Dr. Benjamin Ritter
Dr. Benjamin Ritter, is an award-winning leadership and career coach, author of the Amazon best-seller Becoming Fearless, and founder of Live for Yourself (LFY) Consulting. He spreads the message of becoming fearless in your career and life as a Top LinkedIn Voice, and host of two podcasts, The Executive and Live Fearlessly.
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Ben has coached over 500 leaders with a strong focus on senior-level executives across multiple industries and geographic regions, within organizations that have included names such as Amazon, Coursera, DoorDash, Google, Fiserv, Northwestern, Mayo Clinic, Pinterest, Yelp, and more.
Ben’s passions include working with Better for You CPG organizations, small business founders and minority-owned companies, for which he offers pro-bono coaching services.
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Ben now resides in Austin, Texas, with his partner, Tiffany, Squirt, a “rebel in a shell” turtle, Elwood, a scruffy rescue pup, and Sima, the kitty queen of their kingdom.
Ben possesses a Doctorate in Organizational Leadership with focus on value congruence and job satisfaction, an MBA in entrepreneurial management, and an MPH in health policy administration.
Social Media Channels:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbenjaminritter-leadershipdevelopment/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrBenjaminRitter
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbenjaminritter
Website: https://www.liveforyourselfconsulting.com/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-executive-podcast/id1588458800
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Benjamin’s Transcript
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Today I am delighted to welcome Dr Benjamin Ritter to the show. He is an award-winning leadership
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and career coach and author of the Amazon bestseller “Becoming Fearless” and founder
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of “Live Fear Self Consulting”. He spreads a message of becoming fearless in your career
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and life as a top linked invoice and host of two podcasts, “The Executive and Live Fearless”
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and “The Executive” is coached over 500 leaders with a strong focus on senior level executives
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across multiple industries and geographic regions with organisations that have included
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names such as Amazon, Coursera, DoorDash, Google, Fisher, Northwestern, Mayo Clinic, Pinterest,
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Yelp and many many more. His passions include working with the better for you CPG organisations,
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small business founders and minority owned companies for which he offers pro bono coaching services.
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So Ben, welcome to the show.
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Thanks for having me and I’m excited to be here. I feel like I need to update the bio though
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because LinkedIn, I don’t know if you knew this, got rid of their top voice designations per topic.
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So that was an executive coach top voice. I was like a talent development top voice and then
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now they’re only like giving those blue marks, kind of like Twitter or something does to some of the
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bigger names and I think what’s interesting is you kind of go on those podcast circuits and you get
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a lot of those like really high caliber gas which have so much wisdom and so much information
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to share and I want to find the shows that kind of have the lesser named guests. So hopefully
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in my career I stay lesser name and I can get on all these shows and share some unique and niche
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information about career fearlessness and ultimately living for yourself.
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Yeah, brilliant. I’m lucky to have you all know. I screwed. Don’t you’ve been too famous and then
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not being able to come on. Yeah, I know. Sometimes like people reach out and like, hey Ben,
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you want to do this thing? I was like, no, no, that would make me too famous. I need to stay kind of a
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nice dealist celebrity, you know, yeah. I don’t want the red carpet. I want like the beige carpet and
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then we’re okay. Yeah, that sounds good. That sounds good. So obviously from your sense of humor,
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you kind of chilled person. Where are you from? You grow up and pick up your accent but they probably
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won’t be able to work out exactly where you’re from, especially if you’re British. That was about to
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make up an accent which never goes well. I’ve been told never to do that. So I’m from Chicago,
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Illinois, born and raised, actually lived in London for about six months when I was pursuing a
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professional soccer career and then I’ve come back and then went back and forth from California
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for a bit and then now live in good old Austin, Texas for about five years and love it. Call it
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home. It’s kind of a hub for health and wellness and entrepreneurs. No, one really. So obviously,
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that’s interesting. I’ve not picked up on the soccer career before and it was, I’ll probably dive
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down in that. So tell me a little bit about that. Just just give us a little snippet. What was that about?
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Oh, I did it shape some of the things that you’re doing. Yeah, so football for people that maybe
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haven’t heard the word soccer before. I don’t even know why there’s two words still in 2025, but
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we’ll see. So your side of the pond is is that throwing ball, isn’t it? Yeah, I guess.
