n
riverside_dr_& nige _ dec 12, 2025 006_dr_benjamin
ritter.wav
00:00:00,000 Today I am delighted to welcome Dr Benjuin Ritter to the show. He is an award-winning leadership and career coach and author of the
Amazon bestseller “Becoming Fearless” and founder of “Live Fear Self Consulting”. He spreads a message of becoming fearless in your career
00:00:20,080 and life as a top linked invoice and host of two podcasts, “The
Executive and Live Fearless” and “The Executive” is coached over 500
leaders with a strong focus on senior level executives across multiple
industries and geographic regions with organisations that have included
00:00:38,160 names such as Amazon, Coursera, DoorDash, Google, Fisher, Northwestern, Mayo Clinic, Pinterest, Yelp and many many more. His passions include working with the better for you CPG organisations, small business founders and minority owned companies for which he offers pro bono coaching services.
00:00:58,760 So Ben, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me and I’m excited to
be here. I feel like I need to update the bio though because LinkedIn, I
don’t know if you knew this, got rid of their top voice designations per topic.
00:01:11,080 So that was an executive coach top voice. I was like a talent
development top voice and then now they’re only like giving those blue marks, kind of like Twitter or something does to some of the bigger
names and I think what’s interesting is you kind of go on those podcast circuits and you get
00:01:28,600 a lot of those like really high caliber gas which have so much wisdom
and so much information to share and I want to find the shows that kind of have the lesser named guests. So hopefully in my career I stay lesser name and I can get on all these shows and share some unique and niche
00:01:43,960 information about career fearlessness and ultimately living for yourself.
Yeah, brilliant. I’m lucky to have you all know. I screwed. Don’t you’ve been too famous and then not being able to come on. Yeah, I know. Sometimes like people reach out and like, hey Ben,
00:01:59,720 you want to do this thing? I was like, no, no, that would make me too
famous. I need to stay kind of a nice dealist celebrity, you know, yeah. I
don’t want the red carpet. I want like the beige carpet and then we’re okay. Yeah, that sounds good. That sounds good. So obviously from your sense of humor,
00:02:15,240 you kind of chilled person. Where are you from? You grow up and pick up your accent but they probably won’t be able to work out exactly
where you’re from, especially if you’re British. That was about to make
up an accent which never goes well. I’ve been told never to do that. So I’m from Chicago,
00:02:34,680 Illinois, born and raised, actually lived in London for about six months when I was pursuing a professional soccer career and then I’ve come
back and then went back and forth from California for a bit and then
now live in good old Austin, Texas for about five years and love it. Call it
00:02:50,920 home. It’s kind of a hub for health and wellness and entrepreneurs. No,
one really. So obviously, that’s interesting. I’ve not picked up on the
soccer career before and it was, I’ll probably dive down in that. So tell
me a little bit about that. Just just give us a little snippet. What was that about?
00:03:11,880 Oh, I did it shape some of the things that you’re doing. Yeah, so football for people that maybe haven’t heard the word soccer before. I don’t
even know why there’s two words still in 2025, but we’ll see. So your side of the pond is is that throwing ball, isn’t it? Yeah, I guess.
