Episode 214: How to Be the Leader of Your Own Career with Dr. Benjamin Ritter

So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership, develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

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Welcome to another episode of the Cult Capital Leadership Podcast. My name is Bradley Hamner, your host. On today's episode, we have Dr. Benjamin Ritter. He's the founder of Live for Yourself Consulting, which is a leadership and career coach. He's also a talent development executive coach. He loves values. He's a self-professed values geek. He has spoken internationally and an online instructor of the course How to Be the Leader of Your Own Career and Create a Career You Love. He's also a podcast host himself. You're going to want to stick through this episode. He shares some just incredible nuggets around the 3 C's of self-leadership. And then towards the end, it ended up pivoting. He actually ended up kind of coaching me through some things, and I think you'll get a really great glimpse into how he works with people and some of the insights. It was profound for me. I don't think we've had a guest where Actually, I was— it's almost like a live coaching program. Um, but in this one it was. So hopefully this serves all of you. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Dr. Benjamin Ritter.

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Dr. Benjamin Ritter, welcome to the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

I'm pumped to be here. Thanks for having me.

Excited to have you. Well, we always start with background and origin story every week with our guests, and so why don't you just take people back a little bit along your journey and kind of how you got to where you are today?

Yeah, I woke up, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I was already at the age that I am now. And here we go. I literally— this is within a few seconds of my birth and just popped right here. So I, like probably most, right, couldn't have predicted that I would have ended up where I am today. Right now, I have a background in organizational leadership and talent development, and I coach and guide senior leaders to create a career they can love either inside organizations or to help them create organizations they can fall in love with. So a lot of leadership development as well as career development. Now, this was not an area that I was focused on for probably the first, I don't know, 30 years of my life. There were components of it, but not where I am today. And so the path to, again, the most direct path to how I ended up in this seat with you was I was a healthcare executive. I was kind of the right hand of the CEO and I was unbelievably engaged in my— disengaged in my work. So I was going into work not to work. I don't know if you've ever been there.

Yeah, yeah.

People would come up to me and start trying to have a conversation, and basically going through my head was this: there's no point. Why am I doing this? Why am I trying to build a relationship with this person? Why am I having a conversation? So I would basically just always be trying to get out of conversations too. So not only was I avoiding work, but I was also avoiding people. I basically kind of looked down the hallway to make sure that no one was going towards me so I could skip out without having to say hi to somebody or goodbye to somebody or even just talk. Yeah, I would skip out during lunch to go to the gym. I was just— I was going to work not to work. And, you know, when I look back on it, realize that I've kind of ruined an opportunity to build even greater career capital and relationships in my career. But at the time, didn't matter to me. I had one foot out the door. Now, that went on for years. Years and years and years, and I was in the place where I did not believe that I had control over my career or the ability to impact it. I was basically reacting to my career instead of being proactive.

Hmm.

Now, luckily, one day when I was walking to work, I started paying attention to the people around me, and the sense of dread and the weight on my shoulders that I felt for my job, I saw in other people's eyes. What's really just mind-blowing is that at that time, I had a side hustle as a coach. I learned for probably at that point in time, 6 to 8 years about personal development. I was confident as an individual. I knew about relationships. I knew about passion and purpose and every other aspect of my life other than my career, unbelievably fulfilled. But for some reason, it didn't hit me that I could do the same that I did for my personal life and my relationships and my career. But at that point, when I realized that other people were basically walking zombies to go to their jobs, It hit me. I said, "What am I doing? Why am I playing the victim? What is it that I really want to be spending my time doing? Why am I wasting life?" You know, time is the only gift that you— it's actually a gift. It's the only thing you can't get back. So that made me sit back and do a career audit of what I loved, what I disliked, what I was passionate about, what challenges I wanted to face, where I wanted to spend, you know, where I wanted to work, what products I wanted to work on. And through that audit, I actually went to my boss and kind of pitched a new job. I got the A-okay to go start working in the realms of talent development and coaching within our organization. So all was fine and dandy. Hmm, not so much. We got acquired for the second time and everyone I was working with got let go and all the projects I was working on got centralized. And so lo and behold, my career, the new career path I was going to be on ended. Now that is very much the story of every other thing I was passionate about in the past. Wanted to be a professional soccer player, got crushed, got surgery on my 21st birthday. Like, went all— this is another podcast in itself— was gonna go be a dietetics major, a dietitian. That major got canceled 2 years in. I was gonna work in health policy, had 4 job offers, they were all canceled during the middle of a recession. So it's like every— it was just kind of like rinse and repeat. But the difference was I said, "Oh, great. This path ended? Oh, look, there's 3 other paths that I could take to get to the same outcome." And so that's when I started crafting this career path in the realms of organizational leadership and talent development and just didn't stop. And when things didn't work out as well as I thought they would, you know, it's not that thing didn't matter. It was, "Okay, let's go forward in a different way." So I went back, got my doctorate in organizational leadership, created a new consultancy, Got some really great partnerships with some big name companies, got some great leadership clients, brought some other clients, built a business off of community in-person and virtual events. And lo and behold, right, we're here where we are today.

