Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:00:04.080 - 00:00:34.370
Are we giving our power away at our jobs or are we taking accountability and responsibility and feeling empowered to be fearless towards what we want? Something as simple as quitting a job? Something as simple as going to your boss and asking to work on a project.

I see you say quitting your job is simple. It's not simple. It's a big decision and choice. But so many people teeter back and forth between, should I leave my job, should I stay at my job?

When you're just preventing growth because you haven't made a decision.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:00:36.130 - 00:01:36.510
Hi there and welcome to the step Expert Voices for Leadership Growth. I'm your host, Kent Knievel. Every week I talk to experts who focus on helping leaders step up their leadership game.

If you're new to the show, then on whatever platform you're using, I encourage you to subscribe so you never miss an episode. One last thing.

As a leadership development consultant and executive coach, I have a particular interest in support supporting recent internally promoted leaders.

If that's you, or if you support a leader who has been recently promoted, I encourage you to visit my website at Kent Coach Playbook and download a free copy of my 90 day blueprint filled with practical advice for you or the leader you support in hitting the ground running and truly stepping up to their new leadership level. Without further ado, on with the show. Welcome, everybody. Today we are talking about being fearless about your career.

And with me for this conversation today is Dr. Benjamin Ritter. He's a certified leadership and career coach and author of the Amazon bestseller Becoming Fearless. Ben, thanks for coming on the podcast today.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:01:37.150 - 00:01:40.510
Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:01:40.510 - 00:01:42.750
How was that take two intro that?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:01:43.710 - 00:01:59.390
Wonderful. I mean, I like take one too. I any take that comes out as we just make the most of it. Right. As you probably know, in the work that you're.

That you do, it's like there are no wrong answers. There is. There's only the path that we're on and we're essentially going to take us where we want to go. Nice.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:01:59.390 - 00:02:09.470
Well, speaking about paths, I'd love to hear a bit more about your career. So what, you know, give us a bit of your. Your career arc and, and how did you eventually get to what you're doing today?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:02:10.350 - 00:06:18.330
Yeah, and so as you mentioned, I play in the field of executive career and leader coaching as well as talent development consulting. And I'm doing what I do because I had some pretty poor, toxic leadership and a very difficult career path.

And so I'm one of the lucky ones that gets to hopefully like change the world so people don't have to deal with what I dealt with when I was earlier on in my career.

Some of those disappointments were I wanted to be a professional soccer player and that failed like most people that want to become professional athletes. Sadly though, I was heavily and overly and wrongfully obsessed with the sport.

And so when I lost soccer, I had no idea who I was and what direction I wanted to go, which can, you know, you dug a pretty deep hole. But that led me to be really interested in the field of confidence and personal development, which led to professional development.

So it was actually the spark to the path that I'm on today. The next industry that I thought I'd go into, nutrition, they canceled my major pretty much when I was done with it.

So I did not get that degree or go into that field. And then I found I was passionate about health policy.

You see this trend of health and personal development, which again, it's like interesting how all these things come together. I had a job working for the state and they lost funding and so canceled the job. And that happened four times over a two and a half year period.

So that was a little disappointing and crushing. Eventually networked my way into healthcare where I was surrounded by change and toxic leadership.

So three acquisitions, four different bosses, two different CEOs, a lot of, a lot of the bureaucratic, traditional kind of mentality around leadership itself. And so I was pretty defeated. And I didn't really think that work was supposed to work. It was a heavily actively disengaged employee.

I don't know if you ever look at those statistics or those surveys where it's like you want to get rid of actively disengaged employees. They are worse to have in the organization than someone that is just unhappy.

Well, I was probably that employee costing the organization more than I was bringing, but I still did great work. And because of that, I was promoted into the senior leadership team. I was basically the CEO's right hand and did a lot of ad hoc positions for them.

But that, that like despite being disengaged, but like doing good work and being a high performer just underutilized. They selected me for 16 months of leadership training and it was the first time I learned that that industry even existed.

And it was the first time that I was placed with a leader that actually created a really safe opportunity for me to explore and reflect on what happened to my career and where I wanted to go.

And through that reflection, I saw these like, milestone moments of health, of wellness, of personal, professional development, of passion, of purpose. The type of leadership that I wanted to have, organization that I wanted to work in.

And I had a pretty much a, like a come into, you know, relevation moment with the combination of leadership, my active disengagement and then like walking to work one day. I remember very specifically just doing the same walk. Went into the office, looking around and everyone just looked so unhappy.

