September 17, 2025 • 34 mins
Scott Ritzheimer has helped start nearly 20,000 new businesses and nonprofits, and with his business partner started and led their multimillion-dollar business through an exceptional and extended growth phase (over 10 years of double-digit growth all before he turned 35.
He founded Scale Architects to help businesses across the country identify the right growth strategies and find the right guides to get them on the fast track to Predictable Success and stay there as long as possible.
He now travels across the country to speak to and consult with founders, CEOs, and their teams to help them not only grow but scale their businesses and do it all without the hustle.
Quotes From This Episode
- “The problem isn’t a lack of information; it’s knowing which information to act on right now.”
- "Pulling lessons from your future into your present only adds weight and slows you down.”
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
- Book: The Founder’s Evolution by Ritzheimer
- Framework: Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies
About The International Leadership Association (ILA)
- The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Plan for Prague - October 15-18, 2025!
About Scott J. Allen
- Website
- Weekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for Leaders
- Blog
My Approach to Hosting
- The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, everybody, welcome to Practical Wisdom for
Leaders.
Thank you so much for checkingin wherever you are in the world
, and today I have ScottRitzheimer.
I have been on his podcast.
He is now joining me.
Wealth of knowledge, Scotthelped start nearly 20,000 new
businesses and nonprofits and,with his partner, started their
multimillion-dollar businessthrough an exceptional and
(00:22):
extended growth phase over 10years of double-digit growth,
all before he turned 35.
Today he helps founders andCEOs identify and implement the
one essential strategy they needright now to get them on the
fast track to predictablesuccess.
Sir, thank you so much forbeing with me today.
Very, very much appreciate yourtime, Really looking forward to
(00:43):
this conversation, because youare out there in the wild.
You are having conversationswith individuals, with leaders,
both on the podcast but then inyour work, and I think the
direction we're going to takethe conversation is what are you
hearing out there in the wild?
What are you experiencing rightnow?
What are leaders strugglingwith?
What are leaders navigating?
Thank you so much for beinghere, sir Scott, thanks for
(01:06):
having me.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
There's always this moment when I bump into another
Scott because there aren't thatmany of us, you know, but
there's enough.
And it reminds me of this scenefrom Seinfeld where Kramer is
lost in downtown New York Cityand he calls Seinfeld in a
frenzy you know, help me, helpme.
And he's like well, where areyou?
(01:30):
And he's like looking aroundfrom a phone booth you remember
those and he sees the streetsign and it's first and first.
He's like I'm at the nexus ofthe universe and I was.
When Scott and Scott gettogether, I think we've got a
nexus moment happening.
Not that nexus of the universeactually makes any sense at all
but, that's how I feel everytime, so thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
Love the podcasting world.
(01:51):
I think it's super cool, gotinto it as kind of a side
project and fell in love with it.
I think, similar story to youand, yes, met so many wonderful
people, learned so many amazingthings.
And that's actually a littlebit of the problem that I'm
seeing right now is we have moreaccess to great information
than we ever have and it's justpouring in from everywhere and
so you can go in any givenmoment, any given week you can
(02:14):
find 50 podcasts with 50 amazingguests that tell you 50 amazing
things that you must be doingto transform your business and
your leadership.
And that's a real problem,because folks that come to me in
my coaching practice I hear ita lot they're just torn in so
many different directionsalready that it's like the last
thing that they need is morethings that they should be doing
(02:35):
.
That's only going to ramp up,as the you know, I'm not an AI
expert by any stretch of theimagination, but you can just
see that what is gonnaproliferate that information
even further.
And the real challenge there ishow do you know what you
actually should be doing.
When you have this overwhelmingwealth and abundance of
(02:55):
information, how do you knowwhat you should be doing?
And the reality of it is likeit's not actually working all
that great.
You would think that if we hadall this information and we were
able to share all thisinformation as freely as we can,
particularly in the podcastworld, then we would see some
kind of commensurate rise in thesuccess of leaders.
And the reality we don't.
(03:17):
You know, you see successfulstories, but you don't see this
statistical significant gain inanything from when we start to
how we scale and ultimately tothe succession process, all
three of which myself and myteam focus on.
But what we've really got to getto the bottom to is how do we
know, not what we need to do,but what we need to do right now
(03:39):
, and I think that's the realwisdom that folks need.
That's the real insight that weneed.
There's a proverb that saysgives me insight and the virtue
to live it out.
And when we get a bunch ofinformation but we don't have
the wisdom to filter it and thenwe lack the confidence to have
the virtue to actually implementit and we end up worse off than
we were before, because when wedidn't know it we didn't feel
(04:01):
bad about it.
You know now that we know itand can't do it, now we feel bad
about it.
So there's this whole shamething that gets wrapped up into
it, and I see a lot of leadersstruggling a lot more than they
should simply because they haveaccess to all this information
but they don't know what to dowith it.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
When you called it, you called it content fatigue.
I mean that's just a beautifulkind of framing of it.
I see this in leadership allthe time and again.
Having done almost 300 episodesjust on the topic of leadership
, I mean it's confusing, and sowhat's really been kind of fun.
Scott and I agree with you onwe're a little bit of a dying
(04:37):
breed.
I haven't met anyone recentlywho when I said what's your
kid's name, they said Scott.
It's kind of like Carl or Gary,it's just not, you know.
Yeah, yeah, it's not goinganywhere anytime soon, but you
know it's been so much fun inthese five years of doing the
podcast to try and distill itdown to okay, what does someone
(04:58):
need to know about leadership?
Like, okay, yes, there areliterally tens of thousands of
things you could know.
Do you have domain expertise?
Are you self-aware?
Do you have character?
Are you an individual who canbuild relationships like a
heat-seeking missile?
Those are some great places foryou to start and kind of
(05:18):
cutting through all of that andhelping synthesize and really, I
think, prioritize that's insome ways, what is so critical
for me is just theprioritization of the thousands
and thousands of things that arecoming at folks and I loved
your use of that word wisdom,the wisdom to know what of these
(05:38):
to prioritize right now.
But that content fatigue,that's great phrasing.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, and it really is, and I think one of the
things that I've honed in on.
We just released episode 300 ofour podcast just recently and
in it marked a pretty big pivotin terms of how we're addressing
this issue of content fatigueand one of the things that we're
doing and our audience isleaders, but predominantly
founders of nonprofits andfor-profits, and so that's kind
(06:05):
of the core of my audience andmy target, and so I might slip
into founder talk here a littlebit catch me if I do but one of
the things that we've done forour audience has said hey,
there's roughly 70% of ourcontent that you don't have to
pay any attention to, becausewhat we've done is I wrote a
book on the founder's evolutionand we go through these seven
(06:25):
different stages that foundersgo through, and so we've
actually used that structurallyto categorize and stratify, if
you will, the different podcastepisodes.
To say, hey, when you're in thisstage, this is something to pay
attention to, but if you're notin this stage, I'd actually
prefer that you don't.
Now.
If you do, that's fine.
You can be curious, you canlearn, you can get an idea of
what's ahead, but you don't feelany need to implement this
(06:47):
anytime soon because it's eitherin your future or it's in your
past.
Love it.
And that's been met really,really well for our folks and, I
think, for leaders.
