March 10, 2026
Spiritual Awakening in Leadership: Yosi Amram's Journey to Transformative Leadership
Send a text In this enlightening episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we sit down with Yosi Amram, a licensed clinical psychologist, CEO, leadership coach, and award-winning author. Yosi shares his fascinating journey from Israel to Silicon Valley, where he experienced the highs and lows of leading public companies during the dawn of the Internet age. He opens up about a life-changing spiritual awakening that transformed his approach to leadership and inspired his research into spiritu...
In this enlightening episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we sit down with Yosi Amram, a licensed clinical psychologist, CEO, leadership coach, and award-winning author. Yosi shares his fascinating journey from Israel to Silicon Valley, where he experienced the highs and lows of leading public companies during the dawn of the Internet age. He opens up about a life-changing spiritual awakening that transformed his approach to leadership and inspired his research into spiritual intelligence. Discover how Yosi's pioneering work has revealed the profound impact of spiritual intelligence on leadership effectiveness, team morale, and overall well-being. He discusses the essential qualities of spiritual intelligence, such as purpose, compassion, and gratitude, and how these attributes can be cultivated in both professional and personal relationships. Yosi also highlights his upcoming projects and the nonprofit organization he founded, Awakening SI, which aims to promote spiritual intelligence in communities. Tune in for an inspiring conversation that emphasizes the importance of leading with heart and the transformative power of spiritual growth. For more insights and resources from Yosi, visit his website at yosiamram.net.
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> Curtis Jackson>Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. if you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that ah, teach, motivate and inspire. Today I am joined by licensed clinical psychologist, CEO, leadership coach, and best selling and award winning author, Yossi Amram. Yossi has successfully led two companies himself and he has successfully worked with hundreds of CEOs and these CEOs have been in charge of companies with thousands of employees and billions in revenue. So we're going to be talking to Yosi about his experience and any current or upcoming projects that he's working on that we need to know about. So Yoshi Yosi, thank you so much for joining me.
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> Yossi Amram>Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. I'm happy to be here with you and thanks for the kind words.
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> Curtis Jackson>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself.
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> Yossi Amram>Okay, well you covered some of the basics. I'll just say a few other things.
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> Curtis Jackson>Go.
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> Yossi Amram>Going back, I was born and raised in Israel, which was, is, was a torn part, of this world War torn part of the world. I was a math and science kind of nerd kid and was drafted into the military at age 18. Luckily it was peaceful time then. Ah, but to my surprise I had the fastest promotion record in the history of my regiment, won all these awards. So. But despite excelling at the command and control model of the military, which is necessary in battle, that model really chafed my soul. And I was interested in how can you build organizations and lead people on more based on more humanistic principles that bring out the best in them. and that became kind of my lifelong dream and aspiration which led me to come to the US and study engineering and business. And then as you highlighted, became the reason I was the founder and CEO of two companies that I had the good fortune and the good blessing to be able to take public and where I got to try out my theories about leading people and supporting their growth and actualization within a context of a tight knit community. So now during one of those, after its public offering, it was the early day of the days of the Internet. I was all excited and trying to capitalize on the Internet run around and one of the things I tried to do to relax was get a massage. And while I was getting this deep tissue massage, I went into this deep state that is hard to describe, but basically the mystics would call it a spiritual awakening, which turned into what is also Referred to in the field as a spiritual emergency, where it's kind of the. The energies of the transformation and the shift is happening so rapidly that the mind can't contain it and basically blew my fuse and threw me into a manic episode. So that was a shattering experience of, And, I was trying to lead this public company while I was kind of in this euphoric, manic state.
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> Yossi Amram>I had a lot of insights about where the Internet was going, and I wanted everything done yesterday.
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> Yossi Amram>This was 96 before the days of Google and Facebook and a lot of the big names. And I had the insight and the foresight to see where it's all going, but I just wasn't grounded and pragmatic in how to get there. So my team couldn't keep up. My board thought I was nuts, and they were right away. And, so they put me on what they called a voluntary leave of absence. they passed the resolution.
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> Yossi Amram>There was nothing voluntary about it, but it hit the headlines in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and our stock price collapsed, which was nice for my ego, but, it really didn't help my pocketbooks because I lost basically half my net worth. and I was also canceled. All of a sudden, you know, there are all these rumors about being emotionally unstable. And I went from being in the top echelon of Silicon Valley, CEOs of the forefront of the Internet, to being a canceled person that people didn't return emails or phone calls to. So, that was very traumatic and painful and a lot of grief and a lot of tears. But, you know, it ultimately was a blessing in disguise, which changed the direction of my life, which is what led me to the second career, researching and understanding spiritual intelligence. And I could talk a lot more about that. But I'll pause. I think I've talked long enough.
