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In this episode of “How I Work,” Josh Becerra sits down with Dr. Benjamin Ritter, the founder of Live For Yourself Consulting. Dr. Ritter is a leadership coach, talent development expert, executive values geek, international speaker, online course instructor, and podcaster. He is passionate about guiding individuals to become the leaders of their own careers and create a career they love.
HOW I WORK, EPISODE 43 WITH Dr. Benjamin Ritter
In today’s world, finding job satisfaction and taking control of your career is crucial for long-term success and personal fulfillment. Together, Josh and Dr. Ritter discuss the order of the three pillars, health, wealth, and happiness and different stages. The conversation also explores the importance of career advice at different stages of one’s professional journey and emphasizes the need for individuals to prioritize themselves in their careers. Plus:
- Early Career vs. Later Career: The Difference in Career Advice
- Job Satisfaction: Social Relationships, Meaning, and Actual Work
- The Three C’s of Self-Leadership: Clarity, Confidence, and Control
- Taking Control of Your Career and Living for Yourself
Early Career vs. Later Career: The Difference in Career Advice
Dr. Ritter begins by reflecting on mistakes he made early in his career, which ultimately led him to the current work he is doing. He highlights the importance of regularly reassessing one’s career path and ensuring that it continues to align with personal goals and interests.
“I attached myself to this idea of purpose, which then eventually just became instead of an attachment to purpose and motivation and interest and excitement, it became, I’ve told people I need to do this and I need to do this became a commitment instead of actually choosing to do something.” – Dr. Ritter
He cautions against attaching oneself solely to the idea of purpose, to avoid that concept of commitment rather than choice. Dr. Ritter shares his personal experience of reacting to past decisions instead of proactively choosing his path.
Job Satisfaction: Social Relationships, Meaning, and Actual Work
Job satisfaction, according to Dr. Ritter, can be broken down into three components: social relationships at work, the meaning derived from work, and the nature of the work itself. He emphasizes the need to prioritize oneself and not sacrifice personal well-being for the sake of the job. Dr. Ritter discusses how many individuals give away their power and happiness at work by blaming external factors and neglecting personal accountability. This negative mindset not only impacts professional growth but it commonly spills over into personal relationships.
The Three C’s of Self-Leadership: Clarity, Confidence, and Control
Josh and Dr. Ritter delve into the common barriers people face when trying to take control of their careers. They identify two prevalent beliefs that hinder personal growth: prioritizing passion over oneself and considering the job more important than personal well-being.
Dr. Ritter asserts that individuals must curate their own interests and prioritize their own growth. He shares how executives often fall into the trap of overextending themselves due to a lack of self-belief and fear of others’ opinions. By recognizing that personal desires and growth should come first, individuals can establish healthier boundaries, perform better at work, and maintain fulfilling personal lives.
Taking Control of Your Career and Living for Yourself
By prioritizing personal well-being, embracing self-leadership, exploring diverse opportunities, and finding meaning in various aspects of work, individuals can create fulfilling careers and maintain a healthy work-life balance. Remember, your career should serve you, and it’s essential to make choices aligned with your own desires and growth.
Learn more about Dr. Benjamin Ritter and Live For Yourself Consulting: https://www.liveforyourselfconsulting.com/
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TRANSCRIPTION: HOW I WORK, EPISODE 43 (Dr. Benjamin Ritter)
Josh: Hi everybody, this is Josh Becerra from Augurian. Welcome to this next episode of How I Work. I have the pleasure to be joined by Dr. Benjamin Ritter, founder of Live For Yourself Consulting, he is a leadership coach, talent development, executive values geek, international speaker, online course instructor, and podcaster who’s passionate about guiding leaders to be the leader of their own career and create a career they love. Thanks for being here, Dr. Ritter.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: I’m pumped to be here. I feel like I’m going to try to make a line in my bio that only uses the letter like L and C. So it’d be leader, and career and see how many different words and phrases I can put together. And also I’m just going to like to see what happens when people try reading it at the start of every, every episode, a bit of a tongue twister.
Josh: Yeah.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Yeah. And if anyone is listening , have some fun with your own bio and try to create like a two or three liner that you can just get, you know, practice in and. When you go meet people and get out there.
Josh: I love that. Well, I feel like I nailed it. So anyway, you got an awesome bio. Nailed it.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Three pluses, A plus plus plus.
