Ester Deutsch Podcast Transcript
Esther Deutsch joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of The Digital Executive podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Esther Deutsch. Esther Deutsch is a passionate individual with a diverse background and a relentless drive for positive impact. Armed with a master’s degree in social work and a bachelor’s degree in business, Esther 18.
Sparking a lifelong commitment to community empowerment. She’s worked with at risk youth, authored two books on mental wellness and networking, and served as an adjunct professor. She’s currently the Senior Partner Success Manager at Net At Work, where she thrives in providing customer care. Esther also advises at marketintent.ai, an AI company showcasing her strategic expertise. Alongside Luke, she also co-hosts In This Together Roundtable and Sunset Social, fostering business relationships.
Well, good afternoon, Esther. Welcome to the show.
Esther Deutsch: Thanks so much. Thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me, Brian.
Brian Thomas: You bet, Esther. This is awesome.
Appreciate you making the time, jumping on. I know we’ve had a couple of connection calls and so forth, and you just really inspire me and a lot of people out there. So, Esther, we’re going to jump right into your questions and talk about your career in business, technology, operations, you’re an author, now the Senior Partner Success Manager at Net At Work.
Could you share with our audience the secret to your career growth and what inspires you?
Esther Deutsch: Sure. It’s a great question. I’m inspired by a lot of things. I think that for me, it’s a lot about leadership and leading by example. I always, you know, love to go above and beyond and what I do and not settle for status quo.
So, I think as far as secret to my career growth. Those would be a few of the things that I could point to as influential and where I’ve been and where I hope to go. And then as far as what inspires me, for sure, being part of a great team, serving others, making an impact and really challenging status quo goes back to that and doing things differently.
I’m not afraid to go against the grain. And stand out. And I think just saying just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean it should continue to be done that way. Now, maybe it should, but maybe it shouldn’t. So I think just not accepting things for what they are is, is something that’s really served me and helped me serve others in an elevated way.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And you are truly a servant leader. I see you out there all the time helping and serving others, which is amazing. And that leads us to the next question I have for you is you help so many people, whether it’s in business, networking, teaching, volunteering with your nonprofits, what drives you to give so much to others?
Esther Deutsch: No, it’s interesting. I’ll go back for a second to question one, two, I say this a lot, but I think that. When you know, you know, that book start with why is huge, but I always say it’s the why and the who, and then everything else kind of follows. And I realized that even having such a strong value system myself of that, wanting to make an impact, it really does change the decisions that I make and where I go, if I’m always starting with what do I want to do?
And what’s my purpose? And by that, I don’t mean a job title, you know, ultimately like what’s the underlying theme for me. And that’s also actually. Believe it or not, it’s not only allowed me to hone in on what I want to do, but it’s also broadened my horizons because it’s made me realize that there are other ways.
For example, like, I’m a social worker, but I work in corporate, but if my goal is to make an impact, then I don’t only need to, or maybe at all need to be, let’s say, working as a social worker. In a clinical setting to do that same to accomplish that same goal. So, I think that knowing what I want and who I am has helped me actually brought in what ways I can get there.
So, as far as what drives me, I actually think about this a lot and I think that 1 of the greatest gifts actually dating has given me is a greater appreciation for my value of serving and community and supporting and I’ve also come to realize that really from a young age giving and. Silence. Making an impact has been something that’s been part of my life.
And I also, you know, attribute a lot of it to my faith in being Jewish, because there’s a lot of concepts and a lot of my, my non Jewish friends, actually, I recently had a conversation with one who asked me about this and I just, I kind of took it for granted that everybody just wants to give because to me, it’s like, you know, giving is like breathing.
It’s essential to my survival. I don’t always think about it, but I thought that that was everybody. And I think it’s a lot of people, but I think some people are more in touch with that side of themselves. So, in Judaism, there’s a concept, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it called tikkun olam, which is healing.
It stands for like healing the world. So, I really believe that, you know, my purpose and part of my value on this earth is to make an impact and not necessarily to fix the world. Cause I think it’s sort of an ongoing process, but to. Do something to make it better than, than when I came in. So, I want to leave it, you know, better than I found it.
And I really feel like to live is to give, and it’s, it’s, it’s again, something that I think was ingrained in me from a young age. And it’s also something that I kind of took on and made my own because I believe in it. And then there’s this amazing quote that I heard too, that this question made me think of, which goes, we think we are searching for what we need, but really, we’re just searching for those who need what we give.