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> Curtis Jackson>Yeah, I was just gonna say, yeah, that was gonna be my next question, because you're a pioneer in the research of, you know, spiritual intelligence.
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> Curtis Jackson>So, yeah, go into that and talk about that.
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> Yossi Amram>Okay. So, yeah, so I wanted to understand myself and understand what happened to me. And that awakening experience, spir. Emergency was I was that delusion. Was I hallucinating? I was experiencing everything. Being part of one field of consciousness, I was. And, so. And I wanted to understand why the businesses meant so much to me that I overworked myself and was so driven. So that kind of led me to go back into school to get a PhD in clinical transpersonal psychology. So, I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and Transpersonal psychology is just a branch of psychology that integrates spirituality into psychology. The origin of the word psyche, from Greek, actually is soul. And so these days we think of it as more as mind and thoughts. But really, the Greeks and many of the ancient traditions understand that our spirit and our psyche and our. In our thoughts and our heart and our emotions and, are really part of, of all dimensions of. Of what it means to be human. And so transpersonal psychology kind of looks at the human holistically. And in that program, I heard of the term spiritual intelligence, that was coined by a woman called Dana Zohar in a book called Rewiring the Corporate Brain. And I knew about all the work done around emotional intelligence. And that was put forth first as a concept by two academicians in 1990, Solovey and Meyer, and then popularized by Daniel Goldman in 1995, book by that name. And there was many models and research of what emotional intelligence was, and there were measures for it. So if you want to study something scientifically, you got to know how to measure it and show how it's associated with other variable. And there was all this research that showed that emotional intelligence leads to better leadership and better satisfying relationships and better contentment with life and career and success and all these good outcomes. So I was like, is there a parallel with spiritual intelligence? Because spirituality is kind of viewed as a woo woo thing and seen as a dichotomous compared to what's practical. but spiritual intelligence, something different. And just like being emotional is not the same as being emotionally intelligent. If I say, curtis, do you know some emotional people? That might not be the best compliment. but if I say, do you know people that are emotionally intelligent? Oh, then that's bridges the gap between emotion and reason. So when I heard the term spiritual intelligence, I was excited and I wanted to know, okay, what. What is that? And can we measure it and can we study how it affects leadership? And so that was the path I set on. And So I interviewed 71 teachers across all the world's wisdom traditions and spiritual traditions from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Shamanism, etc. And what I found that was very exciting is that they all talked about cultivating the same set of qualities that lead to good life. And these are things like purpose and service and trust and gratitude and compassion and forgiveness and humility and integrity. So regardless of their theology, whether they believe Christ was the Messiah or the Buddha was enlightened, or there is a self or there is no self, or whatever theology, they have or metaphysics. These are the human qualities that have been, honored and celebrated and seen as virtues by humanity for thousands of years, from the Greeks and on, or before the Greeks. so that started out, and then from there I developed the first validated measure of spiritual intelligence that showed that leaders that scored higher on spiritual intelligence led teams with higher morale, greater commitment, lower turnover.
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> Yossi Amram>And since then, other research have shown that, those leaders also produce better financial results for their business units, even when you control for and look at the effect of emotional intelligence or other factors that were already established. So that was all very exciting. And that was now over 15 years ago. And since then there have been hundreds of other studies across cultures and language that show that spiritual intelligence is real, is measurable and positively impactful on things like quality of life, satisfaction, satisfaction of life, mental health, resilience, and so on. So, I'll pause there.
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> Yossi Amram>That's kind of what got me excited and what I see as my calling, purpose, mission now, which is to awaken greater spiritual intelligence in myself, in the world. And I see it as an ongoing journey.
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> Yossi Amram>I'll, just add couple other quick points to differentiate spiritual intelligence from one spiritual belief. Like I can believe in higher power or God, or the reincarnation of the soul.
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> Yossi Amram>Those are beliefs and you know, they could be helpful, important, they can be true or not true, whatever. but that's different than spiritual intelligence, which I haven't quite defined yet.
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> Yossi Amram>I'll come back to, I realize. and it's also different from spiritual experience. I could be walking in the forest and feel one with nature. I could be meditating, I could pre praying at church on Sunday and feel connected to some power, etc.