00:03:31,480 I refuse to take the word soccer. That’s what it is. So soccer was truly important for helping me become who I am today because you had the
pain of loss creates a lot of growth. It also taught me a lot of things
around resilience and being driven and setting a goal and achieving it and taught me
00:03:51,480 that I could push my body and my mind to places that I didn’t think was possible. And it taught me a lot of things about collaboration and
working together in leadership. Most importantly though, it taught me
that the advice to find your purpose was false and wrong. And actually the first talk I ever gave
00:04:09,720 for this business, for this career was the worst advice I ever received
was find your purpose. And basically talks about how I gave soccer so
much of myself. I defined myself by this external thing. And by doing so,
I ended up sourcing my validation, my confidence from that thing, which isn’t
00:04:30,680 something that I had much control over. And I dedicated way too much
of my time and energy and effort to the sport. And so I didn’t develop
other skills, other areas, social relationships. And so when I lost that
thing, I had no idea who I was. I had no identity. And so I spent about four or five years
00:04:47,800 kind of digging myself out of that hole and creating who I was. Now that taught me those that it’s great to be fearless. It’s great to have
confidence. It’s great to explore life. But then eventually, you end up
feeling lost anyways because you have no direction. And so then it kind of taught me the
00:05:02,840 importance of value, alignment and actually having a direction with that confidence and with that fearlessness. And you know, brought me to coaching, a brought me to personal development, because I had to
figure out who I was. And it really was the cornerstone of foundation to
00:05:13,800 everything that I teach and everything that I am today. Well, so I think it
might have something that would influence. And that’s both all of us have the thing, well, who we are now is defined by what we’ve done and what we’ve experienced and how
00:05:32,680 we’ve reacted to those. And I think one of the things that interested me
from the point of view of your work is the fact that we’ve got within project management and within project management for years, I find
this quite a lot. And I find this myself is moving quite frequently. You’re moving
00:05:55,000 projects, removing roles. And sometimes you’re kind of just following
the path of where the next world comes and you don’t necessarily make those choices. But those choices are not made because the next
projects come up. And like you can just go, right, there’s the next one, there’s the next one,
00:06:12,120 right? And it’s new and therefore moving you forward. But it isn’t
necessarily a choice for a conscious choice for your career. And I think
it’s quite easy for us as project managers to just follow on to the next
project rather than seek out the next project. And I just wonder whether some of the things
00:06:31,720 you’re talking about being fearless in looking at your career, when you look at the next project management, I’m going to view whether you
work in project managers and how they’ve kind of got in a rut, but it’s a,
it doesn’t feel like a rut because it’s a new project all the time. Yeah, there’s some constant
00:06:48,760 aspect of novelty that can come along with kind of new projects. And
you can kind of feel like you’re learning things new, but have no control
over what you’re learning or you’re involved in, especially if you’re not
managing up or taking control of your career or crafting it. It’s also a really interesting
00:07:06,280 field because one toxic individual can completely derail everything. And
project managers have to be kind of these connectors and collaborators
and influencers. And generally, they don’t have a high level of authority
to do that. Authority without the position. But generally, they need executive stakeholders
00:07:28,280 and other leaders that are actually moving things forwards and
competing priorities. I know we didn’t talk about that, but generally just from the aspect of job satisfaction and engagement and growth, you know, oftentimes a project manager is put where they’re needed, not where they want. And it would,
00:07:44,760 I, but who’ve anyone within their careers, especially project managers,
if they haven’t yet, to really sit down and figure out what are the things
that are going to help them grow within their industry? Is it a certain
scope of project? Is it working with certain departments? Is it working
00:07:58,360 towards certain outcomes with uncertain KPIs? Is there a certain part of
the company you’re in or the industry that you want to become involved in become an expert? Because what’s so beautiful about being a
project manager is that if you’re on a project, you become an expert in that industry,
00:08:12,680 in that field without even having to be like an employee within it. But
oftentimes we don’t have that level of intention. I’d love to hear any
perspective on this. I mean, we can talk about kind of how to have that
intention and how to manage up, but I don’t know if you see this as an issue too.
00:08:25,480 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it’s something that I’ve lived in a number of
different organizations, but I’ve lived in one organization where I’ve
been both lucky and also possibly stagnation as well in some ways that
I’ve had multiple different technologies that I’ve been working. So as you say,
00:08:46,200 about becoming the expert in something I’d never touched networks or
anything to do with that at one point in whilst I wouldn’t be able to configure networks. I worked for nine months in an area that was around the networks running teams who were delivering networks changes. And I became knowledge about it.
