San Antonio, west of what part of Austin?
Windsor Park, kind of near Mueller.
So if you're ever around the area,
let's grab a tea or coffee or go get our vision checked.
Go get our vision checked.
Yeah, that would be a good idea for me, actually.
I think it would be, that would make it more likely
that we make time for it.
You got, what brought you to Austin?
Where are you from originally?
Originally from Chicago, Illinois.
And always wanted to move.
And then when the world kind of shut down,
everything that I thought I needed to do in person,
I didn't.
And so when it came to community building and business,
it was all able to do virtual.
And I would hold a virtual event
and get a thousand people attend.
And it was just like, okay,
I think there's a different thing I need to do
when it comes to building community and a business.
And it doesn't have to take place in Chicago.
And so then Austin for a variety of reasons,
but that's why we moved.
Nice, and who are three leaders
that you follow or respect
or who publish content that you appreciate?
Well, my dad doesn't publish content.
So I guess I can't use him as an example.
Sure, good call though, number one.
When I think about what influences me the most,
it's like the experiences I had and then my upbringing.
And I was very lucky to have a very supportive family.
But so from leaders specifically,
Marcus Buckingham is a big leader that I look up to.
Esther Perel in regards to candor and open and honesty
in regards to relate.
All right, welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
With Jackson Calame, I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there.
And I'm excited to have Dr. Benjamin Ritter on the show today.
Dr. Ritter is going to be talking to us about leadership.
And really the true leadership is self leadership,
learning how to lead ourselves.
And we're all on different spectrums in terms
of figuring that process out.
Most of us know how to get ourselves out of bed.
Most of us know how to show up to work and do things like that.
But we're going to dive in as deep as possible
into some of the more advanced aspects of that, which
may take us to the fundamentals.
We'll see.
Before we dive in and get Dr. Ritter on,
I'd like to do the show sponsors real quick.
Again, these are actually services and people
that I work with.
These aren't people who pay me to be in the sponsorship.
They're entities that I know that help visionaries
with growth.
So we use ColdClick, for instance,
for our LinkedIn automation.
It helps make sure that as we get in touch with new people
and expand our message and brand,
that we don't get shut down in the process.
There's all sorts of opportunities
to automate what you do and make sure that you not only get
in front of as many people as possible,
but you also want to make sure that as you use that,
you're using it in a way that authentically connects you
with people.
Automation does not have to be about driving things
down people's throats, as I see it so often.
And it doesn't have to be some, I
want to say some stupid message that says, hey,
it looks like we're mutually connected to several people.
We should talk.
That line has been so overused.
If you find your automation using that,
it's time to switch your strategy.
There is nothing authentic about automating
what you don't actually know about people
and who you're actually connected with.
So with that said, I also recommend TapMental.
David Goodall is a client of ours.
And he's also very good at helping
people unlock their psychology in order
to advance their systems.
I highly recommend checking out tapmental.io,
doing your own research on that, seeing what his case studies
look like.
If you're in the blue collar space,
construction, general contracting,
things of that nature, he is a breath of fresh air,
as well as extremely good at what he does.
So he's also done some really cool things with me already
over the last couple of weeks.
So that's why I was like, you know what?
I got to throw him in the sponsors as well.
The water project, you'll notice that as well
in the top right corner.
The water project is my favorite.
I don't want to call it a charity.
I'll call it a solution for people
who have needs in the world.
We're very lucky.
I don't have to think about where to get my water from.
Well, if I do want to think about it,
I just go right for this bottle.
And most of us have the opportunity
to access water that easily.
But there are communities that do not
have clean drinking water, and it affects their education.
It affects their ability to raise their families properly.
It causes death and illness, and it breaks my heart.
So if I can inspire even just one person on this episode
to go gift $1 to those individuals, what's really cool
is they will show you the outcome of your results
based on that community and that community's efforts
to build their sand dam or to build their borehole well
and then learn how to maintain it.
It's a very, very worthwhile cause.
If you have a cause that you'd rather see supported,
do not hesitate to drop the link in the comments.
I'd be happy to take a look at it.
We might even put it on the show as well,
and you just never know what will happen
and what types of good can come from that.
So without further ado, I'm going to bring Dr. Ritter on.
I'm going to call him Ben because he requested that.
He's that cool.
He's not a pretentious doctor that is not approachable
and that makes you just use the titles.
