How to Harness Fear for Personal and Professional Growth with Dr. Benjamin Ritter

Dr Benjamin Ritter , the founder of Live for Yourself Consulting , is a leadership and career coach , a talent development executive , a values geek , an international speaker , online course instructor and a podcaster who's passionate about guiding leaders to be the leader of their own career and create a career that they love .

Ben holds a doctorate in organizational leadership , with a focus on value congruence and job satisfaction , also an MBA in entrepreneurial management and , to round it out , an MPH in health policy administration . He's worked with companies like Amazon , coursera , doordash , google Fiserv , northwestern , pinterest and Yelp .

Ben understands how to navigate any career path you decide you want to travel and for today's topic , he is the author of his new book Becoming Fearless 65 Strategies to Journey from Self-Doubt to Self-Mastery .

And then , when you're in an organization , how do you find fulfillment and job satisfaction and I really like the word fulfillment . It's so like heavy , but it's also really important and then how do you do that for your team ? And I got to where I am today because I was the leader that faced a lot of disappointments in their career .

I thought I knew what I wanted to do , so I was initially professional soccer . That didn't work out due to injury and I mean partially talent . And then I thought I wanted to go into nutrition and then they canceled my major . I wanted to go in health policy and I had four jobs cut due to funding over two and a half years .

I thought I wanted to start a business . Didn't have confidence at the time to do it . I thought that I wanted to be in healthcare care . Uh well , kind of thought .

I kind of networked in because it was what I could do at the time and so I landed in a job that I stumbled into after a slew of career disappointments and so I didn't have like a really positive perspective on what a job could be . And they're like the first like couple years it was just kind of the honeymoon phase .

I was getting the lay of the land , learning how to be a professional , never really bought into the nine to five traditional mindset .

So I feel kind of bad for my leaders at the time because you're working with this kid who didn't really feel like a job was safe because it never really was , who never really thought he'd be sitting behind a desk and right when I'm looking to get out they put me in a leadership development program for 16 months and promote me to an executive team .

So you have this kid who's super disengaged , actively disengaged , like I probably was costing the company money doing his work but nowhere near performing where he could be .

That was really resentful towards his employer , towards the career like realm overall , towards his employer , towards the career like realm overall , and I blamed , like everyone around me , for the situation that was and I was not fun to be around at that time and I mean , this was like it was in healthcare for like six and a half seven years .

And luckily , in that leadership development program I was paired up with a mentor and it was the first time in my professional career that I was actually able to have a safe conversation about work outside of my own head , and it allowed me to process my thoughts , my feelings , my beliefs in a way that I never did before and I was able to take myself out of

the resentment .

And really one of the best lessons that I think I learned and stays with me today is by believing my job was wrong , I prevented the opportunity to make it right and through some introspection at the time , I figured out that like , oh wow , leadership development , talent development , like to fix where I'm at , to fix the leaders that are around me .

This is a career path I didn't know existed . I could curate my path in this direction , and so then I started going down that path . I got my doctorate in organizational leadership . I researched value congruence and job satisfaction . I published some research . I started making connections , building a network . I launched podcasts .

I found free workshops that turned into paid workshops . I took my initial understanding of how building a coaching practice into this specific realm , and then also because it's one thing to start a business in a space , but for me personally , I didn't really think I was a professional in the space until I could get hired .

So then I found a couple internal positions . I worked for YPO as a regional learning director . I then worked for Technova as a talent development the head of talent development . So I got a chance to actually build the talent development department to feel what that was like . Instead , the head of talent development .

So I got a chance to actually build the talent development department to feel what that was like . Instead of just teaching about leadership , I got to be a leader and then now kind of doing a lot more consulting like enterprise level consulting for talent development , while mostly with most of my time as that one-on-one coach . That is quite the journey .

business and a work world around me that aligns with my values . Now it's not always easy to remember that , because the day-to-day operations and the muck and the to-do list can get lost , but I try to remember that I do what I do because I want to prevent what happened to me for as many people as possible .

I want everyone to feel empowered and accountable for their career and for their life , and how I learned is like I don't . I read a book that's 300 , 400 pages and I get frustrated when I get like one tidbit .

But I also feel fulfilled that I get one tidbit because like that's gold If you can take something from a video or a podcast or a book that can change your life . You have now gotten priceless advice for like $7.99, . You know whatever , or even free sometimes .

And so how I learn is I look for those nuggets and in my journey to learning everything about myself personal development and professional development because I had a whole nother journey for five years defining who I was as a human being , because I lost my identity when I lost soccer .

You know , I learned through finding something that resonates with something that's happening in my life , or a question , and then acting on it . And so this thinking about this book it actually started as a podcast and before that it actually started as a LinkedIn video .