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> Yossi Amram>So spiritual intelligence, let me try and define it because I'm kind of talking around it, but I haven't quite said what it is exactly. So let me just also draw on the analogy with emotional intelligence, which means the ability to draw on emotional resources and information to help manage emotions in ourselves and others in daily life. So by analogy, spiritual intelligence is the ability to draw on spiritual resources and qualities in daily life. So what are those? Those are some of the ones that I mentioned, like purpose, service, trust, gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, integrity, presence, humility, and so on. And so it's the embodiment of those qualities. if I'm in a team meeting, do I try and do the right thing or do I try and prove myself right? Which is more of an egoic, things, you know, how do I relate to people when I'm Driving on the freeway or when I'm in line in the supermarket. How do I, relate to people in daily life? And, and what qualities do I embody? So it's not my beliefs and it's not my experience, it's, it's how I am, its qualities of being and how we show up in daily life in the world.
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> Curtis Jackson>Well, you are also a best selling and award winning author. So talk to the listeners about your books. Tell them what they can expect when they read them and where they can get them.
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> Yossi Amram>Okay, well, thank you for the opportunity. My book is called Spiritually Intelligent Leadership, how to Inspire by Being Inspired. And it's available pretty much anywhere. You can buy books online or in the bookstore, whether it's Barnes and Noble or Amazon. And it's available in hard copy and in ebook or in audio. the important thing I will say about it is that spiritual intelligence is not a theoretical thing. I mean it's important to understand the theory and the science behind it and it's good to read it. So your mind says, okay, this actually is all makes sense. Ah, it's not woo woo. It's all aligned with science and logic and it doesn't have much to do with religion. I've had clients all across the spectrum of spiritual and religious belief. Some, you know, are devout religious people. Some are called spiritual but not religious. Some are agnostics, some are devout atheists. But these qualities I'm talking about are available to anybody. You can be a devout atheist, so to speak, and still live from a sense of purpose or service or embody a lot of gratitude and presence. So I would say you are spiritually intelligent even if you don't think of yourself as being spiritual. now why do I call that spiritual intelligence again? Because it's common to all the spiritual traditions. And two, these qualities naturally emerge when we are connected to our spirit. What is spirit? It just from Latin, the animating breath of life. So when we're connected to our life force, energy, we live a life of purpose and compassion and gratitude and trust and power and presence and all the good things I'm talking about. So the book you can read and understand the framework and that's important but it really, each quality, it goes through case studies with clients that are my client CEOs dealing with real world problems with shareholders and employees and customers and competitors. And the cases are like how they come in with a problem that seems very practical and tangible and how we address it by tapping into one of these Spiritual intelligence qualities that's already latently, within them is just uncovering these qualities in.
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> Yossi Amram>And each and every one of us have them to some extent. It's just more tapping into them and letting them grow and become more consistently embodied. So the book is full of case studies and then has exercises on how to cultivate these because like being physically healthy, you don't just read a book about exercise. You got to go to the gym or you know, do your workout however way you do it, bicycling, swimming in the gym, etc. So it's kind of both a theoretical framework, case studies and, and a workbook, that what, what the book is about. So I hope that's enough of a commercial.
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> Curtis Jackson>Absolutely.
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> Curtis Jackson>So to show people how truly qualified you are to speak on what you speak on. You know, you work with hundreds of CEOs who manage companies, you know, with thousands of employees and billions in revenue. So, so you, you know, kind of speak on that and you know, maybe talk about what industries you work with them as much as you can.
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> Yossi Amram>Okay, sure, yeah. I've also had the good fortune of having at least three or four of my clients become billionaires. And so yeah, this all is not just woo, nice, it's, it's, it's very practical.
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> Yossi Amram>And as you pointed out, I've, I've had clients, I've had over 100 CEOs and, and many of them build companies that have revenues in the billions. Most of them, most of them are in the tech sector and around Silicon Valley. Some are, you know, elsewhere throughout the country in the world. I have clients in, in Europe, I have clients in, in Asia. so but yeah, they're all mostly in the, in the tech sectors and their founders and CEOs and I understand the world they live in because I've walked in their shoes.
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> Yossi Amram>the other thing I'm focused on these days and it's a little bit of a new focus area, but as a clinical psychologist, I've also been passionate and very interested in helping people in their primary romantic relationships because as Freud said, there's two important dimensions to a, fulfilling human life and that's work. And the other one is love. So the spiritually intelligent leadership is about, mostly about people at work.