There's this same kind ofjourney that happens, and I
think it's a helpful way forfolks to filter out.
What should I be payingattention to as a leader?
What should I be payingattention to as a leader?
Because not all things arecreated equal at all times and
there are some things that willbe very, very good in your
(07:08):
future.
There were some things thatwere very, very good in your
past but may not represent thecore, and to illustrate this
point, I'll start with one ofthe early transitions.
So, first off, our definitionof leadership is any action that
moves a group of two or moretoward their shared goals.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Great, that's awesome .
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, yeah, so pretty simple.
And that means that it's notpositional necessarily, it's not
stylistic necessarily, it's noteven all that noble.
It's very practical in terms ofhis application and so the
secretary can lead just fromstage two to stage three.
But for leaders, it's this movefrom what I call the player on
the field to the captain on thefield Nice, right, and it's.
(07:58):
Some folks will call it playercoach, and I think that misses
it a little bit, because what'shappening is you are primarily
responsible for you early on,and leadership looks like doing
your job really well in thecontext of a team, making the
team better by your presence,but it's mostly like make sure
you keep your position.
Your side it's the left side,strong side or whatever it is
(08:18):
they say in Remember the Titans,you know, and so you get really
, really good at that, and whathappens is, you know, success in
that stage necessarily thrustsyou into the next one, and
what's really confusing about itis you're still on the field.
Like it would make sense if itwas like okay, you're off the
field now.
Now you have.
Now.
That's a hard transition to makefor a lot of folks, but at
(08:41):
least it makes sense, andespecially in the sports world
because there's now a bigboundary line between you and
the game, yes, and so it's notquite like oh, I can just be a
leader because I have my own jobto do still, and I can't not be
a leader because I've got youknow, we use a football analogy
I've got 10 other peopleexpecting me to call the
audibles at the ground level,and if you're a shift supervisor
(09:02):
, the five or six peoplereporting to you, whatever it
might be, and so what you neededto do to lead well in that star
player mode is different thanwhat you need to do to lead well
at the captain on the fieldmode.
And if you just absorb contentthat is, here's how you manage
your time best and here's howyou do this skill best and
(09:24):
here's how you communicate best,those are all great, but
they're missing the centralityof what's necessary to succeed
as a leader in that role.
So if you can recognize thesedifferent, very fundamental
shifts, how leadership isexpressed at these different
stages in your career, it's very, very helpful as a filter
(09:45):
saying, hey, is this episode ofa podcast actually helpful for
me right now?
We found that's been veryhelpful for the founders in our
audience and again, I think it'sa good filter for folks to use.
So I'm not saying turn thingsoff, but I'm saying, hey, when
you're listening, you can listenout of curiosity or you can
listen to find the next thingyou need to work on.
Those are two different modes.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, I absolutely love that.
I mean, in some ways you'reexpressing wisdom in the sense
that we are distilling and weare scaffolding the learning.
So one way to think aboutscaffolding the learning is like
, if I want to train a surgeon,where do I start?
Well, maybe a gallbladder.
That's probably a good place tobegin, probably even before the
(10:26):
gallbladder.
But in the action of actually,you know, conducting surgery, or
if it's a pilot, I'm going tostart with a Cessna, not a 747.
And you know, I think it's up tous as content creators.
Of course we are on our ownjourneys of understanding and
making sense of kind of thedomain.
But I love the space you're inbecause you're starting to
(10:49):
scaffold the learning.
Again, if I was trying to traina black belt, these are the
white belt best practices, thewhite belt fundamentals you are
going to need to know.
They're timeless, they exist,they are foundational, and then
we're going to move you on toyellow or green.
I always forget what the secondone is, but I think that is a
(11:10):
master teacher, someone who hasmade sense of that complexity
and also someone who scaffoldsthe learning well, because the
challenge I see and you see thisall the time, especially with
the content fatigue.
We are bouncing people's mindsaround from systems thinking and
complexity down to ethics andcharacter, and it's just a shit
(11:32):
ton of noise.
Sorry for swearing, but it'sjust noise.
So how do we get our ownthinking clean?
So I love that you're in someways filtering out, like I'd
almost prefer you didn't listento these episodes until we're in
this space here.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
A hundred percent it really is.
And to make it a little funny,if you imagine, because it's all
well-meaning and good, right?
If someone walks this journey,so let's say we're going from LA
to Chicago, right, I've neverdone it before.
What's a wise thing to do?
Ask somebody else who's walkedthat road.
You made it to Chicago, what'sit like?
And they're like I froze mytail off in Denver like froze
(12:12):
like nearly died.
Make sure you're wearing reallywarm clothes when you go.
And so you're like, good, gotit Not going to freeze?
Bundle up, take off out of LAand you're like you're ready for
the Rockies.
Well, before you hit theRockies, you got to get through
Death Valley, and if you'redressed for the Rockies in Death
(12:32):
Valley, you're not going tomake it real far right.
And so again there's this timefunction of it.
It's not what do you need to do, as much as when do you need to
do.
Yes, you have to be dressed forthe Rockies in the Rockies,
that's wisdom.
But if you're dressed for theRockies in Death Valley, you're
not going to make it throughDeath Valley because it's hot.
And so you get this challenge,where again, we have these
(12:56):
wonderful people who are waydown the road, who are looking
back saying, hey, I wish I hadknown this, but they haven't
quite crystallized it to.
I wish I knew this at thispoint.
And so everyone else somewhereearlier down behind them on the
road is thinking, well, I mustget ready for that, and we're
just piling equipment on,equipment on equipment on, and
(13:18):
ultimately it's really nothelpful and I think, if anything
, it actually increases thefailure rate because we're
fighting through all of thatequipment to just try and take
the next step.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, it's so well said and you're actually almost
paralyzed with equipment, like Idon't even know.
I know I need this, but I don'tknow when I'm going to need it
and it's just adding weight andbaggage.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Yeah.
So that's the problem.
To crystallize this, that's theproblem of pulling lessons from
your future into your present.
It is possible to beover-prepared, it's not.
You know, the Boy Scouts aregoing to be prepared for
everything.
We were talking about the frontend Swiss army knives, right,
but at some point there is thepossibility for leaders to
engage in activities and skillsand development and tools and
(14:00):
equipment that they don't needyet.
So there's that problem ofpulling from the future right,
which I think is happening morenow than ever.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
There's the age-old problem of hanging on to the
past well, yes, I mean, in allof these transitions, I need to
let go, I need to morph into anew version of me yes, that's a
whole nother domain.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yes, and that's the, the language we use around.
That is evolving because it'staking what is and making it
something different, but notcompletely, completely
abdicating what was.
Now that's really tricky,because it's like what do you
hold on to and what do you letgo of?
And the answer to that isdifferent at every stage.
And so, you see, there's kindof an accumulation of skills
(14:43):
throughout a leader's career,but the reliance on those skills
, especially the early ones,diminishes over time.
It's not about what you do withyour hands, it's about what you
do through others.
As we go further in thisprocess and you brought up a
really interesting parallelearlier, which was flying and
learning to fly.
And when you fly the taildragger or the Cessna, or was it
the Piper, I think, is what Iflew.