And I'm excited to talk about leadership with him.
So Dr. Benjamin Ritter, Ben,
thank you for being here today.
I appreciate it.
Jackson, so happy to be here.
Thanks, I really appreciate it.
When we, I go hiking a lot with my partner
and we always listen to my podcast intros a lot
cause I have some shows as well.
And so I was like, hi, I'm Dr. Benjamin Ritter.
And we always just make fun of it cause it's kind of funny.
Like it's your intro, I get it.
Like you want to introduce that credibility
and have those titles.
Has anybody asked you to show their ID to prove you're a doctor?
You're very young looking.
You've maintained your health well.
What's the secret?
I go doctor, but not a medical doctor.
And it's mostly just correcting people.
It's not a PhD, it's an EDD.
And it's, I don't practice at a hospital
even though I worked in healthcare for seven years.
So it's more of that.
People actually stopped asking me to show my credentials
once I got the doctor.
That's actually what was one of the reasons why
I went back to school to get it.
So when I come knocking on the door,
when it comes to business or opportunities,
people at least look through the peephole
or open up the door part way with the chain still on it.
It gives you kind of that little instant aspect
of credibility that you need
when working with executives and leaders.
Of course, absolutely.
How old are you though?
38.
38, my goodness.
Yeah, lucky man.
You got some good genes then in that case.
All right, my friend.
Well, let's dive in.
So who should be listening today?
Why should they listen to you specifically, Ben?
And what are they going to get out of today's show,
do you think?
Well, I think it kind of depends on the questions
that are asked.
So, you know, if we start talking about, you know,
Saturday morning cartoons,
I'll have something to talk about there when I was a kid,
but start talking about soccer and nutrition
as something to talk about there.
We want to talk about self leadership and leadership
and accomplishing your goals and creating clarity
and confidence control of your life
and greater fulfillment in your career
and ultimately your day-to-day and your relationships,
then we can talk about that too.
So what do you want to talk about, Jackson?
Well, we're going to go straight into your vision.
And so as we talk about your vision and the vision
for those that you serve,
I have a feeling we'll be gravitating
towards leadership itself.
But I guess the bigger question is,
in regards to leadership,
why should we be listening to you, Ben?
I think that's something that you have to ask yourself.
A lot of people ask, Ben, why are you credible?
Why should we listen to you?
I say, you're here, you're listening already.
Take five, 10 minutes.
If you don't connect, sign off.
But when I talk about leadership and self leadership,
there's one thing that I really focus on
that's a little bit different than others.
And that's the aspect of self leadership.
And no matter who's in front of you
and who supposedly the leader is,
you're ultimately making your own decisions
and your own choices.
And so you need to be accountable
and you need to give yourself permission
to make decisions that lead you towards the things
that you want to achieve in life.
And that sometimes means just stopping
and ask yourself, what do you want to achieve?
And I work with very high powered executive leaders
and those individuals very rarely pause
and ask themselves, what are they actually working towards?
So if you find yourself being reactive
and you want to become more proactive
and create something different than where you're at,
that's why you should listen.
I love that.
Well, and I love that you also started that
by reflecting back to the reality
that you respect the listeners as self leaders, right?
They need to take the time to figure that out.
That's not, there's some people who would use that
to kind of push people off,
but I see the value in what you just did.
So let's dive in first then with,
as far as your vision,
what's your vision for those who you serve?
What do you want them to be able to accomplish?
My whole mission when it comes to working with leaders
and career development is to help people feel
like they can actually achieve
whatever it is they want to achieve.
We are so held in shackles by our beliefs
about what work has to be like,
what our career has to be like,
who we can reach out to, who we can't reach out to,
what we can't achieve, what we can't achieve.
And it's just, all of it is a myth.
And so how do you want to work?
Really, truly ask yourself, how do you want to work?
What do you want to be working on?
And once we make those decisions
and create those commitments,
then it's about, okay, let's make that happen.
So my whole mission is to deconstruct the limiting beliefs
that people have when it comes to work,
to think that I'm not good enough.
Why don't take that away, who said that?
I don't care what you want to achieve.
There is a way to get there, honestly.
Now we are paid for doing a job.
And so there is work involved when it comes to work.
That whole saying, find what you love,
find what you're passionate about,
never work a day in your life, it's a whole,
it's not exactly true.
I'm telling you that because I love what I do.