00:09:00,680 I’ve worked in SAP, I’ve worked in ERP systems and again, not knowing
the nuts and bolts, but become, aren’t you, get to understand them and you understand them enough to be able to ask the stupid questions,
and I say, but, but, but you don’t get. So I’ve been very lucky from that point of you
00:09:19,560 have been able to jump into those different roles, but then there’s been
reorganisations, then there’s been different technology coming in and
it’s kind of, as you say, they haven’t always been, uh, right, that’s the
next step and that’s the next bit of technology I want to move into and that’s
00:09:34,680 what I want to do and it’s a couple of times that have been, but I have
found sometimes it’s kind of you sit there and you think, what, how did
I, how did I end up here and what, why, did I choose to be here? Was it my, did I have a choice really? And you obviously always do have a choice, but it was that
00:09:50,680 thing, did I let someone ask me that choice for me rather than challenge
that choice and then take a risk of sitting there going, oh, I’m, I’ve got
the not the right project, I’ve just got a project if you know me. So beautiful about project management is not everyone might want a project
00:10:08,600 manager, but everyone needs one and you go in an organisation and
your KPIs aren’t being met or the goals are, you know, they have some
broad goals. You could very easily get assigned to that project just by
showing their interest in it, you know, depending on how the, how they end up distributing
00:10:26,200 projects, some people don’t even have like a project management
office. So it kind of depends on the size of the company that you’re a
part of, but you can really get involved in almost any major project
within an organisation because they need you. And I don’t know if a lot of project managers
00:10:43,640 realize that like they’re needed and they are wanted, even if the people
that want them don’t know that yet. And so, yeah, what are the goals,
you know, that you have for your career? What are the things that you want to learn? And can you map those out and can you share those with the people that are
00:11:06,280 generally responsible for assigning projects or starting projects? And I
also see generally that project managers tend to be a little reactive to the projects that are assigned to them instead of actually helping
choose what projects are prioritised or what projects are considered. And sometimes
00:11:20,520 they lead that, leave it to the senior leadership or senior managers, but who has communication with almost every single department and
function within an organisation, generally project managers? And I think
they might be able to see some of the gaps that a little bit more clearly and maybe
00:11:35,160 could have a little bit more of a voice. And not only do you help your
career, but you help the company. Yeah, I agree. I think there are, there
are, you’ve got your finger in a lot of pies, you’ve got that cross. And
I’ve heard this talk about before, that in many ways when you, if you work within a
00:11:52,920 largest organisation with multiple departments and you deliver projects
in all of those departments, or delivering projects that cross those
departments, you get that unique cross departmental understanding of
an organisation again, at a certain 20,000 feet view. But that does put you in
00:12:10,200 a position where actually when you, in theory, if it was viable, moving up through an organisation into the CEO kind of roles and then the CEO
roles, they’re actually put, well, position as PMs, whilst you’re not,
because quite often you’ll get those roles where someone will come in,
00:12:26,680 they’ll be the finance director, they’ll be the sales director that come in
and they have brilliant at their vertical, but then don’t have that breadth.
Whereas the project manager may not have the depth of the breadth of that knowledge, which sometimes I think maybe I don’t know if you found it with
00:12:41,240 the, the CEOs that sometimes can be really useful to have that breadth of understanding of your organisation. Yeah, when I think of an
executive project manager, I think of like the chief of staff, and it’s the
person that controls everything is able to influence, is able to know what’s
00:12:57,000 important, most important for an organisation. I’ve never known an
organisation, executive team, or myself as a coach coming in, to be told
that the project manager was too directive, or gave too much feedback,
or, like generally, the project manager role is seen as someone who’s
00:13:25,880 intelligent, informative, and knows what needs, what gears need to turn,
keeps everyone accountable, but oftentimes is a little too soft in terms
of their own career and what needs to happen within the project itself. And like the idea of fearlessness for someone that’s in this role,
00:13:41,400 I think is crucial for them to stand out from the pack and to meet
expectations and be able to drive results in an organisation. Yeah, I
think, I think you’re right, I think some other things in any staff, I was talking to them on the other day about the fact that you’ve got the project manager
00:13:57,640 role being quite a lonely role in that, and a lot of accountability,
responsibility conflict, because tend to be the, if the project goes well,
the team involved in doing that project, did a brilliant job, not the project manager, not from an organisation point of view, but the project
00:14:15,960 manager’s tend to step to the side. That’s my experience anyway. And
then, if there’s a problem, and if it’s gone wrong somewhere, the project
manager steps up and says, “I’m a, it’s me, my team didn’t know, there
may be specifics in there, but again, they accept that responsibility
00:14:33,640 as part of what we do, we accept accountability for the failure, but not
necessarily accountability for the success of something,” which goes to
that point that you’re saying there, where you, that means that senior people only see the project manager when there is a problem,
00:14:50,600 they only get a visibility of that when there’s a problem. And again, 90 percent of it, people throw numbers around about how many projects
are successful and not successful, but 90 percent of the work that we
do is, is successful. Now, the outcomes may not always be successful based
00:15:06,200 on whatever measure you use, but most of your projects can deliver
right, as many parts of it aren’t, that mean that something else happens,
and so there’s a lot of really good stuff done, it’s same with all of us, it’s like a feedback in it when you’re giving people feedback. If you’re
00:15:21,640 only giving people feedback on things they do wrong, that’s a really
small part of the brilliant job they do, where they do lots of things really
well, unless they’re really terrible, and if they’re doing 90 percent of their
job badly, why are you still employing them? It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s,
00:15:35,320 it’s just crazy, and I suppose, for me, just kind of linking to your book
and, and, and your, um, consulting with the YouTube, what, what is it that made you write the book? What, what made you think, actually,
there’s a book that is going to help people here? What was the reason?
