Dr. Benjamin Ritter | Changing Your Mindset, Living with Limitless Purpose, & Serendipitous Leadership

EPISODE OVERVIEW: 

Did you hear the one about the young man who wanted to be a soccer pro, but life had other plans for him? You know the one where all of his dreams and goals pretty much morphed overnight through what he perceived as tragedy? Watch or listen now to see how this turn of events not only sent him into a life tailspin, but ultimately brought him to a place of  serendipity and passion today. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to this weeks Remarkable episode, the Benjamin Ritter Story!

GUEST BIO: 

Dr. Benjamin Ritter, is a leadership and career coach, values geek, regional learning manager for YPO, national speaker, podcaster, author, mentor, and passionate about guiding others in finding, creating, and sustaining a career they love.

With over 10 years of experience coaching and a background in organizational leadership and learning theory, Ben understands how to navigate any career path you decide you want to travel.

Since launching his coaching practice he has guided hundreds of professionals toward creating the career they love and has impacted thousands through his events and media content.

FEATURED QUOTE(S): 

• “Every problem is a personal problem.” – Dr. Benjamin Ritter

EPISODE PROUDLY SPONSORED BY: 

• Butler’s Auto Recycling, Used & New Auto Parts – Nationwide Service | Phone 850.478.8500
• Rob Jackson, Christian Counseling & One-on-One Life Coaching |  The Iceberg Model of Christian Spiritual Formation
  
  

SHOW NOTES:  SPECIAL OFFERS, LINKS, GUEST CONTACT INFO, & OTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.liveforyourselfconsulting.com/
• YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/benjaminritter
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritterbenj

Special Offer(s):

• Go to https://www.liveforyourselfconsulting.com and download your fre

Transcript

Benjamin Ritter | Changing Your Mindset, Living with Limitless Purpose, & Serendipitous Leadership | Episode 63

Hello friends! I'm David Pasqualone, and welcome to this week's remarkable episode of the remarkable people podcast. The Dr. Benjamin Raiders story. Today Ben is going to take us through his life. Talk about his passion for soccer, his desire to go pro and then how life kind of transformed in morphed, sending him into a tailspin, but ultimately not only bringing him to a place that's serendipitous and full of passion.

But now he has a career [00:01:00] of helping his clients do it too. And in this next few minutes, we get to spend time with Dr. Ben. And he's going to explain to us not only his life, but how he found this piece and how you can too. So hang tight on this remarkable episode of the podcast. Before we start, though, I want to tell you three things.

One. Hello. To stick around to the end of the episode, where Dr. Ben Ritter gives us a special offer. And three, I wanted to give a special shout out to our friends in Singapore, America, OSH shrill. Yeah, Latin American countries, Asian countries, European countries. I am so thankful. We have friends in our community.

All over the world. So thank you for being part of that community, but right now Singapore's killing it. And I just wanted to say thank you [00:02:00] to everyone liking and reviewing and sharing our podcast, but for the hard work you're doing in Singapore, thank you so much now, also a special thank you to our sponsors.

Today's episode is sponsored by two amazing organizations. Number one. Butler's auto recycling. Yes, they are based out of Pensacola, Florida, but you can go online to their eBay site, to their website and pick up parts you need that are quality, warrantied and inexpensive. So go to Butler's auto recycling.

I'll put the link in the show notes, do a quick search for the parts you need for your classic restorations or your everyday vehicles and butlers. We'll take care of you. Jim is a great friend of mine, brother in Christ, fellow Gideon, and [00:03:00] he loves to help people. So let's support him because he supports us the second sponsor.

Drum roll, please. Who is it's Rob Jackson counseling and coaching. Rob Jackson is a phenomenal dude and he is a friend of mine. I've worked with him in the counseling capacity and he's, God's really used them to help my life. Many of our guests lives and many of our listeners lives. So if you need help, like we're going to talk about with Ben finding purpose, but then sometimes there's obstacles in the way.

Rob can help you identify and remove those are obstacles in your way. So. Special. Thank you to Jim Butler. Special. Thank you to Rob Jackson and a special thank you to you for being here today. I truly loving, even though a lot of us have never met, man. I'm so thankful for you. I hope this [00:04:00] episode in all our episodes brings value to you.

Let us know how we can help you reach out through the contact us page of our website. David Pascoe, loan.com. Okay. At this time, Dr. Benjamin Ritter is going to share his remarkable story. Enjoy.

 Hey, Ben, how are you today, brother? I'm pretty good. I feel like I just got to turn up the notch on my energy level for a second. So, Hey, how are you David? Doing great brother. I'm doing great. So I'm you and I have been talking for a few weeks about coming on the show and between your hectic schedule and mine.

I'm super happy. It's finally come to be, and our guests are going to love you and love your story. So at this time, like our listeners know the format of the show. You're just going to tell your story, go back. As far as you want, go as deep and as wide as you want and then share with us what you face or achieved in life and how you did it.

So we can too. And then at the end of the episode, we're in Ganta where's [00:05:00] Ben today. And where are you going? So now we can return the favor and help you sound right. It sounds great to me also, my friend now, well, tell us what, what made Ben, Ben, where did your life start and what grew you into the man you are today?

And this is such a interesting way of going about it by the way, because I always coach leaders to start with where they are. Why? Because people remember what you tell them first. So I'm going against the grain here and I'm going all the way back to where my journey, at least I feel like it started and I'd have to say it was probably with my dad going and fixing homes where he was, he was not the normal employee.

He was not the nine to five, or you didn't really enjoy like authority. And he was also just really good working for himself. He preferred it. And so he would take me, we'd go work on every odd and end. You could imagine fixing sinks, toilets, drywall, roofs. And I was this little kid. And so that was my first exposure to what the professional work world [00:06:00] was like.

Never really thought it was behind a desk. And didn't really realize how important that was or how important it was that I took that little bit of, but experience and started my own little dog-walking business, or I always thought work was just kind of something you did. You worked hard at it. You didn't really, you weren't too concerned about, you know, the environment or sweating or anything like that, which led to a lot of odd jobs along the way.

But combine that with my passion, for soccer that developed in my decision to try to become a professional soccer player, I would you, I never really looking ahead. Like I never was meant to be a normal nine to five employee and it didn't my story. Didn't really take a really big twist. Until I didn't make it as a professional athlete because I wasn't you're I think maybe normal.

I think I want to do this. Maybe I want to do this. I was the, the movie thematic, this person dedicates every single second of their life to [00:07:00] this sport. Like I had a theme song when I walked into the gym and onto the field, I thought this was what I was going to do for the rest of my life, despite not being the best.

Uh, I practice three times a day. I avoided making relationships with people that I didn't think were related to my goal. You know, when you, when you really define dedicating every single second of your being do something, this is what I did. And so when it was gone, I was left without really anything. Not really knowing who I was, not really knowing what I cared about.