(15:05):
And when you fly those and youget your pilot's license
initially it's basically avisual license.
You're able to fly during theday, when it's not cloudy, and
over distances that you cantravel without Limited distance,
limited height.
Why?
Because the way that younavigate, the way that you keep
from dying, is by seeing theground.
It's like where are you tryingto go?
(15:26):
You're looking out the window.
What happens when you try andcross the Atlantic by seeing,
you know, like you can't.
What happens when you need tofly above the clouds?
You can't fly visually.
And so a big part of this isyou've got a pilot.
It's like well, I've flownvisually, I've always flown
visually.
It's always been good enough,granddaddy flew visually.
(15:47):
You know, and we get into thismode of like, that's how I've
always done it.
And you know again, regardlessof how you fly, eventually, if
you look out the window, there'sa mountain there, like I don't
care what the instrument says,like, so you don't abandon that,
yeah, but you enhance it, youcomplement it, you learn to fly
by controls, and so a big partof what happens again as leaders
(16:07):
is that at some stage in ourcareer right, and we can talk
about how to identify that youhave to stop playing visually.
You've got to move from that.
Hey, I know how to makedecisions because I'm there in
every single moment to.
I know how to make decisionsbecause I've got this set of
controls ahead of me.
That's giving me the feedback Ineed to make great decisions.
(16:29):
So it's a new skill at a newtime.
We don't abandon the old one,but we adopt the new one.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well and the stakes get higher.
I'm no longer in a Piper or aCessna, now I have 400 humans
with me and that could be a very, very nice parallel to a VP
who's leading a division and ifthey have not successfully made
that transition, successfullykind of integrated into that new
way of being, let go of whatthey and again, that's the
(16:56):
wisdom what do I need to let goof?
What do I need to live into andtransform?
But to your point, in theoriginal kind of the content
fatigue, I think in some ways wecan be part of the problem in
our own exploration of, in someways, learning in public.
It becomes a lot of noise inthe minds of the individual.
I see that in the classroom allof the time when it comes to
(17:19):
the topic of leadership.
We are telling a player abouthow to build teams and they're
not there yet.
They just need to be playingwell, they need, you know,
ethical behavior.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, no, it's 100% right.
You got to learn to manageyourself right before you can
manage anybody else.
So there's enough to work onLike.
There's just enough to work onto like get yourself like I'm
the toughest guy for me to lead.
Let's just all be honest withthat.
(17:51):
And so when we complicate itwith and you need to know all
these strategies and you need tohave all these techniques and
you have to have all these.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's too much,at the wrong time.
And and again, nothing againstall of those things.
They're critical for someonewho's stepping into that VP type
role, but they're not ascritical for the new leader
coming up out of business school.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Well, too much at the wrong time.
I mean, it's just beautifullyphrased.
How else are you thinking aboutnavigating some of that?
Scott?
I think it's up to us to getour own thinking clean, and it
sounds like you're in thatprocess of getting your thinking
clean of look.
This is when you need to knowthis, and these are the
fundamentals at these differentlevels.
Any other little nooks andcrannies of that conversation
(18:30):
that are kind.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
So another part of it if when is a really important
question, that kind ofpresupposes a journey.
There's a beginning point andat least one destination point
and maybe others along the way,and so if we're going to
navigate the when questionsuccessfully over time, we've
got to have a clear sense ofwhere we are and where we want
(18:56):
to get to.
And again, this is particularlytrue of founders, but there's a
lot of parallels to leadershipin general, and so one of the
things in writing the book, oneof the big challenges that I've
come across, is that everyoneautomatically thinks that they
need to get to stage sevenbecause it's the last and the
greatest stage, and it's justpatently false.
(19:16):
There's nothing that saysyou're a better person by
evolving to the next level ofleadership, and so we've got
this kind of bigger is bettermentality in everything, and so
a huge part of what compoundsthe emotional pain caused by
content fatigue is that we startabsorbing content and even when
(19:37):
it's right for taking us to thenext level we don't actually
need to get to and we shouldn'tget to the next level.
It's actually not in alignmentwith where we want our career to
go, and so you get thiscompounding effect of all this
information.
Now you're responsible for allof it.
You feel this pressure to go upand to the right and you leave
(19:58):
behind the thing that you loveto do.
You know, like there are a lotof you know I'll use the coffee
shop owner there's a lot ofpeople who start coffee shops to
make great coffee.
And when you get and you dothat well, people like you
should open another shop on theother side of town.
You should open another shop onthe other side of town.
And now, all of a sudden, you'releading three shops.
You're not making coffee at all.
(20:19):
You're sitting behind a desk,you're trying to figure out why
you're not profitable and youmean you're just, you're hating
life and it's like you builtthat thing.
Why would you build somethingthat you don't want to do?
And again, the same thing isfor leaders Like you don't have
to get to the next level ofleadership.
It's again another planemetaphor, just like being on a
plane.
Sometimes the closest exit isbehind you.
(20:40):
Sometimes the best destinationfor you is where you just were
and you can go hang out there,at least for a while.
And so a big part of it isnormalizing for folks that
there's no moral mandate toreach the next level.
Sometimes all we need to do islearn to thrive where we are
right now, and I would argueit's actually most of the time.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Yeah, because that individual who was the pilot and
now is the chief pilot, or thatindividual who is the architect
and now they're leading thestudio we just go down the list
of these examples.
You know the accountant that isnow gunning for partner and
engaged in business developmentand they just love being behind
a screen looking at spreadsheets.
You're completely changing myjob and my energy might not be
(21:27):
there.
So all along these ways kind ofinterjecting conversations for
people to at least, becausethere's nothing worse than
putting someone in a position ofauthority who doesn't like
people, want to care for people,elevate others it's just not
going to work well, it's notsustainable.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, because it's better right and we can't even
say why, you know.
And there are things that arebetter, don't get me wrong.
Like there are advantages inevery stage, but there are
disadvantages in every stage aswell.
And so for some reason, we likedisregard all the disadvantages
of the next stage and just payattention to the advantages, and
we disregard all the advantagesof the current stage and just
(22:07):
pay attention to thedisadvantages.
And then we weaponize this needto get to the next stage
because somehow that's going tosolve all the disadvantages and
leave us with all the advantagesand neither one is true To your
point.
Like, if you're not designedfor that next stage, not only is
it not better, it's worse,because it's just not what's for
you.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Now I don't know if you've seen this, if you've been
engaged in some of theseconversations and I don't want
to turn this into a generationskind of conversation only
because I struggle with thatsome and something I'm hearing
in accounting and in law andhealthcare is that Gen Zs and
maybe millennials are a littlemore aware of what they do and
(22:50):
don't want.
And so what I'm bumping into isyou know, you have some of these
firms and organizations thatare kind of predicated on a
cohort of humans killingthemselves to elevate to a
certain level, like, let's justsay, partner, and millennials
are saying, yeah, I'm not reallyso interested and I'm going to
be with my son and I'm notinterested in traveling 40
(23:12):
percent of the time.
I mean in those conversations alittle bit more.
I mean in those conversations alittle bit more.
And then, of course, the seniorleaders, gen Xers and, in some
cases, baby boomers, a littlebefuddled because they're like
well, what do you mean?