I was like, oh, I'm doing this every day of my life right now. Like, and I don't see a way that this is going to change. And so how do I change it for myself? And I really felt, I took ownership.

I felt empowered and accountable to craft my career. And with that career audit and with the help of the leadership coach, started paving the path towards talent development. Leadership development.

Went back and got my doctorate in organizational leadership, went to my boss, started crafting projects. So kind of managed up job crafted which is a fun field of research. And out of the doctoral program started working in learning.

So regional learning director, head of talent development, senior talent management consultant. And really just built a brand in this space.

And lo and behold, you know, have, have had some pretty big wins that I think are changing the world and helping people become fearless in their careers.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:06:19.450 - 00:06:26.330
Nice. Where did the sort of concept of becoming fearless start for you?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:06:28.410 - 00:08:04.790
So the evolution of taglines, take back control of your life, take back control of your career was initially and get unstuck from your career. That evolved into living for yourself. So how do you live for yourself in your career and in your life?

Which then through working with my clients and realizing that really what was at play was their ability to have clarity on who they are and where they want to go, confidence in their skills as well as themselves, self efficacy and self esteem and the ability to take back control, to have to take control over what they can control.

So to push away outside influences, pressures to put themselves in an environment that supports them from an organization, a relationship perspective really highlighted the three Cs of self leadership. And when I realized then kind of breaking it down even further to say, oh, all those relate to being fearless in your career.

That started a weekly segment that I would just promote.

I would just post content about being fearless, which then got so much feedback from my audience that then I said, well, I need to turn this into something that more people can access, that can be evergreen, that can become the book.

Because being fearless honestly is, is probably the number one, the number one contributor to someone creating a life and a career that truly matters to them.

Because even if you don't know the direction you're going, if you're fearless to go a direction, eventually you're going to end up in a place that is fulfilling and meaningful and brings you joy and brings value to yourself and to the world.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:08:05.350 - 00:08:15.670
Nice. Well, so you mentioned and my ears perked up, so now I want to. I want to hear a bit more. So you said the three Cs. Was it self leadership?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:08:16.230 - 00:10:23.830
Yep. Three Cs. The most important leader in your life is the one that lives inside you.

And are you leading yourself in a way that you wish your leader would lead you? So the three Cs of self, leadership, clarity, confidence and control.

Clarity, knowing yourself and knowing the direction you want to go, that creates a sense like that in itself inspires confidence. Just to have some idea of clarity and accepting that you don't have clarity can also create confidence.

And then the belief in yourself says self confidence is. Honestly, I don't. You can kind of get rid of a lot of the stuff you're going to be stuck if you just have confidence in yourself and no direction.

But that belief in yourself is so critical to just tasting life and trying things out to then lead you towards where you need to be for your career, for yourself. But then we still need skills.

And it's like, you can be confident, but if you don't have the skills, you're not going to make much progress and learning skills. And I don't know if you notice this too with with clients, someone comes to you and they're like, I want to work on executive presence.

You're like, great, what have you done so far? And they're like, I'm talking to you. Go, okay. But we live in a day and age where I can listen to a podcast such as this.

I can go buy a book, I can go watch it go on YouTube. And now you can go to LinkedIn learning. There's so many different sources.

I can go talk to a mentor that people tend not to try to create the skills which then also can create self belief and confidence to prove that we can learn.

And then control, which is oftentimes we're giving away our control to the people around us based on limiting beliefs like, oh, I can't speak up in this meeting or this person dismissed me, so I'm not going to share my ideas. And so where are we giving away our control that we need to take back and are we in an environment that helps us do that?

So oftentimes maybe we have friends that are not on the same level that we want to be or we are Putting ourselves in situations that are draining or negative. We're intaking news that brings us down or we're spending too much time on socials.

So then control like are we actually feeding the goals that we have? Are we feeding the brand that we want to create for ourselves? Are we feeding our confidence and our skills?

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:10:24.390 - 00:10:34.720
Yeah, I love that. I think what I'm connecting to here is kind of getting, getting to the what you want and why you want it.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:10:34.720 - 00:10:35.000
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:10:35.000 - 00:11:03.370
What is the goal here and you know, what, what does it mean to you? Right.

So I find myself getting into this more and more with coaching clients too, which is so I think like just to go with your example of like, I want to work on executive presence. What for? You know, what, what, what's the reason you want to work on that? Like what does that mean to you?

What would better executive presence look like and what would that unlock for you?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:11:03.370 - 00:11:03.530
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:11:03.530 - 00:11:30.530
And I feel like I'm just using that as one example of just like peeling back a bit more to get underneath. What is the motivation? Are you actually motivated to work on this? More often than not, my word of the day is intentionality, right. Being intentional.

