Becoming Better: Ryan Gottfredson on Why Success Requires More Than Doing More

In this CJ Moneyway Show episode, host Corwin "CJ" Moneyway interviews leadership coach and author Ryan Gottfredson about why high‑achievers often stall despite talent and credentials. Ryan shares his personal story of being fired from a consulting role after leaving academia, which prompted him to investigate why skill alone wasn’t enough. He outlines a four‑set mindset framework ranging from self‑protective to value‑creating mindsets, arguing that most leaders operate in a high‑doing, low‑being quadrant. Through a client case ("Cheryl") he illustrates how self‑protective fears block promotion despite continual credential‑building. Ryan introduces the concept of the "being side"—the vertical axis of mindset, emotional regulation, and nervous‑system health—versus the "doing side"—the horizontal axis of knowledge and skills. He describes three tiers of being‑side development (surface practices like meditation, journaling, cold plunges; deeper work on nervous‑system regulation; and the deepest work of trauma healing). He connects being‑side altitude to leadership effectiveness, purpose, and legacy, contrasting root‑focused, culture‑focused, long‑term leaders with short‑term, results‑focused ones. Practical takeaways include a free online assessment, a challenge to craft a purpose statement using a Harvard Business Review article, and promotion of his book "Becoming Better: The Groundbreaking Science of Personal Transformation." The episode ends with reflections on healing, legacy, and the importance of elevating one’s being side.
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What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show, powered by Believe Network, the podcast where we uncover the real stories behind success, resilience, and growth. I'm your host, CJ Moneyway, and Today's guest is someone who's flipping the script on personal growth. My man Ryan helps leaders and high performers break free from the trap of doing more, more credentials, more hustle, more checklists, and instead step into the path of being better. He's here to show us that the key to transformation isn't about stacking achievements, it's about evolving who we are. Welcome to the show today, my man Ryan G. Of course, I wasn't going to try to pronounce your last name, man, and chop it all up.
Don't even try.
Don't even try.
Yeah, I wasn't going to chop it all up, baby. Welcome to the show, Ryan, man.
Hey, thanks for creating such an awesome show, and I just feel honored to be on. So thank you.
Oh, man, I appreciate it. I appreciate it, Ryan. So, Ryan, tell us, man, the trap of doing more. You talk about the doing better path. Why do so many high achievers fall into it? And what made you realize it doesn't lead to real growth?
I feel like now I've got some language for it, but maybe let me take you back in time where I kind of scraped my knee, if you will, and started the journey of trying to figure this out. And I'm curious if you've ever felt this way, CJ, is have you ever been in a situation where you failed or you just weren't as successful as you thought you should be, yet you also knew that you had the talent, the knowledge, and skills to be successful? You ever been there?
Yeah, I'm right there right now.
Okay, like, there's not— in my mind, there's like no worse feeling than being there where it's just like, I know I've got what it takes, but I'm not seeing the success that I need to see. And, and so let me tell you about a situation I was in where I felt that way to a really extreme degree. So to give you a little bit of context, I graduated with my PhD at Indiana University I did my dissertation on leadership. And then I come to Cal State Fullerton where I'm at now as a professor, and I'm ready to kind of, you know, first job, take on the world. But I'm 2 years into this and I'm starting to feel stuck. And I'm thinking, I don't know if I could spend the next 30+ years of my life teaching these same classes over and over again, right? So this is what's going on in my mind. So what I decided to do, an offer came up And I decided to take this offer where I was gonna step away from academia. I took a leave of absence from my university position. I took a consulting job with a company called Gallup. They do employee engagement consulting. And I'm in this role for about 10 months. And increasingly, as I'm in this role, I am growing increasingly frustrated because I just felt like the company had kind of put me in a position that was smaller than what I knew I could play. Right? And so, one day, I call up my manager and something happened. I don't remember exactly what, but something happened to just make me frustrated like, "Come on, you got to give me a chance," right? Is what I'm telling her on the phone. And she says to me, "Hey, Ryan, I'm going to stop you right there." And I'm like, "Okay." She said, "This clearly isn't working out. I'm going to have to let you go." And I got fired, right? And I never thought I would get fired. At this