Josh: So when we were prepping for this call, you told me a bit about mistakes. We talked about mistakes. And you told me about mistakes you made early in your career that led you to your work today. And normally, we start these by just me asking, tell me a little bit about your personal story. So can you weave some of them into your personal story, the mistakes you made, and how it led to the work you’re doing today for us.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Yeah, one of the biggest mistakes I made in my group, two of them, were that I dedicated my life to something without putting in checks and balances to say, like, is this still what I want to work on?
And I attached myself to this idea of purpose, which then eventually just became instead of an attachment to purpose and motivation and interest and excitement, it became actually like, Oh, I’ve told people I need to do this and I need to do this became a commitment instead of actually choosing to do something. I was almost like now reacting to this decision I made in the past. And then to multiply that, to build on it, I ended up just really reacting to a lot of different things that happened in my career. Because I lost what I thought I was supposed to do for my professional life, and because I consistently experienced a lot of disappointments, where I got four different job offers and something that I was interested and passionate about and they’d be canceled after I signed the contract.
Going back and going a little bit further in history, was canceled. You know, and so in like two and a half years of searching for that full time job where I’m just like, Okay, so what’s the point of this anymore? I kind of lost faith in the professional world. And I think there’s something to be said about not buying into what people tell you you have to do for work. That’s actually a lot of what I believe in personal accountability and responsibility and empowerment.
Josh: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: But I got to a point where I was just kind of blaming the organization and blaming my leaders for the situation that I gave away all of my power when it came to being happy at work, building career capital, doing those checks and balances, like a career audit in terms of like, well, what do I want to learn? What am I working towards? And because I gave away that power, I wasted a lot of years and I was in a very negative head space for a long time. That didn’t just impact my professional career, but it impacted my personal relationships too.
Josh: Yeah. I mean, I definitely have had ins and outs with that, like negative headspace. And I do love that you’re kind of telling people it’s up to them to take control, like being the leader of your own career. So what are some of the common barriers you see people running into or creating for themselves? And like, how can people in fact take control of those careers?
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: The biggest barriers are kind of related. So it’s one, my passion is more important than me and my job is my career. My job is myself. And both of those give away our own personal brand to something else. The giveaway, like that, we are the curator of anything that we’re interested in. And so if you think that something is more important to you, like you have a meaning greater than your own health and wellness and, you know, just enjoyment of life, then you’re going to make choices that don’t actually serve you and that serve something that is less than you, that isn’t as important as you. And you’re going to get narrow-minded. You’re going to niche yourself in, you’re going to limit your experiences and that’s going to limit your professional career overall. If you think that your job is more important than you, then very similarly, you’re going to not have proper boundaries, it’s gonna impact your health. You’re actually gonna perform worse.
I see this happen a lot with the executives I work with. They kind of feel like they have to fall on the sword a lot. They have to do everything, but they feel like they have to do everything because they don’t believe in themselves enough and they’re worried about what other people think about them. And so because they overextend themselves, not only are they exhausted, not only are their home life relationships and their personal relationships suffering, their own personal health is suffering, but their work suffers because they’re not actually able to be focused and not able to produce good work. They’re, they’re making mistakes that they normally wouldn’t have made if they weren’t as exhausted and tired and not to mention resentful and frustrated because they feel like they’re falling on the sword when it’s their own personal decision.
I think those are really important when it comes to making sure that you’re able to take control of your career by remembering that you come first. your broader career, which is a multitude of jobs comes first. And that ultimately there is nothing as important as your own desire for growth, for learning, and for just a general interest in the work that you’re doing. And if it’s not what you’re doing right now, then you have to be able, you can then craft that to be more in alignment with where you want to go later on in life and what you want to experience today.
Josh: Yeah. So, you know, I think, you know, my experience has been that this kind of happens over time. Do you have ideas or ways that maybe someone who’s very early in their career can kind of accelerate this pathing so that they can begin to understand those things for themselves? Because for me, it took, it took a long time to kind of get there. So I’m just curious.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Well, it’s nice you’re saying you got out of it. The issue that I see with a lot of my clients is they get deeper into it.
Josh: Mmm.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: And it’s because they’ve had these limiting beliefs throughout their career. And if you keep making decisions that aren’t really for you, if you keep focusing on being worried about what people think of you in the workplace, if in thinking that your work is more important than your health or the relationships or the people that know about your work, then you’re going to continuously dig this hole, even if you grow in your career.