00:15:53,640 Yeah, I spent probably half of my early career, I mean, I’m almost a decade, kind of blaming other people for my current situation and
holding myself back from creating a job that I could truly say that I cared about, and that’s wasted time, I’m never going to get back.
00:16:13,800 I had toxic leadership around me, so what? I wasn’t in a job that I thought was, you’re meaningful, the perfect so what? And, you know, why, why does that mean I go in and work and waste my time and
waste my day? And despite being a high performer, I didn’t feel like I was working towards
00:16:30,520 anything, but because I was choosing not to work towards anything
significant, you know, I could have been forming relationships, I could
have been learning skills, I could have been a little bit more proactive towards my future career, but more importantly, my day-to-day happiness. And so that led me
00:16:44,600 to create life for yourself, consulting, and go into the field of leadership
development, and everything that has been important to me throughout my career, even going all the way back to soccer, it comes down to being fearless. It comes down to not being concerned about what
00:16:59,080 someone thinks is the right thing to do, and more so caring about what
you feel is the right thing to do for yourself and for your career. And so it
was time to write a book, it was time to get that message out there and
more to help people feel more fearless in their careers and in their life.
00:17:12,920 Everything that I’ve seen that holds people back generally relates to some aspect of fear, permission to self, some level of confidence,
maybe a clarity towards what they truly want, and they’re getting in their own way in terms of what that is, to being able to craft an
00:17:27,880 environment that matters to them. And when we look at our job,
generally it’s, I’m not telling people what I feel like they need to hear, so
I’m not giving direct feedback. I’m not being open about what I need to my boss, and I’m not speaking up to make sure that those things actually occur
00:17:42,760 and are heard. And I don’t feel that I actually have, you know, trusted
myself or my job, and I’m fear for my safety or for my financial future, or
just in general just having a position. And so I’m not willing to take that
action. And if we could all just be fearless in our careers, I mean,
00:17:59,480 leadership would improve, jobs would improve, organizations would
improve, and people would be doing things that they truly love so their
productivity wouldn’t improve. So ultimately outcomes would improve, I
think it could really make a difference. Yeah, I can, it’s really echoes with me there, because I’ve
00:18:17,080 been, I’ve been in situation where I have thought I’m stuck in a situation
and stuck with an organization, I can’t leave that organization, nothing will go well. And then that organization said, we don’t need you anymore. And actually, each time that has had ever happened, I’ve ended up in an
00:18:46,120 organization in a better role with more money, with more autonomy, more responsibility, and more, what I wanted. And sometimes I think there’s that, you say that fear, I wouldn’t have left out those
organizations, but they weren’t probably fulfilling me and they weren’t taking me where I would
00:19:04,680 have needed to go. But the ones that I did step into, and you could say
it’s a bit luck, you could say it’s a bit of a vado sometimes, because I
think my, I quite psyche me, I kind of don’t fear looking silly, you know, fear failing, and something, and I talk to my kids about it, about,
00:19:28,360 about failing is what you need to do in order to get better at something.
My youngest, judo is kind of like, do judo, you fall over a lot and you’re
rubbish, stonophones, and it’s hard, but over time you’re still rubbish, but every sort of when you’re lucky, and then over time you get a
00:19:45,800 bit better, but every sort of when you’re unlucky, and then it changes
without, but the thing is if you if you compete without feet with, with,
with fear, you won’t attempt to attack and you won’t attempt to throw. If
you don’t attempt to attack and you don’t attempt to throw, you won’t win, because you
00:20:02,040 will get thrown because of the fear, and like, that’s kind of how I kind of
link them together, and then over time as you become, and then say if
you become not quite fearless, but controlled fearless in what you’re
doing in an unadjudgment, then you can make things happen, it kind of,
00:20:16,840 it just draws some alignment there from what you’re saying is that
you’ve got to risk something to get those benefits. Yeah, I wish that moving towards our goals wasn’t seen as a risk. Yeah, because I remember even from the field as you share about judo,
00:20:38,520 hesitation is the enemy that causes you to to to lose. The person that is
operating, you know, by instinct or by skill or by experience can get into
a state of flow, and that state of flow is where you really can shine. It’s, it is, is a place where you
00:20:58,840 are almost superhuman, if you look into any sort of flow research. What
I would love to do, I hope in the future that the word fear doesn’t exist. I don’t think it’s ever going to happen, but we’ve labeled a normal reaction to discomfort and the unknown and to concern as something that is unbelievably negative.