And there are still days that I don't want to get up
and do the things that I do,
but I am living intentionally and committed
to the fact that I have a business
and that I'm on this specific path.
And I know there are certain levers I have to pull.
I don't have to work that long to pull them,
but I have to hold myself accountable.
Because if I know if I let those go and I don't do that,
then I'm going to have to deal with the consequences.
Yeah, well said.
And so ultimately, yeah.
Go ahead, you got an ultimately?
I'm excited for it.
Ultimately, the name of my company
is Live For Yourself Consulting.
And because the whole mission,
everything that I'm talking about is truly just creating
a life where you're living for yourself.
Where you understand what your core values are,
understand what you stand for,
and then being open to curating crafting paths
in a direction that honors that.
That means your relationships, that means your work,
that means how you treat yourself.
And it's ultimately a commitment to living a fulfilled life.
Away from fear, away from thinking that it's too risky,
away from a scarcity mindset,
and more towards abundance, possibilities, and optimism,
and the support for yourself so you can support others.
I like that.
You've unlocked a lot of truths that one would,
that would serve somebody well by looking up.
Like you said, and writing down, journaling.
What are those things that you wanna be doing more of
and spending more time on?
I also appreciate that you have the balance
of recognizing things that people may not want to do.
There are things that have to be done oftentimes,
and we can look at that with a have to,
we can look at that with a get to,
but at the end of the day,
no matter how much I enjoy putting on my socks,
or don't enjoy doing that,
it might be a relevant step for what I do for my job.
So there's all sorts of things that exist like that,
no matter what it is that you do in life.
Let's talk about your vision a little bit.
What's your vision for yourself
over the next five, 10, 15 years?
It's my vision, a little post-it note,
is I am spirit, find the adventure, and that's really it.
That means I'm spirit means that I'm fully connected
to the world around me and my values, it relates to health,
and find the adventure means that I always have to show up
and create the fun and be proud of my day to day.
And I do that through my work, by the way.
I do that through creating and crafting careers
that people can love for themselves
and helping leaders develop
so that they can do that for others.
But that is one way for me to find the adventure.
That is one way for me to feel connected to my spirit.
And right now in alignment with my value of health,
that's where I find fulfillment.
I love that, awesome.
So when you talk about finding fulfillment
and looking for that,
how do you, if somebody were looking for that answer,
how do I find fulfillment?
What would you suggest?
The question, the big question.
Honestly, a lot of it starts with mindset
of giving yourself a little bit of grace
and understanding that searching for a feeling
is almost pointless.
A feeling is usually, it can be the cause of a situation
that you're in, an environment that you're in.
It can be, the cause could be just neurochemical.
Just this is how I feel today.
Because you could see that
by when you take certain substances
that give you hits of dopamine and make you feel good,
the next day you might not feel that good
because your brain's a little bit depleted.
So when we talk about finding fulfillment,
understand what that really means.
And that means that you're living for yourself,
that you're living an aligned life,
which if we then break that down even further,
it means that you understand your core values,
what you stand for, what brings you joy,
what helps you feel meaningful.
And then when you understand that,
aligning your relationships and your goals
and your objectives and your day-to-day actions to that.
So a simple activity that anybody can do
is list out the five times in your life
you were the happiest,
five times in your life where you're the least happy.
You can also do that for specific relationships.
You can do that for your job and work.
And when you identify where you're the happiest,
identify where you were the least happiest,
you then look at how do these relate to each other?
What are the major themes
within these specific memories that I have?
And then when you figure out those themes,
you could start saying,
oh, now I understand what actually brings me joy.
Now I understand what actually makes me happy.
And if you pull back on those memories a little bit more
and get a little bit deeper and ask yourself
to get more specific about those memories,
then you find out the specific keywords and phrases
that might actually define who you are at your core.
And who you are at your core
tends to be a cultivation of your experiences
from when work and from family and friends
and how you grew up as well as what you strive for.
And that you can have idealistic values,
what you really want to become.
And when you get those words,
sorry, then you can build from that
so that you're getting kind of,
it's kind of like you're doing a research study on yourself.
Dude, I was expecting a mic drop,
but then I realized your mic is connected so you can't.
You can't pull that off physically, but that was awesome.
So let's break that down a little bit.
So you're talking about the five times you're happiest,
five times you're least happy, that's intentional journaling.