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> Yossi Amram>Although, you know, we're all leaders in our families, in our communities and wherever we, we in our neighborhoods. So it's not just strictly work and business, you know, but, but it's probably more heavily leaning there. But now I'm Doing research, with couples and looking at spiritually intelligent relationships and how these very same qualities of, you know, gratitude and humility and compassion and forgiveness and presence, all show up in, in our primary relationships. And I think they're just as important and impactful there. And so that's, that's a new initiative. I've been working with couples throughout my career as a psychologist, but I'm in the midst of a study with a hundred couples and both same sex couples and hetero couples and looking at how attachment, emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence all contribute to relational satisfaction. And the preliminary results are very exciting. So I'm just just feel blessed and privileged to be doing this work and hope it has a good impact on people's lives individually and for all of us collectively.
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> Yossi Amram>We live in critical times, you know, where our cognitive intelligence and IQ has landed us on the moon, Split the atom, developed AI that's smarter than many of us. We have e emotional intelligence.
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> Yossi Amram>We learned about how to feel our feelings and manage them. But yet the world seems very chaotic and anxiety, depression, loneliness, suicide rates, addictions are skyrocketing and this political polarization and wars and all these things. And so something's missing. And I think an important leg for the answer is this thing I call spiritual intelligence. So I'm trying to do my piece and we're all in this together.
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> Curtis Jackson>Absolutely. Sounds like you're doing a good job.
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> Curtis Jackson>So tell the listeners about any other upcoming projects that you're working on that we need to be aware of.
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> Yossi Amram>Well, anybody who's interested in this. I do. I have a nonprofit called Awakening si. SI is short for spiritual intelligence. Or you can sell the whole thing. Awakening Spiritual Intelligence. Why host monthly events that are free that focus on one of the qualities and people give a talk, but also provide some exercises that people could do in small groups or dyad. So it's a great way to connect with other like minded people. so that's another thing that people connect, can connect with. And if you go to my website, if you can remember the spelling of my name, yes, Amram M.net Then there are other resources and projects.
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> Yossi Amram>There's a, there's a way you can get a free assessment of your spiritual intelligence. Not looking at each, what your strengths are. You know, each of us has some strengths, whether it's mindfulness or gratitude or joy or purpose, etc.
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> Yossi Amram>And what are some areas that you could develop. So I have a website that offers Free assessments and so on. So. Yeah, but you could just start with either yossiamram.net or spiritually, intelligentleadership.com or awakeningsi.org so if you can remember one of those.
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> Curtis Jackson>All right, well, we'll put that yossiamron.net in the show notes.
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> Curtis Jackson>So close us out with some final thoughts.
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> Yossi Amram>Amram. Yeah, Amram. Two M's. final thoughts. Hm.
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> Yossi Amram>Well, one of the things I like to, to remind myself and from time to time I forget is that one of the self, renewing resources, everything in our universe is, is kind of finite, at least at the, at the material level. and if I have a hundred dollars in my pocket and I give someone a dollar, then I have 99 left. I just have less. but if I have a certain amount of compassion or love or joy in my heart and I share it, I share that love. I do some act of kindness, I share my joy. do I have less love, less joy, less compassion in my heart?
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> Yossi Amram>No, I just. It's actually increased. I, I enjoy it more. so I think when we take that perspective, we shift from a mindset of scarcity. Ah. To a mindset of abundance. And it creates a positive feedback loop. The more kindness and joy and compassion and love we share, the more joyful and love, filled we are. And our capacity and our hearts expand. So I just encourage us all to, to practice that. And it's not easy, but it's simple but not easy. So.
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> Yossi Amram>But that's why we call it practice. And the more we practice, then we become more loving and more joyful and more grateful.
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> Curtis Jackson>Absolutely.
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> Curtis Jackson>Ladies and gentlemen, and for more information on what Yossi is doing, please visit yoshi yossi.net for more information. Follow rate Review Share this episode to as many people as possible. Pick up Yosi's book. If you or, someone you know would like to be a guest on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, or you would like to leave feedback for the show, or, leave a review, please visit www.craveball337.com thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Yossi, thank you for, all that you're doing to help make the world a better place. And thank you for joining me.
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> Yossi Amram>Thank you. It's been lovely and you didn't throw too many curveballs at me, so. But I appreciate it.
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> Curtis Jackson>For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.craveball337.com until next time, keep Living the dream.
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