00:21:18,440 When in essence, it’s just information, it’s data. If you were on a project
and someone started sharing their feelings about something, you know,
great, who else is feeling this way? Great. What do we want to do about it? What do we, what practices do we need to institute? How can we adjust our approach?
00:21:35,880 What is our, you don’t change the goal? But oftentimes if we feel fear in our career, we go, oh, that information means we need to change our
goal and change how we act. And that is basically doing a disservice to
ourselves. And that’s what really becoming fearless is. It’s not that, like, it’s
00:21:57,480 not that you’re never going to experience fear. It’s kind of just redefining
it as data and information, just like you would on a project and then
figuring out what you can do about it. Well, that’s really, that’s really good with look at it because it’s, it’s, I say, it’s just feedback,
00:22:11,240 isn’t it? It’s just, it’s, it’s that whole thing that you burn your hand out of
hand. You don’t suddenly never pick up a pen again. You just make sure
you grab a cloth first and pick up a pen, don’t you? It’s going to, but it’s a learning experience. And like you talked about those,
00:22:27,080 what you learned from the soccer and the, where you went all in on that and then you’re 10 years. Actually, without those items of learning
through all of those, what isn’t working, which is, again, part of that
feedback and understanding, then at some point, you’ve got to change. It’s,
00:22:49,160 it wouldn’t make you, you are, and where you are, and what you’re doing now because you wouldn’t have had that negative experience to
actually feed into what you’re doing now, would you really? It’s, it’s, it’s,
it’s, it’s, it’s kind of, it’s kind of, I know it, it’s kind of intuitive.
00:23:04,840 But sometimes, though, this experience, bad experiences, I’ve had
awful customers, awful projects, terrible teams before and now over the
years, but I’ve learned every single time, something from the host that
I’m making mistakes. Yeah, but in the moment at times, they can feel like they’re
00:23:25,400 world ending. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we let temporary
emotions dictate our future opportunities, which is just a bad equation. I
think so, you know, I’m going to be silent on this, in this team meeting, when someone is disrupting it with negativity because I’m afraid of embarrassing
00:23:46,920 myself or causing conflict, but now I’ve completely poisoned the entire
project because I wasn’t willing to stick up or give direct feedback to the
person. Or I’m in a career and I keep you in a signed project that I feel like are too junior for me, but I don’t go talk to my manager 00:24:03,080 about it and define my goals and lean into them like a mentor and because there’s strategies to each of these things that you want to accomplish, but you don’t do that and all of a sudden now you hold
yourself back in your career five or 10 years, maybe 15 years, and then ultimately they let,
00:24:15,400 they let you go anyways. So then you’re going to look for a new job and
all you have to show for it are you’re doing your projects. Yeah, yeah,
it’s it when you look at the potentials of the risk of inaction in some of these situations is worse and it’s it’s with human nature is the discomfort now
00:24:33,240 compared to the discomfort in the future, you don’t, you, you can’t try to
avoid the discomfort now, don’t you? So generally you have to explore
what the fear is and too often though we feel fear we go oh I need to be
afraid and we run or we freeze or we just don’t we avoid the thing, but fear is dealing with fear
00:24:55,720 means you have to deal with being uncomfortable. It doesn’t mean you
have to do anything first. It means that you actually have to just explore
what you’re feeling and what what are the rational thoughts that are
aligned to this specific feeling. So you bring rationality to the emotional response instead of
00:25:10,280 pushing in a way you get closer to it. That’s just the first step and you
don’t even have to take any action. I’m not telling everyone they have to
jump jump off the cliff into the into the bucket of you know the the
chasm of their fears. I’m saying that you just have to start exploring them
00:25:24,040 and through that exploration we can end up coming up with some sort
of action because any small action into discomfort actually makes that discomfort more comfortable and eventually we end up in taking enough little actions where we’ve completely changed our world and our career.