But I think a lot of us just are in, you know, can. And it happens to me. I'm sure it happens to you. Right. You fall into a rinse, repeat life often.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:11:30.610 - 00:11:31.010
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:11:31.090 - 00:11:50.730
Just going to do the same thing today that I did yesterday. I'm going to show up at work and check the same boxes.

And I find even with coaching often what I'm doing is having people pause, step back, step out of that and have we even examined what it is.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:11:50.730 - 00:13:44.480
You want and why we go from this is where I am to this is how I'm going to solve it. These are the actions going to take and like hold on, yeah, hold on a second. That's why things don't work. It's you're.

And that's why it's difficult for someone to read a book and then make a change.

And why coaching is so powerful because we personalize the approach and we also fully help someone understand, you know, what are the core reasons why they want to achieve something, what it means to them personally. Because then you can also figure out what are the things that are actually preventing that from happening personally.

So limiting beliefs, environment, etc. But yeah, under the, the why we know it's important.

There's, I think, I think we've, we've played that, we've played that now that story pretty regularly with like the Simon Sinek, you know, and the importance of why or the why and purpose and passion. But it can sometimes feel a little touchy feely.

I remember when I was leading a workshop on managing to motivate and the model really focused on the initial pillar of trust and someone raised their hand, senior executive government. They're like, seems a little touchy feely to me. Then I go, good, wonderful, great. Let's talk about that.

Let's talk about why emotions play a role in productivity and engagement and job satisfaction and we can't overlook them. Now. I do think we have a little bit of an issue generationally with holding people accountable and saying like, this is what you have to achieve now.

Let's build an environment that supports you to achieve that. We still have to hold you accountable despite emotions.

But yeah, I don't think we dive into enough on why someone shows up to work and if we expect to lead them, we need to know that information.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:13:49.330 - 00:14:00.050
As much of a, you know, left hand turn as this might be. My, my ears perked up. So what, what is the challenge that you're seeing in terms of generationally when it comes to holding people accountable?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:14:03.090 - 00:15:17.350
And I, I'm so torn. I'd love to hear your perspective too. If it's a generational issue or if it's a leadership, if it's a leadership issue.

Because if people are going into work and the leaders are not defining roles and responsibilities, providing direct feedback and holding their employees accountable to that information, then they can get away with whatever they want and then they learn different coping mechanism, coping mechanisms. Because that, that is what works, that helps them, helps them succeed in their career.

But if we have leaders that just say no, you don't do this, this job and you don't have a job, then we would create an understanding and a mindset towards what's expected from work and now.

So people, I've heard, maybe you've heard too, it's like, oh, younger generation can't take feedback to the point where there are employees that know they're going to get negative feedback from their manager in a one on one and they quit. They literally go on leave and quit. They take their pto. I've heard this before. And so that's maybe that's the thing.

But then again, if you have a leader and manager providing direct feedback regularly and knowing how to give feedback and holding their employees accountable, is that something that's sustainable for somebody? Because they still have to put food on the table? Right, right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:15:17.750 - 00:15:39.890
Well, it's interesting because I wonder, you said at the top of the recording Right. That you had all this experience with toxic environments or poor leaders.

And so, and maybe I'm taking a leap and putting words in your mouth, but sort of this, like, how do I do different? Be better or create, you know, better than what I experienced.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:15:39.890 - 00:15:40.170
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:15:40.570 - 00:15:44.050
And the leap, or not, not a big leap that I'm going to make is like parenting too.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:15:44.050 - 00:15:44.330
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:15:44.330 - 00:15:57.620
It's like I'm going to be, you know, whatever. X better than what I, you know, the, the parenting I received.

And I say that to kind of circle back to the, the idea of generations here, because I've heard that.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:15:57.620 - 00:15:57.820
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:15:57.820 - 00:16:18.340
I've heard that, you know, the, the youngest generation in the workforce not really being able to take feedback. But I, I wonder if part of it is we've never been great at giving feedback.

There's a hardening of expect or like, there's been an increasing softening of expectation in terms of.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:16:19.060 - 00:16:19.420
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:16:19.420 - 00:16:28.500
Older generations. I'm a ex millennial Cusp Myself. So, you know, they change the. Every now and then, they change the years on me and I'm suddenly an X or I'm a mille.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:16:29.440 - 00:16:29.680
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:16:29.840 - 00:16:38.320
And so you would say, you know, there's a, you know, maybe the Gen X has like a thicker skin and fewer expectations about being treated well.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:16:38.480 - 00:16:38.880
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:16:38.960 - 00:17:34.990
Versus, you know, the younger generation having maybe, maybe thinner skin and expecting to be treated like a human. And I feel like we've been teaching this in the leadership development space for a long time.

