Managing Your Energy Before It Gets Depleted with Avital Spivek | UYGW43

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:00:01

Welcome, everybody to unleashing your great work. On this special Nine episode series we are focused on resilience. What is it? How do we find it? And if we've lost it, how do we get it back? So listen in, because we know that great work is so much more dependent on our resilience than it is on our hustle.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:00:21

Welcome, everybody to unleashing your great work on this special holiday episode. I'm super excited to talk to Avital Spivak. She's an online tech coach. She's an educator and a computer engineer. For the past 15 years, she has been breaking the myth that people who did not grow up with technology can't get comfortable with it at any age. She is also a martial artist, multilingual and enjoys helping her clients from everywhere around the world get unstuck with the tech so they can make more money in their business fast. Welcome to the podcast Avital.

Avital Spivak: 00:01:00

Amanda, thanks for having me here.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:01:03

Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to you. So we'd like to start every podcast with the same question, which is tell us a little bit about your great work.

Avital Spivak: 00:01:15

All right. So my current favorite great work is about helping people who didn't grow up with technology be successful in their digital life. And business, because a lot of people who have businesses now need to be more online. They need emails and files and funnel and social media maybe and whatever it is, that's necessary to connect with their clients these days. And not everybody can do it easily or comfortably or enjoy it. Yeah. That's what's important to me to really make it something that a person feels good about.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:02:01

Why why is that important to you? It feels like a need that you're absolutely meeting but what is it about that need that feels to you like it's the work that matters?

Avital Spivak: 00:02:12

It matters because I believe that wisdom is with age, as well as we use. Yeah, wisdom in youth, there's wisdom in age, and to be successful in the world as a, as a world, they need to come together. And as long as we speak in different channels, we're missing something really, really important in terms of being able to speak with each other and learn from each other. And when I help the population speak with each other. things really happen because people's hobbies, people's life, wisdom, people's family, business relationships. A business they've been growing forever can still be very relevant to younger people. But as long as we're not in the same social media, or we're not using the same effect, this, this is not going to happen. And there's nothing really stopping us other than our ideas about what's possible and what's not. Oh, that's

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:03:25

interesting. So what, what got you interests personally interested? There's this sort of philosophical stance, which I agree. But how did you find your way into this? Did you struggle with technology and overcome it? Or did you experience something that you realize like this is really important? I need to be a part of the solution. How did you find your way into this work?

Avital Spivak: 00:03:47

Hmm, that's a great question. There's a few layers. One of them is my connection with my grandmother's when I was younger, do tell. I received so much from my grandmother's, that were very different from each other. But they were good friends of mine. And whenever I was struggling, I had somebody to speak with. Also learn a lot of things. One of my grandmother's was a craftsperson. Anything I wanted to make. I could make with her starting from very young age, and I believe that's part of what got me into engineering.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:04:28

Really crafting. Yes,

Avital Spivak: 00:04:31

building thing. I think they know how they work. How they come together, how they come apart. Yeah. So that's a big deal. And then later, I could see that I have a gift for showing people how to do things very simply. So people said I can't believe you're an engineer. You explained it with just normal words. To me, that was natural, I didn't necessarily expect that that would be a thing. But I found out that not everybody can show. And part of the communication I like, like my bio says, I speak various languages. And for me computer language is just another world with a different language. And when I can translate for people, really older life skills, that's what I found out that with the more senior population, all the life skills are still valid. They just know how to translate them, to make them work here. And when I think late for them, suddenly they move really fast, because it's not about teaching every little skill. Always.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:05:49

That's amazing. It seems like, like what you said there about, you know, computer language being just another world with just another language is like, it really seems to point to me, like to the through line of at least the part of your great work that I've heard about so far. Which is about like, we have all these people who are perceiving all these differences, whether it's like their tech ability differences are age differences, generational differences, skill based differences. And what you're noticing, tell me if I'm wrong, but what you're noticing is that it's all very similar, actually, when you can translate across using the languages when you can help them bring those languages together.