I'm a big fan of journaling.
And I'm gonna be doing this exercise myself
now that you mentioned it,
because that's one I haven't done before.
I also love that you led with the word grace,
and grace towards oneself.
I don't know, I think a lot of people
really struggle with that concept.
Struggle with the ability to forgive themselves,
struggle with the ability to realize
the power of truly letting go of past weaknesses.
Grace for others as well can be very difficult.
Is that a subject you want to dive into,
or do you want to move forward
to your worst business experience ever, your choice?
I think it's important around grace just for a moment,
because one of the greatest issues people come to me with
is I don't know what I wanna do
and I feel like I'm missing out,
or I don't know what to choose
because I feel like I'm gonna be missing out.
And when it comes to clarity, truly understanding
what it is that you need to work towards,
want to work towards,
a lot of the answers come from not knowing,
come from actually taking action
when you're not 100% sure.
It's going towards those sparks
that you have identified in your life
that might be core values,
and then leaning into them and getting curious
and going to explore them.
And too often people are so afraid
of making the wrong choice that they actually miss out
on actually finding real information.
And so that grace of I'm gonna do something
and I'm gonna be okay after I do it,
that is so crucial to you actually figuring out
what you wanna do in life, in your career.
Absolutely.
Well said, let's dive right into the darkness at this point.
So what is your worst business experience ever?
Worst business experience.
So I've worked nine to five before,
I've worked in a corporate office,
but I'm gonna focus more on the entrepreneurial endeavors.
And I think there's two, I'll share one
if you wanna go to the second one, we can.
It was not actually following through
on a business idea that I had.
It was the first business idea I ever had.
I did all the research, I met all the vendors,
I created the product, I created the labels,
I did all the work and then I got too afraid of doing it.
It wouldn't have cost that much money,
I could have literally put it out and forgotten about it,
but at least I would have followed through.
And instead I did something that I can't regret
because it led me to where I am today,
but I went to grad school.
It's like one of the things that I never,
all these young entrepreneurs that I mentor
through organizations like future founders and such,
they asked me, should I go back to school to get an MBA?
Should I do this?
Should I do that?
I say, well, take action first.
Minimum viable product, put it out there, see what happens.
Before you make a two, three year X number of dollar
commitment to something.
So what's the least you can do to see
if something actually is gonna work?
And I didn't follow that advice when I was younger.
I love that and I appreciate that you accept the grace
for yourself now and you make great moves with your life.
And it kind of reminds me of like the father
who's out of the picture for 30 years,
then later reconciles with their son or daughter
and they get to have the relationship that they have now
and they should live with that element of grace.
But it's also helpful to acknowledge and realize
that they missed out on those 30 plus years.
That's not something they should live
with a lack of self-respect for, but the rest of us,
we have the opportunity to kind of see that
and learn from that and say, you know what?
I can seize the time now while my daughter's 12
and all my youngest is two and therefore utilize
that opportunity to grow from it.
So I appreciate you sharing that
because there are probably younger people
and there's probably people right now who are listening
that are in the want yourpreneur phase.
They want to be an entrepreneur and are worried like,
I don't know if I can do this.
I don't know if I should do this.
What further advice would you have for somebody
that's in that state of mind?
So our careers are a culmination of all of our jobs.
And if you have varied experiences in your jobs,
you're more likely to have a varied career.
Like for example, I'm now an equity mentor
for CPG, like better for you CPG companies.
I care about health, I care about nutrition.
And so I've found ways to help young founders
as well as to earn equity in businesses
that I'm really passionate about.
I want to see them to excel in the world.
If I did not do this second thing,
which is when I had a supplement idea
and the same thing happened, I did the research,
I got it together.
It wasn't even aligned with my current career path
that I was going on, but I said, I'm gonna launch it.
If I didn't launch that business,
I would not have had as much credibility
to go be this equity mentor within the CPG space.
So I don't have food experience.
Yeah, I got a minor in nutrition and I'm passionate about it.
And I'm this leader coach, et cetera.
I'm working with founders in these areas,
but I didn't have direct manufacturing.
You know, CPG, like I didn't have a resume bullet.
Yeah, and if I started that first company, I would have.
But so think about what is it that you can start today,
even if it isn't successful,
is going to help you later on in life.
So by definition, it actually ends up being successful.
