

Liat Ben-Zur: I, I imagine no, because some
of the stuff- Absolutely no

Liat Ben-Zur: that I'm doing today with like, with, with
agents and, like, running all of these

Liat Ben-Zur: things for me, I have 14 Grok Bots here.

Liat Ben-Zur: I have Instinct doing something for me.

Liat Ben-Zur: I have ChatGPT.

Liat Ben-Zur: I have, uh, Antigrav. I have, I
have all of these things running

Liat Ben-Zur: in I would never have imagined that
even a year, if not two years ago.

Liat Ben-Zur: So like- Yeah … the unknown is getting
bigger, and if you're not comfortable

Liat Ben-Zur: with, like, leaning into that and
experimenting and learning and failing,

Liat Ben-Zur: I think, I think it's gonna be tough.

Joy Chik: It's so right on.

Joy Chik: So just to close out, for someone
who listening that knows they do

Joy Chik: not want another corporate role,
right, but they feel intimidated by

Joy Chik: the responsibility that, oh, maybe
they do wanna work for themselves,

Joy Chik: what do you hope they remember?

Joy Chik: What wisdom would you share with them?

Liat Ben-Zur: I'd probably tell them not to
put so much pressure on having

Liat Ben-Zur: the whole thing figured out.

Liat Ben-Zur: I think, I think there's a mythology
around reinvention that suggests,

Liat Ben-Zur: like, you need to have this beautifully
architected vision for your next chapter.

Liat Ben-Zur: There's a moment where you, where
you know that there's, like, a

Liat Ben-Zur: big decision that you take, and
then everything is, is clear-cut.

Liat Ben-Zur: Um, I certainly didn't have one.

Liat Ben-Zur: I would say start smaller.

Liat Ben-Zur: What is the problem you
keep thinking about?

Liat Ben-Zur: It's keeping you up at night.

Liat Ben-Zur: Who would you like to help solve it?

Liat Ben-Zur: What is the one piece of work that you
can create without waiting for somebody

Liat Ben-Zur: to give you permission or a title?

Liat Ben-Zur: And then, and then just pay
attention to what happens, right?

Liat Ben-Zur: My, my advisory business grew because I
kept doing work that people found useful.

Liat Ben-Zur: My writing, uh, and audience grew
because I kept having ideas that I wanted

Liat Ben-Zur: to understand better and then share.

Liat Ben-Zur: The book grew out of that writing.

Liat Ben-Zur: None of those things
began with a master plan.

Liat Ben-Zur: Sometimes you build the next
chapter before you have the

Liat Ben-Zur: language for what you're building.

Joy Chik: Liat, you are fearless, you are so
courageous, but also I just love

Joy Chik: you also being vulnerable and to
share all the up and downs and the

Joy Chik: wisdom with me and with audience.

Joy Chik: So thank you so much for joining me today.

Liat Ben-Zur: Thank you so much for having me, Joy.

Liat Ben-Zur: It was a pleasure.

Joy Chik: As I reflected on my conversation
with Liat, I kept returning to what

Joy Chik: it really means to work for myself.

Joy Chik: For much of my career, an institution
provided the context around the work.

Joy Chik: The role told me what
I was responsible for.

Joy Chik: The strategy helped set the priorities.

Joy Chik: The team and the systems helped
turn decision into action.

Joy Chik: There was real meaning in that.

Joy Chik: But leaving Microsoft meant no one
was going to hand me the next agenda.

Joy Chik: I have to decide what matters,
create the opportunity, make

Joy Chik: the call, and follow through.

Joy Chik: I also have to decide what not
to do without an institution

Joy Chik: make that trade-off for me.

Joy Chik: Liat's advisory practice and her new
book made this feel very concrete.

Joy Chik: The Bias Advantage exists because
she decided the idea mattered,

Joy Chik: protected the work, and put her name
on it, and brought it into the world.

Joy Chik: This is a part of working for ourselves
that we do not always talk about.

Joy Chik: The freedom is real, so is the discipline,
the vulnerability, and the ownership.

Joy Chik: And maybe that is the reinvention,
moving from leading within a system

Joy Chik: to trusting ourselves to build
without one. Today's conversation

Joy Chik: leaves me with some lived wisdom.

Joy Chik: First, one truth to remember.

Joy Chik: Working for ourselves gives us
freedom to choose and a responsibility

Joy Chik: for making the work exist.

Joy Chik: Second, one practice to try.

Joy Chik: Notice one decision that you are
waiting for an institution or

Joy Chik: authority to make, and then make
that decision for yourself today.

Joy Chik: And lastly, one question
to carry with you.

Joy Chik: What would you choose to build
if no institution were going

Joy Chik: to create the role for you?

Joy Chik: This is Joy of Reinvention.

Joy Chik: I'm Joy Chik.

Joy Chik: If today's conversation resonated
with you, please subscribe and

Joy Chik: share it with someone who may
be ready to bet on themselves.

Joy Chik: And you can also join our community
at joyofreinvention.com/email.

Joy Chik: Until next time, know the
moment, choose boldly, keep

Joy Chik: reinventing, and share the wisdom.