time, I'm married, I've got 2 kids, this waterfall of shame is hitting me because I just kind of feel like I've just let my whole family down, right? I don't know what I'm going to do. Fortunately, I had taken a leave of absence from the university, so I could go back to the university kind of no harm, no foul. It was an easy landing spot to go back. Between when I got fired and when I started back up at the university, I had a couple of months. And so what I decided to do with these couple of months, I had really no responsibilities, is I decided I'm gonna revamp kind of my research stream. And all of my research leading up to this time was all about focusing on, not on how do we help leaders do better, but how do we help leaders be better? And so I was trying to figure out how do we tap into this being side of leadership? And as I started to kind of dive into this, a concept kept popping up over and over again. And that concept is mindsets. And I was like, "Oh, I think that there's something here with mindsets." So, I open up the floodgates. I do this deep academic literature review. What I find is that over the last 40 years, there's been 4 different sets of mindsets that have been studied. They've been studied across education, management, marketing, and psychology. And so, I'm finding this super fascinating. I kind of pulled these together into a single framework. And as I start to learn about these mindsets, I start to learn one is these sets of mindsets, there's a range or a continuum that where there's one mindset that's more negative and I'm just going to call it self-protective because it serves some jobs of protecting us, but largely it has negative effects. Then, on the other side of the continuum is a more positive mindset. It's what I call a value-creating mindset. Now, I've got this framework with these 4 sets of mindsets that range from self-protective to value-creating. I couldn't help but realize that I had all of the self-protective mindsets. Mm. This is when the light bulb went off for me. I'm so frustrated because I know I've got the talent, knowledge, and skills to be successful, but yet I just got fired. Well, why did I get fired? It wasn't because of my talent, knowledge, and skills. It was because of the quality of my mindsets. And so, going back to your original question, and sorry for being maybe a bit long-winded.
Oh, no.
Hey, man, go ahead. It's interesting.
So, coming back to your question is what I've learned is we've got two different sides of ourselves. We've got one side, our doing side. Think about it like a horizontal axis. That's our talent, knowledge, skills, and abilities. But we've also got another side of ourselves, which is our vertical axis, which I call our being side, which is the quality of our psyche, our mindsets, our character, our emotional intelligence, and our emotional regulation abilities. And here's what I've learned about this is almost 95%, if not more, of all development efforts focuses on our doing side. But what I've come to realize is that the key to our success lies primarily in the being side. And so, this has opened up just a whole new world for me. And I clearly realized I had some work to do on my mindsets. I feel like I've done a lot of that work. I still got more work to do. But now, with this information about mindsets, about our being side, that's what I now take to organizations all over the world to help develop leaders. As I tell them, look, I'm going to help you develop your leaders, not by giving them more knowledge and skills, because they generally have what they need. I'm going to help them with their being side so they can show up as more elevated leaders. So hopefully that paints that story. And I'm happy to dive into it more or any of the ideas related to that.
Man, I like that, man. I like that. But I do got to go back to this though, because I think that was kind of intriguing. You say you called your boss and say, look, I need more responsibility. I need a bigger role than this. And to get shot down at that moment, like, no, not only are you not getting a bigger role, the role that you got right now, your services are no longer warranted. I mean, I know just inside that had to be a blow, you know what I'm saying, to you. But to have the fortitude to keep moving on and say, you know what, man, I'mma search deeper, man, I commend you a lot because that's the first thing we do think about. Oh man, I got my family, like you said, I let my family down, you know, I let myself down, I quit. Left this job to come here, and I thought the grass was greener, you know what I'm saying? We say it's not always greener on the other side. So yeah, man, I commend you for staying the course, man. And now my man is a world-traveling leadership coach out there, man, not trying to show you how to do your job, but just teaching you the human side of it. I like it, man. So let me ask you, Ryan, man, let's take Cheryl's story. More degrees, more credentials, but still stuck. What was really holding her back and how did you see that pattern in other leaders?
