In this thought-provoking episode, Scott Ritzheimer shares how to thrive in your current stage without forced growth. If you struggle with boredom and stage pressure, you won't want to miss it. You will discover:

You will discover:

- Why aligning your stage with your vision boosts fulfillment

- How to embrace mystery to sustain joy and success

- What thriving strategies keep you engaged in any stage

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stages 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

Scott helped start nearly 20,000 new businesses and nonprofits and with his business partner started led their multimillion-dollar business through an exceptional and extended growth phase (over 10 years of double-digit growth) all before he turned 35.He founded Scale Architects to help founders and CEOs identify and implement the one essential strategy they need right now to get them on the fast track to Predictable Success.

Want to learn more about Scott Ritzheimer's work at Scale Architects? Check out his website at https://www.scalearchitects.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

Take the Founder's Evolution Quiz Today

If you’re a Founder, business owner, or CEO who feels overworked by the business you lead and underwhelmed by the results, you’re doing it wrong. Succeeding as a founder all comes down to doing the right one or two things right now. Take the quiz today at foundersquiz.com, and in just ten questions, you can figure out what stage you are in, so you can focus on what is going to work and say goodbye to everything else.

Founder's Quiz

Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again

to the start, scale and succeed podcast, the only podcast that

grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as a

founder, one of the questions that I get asked a lot when I

travel all over the country and teach on these different stages

is, do I have to get to the next level? Because once we finally

realize what the next level is, many of us realize that's not

actually what we want. That's not why we started this

business. It's not our dream for our nonprofit. It's just

something that we feel like we have to go up into the right, up

into the right, up onto the right. You couldn't be further

from the truth. And so right out of the gate here, I want to just

dispel the myth. There's nothing inherently better about stage

seven than stage one. In fact, there's nothing better about

stage five than stage four, not in absolute terms. And so as I'm

working with folks, as I'm interacting with founders at

various conferences and events that I speak at. What I'll tell

them is, do you only need to get to the biggest stage, the latest

stage that your vision demands? What we're really looking at is,

what is your vision for the organization, what's your vision

for your time leading it, and how big do you have to get to

fulfill that vision? It's not how big you have to get to be a

$10 million company or 100 million or a billion dollar

company, those are fine. Those are just goals. Those aren't a

vision. It has nothing to do with your success as a founder.

