What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?

By Michal Oshman

Dorling Kindersley, £12.99

Reviewed by Sipora Levy

This is a self-help book with a difference; an invitation to “discover a life filled with purpose and joy through the secrets of Jewish wisdom” from a very unlikely source.

Michal Oshman is the head of company culture, diversity and inclusion at Tik Tok Europe and was formerly responsible for international leadership and team development at Facebook. She grew up in Israel in a secular Jewish household, served in the Israeli army, got married and had a family. Her career brought her to London and while, on the outside, she had the “perfect life”, beneath the surface she was battling with deep fear and anxiety, emotions that had surrounded her throughout her early life.

She was born and raised in a home with her grandparents, Holocaust survivors who were deeply affected by their trauma. Furthermore, her father was Israel’s chief forensic pathologist and Michal was exposed to death and dying at a very young age.

Several years of psychotherapy did not help her find release from a life lived in fear but she carried on searching. And in ten absorbing chapters, she describes her personal voyage of discovery.

From psychotherapy, she turned briefly and unsuccessfully to Zen Buddhism. Eventually, she read Viktor Frankl’s celebrated book, Man’s Search for Meaning and this showed her what had been missing from her life and why psychotherapy hadn’t helped.

Despite having been a student of Freud, Frankl disagreed with the Freudian principle that happiness comes from its pursuit and the avoidance of pain. What had kept prisoners like Frankl alive in concentration camps was their exceptional drive to fulfil a unique purpose.

Oshman realised that the inner void she felt was caused by her pursuit of ego-driven activities and career success rather than searching for her “true purpose”. Drawing on her own heritage, and Chasidut, she weaves together a blueprint for living a more fulfilling life. At one point, she suggests that by practising bittul (self nullification) we can make space for the divine — and others — to bloom. She changes her stance from asking “what do I need?” to “what am I needed for?”

Oshman emphasises the value of being a mensch, modest and caring, whether in the workplace or within one’s family, and generally sprinkles the pages with her own life lessons, particularly her “failures”, which, she points out, help us to grow.

For anyone seeking a more fulfilling life, Michal Oshman’s account of how she found hers could just be an inspiring and invaluable handbook.