Because again, I’m working with senior executives and organizations, COOs, CEOs, CEOs, SVPs, CFOs. And all these individuals are suffering with those beliefs. They don’t believe in themselves or worry about what people are thinking about them. They don’t have proper boundaries when it comes to work. They’ve never stopped to ask themselves, who am I? Because they’ve always thought of themselves as this is my job. This is my title. And if you don’t know who you are, then you don’t understand what your professional brand is. And you can’t communicate that, build powerful relationships that are going to help, actually increase your success.
But so I’d say like if we were going to talk about people early in their career. then I would kind of give a little bit of a different bit of advice because usually later on we have had experiences that could then help pick our path forward.
Where earlier on in your career, I would say, please don’t pick your path too soon. And the path that you should pick in your career should really be more focused on how do I explore as much as possible to learn what I want to actually focus on later on in life. And we can because if we narrow ourselves in too soon, it becomes a lot harder to make the pivot further on in our career. And we can.
For example, I’ve pivoted my career in three years, right? From healthcare to business operations and performance improvement to talent and leadership development. But it could be a lot easier if you keep your options open in the beginning. And it’s not to mean not to invest in something, not to try something out, but to continue exploring.
Listen, Go get a coffee chat with someone in a different industry. Go to a different networking event that you normally wouldn’t go to. But early on in your career, you’re able to take risks because your earning potential is actually a lot less than it will be when you’re older. Like the extra $10,000 you’re going to make it that job that’s going to work you 200 hours a week is going to be a week later on further in your career when you’re earning more per year because of your position, salary, etc.
Josh: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do love that. Thinking about that juxtaposition of someone who’s early in their career and to explore what’s out there. And then somebody who’s later in their career, it’s like explore what you’ve experienced and pull from that. Like, what is it that you’ve enjoyed? And let’s focus on some of those things and how can we get back to some of that? So I really love that advice.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Yeah. And, and, but ask yourself too, because I’m working with a client right now. She’s owned her own business for about 16 years. That’s the only, only job that she’s had. And so now she does actually have to go explore. Like she can look at the things that she’s enjoyed in her business and the, and the success that she’s had, the clients that she’s had. But a lot of it is also, wow, you’ve been living in this bubble. Like you don’t know it actually exists.
So even if you’re further in your career, ask yourself, where am I? Like, and from a broader perspective, you know, don’t look at your age, you’ve experienced so far from an organizational perspective, those experiences from an industry perspective, from a skills perspective, from an environment perspective, from the people around you. Cause for example, I didn’t know that organizational and talent development, like this industry existed until I was paired up with my own coach working in healthcare who was managing our emerging leaders program across 13 different sites. And they go, wow, I didn’t know what you did for a living was a thing. that I have because I did a career audit at the time with coaching, professional development, and still kind of have that business strategy component to it. And that allowed me to go explore that industry.
Josh: So I want to get back to something you said a little bit earlier in the conversation, which was about how people are defined, many times they define themselves by their work, right? So you and I both spent some time working and traveling overseas. One of my observations from traveling is that many cultures, people kind of live… They work to live. So they find meaning in their life by dedicating more of themselves to things outside of work, like family, friends, causes, the communities that they care about.
And like when I came back, I lived overseas for 10 years. And when I came back, I just was kind of confronted with this reality that a lot of people living in the U S just live for their work where job satisfaction is directly correlated to their happiness. And I’m just wondering, should we really have such high expectations for our workplaces or do we need to kind of shift our mental model a little bit around where it is that we get our happiness from?
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: I think there was a recent statistic by Adam Grant, or was it, I think it was Adam Grant, that said we only need 20% of our work life to be meaningful, for us to feel that it is meaningful. And I think we tend to think that we have to like, have this magical experience when it comes to work, for it to feel that way, when we actually don’t.
So job satisfaction is like, if we were to look at the research as three main things, it’s our social relationships at work, the meaning we feel from work, and the actual work that we’re doing. And the actual work can take account, like the issues we have with customers, the resources that we have, what we’re learning, et cetera. But it, so it’s kind of a lump, but if we can do something in each of those categories, it doesn’t have to be a hundred percent, right? So we can have one person at work that we really love working with. And I see this actually a lot more so with my international clients that go into work and the people they’ve worked with, they have some longevity a little bit more at their positions and they’ve developed these really strong relationships where it’s like, this is what they go to work for. And now the meaning component for a lot of people can be really less. But meaning can be derived from a variety of things, from the industry that your company works in, from the recognition that you get from the impact of your work for the organization itself.