Man, what a great story. I got so many things I'm going to peel out some threads from that. One of the biggest things that I really was excited to chat with you about is one of the principles that I believe in is leading yourself first. And you talk about, um, Live for Yourself Consulting— that's the name of the company, obviously— but I really want to talk around self-leadership, okay, and how, why that is so important. Because, I mean, this name of this podcast is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. I just— the previous podcast I recorded earlier, about an hour ago, we really centered around traditional leadership. You know, how do we lead our people? How do we show up as a leader other people want to be able to follow? And now these episodes actually are going to end up following back to back to one another. So I think it ends up working out to be kind of a good change around the same topic of leadership, but we're looking at it from a different lens and kind of thinking about it from the perspective of us first. A lot of your story has certainly been my own story, because I was very outward. Business wasn't doing what it needed to do, and I, you know, was pointing fingers at my team versus actually looking at, you know what, maybe you're, maybe you're the problem. Maybe you actually need to get better, um, yourself. And so can you just talk about the importance of self-leadership and even maybe define what that actually is so that we can come to terms of what that is and what that isn't.

Looking at a pen right now that I have in front of me from Live for Yourself Consulting with a quote that says, "The most important leader is the one that's within you." I think we have— some people have a misdefinition or misperception that as a leader they can control others. You can't— cannot— you cannot control anyone. Everyone is always ultimately making their final— a final decision. And so as a leader, what you need to do is actually figure out what somebody needs to take action. So how do we create an environment around that person that inspires them, that motivates them, that is going to allow them to develop and be effective? And so every single person has a leader within them. A leader's job is to connect with that individual leader, find out what it wants, and then curate how that— how they engage with each other to that specific individual. Now, most people, especially in the workforce, don't understand that their leader is making the decision, not their actual leader, like their, their internal leader are making, is making the decisions. And so when they get disengaged or dissatisfied, they blame the organization or they blame their boss or they blame their peer or they blame the work they're working on instead of who we really need to blame is ourselves. We ultimately dictate the amount of energy that we bring to the table. The actions that we do each and every single day. And no matter what you feel, that can— yes, that's information that can, that can change and craft your actions and help you make decisions. But ultimately, the leader within you is kind of sitting in there with the steering wheel, you know, really deciding what you do. And so self-leadership is basically just the concept of leading yourself forwards each and every single day. And so when I was coaching clients initially, I came up with a decision-making model called the Live System, and I used it with my clients to help them create more of an aligned life. An aligned life is, you know, your values, and then you show up intentionally towards them, and your goals align with them, your relationships align with them, your job aligns with them. So ultimately that leads to more fulfillment, and it's— things are easier. Instead of swimming upstream, you're swimming with the current. Problem that I found was that some people did not have the core traits of a self-leader. So they could not actually hold themselves accountable to do the things they needed to do for, like, and make the decisions they needed to make. So that's when I started analyzing what is it that these executives, that these leaders, these successful individuals have that allows them to be successful in the coaching programs that I created initially. And that's when I came up with the 3 C's of self-leadership, which is when someone can lead themselves forwards They have clarity, they have confidence, and they have control. I'm happy to go into each one of those, but if you are ever finding yourself stuck and not able to make a decision or take action or feeling like you're the victim of your situation, it tends to relate to one of these 3 C's, at least one or two or all three of them potentially, because they tend to feed each other.

I definitely do. I, I, I do. What Tell, let's go, let's go into 'em one by one. When you think about clarity, how, how do you view clarity in helping someone to, to, to be able to lead themselves?