Avital Spivak: 00:06:31

Absolutely.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:06:33

meaningful. Oh, well, I love it. I really,

Avital Spivak: 00:06:38

computer land. Yeah, so let's go to this new world. And, yeah, you work there.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:06:46

And you'll be vet, it's I love that it takes away the feeling they have of inadequacy, right. It's not about like, you don't have the skills and you're old dog and you can't learn new tricks. It's more just like, well, you just don't speak the language yet. here's the here's the decoder ring. here's the here's the like, dictionary of terms or whatever. And then the human experience of being a problem solver, an innovator and a contributor, an insightful person. Those drop into any language and add value.

Avital Spivak: 00:07:21

Yes. And then you get to really do what you like. Yeah, but beautiful. And instead of thinking, Oh, my God, I'm in a, you know, strange place. And I don't know what I'm doing. No, you still have all your value the way you write so well. We just need to make it click here. Yeah, yourself in here.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:07:43

I love the point you made about how if our older generations don't find their way into computer land, is that what you call it computer land? We are at such a loss, we've lost so much. If that voice, isn't there in those conversations in those spaces. Wow, I love it so good. Yes, it's, it's a pretty good transition to our holiday episodes are focused on resilience. And so one of the things that is, you know, just core to this podcast is the idea that this kind of work, the work, it's like, it's meaningful, it's personal. It's, it's, we want it to leave a legacy behind us. We want it to connect to people we value. It's our great work. And that that kind of work really depends way more on your resilience, your ability to bounce back, feel good, get excited, way more on that than it does on hard work and doing a lot and pushing through and grinding way. And what the question I'd like to ask you is, how do you personally, you're an entrepreneur. So sounds like you probably work pretty hard. And I'm sure you've reached the point of like, I'm, I can't even with this right now. So what do you do when you get to that point? How do you rebuild your resilience?

Avital Spivak: 00:09:05

So the answer starts from I've actually learned to rebuild my resilience before it goes that bad. Yes,

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:09:13

I reach that but preach it.

Avital Spivak: 00:09:18

I do my best to catch it before it's there. Yeah, say that. I never get there. Sure. But my martial arts is a big part of it. I make sure I move. Yeah. I care about something that is at the core of human being. And when I connect with that, I make sure to do something a few times a day. I don't sit at the computer the whole time. Nice. Yeah, because if I'm just focused, focused focused on one thing or two things, it doesn't work well. I have to connect with the world around me with people around me Oh, to move from martial arts to something else. My connection with trees?

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:10:08

Oh, yes. Tell me about your well first wait before you tell me about the trees. What kind of martial arts do you do?

Avital Spivak: 00:10:14

So, the martial arts I do is called cinching, which on Chinese martial arts, Kung Fu, tai chi and qi gong, okay. And the special school that I'm in actually works energy, which is really the source of I get more energy, not just before and after conflict, but during conflict, which is a very, very special method. It's called energy independence or energy fitness. Oh, that's interesting. So yeah, it's, uh, the school is called the Fire Mountain School. It's in New York and New Jersey, saying this is the main source of my resilience and my ability to keep going,

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:11:01

yeah. Do you feel like learning martial arts, specifically martial arts that are sort of energy focused, has helped you. I think one of the things is my theory, one of the reasons it gets so bad before we sort of wake up to it is that we're not aware of our energy, when it's high, when it's low, when it's seeping out, you know, and then forget knowing what to do with low energy, even just knowing that you have it before you have ground yourself into a bloody pile of just grit is hard. So do you feel like your martial arts has helped you develop that awareness? And is that part of why it's possible to keep it at bay?