So there’s different ways to say what is meaningful. It doesn’t mean that you have to be volunteering and building homes in a third world country. It can be something else very internal to you specifically based on your perception. And then the actual work itself could be, I’m learning new skills, or I feel confident in the work that I’m doing, or there’s a little bit of challenge novelty, or it’s something that, you know, I just personally respect about myself and the work that I’m doing. So like, we can have those in positions that really are in anything. This is why people are completely happy. You know, like raking the leaves to, you know, to someone working to feed the children across, you know, like in a whole different country, because that person is taking something special from the work. And that’s where self leadership comes from, right, and being the leader of your own career. If you’re doing something today and this is what you have to do, how can you find a way to enjoy those three pillars so that you are happy at work?
Because if it’s paying the bills and you know, it’s helping you grow or even if you don’t want to grow, it’s doing what it needs to do for a job, then let’s be happy. Because maybe it sounds too simple, but it’s just like… I think we have to alter our expectations, our expectations of the fruit of all evil. I think you might have heard that. And it comes from maybe what we don’t have. We have this perception of have-nots. We do the same thing for our jobs.
Josh: Yeah. It’s funny, you know, like I am the leader of our organization and I don’t really have a boss that I report to necessarily. Um, of course I’m held accountable for responsibilities and all of those other things. There’s definitely a high degree of accountability, but it’s when I say to people like there’s even aspects of my job that there’s some days where I just, you know, it’s kind of feels like drudgery. But I love my job because of other things, like it’s not because of that. It’s like, no one is ever going to have a job where there’s, there’s no aspect or day that you’re just kind of like, ugh, you know, that just happens to all of us independent of like the level that you’re at, the success you’ve achieved, the experience you have. So I think, yeah, sometimes, you know, we’ve got this ethos of the workplace that is just going to be awesome. And I want to get to go to work every single day and it’s going to be great. And I just feel like that narrative, we’vve got to kind of reconstruct that a little bit to say, yeah, there’s ways to find happiness at work. And it doesn’t have to happen 100% of the time. I think you’re right there.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: It is a lot easier sometimes though to leave than it is to fix. And, you know, I work with clients. This is kind of a big belief that I’ve seen over the past couple of years. I have to work for myself. I have to, no matter what, I have to work for myself. And no amount of reframing, no amount of coaching, like no amount of, you know, even finding a better job is going to solve this belief, is going to alter this belief other than going to work for yourself. And, and so you can do little tests, like a contract or consult, but a lot of times these clients have to leave their job to say and feel that they’ve done it. And then they have to deal with the fact that they don’t like it kind of changing the belief of, well, if I go back, then I failed. Well, sometimes there’s like a different belief that comes up, but it’s, sometimes you do have these beliefs that are so ingrained in you that are easier just to pull the trigger and to test it out and then to figure out what you’re going to do now with more information.
That’s the truth.
Josh: It might be awesome, but it also might be, you know, one of these, the grass isn’t always greener, like when you’re consulting and out on your own, you’re like hustling, like you got to find the work, you got to do the work, you got to keep clients happy, go find more. So like, yeah, it’s, uh, it can be a double edged sword, but it can work for people for sure. And I, I’m like you feel like. We should be encouraging people if that’s their belief, like go and figure that out as soon as you possibly can.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: There’s some component of also remembering that someone is paying us for something. And I think I don’t know, this isn’t spoken about enough and I might get some slack for this. I tend to just be very honest about both sides of the coin here when it comes to entrepreneurship, working for somebody just in general, the professional environment. You have someone paying you. There was some aspect of you having to cater to them because they’re paying you. And they selected you because you’re supposed to be good at your job. but you also selected them. And so it’s this mutual relationship where you need to provide something and they need to provide something. And sometimes there’s organizations that will provide it in a way that caters more to the things that you need, yes. And a lot of times you also need to ask for the things that you need.
Usually that’s actually the bigger problem. People don’t feel like they can ask for what they need. But you’re still getting paid. And so remember that. Remember that’s a huge benefit. Right. You could say whatever you want about society. You shouldn’t have to do this. Why do we have to work, et cetera? Well, you can go move somewhere and probably live off of very little and you could be a dive instructor or whatever you want to do and you’ll be fine. But if you want a certain lifestyle. then like value that or value the fact that your organization is paying you as much money as it is to do the work that you do.