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Very often we have stories that that dictate how we feel each and every single day. I can't do this because of this. My— this, this person on my team is like this, so I have to do this. Or I need to react to this client this way because of this. And we just have these beliefs that are limiting. They keep us and prevent us from feeling like we are free. Self-leadership is the concept that we can make any decision that we want to make for ourselves, and we're okay with the consequences of those decisions because we know we're going to be fine in the end. And those decisions that we're making are aligned with what we truly want to create in the world. But we don't ever stop and go, why do I feel this way? Why do I think this? Why do I want this? You know, the big question, why, why, why? Clarity is understanding, first off, what your core values are. So what, what you actually stand for as an individual, as a human, what's under, what's underneath all your goals, what's motivating them. Then understanding how your— what— how your goals have been formed off of those. So your goals are basically just the real-world application of your values. I'm working towards this goal because it allows me to live true to who I am as an individual and create what I want to have, what I want to create in the world. For example, when I couldn't go down the path of talent development within my organization, that was one way for me to pursue my values for health, health related specifically to the organization. Another way was to create my own company. Another way was to potentially go volunteer. Another way is to go talk to my friends about it. There's different levels of applying your values to your life through a goal, and your goal is the outlet. So then you create goals that are based on your values, and those goals are also based on the vision that you have for your future self. In your career. So clarity is an understanding of yourself, an understanding of why you are trying to reach these certain goals, and then what those goals actually are broken down into steps, you know, into daily steps. So you know what you should be working on, why you're working on it, what you're supposed to achieve so that you have some semblance of progress and recognition of that progress, which then feeds into your definition of success and ultimately confidence. So that was a lot.

No, no, it's clear though. No pun intended. But what— how far out do you recommend— how far out do you recommend somebody consider, like, who they want to become? I mean, I have written down specifically, like, I— in Notion, I have a place where I put things like this: who is the man that I want to become in 2023? Okay, so I have some things around that, and then I have this thing of whenever I turn 50. So I'm 9 years away from turning 50 or so. And so I have this, you know, who, who's the man that I want to be? Who's the person I want to be when I turn 50? Okay, well, those are mile marker type things. I get that. But generally speaking, you know, for our business owners, entrepreneurs, founders, how often do you feel like that we review that? Do we set that? Do we set that at certain milestones? How far out is it? Is it 3 years? Is it the rest of my life. I mean, it's helpful for me to have some sort of frame of reference during a period of time of like, who do I want to become by this point?

Yeah, I would say look back from when you envision when you're retired, you know, all the way, all the way to the end of when you're done with work. And I say that because it's— you want— you need to have a longer-term vision of what you want to create in the world.

World.

Now, it doesn't mean things are gonna take that long, but you're going to be on a path to reach that certain point. And it's not the goals that you want to achieve, it's the life that you want to have. It's very different. And so you at least want to have an idea of what life you want to have. Now, that can change. And so we want to reflect on this vision on an annual basis, like this broader vision. And so when you sit back and you do this kind of retirement exercise, it's What sort of legacy do I want to have had? What type of work do I want to have created in the world? What type of organizations do I want to potentially have worked with? What are those big projects that when I sit back and tell people at dinner, the things I used to work on that I'm bringing up? So that's kind of the, the broader vision. And then that should inform the things that you want to work on within the next 5 years or so, because then you want to get a little bit more specific. You do a 5-year vision. People will say, "Well, you can't plan for 5 years." I agree, but you can at least impact and influence what occurs in 5 years because things are going to happen that pull you off course. But if you know your values, you'll at least stay within some frame of reference that matters to you personally. So, you're not going to end up in a life that you didn't want to live. But when we really want to get granular within that 1 to 2 2-year mark. That's when we start breaking things down month by month. What do I need to have achieved? What do I need to have, um, have achieved within that in one month to make sure that I reach my goals in 6 months, or reach my goals in 12 months, and this so forth for 24 months, for 2 years.

So let's transition to number 2, uh, the second C, which is confidence. Life is hard. Business can be hard at times for sure. Uh, talk to us about what you mean by confidence and what are the things that we can do to be able to build more confidence and even protect the confidence that we have. Because I, I, I can tell you there's days that I feel super confident that— no joke, the last, the last 48 hours are a very big contrast in my life. Yesterday was a challenging day. I had some challenging conversations. It started off on the wrong foot and it just kind of carried throughout the day no matter what. And I felt like, man, my confidence was getting beat up. Today, totally different. Today, you know, seemingly woke up the same, but just the day has played out different. I feel a completely different level of confidence today. If we'd done this podcast yesterday, my energy would have been completely zapped. And that's one reason I don't do podcasts on Monday anyway. I just don't have great energy on those days. Um, but it really— I, I can see just a contrast in the last, you know, 48 hours for me. But how do you view confidence, um, gaining it and protecting it?