Yeah, let me tell you about Cheryl. So Cheryl is one of my former coaching clients and I met Cheryl because her manager reached out to me and said, "Hey Ryan, I've got an employee. Her name's Cheryl. She is great. She's performing her job well, but she's been in this role for about 10 years." And he's like, "Look, it is time for her to either move up I think we've got to get her out, but she's just stuck in this rut. Can you help her out? You know, I thought to myself, well, I'd love to give it a shot, so make a connection and let's connect. And so he makes this connection via email. She sends me an email in follow-up, and at the end of her email, I'm seeing that she's got all of these stamps representing different certificates, and she's got a lot of letters after her last name. She's got a lot of different degrees and certifications. And so I'm thinking to myself, when I get this email, like, why does she need coaching? She seems like she's good. And so as I start to talk to her, she just expresses this frustration. It's like, oh, I feel so stuck here. Every year, she says, I get passed up for promotion. And every year when I get passed up for promotion, I go get a new certificate and a new degree so I could get promoted the next year. And I keep not getting promoted. And I said, I think I've been where you've been before, right? And so here's what she's doing. She's stuck in this rut and how she's trying to get out of it is she keeps investing in the doing side. And I said, look, not that that's bad, right? Because it's surely been helping you, but I think you need to focus on your being side. And so as we started to dive in and kind of understand her being side and her mindsets, One of the things that we surfaced is that she's got some fears. One of her biggest fears was, "If I take initiative, then I will fail and I will look bad." And this is something— so, she is a person that is really great at taking direction from others but has a really hard time taking initiative. And that's why she wasn't promoted as a leader because they wanted to see her as somebody that could take initiative. That ability to take initiative isn't a doing side ability. That's a being side ability. So, I was fortunate to be able to work with her over the course of several months to help her upgrade her being side, help her upgrade her mindsets so that she could rise above her self-protective fears that are holding us back. I've just kind of come to find that that's the theme of any of us. If we've ever been stuck, It is generally less about our environment and our circumstance. And it's more about our self-protective fears.
So let me ask you, Ryan. So how did that story end? Did she get promoted eventually? Did she move up? You say you helped her get out of that shell. So did she eventually move up and get out of those fears?
Yes, but maybe not in the way that's like, oh, like this is exact storybook ending, right? Everybody's story is a little bit different. But what they were able to do is they were able to see that she had been growing, but they wanted to test her out in a different environment before putting her into a leadership position to see how she handled that new environment. Like I said, she had been in the same role for 10 years, so it wasn't a direct shot into that leadership role, but it was an elevated position when it comes to the organizational hierarchy. I haven't kept track with her over the last couple of years, so Now I've got to go look her up on LinkedIn and see if she's in a higher role. We'll see.
I hear you, man. So she had to take some baby steps to get to, uh, what she wanted, because sometimes that's what we need. You can be as smart as you want to be, but some skill sets we just don't have. And I'm listening to you, and just the frustration— I can just imagine the frustration that she had year in and year out, getting overlooked. And you know, that stuff start building in, and don't nobody really know why you frustrated. You know, the boss don't know why she frustrated, but it's, you know, that was an internal thing. So good thing she had my man Ryan on the spot that had been through some things similar himself to help out of that rut, man. So Ryan, let me ask you, man, shift gears a little bit. The shift to being better— you say growth isn't about doing more but being more. Break that down, and what does being better really look like to you?
Yeah, so let me just give you a really quick example and then we'll kind of zoom out. CJ, how would you say most people respond to constructive criticism?
Not well.
They get what?
They get a little antsy, a little defensive at times.
Yeah, right? So when somebody comes to us and we receive constructive criticism from them, for most people, our body's natural reaction— and it's automatic— is to move toward defensiveness, right? And why do we move toward defensiveness? Well, it's because it helps protect our emotions in that moment. It helps us feel more stable and more secure. So there's a reason why our body is prone to move in that direction. But I'll just point out that that movement towards defensiveness is an emotional reaction.
Right?
So let's kind of put that on one side. Now let me paint kind of the other side of the continuum. Well, actually I'll shift to the middle and then we'll go to the other side of the continuum. So that's maybe one way to react to constructive criticism. Another way that people might make meaning of constructive criticism is it kind of depends on who delivers it and how they deliver it. So if it's their boss, for example, and that their boss delivers this criticism, tactfully, we might say, oh, thank you, I will benefit from this. But if it's my spouse and she doesn't deliver it tactfully, she is sleeping on the couch.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that's a little bit less reactive, right? And, and at least we— our body creates a little bit more space to sit with this constructive criticism. But at the highest level here or the best level is that when we receive this constructive criticism, we don't emotionally react and we create space to sit with it. I mean, even if it's our worst enemy and they are malintended, we could still create space to sit with it. We don't have to agree with it, but we could give ourselves the chance to sit with it and say, hmm, is there something that I could benefit from here?
