5 Principles to Design Your Best Life & Business

Russell Benaroya is an author, entrepreneur, coach, and speaker focused on helping people achieve their highest and best use by staying in their genius zones. Russell has spent the last twenty years in investment banking, private equity, and entrepreneurship, and today is the Co-Founder of Stride Services, an outsourced accounting and strategic finance firm that helps business owners use their data for better decision making. He is also the author of One Life to Lead; Business Success Through Better Life Design, a book focused on the steps to overcome your limitations to architect a life and business on your terms. 

 Chapter Summaries

• 00:39 - Introducing Russell
• 03:46 - Starting Stride Services
• 06:38 - One Life to Lead
• 10:29 - The Five Principles
• 17:50 - The Gift of Taking Action
• 21:13 - Inspiring Story
• 23:35 - Final Advice

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Key Takeaways 

• And there's some fear in delegation. Sometimes you don't even know how to delegate. It is a muscle that needs to be flexed. It is not an instinct for many people. You have to practice a delegation.
• You can't lead others until you know how to lead yourself.
• 5 principles of life design. Be the architect.
  • Awareness: is this a fact or a story?
  • Establish your principles. Meaning if you move throughout life without a set of non-negotiables for how you interact with people or make decisions, do business deals, you become subject to the goals, whims and wants of other people.
  • Harness the energy from the environment. If we have a hundred units of energy to expend a day, we're going to use the units available to neutralize our energy drains. First, before we're invested in our energy gains and energy are where do I get energy around certain people?
  • Get and stay in your zone of geniusExecution; take action
• Start getting in a place where you are the architect of a life designed by you versus a life happening to you.

Resource Links

• https://russellbenaroya.com/
• https://stride.services/

Social Channels:

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people with real useful advicefor people with big dreams.
I understand big dreams.
I turned an investment of$200and a lot of great advice from
some really successful peopleinto my big dream proforma.

(00:31):
That today is a half billiondollar company.
Well, hello and welcome.
I'm energized by my guest today,who is an author, an
entrepreneur, a coach speaker,who focuses on helping people

(00:52):
achieve their highest and bestby staying in what he calls
their genius zone.
And we're gonna be talking a lotmore about that real soon.
He has spent the last 20 yearsin investment banking, private
equity and entrepreneurship.
Today, he is the co-founder of acompany called Stride Services
and outsourced accounting andstrategic finance firm.

(01:15):
But most importantly, at leastas it relates as our time
together today, he is the authorof a newly published book, One
Life to Lead.
It's a book about leadership,but not a book about how to lead
others, but rather a book abouthow to lead yourself.
I'm excited to welcome RussellBenaroya Russell.

(01:37):
Thanks for joining me.

Russell Benaroya (01:39):
Oh, Greg, such a pleasure to be here.
I've been looking forward to it.
Let's rock and roll.

Greg Muzzillo (01:43):
Yeah, same here.
All right.
Well, I love to start at thebeginning.
I love to just hear the growingup story, you know, what were
the circumstances of youreducation and your life and your
family, et cetera, what led youto wanting to become an
entrepreneur?
Um, and then we're also gonnawanna talk about what led you to
write the book, One Life toLead?

Russell Benaroya (02:07):
Thanks for asking.
I grew up privileged.
I grew up privileged in Seattle,Washington.
Uh, my grandfather was theoriginal entrepreneur that I can
trace.
He moved to Seattle and hestarted a beer distributorship
right after prohibition and hegrew that business.

(02:30):
And then my father took overthat business and operated for
major beer brands throughout thePacific Northwest.
So I watched my dad growing upas a extremely hard working
entrepreneur and I moved toCalifornia for college.
So I did my undergrad at UCSanta Barbara.

(02:51):
And while I was in college, Igot the bug to work in New York
City.
I spent some years there.
I then moved back to Californiaand got an opportunity to work
in venture capital.
For a number of years, I went tobusiness school.
I was sort of doing all of theseright things that my parents
were like, yes.
Uh, but there was somethingmissing in my life.

(03:14):
And in 2004, I thought tomyself, am I gonna sit behind
the desk and make decisionsabout what to invest in or not
invest in, in other people'sbusinesses?
When I haven't actually builtsomething myself and I have all
of these dreams and aspirationsto create.

(03:36):
And, and ultimately I left tocreate

Greg Muzzillo (03:41):
What led you to start Stride Services.
Tell us just a little bit aboutwhat that company does.