And I have to just say one more thing about clarity, because when we think about self-leadership, we have to reflect on how we are leading ourselves. So just like you would pull your direct reports in for one-on-ones and you would actually go over the priorities they had for that week and then quarterly reviews and then you would do an annual review, you would do the same thing for yourself. So just giving a little bit, kind of putting the leadership framework around clarity, I think is really important. And that actually leads into confidence, knowing that you're on track. So no matter how terrible you feel on any given day, you go, okay, so what are the main levers that I need to pull today? Am I making progress towards those levers? I can reflect back now and look at the last 6 months. Did I accomplish the things that I've set myself out to accomplish? So the emotion that I feel that doesn't— that's, hey, I don't feel good today. You can go and say, does this emotion of I don't feel good have any actual substance based on the progress that I've been making in my life or based on the life that I've created for myself? And so confidence is two main pillars. It's self-efficacy and self-esteem. So it's the belief in our skills and the, and ultimately the belief in ourself. Both of those are not dependent on facts. Like they're influenced by facts, but they're not dependent on it, which is why we can wake up on a Tuesday and be happier than when we were, when we woke up on a Monday. And I, I would love to hear if you were able to identify anything at all that, and if you're willing to share, that potentially influenced how you felt the past couple of days in comparison today to today? I can't hear you right now.

I, you know, I don't think that there was anything different in my— in the morning routines. I generally feel more energy on other days of the week. Monday is a challenging day for me. It's not that I hate Mondays, but it's just more of a challenging day than some of the other days. And it started off on the wrong foot with the tonality of a meeting that started on Monday and then led into some very challenging conversations I had to have. Basically, I felt like I was dealing with problems all day. And yes, I know that I'm Chief Problem Solver in the businesses, but the problems that were coming to me were, were very complex problems. They were, they were not simple things that I could just knock out really quick. Um, but there was a lot of problems coming to me and they were multifaceted. And I was frustrated that because I had other things that I had set out that morning in my routine to say, hey, here's what I want to get accomplished that day. And within just a few hours, those things were out the window of what I wanted to accomplish. Versus— so I never felt like I was making any forward progress yesterday at all. As a matter of fact, I was backing up. I was backing up. I was taking multiple steps backwards, not making any tangible steps forwards. Today I've knocked out some pretty major things. I mean, I had my group program this morning, which was fantastic. Energy was incredible today. Uh, the engagement of, of the community was awesome. Had some awesome podcasts, this one with you, another one. So, and in between there, I've actually been able to have some really great conversations, knock some things out. Things are actually moving forward. It's on— it could not be actually a completely different 48 hours between the two. So I hope that helps. I'm happy to give even more specifics around that. I'm a pretty open book guy.

No, this is wonderful. And it actually feeds into control. So So all these 3 C's are very interrelated. And so if we were just to touch on control for a moment, knowing that Mondays are not days, like just not great days for you, low energy days, knowing which meetings are actually gonna be really draining to you allows then for you to create, right, a structure around that to ensure that, okay, I am going to sandwich this really draining meeting with things that fill me up or extra rest time. And I'm not going to double book myself or triple book myself with things that require a lot of mental energy because I'm going to be exhausted. Or Mondays, I'm going to block those off until noon because I just don't have the same level of energy. And if I start off right into work, I'm just going to go downward throughout the entire day. Or I know that certain things fill me up like little quick wins, so I'm gonna make sure that I have a quick win in each, each single day. It's gonna start my day and gonna end my day. And so we, this is how we create control around the things that we wanna create in our life to ensure that we have the energy levels that we need. So we want to continue making progress so we do feel confident as well. So touching on that for a moment, I can go, I wanna go back to confidence. I don't wanna skip it. So I'll pause for a second.

No, that's good. No, that's awesome. That's so, that's so good. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I, I definitely, Uh, I did not have wins yesterday. I felt like I was taking a bunch of L's, uh, is how yesterday felt like, you know. And, you know, there's times I have, uh, I have really tried to learn— I think, um, I've heard somebody else say this and it resonated with me— is that there's not a lot of times I used to think I had a bad day when the reality is I would have a bad 20 minutes. Right? It's like, no, it wasn't a bad day, it was a bad 20 minutes. Well, yesterday there were a number of things where it's like, okay, man, I'm getting hit today, uh, you know. And, uh, one thing that helped me, I will say— I don't know if you want to speak to this around confidence— is, um, I, I used to very much suppress that and, and go inward. And I have learned I picked up the phone and called a friend. I picked up the phone and called a friend and said— actually, I sent him a long text message, and I think he could tell my emotion in it. And he said, hey, can you talk? And I said, yeah. And he called me and we talked for 20 minutes. Felt totally different after that. And I just kind of let him, let him hear my day, and he listened to me. Didn't necessarily give me a ton of advice. He reframed a couple little things here and there. It was the same experience, but actually sharing it with somebody else was incredibly helpful to me. So I don't know if, if kind of your thoughts on that.