So I was trying to figure out how can I add more value to my audience and I'm like I'll do these Fearless Friday segments . It'll be a quick tidbit , two , three minutes . I'll talk about a problem . I'll give someone an action and a solution they can do , hopefully change their life once a week .

If you can do one uncomfortable thing once a week in your life , or even once a month . You are going to progressively evolve , grow , be more fulfilled , et cetera , become fearless . So then I had them on LinkedIn . I'm like , well , I should repurpose this , put it on my podcast , get more eyes on . So then put it on as a podcast .

Lo and behold , people resonated with that style of learning and I think what's powerful about it is you don't have to force yourself into changing something specific that the book is trying to get you to change . You find the thing that resonates with where you're at in your life and then you can go do something about it . So it reduces the lift of change .

And so I got a lot of feedback that people really liked that style . And then , all of a sudden , just one day , I was thinking like , how do I get more content , create more impact in the world around me ? I said , well , shoot , I have a book . It's like two years of Fearless Fridays . It's content on the internet .

Now it's not had to be transcribed , had to vet them , had to rewrite them , had to pick the ones that were most relevant . That was a big process , but then that turned into what Becoming Fearless is .

You said , to my fear , without you this book would never have existed , and I thought , wow , I don't know that I've ever seen a book dedicated to somebody's fear , acknowledging the role that played in this , and I thought this is so real . I can already tell this is going to come from a place that is real , and I was not disappointed .

This is not fluff , this is not posturing , this is not putting up a facade . This actually dives way deep .

If I wasn't the scared , socially ostracized and awkward kid that didn't know what he wanted

to do for his professional life and was afraid of people judging him and saying the wrong thing and people laughing at it , if I wasn't that kid , then I never would have started this journey and I wouldn't be where I am today .

And fear is such a gift because it it highlights that there's something that you want to do differently or something that you want to achieve , or it's highlighting something that you might want to become uncomfortable to go explore .

And if we can just reinterpret that emotion , that quickening of the heart , that shortness of breath , that increase in body temperature , if we can reinterpret it as kind of a signal to say something is happening right now in my environment that I should pay attention , to is happening right now in my environment that I should pay attention to , not be afraid of ,

and if I pay attention to it and get curious about it , could this serve my life , could it help my intentions , could it lead me towards my goals in a way that I'm not able to do right now , because previously I was taking this information and saying run .

part of our journey . That fear is not wasted and you have taken that and you have explained and discussed that in a really powerful way . I mean , in the book you split this into the personal and then into the professional , and you started with the personal , which is interesting because most people , I think , would have started the other direction .

Why did you make that choice ? It's funny .

Would you work the way that you're working right now and it takes there's some resistance from a lot of people . I love what I do , I love my job . Okay , great , that's nice , I get it .

You love your job . Would you work the same way that you work now ? And I will sit and debate someone for many , many hours on this one Cause I've . It is a .

It is a construct of our life that , depending on what country you live in you know , in the United States or certain I mean certain places that just like work as a gift the fact that you get to wake up and get paid for a skill that you've developed over time and then to potentially work towards some sort of growth , to more money and greater relationships and

more challenge and novelty , like that is a gift that we have . It is not , and it is . It is something , though , that we are . We do because it funds other experiences in our life or feeds other sort of sources for us .

So I always thought of starting with personal , because if we are not going to focus on ourselves first , then we have things just out of order and our our personal selves also . That's who we bring to work . We don't bring our work selves to our personal lives . We bring our personal lives to our work lives .

We always start with who we are as a human being and so how we perceive the world , how we think , how we feel .

So , as you can tell , in the first part of the book , it's about thoughts , feelings and beliefs , the meaning that we like , the purpose we derive from life , like I mean even something that really pops up , really simple , because people might be listening to this and be like man .

That book sounds really complicated , facing your fears , and I mean just something as simple as going to my friend's house . It was throwing a dinner and I had a lot of work on my mind . It was really stressed . It was like heavy . You know , when you leave work and you're like work is you're still working and yeah , and he's opened up in a cabin .

He's like how you doing ? And I was just like wasn't even there , like almost missed his question and I just I stopped . I was like this is not okay . Like I don't have my computer in front of me , I'm not on a work call . Nothing I can think of right now is going to change anything that I have to work on my time and energy .

My presence needs to be here in this moment , with my friends . That's where I'm going to get the most joy . It became an entry in the book . It was like you know , work when you , when you're working , don't work when you're not .

And like another one is when , when my fiance came in and she wanted a hug and I was rushed I had a meeting starting in like two minutes I was like I can't hug you . I have to get ready for this meeting . I was like what , what ? That's terrible .