Avital Spivak: 00:11:41

Yes, yes. Energy Fitness, like any other fitness, it's, you track where you're at, and you need to work at and be heavy enough energy have energy beyond the demand that's coming from life, you need to be really fully charged. Have a surplus, because great is when you don't have enough energy to meet the demand. deplete yourself to get there. Yeah. Pushing. But pushing like that really has a you know, short lifespan.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:12:21

Yeah. And, or life, that you're squeezing

Avital Spivak: 00:12:25

your life, your life force? Yeah, the people around you that that get damaged. And when you're able to track your energy, you are very much on top of it in terms of tracking your energy, knowing where you're at, in the first step to being able to do something about it.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:12:45

Yeah, absolutely. And I bet the fact that you keep your energy, healthy is part of why you're great at explaining difficult things, in easy terms, because that requires innovation and problem solving and like objective idea connecting, which really requires a lot of resilience,

Avital Spivak: 00:13:05

a lot of resilience and a lot of energy. Absolutely. Yeah. Because then when I'm when I'm low energy, I will not have access to those abilities.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:13:12

That's right, right. And then and then great work begins to fail. That's the reason why great work. You can continue to sit there adding data to a spreadsheet long past when you should have probably gone to bed. But are you can you really be problem solving and innovating in there for someone and feeling their frustration and helping them manage their energy? No, you cannot do that if you are already completely depleted. And that's really the work that you're doing with them.

Avital Spivak: 00:13:42

Yes. Yes. Fueled by energy.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:13:46

Yeah. Now I want to hear about the trees.

Avital Spivak: 00:13:52

Hiking is something that I'm passionate about. And I found out that just being around trees is something that's reviving my energy as well. Hmm.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:14:08

That is, What's your theory?

Avital Spivak: 00:14:10

I don't have one. I just saw that when I'm around trees and they can be alive or they can be that

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:14:17

really, like you can hold like a log and feel

Avital Spivak: 00:14:21

good. I don't know. It's kind of like a conversation. And sometimes I think the hiking trail that I've been on many times, it could be a tree that I knew when it was alive and growing. And now it's fallen and I still speak with it. So that's that's something that helped me in very low times in my life. And before I knew anything about adding energy, a twill gave me energy when I didn't have it.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:14:51

Oh, wow. That's great. So that's actually a great sort of tip. During these days when these holidays right? We have a minute. We don't always have a minute But right now we do. So that's something before you could go like, become a martial artist, you can go into a forest and just be there, whether they call it forest bathing, just being the presence of life. And I don't know, photosynthesis and birds and wildness and the chaos of nature that, you know, actually has a lot of purpose to

Avital Spivak: 00:15:22

it. Yeah, that's right. very resilient.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:15:25

Indeed. Thank goodness. Yeah, because we're doing our best down.

Avital Spivak: 00:15:30

Yeah, because it really shows you that the details are not the most important, but keep flowing and keep growing. And when a tree falls, you start seeing the mushrooms, you know, Sprout on it, and you can start seeing the, the younger tree grows from, you know, the decay of the old tree. And you see nature's in in its full resilience. It's really

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:15:54

It's very inspiring, inspiring. Yes. Ah, I love it. Well, you know, I think, first of all, I wish I had more tech problems, because then I would be like, I have a reason to, like, reach out and talk to you. But I bet others I'm bet I'm not the only one who sort of inspired and you seem, you just seem really grounding, right? Like, I guess that's a tree thing to like, just very deep roots, like they sort of emanate from you, which I appreciate. So if others are feeling that too, what can they do to find you to work with you to learn more about you? What can they do?

Avital Spivak: 00:16:29

So my website is vital weave.com Because they weave together all the parts that you have, you know, really works for you all together.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:16:40

Love it. We'll put the link to that in the show notes so that it's exactly right.

Avital Spivak: 00:16:45

Excellent. I have a bimonthly q&a where you can come and ask me questions or meet me. No, that's

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:16:51

a great, that's a great opportunity.

Avital Spivak: 00:16:53

And we'll have those links for you. Yes,

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:16:58

uh huh. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Perfect. You know what, Avital, I just want to thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming on this holiday episode. And sharing your perspective because I think it was like pretty transformational. So thank you very much.

Avital Spivak: 00:17:14

Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure meeting you.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:17:17

You too.