"The most important skill is connecting with people": Why connection is the most valuable skill. A Chat with Assaff Weisman, pianist, teacher, and Executive Director of the Israeli Chamber Project.

Subscribe to the podcast here!Learn more about the stuff we talk about in this episode here:Assaff Weisman3:54 - How the right teacher can change everything and why he credits his life as a musician to his early teacher, Seth Kimmelman.6:07 - Seth Kimmelman's tragic passing from AIDS.7:59 - Assaff's identity as an Israeli and an American.10:15 - How Israeli Chamber Project started.15:53 - The main learning points and challenges of starting your own organization.18:20 - How our training at Juilliard at the time we received it did not teach us to think entrepreneurially.19:34 - The secret to ICP's longevity.24:40 - The importance of making peace with being in sales and how musicians are really salespeople. Chamber Music America (CMA).28:35 - Why artists resist the concept of "selling."30:50 - Approaching sales as a way to help and connect with people.32:53 - The skills that classical musicians acquire through training that are useful for entrepreneurship.35:06 - "The most important skill is connecting with people." Why connecting is the most valuable skill.36:46 - Seth Godin and Real Skills.38:00 - Seymour Bernstein (Seymour: An introduction). Continuing Education at Juilliard. Performance anxiety and vulnerability.43:59 - How Assaff's career is different from what he thought it would be.49:39 - Assaff's advice to his younger self: say "yes" to everything to combat rigidity of the mind.