00:25:39,240 Nice brilliant. This is so what you’re saying there really is the from what
I’m hearing is that it’s that take that kind of the advice you have quite
about getting angry but fear as well is that take that 10 seconds to let
yourself feel take that time to let yourself be afraid let yourself be
00:26:04,760 like you wouldn’t do with any emotions but be those emotions and then understand once you’ve said okay that’s happening then understand why is that happening then decide if you want to change it and then
make the actions to do that sort of thing that kind of feels but from from my brain
00:26:21,720 and so what practical sort of things do you say to put it like that’s
obviously a massive thing as soon as we feel fear you take ownership
of it kind of in that scenario don’t you but what are the some of the sorts
of tips and tricks that you’ve got in your book and in your coach and
00:26:39,560 that you tell the we’re not giving away the whole farb you know. There’s
65 strategies so I can’t give out the farm right now but we can we can
take a look at a specific example so the book is written in each page it’s
kind of its own a light bulb moment with an action and a quote basically it
00:27:00,680 starts off with the topic and ask questions to see if you kind of feel that fear in the situation explains what that fear is and then gives a
suggestion for it. So for example you know one of them is like avoid
burning out but I think we’re talking about more around job satisfaction and
00:27:18,040 leadership and such. So I mean some of them are pretty simple like lead with optimism you know how do you respond others complain and
as a project manager I bet you’re in a room with a bunch of people that are generally pretty negative or complaining and the easiest way to build camaraderie it seems
00:27:33,800 like generally is to share those complaints. The problem is you’re the
leader of the group and so if you share those complaints now all of a sudden you are a source of negativity and you’ve kind of given permission to it. So basically the book says maintaining a positive attitude or
00:27:49,480 it can be challenging especially when it involves other people complaining. Aligning with others negative views can be a way to
strengthen relationships so it creates a dilemma between trying to stay positive and the need to fit in. However for those aspiring to grow professionally negativity can
00:28:02,840 tarnish your reputation and prevent an opportunity to motivate others
towards greater organizational goals. And so the very straightforward
kind of in your face directive is always find the positive. If you want to
grow in your career it’s on you to be the voice of optimism. If you notice a problem
00:28:20,440 encourage finding a solution. Others are complaining you can
empathize while still burning out more positive aspects. The people that
others want to work with and trust are champions of their organization
and the people in it. If you are bright when others cash shadows you will be the one
00:28:32,600 who stands out and others will take notice. And so the fear here is
generally it’s kind of standing out and standing out from the group and
the crowd. And the problem when negative situations arise if you’re not
standing out then you are creating more negativity and you’re going to hurting your
00:28:49,400 brand than the organization and as a leader. And so the book provides
a variety of suggestions like that to take advantage of your career and
to really be fearless in your life. And some people hear that and they’re
like well what’s the big deal? I’m a little negative. I’m not afraid in this
00:29:02,680 moment. Well by not speaking up and not creating the culture and the
culture and the environment that you want and leading and creating the
brand that you want for yourself as leader within the company you are
actually bending to fear. That’s that really rings in our way because
00:29:19,240 I know I’ve been in situations where what generally I’m a fairly optimistic
person. I think I think generally the community of project managers you
have to be two things. You have to be incredibly skeptical but optimistic
at the same time because the every project you’ve got doesn’t look like
00:29:35,720 it’s deliverable and every report on where we are in a status point of view doesn’t sound realistic and there were always say you know
you’ve kind of got to have that balance of optimism and skepticism and
I’ve generally been the one who can look at the positive look at what if we do this what
00:29:52,360 the options and that and I found myself in certain situations where I’ve
dug when someone’s dug a hole and they’re in it I’ve got in and took a spade off them and dug them deeper because I and that’s what I’ve
been in not a good place from a mental health point of view or from a work point of view
00:30:11,400 my I found my attitude changes on that and sometimes I spot it
sometimes I don’t spot it until quite a bit later and it’s kind of like how
have I got to get myself back into that and I think there’s there’s a thing of the middle manager there was a podcast I don’t know I remember the name of it
00:30:33,080 now there’s like the grumpy middle manager something like that from a few years ago because whether it be project managers or any middle management you you’re in that situation where you’ve got to be you
may your organisation is doing something and you don’t agree with it
