Intentional Leaders Podcast with Cyndi Wentland
Welcome to the Intentional Leaders Podcast with Cyndi Wentland. Where we’re all about creating confident, successful, and focused leaders who manage with purpose and impact. I’m Cyndi Wentland, the founder of Intentionaleaders. And I’m passionate about learning, teaching, and coaching on all things leadership related. My purpose is to equip leaders like you with the tools, resources, and support to accomplish your goals. To learn when you want, how you want. So, if you’re an aspiring leader, first-time manager, experienced executive, or you just want to make a bigger impact in your role as an individual contributor—this podcast is for you. Because each week we’ll focus on relevant, applicable, and easy to implement skills and practices—to create focus and a deliberate path to employee engagement and business results. I know that leadership has its challenges but learning to lead shouldn’t be one of them.
Intentional Leaders Podcast with Cyndi Wentland
Become a Fearless Leader with Dr. Benjamin Ritter
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Imagine a world where fear no longer dictates your career choices and leadership potential. Dr. Benjamin Ritter, author of "Becoming Fearless," joins us to unravel the intricate barriers leaders face when aligning their careers with their true values. With his insightful exploration of the three C's of self-leadership—clarity, confidence, and control—Dr. Ritter provides a roadmap to overcome the stifling fears of job loss, looking foolish, or failing. In our conversation, we unlock the secret to transforming fear from a paralyzing force into an enlightening guide, empowering leaders to achieve their highest potential.
Delving into personal narratives, he shares his journey through career setbacks and toxic work environments, underscoring the importance of resilience and a growth mindset. This episode serves as a testament to the power of adaptability and highlights actionable strategies for personal growth, including how verbalizing thoughts can break mental loops and challenge unhelpful beliefs.
We wrap up with a powerful discussion on reframing fear and embracing fearlessness in both personal and professional realms. Dr. Ritter's transformative strategies inspire us to craft work environments that nurture individual success and satisfaction.
Intentionaleaders:
https://www.intentionaleaders.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cyndi-wentland-9822012/
Dr. Benjamin Ritter:
https://www.instagram.com/drbenjaminritter/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbenjaminritter-leadershipdevelopment
https://www.liveforyourselfconsulting.com/
https://www.liveforyourselfconsulting.com/becomingfearless
#FearlessLeader #LeadershipSkills #LeadershipDevelopment #FearlessLeadership #PersonalGrowth #ProfessionalDevelopment #LeadershipCoaching #ExecutiveCoaching #StrategicLeadership #VisionaryLeadership #LeadingWithConfidence #Empowerment #InspirationForLeaders #ConfidenceBuilding #SelfEmpowerment #BusinessLeaders #Entrepreneurship #CareerGrowth #CorporateLeadership #LeadershipMindset #BenjaminRitter #LeadershipInterview #FearlessMindset #LeadingTeams
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All right. Well, welcome to the Intentional Leaders Podcast and this morning I am so excited to welcome Dr Benjamin Ritter to the show, and Dr Ritter is the author that we're going to talk about, the book Becoming Fearless, which I loved. I digested it in one evening and I definitely want to talk to you more about that. But welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. I'm excited to hopefully crush some fear and help people become a little bit more fearless.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well, and I think fear crushing is something that we both are intrigued by, interested in, and so I want to talk a little bit about your before we dive into the book and why you wrote that, just to give the audience a little bit of sense of what you do and the services you provide. I always like people to know how to access really great resources, and to be able to know what you do would be helpful. So your work primarily focuses on leaders and careers. So whether that's career, finding a new career, job or finding satisfaction in the one they love but when you think about that and think about barriers that you've seen leaders face, especially when it comes to aligning their career with their values, what do you think are some of those top barriers and how do you help people work through those?
Speaker 2:I have to mention fear, because that's probably the biggest one.
Speaker 2:People are afraid of losing their job, afraid of, you know, looking silly, afraid of ruining relationships, you know, for a variety of reasons right, there's that scarcity mindset and generally most of us have had a toxic leader at some point, have been laid off at some point, have been embarrassed at work at some point and made a mistake at some point. Those things tend to add up and stick and they leave their mark and they prevent us from leading ourselves and being fearless in our careers to make sure that we are making the most of the situations that we're in. I think you know, outside of fear I mean, I guess you can attach fear to this too but fear of not succeeding, a fear of not achieving your career goals, to this idea that we have to be more than we are now tends to get in the way of leaders being able to show up to work with pride, to lean into their strengths, to be patient, to build positive relationships, to lead to that next step. And a lot of times you're seeing people just be a little anxious, a little nervous to get to the next position or have that certain salary, without realizing that, oh, like the first five, 10 years of this, this, this professional world, are for me to actually do like to build relationships, to learn skills and strengths and have project stories to be able to then get the thing where I'm going to earn most of my wealth and be able to do the types of things that I care about.