Like your , your , your , your relationships in your life , the people you love , the pets that come with you , do the toy that want to play for you If you get a chance to work remote , like those are the moments in your life that are going to be important and significant , but not our work moments . So that's a long-winded answer of saying that .

It's a good reminder , hopefully , to people to pay attention to their overall life and not just a component of it .

If you begin to implement this and operate in that vein , that is going to serve you for the rest of your life , and not just you , but the people who matter most to you .

You talk about beliefs , and you touched on this a second ago thoughts , feelings and beliefs and one of the things that you talk about in the book is that it could be that your beliefs are what's holding you back , and I love how you phrase this .

You said that if you're struggling to make changes in your life , you're likely stuck on an old belief pattern Don't believe your beliefs . Can you unpack that for just a second ?

And we came up with the phrase feel your feelings , think your thoughts and don't believe your beliefs , and I made t-shirts for it and I sent it to a bunch of clients . People didn't really jive with the don't believe your belief piece .

They for some reason didn't get it , and it was actually an amazing conversation starter because they're like oh , I get , feel your feelings . Okay , feel them . What's happening in your body , become aware what are the symptoms , feeling you know what , et cetera . I understand thoughts . Okay , you're thinking your thoughts , or think about them , pay attention to

them , pick them apart . What do you mean ? Don't believe my beliefs ? I should believe my beliefs . My beliefs help me . My beliefs are good . No , you're . You're you . Your beliefs are a culmination of your previous experiences and the things that happened to you that you are now afraid of . All of your fears are attached to beliefs .

All your habits are attached to beliefs . The outcomes that are happening in your life , the lack of progress or progress , are because of your beliefs . Those are constructs , those are things that you've developed over time .

If you're not where you want to be , if something isn't working in your favor , if you can't do something that you think you want to do , there is some belief associated to that that's holding you back . That's why you can't do the thing . And all growth is about creating new beliefs and hope .

That concept can reign in , because it's not that like there's something wrong with you and it's not that you can't do something .

It's that , for some reason , over time , based on your experiences or people you're around , your environment , or the books you or the people you've seen or things that have happened to you you see this a lot in the professional world the leaders that people have had , the cultures that people have been in Something happened that now made you afraid of doing the

thing that you think you want to do , and so we try to challenge that . It's like the senior manager or director , high performer , like close to burnout , lots of emotional stress , like highly critical of themselves .

Those , those employees I've heard probably like nine out of 10 , just say I never want to be an executive because look at how terrible their lives are . I go well , that's because of your experiences and that's because of the experiences that you've had in terms of viewing people that have been above you and working , the pressures that you faced .

Yeah , that's not what being an executive is . That's that's the choices that people have made in terms of how they want to work .

We often use sarcasm and negativity as an attempt to connect with our relationships or to deal with an uncomfortable situation . It's interesting because I think about this and I think about the number of conversations I've had with people who do exactly that . They're not mindful of what they're saying and , more importantly , how they're saying it .

Where did that one come from ?

have great friends . So this actually applies in multiple areas Always be positive and always be optimistic . It's not to be imaginative , but it's what is the good that can happen from this situation ? What opportunity can you create ?

And I work with senior managers that want to grow in their career and I'm like look at , look at the leaders in a positive organization and a culture . See how they see how they talk in a meeting when something isn't going right . See how they are always looking for the good that can happen . They're they are and they're never tearing anybody down .

They're generally not making sarcastic comments and they're not talking about someone behind their back .

And very often in a meeting when like and this is generally what happens when a leader's not in the room people just vent , and this I think , so this one , generally came from conversations with clients , but even prior to that , being in a room and connecting with a group of employees that I was around and everyone was sharing about how terrible a change was

happening in an organization and it was just like this kind of just like complain fest and you and , and you know , I caught myself like joining in to build a relationship , to share in thoughts and feelings , to connect with the people around me , and I was like wait a second . I left the meeting . I was like wait a second .

That felt good but that did not brand me in a way that I wanted to be branded in that organization and with those people I fed like the negativity monster . I didn't . I did nothing for my leadership brand . I did nothing for my relationship with those people . Actually , if anything , I just am now the person that was complaining as well , like and it's .

You generally do that to build connection and to ease tension , when in actuality , you're missing out on setting yourself apart from the people around you in a very positive way . If you're the leader that can help people see the positive , not only do you become that person for people in an organization , but you also prevent yourself from becoming the gossip .

You prevent yourself from becoming someone that is known for that negativity . So then people stop bringing that to you as well . I was working with a leader just a couple weeks ago . They were sharing how other leaders would come to them to complain about their manager .

So this direct report is having their skip levels and peers come to them complaining about that person's leader and like talking smack about them .