Is the experience that you're thinking about,
but worried about going to be valuable
in any way, shape or form?
If so, and the cost is not going to be extravagant,
you're not gonna have these huge consequences afterwards,
then what do you have to lose?
Now, honestly, a week, two weeks, three weeks, a month,
maybe six months, that can end up cultivating
an entirely incredible career path later on in life.
As young entrepreneurs and founders,
we think that our time is so valuable,
but we end up not actually investing any of our time
because we're worried about where we spend it.
And so when we're older, all of that,
all those experiences add up and accumulate
in a way that you can never ever imagine,
and are going to be invaluable for entrepreneurs
and business owners and executives later on in life.
True, very, very true.
Let's dive into that second worst business experience.
I think we'll have time.
So it was pressing enough to mention or allude to,
so I'm excited to hear it.
Should I be excited to hear it or should I be scared
and ready to cry?
I hope you're excited to hear everything.
Okay, good.
Why not?
So I got into what I do because I realized
that I was being reactive in my career
and that I was operating through a frame of reference
that you can't actually achieve what you wanna achieve
in your professional life.
I had a lot of career disappointments when I was younger.
Everything I wanted to actually-
Ron, what was this?
What timeframe?
How old were you?
This was, when this happened,
we're talking about like 2015.
Okay.
So almost 10 years ago.
So I was like 29 maybe, I think, or around there.
I can't do math at the moment.
I hear you.
But I was- Good enough.
We're working in healthcare for about three, four years.
I was out of grad school, MBA, MPH,
and had like about maybe like five and a half year window
after grad school at that point.
And I had a business that I founded.
It was in dating and relationships, a coaching business,
but I founded it because I fell into the industry.
We got recruited to go work part-time
as a coach for a major international company.
And then decided that I wanted to add some value
to the space, wrote a book, like built a business.
Actually, how I learned to build a service-based business
was through this oops experience
where I kind of stumbled into it
and someone saw me and gave me the opportunity.
But that led, that oops experience
where I said I wanted to give to this space
and make sure that I create an impact in this space
led to a five and a half year business
that I didn't actually really care about.
And so the biggest disappointment there is
when I decided to shut down my podcast
of five and a half years,
when I decided to try to get all the articles
from like Ask Man and different places to get pulled down,
when I really had to just say goodbye
to something that I invested a lot of time in
because it was not where I wanted to go in my life.
It took me a year and a half to rebrand
into people around me, in my community, online.
And that was a, I'd say not a regret at all,
but a poor experience of realizing
that I should have stopped halfway.
I should have stopped a third of the way and said,
do you really care about this?
Because there is something to be said about,
go past the six month mark, go past the eight month mark
to say, is this working?
Is this something I care about?
Have I gotten past the discomfort
of doing something new, et cetera?
But I knew early on that this wasn't for me.
It wasn't where I wanted to take my career.
Even if I became incredibly famous in that industry,
I would not have wanted to stay in it.
And if that's the case, then you've gotta stop.
You have to just cut ties and start investing
in something that's more aligned with who you are.
I love that.
I'm glad that you figured that out
within a five year period and not a 50 year period.
And it's hard to do.
I took a job during COVID.
While everybody came back home
and wasn't allowed to go to an office,
I was recruited by one of my clients to come in
and be the president of their company.
And so I actually went to an office for the first time
since I was 22 years old.
And a year later, as things ended in not so great fashion,
but I was excited to come back to the reality of like,
okay, I'm gonna go back online,
start working with coaches and influencers
and people who are doing major things.
Again, that's where I'm happiest.
It wasn't until then where I realized how miserable
I was during that year.
I was making the most of it.
I was like figuring out like, okay, I can figure this out.
This is going to be, I'm gonna run a call center.
Great, awesome, never done that before.
I'm gonna learn everything that I can.
And mom's gonna be happy
because she's always wanted me to be an employee.
So this is a great opportunity to balance life,
grow up a little bit.
But I'm really, again, same thing.
I lost a year, but at the same time I gained a lot
and I was able to escape that.
And it would have been nice if at the six months point,
I had the self-awareness tools to realize like faster,
hey, this really isn't the path I should be on.
Would have saved me some headaches.
So glad you mentioned that as a reality.
You have any other thoughts on that for people who are stuck?
Like, all right, I don't know.
Maybe they don't think they're stuck.
Maybe they're in somebody 20, 25 years.