00:30:51,480 and you don’t like what’s going on with it and you think it’s the wrong thing to do but somehow you’ve still got to get the to your team on board with delivering with that or being part of that the kind of
empathise with the fact that yeah I agree I don’t think this is the right thing but
00:31:09,880 but it’s really hard and I think it’s really hard as project managers as well
if you are delivering something in a way that you don’t think you should
be delivering it’s not giving the benefit and then you’ve got to it’s it’s a really difficult thing to do not impossible but it is
00:31:24,840 difficult and I think it’s a case of I get caught kind of giving my opinion too much sometimes but as you say the helps build those you build
really strong relationships with your team then but then your tent kind of
hunker down underneath your shield of all of your trying to it’s you
00:31:43,880 against the world which creates a great culture but not necessarily an
organisation culture what do you actually do to break that? How do you would because I understand where it comes from how do you stop
yourself getting into that hole? The first step to every single behavioural change
00:32:03,320 is awareness and so the first thing you have to do is see if you actually
are being negative and so like what does negative mean and it’s literally agreeing to someone’s negativity it’s venting and to start kind of counting when that occurs especially with who and when within your
00:32:23,000 within your day it can be with certain people it can be in certain
meetings but it’s very important once you build that level of awareness you’ll see what percentage of your conversation generally is you
complaining about things and that level of awareness then kind of starts building the
00:32:40,040 pause between you being negative or not because what we need to do
is build some semblance of control over your reactions and so once you
get the information of when you’re being negative you then start saying
well you know what’s happening that’s causing me to be negative within these moments something
00:32:55,880 I’m unhappy about is it certain people am I trying to connect with the
relationships is this the culture that we’ve created and so then once you
realize who it is and when it is you can start building some interruptions
into those moments I would start small I would pick maybe one meeting one project one
00:33:14,120 person and and just give yourself a challenge that whenever something
is negative like you maybe even I would actually say build a script to
prepare on how you’re going to respond and what you’re going to say to
those people so you so you don’t automatically lean into your kind of normal behavioural
00:33:29,640 of conversational tendencies and then try it out and see what happens it
will be disruptive because the people that used to use you to complain
are not not going to be able to and so they’re going to feel something is missing initially you might actually create some a discomfort with certain
00:33:49,560 relationships and certain people and you’re going to have to be willing
to deal with that so what is your plan of action there and so working
with if you’re working with a coach in this conversation generally you
explore your feelings you explore the situations you explore the issue you kind of
00:34:03,960 brain dump in a safe space and you come up with these strategies and
what you’re going to say what your tactics are and then you also kind of
strategize around what what do you do afterwards so depending on the
response from the people around you what are the positive things and then what salute
00:34:20,120 what can you move people towards from a solution perspective that’s
going to create more positivity from written communication from your
own presentations to how you’re conversing within projects themselves now I’m making this bigger than it really is because it could be as simple as don’t say
00:34:37,880 anything and move people on to the next task could be just that simple
but I’m kind of just kind of speaking about all versions of severity when it comes to negativity because some cultures can be pretty pretty
negative but but generally it takes practice to be able to take something negative
00:34:57,000 and to reframe it into something positive and solution oriented in
positive work environments I’d even I’d even kind of tell people to pay
attention to leaders within the meetings pay attention to the executives
generally executive leaders in an organization generally and all the time
00:35:12,680 we’ll do this they will kind of show you in role model how they can take something negative people complaining and turn it into something
positive because they’ve learned over the years that’s why they were in
their positions that being a being darkness in an organization has some pretty severe
00:35:28,120 impacts on their projects and progress so part of it is also kind of looking towards role models and for examples too. Parts are really
interesting because it kind of is it the extreme end of the politics sort of
thing of ready whether the politician being ruled by a news anchor or whatever and
00:35:46,360 and then sort of turning a negative around that’s probably at the
extreme end but I can see I can see where I’ve seen that modeled with some of the senior leaders who I’ve got lots of respect for in in
organizations I’ve with that who have been very frank and very straight with people