Not really having any good friends, actually through the whole journey, because I was so focused on outcomes on how well I performed at a specific sport. I didn't believe in myself. I had no way of actually creating my own sense of self-worth. So I know confidence. And if you can imagine, you know, a college aged kid with no confidence, he didn't probably didn't have great relationships, a great dating life.

And that just drained me completely. I was in a pretty [00:08:00] bad place and I had a choice to stay there or to take all the energy that I invested into wanting to become a professional athlete invested in myself. And so I spent the next four to five years studying personal development, professional development, and testing myself, challenging myself, because to me this, this was a commitment, there was no right or wrong.

There was no failure or success. And I had such a bad run in with this idea of find your purpose, which is what I thought was soccer. That I kind of disowned this idea of purpose. And I was just an empty slate that was looking to explore the world and. That led me into just a really great place.

Personally. I was, I felt confident I had great relationships. I had great friends now underlying all that though, because I distanced myself from this idea of purpose so much. I didn't really have my sights set on [00:09:00] anything specific. And when you don't have, when you don't have your sights set on something, you don't have insight into yourself, elf, you tend to get lost.

And I, I really, you know, along the way, I did become passionate about certain things. I became interested in them, but those things ended up getting crushed too. So I kind of had this trend of being very interested in something very, very passionate about something and then not working out completely. So now having like a site on something specific, having my dreams kind of regularly need to become very reactive to opportunities that came up in my life.

And so my career ended up in a place that I didn't really choose. I didn't really want, and there's, there's some stories there and to where, how I ended up to where I was, but fast forwarding, I ended up as a healthcare executive with two graduate degrees after two and a half years of being unemployed, working odd jobs in bars and hospitality as a brand [00:10:00] ambassador, handing out granola bars, even on the street.

And even the job that I ended up having as a healthcare executive, the CEO initially didn't hire me from the first round of interviews because he found that I was a bartender. And then he ended up hiring me because he realized that he, he left, they ended up hiring me realizing it was mistake. And so I was in this career that I didn't really care about.

Never really. We want it to be a nine to five employee, really having a hard time, attaching myself to this idea of meaning behind your work. And I ended up becoming really resentful towards my employer because I never wanted to be. Yeah. And I always thought that I should do something more and bigger.

And so not believing that I was supposed to be there, made me not invest in that place. And so I did, again, didn't invest in relationships, didn't volunteer for work that I should be doing to help my career and create career capital. And it was this vicious cycle of, I don't want to be here. So I'm doing things that prove I don't want to be here.

So that creates more feelings of not wanting to be there. And so I ended up again in this hole of what [00:11:00] am I doing? I have a choice to change this or to keep just wasting my time and my days. And it was strange how I went through this personally and I changed it and I became someone that I truly enjoyed and believed in, but I didn't take that same learning and apply it professionally.

And so at that point I did the same thing. I said, I'm going to make a commitment to becoming proactive in my career instead of react. Despite all the professional disappointments I had in the past, where I was, you know, I had four different job offers that were, that were scraped away from me. I was really passionate about something and that never worked out.

I'm going to make something I'm going to make something happen here. And so that's why I did a hard audit of what I cared about, what challenges I wanted to face, who I wanted to work with and what impact I really wanted to have and, you know, for myself and for the world. And so I stopped the business that I was doing.

I had a side hustle and coaching practice at the time. I said, I'm going to pivot out of this position as a manager of business operations in an acute care hospital. And I'm going to start focusing on the things I [00:12:00] care about, which w which were professionals, development, talent development, organizational leadership.

And so I started volunteering for opportunities with my current employer. I started doing projects, started investing in, showing up and investing, and that was working amazingly until we got acquired for the second time. And everyone I was working with God. So I was got to sit in there and all the projects we were working on, they said, we're going to wait, we're going to centralize these, the people you're working with, they're now not here anymore.

So what was my choice? I had the choice to kind of deal with it again and just sit there or had a choice to take action. I decided to go back and get my doctorate in organizational leadership. I knew how to start a coaching practice because I had a lot of entrepreneurial ventures along the way I had that had that spirit within me.

And so I realigned and relaunched a coaching practice live for yourself consulting five years ago and scaled it dramatically. It's led to me speaking internationally, I've worked with hundreds of clients through one-on-one relationships from major companies like Amazon and Google and Thumper and door dash.

[00:13:00] And I also work internally now for contract jobs and, you know, there's a ton of different lessons that I'm happy to share along the way, but that's kind of the short, longest version of my story. Oh no, that's great. And if you don't mind, I'm going to kinda go through it chronologically and went to dig in a little bit.

If you don't. Yeah, I'd love to. Okay. So first you had a passion for soccer. Where did that stem from? Was that something that you don't know just innate in you? Or is that something that your dad played soccer, your mom played soccer, like where did that come from? Yeah, I get, I get the, like the passion was there.

I don't understand why I decided it was more important than myself. That's what I don't understand. My dad was a soccer player. He played professionally when he was younger and he never told me that I had to play soccer. And so I'm not sure why I chose it. Cause I played a couple of different sports when I was younger.

But for some reason, soccer was something that I was drawn to and something that I really [00:14:00] enjoyed, it could have been something with my father could have been something that I watched, you know, that we watched it on TV, that I was exposed to it pretty regularly. But soccer. I mean, it could be for anyone.

Soccer is the number one sport for youth. It's just like, it would have been a given that I was going to play soccer as a kid, but I got drawn to it. Strange thing is what happened in my life to make me say, this is what I want to do for the ride rest of my life as a kid in high school. And not only that though, but in high school say, okay, I'm going to practice more than anybody, but my skill could only increase at a certain amount.

So to ensure that I can compete with people that have greater skill than me, I'm going to eat perfectly like tuna out of a can you know, that that was what I was doing, no processed foods and I'm going workout at the gym. And that was, that was, it was crazy to me as I reflect back on it for a kid to think like, am I in my shoes without any, I think any [00:15:00] coaching or any exposure to this is what you need to do to become an athlete or a professional.

And what was your support system like at that time? Did your parents and family and friends say, yeah, you're going to be a pro athlete or, Hey, you know, it's really rare, but you do your best. Like what was the back story there? And this is, I know support because I wasn't the captain of the team. I was the, you know, my, my dad used to say, do you want to be the tail of the line or the head of the Fox?

And I was, I was both. I would, I would end up being the tail of the best teams and I would be the head of the second best teams. And I would be someone that would work harder than anybody else, because I think I was so driven for it, but I was never, always went, would perform better than everybody else.

So no one really, no one really ever thought that I was going to go pro. Now there wasn't because of that, I think is also why I balanced everything else, where I got, you know, the first year of college, the first [00:16:00] year. Of high school. And this is when I was going pretty young was where I kind of messed up.