What would you do to assess whether you're stuck or not
at that point?
If you do your work on your values,
you can take those keywords
and turn them into an assessment.
Like for example, health is my number one value.
And then you can define that for your work.
And then you can score your job based on that value.
And you do that for your top five to 10 values
and you get a total score.
And if you're under 80 out of a hundred,
you got some questions.
You gotta start doing some analysis there.
That's really cool.
I've never done that before.
And so again, you've all given me a third tool
for intentional journaling to mess with.
And that, you know, define your top values,
rate yourself on a score of one to a hundred,
where you at versus where you wanna be.
Or maybe you make a hundred perfection.
I don't know, it's your call, I guess.
It's your evaluation.
And then guide yourself in healthy fashion
to realize what can you do to then take steps
to get more line of those values.
That's awesome.
Thank you for that.
Let's dive into your business,
your best experience in business.
What does that look like?
It's today.
It's literally today.
It's talking to you.
Because of the podcast.
Yes.
No, go ahead, Ben.
No, it's just being able to say
that I'm doing what I feel is meaningful
and impactful to the world.
Getting consistent feedback from clients
around that specifically.
Tangible as well as qualitative type of feedback.
So just verbal as well as they're actually succeeding
in life in a variety of ways.
And honestly, the other piece I was gonna say about
how do you know when something's off is
what's draining you?
Where do you feel exhausted and fatigue?
Where do you feel like something's off?
What are the holes in your buckets?
I don't have any holes in my career bucket.
And the best experience in business is realizing
that you're doing the thing that you wanna do.
And when you are feeling bored,
because sometimes actually when you get to the place
of everything's great,
I strive for novelty and adventure.
As I mentioned in the beginning,
you can feel like things are wrong because things are great.
And so then you have to understand that
that's not because something is wrong.
It's because you need, in this instance,
a little bit of adventure and novelty and pride.
And so then I go off and I go,
how am I gonna get adventure today?
I like to actually ask,
how can I go above and beyond for one client today?
What does that look like?
It might mean going online,
buying them a book about something that they're working on
and shipping it to them and surprising them.
It might mean writing a short postcard
or letters to somebody.
It might be learning a new assessment.
It might be going on a new show like this.
Woo.
It might be going and meeting someone in person
after two and a half years of meeting people virtually.
And those are the types of things that are why right now
is the best experience I have in business.
I love that for a number of reasons.
When we think of service,
sometimes we have a tendency to think of external service
that doesn't have to do with our occupation.
And some people would even discredit and say,
if the service is related to your business,
that doesn't count.
And honestly, their voice doesn't count.
It's your internal voice that can guide this.
I would deem that an act of service
because as you go above and beyond for that client,
you're literally saying,
like, I'm not getting paid to do this.
I'm not doing this for a monetary return.
I'm doing this because I want them to feel something.
And I want to serve them at a greater capacity
than my scope of work entails.
And that's gonna drive what I call clean energy
into your spirit, into your heart,
make you feel more aligned with the purpose, the values
that you practice in your career, in your field of choice,
your expertise.
I absolutely, well, I wrote that down too, man.
You're gonna like change my life
in one podcast episode.
This is cool.
I'm enjoying it.
I'll take a very minuscule sliver of that credit,
but if it resonates with you,
then you're changing your own life.
I am writing my next book right now.
And I tend to think very much in,
I have like an epiphany mindset,
meaning I kind of write in one or three liners
and I get to the point, I get clear.
I want it to maybe sometimes rhyme, maybe not,
but there's something to be said
about fortune cookie wisdom,
like the one to three lines of advice
that when you're ready for, it's going to mean something.
Right.
And then it's important about taking those phrases
and saying, okay, then this becomes a journaling prompt.
And now I'm gonna figure out how to integrate this
into my life.
Or even if I can't do this yet,
what learning opportunities come from this phrase?
So if it's something around confidence,
what am I doing right now to either learn skills
or to reframe my beliefs about myself?
I think that's really important.
So this was a workbook I created
when I actually created the Live System,
LIVE, Life Intentions, Values and Expectations.
It's kind of a six month self coaching program
if you wanna do that for yourself
around life and career alignment.
The next book that I'm writing is actually
taking my podcast, Feel This Fridays,
and turning it into a book about how to actually become
fearless in your life and at work.