You don't want to be partner?
What do you mean?
You don't want to?
You know, rise to the nextlevel, kind of that unconscious,
just assumed you know end goal.
(23:32):
So I'm in those conversationsmore and more.
Have you seen any of this?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Notice this.
Yeah, let me frame it in aslightly different way that I
think is helpful.
I think that previousgenerations were very good at I
have to, I have to show up, Ihave to do my dues, and the
system was dependent on a groupof people committing to what
they had to do.
We had to do that to getthrough World War II.
So there's a certain elementthat just became the ethos but
(23:58):
that inherently createsresistance.
Nobody wants to have to dosomething, especially for
someone else, for an extendedperiod of time.
So there's this inherentresentment that comes from that.
I think that you see in latergenerations a recognition of
that resentment and an accuratediagnosis that a significant
portion of it came from thisidea that we had to and a
(24:20):
questioning of that, and so theproposed alternative is I want
to, and that's not a whole lotbetter.
Right, it solves some of theproblems, but it's like there's
lots of things that I want to doand most of them are mutually
exclusive.
Like I want to be in shape andI want to eat ice cream, I want
to sleep in and I want to beproductive.
(24:41):
It's like being moved by ourwant-tos.
You sacrifice a whole lot ofresilience, because those
want-tos are so emotionallybased oftentimes that they'll
just move and flip and flow, andthat's not all that great
either.
I think where we succeed as asociety is when we really move
(25:02):
to what we choose to do right.
It's that high agency.
I want to achieve this, I needto achieve that, but this is
what I choose to do and so it'snot.
You know, it's informed but notmoved by our wants.
It's informed but not directedby our needs, what our have tos,
(25:22):
but it's what we choose to do.
Hey, I see that opportunity andI see what it would gain and
what it would cost.
I see this opportunity, what itwould gain and I choose this.
And when we can take agency forthat, when we can own our
decision of our trajectory andour path and where we're going
(25:42):
and we stick to that language ofhey, I chose this, it's hard,
but I chose it.
Man, like it unlocks such anextraordinary power.
You can see people dounbelievably hard things because
they choose to wow.
The different generations havedifferent takes, but it's kind
of equal but opposite errors.
And I think what goes down themiddle of that and what is
(26:05):
available to both sides of thegenerational divide that you
listed there is the ability tosay, hey, sure, there's all
these things I feel like I haveto do, but this is what I choose
to do.
Yeah, all things I want in mycareer, but this is what I
choose to do.
Yeah, all things I want in mycareer, but this is what I
choose.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
I like that framing.
I like it a lot.
I really do, because, yes, theI want to or don't want to can
be taken to an extreme and isjust as unhealthy and it keeps
people stuck sometimes.
And I mean there is a level ofresilience, grit.
I mean there's a balance.
In any job I have to do somethings that I'm not so excited
(26:40):
about, and that's a piece of it.
And in any job there's things Ichoose to do and there's things
I want to do.
But if we go to either of thosepolarities to a certain extreme
, it's unhealthy.
It feels to me like the chooseis a nice kind of place.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Well, and it's interesting, gretchen Rubin
talked about her four tendenciesand it's basically an
Eisenhower matrix of where doyou get the input that you need
to move forward?
And it's either you need itfrom the outside or you resist
it from the outside.
You need it from the inside oryou resist it from the outside,
and it's the four differentcombinations of those two.
And that's really what we'retalking about here.
(27:14):
Want to is the intrinsic, I'mmoved by my own desires, and
need to is the extrinsic.
I'm moved by external desires.
And I would say most of us areto some extent wired in some
combination of those two.
And again, choose to whatchoose to mandates is hey, I
(27:34):
recognize this natural wiring,but I'm going to own it, I'm
going to control it, I'm notgoing to let it move me.
And what it requires is somedegree of vision for where we're
going, some degree of purpose,mission, fill in the blank with
whatever noun you want to usethere, but there's a destination
(27:55):
to use the language fromearlier in the conversation, and
that destination isexceptionally powerful.
And it's a destination to usethe language from earlier in the
conversation, and thatdestination is exceptionally
powerful and it's a bit trickyas well.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Scott, I very, very much appreciate the conversation
.
I think we've given listeners alot to think about and reflect
on.
Very much because, again, youare in these conversations, you
are helping these businessowners.
I love your framing of what isthe right content right now and
how are we going to scaffoldthis so that you can be
(28:24):
successful, so that you cannavigate one of these hidden
landmines which is contentfatigue.
That's a hidden landmine andagain, I think often
well-intended individuals can bea part of the problem.
And how do we as contentcreators, how do we as educators
, get our thinking as clean aspossible to help people navigate
(28:46):
that?
I think it's a wonderfulmission.
It's an absolutely wonderfulmission.
So I always conclude theseconversations by asking guests
what they've been listening tostreaming, what's caught your
attention in recent times?
It could have something to dowith what we've just discussed.
It might have nothing to dowith what we've just discussed.
For instance, I've beenwatching the Bear season four
and it's awesome.
(29:06):
So what's caught your attention?
Listening to streaming, readingwhat's something that listeners
might be interested in?
Speaker 2 (29:14):
So I don't have a specific source of this.
I wish I did.
But I have been highlyintrigued by sport science,
particularly as it pertains toorganizational psychology and
how much the sciences of sportyou know stimulus, recovery,
adaptation plays out organicallyin organizations, and so I've
(29:37):
been nerding out on a wholebunch of sport scientists from
all kinds of differentdisciplines and just been
intrigued by the parallelsbetween that and the work that I
do with organizations.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Oh, it's amazing.
I mean, you know I've beenworking a little bit recently on
helping leaders just developtheir own personal leadership
profile, like, okay, you're thecoach, quote unquote what is it
like to work for you, what areyour non-negotiables, what are
your expectations?
And it's amazing how greatcoaches John Wooden framed that
(30:07):
up beautifully, down to like howyou should put on your socks.
I mean, he may be bordered onmicromanagement, but he was damn
good and you knew he caredright and he cared about you as
a human.
But but he had a philosophy.
Coach K had a philosophy.
And so I see it all the time inorganizational life where you
have these people in positionsof authority with no clue of
(30:30):
what their philosophy is, offraming up what it's going to be
like to work for me and be onthis team.
It's just amazing.
So I 100% agree with you.
I think there's a lot of lessonsthat we could take from that
domain that are incrediblyvaluable.
Yeah, absolutely Very much so.
Even the literature K AndersEricsson I don't know if you
(30:53):
ever came across him.
He was one of the founders ofthe expertise literature, so how
you become an expert and hedidn't care what the domain was
violin, cello Gladwell's 10,000hours came from his research,
but it was bastardized byGladwell in many, many ways.
But, yes, I mean, there's somuch that can be learned from
(31:13):
that space.
That nicely translates, ofcourse, not everything, but I
love it Sports science, yep.
Well, sir, thank you so much,appreciate the conversation
today, appreciate you taking thetime, and you know what.
I'm going to put some links inthe show notes for listeners so
you know how to connect withScott and his work and his books
(31:35):
.
And, sir, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Scott, thanks for having me, it was a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Content fatigue.