Speaker 2:I mean, and outside there there are some things external from us, like you can say like a toxic work environment, just like having to do certain types of work to be able to survive, like the things we're talking about are kind of like a.
Speaker 2:It's a kind of I don't want to say like it's once it's almost like a first world problem, right, what's holding a leader back from achieving certain things? We're talking about things that like someone that already has, you know, like a roof over their head at times. You know the food on the table. They have maybe a professional background where they have that leadership position, and so we're going to talk about individuals in that. In that realm, I want to say there is still the category of I just need to work, like I need a job, and so the just need a job can sometimes get in the way of, well, I need to be fulfilled at work. I don't think. I think you can have both, but sometimes, in terms of like our mental capacity and being able to like, think about our day, that can sometimes it can overpower the meaning and the fulfillment and the professional growth question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And I think you you said a couple of things that were so important is that scarcity mindset, I think, sometimes prompts people to make decisions short term because of that, like, oh, I can't get anything else, or I can't do this, or I can't try this, or I I can't move on from what I'm doing because of that. I need this, I need the job, I need the money, I need the food on the table, and whether that's perception or reality, I think is important as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you, yeah, to add to that, though, because generally they can, you can attach all these reasons to the three C's of self-leadership which I talk about and work with clients on, and just clarity. So so, to build on this, I don't know what I want, so I don't know what's meaningful to me.
Speaker 2:I've never thought about it. I don't know my leadership brand, my leadership vision, what I stand for, what I want to do for work, and because I don't know what I want, I don't know how to get there. So maybe I've just been reacting to things. It's actually what I did in my professional career. I had so many disappointments. I just said yes to the job that was given to me and ended up in a job that I ended up meeting I can manage up, et cetera.
Speaker 2:And we have a lot of leaders that have a lack of confidence in themselves and their capabilities. I tell you, a lot of leaders come to me and probably you too to grow as leaders and I'm like, wow, just because you care about that, you already are probably a very compassionate and empathetic and impactful leader. And then we have control, which is a leader that tends to give their control up. They're going into work not realizing that they can manage up, they can craft their job, and they're staying in an environment that isn't healthy to them, thinking they can't leave. So those are generally the things that tend to hold people back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Well, and I think it's so interesting too, because how do you know if you're not happy, if you don't know, if you're not asking yourself those questions? I mean, most people don't just sit around like, but how do you? So? When you said that you, you went through that yourself and you found yourself in a job that you disliked, and then you're like, oh my gosh, so how did you figure that out? Because I think some people are a little oblivious to that.
Speaker 2:Well, it was a little explicit for me. I actually spent many years in a very negative headspace.
Speaker 2:I felt underutilized but I also didn't feel like my work had meaning, but I was expecting my work to give me meaning, which is a terrible belief. I also was surrounded by toxic leaders. People would come to me crying about the things that were said to them. It was a very unsupportive and negative work environment, but then also like I didn't feel that I was in the right place. But that's because I had a lot of negative work experiences prior that made me think that work just wasn't supposed to be right and the problem is, it wasn't supposed to be fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you think work is the wrong place for you to be, it's impossible to make it the right place for you to be, and so there's an aspect of perception and how you show up and what you make of your current job. So I knew I was drained going into work. I felt like a zombie. I would literally look like I was. I worked in a cubicle in a hospital. I would like peer down the hallway and I would see if anyone was coming and I would sneak out and I would. I would go to the gym during lunch. I would like I'd sneak back in and then I would sneak out when I would leave Like it was. It was I was.
Speaker 2:It was almost a game how much I was trying to avoid working, which was crazy, that I was still perceived as this high achiever, high performer. I was promoted, I was put on the executive team, I was working on major projects, but I kind of created this, this place of unhappiness and that lacked meaning. So most people that are going into work feeling like it's not enough or feeling like they're stuck and not doing something like you're going to know you're going to have that sense, you're going to not have motivation. You're generally going to procrastinate. You're not going to invest in relationships. There's going to be social happy hours and you're just going to say that's the last thing in the world that I want to do. Why do I want to create relationships?