Russell Benaroya (03:47):
Stride is my third venture.
So I started and subsequentlysold two other two healthcare
businesses before whatultimately became an acquisition
of what is today's Stride.
So about three years ago, mybusiness partner, Eric Paige,
and I acquired this 15 year oldback office bookkeeping and

(04:08):
accounting firm.
And I don't wanna belabor thestory of Stride other than to
say it really was the vehiclefor us to help entrepreneurs
achieve their highest and bestuse by providing a service for
them that took over some of thethings that they don't really
like to do, like bookkeeping,accounting, and finance, so that

(04:31):
they could focus on what it isthey set out to do when they
started the business.
So it was almost like a Trojanhorse of guidance and coaching.
And today we serve about ahundred clients around the
United States with a team of 40employees.

Greg Muzzillo (04:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, you and I share acommon philosophy.
I teach that all times notcreated equal everything on your
to-do list.
Isn't created equal.
There's some stuff that's$35 anhour work.
And I tell people, if you canhire somebody for$35 an hour,
not to say what your fees are,get rid of that work, because

(05:06):
the wealth building work is thework that you need to focus on,
or you could just sort of getstuck forever.
So you and I share thatphilosophy, um, freeing people
up to do what they should andcould be doing best to grow
their success, right?

Russell Benaroya (05:24):
I'm as worth for an entrepreneur.
I would argue that your time isworth about a thousand dollars
an hour.
So unless you're, unless you'recreating a thousand dollars of
equity value in the thing thatyou're doing, get it off,

Greg Muzzillo (05:40):
Stop doing it.
Exactly.
It always amazes me how somepeople really can't.
I think maybe at the end of theday, it's come down to delegate.
Like even though they knowthey're doing things that can't
make them rich, I think theystruggle to trust or to delegate
that other people can do thesethings even better than they can

Russell Benaroya (06:01):
A hundred percent.
And there's some fear indelegation.
Sometimes you don't even knowhow to delegate.
It is a muscle that needs to beflexed.
It is not an instinct for manypeople.
You have to practice delegation.

Greg Muzzillo (06:14):
So now let's talk about, and I'm really looking
forward to hearing more.
I love what I've read, uh, yourbook one life to lead.
I love reading books aboutleadership, especially John
Maxwell.
He's such a genius inleadership, but I'm really
looking forward to hearing whatyou have to say about, and I

(06:37):
agree with you, you can't leadothers until you know how to
lead yourself.
So what led to your writing thebook?

Russell Benaroya (06:45):
Ultimately the realization that how I was
leading my life paralleled in alot of ways, how I was leading
my business, how you lead yourlife is how you lead your
business.
You come to it with all of thebehaviors and patterns and
dysfunction and function.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh for what you bring to theparty.

(07:05):
And it's really hard.
Of course, it's hard for me inthe eye of the storm, in the eye
of the moment to truly step backand observe how I was
contributing to some of thechallenges, dysfunction, and
obstacles that I was facing.
In 2016, my wife and I aredriving back with our small
children in the back of our carfrom a trip in Oregon at a place

(07:27):
called Mount bachelor.
And we're driving through asnowy storm and we're listening
to some Tony Robbins podcast andthe podcast was titled three
steps to a breakthrough, and I'mmotivated and I'm energized and
my wife's eyes may be rolling alittle bit sitting next to me,
but he said something thattriggered a thought and the
thought was, this turned downthe radio stereo.

(07:49):
I say to my wife, Melissa, Isaid, Melissa, yeah.
Why haven't we ever talked aboutwhere we wanna be in five to 10
years, kind of in a criticaltone, like as if it were her
fault, not mine, of course.
And thank you.
And she said so beautifully.
At least my story was wellbecause it's never really been
about us.

(08:10):
It's always been about you.
You are the entrepreneur.
We have followed you on all ofthese adventures and that's kind
of what it's been about.
And that began a journey for meto decide whether or not the
life that I was gonna create wasa life that was building a fence

(08:31):
around the two of us and thecentral of our relationship.
Or we were gonna kind of buildour own individual fences.
We decided to build the fencearound the two of us.
And there was something veryenergizing when we talked about
our dreams and our passionsaround creating an abroad
experience for our family thatwe had wanted to do since our

(08:53):
kids were little, but it waslike, life gets in the way and
you can't do it until we had afriend that kept pressing us,
and pressing us and saying, Hey,if that's the thing that really
drives your connection to eachother, go for it, make it
happen.
That Month on the cover ofnational geographic titled the
happiest places on earth, CostaRica was on the cover.