And it's another part of control, honestly. So it's keeping, you know, what are your 3 most positive, uplifting, energizing relationships? And what are the 3 least? Let's get rid of the 3 least and let's focus on the 3 positive. Let's create a community around yourself that supports your clarity, your vision, and also supports your levels of confidence. And doing that, it It takes— a lot of people aren't able to do that, and a lot of people don't have the support or they don't realize they have the support. So kudos to you for doing that outreach and kudos to your friend for saying, hey, let's chat, let's talk. Because confidence— so when we get to the nitty-gritty of it is understanding. So this is the self-esteem part that when you walk into a room, you— that you are bringing all of your talents, all of your skills. There's no more preparation. You are showing up as you are and accepting the fact that that is good enough.

Hmm.

Like, I am— and this is a personal belief, this is a mindset— whenever I walk into a situation, no matter what occurs, no matter what external factors or situations that, you know, happen, I am enough. That's— and this is a belief that takes time to solidify. But then, so if you go into a meeting and it It's terrible. Despite the meeting that was terrible, you are still unchanged. You are still you. An external thing, a person, words, criticism, an event, failures can't change who you are individually and what you bring to the table. It's not like they bit off a piece of you and you've lost 10 years of your experience. Nope. Same person. Now the self. So that's a mindset we can work on reframing beliefs and affirmations because really when it comes down to it, it's taking the microphone away from your inner critic and giving it to your inner champion. And making sure your inner champion's hitting the gym to build some strength up. Because very often in our life, we take that microphone away and we're really taking that inner critic and we're making them run laps and do weightlift and feeding them spinach because we have an imbalance of who's, who's in power. And so it's a lot of— it's a work or weekly coaching and other exercises that ensures that when you walk into a situation, your vision, the values that you know about yourself empower your self-esteem and what you, who you believe you are. So then you are then able to be confident. Your inner champion is kind of at the helm. And as a leader, this basically is like giving yourself self, you know, recognition. It's telling you what you're great at, what you've done, what you've done great, recognizing your strengths, making sure that those are top of mind at any single second of every single day, especially in hard situations. Instead of, if you were a leader and had your direct report in the room, you're not gonna sit there and start screaming at them. That's not powerful leadership. It's great. This happened. Let's focus on the highlight reel. Let's get you back on track. Let's make sure that you feel confident to continue reaching your goals because that's what matters.

It's almost really identity. Like, who do I think I am? Who do I believe? What is the identity that I have in myself and being secure in who I am as a person, as a leader in my organization, as a business owner, whatever the context may be? Father, spouse, husband, wife, etc. Let me— it's almost the identity shapes the actions that we take. And so who I believe that I am, then— I don't know, what, what are your thoughts around that?

Very much so. Your values are your identity. It's your brand, and you have to believe in that brand. So one, it's a personal understanding and acceptance of who you are, but this is then where the self-efficacy comes in. It's Okay. So if I believe I'm a coach, if I believe I'm a leadership coach, then do I have the skills that coaches tend to have? And if not, if I know I need to grow and I need to work on certain things, then am I then taking action? Am I buying the textbooks? Am I listening to the podcasts? Am I hiring a coach? Same thing for leaders. A lot of times leaders were individual contributors that have now been promoted into a, you know, into a certain role or entrepreneurs have sometimes, they've reached a certain level of success that they never even thought possible for themselves. But they've never sat and said, well, what skills do I need at this level of success? And so if we, if we can't say, we can't acknowledge that, yes, I have these skills because I've done XYZ, then we can, we can believe as much as we want, but that belief is going to have some holes in it. That is going to be pretty easily dismantled by criticism or external events that happen because then you will have a harder time fully accepting that you're going to be able to withstand like a market situation or an issue with a partner or the loss of a client because you don't— you aren't really sure of what works and what has led to your success or what works within the industry.

I think this is a good segue into one thing mentioned to you before we hit record that I wanted to ask you about, and it was around, um, you know, imposter syndrome. And, you know, I've heard a lot of different things about this, but whenever you mentioned earlier about like, you know, kind of, I am enough as, as I am, but there's times where, I mean, I think, gosh, who am I? Who am I to be doing this podcast? I mean, who am I to even have a podcast of leadership. I've had so many failures along the way and messed up, um, messed up and been a, been a terrible leader. And hearing them talking about like, who's who, you know, I'll start thinking, who does he think he is? You know, that, that, that type of it, whatever the context may be for someone else, that, that, that has been at times a real thing. And I've talked to other people that have have absolutely experienced that themselves. And then they begin to almost take like this, this identity that they have about themselves that they're not good enough, and they're not— they don't deserve maybe what they— where they're at, or the success of their business, whatever. Um, then they almost start implementing self-destructive habits to like come back down to where they feel comfortable.