Speaker 2:with these people yeah, so you're going to see the things and, as a leader too, if you have employees that generally you have a baseline of their behavior. The moment they start to disengage is generally the moment that they that something's happening, and so anytime that someone almost like builds a wall around themselves, they might tell you everything right, but they're just not showing up, they're not responding, they're not. The enthusiasm is gone, the relationships that they're building are less. These are the types of things that generally you can see from a behavioral perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and I think it's great that you build on your own experience of going through that so you kind of know, like, the symptoms and some of maybe the causes and how to help people work through that. And so I know from the work you do you are very values oriented, excuse me, which kind of anchors your work, and you emphasize values driven leadership, which is something about you that I really align to and appreciate, because I think a lot of people don't even understand what they value and how to be intentional and deliberate with that. So how do you help people with that when you think about the importance of values and helping people to understand it or use it, what does that look like? What does that process look like for you with clients?
Speaker 2:Values are our source of meaning. They should be the foundation of our goals. If they're not, our goals generally don't have the level of motivation that they need. You can't be resilient towards adversity or challenges if you don't have a source of energy or meaning to pull from. And so values also do something really neat to other people. As a leader, they build credibility, because if someone knows what to expect from you because you believe a certain way and you have certain goals. You can see this a lot with leaders that ask the same type of question. Whenever there's a project or a meeting that is a value showing up.
Speaker 2:I was known as the why guy. When I was working full-time in an organization, I'd always go. There's two things I always asked that no one asked it's what's the overall purpose of the thing that we're trying to invest our time in, how does that relate to our overall goals and how does this impact the people that work here? And so the two things that I always ask and those are the two things I cared about, and they related to my values overall and that built credibility with the people around me, because I know this is what Ben believes in, this is what Ben stands behind and this is what he's going to follow up and follow through on when projects come up or when he shows up, and I know that he's going to care about this.
Speaker 2:And so values-based leadership is building a certain level of credibility. It's a certain aspect of executive presence overall, and to find what those are like, you generally have to start exploring what were some major defining moments within your own career, and you can even throw in your personal life if you want, so that you have to explore, define and align your values. So you're exploring them through memories, through experiences, because our values are formed through generally nurture, generally, like the careers your parents might have had, the projects and work that you worked on when you were younger. For example, my mom had multiple diagnoses since she survived and fought cancer, and so that led me to explore the pharmaceutical industry and health overall, the foods we intaked, and that built a part of me that believes that those things are important and that informs my leadership, my belief in work-life balance, all of these types of things. And so if we start exploring these major moments in our life, we can look for themes, look for how they impacted us how they impacted our professional decisions.
Speaker 2:And from that we can start building a bunch of keywords and phrases that then we then have to then define to say oh so, if I think that health is my number one value, what does health mean in a job? Okay, so, what is so that could mean for my personal life? It could mean for the works, the projects I on the industry, that I'm a part of, all of these types of the relationships that I form. And then, once we have that definition, these definitions, we align them to our work. So great, what type of projects, what type of challenges do you want to face? What do you want to do less of? How do you want to define who you are as a leader? When someone asks to tell me about yourself, or what's your leadership brand, or what's your leadership style and I'm sure we're getting into your realm right now when we talk about executive presence and how someone portrays themselves as a leader within organizations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that Well, and I think it's important to have a process to help people uncover those. So when you say kind of exploring the past, the history, the things that have shaped each one of us, which, again, a lot of people don't spend the time thinking about, you know like taking the time to think back to that. And then how did they define? And then how do they align going forward? So it makes great sense and I think that's a fantastic strategy to help bring it all to the surface, and it sounds like you're helping them one helping leaders establish their brand. So what do you want to be known for? But also, how do you want to align your career to your values? And then how do you want to have more happiness and satisfaction in what you're doing?
Speaker 2:100%. And if someone's like Ben, I get it. Well, I don't get it. Like this memory thing and milestones and projects, well, really, simply, where to start your voids, create your values? And so look for the trauma, the negativity, the disappointments, the frustrations in your career, even where you're currently at. And what's the opposite of that? Because generally, when something feels like a loss, or you feel frustrated about it, or it just feels dark to you, like a shadow on your, on your job and your career, that the opposite of that can lend itself to what you actually feel is important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you bet. So when you said, you kind of switched and I I know I'm kind of going down a little bit of a path about you and a little bit about that and about you and a little bit about that and how you help leaders, so when you think of you aligning more to your values, what was the most pivotal moment in you moving towards that, or deciding to move towards that, for you as a leader and as a human being?
Speaker 2:I didn't realize that I was creating the environment that I was for myself at work.
Speaker 1:Ah, okay, how to set goals? How?