00:36:05,720 but also take what can be a challenging question challenging situation
but play it back in their mind on the what we’re looking for we’re looking
to how to move forward and it’s I think something that’s really useful
because I’m for me I think it’s something I need to again add into my
00:36:28,920 checklist of how am I doing sort of at the moment because I think it’s
something you slip into it’s a habit isn’t it it kind of thing you’ve got to
build that habit again as you say that practice that habit’s got to be
there so it habitually you stop pause think react rather than just react with your
00:36:50,360 current emotional in a chimp feeling of this is all a bit shit I don’t like it and be able to say yeah I know what you mean I understand why you
feel that way to your your team and say but look I’m looking at it this way and and just that you’ve acknowledged it you’ve empathized and you’ve given
00:37:11,720 a different view and and as you say all of as you say sometimes at that point you can go yeah I know I know I understand why you feel that way but we can’t do anything at the moment let’s move on and that that’s just saying nothing in some ways or not acknowledging it is difficult
00:37:27,400 but it’s just I think I need to be better at some areas I need to be better
at monitoring myself because I can get drawn down into oh whoa is me
and let’s all get together and drink a bottle of rum and moan yeah and some great resources nonviolent communication and crucial conversations are
00:37:46,120 two really good books within how to stay goal oriented within difficult
situations and this is this is I’m sorry everyone if you’re listening to this
and you do like the gripe and you have your people that you like to do it with do you want to have a higher level position you want to be
00:38:00,440 more senior in a company this is one trait that needs to stop it literally you need to do a hard stop you need to figure out vent vent to your
friends but the the one thing I could give a lot of presentations on
executive presence I’ve worked in companies all across the globe the one thing that
00:38:17,400 will resonate is if you are the optimistic realist that is goal oriented
solution oriented and it’s able to listen to someone’s concerns to not
add to them instead to transform them to results for a company and that means basically that you can’t vent and you can’t be negative
00:38:33,320 and it will make us it will make such a big difference for your brand and
for your results but it will be it will be it will feel like you lost something in a company 100% will but just like you don’t want a friendship where you’re constantly complaining
00:38:47,320 I actually this happened the other day I went to go work out with the bud and we had some really sad topics we had some really negative
topics and we were sitting there the last 15 minutes of our workout kind of sharing back and forth about how terrible something was
00:39:00,520 and we left the gym we’re like felt heavy and felt negative and we’re just
like that this feels bad like this isn’t feel good that’s what people even though you might feel like a release with venting there’s a lot of
research that shows that it actually accentuates the negativity within
00:39:15,800 somebody and so that’s what you’re doing you’re putting fuel to the fire
and I’m highly recommend just I’m annoying I’m emphasizing this a lot a
highly recommend it’s just one thing you change it to this yeah that’s
brilliant I know just the time is just flown by I’ve just noticed and we’re coming up on time
00:39:32,760 with that and I but I think it’s such a powerful just that one snippet and
that’s just one snippet that we’ve talked about this in your book and this
60 other ones so yeah I find that really useful already so I just wrapping up really was there anything that you wanted to mention
00:39:52,760 that we haven’t got too over you got a copy of myself you showed that the book there are waving in front of you will see it yeah becoming
through this so there we go so honestly it’s just it’s really just that you
are in control of your job you’re in control of how you show up every single day
00:40:09,800 and I wish someone showed me you know taught me this a little bit earlier that the only one that can waste your time is you and so
depending on the situations that you’re in let’s make the most of them
and generally that relates to becoming fearless check out the book it’s you know it’s everywhere
00:40:24,760 ebook audio and so on as paperback and if you enjoy it leave a review because it makes a really big difference and if you enjoyed a lot semi-message on LinkedIn or books some time with me to do my
website would love to hear from you all right brilliant so that’s I guess that’s the best place for people to
00:40:40,120 get in touch and follow up if they want to find out some more either of
those channels yeah the website to live for yourself consulting.com let’s
live for yourself consulting.com just like how spelled just like it’s how you hear it and then dr. Benjamin Ritter on LinkedIn I’m trying
00:40:57,960 to be pretty active there brilliant hope and thank you so much for your
time I’ve I’ve learned something I’ve got some actions that I’ve got to
take myself out and I’m sure that the listeners will have the the same
sort of benefit of this so you have a wonderful rest of your day and
00:41:14,440 speak soon. You as well thanks for having me. Cheers Ben.