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I refuse to take the word soccer. That’s what it is. So soccer was truly important for helping me
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become who I am today because you had the pain of loss creates a lot of growth. It also taught me
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a lot of things around resilience and being driven and setting a goal and achieving it and taught me
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that I could push my body and my mind to places that I didn’t think was possible. And it taught me a
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lot of things about collaboration and working together in leadership. Most importantly though, it taught
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me that the advice to find your purpose was false and wrong. And actually the first talk I ever gave
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for this business, for this career was the worst advice I ever received was find your purpose.
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And basically talks about how I gave soccer so much of myself. I defined myself by this external thing.
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And by doing so, I ended up sourcing my validation, my confidence from that thing, which isn’t
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something that I had much control over. And I dedicated way too much of my time and energy and effort
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to the sport. And so I didn’t develop other skills, other areas, social relationships. And so when I
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lost that thing, I had no idea who I was. I had no identity. And so I spent about four or five years
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kind of digging myself out of that hole and creating who I was. Now that taught me those that it’s
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great to be fearless. It’s great to have confidence. It’s great to explore life. But then eventually,
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you end up feeling lost anyways because you have no direction. And so then it kind of taught me the
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importance of value, alignment and actually having a direction with that confidence and with that
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fearlessness. And you know, brought me to coaching, a brought me to personal development,
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because I had to figure out who I was. And it really was the cornerstone of foundation to
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everything that I teach and everything that I am today.
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Well, so I think it might have something that would influence. And that’s both all of us have
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the thing, well, who we are now is defined by what we’ve done and what we’ve experienced and how
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we’ve reacted to those. And I think one of the things that interested me from the point of view of
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your work is the fact that we’ve got within project management and within project management
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for years, I find this quite a lot. And I find this myself is moving quite frequently. You’re moving
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projects, removing roles. And sometimes you’re kind of just following the path of where the next
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world comes and you don’t necessarily make those choices. But those choices are not made because
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the next projects come up. And like you can just go, right, there’s the next one, there’s the next one,
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right? And it’s new and therefore moving you forward. But it isn’t necessarily a choice for a conscious
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choice for your career. And I think it’s quite easy for us as project managers to just follow on to
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the next project rather than seek out the next project. And I just wonder whether some of the things
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you’re talking about being fearless in looking at your career, when you look at the next project management,
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I’m going to view whether you work in project managers and how they’ve kind of got in a rut, but it’s
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a, it doesn’t feel like a rut because it’s a new project all the time. Yeah, there’s some constant
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aspect of novelty that can come along with kind of new projects. And you can kind of feel like you’re
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learning things new, but have no control over what you’re learning or you’re involved in, especially
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if you’re not managing up or taking control of your career or crafting it. It’s also a really interesting
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field because one toxic individual can completely derail everything. And project managers have to be
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kind of these connectors and collaborators and influencers. And generally, they don’t have a high level
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of authority to do that. Authority without the position. But generally, they need executive stakeholders
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and other leaders that are actually moving things forwards and competing priorities. I know we didn’t
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talk about that, but generally just from the aspect of job satisfaction and engagement and growth,
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you know, oftentimes a project manager is put where they’re needed, not where they want. And it would,
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I, but who’ve anyone within their careers, especially project managers, if they haven’t yet, to really
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sit down and figure out what are the things that are going to help them grow within their industry?
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Is it a certain scope of project? Is it working with certain departments? Is it working
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towards certain outcomes with uncertain KPIs? Is there a certain part of the company you’re in
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or the industry that you want to become involved in become an expert? Because what’s so beautiful
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about being a project manager is that if you’re on a project, you become an expert in that industry,
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in that field without even having to be like an employee within it. But oftentimes we don’t have that
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level of intention. I’d love to hear any perspective on this. I mean, we can talk about kind of how to
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have that intention and how to manage up, but I don’t know if you see this as an issue too.
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Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it’s something that I’ve lived in a number of different organizations,
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but I’ve lived in one organization where I’ve been both lucky and also possibly stagnation as well
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in some ways that I’ve had multiple different technologies that I’ve been working. So as you say,
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about becoming the expert in something I’d never touched networks or anything to do with that at one
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point in whilst I wouldn’t be able to configure networks. I worked for nine months in an area that was
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around the networks running teams who were delivering networks changes. And I became knowledge about it.