Yeah.
Right? And so, what I've tried to paint in this example is this continuum from being very emotional knee-jerk reaction to being intentionally and thoughtfully responsive. And that's, I think, a good way to think about our being side and our altitude along our being side, like how reactive are we to the situations that we encounter? Are we quick to get angry, like when we get cut off on the freeway? Well, if we are, that's maybe an indication that we're lower on our being side altitude and our body isn't as regulated. So, here's an insight that I've just found really profound is everything that we're talking about here as it relates to our being side is intimately connected to what I call our body's internal operating system, which is actually our nervous system. So, the question is as it relates to our being side is, How in control are we of our nervous system? And when we do being side development work, it is all about helping us better regulate and upgrade our nervous system or our internal operating system.
Hmm. I had never heard of that before. Ryan, man, keep on dropping these nuggets, man. But it's something that you said that made me think about how you say we get defensive. And this is how you approach it. And when I first started doing the podcast and I got a review on Apple Podcasts and, you know, kept talking about, you know, the subject is cool, but the flow, you know, whatever, whatever. I didn't know what they was talking about. I'm like, what they talking about, flow? You know, this and that. Woo woo. But I kept the subject in mind, like you said, because, you know, evidently it's something about this flow that I don't know what they talking about. Then I found out what it was. I'm like, oh, okay, I see what they were talking about. The flow of the conversation, you know, like instead of just going here, there, there, there, you know, you have a flow, you go into things. But had I not, you know, like you say, kept that attitude like, oh, I don't care what they talking about, I would have never tried to correct the issue, although I didn't know what they was talking about. But I kept the situation and the issue at mind, you know, to want to know if it came about, to know, you know, say, okay, I can correct that. So yeah, I like that. But I did never knew about the nervous system. That's why you the professor, the went to IU Bloomington. I'm a Boilermaker myself, but we just go, uh, yeah, my wife, uh, she graduated from there, had family go there. Not me myself, I wasn't smart enough, I had to go to junior college. But, um, so let me, let me, let me ask you, uh, Ryan, man, what's one small shift people can make today to start living in the being better mindset?
Yeah, so like I said, when we do being, right, we are all familiar with the doing side development work, right? Because this is our education systems, it's our athletic programs, it's our organizational development efforts. Most people aren't very familiar with our being side and how to do that being side development work. So CJ, let me maybe lay out 3 different levels of being side development work. I'll start with surface level, being side development strategies. I'll move into deeper level and then go to deepest level. Is that okay?
That's fine.
All right. So let me start at that surface level. As I mentioned before, when we do this being side development work, it inevitably has to be connected to improving the regulation of our body's nervous system. So some surface level strategies, and I think these are things that we should all be doing. We don't have to do all of them, but they're things that we should all be doing, at least one of these. These are things like meditation, yoga, journaling, cold plunging, working on kind of our self-talk, giving us words of affirmation, things like that. So, these are tactics that what research has found is as we engage in these repeatedly over time, we actually gain greater control of our body's nervous system.
Hmm.
So, for me, for example, one of the things that really helped me in my journey I got fired from Gallup. I came back to the university and very shortly thereafter, I met a CEO who's here in Orange County. His name is Charles Antis. He's this great charismatic leader. And I met with him, first time meeting with him. And within a couple of minutes, he says, Ryan, I've got a book for you. And I'm thinking, oh yeah, I love books. This is gonna be great. And I'll show you this book. So this is the book. It's called "The 5-Minute Journal." "The 5-Minute Journal." Okay. And he hands it to me. I look at the COVID and of course, I need to be gracious about this, right? So I'm saying, "Oh, thanks. I love books. This is great." But inwardly I'm thinking, "Who the hell do you think I am?" There is no way that I'm going to journal, right? That is not me. My mom was a journaler. I don't wanna be like my mom, right? This is what I was thinking. So I come home and I go to throw it in the trash in my office. And I'm like mid-swing throwing it in the trash. I have this almost spiritual epiphany, and Charles, his face shows up in my mind's eye, and I hear him say the words, "This book will change your life." And so, I reel it back in, and I open it up. Oh, and it says, okay, every morning, here's an inspirational quote, and then it invites me to write down, kind of answer 3 questions. What are 3 things I'm grateful for? What are 3 things that would make today great? And then fill in some self-affirmations. And so, I was like, "I'll do this for 2 weeks and if it doesn't help me, it's going in the trash." Well, I've been doing this for 7 years.