Speaker 2:to be resilient, how to be fearless. But then in my work I didn't realize that I was going to work in a negative mindset, that I was basically creating this environment for myself where I couldn't succeed where I was going in and not making the most of the current job that I was a part of and so I was actually I ended up getting selected for a leadership development program.
Speaker 2:This is what's so funny. So a year and a half long program when I was in this headspace and I was paired up with my own leadership coach, and that coach helped me realize that, oh so, losing my first career that I was interested in, having my, my major canceled, I'm getting a job that I thought that I was the kind of my next career pursuit, have it canceled due to funding, and then have that happen four other times within a three-year period.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh and then interviewing for the job I had but then being told no in the final round because they found out that I was bartending to make extra money.
Speaker 2:To then have that leader leave to go train to be the CEO and then for them to bring me back under the radar and hire me, like there were all these things. To then have a peer that thought that I was stealing their job and would be standing at my desk like throwing things down on the ground, like slamming doors, like desk, like throwing things down on the ground, like slamming doors, like having a lead, it was like it was a very toxic experience. When it came to my career and then having a father that was more of an entrepreneur and for me to grow up without this idea that I'd ever sit behind a desk and be sitting behind a desk, so I never really thought that like at that point I was, I was molded into this person that had to believe that your job isn't supposed to be right. At that point I was molded into this person that had the belief that your job isn't supposed to be right.
Speaker 2:Yes, so that leadership coach gave me the opportunity to reflect on why I wasn't happy and what were the true causes of it. And then, more importantly and this is why the book is written the way it is what do I want to do about it?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Have a growth-oriented, solution-oriented, proactive mindset that was intentional and aligned to your values. And so that allowed me to say, oh well, I'm unhappy with the leadership around me, I've been disappointed within my career and don't want anyone I don't want anyone that's such a high achiever such as myself to be in the situation again. What can I do for? For work, for work that relates to that. Oh, we have a talent development department that's actually created this program. Why don't I go do some work there?
Speaker 2:And so I went to my coach. I went to my leader at the time and learned about job crafting and started asking her if I could get involved in some positions and some projects. And she said yes, as long as I did my current job, and I started getting some experience in talent development. Now, this isn't the end of the story, because we got acquired for the third time and everyone I was working with lost their jobs and every product I was working on got paused. So then I had to figure out what's the next step, and that led me to go to get my doctorate, because I felt like I didn't. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, but I know what I the area that I wanted to do it in and I think of our career kind of like a pinball machine.
Speaker 2:It's like the. The. The pinball machine is kind of like the place that you want to play, but you've got to bounce around a bunch of times until you get into that bonus section, until you kind of agree you know, you know land, and I think we're so, we're so careful about like where, where we're focusing on, instead of realizing that we know where we want to focus, but it's a lot bigger initially until we figure out where we actually want to niche down. And so that's what I did, and then I figured out where I wanted to niche, just took another three, four years, yeah, which is fine.
Speaker 1:I mean. What I love about what you just said is you started with that reframing your mindset to be growth-oriented, more flexible around what it looked like what it was. But also I think you said something important about examining your beliefs about work, or about yourself, or about what a job was supposed to be. So I think that's pretty awesome as well that you're going through that whole mindset shift.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the idea of you know you have to do something specific instead of realizing that you can ladder there right. So it's a journey. It's a journey.
Speaker 2:It's not a place that you're trying to end, because your work is never supposed to end until you retire, so it's always going to be there to give you some sort of joy, and then realizing that it's not like nothing external of yourself is is really is anything to blame, Like there's always something you can do, and realizing that you can craft your job to be more related to your career goals.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that anytime that you don't show up as a as a moment, that you're not showing up for your life and for your future goals overall and yeah, it's so important to know the general direction you want to go Realize that you can, that how that connects to where you're currently at, because there's always an opportunity and then not, you know, being proud of how you show up each and every single day, instead of blaming the world around you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your philosophy is just very inspiring and very aligned. I love the work that you're doing. Also the messages that you're sharing with people around. I guess giving them more personal agency as well.
Speaker 2:An example of this. I was working with a client. They just graduated, they landed in a new position. They're very happy. I met them a year and a half into their job search as a leader and they were not getting any interviews. They got to a point where they gave up. They said I'm not going to get a job again.