And then my parents said, look, you don't play soccer if you don't do good. And from then on, it was four. Oh. And from, from then on, it was just kinda like, okay, I have to do this to, to keep playing. And even in college, I think part of the reasons why I was probably on the, on the soccer team was because I brought the GPA up.

It was just, and I never was someone that cared much about school. I just understood that the rules of the game were performed well here. And you get to where you want to go in other places. Yeah. That's important. That's very important. And then when did you realize, you know, this just isn't the right path, this isn't going to work for me.

I think part of me always knew that I think part of me always knew that this wasn't something that I really wanted to do, but I was stubborn. And I think often when we get lost in our purpose, when we think something is greater than us, we. Ignore those, those feelings and those signs. It happened with, with my side hustle, coaching practice, the first time too, I knew it wasn't the right business for [00:17:00] me.

I knew it wasn't something that I felt aligned for. And when it came to soccer, I actually, I thought internally I could feel it now that I, I knew I should have done more with my, I should've been focused on more and that I was sacrificing too much for something that it was off balance. And I really started noticing that when I realized that I had a really negative mental perception of myself that led to some physical and emotional issues based on my attachment to performance.

And that shouldn't be the case. You shouldn't be dedicated to something and be actually draining and killing yourself practically through that, through that enjoyment, do that passion. There's something wrong there. And so I went through a couple different moments of being invested in not being invested.

I think the, there were some major milestones where one, I was, I got a scholarship to transfer schools and I was kind of taking care of an injury at the time and just worked through the injury. I said, I'll take care of it after, you know, I get on this team. And [00:18:00] so when you know, was able to run an under five, 15 mile with this, with this hip issue is played soccer there, but I just couldn't perform the way I needed to.

So I ended up getting cut from a team that I was told to fly out for and transfer for and move my whole life for. And so went back back that, like that point when I had to go back to Chicago because was the best choice was one area of, okay, I might have to give this up. The second time was I ended up getting surgery because I thought, okay, if I need to take care of myself.

So I had surgery. A day before my 21st birthday on my hip and, uh, healed from there, you know, built up strength from there and then was able to get a scholarship to pay the same amount I was paying for school in Chicago, in London. And so went to live abroad in London for free, actually ended up staying there six months practically and trained on about probably four to six different teams ended up on a second division team and had a choice.

They said, Ben, do you want to stay here and potentially move up on this team and maybe get to, [00:19:00] you know, the next level or, or not. Cause you have a, you know, a year or two here to do this. And it was my choice to go finish school my last semester of school or to stay there. And I ended up choosing to go finish school and go finish my education.

And that was kind of, I think also the next one. Uh, okay, this is done. Yeah, no, that kind of matured. Takes discipline as well. Like you put discipline in your whole life into the soccer career, and now you're making that mental pivot. How did you come to that decision? Like I know we talked about a lot of the circumstances that led to the decision, but what mental process to make a life-changing decision like that did you use?

So our listeners who are in the same type of situation right now can work through this process and help them. So was there like a pros and cons list? Was it months of agony? How did you get to that decision-making point? That's a really tough [00:20:00] question because if you look at a lot of pro athletes or entrepreneurs right now, their story is a lot of failure.

Their story is a lot of people telling them they weren't good enough and then persevering and becoming successful because of something. And I like to say that that's a serendipity, like something happening just. Out of the blue, it seems a little bit lucky, right place, right time to make your career is a combination of action consistency and a little bit of luck.

And I think just kind of on my end, when it came to soccer, my levels of confidence, impeded the luck from happening, you know, I held myself back. So for me personally, I think it was, I wasn't able to get my, my head straight. And I remember I was talking to my coach wants, and I finally became aware that my, my confidence was the thing, holding me back.

Not anything else. It was, it was preventing me from getting into a state of flow when I was in games that were at a, you know, that I needed to compete in. [00:21:00] And I literally said, Hey, coach, my mind's holding me back. I don't know what's up. And he goes, I'm not your fucking therapist. Excuse my language. Sorry if I, no, don't worry about it.

I'll just slap explicit. We're good to go, man. Go. Okay. Cool. And that, you know, some people are like, Ooh, that's not a good coach, not a good leader. And I say, well, when I look back on it and it pushed me to go take care of it myself and, or even 100%, I, some people I don't want to cut you off. But if for people listening, there's different personalities outside and there's different personalities inside of us.

And if I have the loving, like, oh, you're going to be fine. You're going to do great, man. I don't thrive. But if I have somebody to say, you suck you piece of crap. I'm like inside, is that how you, where we're like, just there's this fire that goes off inside you and you need that slap in the face emotionally 

I think that's a great point by the way, because leaders don't tend to give feedback in the way that they need to a lot of times, or don't know who they're [00:22:00] working with to give feedback to, for me personally, I needed a lot more transparent feedback.

I needed a lot, you know, and you need to do this. You need to do that. I didn't need a negative reinforcement. I didn't need probably a little bit of positive reinforcement. Up to that point. I was my worst leader. I was in my head screaming at myself that I sucked each and every single day. And so at that point in my development, I needed that.

Uh, you know, I think it just pushed me along my journey more to try to get ahold of my head and figure out why is it that my inner critic is so strong? What is it about the thing that I'm pursuing with soccer that has made me doubt myself so much. And how is that influencing other aspects of my life, which is what it did.

I mean, when it came to building relationships, I felt like I was the, the joke in the room when I wasn't, I just was doubting myself way too much. And it's interesting how an experience that is outside of everything in my life. It's just a sport was able to influence how much I believe in who I was. [00:23:00] Yeah.

And there's things to that. Inside of you. I mean, it could have been DNA. It could have been just how God built you. Like your father had a passion for soccer. You had a passion for soccer. It could have been generational, or it could have been, you respected your dad, but for our listeners and for you reflecting back on your life, there's things that we love and we can enjoy and we should enjoy.

But that doesn't mean it's our profession. It just means it's a hobby. Like for me, I love jujitsu and grappling will love it, but I'm not going to go in the MMA and follow a career in the UFC. So for our listeners now try and decide. We have people from over 80 countries. We have people from all cultures and demographics and ages, a 50 50 mix, almost a men and women from what I can see statistically, but for the people that you're talking to right now, how would you advise them to start deciding, is this a passion and a hobby or a career?

So getting [00:24:00] back to your initial question, I think was about five or 10 minutes ago, which is how do you decide when something isn't right. How do you decide when you need to pivot and get out? You have to be very honest with yourself about, are you making the progress that you need to achieve the goal that you want?

So it's a hard audit of what are my skill levels and what is my goal? Do I need to adjust my skill level, do a new idea. What do I need to adjust my goal? Because I could have done anything else in soccer. I could've changed my mindset in terms of what I was trying to achieve. And also at that time, I never thought about money or salary or lifestyle or vision.