I sometimes wonder if I havebeen contributing to that.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
I think I have Failing forward, failing forward
, but you know what A newversion of this podcast is kind
of on the horizon and I'll sharea little bit more about that
soon.
But this conversation withScott my fellow Scott has really
helped inform how I might justapproach that podcast and for
(32:13):
that I am super thankful To allof you.
I'm thankful Almost five yearswe've been doing this podcast
and you've been listening and Iappreciate that and I am
thankful for that.
Take care, everybody, be well.
Thanks so much to Scott.
Bye-bye.
Okay, everybody, welcome to Practical Wisdom for
Leaders.
Thank you so much for checkingin wherever you are in the world
, and today I have ScottRitzheimer.
I have been on his podcast.
He is now joining me.
Wealth of knowledge, Scotthelped start nearly 20,000 new
businesses and nonprofits and,with his partner, started their
multimillion-dollar businessthrough an exceptional and
(00:22):
extended growth phase over 10years of double-digit growth,
all before he turned 35.
Today he helps founders andCEOs identify and implement the
one essential strategy they needright now to get them on the
fast track to predictablesuccess.
Sir, thank you so much forbeing with me today.
Very, very much appreciate yourtime, Really looking forward to
(00:43):
this conversation, because youare out there in the wild.
You are having conversationswith individuals, with leaders,
both on the podcast but then inyour work, and I think the
direction we're going to takethe conversation is what are you
hearing out there in the wild?
What are you experiencing rightnow?
What are leaders strugglingwith?
What are leaders navigating?
Thank you so much for beinghere, sir Scott, thanks for
(01:06):
having me.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
There's always this moment when I bump into another
Scott because there aren't thatmany of us, you know, but
there's enough.
And it reminds me of this scenefrom Seinfeld where Kramer is
lost in downtown New York Cityand he calls Seinfeld in a
frenzy you know, help me, helpme.
And he's like well, where areyou?
(01:30):
And he's like looking aroundfrom a phone booth you remember
those and he sees the streetsign and it's first and first.
He's like I'm at the nexus ofthe universe and I was.
When Scott and Scott gettogether, I think we've got a
nexus moment happening.
Not that nexus of the universeactually makes any sense at all
but, that's how I feel everytime, so thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
Love the podcasting world.
(01:51):
I think it's super cool, gotinto it as kind of a side
project and fell in love with it.
I think, similar story to youand, yes, met so many wonderful
people, learned so many amazingthings.
And that's actually a littlebit of the problem that I'm
seeing right now is we have moreaccess to great information
than we ever have and it's justpouring in from everywhere and
so you can go in any givenmoment, any given week you can
(02:14):
find 50 podcasts with 50 amazingguests that tell you 50 amazing
things that you must be doingto transform your business and
your leadership.
And that's a real problem,because folks that come to me in
my coaching practice I hear ita lot they're just torn in so
many different directionsalready that it's like the last
thing that they need is morethings that they should be doing
(02:35):
.
That's only going to ramp up,as the you know, I'm not an AI
expert by any stretch of theimagination, but you can just
see that what is gonnaproliferate that information
even further.
And the real challenge there ishow do you know what you
actually should be doing.
When you have this overwhelmingwealth and abundance of
(02:55):
information, how do you knowwhat you should be doing?
And the reality of it is likeit's not actually working all
that great.
You would think that if we hadall this information and we were
able to share all thisinformation as freely as we can,
particularly in the podcastworld, then we would see some
kind of commensurate rise in thesuccess of leaders.
And the reality we don't.
(03:17):
You know, you see successfulstories, but you don't see this
statistical significant gain inanything from when we start to
how we scale and ultimately tothe succession process, all
three of which myself and myteam focus on.
But what we've really got to getto the bottom to is how do we
know, not what we need to do,but what we need to do right now
(03:39):
, and I think that's the realwisdom that folks need.
That's the real insight that weneed.
There's a proverb that saysgives me insight and the virtue
to live it out.
And when we get a bunch ofinformation but we don't have
the wisdom to filter it and thenwe lack the confidence to have
the virtue to actually implementit and we end up worse off than
we were before, because when wedidn't know it we didn't feel
(04:01):
bad about it.
You know now that we know itand can't do it, now we feel bad
about it.
So there's this whole shamething that gets wrapped up into
it, and I see a lot of leadersstruggling a lot more than they
should simply because they haveaccess to all this information
but they don't know what to dowith it.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
When you called it, you called it content fatigue.
I mean that's just a beautifulkind of framing of it.
I see this in leadership allthe time and again.
Having done almost 300 episodesjust on the topic of leadership
, I mean it's confusing, and sowhat's really been kind of fun.
Scott and I agree with you onwe're a little bit of a dying
(04:37):
breed.
I haven't met anyone recentlywho when I said what's your
kid's name, they said Scott.
It's kind of like Carl or Gary,it's just not, you know.
Yeah, yeah, it's not goinganywhere anytime soon, but you
know it's been so much fun inthese five years of doing the
podcast to try and distill itdown to okay, what does someone
(04:58):
need to know about leadership?
Like, okay, yes, there areliterally tens of thousands of
things you could know.
Do you have domain expertise?
Are you self-aware?
Do you have character?
Are you an individual who canbuild relationships like a
heat-seeking missile?
Those are some great places foryou to start and kind of
(05:18):
cutting through all of that andhelping synthesize and really, I
think, prioritize that's insome ways, what is so critical
for me is just theprioritization of the thousands
and thousands of things that arecoming at folks and I loved
your use of that word wisdom,the wisdom to know what of these
(05:38):
to prioritize right now.
But that content fatigue,that's great phrasing.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, and it really is, and I think one of the
things that I've honed in on.
We just released episode 300 ofour podcast just recently and
in it marked a pretty big pivotin terms of how we're addressing
this issue of content fatigueand one of the things that we're
doing and our audience isleaders, but predominantly
founders of nonprofits andfor-profits, and so that's kind
(06:05):
of the core of my audience andmy target, and so I might slip
into founder talk here a littlebit catch me if I do but one of
the things that we've done forour audience has said hey,
there's roughly 70% of ourcontent that you don't have to
pay any attention to, becausewhat we've done is I wrote a
book on the founder's evolutionand we go through these seven
(06:25):
different stages that foundersgo through, and so we've
actually used that structurallyto categorize and stratify, if
you will, the different podcastepisodes.
To say, hey, when you're in thisstage, this is something to pay
attention to, but if you're notin this stage, I'd actually
prefer that you don't.
Now.
If you do, that's fine.
You can be curious, you canlearn, you can get an idea of
what's ahead, but you don't feelany need to implement this
(06:47):
anytime soon because it's eitherin your future or it's in your
past.
Love it.
And that's been met really,really well for our folks and, I
think, for leaders.
There's this same kind ofjourney that happens, and I
think it's a helpful way forfolks to filter out.
What should I be payingattention to as a leader?
What should I be payingattention to as a leader?
Because not all things arecreated equal at all times and
there are some things that willbe very, very good in your
(07:08):
future.
There were some things thatwere very, very good in your
past but may not represent thecore, and to illustrate this
point, I'll start with one ofthe early transitions.
So, first off, our definitionof leadership is any action that
moves a group of two or moretoward their shared goals.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Great, that's awesome .