Speaker 2:And we had to work through a lot of that negativity and that belief system. And it's honestly one of the first things when someone is not confident in their job search as a leader or not confident in their role as a leader to say is this it, is this the end? Are we done? Well, no, because I need to earn some money and I need to figure this out. And you see this a lot too with this growth of the fractional world or growth of the consultant, or growth because people have given up on the nine to five, on the traditional work world Not that they want to do that, and that's a really difficult. That decision to be made because of a belief in scarcity and a lack of is not going to serve them in building their business. And so we have to explore what beliefs we have, because do they serve us or not serve us within our job search or within our within our professional life absolutely.
Speaker 1:And again, I think you know when, when I was going to school many, many decades ago, it was all more um, you know, I was in education and it was all more behavioral oriented, you know, like shift your behavior, shape your behaviors, and it was less about what do you believe, about why you're doing what you're doing, then shift your behaviors. So a lot of that work, and even the work that you're doing around values and beliefs and mindset and the fear that drives so much of what we do, a lot of that research wasn't being done 30 years ago or whatever it was when I was going to school, and I love that we have more access to the information that says how important that is. But also then, for you to make that actionable, how do you help people uncover that and examine what are those beliefs that are limiting them from being happy or changing or whatever it might be, which is cool?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know we're not here to talk about the evolution of the desire for meaning and fulfillment at work, or the lack of patience when it comes to professional growth or wealth earnings and such. But I think that there are a lot of beliefs that we have in that category and if you have them that are motivating you and driving you, that can be holding you back from long-term success.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. But again, I think people don't know the questions to ask themselves to uncover that, and that's what the value of a good coach like you is like.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, so now you're going to start asking and answering those questions and I think that's just. It's helpful to have a path for people to go down, which is great, yeah, and if someone's listening and they're like Ben and and cindy, like I get it. But a coach is expensive. I can't afford it right now. I'm in between jobs or I'm in a. I'm paying paycheck to paycheck. Ask yourself the, ask yourself these questions out loud and talk to have a conversation with yourself. There's something about verbalizing, vocalizing, something to the world.
Speaker 2:That allows your brain to process it a little bit differently. The same thing as writing. Write it down, talk out loud and yeah, and not not that you're gonna be able to lead yourself to a path exactly that you might need to go down, but if you haven't done this before, it's going to be helpful. At 100, you will. You will learn something. You will at least get something out into the air. I don't know if you've ever been in city too and you're. When you're dealing with conflict and a day passed and you, you're like you you'll, you're going to have to know what, what Ben did and then you say it out loud and you're like, oh, that doesn't sound very bad.
Speaker 2:We get caught, and this is actually where this is where becoming fearless comes into is we get caught in this loop, and our brains are very good at keeping us stuck in a thought, in a belief that doesn't serve us because it's afraid for us. And so by speaking things out loud or writing them down without someone trying to solve your problem can actually help you break that loop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, and I do a lot of training on people thinking about difficult conversations or conflicts and thinking about a scenario and a story they're telling themselves. And it's ironic and interesting, Just what you said sometimes happens with people at the end of that class. They're like, oh yeah, I was kind of ticked off at Ben and now that I think back on what actually happened, you know like this is on me. You know I'm thinking of this in a way. That's not helpful. I'm making assumptions, I'm you know, and I think, as people reflect on it, and then they notice those things in their story that are not necessarily true, it's kind of like no, I'm not going to have it because I'm telling myself a false story to begin with, and even if are you telling yourself a story that serves you?
Speaker 2:That's it doesn't.
Speaker 1:I don't care if it's false. Oh yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:And we are here to help. I mean, we're here to give, create an impact on the world, to build community relationships, whatever, but ultimately how we perceive the world should benefit our goals and it's like individuals that are lack a certain sense of confidence as a leader, like what's going to actually help you perform and show up.
Speaker 2:well, it's believing that when you're, when you're in a difficult situation that you've, you're ready for, you can't train, you can't do anything, you can't learn anything new. You can't learn anything new. You have to rely on your skills, like an athlete that hesitates on the field is going to mess up. Well, the time for worry and the time for concern and practice is practice. It's when you're in it, when you're performing, it's time to, it's time just to trust yourself, and that's the only belief that's really going to serve you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, show up and believe, yeah, agreed, so agreed. So let's go to Becoming Fearless, because I loved it. I love the book, I loved how you wrote it and the different aspects of it, kind of personally, professionally, but also you know 65 strategies and I think that's. I love books like that that are like okay, what do I do about this? Because I totally agree with you that fear is such a driver for many of us. But then how do we look at that and bring it to common sense understanding? So I love the book, but talk about what prompted you to write it. And then, when you think about some strategies that people can embrace, you give a lot of thoughts. But I'm curious, you know what resonates the most with people that you work with or with you. So just talk a little bit about your journey the book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I work with leaders to develop their leader like the most important leader in their life, which is them and self-leadership. And when I was looking at like the core of what was really holding people back in their careers and their life, it almost came down to fear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if we could actually be fearless. I mean one. It's an interesting place to be because I was wondering about what I'm afraid of now, because when you're not afraid of anything, everything's possible. You're willing to take action, you're willing to learn things, you're willing to give feedback, you're willing to ask for feedback, you're willing to apply for the when you believe in yourself. And so I was like well, what can I give? What have I learned so far in working with you know leaders over the past decade or so, and what do I believe would be impactful for them right now? What would change, what would help the world and where it's at, and what could potentially be evergreen and last, even when I'm maybe sitting on a porch, in a rocking chair, you know, in the woods, or something you know and-.