This, like the mentality of leave you, leave your personal life at the door. You know, leave the emotions at the door. This is business, it's not personal. You know, I feel like we've been coaching people around.

That's not how influence works. You know, for at least the 20 years or so, I've been doing this kind of work.

I'm getting kind of long winded here to say I've even had this evolution of, like, I just think we've never been good at feedback and we now have a generation that's expecting better, expecting better, period, let alone expecting better feedback. And even when I'm teaching feedback today, a lot of what I teach today is you have to start with why you care enough to give the feedback.

And that needs to be a part of the conversation.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:17:35.310 - 00:17:35.710
Right?

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:17:35.790 - 00:17:48.750
Like, I heard this. I believe in, you know, I believe in you or I care about, you know, how others are perceiving you or your performance.

And so I want to give you this feedback and support.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:17:49.070 - 00:17:49.470
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:17:50.100 - 00:18:05.140
In helping you learn to do this differently or behave differently, whatever that you know, very, very broad example is here. I don't know, I'm kind of rambling. What are your thoughts and reactions to everything that just spewed out my mouth?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:18:07.060 - 00:20:40.800
If I could maybe have my ideal world of work, I would have everybody from a very early, early age be with a leader. That is terrible. Giving feedback and maybe a little rude and direct and tough because I think losing for me at a young age helped me be okay.

Losing and having toxic leaders helped me realize that it's not personal. Now it can go two ways.

You can actually end up internalizing the feedback in a negative manner, that it influences you throughout your career, or you can maybe create some thick skin and understand that that feedback doesn't define who you are until you learn how to take it.

Yeah, I, I don't know if the, the workforce is used to being a little bit more self reliant and sourcing their fulfillment and satisfaction and drive from themselves and are now instead looking for that positive recognition from their current environment, which is a dangerous place to be because self leadership is. I'm going to go towards this goal no matter what happens around me.

And despite being good or bad at feedback, I think we're seeing leaders unsure because they're afraid of the reaction from their workforce when in actuality it should be as you were sharing. Hey, I care about your success and development and I care about the organization. You have some expectations that you need to hit.

I might not say this right, like I'm probably not going to. It's not meant to offend you. It's meant to help you get better and keep your job or grow in your job.

I don't, I just don't know if that conversation is happening because when I was, I've actually had, I've worked a lot of odd jobs because, you know, trying to find the same. By the way, same thing for finding, finding a job and finding career.

I do a lot of talks around career development and job search and people are coming into the room and they're saying, this is the first time I've ever had to look for a job. Jobs have fallen into my lap. They've been referred. I've, I've been promoted. This is the first. I've been looking for a job for two months.

My world's gonna end. I go, I've had two different job searches go over two years. So I know that I can get a job. I know that job searches can take a long time.

Same thing with building a business. Oh, I, to get revenue.

It's gonna Take a year at certain, in certain instances, at certain times, maybe more so that that adversity, that resilience, I think is important because it comes from the struggle, it comes from those poor and bad experiences. I think we might be missing that a little bit.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:20:42.240 - 00:20:43.080
I can see that.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:20:43.080 - 00:20:43.440
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:20:43.680 - 00:22:45.690
I think so that there's maybe a question built in there too of is the expectation, you know, maybe you're asking this, maybe you're not, but is the expectation too high for those who are just joining the workforce? Is there a thin skin?

Right, so, but I think you're right, you know, recommendation of like, you might need to have a few managers before you decide what is terrible feedback and what's not.

But I still think, you know, and I don't think you're disagreeing with this, but I still think that like leaders are, you know, as a gross generalization, terrible at giving feedback. You know, I remember being early, you know, early in my, like going from the consultancy to going internal.

I had this initial feeling like I should strip the feedback module out of this pre designed, you know, three day workshop right in my, you know, am I, I've got people here who have been leading restaurants for years. Like they've got hundreds of people in their restaurant if they don't know how to give.

Like at the time I think my own thinking was, am I being rude by assuming they don't know how to give feedback already?

And it probably took me five years from that point, like going from that company into another company to actually just come to the realization of like, no, everybody's just kind of terrible at giving feedback. It's actually rarer, rarer to have a manager who is excellent at giving feedback. And I've had a mixture of those experiences, right?

I've had some managers who were great at giving feedback and some managers who were absolutely awful at it.