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I’ve worked in SAP, I’ve worked in ERP systems and again, not knowing the nuts and bolts, but
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become, aren’t you, get to understand them and you understand them enough to be able to ask the stupid
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questions, and I say, but, but, but you don’t get. So I’ve been very lucky from that point of you
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have been able to jump into those different roles, but then there’s been reorganisations, then there’s
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been different technology coming in and it’s kind of, as you say, they haven’t always been, uh,
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right, that’s the next step and that’s the next bit of technology I want to move into and that’s
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what I want to do and it’s a couple of times that have been, but I have found sometimes it’s kind of
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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?
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Was it my, did I have a choice really? And you obviously always do have a choice, but it was that
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thing, did I let someone ask me that choice for me rather than challenge that choice and then
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take a risk of sitting there going, oh, I’m, I’ve got the not the right project, I’ve just got a
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project if you know me. So beautiful about project management is not everyone might want a project
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manager, but everyone needs one and you go in an organisation and your KPIs aren’t being met or
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the goals are, you know, they have some broad goals. You could very easily get assigned to that project
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just by showing their interest in it, you know, depending on how the, how they end up distributing
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projects, some people don’t even have like a project management office. So it kind of depends on
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the size of the company that you’re a part of, but you can really get involved in almost any major
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project within an organisation because they need you. And I don’t know if a lot of project managers
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realize that like they’re needed and they are wanted, even if the people that want them don’t know
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that yet. And so, yeah, what are the goals, you know, that you have for your career? What are the things
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that you want to learn? And can you map those out and can you share those with the people that are
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generally responsible for assigning projects or starting projects? And I also see generally that
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project managers tend to be a little reactive to the projects that are assigned to them instead of
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actually helping choose what projects are prioritised or what projects are considered. And sometimes
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they lead that, leave it to the senior leadership or senior managers, but who has communication
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with almost every single department and function within an organisation, generally project managers?
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And I think they might be able to see some of the gaps that a little bit more clearly and maybe
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could have a little bit more of a voice. And not only do you help your career, but you help the company.
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Yeah, I agree. I think there are, there are, you’ve got your finger in a lot of pies, you’ve got that
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cross. And I’ve heard this talk about before, that in many ways when you, if you work within a
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largest organisation with multiple departments and you deliver projects in all of those departments,
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or delivering projects that cross those departments, you get that unique cross departmental
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understanding of an organisation again, at a certain 20,000 feet view. But that does put you in
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a position where actually when you, in theory, if it was viable, moving up through an organisation
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into the CEO kind of roles and then the CEO roles, they’re actually put, well, position as PMs,
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whilst you’re not, because quite often you’ll get those roles where someone will come in,
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they’ll be the finance director, they’ll be the sales director that come in and they have brilliant
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at their vertical, but then don’t have that breadth. Whereas the project manager may not have the
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depth of the breadth of that knowledge, which sometimes I think maybe I don’t know if you found it with
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the, the CEOs that sometimes can be really useful to have that breadth of understanding of your
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organisation. Yeah, when I think of an executive project manager, I think of like the chief of staff,
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and it’s the person that controls everything is able to influence, is able to know what’s
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important, most important for an organisation. I’ve never known an organisation, executive team,
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or myself as a coach coming in, to be told that the project manager was too directive,
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or gave too much feedback, or, like generally, the project manager role is seen as someone who’s
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intelligent, informative, and knows what needs, what gears need to turn, keeps everyone accountable,
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but oftentimes is a little too soft in terms of their own career and what needs to happen
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within the project itself. And like the idea of fearlessness for someone that’s in this role,
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I think is crucial for them to stand out from the pack and to meet expectations and be able to
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drive results in an organisation. Yeah, I think, I think you’re right, I think some other things in
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any staff, I was talking to them on the other day about the fact that you’ve got the project manager
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role being quite a lonely role in that, and a lot of accountability, responsibility conflict,
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because tend to be the, if the project goes well, the team involved in doing that project,
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did a brilliant job, not the project manager, not from an organisation point of view, but the project
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manager’s tend to step to the side. That’s my experience anyway. And then, if there’s a problem,
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and if it’s gone wrong somewhere, the project manager steps up and says, “I’m a, it’s me,
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my team didn’t know, there may be specifics in there, but again, they accept that responsibility
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as part of what we do, we accept accountability for the failure, but not necessarily accountability
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for the success of something,” which goes to that point that you’re saying there, where you,
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that means that senior people only see the project manager when there is a problem,