So often I work with a client that goes, oh, I need to get this certification. Or I need to read this book or listen to this podcast. And then we were just talking about learning. There's a point of where a habit of learning becomes destructive, and it's there because you don't believe in yourself, not because you actually want to get better at something that you're working on. Yeah, we all have self-doubt. Some have it more than others. And I would say self-doubt is information. It's a check-in. It's going, Okay, am I, am I doing something that is going to lead me to success? Which is what self-doubt is. Am I, do I deserve this success? Which is another aspect of doubt. And you have to decide if you wanna, if that information is correct or if that information is not correct. And so imposter syndrome, again, just like your inner critic, can get louder if you decide to listen to it. It's kind of that background noise that is there that you can choose to hone in on it and turn up the volume, or it can decrease in volume depending on how you want to manage it and handle it. So it's information. I'm not good enough. Great. So, okay, so who am I to have this podcast? Great. But let's, let's talk about that. Who are you, Bradley, to have this podcast?

You want me to answer it?

I mean, I think it's like a, as a role play, I think we can, I can do it myself or I think it'd be more fun if we had you to do it.

I'm totally good to do it. Yeah. Um, well, I started the podcast on a whim. I've told the story about the podcast as I went to the team and said, let's do a podcast. They said, cool, what do you want to do the podcast? And I said, well, let's do the podcast, I'll interview some cool people. I think that would be kind of neat. I like— I love listening to podcasts myself. It's helped me along the way. Maybe we can serve, uh, some other people. That's the genesis of it. Obviously now to see the, or, you know, see the download numbers, um, and get messages from people is incredibly, um, fulfilling for me. It feels very mission-driven at times. But then sometimes I think, man, I don't deserve to be—

we—

the podcast doesn't deserve to get that many downloads, right? I mean, I don't, I don't know, am I doing that? I'm not doing that good of a job. This is way beyond me. This is about Dr. Benjamin Ritter today. This is not about Bradley, you know, because so even sometimes, even as I'm talking about this, I think people don't want to hear my story. Um, so anyway, those are kind of some of the thoughts that I have.

Okay, so that's information, information that goes, who am I to deserve this? And how does that relate though to the, to the reason why you started the podcast?

Hmm, I don't know if, I don't know if it relates at all. Actually, I mean, I started the podcast just to be able to serve and thought it would be a really cool idea and interview cool people. And I think along the way, the— I actually have to tell you, I don't think I didn't start it necessarily to serve. I started it because I thought it would be a cool idea. And it was a neat project to start. And then I think along the way, when you got messages from people that said, hey, that was a really good interview with so-and-so, um, and that's, that's helped me. Then it became much more of like, man, that's— I feel very mission-driven now. And so it's almost like, uh, the weight of wanting to serve, of, you know, can I serve these people who are listening to the podcast? How can I serve them the best way? It feels more of a um, like a responsibility to show up the best way that I possibly can for people, if that makes sense. Like, I really want to do a good job.

Yeah. If we take a look at where— how you've gotten to today, it means that you've done a good job. Is that a yay or nay?

Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. So I don't like to say that. I think it's more, uh, so if—

so it depends. So this was a neat project that you started. And then eventually you started impacting others. So you were doing something right because you got that impact. And then so you served even more and it grew even more, and now you feel the responsibility to keep serving.

Yep, that's right. And I want to serve it— I want to serve at a higher level. I want to be— I want to be better, a better host, ask better questions, continue to have great guests on. Yeah, so exactly.

So you're producing great content and great guests. I understand that because it's you want to get message out and help others and individuals. Where does the 'I need to get better' come from though?

Well, that starts from whenever I was a little boy. I mean, that goes all the way back from when I was a little boy. I was really hard on myself. Um, so whenever our team would win in basketball, but if I didn't feel like I played up to my ability, um, I would go home and I would beat myself up. If I was playing baseball and you know, didn't go for 4-4 and, you know, I made an error or didn't pitch as well as I felt like I was capable of, I would beat myself up. And so it, it, it's been very much ingrained in me since I was a young boy.