(09:15):
My wife and I looked at eachother and said, you know what?
Let's go for it.

Greg Muzzillo (09:21):
Yeah.
And,

Russell Benaroya (09:22):
And we ended up taking our kids, moving to
Costa Rica, living in San Jose.
So we lived in the Capitol in anurban environment.
We studied language.
I bought Stride while I wasstill living there.
And we created a life togetherabroad.
And when we were there, that iswhen I finally stopped and

(09:46):
stepped back and said, huh, I'vegot a lot going on inside my
body around what has transpiredover the last 15 years as an
entrepreneur, I've gotta startgetting this on paper, not what
happened, but why it happenedand what I felt and where I had
obstacles that began the writingjourney that ultimately led to

(10:09):
the publishing of the book.
And of course it takes twistsand turns

Greg Muzzillo (10:14):
Of course, but

Russell Benaroya (10:14):
We got it.

Greg Muzzillo (10:16):
All right.
So a better life design.
Tell us about that because it'ssimple words, but I think it's a
complicated thought and process.

Russell Benaroya (10:29):
What I realized is that, uh, this is
not the Russell Benaroyajourney.
I think many, most businessleaders, put on their suit of
armor every day and they show uplike Bulletproof, ready to take
on the world.
But when you unlock that armor,there's a level of vulnerability
that sits beneath, that sitsunderneath.

(10:50):
And I had the opportunity in thebook to interview.
Actually, one of your guestsrecently is in the book, David
Nielsen to interview, tointerview entrepreneurs that
were willing to share facets ofhow they made decisions in
accordance with their lifeprinciples and how they managed
their business.
And it really came down to fivethemes for me.

(11:13):
So one key theme of building alife design is grounding stories
with facts.
We live in a world where we gota lot of crazy in our heads.

Greg Muzzillo (11:27):
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Russell Benaroya (11:29):
We got a lot of crazy.
We spend a lot of time lookingback at the things that didn't
happen, or we should have doneor blaming people for X, or we
look forward to the things thathaven't happened yet, because
this is our obstacle and thatthing.
And we spin up.

Greg Muzzillo (11:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm told that we have 60,000thoughts a day.
Yes.
That's outta control unless youget control of it.
Right.

Russell Benaroya (11:52):
Right.
And most of them are just madeup that have nothing to do with
the facts of the situation.
So one is awareness around, isthis a fact, or is this a story?
Number one, number two isestablishing your principles.
Meaning if you move throughoutlife without a set of

(12:14):
non-negotiables for how youinteract with people or make
decisions, do business deals,you become subject to the goals,
whims and wants of other people.
Absolutely.
Right.
Where are your principles?
Right.
So establish your principles.
Number two, number three is whatI call harness energy from the

(12:38):
environment, harness energy fromthe environment that says
something like this.
If we have a hundred units ofenergy to expend a day, we're
gonna use the units available toneutralize our energy drains.
First, before we're invested inour energy gains and energy

(12:59):
gains are where do I get energyaround certain people?
Or where do I get energy aroundcertain environments?
Like be honest about that.
What gives you energy and whatdrains your energy, right?
Number four is get and stay inyour zone of genius.
Now Gay Hendricks was really GayHendricks and were really the

(13:22):
original architects of thisconcept of genius zone.
And it really has made an impacton me, the awareness that there
are things that I do in my lifewhere I lose track of time.
There are things that I do whereI feel alive.
There are things that I do wherepeople acknowledge holy smokes,

(13:42):
Russell, you are good at that.
Why, what are you doing?
And I'm like, I don't know.
It's just what I do.
And we all have it.
We all do.
Yeah, we all have it, but weprobably spend about 15% of our
time in it.
If we're lucky, if we're lucky,if we're lucky.
Yeah.
If we're lucky and then thefifth, and maybe it's the most

(14:03):
obvious, but sometimes the mosthard to affect.
And that is execution takeaction, living in a world of
experiments and trying thingsand having the courage to know
that you're gonna land on yourfeet.
Like we did.
When we moved to Costa Rica,building a plan and executing a
plan, you can talk all day long,but if you don't execute and