And that would have been something that if I sat down and thought about it, I would have been like, Ooh, soccer probably isn't right, because it wouldn't have led me to the life that I wanted or the impact that I wanted on the world. So I think it's, it's really, it's taking a hard audit in terms of what is the life that you want.

Where are you at? [00:25:00] Will your goals help you get there? And at the same time, like any, any profession you can make any profession work in, any profession will build a certain level of career capital that you need to get to the next step that you don't even know exists right now. Like I would not have been able to tell you that I was going to become a leadership development coach working with some of the highest powered executives in the world.

I never would have told you that, but because of my dedication to soccer, I developed a certain level of time management, perseverance of knowledge, in terms of personal development and athletic performance. That has helped me dramatically in, in how I work with clients today and how I operate business.

And the first business that I ran, it wasn't right for me, but I learned how to build a coaching practice. So instead of five years, I was able to build something in six months. And so how do you know if something's right for you? I think it's really, is, does it align with your values? Does it align with your vision for yourself?

And are you able to consistently [00:26:00] invest in this area of your life in a way that's balanced and harmonious with other things that you care about? And is it healthy? I think a hundred percent. Is it healthy? Because nothing that we decide is important is more important than us. Cause we've, we've given it that emotion we've given it, this level of investment I've decided I will care about this thing.

Despite if I've been genetically predisposed, you know, dispositioned what's in my blood, or if my experiences have led it to be part of who I am, I'm still choosing for it to be important. And in my situation I chose for the thing I cared about to be more important to me than me and I sacrifice myself for when I didn't need to, I to learn the same exact thing without having to do that, go through.

Yes. And it is a journey. I mean, for anybody listening, it's not an overnight, like Ben's talking about it took him time. It took experience. Um, let me ask you another question, kind of [00:27:00] jumping ahead a little bit. So you said, you know, you figured out soccer, wasn't the path for you? You're in the professional world, you're seeing success, but you found yourself becoming disgruntled bitter.

I don't know what kind of word but resentful. I think it's the word you used earlier at your employers. So these are people who gave you a career. They were kind to you, and this is common. I've had this, right? So there's a lot of people sitting there now and I'm going to be blunt. You know, listeners, don't be mad at me.

I'm trying to help you right. Then, then I'm talking about tough love, but they're sitting there listening now thinking about how bad their employer is when really they've got a great employer and it's their own stink and added. I've done it. You've done it. They're doing it right. What advice do you have for them to get out of that mindset and either enjoy where they're at again or move on to their passion?

Every problem is a personal problem. [00:28:00] Yeah. It's I love that phrase. I can't tell you how many clients I work with that come to me furious about their leader, furious about their coworkers, furious about the work that they have to do, and the boundaries are, and the amount of work that they have when honestly, it's, it's just their perception of the people around them.

The stories that they're telling themselves on a daily basis, the fact that they can't let go of one or two specific instances, the fact that they pre-judge prejudge this person based on prior experiences. And what they've already decided is the story of this person, how they're defining them, and then the work itself to there.

They've already predetermined their feelings towards the work. Even before doing the work based on maybe one or two experience. And so really if you're in this situation where you are frustrated with your employer or your organization or person that you work with, and you're expecting them to be something for you that you don't think they are, you need to remember that one you've you've given them that story.

And two, you are [00:29:00] accountable, you're accountable and you are empowered. So you have permission to change your work, to show up with a different mindset, to work with certain types of people to set boundaries in terms of, I don't want. To go to this meeting at eight o'clock at night. And this is the reason why, or to push back on expectations for a project and say, Hey, look, if you want this done tomorrow, these three other things are not going to get done.

Are you okay with that? And very often we go into our careers or to a profession thinking that we have to be given, meaning given job satisfaction, given perfect relationships, given all the resources, we need to do something, given a professional map or career journey in front of us and given a healthy work-life balance.

And we're not allowed to push back to say what we want to even ask ourselves what we want. How, how little do we ever do this [00:30:00] in our crews? It's mind boggling. And this would change. I think this would change everything and that there's there's strategies you can do to become more happy at work. You can craft your job.

So you look at the actual work you're doing, you look at the relationships that you have, and you look at the meaning that you perceive behind your work. You can also evaluate your career sweet spot, which is a moving target and your professional career. So that's what challenges you want to face in the future.

Who do you want to work with? What's what, what is your passion? What is the impact you want to have through your work and in the world and what are you good at? So that leads to, you know, one of your skills that leads to greater levels of confidence. And you can do this at any time. You can touch any of those points and you will be happy at work.

You'll be more engaged, you'll know what to do next, but we just give our power away, give it away. And we just react to opportunities that pop up to us through people, offering us a job. See you applying for a job on the job board instead of taking this, taking control of it and saying, this is my career, I'm going to make it my career.

Yeah. And to those listening again, a little bit of tough love. [00:31:00] I've always experienced and seen. If you run from your problems, they just follow you and get worse. So if you're in a situation and you don't listen to what Ben saying and resolve it within yourself and you don't change your mindset, it's just going to keep happening and follow you everywhere you go.

It's not the employers it's us. Would you agree or disagree with that? Ben? It is us. It's it's fear though. It's fear that we're not going to have a job we're going to get fired or people are going to think of us a certain way. I have a client right now. We're just starting. We're working through some of these beliefs, but it's oh, I could, I could, I can't take tomorrow off.

What would they think of me? Your organization's going to be fine. Take tomorrow off. And with, this is a belief that we have. Oh, I can't, I can't actually push back on this new assignment. Uh, I can't let them know that their expectations of their timelines are wrong because what's, what's the fear. [00:32:00] What are they going to think of me?

Are they going to let me go? Are they going to fire me? And so put their employer above themselves, based on this fear, based on this, you know, the fact that they define themselves by their work, they define a lot of, a lot of high achievers like myself. They define themselves by working hard. That's the only way they know how to feel good about themselves.

Check things off the to-do list to be the hardest worker in the room. But the problem with that is when we get into higher level positions, even just as an entrepreneur. But when we get in to senior level positions, when we stopped being an independent contributor, and now we're a brain in the room, we really, you're not being paid for the amount of work you're doing.

You're being paid for, for your leadership qualities, for your ideas, for your innovations, for your strategic thinking. And it's a very hard transition for a lot of people. And as an entrepreneur as well, A lot of times we spend our time working on everything instead of focusing on the one thing that is going to bring us revenue or bring us closer to our [00:33:00] goal.

And that's the same thing for how do you know if you're doing the right thing? How do you know if you're investing in the right day processing? And I'd say, you know what, invest in it, but just do it less, like do less time, figure out the one thing that's going to move the needle a little bit closer towards your goal and do that thing.