So that imposter or that syndrome or those thoughts that you're having is really just kind of some ingrained beliefs in yourself that need to be— that need recognition. That need, need to be told you're good. Like, you're showing up, you're good. And the, the response, like, the, the add-on to that is your job is actually just to give your guests a platform to share their information. So you personally, the fact that you even show up and get somebody on the show is is of value, is, is what people need and what people have seemed to have wanted. Now, is that enough? Right, so I think you need to sit back and, and really write down or come up with— there would be a suggestion, not what you have to do, but what is it that really brings value to your show? And whenever you question that value, it's because you care about it. And it's because the little imposter, that the little kid inside you is saying, hey, are we okay? Yeah, it's a question, not a fact.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's almost, uh, you know, I would have never guessed that the podcast would do as many downloads on a monthly basis as it does today. And if you would have told me that whenever we first got started, I don't think I would have believed you. And so now what ends up happening is these expectations that I have of myself of, okay, well, how can we serve more people? How can we serve 10 times the number of people? Not because it's of Bradley, but because of the type of guests like yourself that we, that we have on. And so I started comparing myself to what somebody else's is doing. And with podcasts, there's a downloads type thing. And then listen, let me say the other thing too. You want to, want to serve our, want to serve our, um, our, our sponsors, right? Like, so hey, we're able to, to, to serve them more and be able to have more people that are hearing their ads, etc. So it's not just the listening audience, it's also, you know, our sponsors. And I want to do a good job for them as well. You know, um, and so I just have really high expectations, um, for how I want to be. And so sometimes I, I don't, um, live up to my own expectations is really what it comes down to.

So I think you've answered the question, but then, so who sets those expectations?

Yeah, I do, I do.

And who decides how much you've worked towards those expectations?

Yeah, I do.

And who decides if the progress that you've made is good enough or not?

Yeah, well then it should be me.

So going back to the concept of self-leadership, are we helping ourselves or hindering ourselves? Because— yeah, what are you gonna say?

I would say that there are— that it feels to me that it can be too much of something at times. And so at times I can be very, we'll say, loving or patient with myself, and then there's times where I don't, right? And I beat myself up to say, ah, it's just not a good month. I didn't do a good job on that podcast. I mean, there's been There's been episodes that I've come off and I thought to myself internally, I was like, you didn't do a good job. You didn't do a good job. The listeners deserve better than what you gave them today. And I think that that has its roots in wanting to serve and wanting to be as good as I can to the listening audience. And then at the same time, it can become unhealthy at times too. So I see it almost as like both.

Yeah, when our, when our inner talk, when our like that, hey, you need to do better, is focused on progress and growth and improvement, and is countered by, but you showed up to the best that you could, and we're in a healthy place. When it becomes something that you ruminate on, something that you can't fall asleep because or when it impacts maybe that other meeting you have right afterwards, then we know that we have negative attachment to it. Where instead of actually focusing on serving, we're actually focused a little bit too much on ourselves. Like, oh, what are they gonna think of me? Or did I not do a good job? Or we have a, we're kind of living within ourselves instead of actually into the value, into the reason why we're doing what we're doing. What would be enough? How would you know that you just, you're knocking it out of the ballpark every single time?

Hmm. I don't know if I've ever asked myself that question. What is enough?

I don't know.

Truthfully, because then I'm not sure we're not—

I would say we're not being fair then. For all you know, you are 5 times better than you've ever been as a podcast host, but there's no metric that actually can define that for you personally. An internal metric.

Sure. Mm-hmm.

And just like you didn't feel that confident over the past couple days, could potentially you not showing up or being happy how you showed up be an emotion that is temporary, not something that is actually factual.

Oh, that's very true. That's very true. Yeah, that's very true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, especially in the last couple of days, as we were talking earlier, there was, there's a big part that was very temporary, you know. And I woke up this morning, felt completely different. And I had a little bit of time this morning to reflect on yesterday and said, You know what? I'm really glad I did not make any major decisions yesterday that, uh, for the business or, you know, whatever, um, based on the state that I was in yesterday. And as much as I was trying to get myself out, but back to, back to this is that, yeah, I don't know if I necessarily always feel I'm underperforming. I don't think, I don't think that that's necessarily always the case. There's other times where I think, man, that's unbelievable, what a blessing, just so grateful, you know. And, and I do, I do have, and oftentimes, but sometimes it sneaks in. That's the thing, sometimes it sneaks in. It's like, you're not good enough, you're not good enough, you're not doing a good job, you're not doing a good job. These people listen to this podcast, they deserve better than what you just gave them right there. And so, and, and, and, and I will allow that to be a negative attachment to it for sure. Yeah, no doubt. And it will weigh on me for a longer period of time than what it needs to. Well, man, this has been awesome. This is like I got coaching on a podcast. I've never had coaching. People just got to see me being coached real time. They talk about we want to know how you can do to help people. People just heard it. Okay. We've done 200 episodes on the podcast. I don't think we've had Bradley's coaching session on one of them. So that was pretty awesome. That's great. So people want to reach out to you, man. How can they, how can they find you? And what are the things that you do? And how do you, how do you work with people around the country?