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, yeah, so pretty simple.
And that means that it's notpositional necessarily, it's not
stylistic necessarily, it's noteven all that noble.
It's very practical in terms ofhis application and so the
secretary can lead just fromstage two to stage three.
But for leaders, it's this movefrom what I call the player on
the field to the captain on thefield Nice, right, and it's.
(07:58):
Some folks will call it playercoach, and I think that misses
it a little bit, because what'shappening is you are primarily
responsible for you early on,and leadership looks like doing
your job really well in thecontext of a team, making the
team better by your presence,but it's mostly like make sure
you keep your position.
Your side it's the left side,strong side or whatever it is
(08:18):
they say in Remember the Titans,you know, and so you get really
, really good at that, and whathappens is, you know, success in
that stage necessarily thrustsyou into the next one, and
what's really confusing about itis you're still on the field.
Like it would make sense if itwas like okay, you're off the
field now.
Now you have.
Now.
That's a hard transition to makefor a lot of folks, but at
(08:41):
least it makes sense, andespecially in the sports world
because there's now a bigboundary line between you and
the game, yes, and so it's notquite like oh, I can just be a
leader because I have my own jobto do still, and I can't not be
a leader because I've got youknow, we use a football analogy
I've got 10 other peopleexpecting me to call the
audibles at the ground level,and if you're a shift supervisor
(09:02):
, the five or six peoplereporting to you, whatever it
might be, and so what you neededto do to lead well in that star
player mode is different thanwhat you need to do to lead well
at the captain on the fieldmode.
And if you just absorb contentthat is, here's how you manage
your time best and here's howyou do this skill best and
(09:24):
here's how you communicate best,those are all great, but
they're missing the centralityof what's necessary to succeed
as a leader in that role.
So if you can recognize thesedifferent, very fundamental
shifts, how leadership isexpressed at these different
stages in your career, it's very, very helpful as a filter
(09:45):
saying, hey, is this episode ofa podcast actually helpful for
me right now?
We found that's been veryhelpful for the founders in our
audience and again, I think it'sa good filter for folks to use.
So I'm not saying turn thingsoff, but I'm saying, hey, when
you're listening, you can listenout of curiosity or you can
listen to find the next thingyou need to work on.
Those are two different modes.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, I absolutely love that.
I mean, in some ways you'reexpressing wisdom in the sense
that we are distilling and weare scaffolding the learning.
So one way to think aboutscaffolding the learning is like
, if I want to train a surgeon,where do I start?
Well, maybe a gallbladder.
That's probably a good place tobegin, probably even before the
(10:26):
gallbladder.
But in the action of actually,you know, conducting surgery, or
if it's a pilot, I'm going tostart with a Cessna, not a 747.
And you know, I think it's up tous as content creators.
Of course we are on our ownjourneys of understanding and
making sense of kind of thedomain.
But I love the space you're inbecause you're starting to
(10:49):
scaffold the learning.
Again, if I was trying to traina black belt, these are the
white belt best practices, thewhite belt fundamentals you are
going to need to know.
They're timeless, they exist,they are foundational, and then
we're going to move you on toyellow or green.
I always forget what the secondone is, but I think that is a
(11:10):
master teacher, someone who hasmade sense of that complexity
and also someone who scaffoldsthe learning well, because the
challenge I see and you see thisall the time, especially with
the content fatigue.
We are bouncing people's mindsaround from systems thinking and
complexity down to ethics andcharacter, and it's just a shit
(11:32):
ton of noise.
Sorry for swearing, but it'sjust noise.
So how do we get our ownthinking clean?
So I love that you're in someways filtering out, like I'd
almost prefer you didn't listento these episodes until we're in
this space here.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
A hundred percent it really is.
And to make it a little funny,if you imagine, because it's all
well-meaning and good, right?
If someone walks this journey,so let's say we're going from LA
to Chicago, right, I've neverdone it before.
What's a wise thing to do?
Ask somebody else who's walkedthat road.
You made it to Chicago, what'sit like?
And they're like I froze mytail off in Denver like froze
(12:12):
like nearly died.
Make sure you're wearing reallywarm clothes when you go.
And so you're like, good, gotit Not going to freeze?
Bundle up, take off out of LAand you're like you're ready for
the Rockies.
Well, before you hit theRockies, you got to get through
Death Valley, and if you'redressed for the Rockies in Death
(12:32):
Valley, you're not going tomake it real far right.
And so again there's this timefunction of it.
It's not what do you need to do, as much as when do you need to
do.
Yes, you have to be dressed forthe Rockies in the Rockies,
that's wisdom.
But if you're dressed for theRockies in Death Valley, you're
not going to make it throughDeath Valley because it's hot.
And so you get this challenge,where again, we have these
(12:56):
wonderful people who are waydown the road, who are looking
back saying, hey, I wish I hadknown this, but they haven't
quite crystallized it to.
I wish I knew this at thispoint.
And so everyone else somewhereearlier down behind them on the
road is thinking, well, I mustget ready for that, and we're
just piling equipment on,equipment on equipment on, and
(13:18):
ultimately it's really nothelpful and I think, if anything
, it actually increases thefailure rate because we're
fighting through all of thatequipment to just try and take
the next step.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, it's so well said and you're actually almost
paralyzed with equipment, like Idon't even know.
I know I need this, but I don'tknow when I'm going to need it
and it's just adding weight andbaggage.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Yeah.
So that's the problem.
To crystallize this, that's theproblem of pulling lessons from
your future into your present.
It is possible to beover-prepared, it's not.
You know, the Boy Scouts aregoing to be prepared for
everything.
We were talking about the frontend Swiss army knives, right,
but at some point there is thepossibility for leaders to
engage in activities and skillsand development and tools and
(14:00):
equipment that they don't needyet.
So there's that problem ofpulling from the future right,
which I think is happening morenow than ever.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
There's the age-old problem of hanging on to the
past well, yes, I mean, in allof these transitions, I need to
let go, I need to morph into anew version of me yes, that's a
whole nother domain.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yes, and that's the, the language we use around.
That is evolving because it'staking what is and making it
something different, but notcompletely, completely
abdicating what was.
Now that's really tricky,because it's like what do you
hold on to and what do you letgo of?
And the answer to that isdifferent at every stage.
And so, you see, there's kindof an accumulation of skills
(14:43):
throughout a leader's career,but the reliance on those skills
, especially the early ones,diminishes over time.
It's not about what you do withyour hands, it's about what you
do through others.
As we go further in thisprocess and you brought up a
really interesting parallelearlier, which was flying and
learning to fly.
And when you fly the taildragger or the Cessna, or was it
the Piper, I think, is what Iflew.
(15:05):
And when you fly those and youget your pilot's license
initially it's basically avisual license.
You're able to fly during theday, when it's not cloudy, and
over distances that you cantravel without Limited distance,
limited height.
Why?
Because the way that younavigate, the way that you keep
from dying, is by seeing theground.
It's like where are you tryingto go?
(15:26):
You're looking out the window.
What happens when you try andcross the Atlantic by seeing,
you know, like you can't.
What happens when you need tofly above the clouds?
You can't fly visually.