And so now there's this secret group of people in this organization that are tearing down this person's boss and and she's connected to that conversation now , and if that ever got out , if that , if they ever got whispers of that , and now like thinking about what other people talking about that behind the boss's back .

It's like you are seen as this conduit , an outlet of negativity that needs to stop because that can hurt you drastically in the future of your career and doesn't bode well also for future promotions , because you know , I promise you , there's other people that know about these conversations , that are not in those conversations and it's going to come back and get you

.

Yeah , because everyone around you is sitting on the edge of their seat , and even more so around that negativity . It's like the moment they will latch on to the thing that causes fear . So you can provide positive recognition , you can celebrate success , you can connect and whatever you do from a positive perspective , that's great .

You can build trust , which does counter some negativity a little bit of it , not as much . Generally , it decreases the time of disengagement from an employee that experiences something negative .

It's like if they really trust you , they'll still be really pissed at you for a week , but then they'll probably get a little bit better , but they'll still have a dip in disengagement .

But they latch onto that negativity because negativity is associated with fear and fear gets magnified in our minds because it gets caught in a fear cycle and if it's something that we truly are afraid of , that , we think we're not safe because our body just keeps recycling it until we do something about it , it keeps magnifying it .

So if you say something negative , you have now you kind of started that avalanche . Right they're , they're now they have a thousand pounds , 10,000 pounds , so good .

I think a lot of it also has to do with how they're treated and how they're seen by their boss , but that's a different conversation . They're treated and how they're seen by their boss , but that's a different conversation .

The section that jumped out at me was you said you are fearless when you experience wonder wherever you are , and you talk about getting bored with life and the tasks and the minutia of life . But this concept of experiencing wonder I love that phrase , experiencing wonder wherever you are when did that one come from ?

A little bit more logical brain , even though I still have that emotional side too . It was like something that I didn't run it to dive into further .

And in one of the classes we went through that an apple meditation . And then it's . It's when you can take something in your life and trace back all the things that have had to happen for that to happen , to that to occur . So the pen in your hand , in that meditation it was an apple .

So if you were to close your eyes and visualize , how did that apple get to get at some point in time ? It was a seed , it grew into a tree but then created an apple . There was a lot of other apples on that tree . Some hit the ground , some , some were picked , some went to other places .

But someone , some human being , maybe a machine , probably a human being , picked that apple and then it had to go through a huge process of whatever it takes to deliver , so you can envision it going through storage or a factory or getting added to a truck , and then someone had to drive that apple or fly that apple to some sort of other storage facility and

then that had to get to a store . Some human had to put it on a shelf . You had to go , pick that apple , choose that apple out of all the other apples , bring it home , and now it's in front of you . And if you want to go even further , that seed came from another apple and maybe also a farm bag , but that's still .

There's still people involved and it it it brings a sense of magic to how you take your daily grind and just what you're doing , and I don't know how many times I've done this . Like listening to a podcast , trying to hold a conversation and trying to get lunch in because I have back-to-back meetings .

The magic of the world , like it's incredible I don't even want to start with the computer that we're on right now like how that became to be and if we can just have that wonder for a moment .

We then start to appreciate things a little bit more , we have a little bit more gratitude , we slow down , we feel more connected because of the hundreds of hands that have touched that apple , which might be a little weird to think about , but it's still like to know that you are connected to also all the people that that maybe , maybe , just maybe , those

thoughts will add a little bit of value to your life , because gratitude , appreciation and connection are probably one of the most powerful tools for feeling more , more positive and more aware and more calm and more fulfilled in your day-to-day .

Maybe it will become more in brick or mortar , but it's on every online book reseller you probably know of it's in paperback , audio book as well as ebook . I prefer paperbacks , but I was talking to some younger generations the other day and I could not get them to take a real book . They were like they would only take an ebook . I was surprised .

I was like , okay , I'm old . I'm not old , but I'm in a different spectrum right now . So yeah , it's out there in the world on the Amazons . The Google Plays , the Apple Books , there's Kobo , there's a bunch of international book resellers that it's on too .

I think this can be a game changer for you in multiple spheres of your life . Benjamin , thank you again for being here , for talking and sharing just a little bit of the insights in the book . The last question I've got why are there 65 ?

It could have been 64 , could have been 66 . But , honestly , I guess you could say that life is , for some reason , 65 strategies .

As we wrap up , I'd love for you to do two things . First , subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode , and if you find value here , I'd love it if you would rate it and review it . That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast .

Second , if you don't have a copy of my newest book , catalytic Leadership , I'd love to put a copy in your hands . If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom , you can get a copy for free . Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out . My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible .

This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space , in business , government , nonprofits , education and the local church .

You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about and if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader ? I'd be honored to help you . Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me . Stay tuned for our next episode next week .

Until then , as always , leaders choose to be catalytic .