You can do that one hour a week. And I promise you, you move faster than people that aren't doing anything or when people that are doing everything. And so when it comes to your employer and your job, I think we have to work smarter and we have to take care of ourselves and we have to feel empowered, do that.

So for those listening out there, struggling with STR in a job, and they're like, is it really my employer? Is it me a little of both? Is there like a, here's the first two or three steps you need to take to evaluate that, to figure out what, what the truth is?

Yeah. The first thing you need to do is get clarity on a variety of things. Any clarity on why you even were attracted to this industry in the first place. What made you take this job? What were your goals for it and [00:34:00] understand also what your vision is for your professional career? What do you want to achieve and is this where you're at going to help you get there?

And if, if there's, if there's a no there, then you can start looking around. But to also help hopefully understand this, you can ask yourself, what do I truly care about and how do I define myself personally? What are my core beliefs and my attitudes. And these are your values. And can you show up with these values each and every single day?

And usually you can show up with these values, independent of your work. This is just how you show up perception and what, how you choose to work. And so even if you don't feel this is the perfect fit, how can you leverage where you're at to help you where you want to go? And how can you do it in a way that aligns with who you are?

And you're going to be happier, period. The next step in, in terms of clarity is not just about meaning, but it's also about process. And this is, we talked about your vision a second ago, but now it's about future mapping. What is it that you want to achieve in five years? You may not know the answer to this, but you may have some semblance of an idea.

What is it that you want to achieve within three years? What is it you want to achieve in two [00:35:00] and one, et cetera. And what is the one thing that you want to achieve? And then you want to break that down into monthly goals and you want to break that down then the weekly goals, and then you pick one thing each and every single day that is going to move the needle a little bit further forward towards your vision.

And your vision may just be to explore new things. I'm working with a client right now in the creative space and amazing creative director. But he's put his dreams on hold because he wasn't sure what dream to pursue, but because of that, he hasn't done any research on anything. It hasn't exposed himself to what's going on in the market.

So he has no chance to actually create an innovate and no idea what steps to take to move forward. So curiosity your goal each and every single day, listen to a new podcast each and every single day, write a new social media post about something that you've learned each and every single day, reach out to someone new at an organization that you're interested, didn't have a conversation.

And so when I was my business, it wasn't, you know, I, it took me. I started in 2016, I didn't leave healthcare 2018 in the beginning. And it was figuring out what's the one thing I needed to do each and every [00:36:00] thing every single day to move forwards. And for example, this, uh, you know, I used to do a podcast for my previous company.

We were doing an episode. I was like twice a week for five years, didn't do anything for my business. And so when I'm looking at my new business, I asked myself as a podcast, something that I really want to integrate in the beginning. And then I ended up moving that model to support my in-person events.

So I interviewed my guests and those guests became really close relationships because the podcast was leveraged to build a close relationship with them. And so now I use my podcast as a way to actually meet people that I want to meet. And so I've because of my experiences and because I didn't overly invest in something, I was able to create a higher level of awareness and what that could, what outcome this thing could bring to me for my business and for my vision.

And I was able to adjust it. But if we just go all in, in something without actually having our, you know, having a little bit of higher level view on it, while why we care about something and where we're going, we may lose our insight. Again, just like I did when I was younger. When [00:37:00] I, when I kind of forgot why I cared about what I was doing.

Thank you for sharing so much and, and talking through this, cause I know it's a lot, there's one more thing I want to discuss that I know our listeners. Might be struggling with when you have a dream or a passion. Most of the people I know who are just elite achievers, like the 1% of 1%, they're completely obsessed with their passion and vision.

I mean obsession,

but if you don't hit that goal, you can train wreck your life. Right? So to speak, I mean, you just put everything into it and then boom, negative pickup and start all over. And it might be pretty far down the road. Do you have a way when you work with your clients and people to help them identify, is this [00:38:00] a dream that you need to be obsessed with to make it reality versus, Hey, you need to back off like, where's that balancing?

A huge part of self-leadership is confidence and confidence tends to be tied into our need for validation or achievement and success. So a lot of every single client, I work on their definitions of success and the expectations they have for themselves. It's even part of clarity. To be honest, I can't tell you how many clients I've worked with that.

Do a values, exploration worksheet, and one of their values is success. It's like what your value is success. So your value is something that you need to achieve outside of yourself. How do you define success? Let's talk about this cause this, cause this could be an anti value and a lot of times people will actually have.

Parts of their being attached to external achievements that they have no control over, which is just a way for you to defeat yourself before you even began. And so a lot of my time spent working with clients it's going over. What I learned that success is not an [00:39:00] achievement and success is the fact that you get to show up each and every single day and live your values, live the things you care about.

And so failure, isn't really failure. It's progress. If it's doing something that you enjoy, which then brings up this idea of, are you living in the present or are you living in the past or the future? And very often high achievers live in the future. And so they miss out on living each and every single day in a way that is enjoyable and fun for them.

And so it's about redefining those expectations of accomplishments. Things outside of yourself are just things that you do because you enjoy it. And very often instead people label accomplishments and milestones is something they do because they need to, because it's what it's, who they are at their core.

It's how they define themselves. And so flicking that switch to V instead I live my life and I work on things because they matter to me. And when [00:40:00] I do things that matter to me, I am a happier person, which is very different than I have to achieve this. I have to achieve this. I have to achieve this. And the interesting, interesting thing about purpose, and I have a few different points about purpose that I haven't touched on today, though.

One of them is that your purpose is supposed to be limitless infinite. Why? Because it's something that you get energy from and motivation from and something you derive meaning from. And so if you were to accomplish something and then your purpose would be complete, what then happens to your life? So your purpose can't be something that is completed.

It is something that you just pull from inside. I think people miss, miss defined what a milestone or achievement is and in when, in regards to purpose. Yeah. I agree with you completely. You know, when people make purpose statements and mission statements, a mission it's like strategic it's military grade.

It's like, here's our mission. Boom. It has a unique [00:41:00] outcome you're trying to look for and you achieve it, but that's not your overarching purpose. The purpose, like you said, is just, it's infinite. It never ends till we go home to see God, you know, it just keeps going. So that's awesome. Ben, now, you know, from your birth to where we are in the store right now, is there anything else we missed or anything you want to talk about before we transition into where you are today and where you're going?

I just want to highlight again that

I spent a lot of years in my professional career. Not really understanding. What a professional career was, and this is something that I don't think we teach enough. Yeah. There's no right or wrong thing to do with your time. And there's no scarcity in terms of options, Trinity or people tend to [00:42:00] underestimate how inexperienced that they might not want is going to influence their future expenses.

And so you're just dismissing where you are now because you want to get somewhere else. You're missing out on a really valuable piece of your life that is going to help you later down the line that you don't even know. So just going back to this idea of what do you do when you're in a place that you're not having fun and not enjoying, I'd say figure out a way.