But I think, you know, I finally, I kind of came to that realization that like, no, everybody's pretty much terrible at it and there's probably a lot of room to grow at every company when it comes to the quality and skill of providing feedback. Welcome to the feedback show, by the way.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:22:45.690 - 00:24:49.830
No, I, it's, it's funny you bring this up because when I'm asked for fun, you're like having a connection conversation.

Like if you had to start all over, over tomorrow, Ben dropped in the middle in this world with nothing that you've done and you have to, you have to just kind of build from scratch. My answer was actually, oh, I'd be a, I'd be a feedback trainer. I'd be a feedback coach. I would sell one thing, it would be giving feedback.

It would mimic the SBIC model and it would talk about how to give, how to be non personal, action oriented, growth oriented feedback. Because people are terrible at it, organizations need it, employees leave because of the lack of it or because it's done in the wrong way.

And I think companies would pay for it. So to that point, welcome to the feedback show. Still everybody, but really bringing this back to this fearless idea.

You know, when if we want to be fearless in our careers, we have to learn to be bigger and more important than the situations around us. Meaning that if you get feedback that isn't doesn't make you happy, tough. Your job is to serve your manager and your organization.

So what are you going to do that serves you the most in this situation? Be disengaged, grovel, be dejected, look for another job. Okay, does that serve you the most? If it does, great, go for it, do it.

But generally it doesn't serve you the most. It does. Generally what serves you the most is. Thank you for that feedback. Let's put a plan together to show my progress in this direction.

I really want to continue growing in this company. So again, thank you very much. And then bringing it up, every one on one and I was reflecting on your feedback. I done this and this and this.

Do you feel that we're on track and managing up towards it and too often people get disengaged during the performance management process or when they get feedback and they dig themselves a deeper hole and it doesn't serve their career.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:24:51.590 - 00:25:20.870
Yeah, yeah.

We could open up a whole can of worms there around performance management and whether or not leaders are truly honest and objective and consistent with, you know, with rating performance too. Because I find that's where the shock in performance management comes.

Conversations comes to, you know, when you're not getting feedback regularly and it's like so once a year you're going to tell me what you could have been telling me all year long.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:25:20.950 - 00:25:21.270
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:25:21.270 - 00:25:50.850
To have done better. But I digress because I want to come back to some of the concepts around being fearless.

So you know, as you're talking to audiences about being fearless, like I guess I'd be curious a what's the starting point? Where are people coming to you? And then this is the conversation that you're having with them and you know, from there where.

Let me, let me just stop there before I double barrel the question.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:25:54.830 - 00:27:16.010
I'm gonna grab a copy of the book Just to give a little bit of kind of clarity in terms of when we talk about the professional life, what categories are we talking about fearless in? So you have job satisfaction, which is, do I feel engaged and filled in my work? You have leadership presence.

So are you showing up in a way where people want to follow you and that's going to help you grow within your career and that leads into career growth, which is like, what do you want? How are you building a brand to get there outside of your organization?

So kind of this in or creating some independence in terms of what you're working towards? Too many people define themselves by their organization. And so people tend to come to me for either of those areas. I don't know what I want.

I'm afraid to go after what I want. I'm burnt out from doing what I thought I wanted.

So what is that, like, sense of self within your career and within your job, which lends these fulfillment and satisfaction? And then it's, what do people think of you at work? And are you showing up as the executive that maybe you need to.

So are you giving feedback, coaching, delegation, sharing ideas, strategic, innovative, etc. Which all leads to our brand within a company and our success? And then really like, are you, are you more than your job?

Are you more than your company? And how are you continuing to serve your broader career, not just your job and people? So people have areas in all those categories.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:27:16.730 - 00:27:20.810
Yeah, yeah. So it rings to me of.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:27:20.810 - 00:27:21.210
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:27:21.290 - 00:27:28.930
Which I think, you know, I'm just slow on the uptake here, is Right. This is about, you know, a life partially. Right. About a life well lived.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:27:28.930 - 00:27:29.130
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:27:29.130 - 00:27:37.290
And living from a place of sort of the ongoing seeking of, you know, happiness or satisfaction.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:27:37.370 - 00:27:37.690
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:27:37.690 - 00:27:58.540
And being able to kind of explore, all right, well, I don't feel good. And why and where is it in my life that I'm in or not in alignment with, you know, what matters to me? Am I.

Am I finally picking up on, picking up on the theme here, living for.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:27:58.540 - 00:29:57.830
Yourself, hence the name of the broader company. Are we giving our power away at our jobs or are we taking accountability, responsibility, and feeling empowered to be fearless towards what we want?