And so a big part of this isyou've got a pilot.
It's like well, I've flownvisually, I've always flown
visually.
It's always been good enough,granddaddy flew visually.
(15:47):
You know, and we get into thismode of like, that's how I've
always done it.
And you know again, regardlessof how you fly, eventually, if
you look out the window, there'sa mountain there, like I don't
care what the instrument says,like, so you don't abandon that,
yeah, but you enhance it, youcomplement it, you learn to fly
by controls, and so a big partof what happens again as leaders
(16:07):
is that at some stage in ourcareer right, and we can talk
about how to identify that youhave to stop playing visually.
You've got to move from that.
Hey, I know how to makedecisions because I'm there in
every single moment to.
I know how to make decisionsbecause I've got this set of
controls ahead of me.
That's giving me the feedback Ineed to make great decisions.
(16:29):
So it's a new skill at a newtime.
We don't abandon the old one,but we adopt the new one.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well and the stakes get higher.
I'm no longer in a Piper or aCessna, now I have 400 humans
with me and that could be a very, very nice parallel to a VP
who's leading a division and ifthey have not successfully made
that transition, successfullykind of integrated into that new
way of being, let go of whatthey and again, that's the
(16:56):
wisdom what do I need to let goof?
What do I need to live into andtransform?
But to your point, in theoriginal kind of the content
fatigue, I think in some ways wecan be part of the problem in
our own exploration of, in someways, learning in public.
It becomes a lot of noise inthe minds of the individual.
I see that in the classroom allof the time when it comes to
(17:19):
the topic of leadership.
We are telling a player abouthow to build teams and they're
not there yet.
They just need to be playingwell, they need, you know,
ethical behavior.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, no, it's 100% right.
You got to learn to manageyourself right before you can
manage anybody else.
So there's enough to work onLike.
There's just enough to work onto like get yourself like I'm
the toughest guy for me to lead.
Let's just all be honest withthat.
(17:51):
And so when we complicate itwith and you need to know all
these strategies and you need tohave all these techniques and
you have to have all these.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's too much,at the wrong time.
And and again, nothing againstall of those things.
They're critical for someonewho's stepping into that VP type
role, but they're not ascritical for the new leader
coming up out of business school.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Well, too much at the wrong time.
I mean, it's just beautifullyphrased.
How else are you thinking aboutnavigating some of that?
Scott?
I think it's up to us to getour own thinking clean, and it
sounds like you're in thatprocess of getting your thinking
clean of look.
This is when you need to knowthis, and these are the
fundamentals at these differentlevels.
Any other little nooks andcrannies of that conversation
(18:30):
that are kind.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
So another part of it if when is a really important
question, that kind ofpresupposes a journey.
There's a beginning point andat least one destination point
and maybe others along the way,and so if we're going to
navigate the when questionsuccessfully over time, we've
got to have a clear sense ofwhere we are and where we want
(18:56):
to get to.
And again, this is particularlytrue of founders, but there's a
lot of parallels to leadershipin general, and so one of the
things in writing the book, oneof the big challenges that I've
come across, is that everyoneautomatically thinks that they
need to get to stage sevenbecause it's the last and the
greatest stage, and it's justpatently false.
(19:16):
There's nothing that saysyou're a better person by
evolving to the next level ofleadership, and so we've got
this kind of bigger is bettermentality in everything, and so
a huge part of what compoundsthe emotional pain caused by
content fatigue is that we startabsorbing content and even when
(19:37):
it's right for taking us to thenext level we don't actually
need to get to and we shouldn'tget to the next level.
It's actually not in alignmentwith where we want our career to
go, and so you get thiscompounding effect of all this
information.
Now you're responsible for allof it.
You feel this pressure to go upand to the right and you leave
(19:58):
behind the thing that you loveto do.
You know, like there are a lotof you know I'll use the coffee
shop owner there's a lot ofpeople who start coffee shops to
make great coffee.
And when you get and you dothat well, people like you
should open another shop on theother side of town.
You should open another shop onthe other side of town.
And now, all of a sudden, you'releading three shops.
You're not making coffee at all.
(20:19):
You're sitting behind a desk,you're trying to figure out why
you're not profitable and youmean you're just, you're hating
life and it's like you builtthat thing.
Why would you build somethingthat you don't want to do?
And again, the same thing isfor leaders Like you don't have
to get to the next level ofleadership.
It's again another planemetaphor, just like being on a
plane.
Sometimes the closest exit isbehind you.
(20:40):
Sometimes the best destinationfor you is where you just were
and you can go hang out there,at least for a while.
And so a big part of it isnormalizing for folks that
there's no moral mandate toreach the next level.
Sometimes all we need to do islearn to thrive where we are
right now, and I would argueit's actually most of the time.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Yeah, because that individual who was the pilot and
now is the chief pilot, or thatindividual who is the architect
and now they're leading thestudio we just go down the list
of these examples.
You know the accountant that isnow gunning for partner and
engaged in business developmentand they just love being behind
a screen looking at spreadsheets.
You're completely changing myjob and my energy might not be
(21:27):
there.
So all along these ways kind ofinterjecting conversations for
people to at least, becausethere's nothing worse than
putting someone in a position ofauthority who doesn't like
people, want to care for people,elevate others it's just not
going to work well, it's notsustainable.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, because it's better right and we can't even
say why, you know.
And there are things that arebetter, don't get me wrong.
Like there are advantages inevery stage, but there are
disadvantages in every stage aswell.
And so for some reason, we likedisregard all the disadvantages
of the next stage and just payattention to the advantages, and
we disregard all the advantagesof the current stage and just
(22:07):
pay attention to thedisadvantages.
And then we weaponize this needto get to the next stage
because somehow that's going tosolve all the disadvantages and
leave us with all the advantagesand neither one is true To your
point.
Like, if you're not designedfor that next stage, not only is
it not better, it's worse,because it's just not what's for
you.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Now I don't know if you've seen this, if you've been
engaged in some of theseconversations and I don't want
to turn this into a generationskind of conversation only
because I struggle with thatsome and something I'm hearing
in accounting and in law andhealthcare is that Gen Zs and
maybe millennials are a littlemore aware of what they do and
(22:50):
don't want.
And so what I'm bumping into isyou know, you have some of these
firms and organizations thatare kind of predicated on a
cohort of humans killingthemselves to elevate to a
certain level, like, let's justsay, partner, and millennials
are saying, yeah, I'm not reallyso interested and I'm going to
be with my son and I'm notinterested in traveling 40
(23:12):
percent of the time.
I mean in those conversations alittle bit more.
I mean in those conversations alittle bit more.
And then, of course, the seniorleaders, gen Xers and, in some
cases, baby boomers, a littlebefuddled because they're like
well, what do you mean?
You don't want to be partner?
What do you mean?
You don't want to?
You know, rise to the nextlevel, kind of that unconscious,
just assumed you know end goal.
(23:32):
So I'm in those conversationsmore and more.
Have you seen any of this?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Notice this.
Yeah, let me frame it in aslightly different way that I
think is helpful.
I think that previousgenerations were very good at I
have to, I have to show up, Ihave to do my dues, and the
system was dependent on a groupof people committing to what
they had to do.
We had to do that to getthrough World War II.