To make it worthwhile, figure out a way to build a relationship, figure out a way to work on a project that matters to you, figure out a way to use your role to network into industries that you care about. Go engage into organizations, et cetera. And so just don't let life pass you by because you're so focused on getting somewhere else.

Yeah. And for so many that feels, um, quote, if you're not, if we have listeners and viewers, but if you're listening, like majority of our audience, if they're [00:43:00] stuck quote unquote in an office job and they don't have interaction with a lot of people, what are some ideas for them to get out of that box still?

I mean, nobody's stuck. It just, we feel that way. So I moved to Austin about nine months ago and I wanted to get involved in the CPG and venture capitalist space. So to consumer packaged goods, health and wellness. Cause by the way, my interest in soccer. Which led me to fitness and nutrition led me to a passion and interest in health and wellness, which led me to almost launch my first company, which was a food brand, which led me to launch a supplement, which led me now to really enjoy new, innovative food products.

So that ended up being pretty valuable for me. And I came to Austin wanting to get involved in this space. It's pretty big here and I didn't know anyone. And so what I did is I initially went and I, it became part of my brand statement when I was networking with people and building relationships here, you know, I'm a leadership [00:44:00] coach.

I am an opera. I mean, coaching for 10 years. And I work with senior executives that don't really feel like they are leaders, despite having the job title as a leader. And I'm really passionate about making a difference in the world through innovative, you know, health and wellness products and providing leadership coaching to help entrepreneurs get out of their way.

And that led, you know, having that as part of your brand and mission statement, when you meet people, lets them remember you for something specific and helps them introduce you to individuals. So that's one way to do it is just network. In other ways, I looked for organizations that were operating in the local community and I've reached out to them and I joined their email.

And I started attending their virtual events and we'll go to their in-person events, but didn't just listen. Like most people do. I engaged, I wrote in the chat field, people that were speaking, I connected with on LinkedIn and sent them a message that I really enjoyed their, their presentation. And if I could connect with them and jump on a call, I reached out to the coordinators as well.

And so that was really great event. I would love to get involved with that. I invested in lo and [00:45:00] behold, an opportunity came up for mentors and I mentor in Chicago for a couple of different entrepreneurial organizations. And so now I'm mentoring for literally the largest CPG, you know, incubator here in Austin, and which then led me to some of the sponsors and partners of that program, which I ended up with phone calls with and ended up meeting.

And, you know, I also visit very specific and the types of people that I networked with. And so now I'm actually engaged with this community here and having normal regular calls with them and now fully integrated myself into the space, just even engaging, showing up, getting out of my comfort zone and being consistent because I can't tell you how many people I did reach out to.

They never responded to me. And when it comes to networking and building a community and an industry, you don't know anyone in the first thing you need to do is give yourself permission to contact anyone. There's a lot of times people hold themselves back. I'm going to be bothering this person. They don't want to talk to me.

And that's just, again, a belief. And we're not looking for people that [00:46:00] say no, when you network, you're just looking for the one person that says yes, because the people that respond to you when you're networking, those are connectors and those are going to be valuable resources for the rest of your life.

Yeah. I think that's excellent advice and well said. And if you're listening, you know, don't just hear Ben's words, but like our slogan says, don't just listen, but do repeat it so you can have an excellent life. And what Ben saying is he's going out and he's taking the shots. You know, Wayne Gretzky says you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take.

Right? So go out there, take the shots and bend in and just transition from a retiring soccer player to a professional leadership coach. And he's working with, you know, fortune 500 executives. He had a go at him. Dozens, if not hundreds of people before he got that first big break. So Ben, if you don't mind without using, I mean, you can use names, but without using names or companies, if that's something you can't [00:47:00] do talk about your first big break, like, you know, you're in this new space, you're getting into leadership development.

How did you get that first big break? That first contact? I wouldn't even call it a big break. I think there were certain instances in my career that new things developed. So for example, I would give a lot of like my built kind of my business off of in-person events initially. And so I'd host an event, get 60 people in a room.

And that was a whole thing just to host an event, get speakers and get sponsorships and such. And then I would get a client or two from that. And I would, you know, give corporate workshops or lunch and learns for free and maybe get a client from that. And. I remember I was doing a free workshop for the city of Chicago, small business association, and it went really well, but there was everyone in that room.

There was a homeless guy on the street that had a really great idea [00:48:00] for creating a truck, to sell socks and small goods out of who I stayed after with, for 20 minutes and helping him create like a minimum viable product that he could go on a street corner with a little shelf and kind of sell socks from there to see what street corners were the best for him to the, you know, senior director that was looking to figure out how to move forward, you know, to move, to create greater momentum on their goals.

So I was really putting myself everywhere that I could. And in that room, it was very diverse population. And so it went really well. And I was leaving and I was literally downstairs of city hall and I get a phone call and I pick it up and it's, it's the nature of the event. And they say, Hey, Ben, can you come back up and say the chief, the chief deputy.

Walked by the room when everyone was leaving and needed. No, what was going on because he's never seen people leave a workshop that excited. And so I went up and I ended up in, I got brought into a conference room and ended up basically getting asked if I would lead a leadership training for their [00:49:00] entire department.

And that was one of the first big leadership trainings that I ended up booking serendipitously. Right. Action and consistency, and a little bit of luck leads to serendipitously serendipitous. And, um, you know, what's, what's, I laugh because I'm wondering something before I create it. I think everybody should, if you, if you believe in yourself enough, sell it before you create it.

And so that, that workshop led me to create the team model of managing, to motivate, which has been for years, bringing me income now and has been one of the foundational leadership strategies that I bring into an organization to train teams on. And that was that like stories like that tended to happen here and there now, personal clients, it's just, there's a certain, when you're have a service-based business, you'll reach a certain amount of work where the struggle drastic, clean decreases.

You kind of set this L-shaped hockey, puck, you know, hockey stick kind of curve where you've coached enough people. You have enough good reviews. [00:50:00] You know, brand is aware enough where now you get referrals, you get people stumbling onto what you're doing. And then what I think has been really great about this past year is organizations now are happy to fit the bill for leadership coaching because they don't have programs internally.

So a lot of my clients now I'd say probably about 30% of them are being paid for by the corporation, through their leadership development program and funding. So they're reimbursing, which is something that didn't happen a couple of years. Yeah, thank COVID right. Don't worry. The only benefits from COVID.

So yeah, it's waking people. I mean, in the career, at least it's, it is waking some people up and giving them an opportunity to invest a little bit more of themselves and not, you know, I, I dunno where people listen to us, but in the U S unemployment benefits were substantially increased during this time.

And so people that are out of work, some people may argue that it's not it's gives them less motivation to go back to work. And there are, this is a gift for a [00:51:00] lot of people that were unsure about their career, because it gives them a little bit of breathing room to actually step back, take a break and reflect on what they truly want to do.