Something as simple as, you know, quitting a job. Something as simple as going to your boss and asking to work on a project. I see you say quitting your job is simple, but it's not simple. It's.

It's a big decision and choice. But so many people teeter back and forth between, should I leave my job, should I stay at my job?

When you're you're just preventing growth because you haven't made a decision. It can be something as simple as raising your hand in a meeting and sharing an idea or setting up a skip level meeting.

So meeting with your manager's manager, it could be applying for that internal promotion or it could even be going to your boss and asking for what's expected of you to be able to achieve a certain rating on a performance management process.

I don't know, you probably heard this and I've even done this where you go into your review and you think you're going to get promoted, but you haven't ever had a conversation, what were the metrics and goals and expectations to get promoted six months before?

And so then you end up being pretty disengaged for three to six months or end up going and finding another position because of that one single experience which basically you had responsibility over. So then, yeah, how do you pave a career and a job to serve you? So it can be, it can be your actual work.

So these are the components of job satisfaction. Could be your actual work, the work that you do. It could be work that you think you're going to get to do.

So how you're going to learn, what challenges you're going to face, it could be your social relationships. So who you engage with and interact with on a, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. And then it can be the meaning that you perceive.

So it's perceptions affirm your work, the impact that you think that you're actually having. And you get to play with all those. You get to play with your work, your social relationships, your environment and the meaning behind your work.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:29:59.430 - 00:31:16.380
Yeah. Yeah, I like it. So one thing I'm.

Because I think I've been thinking about this more over the last year since I started consulting sort of on my own, which is. And even when I've done career coaching with others, right.

The first thing, one of the first conversations I try to have with people is like, well, let's talk about what you want to do, right? And then usually the first thing someone says is like, well, I want to be the head of marketing. And I'm like, that's not what I asked.

Like, let's take a step back. Like, what do you want to do? What do you want each. You know, what are the things you like doing every day?

You know, what do you want your days to look like? What are some of the, you know? And like, how do you break apart those component pieces to say, cool.

Now if we put all of that together, Is that ahead of marketing or it might that be, you know, something else. Right. And so I would say for.

For me, you know, stepping back into consulting was, you know, how do I tip the balance more towards doing what I love to do day in and day out versus sort of fighting to be able to spend even 5 to 10% of my time doing the kind of things that I love?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:31:16.780 - 00:31:17.180
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:31:18.140 - 00:31:25.060
There's obviously some financial level component to some of this too.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:31:25.060 - 00:31:25.300
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:31:25.300 - 00:31:47.230
It's like, well, I mean, I want to just watch soap operas all day. Like, that's not really gonna satisfy or not sustain the life that maybe you want. But part of it too then is also coaching people around.

Well, that's only, you know, 40 plus, depending on how much you work.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:31:47.230 - 00:31:47.550
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:31:47.550 - 00:31:55.110
40 plus hours of your week. There's still all this other time and weekends. Right. Like, where are you finding fulfillment too?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:31:55.110 - 00:31:55.350
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:31:55.350 - 00:32:18.980
So I find, like, sometimes when I'm doing career coaching, I'm also dipping into what are the things that are draining your bucket and what are the things that are filling your bucket? And maybe some of those things are outside of work too. And are you being as intentional as you could about maximizing, you know, your.

Your all seven days of the week, you know, and all waking hours of the week, you know, on top of that?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:32:20.820 - 00:33:38.440
Yeah. Your whole life? Yeah. I would be walking down the street and seeing someone shovel snow. Yeah.

Like, we have very different work experiences, but somehow you find enjoyment and fulfillment from that experience, just like I do and shoveling snow. By the way, I grew up in Chicago despite being in Austin right now. So there was a lot of snow there. And.

And yes, their work job satisfaction is not solely based on. Or life satisfaction. It's not solely based on what you do from an actual work perspective.

There's a lot of other components from work itself, but also where you spend your day and what you're working for, what that money goes to and how you're living your life. There's a lot of other components.

We tend to sometimes overemphasize the work itself, but that's also why, going back to why leaders need to know what the why is that someone's showing up to work for in what someone's doing after work.

And I know it's just like this little touchy because there's that separation of work and life, but knowing what someone's home experience, which is the other, generally a larger portion of them than work, helps you lead them, helps you craft your approach towards them to connect with them, to build incentives towards Them.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:33:39.800 - 00:33:54.210
Have you, have you found this? I think coming out of the pandemic, I think there was a bigger push for thinking beyond like thinking about the life well lived beyond just my work.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:33:54.210 - 00:33:54.490
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:33:54.490 - 00:34:16.239
And my work and my title. So I feel like there was a bit of a societal push in that direction.