Speaker 1:Sipping lemonade or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sipping lemonade, becoming fearless, and so it was about how do I create fear, fearlessness in the world, and so that that's where the book came from, and people ask me like Ben, why 65 strategies? And I was like well that's where we, that's where we ended up.
Speaker 2:I was like it wasn't. It wasn't like I'm going to pick a number and do it. It was like what is everything I believe that impacts us in our professional life and our personal life in regards to fear, and I just was, I started writing and I have the Fearless Fridays. In terms of content, I looked at that the videos that I've done and I threw out actually a decent amount of stuff, because some stuff is just tactical and not based on fear and something you can just go learn.
Speaker 2:Okay, some stuff, because some stuff is just tactical and not based on fear and something you can just go learn. And the things that really were the kind of foundation of the book and actually became a t-shirt that I made for some clients because we laughed about it was this idea of feeling your feelings. So what are you feeling and where is it? And what is it without judgment, thinking about your thoughts, so truly actually understanding what you're thinking about and kind of just disassociating yourself from the spiral.
Speaker 2:And then the final piece and this causes a lot of people just like the eyebrows to go up and question marks to show up in the world is just not to believe your beliefs, to question your beliefs, because our beliefs are how we perceive the world, especially with fear we have. Fear is holding ourselves back from taking action towards the things that are actually going to serve us, serve our values, serve our goals, bring us fulfillment, whatever it is that you want for yourself, and so a lot of the book is actually every action, is actually forcing yourself or asking yourself to take a step towards not believing your belief in that situation yeah and and to serve yourself within the goals that you have, and so like, with work.
Speaker 2:you know, there's a certain aspect, like there's some. We're talking a lot about beliefs and stuff, so one of them would just be to, you know, to realize that like it's never supposed to be enough, Like everything that you're working on is supposed to be this, this bag of fulfillment and meaning that you can pull from throughout the rest of your life. If you ever empty that bag, you're going to be in trouble. So you maybe want to find another bag. Don't do it. So you're never supposed to be done.
Speaker 2:You're supposed to find challenges, but more practical. It's like if you want to be promoted, act like you're promoted, don't wait for someone to give it to you. So, instead of being afraid of sharing your ideas or working on that project or building that relationship, or working on that project, or building that relationship, I can't tell you how many leaders are like. I can't reach out to my boss's boss to schedule a meeting. I can't reach out to my boss's coworker to schedule a meeting to learn about their department. I'm like well then, how are they ever going to have an understanding of who you are and what you want?
Speaker 1:to do and what you're capable of.
Speaker 2:So I'd say that's kind of a quick summary and some things that resonated most with readers and my clients.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, you're talking a lot about self-empowerment, about personal agency, and I think you're getting a lot to it. When I talk to leaders about confidence, a lot of people associate confidence with preparation and experience, and I tend to associate confidence with knowing yourself well enough that you can show up and do whatever you want to do, because confidence is about being you, and you don't have to prepare to be you, and I think that's what I enjoy about your messages, too, is you're helping people to say who are you, at your core, where do you want to go? And then, every single time you want to go a certain place, why aren't you, you know, why don't you take that step? Why don't you do that thing? Why what's getting in the way and I think sometimes people have these, you know, beliefs and irrational fears also what's really going to happen if I do that thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the, the main, I think, question I get is but Ben, isn't, isn't fear good, isn't? Aren't there some fears that are, that are rational?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And this cause, the cause, the title becoming fearless states that we're not supposed to, maybe not supposed to have fear and say, well, if we could actually get rid of the debt, like the word fear. Really, what we're doing is saying that it's just information. So is there a tiger in front of you? Yes, run, you know. Is there not a tiger in front of you? No, great, go, keep walking. And that's really what we're trying to do here. It's not that we're trying to like say the fear doesn't exist or fear doesn't serve you. It's saying that it's information to process, not something to completely try to something that's keeping you unsafe, not something to completely try to something that's keeping you unsafe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and are you familiar with David Rock's research on the scarf model, by any chance? He looked at how people think about threat triggers and that's kind of what you're saying like. So he researched in our brain how our brain reacts the same way to a tiger. Or we go into work and we're, you know, short-staffed and we need to get something done that the fear feels the same to our brain and our brain can't figure out the difference between those two things. Like okay, there's no tiger here at work, but our brain kicks in. So he talks about a model of model of threats to our status and our certainty and our autonomy and relatedness and fairness. Scarf and how those triggers, all those fears.