Cause let’s be fair. If you’re listening to this and you’re working more than 20 to 25 hours a week, then you’re doing something wrong because you’re not being as efficient potentially as, as you could be within an organization, especially if you’re working in a full-time position. And I, I saw your face a little bit, but like there’s, I think there’s some studies that actually show that that’s generally the amount of time that people work a day. There’s like two to three hours of incredibly productive and efficient work that someone is doing during the day. And a lot of the other stuff is like going to the bathroom, getting food, chatting with a friend, maybe sitting in a meeting and not paying attention. And so people think it’s work, but a lot of times it isn’t.
Josh: Yeah. I was just on a LinkedIn thread where it was talking about productivity and I, you know, my comment, I guess in there was like, we need to figure out how we can trust people enough so that they can do the work when they’re feeling the most productive, right? Like we, we need to not constrain people by saying, come into the office from this hour to this hour. We’re definitely full hybrid, but I’m a big believer that when you let people be the most productive, when they’re feeling the most productive, you’ll get the best work out of them for sure.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Yeah, very true. I mean, last night it was about 10 o’clock at night and I was sitting in creating presentations for a leadership workshop. So it’s like, that’s when I felt like doing it, right? Just based on my life that was there. And I think we have to have that level of freedom for people. And I think trust is huge. The level of trust I’ve been, I heard about someone that got a job about six months ago, I didn’t know this existed. This kind of thing blew me away. And they had to work from their computer with a camera on, the entire day. And there was someone that was paid to watch all of the people working from their computers.
Josh: Wow. Yeah, that’s the level of control that I’m not interested in having. Like, that is the antithesis of trust right there. So yeah, that’s, that’s hardcore. I would run away from a job like that. So, let’s get into something, um, interesting that you’ve brought to the world. So, one of your programs is called the Three C’s of Self-Leadership. Another tongue twister. The Three C’s of Self-Leadership. What are the three C’s? and how did you land on them?
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: The three C’s are clarity, confidence, and control. And so when I first launched Live for Yourself Consulting, I wrote LIVE. It was an acronym on the back of a napkin flying out to California when I was in the doctorate program for organizational leadership. And LIV stands for life intentions, values, and expectations. And so when I initially started coaching, I built my program based on those pillars. Life is goals. Intentions are your intentions. How you show up value, V values are what you stand for. It’s at the core for you are E is, you know, expectations.
And so it’s like, what do you actually expect of yourself and the relationships of the people around you? And we kind of went through this decision-making framework to help you achieve what you wanted to achieve in life. And I was working through clients. I realized that there were certain traits that clients had that made them more successful in the program. And so I started kind of doing some analysis of the people that I’ve worked with and I go, okay, so interesting: clarity. So clarity of goals and values. That’s one pillar that made a huge difference at the start of everything. And that’s what we ended up working on most of the time. Then there was this personal belief in themselves. So they’re who’s at the steering wheel, the inner champion or the inner critic. And do they have the skills they need to achieve the goals that they’ve set for themselves, as well as goals that align with their values, or not goals, um, skills that align with their values, because that then dictates how they feel about themselves as well.
And then once they have clarity and they have confidence, how are they showing up? What is their environment like from their social relationships to the professional relationships, to the environment they live in each and every single day. And does that, does that help? Does that support them showing up in a way that aligns with their values and their goals? And the clients that had those three things within their life at the time were more easily able to implement the framework. The clients that didn’t, it was like we had to actually work on those areas. And I go, hold on a second. I think I’m focused on the wrong thing. I need to readjust and focus more on those three C’s and then instill that self leader. So then I can step back and say, you know, after three months, go at it, go have fun, go have an incredible life. You know, go, go be that self leader.
Josh: Yeah. I love that. You know, we at Augurian talk a lot about confidence. Our tagline, actually, if you look on our website is “have confidence.” And that really came from the fact that every time I was in a conversation with a marketing leader or someone coming to us and seeking a new agency partner, it was because they kind of lacked that confidence. And I do think that, you know, understanding where confidence comes from and how you can build that is super important. So I think you’re really onto something there.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: I was working with a client yesterday and we’re kind of near the halfway point of our program. We kind of worked on his career vision, clarity, his leadership style, went through some low hanging fruit on how to show up in a different way so that executive leaders see him as an executive. And he shared with me, I haven’t applied for a senior level role in eight years. He’s a people manager, but like a senior level role. And he’s just kind of been stagnant in his career. He’s like, because I didn’t think I was ready. And the only reason why he didn’t he didn’t even apply didn’t try and people even asked! We hold ourselves back a ton. I mean confident that the inner critic is usually at the steering wheel. And if we’re not actively trying to reprogram or speak back to that inner critic, it is in control.