(14:26):
act, you're never gonna learn.
So those are really the fiveprinciples of life design.
Yeah.
That are embedded in the book,include a bunch of exercises to
help individuals connect withtheir own styles around these
steps and to start getting in aplace where you are the
architect of a life designed byyou versus a life happening to

(14:49):
you.
So I know you

Greg Muzzillo (14:50):
Spoke in the development of your book with
many designers whose stories youbuild on.
And um, and you even mentionedabout grounding their stories in
facts, et cetera, I find.
And I wonder if you found otherpeople, my genius zone really

(15:10):
shows up when I'm under timepressure.
And I don't know why, if I haveto make a presentation, um, in
three months, I'm not verymotivated or energized around it
yet, but if you get me two weeksaway from the event and the
people in our marketingdepartment saying, Greg, I need
to develop the PowerPoints,whereas your stuff, but man, I

(15:32):
get in the zone as time startscoming closer to the event.
Does that make any sense?
And are other people that way?

Russell Benaroya (15:41):
I think it makes complete sense.
Um, I am that way and here'sthe, here's the difference?
Or maybe it's the opportunitywhen the event is three months
out, Greg, I don't even want youthinking about it.
I don't even want it in yourorbit.
I don't even want youconsidering it because it's a
bit of an energy drain.
It's like, Ugh, okay.
I should, I should probably beworking on this thing, but I

(16:03):
don't have any energy around itwhen you have a plan and your
plan says two weeks before,that's when it's gonna pop up in
my list.
Awesome.

Greg Muzzillo (16:14):
Yeah.
And like you said, when I startworking on whether it's a speech
or a presentation or whatever itis, I forget what time it is.
I forget when it's time to eat.
I just so much love doing andcreating those kinds of things.
Uh, but when it's time, when thetime is right,

Russell Benaroya (16:33):
That's good, deep work focus because you
know, it's important and youknow, it's due soon

Greg Muzzillo (16:39):
yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
So you also talk about ultrarunning.
Are you a runner?

Russell Benaroya (16:48):
Uh, yeah.
I'm, I'm a ultra trail runnerand just finished a hundred
miler a few months ago.
So I like good for you.
Yeah.
Suffering.
I like, I like suffering.
Yeah.


Greg Muzzillo (17:00):
Is that your alone time?
Is that actually therapeutic foryou to spend that time?

Russell Benaroya (17:06):
Totally therapeutic when you are, when
you stripped down, when you areraw metaphorically and literally
you learn a lot about yourself.

Greg Muzzillo (17:20):
I, you have to right.
In many ways, physically,mentally, spiritually, and
otherwise.
Well good for you

Russell Benaroya (17:28):
When, yeah.
When you're 30 hours or 35 hoursout on a trail, it's a lot of
alone time.

Greg Muzzillo (17:37):
Well, I admire that and I think it's something
that I, I used to be a joggerlike, but six miles was a long
jog for me.
Now I struggle to jog my memory,but it's all good.
The gift of taking action.
It's a wonder, it's wonderfullyworded phrase.
Talk to us about the gift oftaking action.

Russell Benaroya (18:02):
It is absolutely fine to be scared of
the unknown, it's Okay.
Like it's okay to be scared.
And then you've got thisjunction and the junction is a
path of fear or a path ofcourage.

(18:26):
And thankfully we do have theopportunity to be scared because
it triggers an opportunity tomake a decision, fear tends to
retreat us back into what isknown and comfortable and stable
and courage gives us theopportunity to take the leap.
And the gift of action is thatevery action unfolds a new thing

(18:51):
to learn or a new input thatisn't to be judged isn't
necessarily to be fearful of,but is just another input to
say, huh?
I didn't expect that.

Greg Muzzillo (19:06):
Yeah.
Especially action in theunknown.
When one moves beyond theircomfort zone, waking up and
repeating what one didyesterday, isn't necessarily
much an adventure or a gift, butrather I think a waste of time
and a waste of life.
I'm sure you would agree withme.
Not that we all don't have towake up and repeat some things,

(19:28):
but some people spend theirwhole life waking up and
repeating and never reallyevaluating who they are, what
they're about, what they wantedto live their life for.
And so I love that because itreally is a gift to take action
and massive action that maybe iseven in outside of our comfort
zone.

Russell Benaroya (19:47):
And I like defining it inside the context
of the metaphor of a game.
So this is all a game, right.
We're just, we're playing, we'retrying different things, but
when you can define the game,okay, what game am I playing
here?
What, when is it over?
What does it mean to win thegame?