Wow.
Because it has been— this has been one tactic, right? It's not going to have the same effect on everybody, but for me, this has been one of these surface-level strategies that's helped me better upgrade my mindsets and my being side. So that's an example of a surface-level strategy there.
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Music style, music store. Man, I like it, man. I like what you said. I was mid-stroke and throwing that thing into the garbage can, and like all of a sudden reeled it back in, and 7 years later you still doing it, man. It's funny how life works sometimes. Sometimes when you think something ain't good for you, it's the best thing that could have ever happened to you, man. So, you know, good thing you didn't and saw his face in your vision and didn't throw that away. So let me ask you, Ryan, man, as we talking about this leadership and fulfillment, why do you think so many leaders on paper look successful, but privately feel unfulfilled.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's interesting. So here's one of the things that I've learned, right? So I kind of painted this doing side, being side framework, right? If we have our doing side on the horizontal axis, the being side on the vertical development or the vertical axis, then we could ask ourselves, where do we find most leaders? And where we find most leaders, in fact, research has found is 85% of leaders are in the high doing, low being quadrant. Right? And so, this maybe shouldn't surprise us because how are most leaders promoted in organizations? Most leaders are promoted because they've demonstrated that they have the talent, knowledge, skills, and abilities to get stuff done. But just because they could get stuff done doesn't mean they're gonna be effective as a leader. And so ultimately what dictates a leader's effectiveness is their being side altitude. And so, if we find leaders are struggling in their roles, what that's actually an indication of is that the complexity of their environment exceeds their being side altitude. And so, the only way for a leader to come to kind of operate effectively and feel fulfilled in their position is either to wait till complexity drops, which is unlikely to happen, or they've got to do the work of elevating along their being side. And ultimately, when we can help them do that, they start connecting more deeply to purpose.
Mm-hmm.
And that is ultimately where fulfillment lies. Fulfillment doesn't lie in the accomplishments and success. It comes from fulfilling a deep and meaningful purpose.
Purpose. And that's funny that you say that because like I was telling the guests earlier today, I am for the third time right now reading the Purpose Driven Life book. Uh, this is my third time reading it. '06, '16, and now 2025. So, and then it talks about fulfilling your purpose in life is the most gratifying thing that we can ever do in life. Like you said, ain't about the accomplishments, nothing else, because everything shall pass one day. But what we do here, you know, saying in our time, man, is what really matters, especially if we're doing it the right way and for the right reason.
So let me ask you, before you go on, can I give you a challenge?
Go ahead.
All right, I'm gonna give you a challenge. And to anybody listening, here's a challenge in terms of connecting to our purpose. There's a Harvard Business School Review article, and it's called From Purpose to Impact. So my challenge to you is go look up that article, From Purpose to Impact, and then take it over to ChatGPT and say, ChatGPT, look at this article and help me craft my own purpose statement.
Mm, from purpose to impact.
Yep, from purpose to impact. So because it's a great article about coming up with our own individualized purpose statement, and what I found is that ChatGPT is a great guide to helping us craft a clear, inspirational, and stakeholder-centric purpose statement for ourselves, right? So we can let ChatGPT help us with doing kind of the creative work, but let ChatGPT be kind of your coach in that process. So if you're reading that book and you want to connect more deeply to purpose, a lot of my clients have had a really cool experience doing this exercise that I just mentioned.
Oh yeah, I'm gonna try it because as I was telling somebody not too long ago, because ChatGPT and Grunt for that matter too has become my best friend. I'm in the AI world, man. You know, sometimes my wife get on me like, what's she doing out there on chat? Yep, got a lot of stuff to do. I mean, it is what it is. So B-Man, let me ask you, man, Practical growth and legacy. For entrepreneurs and hustlers listening right now, what does, as you were saying earlier, vertical growth look like in practice?