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they only get a visibility of that when there’s a problem. And again, 90 percent of it, people
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throw numbers around about how many projects are successful and not successful, but 90 percent
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of the work that we do is, is successful. Now, the outcomes may not always be successful based
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on whatever measure you use, but most of your projects can deliver right, as many parts of it
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aren’t, that mean that something else happens, and so there’s a lot of really good stuff done,
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it’s same with all of us, it’s like a feedback in it when you’re giving people feedback. If you’re
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only giving people feedback on things they do wrong, that’s a really small part of the brilliant job
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they do, where they do lots of things really well, unless they’re really terrible, and if they’re
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doing 90 percent of their job badly, why are you still employing them? It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s,
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it’s just crazy, and I suppose, for me, just kind of linking to your book and, and, and your, um,
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consulting with the YouTube, what, what is it that made you write the book? What, what made you think,
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actually, there’s a book that is going to help people here? What was the reason?
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Yeah, I spent probably half of my early career, I mean, I’m almost a decade,
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kind of blaming other people for my current situation and holding myself back from creating a job
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that I could truly say that I cared about, and that’s wasted time, I’m never going to get back.
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I had toxic leadership around me, so what? I wasn’t in a job that I thought was, you’re
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meaningful, the perfect so what? And, you know, why, why does that mean I go in and work and waste my
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time and waste my day? And despite being a high performer, I didn’t feel like I was working towards
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anything, but because I was choosing not to work towards anything significant, you know, I could have
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been forming relationships, I could have been learning skills, I could have been a little bit more
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proactive towards my future career, but more importantly, my day-to-day happiness. And so that led me
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to create life for yourself, consulting, and go into the field of leadership development,
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and everything that has been important to me throughout my career, even going all the way back
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to soccer, it comes down to being fearless. It comes down to not being concerned about what
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someone thinks is the right thing to do, and more so caring about what you feel is the right thing to do
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for yourself and for your career. And so it was time to write a book, it was time to get that message
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out there and more to help people feel more fearless in their careers and in their life.
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Everything that I’ve seen that holds people back generally relates to some aspect of fear,
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permission to self, some level of confidence, maybe a clarity towards what they truly want,
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and they’re getting in their own way in terms of what that is, to being able to craft an
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environment that matters to them. And when we look at our job, generally it’s, I’m not telling people
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what I feel like they need to hear, so I’m not giving direct feedback. I’m not being open about
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what I need to my boss, and I’m not speaking up to make sure that those things actually occur
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and are heard. And I don’t feel that I actually have, you know, trusted myself or my job, and I’m
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fear for my safety or for my financial future, or just in general just having a position. And so I’m
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not willing to take that action. And if we could all just be fearless in our careers, I mean,
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leadership would improve, jobs would improve, organizations would improve, and people would be doing
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things that they truly love so their productivity wouldn’t improve. So ultimately outcomes would improve,
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I think it could really make a difference. Yeah, I can, it’s really echoes with me there, because I’ve
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been, I’ve been in situation where I have thought I’m stuck in a situation and stuck with an organization,
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I can’t leave that organization, nothing will go well. And then that organization said, we don’t
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need you anymore. And actually, each time that has had ever happened, I’ve ended up in an
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organization in a better role with more money, with more autonomy, more responsibility, and more,
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what I wanted. And sometimes I think there’s that, you say that fear, I wouldn’t have left out
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those organizations, but they weren’t probably fulfilling me and they weren’t taking me where I would
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have needed to go. But the ones that I did step into, and you could say it’s a bit luck, you could say
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it’s a bit of a vado sometimes, because I think my, I quite psyche me, I kind of don’t fear
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looking silly, you know, fear failing, and something, and I talk to my kids about it, about,
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about failing is what you need to do in order to get better at something. My youngest,
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judo is kind of like, do judo, you fall over a lot and you’re rubbish, stonophones, and it’s hard,
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but over time you’re still rubbish, but every sort of when you’re lucky, and then over time you get a
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bit better, but every sort of when you’re unlucky, and then it changes without, but the thing is if you
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if you compete without feet with, with, with fear, you won’t attempt to attack and you won’t attempt
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to throw. If you don’t attempt to attack and you don’t attempt to throw, you won’t win, because you
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will get thrown because of the fear, and like, that’s kind of how I kind of link them together,
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and then over time as you become, and then say if you become not quite fearless, but controlled
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fearless in what you’re doing in an unadjudgment, then you can make things happen, it kind of,
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it just draws some alignment there from what you’re saying is that you’ve got to risk something
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to get those benefits. Yeah, I wish that moving towards our goals wasn’t seen as a risk.