And I'm wondering a, you know, were you feeling that to B, is that pendulum starting to like swing back the farther we get from, you know, being locked in our homes for months on end?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:34:17.119 - 00:35:57.570
Well, as much as I wish I knew everything from a sociological perspective, like when it comes to Covid though they're just high level notes are we lost lots of things. We were afraid for our health. People close to us lost their lives. Many people include lost their jobs.

And it was the first time that a lot of people realized that the things that they thought were guaranteed were not. And so that lent itself now to appreciating the self more I think than the job. And then with increased freedom from, oh look, we can work from home.

Why am I doing this two hour commute? Why am I going into this office to people that I don't really care about to a company that can just fire me if they decide to.

I think that all came together into a lovely little melting pot to help people realize that maybe they should have three jobs, they shouldn't tell their employer.

But at the same time then it's like employers are realizing that they're, they've gained a lot of power back and that the person that, that that holds the power is the person that writes the check and they're making demands again and people have the choice to work at those organizations or not. You see a lot of return to office policies falling into place and people, some people leaving and some people staying.

And I think work at the careers generally is always this power dynamic and people are just becoming more aware of it now.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:35:58.310 - 00:36:04.150
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. I just was thinking about that.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:36:04.150 - 00:36:04.350
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:36:04.350 - 00:36:10.790
And I think, I think even just thinking about like this, the return to work push that's happening, you're seeing that in Austin a bit as well.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:36:11.030 - 00:36:43.210
Yeah, it's, it's everywhere. I think we're back. The last statistic I saw is we're back to pre Covid rates of job postings that are remote.

So it's about, I think it's 20 to 30% of the workforce. But then again that tends to equate to the number of people that want to work fully remote. We're seeing a lot more of a hybrid model.

But then that just Limits who can work for what position because generally either have to relocate or be. Be there be. A lot of companies are moving to three days in the three days or five days in the office.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:36:43.850 - 00:36:46.010
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:36:46.970 - 00:38:02.350
Which.

Well, all this to say by the way is that you as a worker hopefully just brings a little bit of an awareness to the fact that you have decisions to make and you don't have to abide by the decisions of an organization if you want.

Like I was talking to someone the other day and they're like, well, my job search is going to be, is going to be really, it's going to, they're just, they.

We come up with these self limiting beliefs around location and salary and style of leadership when we don't have enough information to make those decisions.

And so part of our job as a, as a job seeker is to go get the information that we need and not limit ourselves by our beliefs, but more so by actual evidence that we can find. And I promise you, if you found something to show you one thing, you can find the exact opposite.

Showing you another thing and same thing as leadership.

It's just try not to limit yourself based on your preconceived notions of what something needs to be or should be or how someone is supposed to perform and instead go, go live, go act, go learn, because eventually you can. And go build because if the thing that you want isn't there yet, you can go create it.

Just basically let go of some personal limits in regards to what you think is possible and instead hold true to what you want and go make it happen.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:38:03.310 - 00:38:59.610
Yeah, yeah.

And I think, I think it's such a weird employment market at the moment too where it's like, and I don't know what the, what the average tenure right now at organizations is, I want to say for like experienced professionals, it's probably like three to five years, right?

So I think part of it too might be having a healthy, you know, perspective that, well, I might only be at this place for three to five years, which really in the grand scheme of things is not that long. And the interview process is, is so weird anyway, right?

Like everybody's trying to put on a best face and you don't necessarily really get a full understanding of what you're really signing up for until you've. And that goes both ways, right? That goes for the hiring, you know, the hiring side and the, you know, new employee side.

Neither of you really know what you're signing up for till you're in it.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:38:59.610 - 00:39:00.010
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:39:00.010 - 00:39:10.540
And probably even then for 612 months. So maybe part of it too is. And I feel like I see employers are less concerned about job hopping.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:39:10.540 - 00:39:10.820
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:39:10.820 - 00:40:02.010
Quote unquote, as they once were. So part of it too might be giving yourself permission to. I'm gonna just go. It might not like unless something's really not feeling right.

It's like I'm not going to be fully sure of everything until I've been on the ground long enough to experience it and giving myself some grace that maybe I'll leave quicker than I thought. Very few people stay at companies these days, 20 plus years, right? Yeah.