(20:09):
What is the desired outcome?
What quarter am I in?
What is the right play for whereI'm at in the game?
What is the best call I can makegiven the information that I
have, and I'm gonna stay focusedon that game.
Why?
Because I know that next weekthere, there will be another
game.
I think very often we play threeor four games ahead and we get

(20:31):
nervous that if we don't winthis game, we're not gonna get
to the Super Bowl.
But why think about the SuperBowl when you just need to play
this game.
And if I'm worried about theSuper Bowl, I might get nervous
and not even play this gameparticularly well, focus on the
game at hand.

Greg Muzzillo (20:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Focus on the now for sure.
I completely agree with you.
All right.
I love the book.
I would strongly recommendeverybody pick it up because
it's a different look atleadership and really you can't
lead others until you know howto lead yourself and why you're
even trying to lead yourself andwhere you're trying to lead

(21:08):
yourself.
And then, and only then can youreally become a great leader of
others.
So, One Life to Lead, greatbook.
Let's close out.
I'd love to close out.
Two things.
Number one, I'd love to hearwhat stories from your designer,
what one story inspired you themost.
And then what closing thoughtsdo you have for our listeners?

Russell Benaroya (21:30):
Mm mm.
Uh, there's a designer in thebook.
Her name is Sarah Dusek, D U S EK.
And Sarah started a companycalled Under Canvas.
And it is one of the largesthospitality companies in the
United States that operates, uh,glamping locations in proximity

(21:53):
to major national parks.
Okay.

Greg Muzzillo (21:56):
Wow.
Okay.

Russell Benaroya (21:57):
And she, she sold her company for like a
hundred million dollars.
Amazing, great outcome.
Like an accidental entrepreneur.
She's so impressive.
She shared a story that Iappreciated so much, which went,
something like this.
When we were trying tocapitalize the business, I was,
she was given a term sheet froman investor and the terms from

(22:22):
the investor were reallydifficult and onerous and, and
she was having a hard timeagreeing to these terms, even
though she really needed thecapital to grow.
And the feedback that she gotfrom the investor was, that's
just the way it is.
If you want this deal, like thisis the way it is.
And she said, well, if that'sthe way it is, I'm not gonna do

(22:47):
that deal because I'm not gonnasign up for something that is
fundamentally undermining theprinciples of how I live my life
and who I choose to work with.
Yeah.
She chose not to take that term.
She ended up getting anotherpartner that was a great partner
for her growth.
But what I love so much aboutthe story is that she had a

(23:08):
principle.
Yes.
And she used the principle asthe filter for making what is
typically a hard decision thatnot everybody would make.

Greg Muzzillo (23:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of filters andsometimes the filter of need and
greed can sometimes overrideprinciples.
And so good for her.
I, I love that story and itpoints out even more than ever.
Why people need to be in touchwith their guiding principles.
All right.
What other advice would you havefor our listeners, Russell?

Russell Benaroya (23:42):
other advice you, you made, made a
great comment about threeminutes ago when you said
presence, live in the moment.
And I think the guidance, thegreatest guidance I would give
is when you find yourselfexercised or anxious, or nervous

(24:05):
ask yourself, is it aboutsomething that hasn't even
happened yet?
Like it's made up, but it'sspinning me up.
And if there's anything that wecan do to keep our self stable
as leaders, because everybody'slooking at us, by the way,
everybody's looking at theirleader in their organization and

(24:27):
looking at them as a role model,your ability to be stable in
those high moments, in those lowmoments, sets the tone for the
culture that's gonna drive yourorganization forward.
And a lot of it is about beingin the moment and present

Greg Muzzillo (24:43):
No doubt about it.
Russell, when you look back andI could say the same thing about
when I take a look back at mybusiness and life, I would say
almost all of the things Iworried about never happened,
never came to pass.
There were a few things thatdid.
And so being cautiously aware orready for the moments, but I

(25:03):
don't know, 90% of the things Iworried about never came to pass
and so much wasted energy andfrustration and moodiness and
more so it's great advice,Russell, I really enjoy the time
that we had together.
I encourage all of our listenersto pick up your book One Life to
Lead.
And thank you very much for yourtime and wisdom, Russell,

Russell Benaroya (25:24):
Greg, it's a gift.
Thank you.
Have a great day.

Greg Muzzillo (25:27):
You too.