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Yeah, because I remember even from the field as you share about judo,
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hesitation is the enemy that causes you to to to lose.
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The person that is operating, you know, by instinct or by skill or by experience can get into a
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state of flow, and that state of flow is where you really can shine. It’s, it is, is a place where you
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are almost superhuman, if you look into any sort of flow research. What I would love to do, I hope in
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the future that the word fear doesn’t exist. I don’t think it’s ever going to happen, but we’ve labeled
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a normal reaction to discomfort and the unknown and to concern as something that is unbelievably negative.
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When in essence, it’s just information, it’s data. If you were on a project and someone started
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sharing their feelings about something, you know, great, who else is feeling this way? Great. What do we
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want to do about it? What do we, what practices do we need to institute? How can we adjust our approach?
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What is our, you don’t change the goal? But oftentimes if we feel fear in our career, we go,
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oh, that information means we need to change our goal and change how we act. And that is basically
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doing a disservice to ourselves. And that’s what really becoming fearless is. It’s not that, like, it’s
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not that you’re never going to experience fear. It’s kind of just redefining it as data and information,
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just like you would on a project and then figuring out what you can do about it.
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Well, that’s really, that’s really good with look at it because it’s, it’s, I say, it’s just feedback,
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isn’t it? It’s just, it’s, it’s that whole thing that you burn your hand out of hand.
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You don’t suddenly never pick up a pen again. You just make sure you grab a cloth first and pick
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up a pen, don’t you? It’s going to, but it’s a learning experience. And like you talked about those,
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what you learned from the soccer and the, where you went all in on that and then you’re 10 years.
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Actually, without those items of learning through all of those, what isn’t working, which is,
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again, part of that feedback and understanding, then at some point, you’ve got to change. It’s,
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it wouldn’t make you, you are, and where you are, and what you’re doing now because you wouldn’t
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have had that negative experience to actually feed into what you’re doing now, would you really?
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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.
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But sometimes, though, this experience, bad experiences, I’ve had awful customers, awful projects,
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terrible teams before and now over the years, but I’ve learned every single time, something from
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the host that I’m making mistakes. Yeah, but in the moment at times, they can feel like they’re
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world ending. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we let temporary emotions dictate our future
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opportunities, which is just a bad equation. I think so, you know, I’m going to be silent on this,
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in this team meeting, when someone is disrupting it with negativity because I’m afraid of embarrassing
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myself or causing conflict, but now I’ve completely poisoned the entire project because I wasn’t
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willing to stick up or give direct feedback to the person. Or I’m in a career and I keep
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you in a signed project that I feel like are too junior for me, but I don’t go talk to my manager
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about it and define my goals and lean into them like a mentor and because there’s strategies to
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each of these things that you want to accomplish, but you don’t do that and all of a sudden now you
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hold yourself back in your career five or 10 years, maybe 15 years, and then ultimately they let,
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they let you go anyways. So then you’re going to look for a new job and all you have to show for it
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are you’re doing your projects. Yeah, yeah, it’s it when you look at the potentials of the risk of
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inaction in some of these situations is worse and it’s it’s with human nature is the discomfort now
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compared to the discomfort in the future, you don’t, you, you can’t try to avoid the discomfort now, don’t you?
