This past weekend I was watching Fareed Zakaria’s fireside chat with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the World Economic Forum and my mind drifted to the fact that I hadn’t written any thoughts on policy for my newsletter recently. As I’m still experimenting with Medium below is a recap of policy related articles from some of my first newsletters, a book I reviewed in May 2016, and lessons I learned from my time in the IDF. This is the first time I’m sharing these stories about that experience.
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“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.”
-Colin Powell
⚪️Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story by Matti Friedman. What an accurate description of the depressed life of an infantry soldier. The author does a superb job of detailing the mood of Israel during the late 90’s; from the public pressure to pull the IDF out of southern Lebanon to the busting of the euphoric bubble surrounding the peace process. My time spent on the Lebanese border was a few years after Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon, but I recall endless hours on guard duty looking over the border to the hurt that was Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon.
⚪️A night with Golani, a few hundred meters from Hezbollah by Yoav Zitun: Great to finally see an article about my old battalion, Golani’s 13th Battalion. How many articles about 8200 and cyber can one read, (sorry guys). I explored the idea that the infantry is an incubator for tech and entrepreneurial talent in a previous Facebook post upon visiting Golani Junction in the north of Israel, and decided it was a good time to explore what I felt during my military service. If anything, much of what I learned has benefited me greatly, and I believe these lessons could help others as well. To add some visuals, below is a video my talented former commander and good friend Omer Levy made of reserve training; lots of shooting, sand, and dubstep.
As I reflect on my time as a lone soldier (someone who moves to Israel to serve in the army without parents in the country), I realize how deeply my service impacted my identify and shaped who I am today. I feel it every day in my decision making, my embrace of uncertainty, and when I try to be empathetic. I haven’t written much about my military service (I still have the multi-color journals I wrote in every day to keep my sanity “journaling works” which one day I’ll self-publish, as raw as that writing is). I’ve been writing about lessons I’ve learned (mostly from my failures) for my newsletter so it made sense for me to start tapping a wealth of memories and what I experienced which so thoroughly shaped my worldview.
⚪️Cultural: I served in a unit known for its number of soldiers from low-income backgrounds (and populated primarily by Israeli Jews of North Africa and Middle Eastern decent). There was a spirit of recklessness in Golani that somehow reconciled itself with strict discipline. But what was some spoiled kid from New Jersey who happened to be born to Israeli parents doing in the middle of the desert thinking he can could shoot an M-16? Only later in life did it become apparent to my fellow soldiers what I was doing there. And in all honesty, I was felt driven by a force inside me, like an inner motor which wouldn’t abate unless I volunteered (I did two years, and some reserve duty afterwards). I was not driven by a nationalist urge to enlist, but by a cultural drive for this experience. I believe this is something most people(particularly experience-focused millennials) could understand, and it was the first time I made a decision solely on my intuition, and not based on a cost/benefit “rational” analysis.
The IDF is truly Israel’s melting pot, particularly the infantry. What I learned was sadly, was that there are many invisible people we interact with everyday and just ignore. And I had to rely and trust those invisible people. I had more in common with them then I would have initially believed, and many of them were certainly angry about their lack of opportunity. I would eventually go back to the United States and create opportunities, many of the soldiers I served with didn’t have that luxury.
Lesson: I learned be to be more accepting of other people; there was no better school for that then sleeping in a rain soaked tent with a Druze and Ethiopian in the middle of the Middle Eastern winter. Some of the people I met had such a difficult experience growing up that I couldn’t even have imagined. Literally they were trying to do the best they could with what they had. I remember in particular the other lone soldiers, many of from originally from Russia, it was not just poverty they came from, it was lack of examples of success to follow that truly held them back.
⚪️Mental: I dislike truisms — because I find many of them to be just not be true, but also because it’s intellectual laziness on the part of our society. But there is a truism that was close to literally being beat into you in the IDF. That every obstacle was a mental game. These days I understand that better than ever, as I see so many talented people get in their own way; and right before they reach their apex… they fall on their sword. Greek tragedy on the streets of Midtown East.
I wasn’t even supposed to serve in Golani; my physical profile was not good enough because of my poor eyesight. I was destined to be in the artillery or tank corps. Those unit I believe ironically set up young Israelis up for a good career in tech because of the combination of field experience and tech, I wrote about this previously in Run, Shoot, and Code I. I stubbornly got thrown out of every officer’s office when I refused to sign papers for those units until I got an exception to serve in the infantry. My victory was short lived as I dealt with a string of failures in the coming months; not making it past the try outs for a special forces unit, being throw out of Medical Corps training for bad grades, and developing injuries because of the intense physical training.
The army is a great microcosm of learning how to move forward. You really can’t sit and feel sorry for yourself (or even process what just happened). This I believe is such an important cognitive life skill one develops (resilience), that you when fail you’re already have to move on to the next challenge (because in the army everything is a challenge, and every day it feels like I was just keeping my head above water). This process of dealing with failing is like a secret weapon that creates rock solid confidence; you know that no matter what happens you won’t be wiped out. If you’re still (barely) breathing you can still make your ascent back to reality.
We all face obstacles. My obstacle at end of basic training was literally the obstacle course (yes, like the movies) and in particular one part of the course where we had to swing on monkey bars from one bar to another. Getting over the wall, climbing up the rope, crawling under barb wire, those obstacles I was able to overcome. I had severely injured my shoulder and it was impossible for me to swing without feeling a crippling spasm. I remember getting up on a Shabbat (the army doesn’t train on that day) and going to the obstacle course. I stared at the monkey bars and thought “I got this far, this isn’t going to stop by me”. And it didn’t. With all my strength I jumped from bar to bar with both hands, and made it to the end. I felt for the first in my life my will, my mind, transcended my body to create my reality.
Lesson: As bad as your situation is you can get thru it. You can create the reality around you if you want something badly enough. Reality is, as I’m learning from mediation, is something that is malleable.
⚪️Spiritual: In the army I learned the difference between being nice and being good. Be good, don’t be nice. I always thought of myself as a helping person, and willing to go that extra mile. I realized I wasn’t as willing as I thought I was, even for other people who relied on me. When it was cold outside, you were hungry (and depressed), and a fellow soldier asked you to “volunteer” for guard duty you might not be as good as you thought you would be. I can say that at times I even acted selfishly. Not often, and compared to some other people I was a saint, but I learned a lot about my behavior under constant stress. It’s not pleasant to be quiet with yourself and know that you actually didn’t give it your all.
Lesson: You’ll never know how good you are until you are under extreme stress. And then you might not like what you see when you look in the mirror.
Wrapping up, I’d love your thoughts and feedback as I share my experiences and personal insights of learning from struggle. Not everyone chooses to serve in the military, but every day we encounter stressful situations which challenge us, my hope is that something you read here benefited you.