Yeah, so it's as we've been talking about, right? It is upgrading our internal operating system. So here's what I found is that the leaders that are the highest on their being side, they operate very differently from leaders that are lower on their being side. Let me give some examples of this. So what I found is that the leaders that are highest on their being side, they primarily focus on a clear purpose for why they're doing what we're doing, right? We just talked about purpose. They are what I'm gonna call root-focused, right? 'Cause if you're a gardener, if you want your plants or your trees to grow and thrive the most and produce the most fruit, The best thing that we could do is cultivate the right environment for that plant or that tree. So, they are root-focused. So, that means they are very culture-focused. Well, what I found is that leaders like that aren't common because most leaders, one of the things I'll also mention is these leaders that are purpose, root-focused, culture-focused are also long-term focused. They're focused on the long-term viability of fulfilling their purpose. Well, that differs from most leaders. Most leaders are not purpose-focused, they're results-focused. Most leaders aren't root-focused, they're fruit-focused. Most leaders aren't focused on culture, they're focused again on results. And most leaders aren't long-term focused, they're short-term focused.. And so, these are some of the key distinguishers that we find. And it's just the reality is, is that most leaders have a tendency to be results and short-term focused because that's generally what they're incentivized to be.
Mm-hmm.
But if we just follow incentives, we aren't really being a self-directed being. And the best leaders are self-directed beings that are driven by a clear, inspirational, and stakeholder-centric purpose and are in it not for the short term, but for the long term.
I like it, man. You know, the point that you made as far as the root, they just fruit-focused, you know what I'm saying? Like, I want to get to the root problem of it to see what's going on down there and get in the dirt and get dirty. I just want to bear what's coming out of that, you know what I'm saying? But not knowing what, how it's coming out. So Yeah, that's something to think about. It's like you putting something on my mind, Ryan, man. I'm trying to listen to the Indiana University grad, man, you know what I'm saying? Like I say, I'm Boilermaker all day, man. I'm standing on that, uh, right?
Yeah, us who are cream and crimson aren't all bad, all right? Not all bad.
No, you not all bad. You my favorite Hoosier, man. Hey, along with— I can't think of his name right now, little basketball player with Isaiah Thomas, or Well, you know, I was a Laker fan, so remember, you know, them and the Pistons, you know.
That's a sour.
Yogi fan. You know what I'm saying? Little Yogi fan, man. Yeah, I like Lil Buddy, man. He was pretty good. He graduated at the same time my cousin Glenn Robinson III graduated. They was in the same class with the All-Stars, so I got a chance to check him out. And the other boy too, he played for the Magic for a minute. I can't think of his name. He played for Denver. Hey, but Gary Harris. I like them boys' game. Hey, so let me ask you, Ryan, I only got a few more questions for you, man. I really enjoyed these nuggets you've been throwing on us, man. Been a very insightful conversation. Hey, so, so let me ask you, Ryan, man, how does the being better path connect with legacy, building something that lasts beyond titles and achievements?
Yeah, it's because as we've just kind of talked about, right, is legacy comes ultimately from fulfilling a purpose. We could look at some people who have been, you know, we were just talking about athletes. Like, there's people like, I'm gonna say Carmelo Anthony, if you're in the basketball world. Like, to a certain degree, he has a legacy, right? Because he scored a lot of points during his career. He is a perennial All-Star, right? So, he's got a legacy. But at the same time, I'm not sure that people loved him because to me he came across as a very self-focused player, that he was in it for his stats as opposed to helping his team, right? And I think ultimately the best people that leave the greatest legacy have this unique ability to do both, to be great as an individual but also to make those around them great. And that's ultimately what the being side allows us to do, right? The doing side allows me to get my numbers, right?
Yeah.
But in terms of getting other people to be great along with me, that's contingent upon my being side altitude. And those are ultimately the people that leave the lasting and enduring legacies.