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So generally you have to explore what the fear is and too often though we feel fear we go oh I need to
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be afraid and we run or we freeze or we just don’t we avoid the thing, but fear is dealing with fear
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means you have to deal with being uncomfortable. It doesn’t mean you have to do anything first. It means
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that you actually have to just explore what you’re feeling and what what are the rational thoughts that
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are aligned to this specific feeling. So you bring rationality to the emotional response instead of
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pushing in a way you get closer to it. That’s just the first step and you don’t even have to take any
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action. I’m not telling everyone they have to jump jump off the cliff into the into the bucket of
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you know the the chasm of their fears. I’m saying that you just have to start exploring them
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and through that exploration we can end up coming up with some sort of action because any small
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action into discomfort actually makes that discomfort more comfortable and eventually we end up
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in taking enough little actions where we’ve completely changed our world and our career.
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Nice brilliant. This is so what you’re saying there really is the from what I’m hearing is that
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it’s that take that kind of the advice you have quite about getting angry but fear as well is that
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take that 10 seconds to let yourself feel take that time to let yourself be afraid let yourself be
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like you wouldn’t do with any emotions but be those emotions and then understand once you’ve
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said okay that’s happening then understand why is that happening then decide if you want to change
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it and then make the actions to do that sort of thing that kind of feels but from from my brain
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and so what practical sort of things do you say to put it like that’s obviously a massive thing
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as soon as we feel fear you take ownership of it kind of in that scenario don’t you but
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what are the some of the sorts of tips and tricks that you’ve got in your book and in your coach and
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that you tell the we’re not giving away the whole farb you know. There’s 65 strategies so I can’t
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give out the farm right now but we can we can take a look at a specific example so the book is written
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in each page it’s kind of its own a light bulb moment with an action and a quote basically it
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starts off with the topic and ask questions to see if you kind of feel that fear in the situation
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explains what that fear is and then gives a suggestion for it. So for example you know one of them
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is like avoid burning out but I think we’re talking about more around job satisfaction and
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leadership and such. So I mean some of them are pretty simple like lead with optimism you know how do
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you respond others complain and as a project manager I bet you’re in a room with a bunch of people
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that are generally pretty negative or complaining and the easiest way to build camaraderie it seems
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like generally is to share those complaints. The problem is you’re the leader of the group
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and so if you share those complaints now all of a sudden you are a source of negativity and you’ve
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kind of given permission to it. So basically the book says maintaining a positive attitude or
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it can be challenging especially when it involves other people complaining. Aligning with others
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negative views can be a way to strengthen relationships so it creates a dilemma between trying to
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stay positive and the need to fit in. However for those aspiring to grow professionally negativity can
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tarnish your reputation and prevent an opportunity to motivate others towards greater organizational goals.
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And so the very straightforward kind of in your face directive is always find the positive.
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If you want to grow in your career it’s on you to be the voice of optimism. If you notice a problem
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encourage finding a solution. Others are complaining you can empathize while still burning out
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more positive aspects. The people that others want to work with and trust are champions of their
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organization and the people in it. If you are bright when others cash shadows you will be the one
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who stands out and others will take notice. And so the fear here is generally it’s kind of standing
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out and standing out from the group and the crowd. And the problem when negative situations arise if
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you’re not standing out then you are creating more negativity and you’re going to hurting your
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brand than the organization and as a leader. And so the book provides a variety of suggestions like
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that to take advantage of your career and to really be fearless in your life. And some people
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hear that and they’re like well what’s the big deal? I’m a little negative. I’m not afraid in this
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moment. Well by not speaking up and not creating the culture and the culture and the environment that
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you want and leading and creating the brand that you want for yourself as leader within the company
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you are actually bending to fear. That’s that really rings in our way because
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I know I’ve been in situations where what generally I’m a fairly optimistic person. I think I think
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generally the community of project managers you have to be two things. You have to be incredibly
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skeptical but optimistic at the same time because the every project you’ve got doesn’t look like
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it’s deliverable and every report on where we are in a status point of view doesn’t sound realistic
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and there were always say you know you’ve kind of got to have that balance of optimism and skepticism
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and I’ve generally been the one who can look at the positive look at what if we do this what
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the options and that and I found myself in certain situations where I’ve dug when someone’s dug a hole
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and they’re in it I’ve got in and took a spade off them and dug them deeper because I and that’s