So there's a certain elementthat just became the ethos but
(23:58):
that inherently createsresistance.
Nobody wants to have to dosomething, especially for
someone else, for an extendedperiod of time.
So there's this inherentresentment that comes from that.
I think that you see in latergenerations a recognition of
that resentment and an accuratediagnosis that a significant
portion of it came from thisidea that we had to and a
(24:20):
questioning of that, and so theproposed alternative is I want
to, and that's not a whole lotbetter.
Right, it solves some of theproblems, but it's like there's
lots of things that I want to doand most of them are mutually
exclusive.
Like I want to be in shape andI want to eat ice cream, I want
to sleep in and I want to beproductive.
(24:41):
It's like being moved by ourwant-tos.
You sacrifice a whole lot ofresilience, because those
want-tos are so emotionallybased oftentimes that they'll
just move and flip and flow, andthat's not all that great
either.
I think where we succeed as asociety is when we really move
(25:02):
to what we choose to do right.
It's that high agency.
I want to achieve this, I needto achieve that, but this is
what I choose to do and so it'snot.
You know, it's informed but notmoved by our wants.
It's informed but not directedby our needs, what our have tos,
(25:22):
but it's what we choose to do.
Hey, I see that opportunity andI see what it would gain and
what it would cost.
I see this opportunity, what itwould gain and I choose this.
And when we can take agency forthat, when we can own our
decision of our trajectory andour path and where we're going
(25:42):
and we stick to that language ofhey, I chose this, it's hard,
but I chose it.
Man, like it unlocks such anextraordinary power.
You can see people dounbelievably hard things because
they choose to wow.
The different generations havedifferent takes, but it's kind
of equal but opposite errors.
And I think what goes down themiddle of that and what is
(26:05):
available to both sides of thegenerational divide that you
listed there is the ability tosay, hey, sure, there's all
these things I feel like I haveto do, but this is what I choose
to do.
Yeah, all things I want in mycareer, but this is what I
choose to do.
Yeah, all things I want in mycareer, but this is what I
choose.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
I like that framing.
I like it a lot.
I really do, because, yes, theI want to or don't want to can
be taken to an extreme and isjust as unhealthy and it keeps
people stuck sometimes.
And I mean there is a level ofresilience, grit.
I mean there's a balance.
In any job I have to do somethings that I'm not so excited
(26:40):
about, and that's a piece of it.
And in any job there's things Ichoose to do and there's things
I want to do.
But if we go to either of thosepolarities to a certain extreme
, it's unhealthy.
It feels to me like the chooseis a nice kind of place.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Well, and it's interesting, gretchen Rubin
talked about her four tendenciesand it's basically an
Eisenhower matrix of where doyou get the input that you need
to move forward?
And it's either you need itfrom the outside or you resist
it from the outside.
You need it from the inside oryou resist it from the outside,
and it's the four differentcombinations of those two.
And that's really what we'retalking about here.
(27:14):
Want to is the intrinsic, I'mmoved by my own desires, and
need to is the extrinsic.
I'm moved by external desires.
And I would say most of us areto some extent wired in some
combination of those two.
And again, choose to whatchoose to mandates is hey, I
(27:34):
recognize this natural wiring,but I'm going to own it, I'm
going to control it, I'm notgoing to let it move me.
And what it requires is somedegree of vision for where we're
going, some degree of purpose,mission, fill in the blank with
whatever noun you want to usethere, but there's a destination
(27:55):
to use the language fromearlier in the conversation, and
that destination isexceptionally powerful.
And it's a destination to usethe language from earlier in the
conversation, and thatdestination is exceptionally
powerful and it's a bit trickyas well.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Scott, I very, very much appreciate the conversation
.
I think we've given listeners alot to think about and reflect
on.
Very much because, again, youare in these conversations, you
are helping these businessowners.
I love your framing of what isthe right content right now and
how are we going to scaffoldthis so that you can be
(28:24):
successful, so that you cannavigate one of these hidden
landmines which is contentfatigue.
That's a hidden landmine andagain, I think often
well-intended individuals can bea part of the problem.
And how do we as contentcreators, how do we as educators
, get our thinking as clean aspossible to help people navigate
(28:46):
that?
I think it's a wonderfulmission.
It's an absolutely wonderfulmission.
So I always conclude theseconversations by asking guests
what they've been listening tostreaming, what's caught your
attention in recent times?
It could have something to dowith what we've just discussed.
It might have nothing to dowith what we've just discussed.
For instance, I've beenwatching the Bear season four
and it's awesome.
(29:06):
So what's caught your attention?
Listening to streaming, readingwhat's something that listeners
might be interested in?
Speaker 2 (29:14):
So I don't have a specific source of this.
I wish I did.
But I have been highlyintrigued by sport science,
particularly as it pertains toorganizational psychology and
how much the sciences of sportyou know stimulus, recovery,
adaptation plays out organicallyin organizations, and so I've
(29:37):
been nerding out on a wholebunch of sport scientists from
all kinds of differentdisciplines and just been
intrigued by the parallelsbetween that and the work that I
do with organizations.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Oh, it's amazing.
I mean, you know I've beenworking a little bit recently on
helping leaders just developtheir own personal leadership
profile, like, okay, you're thecoach, quote unquote what is it
like to work for you, what areyour non-negotiables, what are
your expectations?
And it's amazing how greatcoaches John Wooden framed that
(30:07):
up beautifully, down to like howyou should put on your socks.
I mean, he may be bordered onmicromanagement, but he was damn
good and you knew he caredright and he cared about you as
a human.
But but he had a philosophy.
Coach K had a philosophy.
And so I see it all the time inorganizational life where you
have these people in positionsof authority with no clue of
(30:30):
what their philosophy is, offraming up what it's going to be
like to work for me and be onthis team.
It's just amazing.
So I 100% agree with you.
I think there's a lot of lessonsthat we could take from that
domain that are incrediblyvaluable.
Yeah, absolutely Very much so.
Even the literature K AndersEricsson I don't know if you
(30:53):
ever came across him.
He was one of the founders ofthe expertise literature, so how
you become an expert and hedidn't care what the domain was
violin, cello Gladwell's 10,000hours came from his research,
but it was bastardized byGladwell in many, many ways.
But, yes, I mean, there's somuch that can be learned from
(31:13):
that space.
That nicely translates, ofcourse, not everything, but I
love it Sports science, yep.
Well, sir, thank you so much,appreciate the conversation
today, appreciate you taking thetime, and you know what.
I'm going to put some links inthe show notes for listeners so
you know how to connect withScott and his work and his books
(31:35):
.
And, sir, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Scott, thanks for having me, it was a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Content fatigue.
I sometimes wonder if I havebeen contributing to that.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
I think I have Failing forward, failing forward
, but you know what A newversion of this podcast is kind
of on the horizon and I'll sharea little bit more about that
soon.
But this conversation withScott my fellow Scott has really
helped inform how I might justapproach that podcast and for
(32:13):
that I am super thankful To allof you.
I'm thankful Almost five yearswe've been doing this podcast
and you've been listening and Iappreciate that and I am
thankful for that.
Take care, everybody, be well.
Thanks so much to Scott.
Bye-bye.
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