Anyone who wants to impose some type of definition of success,

it requires you to progress to a stage that later than whatever

your vision demands is not doing a service to you. So what does

that mean? It means that there's actually benefit. In fact, I

would go so far as to say it is better to stay in a smaller

stage than it is to wrongly pursue a later stage. And that's

not necessarily hard to do, but it's not easy to do either. So

there's this interesting challenge that comes up when we

realize, oh, I can actually stay in this stage. The next question

is, how do you do that, especially sustainably? Because,

let's be honest, we're founders. We like to move and shake and

grow and create. And the idea of staying stuck inside of a stage

is a really big challenge. Well, the first thing is, you have to

learn to thrive in that stage and and in my book, there's a

whole lot of information on exactly how that we're not

really going to talk about that in this conversation. So you

have to learn what drives success in the stage that you're

in. You may even need to, if we take a step back, decide if you

can go back a stage and still meet your vision. That is

surprisingly common in the folks that I work with and teach and

and so let's assume that you're going to stay in the stage that

you're at. Let's assume that you are already thriving in that

stage, that, yeah, it's got its challenges, and there are hard

days, but by and large, you say, Hey, this is pretty good. I've

got something really special. You've discovered what the joy

is in your stage. And I mean that very specifically there

are, there are very specific things that you get to enjoy in

each and every stage, and they vary by stage. In fact, the way

that I discovered this was, I'm working with these later stage

founders, very successful. Stage Five, stage six, stage seven,

and again and again and again in our conversations and in these

sober moments of reflection, they'll tell me over and over, I

wish I was back in stage two, stage I wish I was there. I wish

I was doing it. I wish it was as simple as it used to be, and

then the very next session, I'll be in someone in stage three,

and they're just dying because of the realities of stage three,

because it's hard, like you're in that reluctant manager mode,

and you wondered, what's wrong with these people, and that

that's just an all consuming question. And you might be

thinking, why would you ever want to stay in a stage like

this? And the reality of it is that management stage can be a

whole lot of fun. In fact, it actually is the stage that

correlates the most with the life cycle stage from last you

and business partner of mine, the book critical success here

behind me, stage three is where you typically spend the time in

the organizational fun stage. So there's a lot to be said about

stage three, even stage four, any of the stages have their and

and so you've got to understand what the joy is. You have to

have the right strategies for what you need to do to thrive.

Because it's not everything. It's actually very few things.

Again, we talked. About that in the book. But from there,

there's another gear, and it's not another level. It's not it's

not kind of like the next big thing. It's more like an

overdrive button on your car. Have you ever turned that off

accidentally? I've got one in my truck, and when you bump it, as

soon as you let off the gas, you feel the engine start to hold

you back, and it almost feels like you're touching the brakes

when you're not. And that's a feeling that folks get whenever

they settle on staying in and thriving at a stage. As soon as

you feel like you let off the gas at all, it's just oh,

there's this lurch, there's this jerk, and it's not comfortable.

It's not pleasant. We kind of catch yourself thinking, like,

what was that? Is that really what this looks like? And it's

so severe that sometimes it'll lead people to thinking, No, I

can't stay in this stage. I have to grow. I have to get to the

next stage, which just is true. And so what we've got to do is

we've got to push that overdrive button. We've got to ease that

transition from full on the gas to something other than full on

the gas, because you don't need to be full on the gas forever to

stay and thrive in and sustain success in any one of these

seven stages. But there is something that you need to do,

and it's going to catch us a little odd, especially type A

founders that are driving take the next hill, much like myself.

The one thing that I have found separates those from those who

can sustain success almost indefinitely. It seems inside of

one stage, they don't have to grow, they're not shrinking,

they're not bored, they're not fiddling with stuff and making

people angry. They're just thriving and thriving and

thriving the one thing that separates us from the others who

start to drip or start to lose their edge or feel a little

arthritic or lose their passion or get frustrated more than they

should, or wonder, you know, just perpetually, if the grass

is greener, somewhere else, anywhere else, you'd be

surprised what that one thing is. And it's important that we

get hold of this one thing, because, again, the consequences

are pretty dire. I've seen a lot of founders make some of the

biggest mistake simply because they were bored. And let's face

it, that's a real threat. When you're not striving for that

next stage, you're not learning all these new skills that are

necessary to evolve. You're not taking the next hill, at least

not in the way that you would you were trying to grow Stage to

Stage. Then boredom is a real threat. It's a real enemy. And

there's a couple things that confront that contentment is

one, and that's why we talk about joy so much around here,

because I think it's a key to contentment. There's another

that's actually a lot more interesting, and that is

mystery. It's It's mystery, and that word probably strikes most

of you as at least curious, and that's kind of the point. What

I'm talking about here is you solve your boredom through

busyness.

And what I want you to do thinking about, how do you

sustain success in this stage that you're in? How do you keep

enjoying it? How do you stay at the top your game, even if

you're trying not get to the next level in the game. The way

that you do it is by by baking mystery into your life and into

your world. Explore something that you don't know, try

something that you don't know if it's going to work. Take on a

strategy for next year that's not going to change the world

necessarily, but you have no idea how you're going to do it,

you would be shocked at how profound the impact is of having

some mystery in your life, and everything else is conspiring

against it, because mystery creates uncertainty. And our

brains and our society, they hate uncertainty. There's a

violence against it. We don't like feeling like we could screw

up. We don't like feeling like we don't know the answer, but

we're drawn to it as founders, and so we've got to find some

way of not only embracing mystery, but actually building

it into how we do what we do. And the best way that I can, I

can talk about this is one, I think that first and foremost,

you need to do it within your organization. You spend too much

time there in any stage other than one, six or seven, right?