Yeah. And I think a lot of people needed that they were stuck in this just zombie, like life, God enough, going to work, coming home, taking care of business, like kids and family and soccer. And then they go back to bed and wake up and they were stuck and I thought it was awesome. When everybody was at home and I, our neighborhood was full of people, walking and kids playing and just life was happening again.

So there's a lot of benefits and blessings, I think, came out of this pandemic. So no matter where you are in the world, there's some places like I got friends in Canada and different countries and they're like, it's like locked down. It's terrible. But in America we've had at least in the region I'm in, it's been great.

I mean, it's been a very good positive experience. Um, all right, Ben, well, you've covered so much and I don't want to skip anything. So anything we missed [00:52:00] you let us know. But if you're like, no, I think we've covered it all. Where is Ben today and where are you headed next? Yeah, I think one other thing I want to touch on real quick is when I made the pivot to this other brand that I have now, I had to make a really tough choice to give up something I worked on for five years and.

That that made me have to stop a lot of things that I was doing that were sustaining the wrong brand. And you have to make a conscious choice when you're willing to make a pivot to ensure that your brand is consistent. So if you were changing careers and industries, you know, what do you post about?

What do you talk about? What will people find when they search you online, how you phrasing your previous experiences. And if you have a business, are you willing to give up, delete clear the, the ECOS, you know, the, the environment online that re that has stories about you [00:53:00] and in this, you know, a couple of things came up for me to kind of challenge my commitment to my neighbor.

You know, this new business idea that I created when I launched a supplement where I had to say, I'm going to launch it and let it float. I'm not going to launch it and support it. And I'm going to see what happens. And if it takes off, I'll invest in it. But if not, I'm actually just going to sit back and get and reinvest in my current brand, because this is, this is gonna ruin what I've, what I've done.

And it took a good year and a half to get people to stop calling me on the street, my past brand. And then, you know, it's a one I have today. So keep that in mind when you're investing in building something. Okay. Now I'm happy to talk about what's going on now. No, man, you're hitting on such good solid life advice, man.

I appreciate you've done so much and I know our listeners do as well. Um, and making that pivot is scary. And you said something earlier, you said how it's hard to adjust sometimes. And it is like, if you're listening and you're taking the steps Ben's talking about, or maybe you're reaching out to him [00:54:00] at the end, he's going to have a special offer.

And we're going to have contact information in the show notes. And Ben is going to share that, but making a pivot after 30 years, 40 years, 60 years, it's not instant. It's not like you're just flicking the switch. Even the nine to five. I love the point you made earlier. Ben saying, I didn't the words I'm going to miss.

But the point was you don't have to work 12 hours a day. It's not about the quantity you put in. It's about the quality when you were talking about the leadership and you're talking about the position. Um, I remember when I switched from helping organizations grow to having my own shingle, right. I was making more money working two hours a day and I felt so guilty.

I literally felt like I was doing something wrong for about a year. And finally mean, just like, screw it, I accept this. And I'm thankful. Right. But, um, how do you explain that to people? How do they, cause it took me [00:55:00] a year. If I talked to you, I might've been done in 30 days. Right? How do you accelerate that process?

You, you, you reframe your mind or does it just take time? I like to walk clients through a process of, it was just a lot of question questions and prompts and one of them is how long would it take your employer to fire you? If you stopped responding to email your phone or do any work? Yeah, not long. Well, it's, it's probably longer than they think.

It's, it's not one day. It's not two days probably might get a week. You might get two weeks, but that's really different than their perception of, I need to work 12 hours a day to keep my job and to feel valuable to this company. And then you can walk them back. Okay. Let's say you reply, you reply to emails, but you don't actually submit anything.

How long do you think you'd keep your job? Okay. What if you miss a couple deadlines and you, [00:56:00] you miss some deadlines, how long do you think you keep your job? And it's, it's walking them through this idea of, okay, you actually are pretty safe. And if you're, and if you're not safe at work, you still feel that you're not safe at work.

Then it's taking it's through a process of finding extra, extra streams of income, as well as highlighting the fact that they're a valuable employee, that they can get another job. And the next job they're going to get is something that they're going to be more excited about and it's going to pay them more money.

And so that they see it as an opportunity if they actually ended up not being able to work where they're currently at, and it's just changing your mindset in terms of, do we need this job? Does this job need us? And if this job needs Duffs and we're valuable to this employee lawyer, then we can take a step back and we can say.

Okay. How do I really need to work in a way that serves me more? Because they're not, if you're not an hourly employee, you're not, you're not paid by the hour. And too often people say, oh, if you're an hourly employee, that just means you work more hours. [00:57:00] And so it's a bum rap and you know, that's not how it's supposed to work.

You can make it that way. You can choose to work more and be paying less, but I'd say, how can you be most effective in how, you know, the work's not going anywhere? Like an organ of the organization is not going to fail more than likely. If you don't submit a certain project or complete an assignment, your organization is eventually going to find somebody else.

The organization is not going to go under. If you are a week late on something where you push back and ask for an extension on a deadline and an organization to survive needs all of its employees. And that means it needs their employees to be happy. Is their employees to do good at their work to be productive, to be efficient.

It doesn't mean you need, it doesn't mean that they're all sacrificing themselves. I think it's just a mindset shift from what does it mean to be an employee at an organization? And a lot of times these, these people think that it's okay. So the only way to have the work that I want is to go become an entrepreneur, [00:58:00] but then you're just an employee to your clients.

You, any job you can imagine, imagine you could find a hundred. I agree with I a hundred percent agree that working for somebody or working for yourself, if the only reason why you want to go and start your own business is because you want to escape. What you think the story is about working for the organization.

You need to examine your beliefs about working for an organization, and you need to actually start screening places that you work out a little bit better. I love being an entrepreneur. I a hundred percent, but I don't think it's an escape from the 900. I agree a hundred percent. It's not for everybody. Uh, I get frustrated and angry when I hear speakers get up there and I'm like, everybody should work for themselves and everybody should be independent.

That's number one, impossible. And number two, that's not realistic, not everybody's built to lead an organization. So I think the speakers are getting paid to suck people dry, [00:59:00] and then they're actually leading them to destruction. So I think what you said, it's very wise to examine themselves and their belief system.

And really before they jump into, I want to start my own business and be an entrepreneur. Is that where I should be? Because that's an important, yeah. And just to reiterate this idea that you can work any way you want to work. And I, I, I am grateful to my father for this and grateful for soccer for this.

When I was in healthcare, I would go into meetings. And I think one example is I didn't wear a suit jacket. I don't want to wear a tie and want a suit jacket. And I rolled up my sleeves, which is I wasn't a very traditional place and no one did that. And eventually, usually about a month, then everyone started taking off their jackets and rolling up their sleeves and listen, and their ties.