Nice, awesome, so everybody have the opportunity
to get the workbook, we'll drop the comments as well.
Rather, drop the comments.
We'll drop the workbook in the comments
so that you can access it there.
I'm gonna go back to that,
what is draining you concept a little bit.
And the one you mentioned right before talking about
how can I go above and beyond for the client I'm serving.
I definitely had that experience happen
about three months ago.
We had overextended as a brand a little bit.
And as we had overextended,
we had lots of great people working with us
and we didn't drive the revenue growth
that we wanted to drive in order to get to that next level.
And so then it became kind of a burden.
And I found myself working with people that I loved,
but it wasn't until losing a couple of those individuals,
having them move on, and really, frankly,
we needed to have them move on for the sake of finances.
Where I realized like, whoa,
I'm no longer doing things that are making me feel good.
I was kind of carrying the weight of the ship forward,
mostly because we needed some of our procedures
hammered out and worked on.
But it was going through that painful loss
where I began to realize like that whole process
had been draining my energy,
even though I was still doing the thing that I loved,
I was bogged down by some of the day-to-day minutia
of how I was going about doing it.
And so it's helpful to have that,
like you said, that fortune cookie reality
of like, if we keep these things in our brain of these,
let's call them remedies or tokens, what's draining me.
If you can remember that question,
then you can pull on that question anytime you need it.
And life where you're starting to feel the symptom of like,
oh man, my energy's bogging down.
So again, I appreciate that reality.
Hope you guys that are listening,
again, write that down, an opportunity.
You ship a lot of powerful, go ahead.
I wanna respond to that for one second.
I work with clients and there's something to laugh
at the power of Post-its and you can totally just ignore
something that's on your screen,
but we are very, very simple creatures,
even with very complex systems in our brain,
in our mind.
Yeah.
We forget things.
Yes, we do.
So if you wanna change something in your life,
you just have to remember it.
And even the things that are most important to you,
it's so easy to forget.
Yeah, and so literally on the bottom of this Post-it,
it says, emotions are questions.
Be patient, you are spirit,
create and find the adventure.
Emotions are questions.
Why?
Because we feel things and sometimes we can get wrapped up
in those emotions.
We need to realize that they're not facts.
They're indicators of something
that potentially might be going on.
I think you're right about this.
I'm gonna double down on your Post-it notes strategy
a little bit.
I created this for my kiddos, as well as myself.
And what it is, is it's got spiritual,
mental and physical goals.
And we write them on our Post-it notes
so that we can take them off
and then put them in a treasure box afterwards.
And the goal, the intent for this,
I didn't get by it from my other half, by the way, on that.
But the goal was I wanted to be able to give
these treasure boxes to my kids when they graduate,
to take with them and have this little list
of little diary entries of things
that they've accomplished along the way.
And so I try to, when they come,
get back on track with that.
But whether you've learned to be
perfectly consistent or not with these types of practices,
just begin where you are right now.
That would be my invitation for anybody out there listening.
It doesn't matter if you failed it at 300 times in a row,
the next time might be the time
that you actually fully grasp it and take advantage of it.
So with that little lesson,
what's another powerful lesson
that you'd like to share with visionaries
they can learn from your experience, Ben?
Some people may or may not believe in this one.
And it goes back to when I mentioned passion and purpose
and you still are gonna have to work.
When I was younger, I mistakenly invested all of my being,
literally the things I watched on TV, the books I read,
the lack of developing relationships,
the time I invested in a purpose.
And it was to be a professional athlete.
And because it was so imbalanced and no one ever told me,
Ben, I think you got the definition of that wrong,
I ended up really digging myself into a deep hole
of not truly understanding who I was
and creating all my validation and self-confidence
from something that was not giving it to me.
And as business owners, we get there.
What sport?
I gotta ask.
I played soccer.
Okay.
What position?
Forward, outside mid.
Okay.
I know not a lot of Americans are gonna care too much
about your position in soccer, but I'm a fan.
It was a lot of fun.
It taught me a lot of things.
I kind of wonder if I was disciplined
or if the sport made me disciplined.
And so it's interesting the chicken or the egg thing.
But overall, I learned a very important lesson
from that experience.
It actually led me down the path to personal development.
But when it comes to defining your purpose
and as a business owner,
a lot of our times our businesses can become our identity.
A lot of times when people get wrapped up
in their careers, high achievers,
their careers can become their identity, their job can.