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what I’ve been in not a good place from a mental health point of view or from a work point of view
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my I found my attitude changes on that and sometimes I spot it sometimes I don’t spot it until
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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
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there’s a thing of the middle manager there was a podcast I don’t know I remember the name of it
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now there’s like the grumpy middle manager something like that from a few years ago
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because whether it be project managers or any middle management you you’re in that situation where
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you’ve got to be you may your organisation is doing something and you don’t agree with it
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and you don’t like what’s going on with it and you think it’s the wrong thing to do but somehow
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you’ve still got to get the to your team on board with delivering with that or being part of that
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the kind of empathise with the fact that yeah I agree I don’t think this is the right thing but
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but it’s really hard and I think it’s really hard as project managers as well if you are
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delivering something in a way that you don’t think you should be delivering it’s not giving the
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benefit and then you’ve got to it’s it’s a really difficult thing to do not impossible but it is
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difficult and I think it’s a case of I get caught kind of giving my opinion too much sometimes
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but as you say the helps build those you build really strong relationships with your team then but
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then your tent kind of hunker down underneath your shield of all of your trying to it’s you
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against the world which creates a great culture but not necessarily an organisation culture
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what do you actually do to break that? How do you would because I understand where it comes from
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how do you stop yourself getting into that hole? The first step to every single behavioural change
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is awareness and so the first thing you have to do is see if you actually are being negative
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and so like what does negative mean and it’s literally agreeing to someone’s negativity it’s
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venting and to start kind of counting when that occurs especially with who and when within your
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within your day it can be with certain people it can be in certain meetings but it’s very important
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once you build that level of awareness you’ll see what percentage of your conversation generally
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is you complaining about things and that level of awareness then kind of starts building the
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pause between you being negative or not because what we need to do is build some semblance of control
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over your reactions and so once you get the information of when you’re being negative you then start
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saying well you know what’s happening that’s causing me to be negative within these moments something
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I’m unhappy about is it certain people am I trying to connect with the relationships is this the culture
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that we’ve created and so then once you realize who it is and when it is you can start building some
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interruptions into those moments I would start small I would pick maybe one meeting one project one
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person and and just give yourself a challenge that whenever something is negative like you maybe even
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I would actually say build a script to prepare on how you’re going to respond and what you’re going
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to say to those people so you so you don’t automatically lean into your kind of normal behavioural
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of conversational tendencies and then try it out and see what happens it will be disruptive because
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the people that used to use you to complain are not not going to be able to and so they’re going
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to feel something is missing initially you might actually create some a discomfort with certain
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relationships and certain people and you’re going to have to be willing to deal with that so what is
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your plan of action there and so working with if you’re working with a coach in this conversation
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generally you explore your feelings you explore the situations you explore the issue you kind of
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brain dump in a safe space and you come up with these strategies and what you’re going to say
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what your tactics are and then you also kind of strategize around what what do you do afterwards so
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depending on the response from the people around you what are the positive things and then what salute
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what can you move people towards from a solution perspective that’s going to create more positivity
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from written communication from your own presentations to how you’re conversing within projects
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themselves now I’m making this bigger than it really is because it could be as simple as don’t say
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anything and move people on to the next task could be just that simple but I’m kind of just kind of
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speaking about all versions of severity when it comes to negativity because some cultures can be
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pretty pretty negative but but generally it takes practice to be able to take something negative
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and to reframe it into something positive and solution oriented in positive work environments
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I’d even I’d even kind of tell people to pay attention to leaders within the meetings pay
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attention to the executives generally executive leaders in an organization generally and all the time
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we’ll do this they will kind of show you in role model how they can take something negative people
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complaining and turn it into something positive because they’ve learned over the years that’s why they
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were in their positions that being a being darkness in an organization has some pretty severe
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impacts on their projects and progress so part of it is also kind of looking towards role models
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and for examples too. Parts are really interesting because it kind of is it the extreme end of the
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politics sort of thing of ready whether the politician being ruled by a news anchor or whatever and