I feel like we could keep kind of rapping about all kinds of subjects, but I want to start to bring us in for our landing. So I ask every guest to prepare a few pieces of advice for the advice column, so to speak.

So the first is what's your advice for directly for leaders out there?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:40:02.810 - 00:40:43.220
Reset your expectations for what you're responsible for. You control the environment that someone works in, so you are responsible for setting the direction.

So clarifying roles and responsibilities, ensuring that they have the resources to be successful for entering the environment is productive and positive and oriented towards those goals. But you're not directly responsible for their work product.

And so being aware of that, that can hopefully inspire delegation, inspire coaching and help you maybe take a step back and be a little bit more strategic and how you build an environment around each of your employees.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:40:43.860 - 00:40:58.970
Nice.

Yeah, I would say I been in a number of coaching conversations recently where, you know, been talking about like, how do you continue to separate yourself from the how of everybody else, everybody else's how, and you know, set that stage. I like that.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:40:59.690 - 00:41:17.610
And that's a sense of fearlessness because too many leaders are trying to have a grapple, hold on how something is done and you can really limit innovation and you end up, your altitude is so low then. And so as an executive and as a leader, you have to just kind of raise that sight.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:41:18.650 - 00:41:27.520
Yeah.

Leaders are regularly lamenting not, and I've seen this at every level in organizations, organizations sort of regularly lamenting not having enough time for strategic endeavors.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:41:27.680 - 00:41:28.000
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:41:28.000 - 00:41:36.160
And it's when you start unpacking the choices that they're making on how they're spending their time. You know, nine times out of ten, it comes down to exactly that.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:41:36.160 - 00:41:36.480
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:41:36.720 - 00:41:41.360
You're kind of diving down too low. So what's your advice for those who support leaders?

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:41:43.200 - 00:42:53.610
Well, take some accountability towards the career and job that you want. So again, you're job is to serve them. Your first job is to help your Manager look good and help them achieve their goals.

Sometimes don't like hearing that. But at the same time to do that you need information from them. And too many employees that I know that have leaders don't manage up appropriately.

Now if we're going to go the other direction and go leaders of leaders, then one of the things, I was actually working with the CEO once and we're rolling out this whole huge like weekly one on one process with templates, training. It's the first time they're going to have it. It's best practice. And I pause, I go, hey, do you have one on ones with your senior leadership team?

You know that's not how we talk all the time. We don't need them.

I go, well, I've talked to the entire senior leadership team one on one and they don't feel supported and they don't feel they have your time and they don't feel like they get feedback from you. You know where that comes from? A one on one.

So too many leaders skip one on ones for their leaders because they think that they're too professional or too experienced to need them. And I think we're missing out.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:42:54.250 - 00:43:19.540
Yep. I've never heard an employee who doesn't have regular one on ones with their leader sound happy with that.

It's always my leader doesn't even have a one on one with me. So yeah, I like that advice. So how can people get a hold of you? How can. Where can they find your book? Tell us a little bit more about.

Yeah, the what, how, why of getting a little bit more Dr. Benjamin Ritter in their lives.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:43:20.580 - 00:43:58.500
So check out live fouryourself consulting dot com. It's where everything lives. Website content, podcasts, book, all this stuff live for yourself. Consulting.com.

you just want the book Becoming Fearless by Dr. Benjamin Ritter. It's on Amazon, it's on Audible Spot. I do highly recommend the paperback. It's. It's might even be in your local library.

There's a big library push initially so you can request it there too if you don't want to purchase it. But overall, if you enjoy it, tell a friend, leave a review. And the social platform that I'm active on is LinkedIn. So look up Dr. Benjamin Ritter.

Feel free to connect, let me know that you heard me on the Step up podcast and maybe there'll be a little freebie in it for you.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:43:58.740 - 00:44:11.200
Nice.

All right, well I'll make sure I link to all that in the show notes and the post that I will eventually make on LinkedIn for the release of this episode. Ben, I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to talk to you today. I appreciate you coming on.

Benjamin Ritter (guest)
00:44:11.440 - 00:44:18.560
Yeah, I appreciate you having me. It was a fun little chat on fearlessness and hopefully we've helped someone take a little action in their career and in their life.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:44:19.440 - 00:44:44.800
Nice. Awesome. Thank you. That brings us to the end of our episode. Thanks for listening.

I'd encourage you to head on over over to my website, Kent Coach, and start a conversation with me there. Or check out my promotion playbook at Kent Coach Playbook.

Before you go on with your day, I ask that you please take a moment to leave a rating and a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Five stars. That helps put this podcast in front of more eyes and ears. Until next time, Take it easy.