And it doesn't take much for something to disappear.
Doesn't take much for something not to work out
and for you to say, I'm a failure.
I'm a waste.
Who am I?
All these negative beliefs that are not true.
It's really important to remember that your passion
and purpose is something that you created.
So I had this idea that soccer was gonna be important to me.
Or I had this idea that this business
was gonna be important to me.
And I invested all this time and energy
and self into it to make sure that it was important to me.
Well, guess who created that purpose
and who's greater than that purpose
and who will always no matter what be,
I don't like using the word,
but be the God of your purpose.
It's you.
And no matter what you create,
you're the one that invests that time.
You're always going to be bigger and grander,
more magnificent and wonderful and powerful
than whatever it is that you can create.
And please keep that in mind.
When something's not working out,
it doesn't reflect on you.
That's not who you are.
It's a component of something that you've created
and you can choose to create something different.
I believe that was a well-used, very sacred version
of using the word God in that reality personally.
And I'm a big fan of using that word carefully as well.
And not that anybody has to be religious in this regard,
but Jesus did say, ye are gods.
So did Isaiah in the Old Testament.
And when you understand the definitions of those words,
it becomes important and powerful to realize
what you're capable of accomplishing in this life.
And more importantly, like you're talking about,
I would say is your true identity, right?
Knowing your intrinsic value,
that you are valuable for existing.
I'm a big fan of the book,
You Can't Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar
by David Sandler.
And it has chapter one.
Like that's one of my favorite secular chapters ever.
And it talks about your identity versus your role
and understanding that you, like you said,
you are valuable,
irregardless of how well you performed in your role today,
yesterday, this year or not,
your identity goes beyond that.
So thanks for the reminder on that.
If people wanna reach out to you and get in touch with you,
what's the best way for them to do that?
Yeah, find me on LinkedIn, Dr. Benjamin Ritter,
and send me a message that you heard me here.
I'd love to keep the conversation going.
If you wanna learn more about coaching services,
go to liveforyourselfconsulting.com.
You'll also be able to download your free guide,
your five secrets to creating a fulfilling career.
And please reach out.
There's way too many clients that we have to
change the belief of who can I reach out to,
when can I reach out to someone.
And just literally,
there's someone that you're interested in talking to,
send them an email, send them a message,
resource that that can happen.
I've probably experienced it.
It's more likely like, huh, who are you?
And that happens probably one out of a thousand times.
And even that is like, oh, I'm Ben Ritter.
We should have a conversation.
Half the time they go, okay.
Yes, especially when you're talking about great leaders.
I mean, I think that's a really great way to understand
who's a great leader and who's not too,
is if they are rude to you,
and they do not want you to reach out to them,
they're probably not as good of a leader
as you think they are.
Whereas those who are true leaders in the world,
they tend to want to mentor.
You know, they're happy to find people
who are willing to be that bold.
So doubling down for another power lesson
on what Ben just said, you know, your list,
you may have been taught in life
to create a list of 100 dream clients, right?
The 100 people you would absolutely love
to get to know and meet.
And most people stick that list away in a drawer.
And then, you know, someday they'll come across it again,
or maybe a digital archive if you're a bit younger.
I mean, you might have that online somewhere,
but actually taking the time daily to reach out
to two to three of those, maybe five to 10 of those,
it's a fantastic practice to make sure
that you're preparing yourself to play ball with people
that you admire and respect.
So well said, Ben.
If you want to also leave a comment
to question that you have, feel free to do so.
We'll forward those to Ben, make sure that he sees them.
Vision Pros, we're happy to have you listening to the show.
If any of you want to share your message,
don't hesitate to apply to be on our show,
to be a guest here.
You don't have to be Dr. Ritter to be on the show.
You don't have to be Bill Gates.
Yes, I put them both in the same column just now.
You don't have to be Michael Jordan.
You know, you can have a local impact vision.
You can have a worldwide impact vision.
So long as you really care about those that you're serving,
that's ultimately what our qualification is
for having you on the show.
And Ben, thank you for the way that you care for people
and for helping me advance as a host and a leader myself.
I really appreciate it.
I appreciate you helping other people's vision
become more clear to everyone that has their sights on you.
So thank you.
Absolutely.
We'll catch up a little bit after this show.
Everybody else, you'll have a fantastic day.
Bye bye.