Speaker 1:That again, our perception, not necessarily reality, and that's what you're kind of getting at too, is allowing people to examine. How accurate is that?
Speaker 2:yeah, and walk yourself through the rational model of facts and to say, okay, this is what I'm afraid of, so what's probably heard this before, but we just don't do it. What's the worst that could happen? And walk yourself through, because to your point, visualizing something our brain also doesn't understand that it's not real, especially if we focus your point visualizing something our brain also doesn't understand that it's not real, especially if we focus very heavily on visualizing it so my fiance wakes up, sometimes angry at me because maybe I was mean in the dream.
Speaker 2:It wasn't me. I swear, but my brain thinks it was.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so what's the worst that can happen, work through that, and then what's the best that can happen. Work through that and then what's the best that can happen? Work through that and we work through all the different scenarios and situations instead of getting stuck in the cycle of fear and all of a sudden you generally especially if you can process it rationally or you share what the facts are you question your beliefs. Maybe you have a coach, maybe you talk out loud, maybe you write it down.
Speaker 1:You end up finding out the thing you're afraid of is really nothing to be afraid of, yeah for sure. So if you think about the ideal people that you you know we got listeners out here listening to your philosophy and the work that you do what would be the ideal folks that could benefit from the coaching that you're providing and the you know, the work that you do? Who would be who should reach out to you?
Speaker 2:I think every leader should find some sort of coach to have a conversation with. Generally, people will have an initial conversation with you, and you can just find the right personality or vibe that aligns with you. Cause I think you need that rapport. It's not required, but the rapport helps. People that I generally enjoy working with, though, are impact and values driven, so they're people that feel like some meaning is missing. They want more meaning from their work. Because not everybody does. It's okay, they haven't.
Speaker 2:Not at that point themselves, and so I have a background in health, public health healthcare I don't focus just in those industries, but like in working with someone in the CPG world or even the real estate retail world. That is like they feel like they're doing something magical or important to the world, but don't feel like what they're doing is right or enough. So either where they're at isn't working for them, they need to craft their job, they want to be a more effective leader, or they maybe lost their job or want to find a new job and are just not getting traction in the market. And nothing is more fulfilling than like working with a leader and then being like I.
Speaker 1:I'm here.
Speaker 2:I made it. I'm finally like this is where I feel like I need to be and I'm I'm happy and that's the type of work at world that I want to create. And you know, too like those are the people I work with one-on-one. But I also know that organizations need to change, and so there are, you know, there's some.
Speaker 1:I do a little bit of consulting and client work too. Yeah, so when you go into, if you worked more on or worked more with an organization, what would be kind of some of the scope of services that you would provide to organizations? What's what's missing from them that you could add value to?
Speaker 2:Well, how to become a fearless leader. So there's workshops and keynotes in terms of how to actually show up as a leader that is fearless and how to lead without authority. So, no matter what position you're in, how do you show up and be fearless within that position and for the organization?
Speaker 1:Okay, awesome. And when you think about yourself, as you know, we share this deliberateness. I think we both have the philosophy that that's important. And as you think about yourself as an intentional leader, what are some of the key things that you do that demonstrate that you're a good role model for this, that demonstrate that you're a good role model for this? What would be some things that jump out to you that you do very intentionally or deliberately?
Speaker 2:A leader's job is to craft an environment to each individual employee to help them be successful, whatever that means. So it's I know that this person has a certain set of strengths and certain areas of improvement.
Speaker 2:I'm going to learn what those are, and then I'm going to help craft the environment around them in terms of resources, the actual work that they're working on, the relationships that they're a part of to help them succeed. And each of the individual employees that you work with have maybe a different strategy. You can't directly impact them. You're not directly responsible for the work. You're responsible for the environment that they operate in. So, for myself, it's how I approach people that I work with and how I lead and how I show up, so telling people, being very explicit about the type of work that I want to be on playing a specific role on that work, saying no to certain types of work that drains me.