Because those are not organization dependencies. So

all you founders in the middle from two to five, which is the

vast majority of you. It has to be in your organization, not all

the mystery, not even most of it. There has to be something

mysterious, something intriguing, something inspiring

about your organization. And because we don't want to

overgrow, we don't want to accidentally grow you. Out of

the stage that you're in. It can't just be bigger goals. It

has to be more interesting goals. It has to be tougher

challenges. And we have to do that intention. So first one is

it has to be inside your organization. The next thing

about mystery is that it can be outside the organization as

well. In fact, many times as much of it is. And so it might

be something as simple as rebalancing your life and your

success toward your marriage, which I know, for me, was a much

harder area for success than was business. I, many of you know,

helped start a whole bunch of organizations started, scaled

and sold my business, all before I turned five years old and had

a ton of success there, and I'm happily able to report that I've

been married 20 years now, so that's been awesome, but it's

been hard, and so a big part of sustaining where I am in stage

two of the process. Intentionally, I'm staying in

stage two. I've been all the way to six to my previous business,

and two is where I want to be now, because it's what my vision

demands of me. One of the things that I've had to realize is that

there's a mystery in making my marriage better that is

inspiring. It's challenging. It's stretching me. It's forcing

me to figure out who I am in a new way, and forcing me to go

outside of myself in a way that's really challenging. Now,

that might not be it for you. It might be something like learning

a new instrument that's fascinating and and I can get

off on a whole soapbox about that, but just getting into a

place where you are regularly doing something that you don't

feel like you're fully equipped to do. That's how we embrace

mystery. It's it's looking for something, pursuing something

greater, something bigger, something outside of yourself,

against which backdrop you look very small. That's what mystery

is. And so I know this is a little nebulous, mystery is a

little nebulous. I know there's not the most practical episode

we've ever done, but mystery isn't practical, right? That's

why it's so wonderful. If you're going to stay in a stage who

wants more practical advice on how to do what you're already

doing that's boring, you don't need more practical advice to

stay in your stage. You need more mystery. You don't need to

be better at what you do. You need to do things that you're

worse at doing, so that you can learn those and explore those.

And so long as you're able to embrace mystery, you can sustain

your success, your joy, your contentment, your fulfillment in

any one of the seven stages for as long as you like. It really

does come down to embracing the mystery. So my big question for

you today is, for those of you, especially who are trying to

stay in the stage, but even beyond that, just for those of

you who are feeling a little twinge of boredom more than

you're comfortable with, where's the mystery in your life? What

have you done to foster it? What can you do to develop it? What

can you do to put yourself in situations that you don't know

if you're going to succeed? That's what's going to keep you

sharp, that's what's going to keep you passionate, that's

what's going to keep you excited, and that's what's going

to help for the long run. I hope this was a helpful episode. I

don't get to do a whole lot of these solo episodes, so many

great guests who come on the show, but every once in a while,

we like to sneak one in. I love spending time with you. I'd love

to hear your thoughts. If you want to hear more solo episodes

like this. That sounds super narcissistic to say, but it's

another format that we're trying out for a few episodes based on

some feedback we've already gotten from some listeners. And

if you like it you'd want to hear more. Please let us know in

the comments. Shoot us an email. Podcast at scale architect.com

We'd love to hear from you if you want help on the journey.

I'd highly encourage you visit our site. There are podcast

episodes. Lord, for each of the stages, we've got close to 30

different scale architects positions all around the

country, around the world, actually, who'd love to help you

out? And I'd be happy to connect you with any of those as well.

Head on over to scale. Architect.com We'd love to see

you there until next time you know your time and attention

mean the world to me. I hope you got as much out of this

conversation as you could, and I cannot wait to see you next

time. Take care.