Mm, I tell you what, I mean, congratulations to Carmelo too. I think he just got inducted to the Hall of Fame not too long ago. Him and Dwight Howard, shout out to both of them. I tell you this, Ryan, had the Pistons picked that boy up with the number 3 pick back then, but they chose Tayshaun, he would have been around some leadership. He would have scored his points, but he would have been a different player though, you know what I'm saying? Because they had that structure— Chauncey Billups, Rick Hamilton, Ben Wallace, Rasheed, you know. But man, you throw a 30-point scorer in that lineup, oh my goodness.
Yeah. Well, that was always so cool about those Pistons, right, is they were so easy to root for because you could tell that they gelled so well together. I mean, nobody gave them a fighting chance to win the championship. They didn't have this, you know, first-team All-NBA player on their team, but that was probably the best teamwork we've seen, I don't know, in the last 20 years.
Don't go there. Maybe the Warriors, I don't know, because you know they beat my Lakers that year. Hey, you want to know what was the sad part about it? I was living in Detroit at that time. I was staying in Detroit. Oh man. Oh, they gave it to me like that. Other man, come on, man. Ice Cube from California. No vaseline, baby. They gave it to me. So Brian, man, what's next for you? Do you have any projects, any books, anything on the horizon, man, that we could be looking out for? Yeah.
So if you've enjoyed this conversation, this is something you want to dig deeper into, my new book just came out a couple of months ago. I'll show it to you here. It's Becoming Better: The Groundbreaking Science of Personal Transformation. And it's all about getting connected to our being side and elevating along our being side so that we can become the people we want to be and have the influence that we want to have.
Mm, I like it, man. So Ryan, before we get out of here, man, can you tell us where can we find you on social media, man? Where can we find your books? Where can we find Ryan G at?
Yeah, if you could spell my last name, look me up on any social media account, right? Google me, go to my website, it's ryan Gottfredson.com. In fact, if you go to my website, I've got a couple of free assessments that you could take to evaluate your being side altitude. And I'll throw this out to any of you listeners, if you go to my website and take one of my assessments, they're free, don't worry, then you'll get an individualized report. But if you reach out to me and say, hey, I took your assessment, I'll jump on a call and walk you through your results and we can talk through it at a deeper level.
Oh man, that's cool right there. Make sure you send me them links, man, so I can put them in the show notes, man, so people can definitely get on that. And I want to get on it myself, man. I'm gonna call you personally and want my results. Tell me where I'm at, man. Am I on the bin side or I'm on the vertical side or am I on the horizontal side, man? I need to know, Ryan, man. Hey, Before we get out of here, Ryan, man, just give us one last thing, man. Something that's on your heart, man, that you would like to share with the audience, man, before we go.
Well, I hope it's okay if I go here, right? Because I think one of the things that I've learned the most from this process and doing my own being side development work is that at the end of the day, elevating along our being side is ultimately about healing our minds, our bodies, and our hearts. I didn't talk about this as a part of my story, but One of the things that I've learned for myself and through my research is that the more trauma people experience in their lives, the more their body becomes wired for self-protection, lower on their being side. And so through this process, I've kind of come to learn that I've got some trauma in my past. That's why I had those self-protective mindsets, and I've had to do some deep work of healing my mind, my body, and my heart. I'm not done. I still got work to do.. But I hope that this maybe opens the door for our listeners to seek some of that and maybe inspires them to go about elevating themselves in a way that they haven't been aware of.
I like that, man. It's all about elevation. And like the sign that's on my man Ryan's shirt, sometimes, man, we just gotta do it. Just do it, man. Hey, Ryan, man, thank you for breaking down the difference between doing more and being more. You've given us a new lens for success that goes deeper than checklists and credentials. And I want our listeners to know, if this helped you today, reach out to my man Ryan and take his assessments. He said if you reach out to him personally, he'll get back to you and give you your results by phone or however y'all communicate. And as always, thank you for tuning in to the CJ Moneyway Show, powered by Believe Network. If today's episode gave you value, subscribe, join, drop a review, and share with someone who's stuck in the hustle who needs to hear this shift. Until next time, keep hustling, keep growing, and keep being better. Hey, this your boy CJ Moneyway with my man Ryan G from Indiana University. We outta here.
Peace.
You've been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show. Woo! With real stories, Real lessons, yeah, and real perspective come together. Remember, move with patience, move with purpose.
That is the mindset of a Panther.
Until next time, keep building your legacy brick by brick by brick by brick. Music style.
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