And that was something that really resonated with me. Cause I think we all have what to offer. We have to find that in ourselves and use that for the benefit of others.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And thank you. You’re absolutely right. A lot of people do give but some people just don’t have that in their DNA.
And I appreciate you sharing you know, where that comes from. Your faith is so important to you. That’s just awesome. And I, I really hope people can learn from this podcast, how helping others really will make the world a better place. So, Esther, thank you. Let’s talk about a book you recently wrote.
It’s called The Musings of a Network Maven. Could you share with us what inspired you to write this and maybe a little teaser about the book?
Esther Deutsch: Sure. So ironically, and maybe it’s kismet, but the idea for this book on networking actually came from a networking connection and conversation. So, I met an amazing person named Jeff.
I hope I don’t butcher his last name, but Bershawa and Jeff is a book publishing whiz amongst other things. Also, terrific networking person – I call him my networking brother, but when he, I was on the phone with him and he said to me, you know, you should write a book. And I was like, I don’t know what would I really write in there?
And long story short, he offered to basically help me publish it. And he did. And my reason for doing it was, you know, I felt that. If I can get some of the ideas and concepts and things and steps that work for me out into the world and I can help more people kind of do what I’m doing and have that same success.
And again, it goes back to my why. If I want to make a bigger impact, then the bigger my platform, the more people I can reach. So, you know, I always feel like it’s, it’s okay and it’s actually a good thing to, to want to. Know more people be more out there. If your ultimate goal is to use that in the service of others, and that’s sort of sort of where I’m at.
So that’s what the book what was in it for me. I don’t make money off the book. I have to charge a fee to please Amazon where it’s sold. But ultimately, my goal is to help people again. A lot of the things that I took for granted as just being like natural to me, I realized that not everybody can do it.
And that’s where Feels that or knows the sort of secret sauce. So that’s what led me to write the book. So, it and I talk about all kinds of things, but some of it is how to network effectively, what mindset to have when you’re networking, how self-awareness ties into it. And I tap a little bit into my background and social work and only like lately has.
How do I realize the connection between self-worth and self-awareness and business and networking? Actually, it’s so, so, so connected. It’s an incredible thing, especially, you know, money mindset and wealth. And there’s definitely more awareness about it out in the world. But some of that is is touched on in my book.
And hopefully, you know, the hope is that it helps others. So, if anybody does, you know, read it, it’s called Musings of a Networking Maven, and it’s on Amazon. I’d love to. I always love your feedback. And actually, the format of the book is very much sort of natural. It’s actually written in a conversation format.
It has a lot of room for notes. And that the reason I did that is because I really wanted it to be sort of like a group effort and not just, you know, me preaching and more of a sort of explore where you’re at and where you’re going and how can I help you get there? So, I always love feedback if people read it.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And thank you for again, contributing a book not looking at the end goal or the profit of the book itself. You know, out of. You know, in a selfish way, but you’re doing it to again, make the world a better place. So, I really appreciate that I’m inspired and definitely will be reading that book.
And Esther last question of the day. We are a technology platform and podcast. We ask everybody if you’re leveraging any new or emerging tech in your business. And if not, maybe there’s a cool tool or app. You found useful. You might share with us.
Esther Deutsch: Sure. So, I’m still jumping into all the AI environment world and it’s exciting.
There’s a lot happening and it’s still emerging. So, I’m still learning, but one tool I use for messaging on LinkedIn, it’s called connected with the K. And it basically allows you to personalize messages to multiple people. So it saves a lot of time. That’s been really great. And we also use a tool internally called higher select.
It used to be called criteria Corp, and that helps us to. Assess candidates for hire and understand things like their logical reasoning skills or troubleshooting skills, even their administrative and customer support skills. So it allows us to form a baseline for learning things about candidates that we might not see on the resume.
So that’s been instrumental in our hiring. So that’s 1 of my best tools, little secrets.
Brian Thomas: Love it. We talked to someone every single day and there’s something that is always new that shows up on the podcast this week. We give a free plug to everything that we talk about here on the podcast. So, we appreciate your insights and the tools that you use every day.
So, Esther, I just want to let you know, it’s such a pleasure having you on today. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Esther Deutsch: Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Esther Deutsch Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