Speaker 2:That isn't where I'm helping my best. That isn't where I'm helping my best. I'm showing up as that values-oriented leader where I'm talking about the why, talking about the people that are impacted and making sure that I have the resources that I need to be successful. So, not hiding away, but speaking up. And if everyone just shared what's on their mind and gave feedback in a positive way, not a blameful way not saying that it's someone's fault, but just saying the facts of a situation, I think we're just going to create better organizations. And that's probably how I try to be a role model each and every single day.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. I do love it, and it's. I think it's so ironic, because how hard is it really to say what's in your head and to say what's in your heart? On some level, that should be foundational, that we should feel comfortable doing that and moving in the direction that will serve us well, that will allow us to serve others well. All those things are connected, but we don't often ask those questions and we don't often as you. Just. You know, your whole book is about examine why we're not doing the things that we really want to do but we're stay stuck.
Speaker 2:And I love it about the work that you're doing. Thank you. I love getting to work with people looking for a job and people in a job, because I get to say this I get to say like, look, if you're going to quit because you probably are, I can see where it's coming from why don't you do all the things that you want to have happen in your job now before you quit? You're gonna, you're gonna leave and they're leaving, so you're gonna not have a job. I see that happening. So why not keep your job but act in a way that actually aligns with who you want to be and how you want to show up? Like ending, same end results. But that's very different person each and every single day and it's such a hard concept for people to believe. I can't do that, I can't show up that way, but you're going to leave, you're going to quit, it doesn't matter. The thing you're afraid of is the end result anyways. So it's a lot of fun working through that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. It's a lot of fun too when people then make that decision to do that thing and you can see that result, you can see the effect on them and you can see, I think, when people have that experience and they're able to see the effect of it, like, oh my gosh, nothing horrible happened, it was fine, and I think that's a beautiful thing to be able to observe right and help them observe it consciously right. Like what happened? Did anything horrible happen? No, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right. So, as we kind of wrap this up for today and I want to thank you so much for taking the time to be here this morning and also for sharing your book, your philosophy and the work that you do with our audience Anything else that you would say to leaders based on what you've learned, that you think is important for people to know that I've missed today.
Speaker 2:I think just to emphasize again I don't think you missed it, you actually brought it up already that the core of confidence is self-esteem. It's not self-efficacy, it's not your skills, it's how you believe in yourself. And I joke with people all the time. I said if I could trade anything, it would just make myself ignorant for a little bit because of the questioning mentality, like, if you're confident, go on for you Like you can accomplish anything, and just look where you're not believing in yourself and your life. The most important leader in your life that you're ever going to meet is you. Are you talking to yourself the way that you want your leader to talk to you? Are you creating opportunities? Are you providing resources that you want your leader to provide? What is the thing that if you could create your own leader, you would have them do for you each?
Speaker 1:and every single day.
Speaker 2:We'll do that for yourself and you'll, and doors will open.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh. So that's our, that's our new year wish, like let's all do that. If we could all even just show up doing that for a day, it'd be amazing.
Speaker 2:I think so.
Speaker 1:Oh well, thank you. And thank you for sharing all of your part of your journey with us and the what prompted your book. And again, I'll put this all in the show notes. But Becoming Fearless, y'all get it on Amazon. It's amazing, it will not take you a long time to read. And again, I think what I loved about it is it's kind of the thing to me too. I love books that I can pick back up and just like look at it right now. Let's say, oh, invest in community. So I'm on page 56. Invest in community. Are you too busy to make time for friends? A lot of people I would know would say yes to that. You know that they don't take the time, that they don't have those friendships, they don't have the support system they need. And I love a book where you can just open it up and continue to think and process and reflect, and it's a great reality check. So I appreciate not just the content but how you wrote it. That is very actionable. So thank you for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's supposed to be you know.
Speaker 2:You find something and it resonates with you. So there's 65 strategies. One of them is going to resonate. You find the one that does and then you focus on that for a week. Just that's all you do. That's all you focus on. It's supposed to be an action orientation. It's supposed to ask you questions that pique your interest, share something that that resonates the struggle that you have in your life, and then give you an option on how to go tackle that. And once you pass that, you've checkmarked one area that you're a little bit of fearful of off your list and you can move forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. Well, thank you so much for being with me today, for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to be here. I really, really appreciate it and I will put links to your website, to your book, in all of our show notes.
Speaker 2:So I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much.