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and then sort of turning a negative around that’s probably at the extreme end but I can see I can see
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where I’ve seen that modeled with some of the senior leaders who I’ve got lots of respect for in
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in organizations I’ve with that who have been very frank and very straight with people
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but also take what can be a challenging question challenging situation but play it back
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in their mind on the what we’re looking for we’re looking to how to move forward and it’s I think
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something that’s really useful because I’m for me I think it’s something I need to again add into my
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checklist of how am I doing sort of at the moment because I think it’s something you slip into it’s a
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habit isn’t it it kind of thing you’ve got to build that habit again as you say that practice that
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habit’s got to be there so it habitually you stop pause think react rather than just react with your
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current emotional in a chimp feeling of this is all a bit shit I don’t like it and be able to say
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yeah I know what you mean I understand why you feel that way to your your team and say but look I’m
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looking at it this way and and just that you’ve acknowledged it you’ve empathized and you’ve given
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a different view and and as you say all of as you say sometimes at that point you can go yeah I know
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I know I understand why you feel that way but we can’t do anything at the moment let’s move on
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and that that’s just saying nothing in some ways or not acknowledging it is difficult
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but it’s just I think I need to be better at some areas I need to be better at monitoring myself
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because I can get drawn down into oh whoa is me and let’s all get together and drink a bottle of rum
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and moan yeah and some great resources nonviolent communication and crucial conversations are
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two really good books within how to stay goal oriented within difficult situations
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and this is this is I’m sorry everyone if you’re listening to this and you do like the gripe and
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you have your people that you like to do it with do you want to have a higher level position you want to be
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more senior in a company this is one trait that needs to stop it literally you need to do a hard
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stop you need to figure out vent vent to your friends but the the one thing I could give a lot of
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presentations on executive presence I’ve worked in companies all across the globe the one thing that
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will resonate is if you are the optimistic realist that is goal oriented solution oriented
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and it’s able to listen to someone’s concerns to not add to them instead to transform them to
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results for a company and that means basically that you can’t vent and you can’t be negative
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and it will make us it will make such a big difference for your brand and for your results
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but it will be it will be it will feel like you lost something in a company 100% will
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but just like you don’t want a friendship where you’re constantly complaining
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I actually this happened the other day I went to go work out with the bud
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and we had some really sad topics we had some really negative topics and we were sitting there the
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last 15 minutes of our workout kind of sharing back and forth about how terrible something was
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and we left the gym we’re like felt heavy and felt negative and we’re just like that this feels
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bad like this isn’t feel good that’s what people even though you might feel like a release with
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venting there’s a lot of research that shows that it actually accentuates the negativity within
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somebody and so that’s what you’re doing you’re putting fuel to the fire and I’m highly recommend
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just I’m annoying I’m emphasizing this a lot a highly recommend it’s just one thing you change it to this
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yeah that’s brilliant I know just the time is just flown by I’ve just noticed and we’re coming up on time
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with that and I but I think it’s such a powerful just that one snippet and that’s just one
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snippet that we’ve talked about this in your book and this 60 other ones so yeah I find that really
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useful already so I just wrapping up really was there anything that you wanted to mention
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that we haven’t got too over you got a copy of myself you showed that the book there are waving
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in front of you will see it yeah becoming through this so there we go so honestly it’s just it’s
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really just that you are in control of your job you’re in control of how you show up every single day
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and I wish someone showed me you know taught me this a little bit earlier that the only one that
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can waste your time is you and so depending on the situations that you’re in let’s make the most of
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them and generally that relates to becoming fearless check out the book it’s you know it’s everywhere
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ebook audio and so on as paperback and if you enjoy it leave a review because it makes a really big
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difference and if you enjoyed a lot semi-message on LinkedIn or books some time with me to do my website
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would love to hear from you all right brilliant so that’s I guess that’s the best place for people to
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get in touch and follow up if they want to find out some more either of those channels
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yeah the website to live for yourself consulting.com let’s live for yourself consulting.com just like
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how spelled just like it’s how you hear it and then dr. Benjamin Ritter on LinkedIn I’m trying
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to be pretty active there brilliant hope and thank you so much for your time I’ve I’ve learned
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something I’ve got some actions that I’ve got to take myself out and I’m sure that the listeners
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will have the the same sort of benefit of this so you have a wonderful rest of your day and
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speak soon. You as well thanks for having me.
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Cheers Ben.