Yeah, thank you. And by the way, just to kind of put a little bow on it, I think there's an opportunity for everyone listening to write down something that you're going to do whenever you feel like your imposter is at the wheel. And because it's not, it's not facts, it's just information. So you decide how you want to process that information. And so if people want to get a hold of me and talk about this topic or anything related to self-leadership or career leadership development, you can go to Dr. Benjamin Ritter on LinkedIn. You can just send me a connection request and a message. I'm happy to respond and have a conversation there. You can also go to liveforyourselfconsulting.com. There's a scheduling link to get on my calendar if you're interested in coaching programs. You asked how I work with people. I have worked with individuals one-on-one, and, you know, we have different lengths of coaching programs based on the value that they want to achieve. So that's a kind of an individual conversation.

Awesome, awesome. It's been a pleasure having you on, and I know people are going to get a ton of value out of, uh out of you. So appreciate you having you on the, the podcast. Hope to have you back on in the future.

Thank you, Bradley. It's been a pleasure, and I look forward to our future conversations too.

Absolutely. Well, I told you at the beginning that that was going to be an interesting and amazing experience for me. I appreciate him doing that. We chatted for a few minutes offline. Everything I share, uh, on that episode is the honest-to-goodness truth. You know, I was talking to him and we were talking about vulnerability. I know Brené Brown talks a lot about vulnerability, and ultimately it's, it's still in me to want to, on this podcast, to be able to kind of carve the edges around certain things and present myself a certain way to all of you. And over the last few years, I'm learn— have learned and am learning to just be completely honest and completely transparent and show up as, as I am. And so all the things I shared with him were my honest answers. Um, the last 48 hours or so, that was the honest goodness truth. Um, at times how I think about through the podcast is, is my honest feelings. Around things. And so my hope is, is that me showing up kind of as I am and being honest is, um, is helpful to all of you. I do not have, uh, business, entrepreneurship, leadership, any of those types of things figured out by no stretch of imagination. I never want to share that. Anything I'm sharing with you, whether it's on a Monday episode and conversations like this, or maybe on a, on a Friday podcast, my hope is, is that I'm able to share with you the things that have worked, the things have not worked. And then allow you to be able to take away with that as you please. You know, it's kind of like saying, hey, if I'm tracking my calories, that's helped me to be able to lose a few pounds. Well, that's a big difference from then saying, I've been tracking my calories, you should now track your calories. Well, I'm not so sure. That's not necessarily for everybody. CrossFit may be for some of you. It's not necessarily for everybody. And so, I just want to be able to kind of be myself, um, and show up and hopefully serve all of you the best of my ability. I want you to know how grateful I am for all of you that have— are loyal listeners and listened to the podcast for a number of years. And I truly do hope that this episode, uh, as well as the podcast, uh, serves you in your business, serves you with your families, serves you along your journey. And, uh, I have no expectations that, uh, by no means I have it all figured out or anything like that. So I am, as Tony Robbins said, I am not your guru. My hope is to be able to bring great ideas and people like Dr. Benjamin Ritter on the podcast. Hey, shout out to our podcast sponsors: Club Capital, Autopilot Recruiting, DirectClicks, and Coach P Consulting. Let all of them know that you heard about them on the Club Capital Leadership podcast. You know, DirectClicks have been with us for a really long time, some of the best in the business, helping you to be able to get your online profile out there. The entire team really care about your results. If you're wanting to know more about SEO or Google pay-per-click, go to directclicksinc.com. One of my— our more recent podcast sponsors that have come on board is Autopilot Recruiting. Let them know You heard about them on the Club Capital Leadership Podcast, but it's really outsourced recruiting for your team. We say it every week, the importance of recruiting on a regular basis is critical to your success of having a pipeline. Maybe you, um, already have a full team. Maybe you're not really hiring currently. Now's the best time to be able to do it. You don't want to hire from a position of weakness. Go to Autopilot Recruiting. Com. You know, I've gotten to know David a lot more over the last couple years, and he sends me testimonials from the people that use, uh, Coach P Consulting. And think about this, twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, you and your team, and then once a month in an agent-only call, David is going to be able to bring incredible guests on to help you to be better, to develop your team, and to kind of know really like, what are you guys doing? If you want to know about compensation plans, word tracks for different products, etc. It's exactly what David is able to do twice a week. So, but if you let him know that you heard about him in Club Capital Leadership Podcast, you get your entire first month off. So you get a test run of 8 different coaching sessions. You can see why he's one of the fastest growing coaches, business coaches out there for insurance agency owners. Go to coachpconsulting.com. All right, everyone. Hope this served all of you. Till next episode, lead well.