And I remember we'd randomly get meetings scheduled at like 6:00 PM. And I'm about to leave the office. I have to leave at four 30, you know, most of the time. And I started saying, no, I said, do you want to schedule a meeting at six? You let me know at three. And if you can't do that, then I can't make the meeting.

[01:00:00] And some days I can't make it because I have other responsibilities, some other things, if I beat people. And even though it seems pretty small, a lot of people can't even comprehend doing that saying I can't make this meeting these little things, these little boundaries and can make the difference between enjoyment of work or your, your distaste of work.

And it's really important that we take an audit of how we're working and figure out how we want to work and then have a conversation with our leadership about. Yeah, I agree completely. And you know, obviously you have to earn your, your place to be able to have that kind of luxury. You know, you have a high achievement and so that pulls more credibility and then it gets people to listen.

Uh, so if, I guess it's your first month in the job, I wouldn't recommend that, but after you've proven yourself like Ben totally legitimate and totally reasonable first month at the job. And like, for example, I have a coworker [01:01:00] for contract job and their kids had these championship games and I had a conversation with her and she ended up not going to some meetings because of it.

And she's like, I had you in my head and this is how I talk with how I speak with clients too. And your employer doesn't know what's bothering you. Your employer doesn't know your schedule, your employer doesn't know how you like to work. And unless you volunteer that information. You're not going to get it in that.

So that's not, it's not, Hey, I'm not going to do this. It's Hey, just so you know, I have this and this coming up and this, and this responsibilities and these responsibilities and your leaders are not going to say tough, you know, tough. You have to come, they're going to work with you. Yeah, I agree. And, uh, I'm really proud of my son actually, he's going on a vacation overseas and going with his friends and he started a new job.

Like he started a new job a couple of weeks before he goes on vacation, but you just told [01:02:00] him, Hey, I want the job and I'm here, but I got to take two weeks off right away. And they're like, okay. And I'm just like mind blown, but he just did it. Right, man. Give a three month starting date after hire. I've had clients go and maternity.

I had maternity leave right after they were hired. I took a month off of work, wants to go on a reality show. So there's, you literally can create whatever you want, if you feel empowered. And of course you approach the situation in a way that is politically correct and, and is humble and curious and looking for guidance, other than just telling someone that you need this and this or else.

Okay. Wait, whoa, whoa. What reality showed you going? You just opened that can, it was a little little show on TLC. It was called spouse house. It was, um, it was on one of my bucket lists. It was gone. A reality show spouse. Oh, sorry. We'll try to find that and put a link in the show notes. Is it aired already or is it no need?

No, it was a, it was a couple of years ago. I know [01:03:00] Nita. All right. Yeah. That's funny. All right, Ben. So where's Ben today and where are you headed? Yeah. So I work with leaders that don't feel like they're leaders, they have the title, they just don't actually feel like they're capable at the same time. They don't feel like they're doing the type of work that they were called to do.

So they feel stuck and they don't have clarity on who they are and where they want to go. So they don't have a brand. And because of that, they don't know who to connect with, what community to build around themselves and all of that together. Yeah. There also leads to a lack of confidence. So it kind of, I'm working with who I was when I was stuck in my, in healthcare for many, many years.

And because of my background in organizational leadership and my, you know, my research in the fields of value, congruence and job satisfaction, motivation. I also work with corporations to develop leadership development programs and learning development programs and new manager trainings, et cetera. So it's something that I also enjoy for anyone listening.

If you think you're going to find the one thing that you truly care about. [01:04:00] I'll challenge you and say, you're going to find the values of the things that you care about. So for me, professional development and powering individuals, coaching conversations, facilitating, and then you're going to find a couple of different ways to apply that in your life to keep you entertained, because I'll tell you despite all the success, I was a little bored for a while.

And so I needed to find a way to work globally, to work with the individuals again, and that led to some new business offerings and such along the way. Now I know you and I were talking at the beginning for our listeners who are interested in growth and working with you and you were telling me what a special offer you have for them.

Yeah. So first off, go to my website, live for yourself. consulting.com. You'll get a nice little pop-up to download your free guide on creating a career that you love. It's going to walk you through a few, a few of the steps that I mentioned today, and if you want to reach out, you can actually connect with me on LinkedIn and I'll throw in something a little [01:05:00] bonus.

I'll send you a link to a workshop that I have in my YouTube channel on finding your career sweet spot. So always knowing what the new next in your career, the formula, and I'll share with you the worksheet that I actually only share with people that usually attend that workshop. So I'll throw that in, but you got to reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Let me know that you heard me on the remarkable people podcast and I'll give you that little bonus. Wow. Thank you so much, Ben. Um, well, Anything else that we can do to help you then anything that you can do to help me if you know of anyone doing anything remarkable. I think, you know, a lot of people are doing that.

Just a few. I love it. I love connecting with remarkable people. I love hearing people's stories. So feel free to reach out to me and connect. I didn't share this. One of my values is also just really interesting conversations and novel experiences. So if you, if you know, if someone were honorable or you have an [01:06:00] had a novel experience, I'd love to hear about it because that's how I get my own ideas.

And that's how I improve my own life and live a life for myself. Awesome. My friend. Yeah, for me personally, if I can help you in any way, let me know, go through our episodes, go to our website, check out all the episodes. And if you want me to connect you with any of our former guests or there's a new upcoming section, let me know and we'll hook you up.

When I was a kid, I grew up in Northern mass, outside of Boston, you know? And you had the Salem witch trials. And I remember one of our teachers took us to a grave yard and we were talking about epitaphs and we all took paper and crayons, and we sketch out the epitaph on the grave. And you mentioned this earlier and it brought it to my mind.

And so for myself, for all the listeners out there, we're in a close our eyes, you know, absent with the body, present with the Lord. And there are legacy will be left in this earth for a little bit. We all need to know what we want our [01:07:00] epitaph to say. What's that final thought that we've fulfilled. Now, did we achieve that purpose?

What's Ben's epitaph. What do you want your grave to say? And what do you want to fulfill on your life before you go

be curious, accountable and feel empowered to craft the life that you want, where you can live for yourself. Aligned to your values, leaving the impact that you want to create on the world and for yourself in your wake each and every single day. Awesome. Me too long for a tombstone. Hey, make a lot of money and buy a big tombstone.

Buy a tomb. You'll have it on the wall. Uh, that's awesome, Ben. Well, thank you for being here today. You truly are a remarkable guy. I appreciate it for our listeners. Reach out to Ben. If you have any questions, reach out to me. And like our slogan says, like Ben talked about, don't just listen to this information, but do the [01:08:00] good, repeat it every day so that you can have a great life in this world.

And in the one to come I'm David Pascoe alone. This is Dr. Benjamin Renner. You have a remarkable day and we'll see you next week. Ciao.