Josh: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: So if you have not done any work on affirmations or inner confidence or done a creative success folder or surrounded yourself with positive, affirming people, if you’re listening to negative news each and every single day, like you are probably being controlled by your inner critic more than is good for you to be successful in your career.
Josh: Yeah, that’s great. So we’re getting close to the end here. I would love to hear any sort of piece of advice that you would either give your past self or listeners about how you kind of do this living for yourself thing, right? Like, what would that piece of advice be?
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: I’m going back in time, setting me down. Anything that you want to achieve, you can achieve if you decide to set your sights on it. And I know it’s so cliche, but, and, and I would add on to that though, but what you should want to achieve should either be through a lens of curiosity, learning and growth, or be in alignment with who you know you are at your core, your values, because aligning yourself to your core is going to help you feel more fulfilled and meaningful and build a life that propels you forwards and being curious and you understand yourself more as well as your values. But too often we hold ourselves back because we think I can’t do that or they won’t talk to me or who am I? And those answers to those are who cares? Go do it. Go after it. Don’t be the person that holds yourself back. Let the environment around you choose to.
Josh: Do you think that, one of the other kind of places where people get tripped up is instead of saying, like, I want to go do this because I’m curious or because this is aligned with my values or this is how I am in my being in my essence, their motivation is like, I want to go make money. I want to figure out how to make money. And, that’s where I’ve seen, like, there’s this kind of combination of, I want to be my own boss and I want to make money and people kind of spiral into things that don’t fulfill them. And they may even be successful at them, but in the end, they’re not fulfilled. Any thoughts on like this I’ve got to make money idea.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: It depends on where the make money comment comes up, because my dissertation was actually on senior health care leaders looking at the alignment between person job value concurrence. So your actual values that you perceive from your job and your personal values to job satisfaction. And we found that senior health care leaders had a very high level of value alignment. They felt meaning from their work. Well, once you feel meaning from your work, guess what they still wanted? money.
And so and so I’d say like, so I had my soft and my grandma had this quote, she said to health, wealth and happiness. And I love that quote, I believe that there are three incredible pillars, you know, cheers to her all the time. But I think when you have health, and you have happiness, Like you might sometimes want to put wealth first for a little bit. Cause then you go, how can I maximize my wealth doing the things that I love doing? Now, if you do those out of order, then eventually you’re going to burn yourself out, feel stuck, feel underutilized, wonder what you’re doing with your life and have kind of a crisis and then come hire me. That’s fine. But then you have the money to hire. So that’s good too.
But I do say it’s something we have to make sure that the order is correct. Because when we’re younger, we can focus on health and happiness, right? And values more because our earning potential is less. And so we’re not really sacrificing that much. Now I have worked with a lot of clients that gave up very high level income, you know, high salaries, they’ve saved appropriately, or even just, they’re just like, I just need to do, I just need to be happy. I need a different life. So the short answer to your question would be yes.
Josh: Yeah, I like that. Health, wealth, happiness. Those are good pillars. All right. So last question. I’m just curious, who are you kind of getting inspiration from, or who’s kind of challenging your thoughts today? Authors, podcasters, thought leaders, who are you listening to reading?
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Yeah. So, well, you of course, right. So you’re on that list.
Josh: Thank you. I’ll take that.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Then I’d say podcasts. I like listening to coaching for leaders, Dave Stoviak, the look and sound of leadership is really good. I try to mix it up sometimes. So I’m listening to a supply chain podcast right now called limited supply.
Josh: Interesting.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: On how to be a better human by Ted school of sales. But so like one of the books that was recommended to me recently, because I have an athletic background and my mind held me back terribly. One of my Bibles as a kid was the Mind Gym, which was a book basically about mental confidence in athletics. So someone recommended the mindful athlete. So I’m reading that right now, the mindful athlete and a book called Buy Back Your Time.
Josh: Okay, love it. I’ll have to check out some of those resources. Well, I wanna thank you so much, Dr. Ritter, for being on the podcast today. I love having these types of conversations about how it is we can achieve what we wanna achieve in life without giving up things. And I think your work is amazing. So, appreciate your time today.
Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Josh: Awesome. All right, that’ll do it for this episode of How I Work. Thanks, everybody. Bye.
