In this liberating episode, Scott Ritzheimer, Founder of Scale Architects, shares why most business books overwhelm founders and how to stop applying the wrong advice at the wrong time. If you feel buried in “shoulds,” frustrated when strategies fail, or unsure which books actually apply to you right now, you won’t want to miss it.

You will discover:

- Why business books written for one stage create confusion when read by founders in every stage

- How to identify the level a book was written for and match it to where you are today

- What to do when the first chapters are strong but the rest is just filler

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 Ritzheimer is the founder of Scale Architects and a leading expert on organizational life cycle and founder leadership. He has helped launch nearly twenty thousand businesses and nonprofits and, before turning thirty-five, built and sold his own multimillion-dollar company after a decade of double-digit growth. Today he helps founders and CEOs who have people to lead but are still buried in the daily grind, giving them a clear next step instead of a theory. He is host of the Start Scale Succeed podcast and author of The Founder's Game.

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

Connect with Scott through his LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottritzheimer/

Pre-order a copy of Scott Ritzheimer's book "The Founder’s Game" at https://www.scottritzheimer.com/book/pre-order

Check out Episode 43 "How to Scale You as a Founder with Rachel Turner" at https://www.scalearchitects.com/podcast/43-how-to-scale-you-as-a-founder-with-rachel-turner/

Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome once again

to the Start, Scale, and Succeed podcast-the only podcast that

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

founder. I'm your host Scott Ritzheimer, and today I want to

start off with a stat for this solo episode, and that statistic

is that there is something like this is very very official.

There's something like a thousand business books being

published every single day, and many of them by really really

really smart people. But I think most of them are lying to you. I

don't think it's intentional. I really really don't. But I think

there's a problem that affects both founders and the people

that they look to for help. I think it's chronic. I think it's

everywhere, and I think the moment I show it to you, you

won't be able to unsee it, because we have more marketing

strategies, we have more leadership principles, we have

more organizational tactics than ever before, but I believe it's

actually harder than ever to succeed as a founder because of

all of those strategies, principles, and tactics. They're

massively overwhelming. They lead us to a whole pile of

shoulds all over the place, and I think that they're usually

meaning most of the time a distraction from what truly

matters most for you right now, and so this leads to two kind of

admitted pet peeves about the business book world, and this is

coming from someone who has now contributed to that, but it also

comes from a founder who, I mean, for years I remember just

trying to find an answer, and and you'll have experienced

this. I mean, how many of you have read a book that says this

is what the definition of leadership is? And then you see

another one, they say this is what the definition of

leadership is. It's not this is my definition of leadership.

It's not here's a potential definition of leadership. Every

book has the definition of leadership, and that's just the

start. When you look at kind of a fundamental structural problem

with books, just in the way that books go out, is that they are

they are fundamentally written to a specific group. I'll talk

about what that means in a second, but then they become

available to and are marketed to a very general group, a very

broad group. So let's take, for example, a very in the book

world, a very narrow niche of of book readers, and that is

founders of businesses and nonprofits. That's a very very

small percentage of the overall population. It's a very small

percentage of book readers at large. But what is one thing

that every founder needs to hear. I I don't know that that

exists, except that there's no one thing that every founder

needs to hear. And so what I'm getting at, and folks who listen

to or watch this show will know I'm really really big on

understanding the level that you're in as a founder. And for

those of you who are connected with our predictable success

materials as well, knowing what stage you're in as a as a

business, and I I just can't overstate how important those

are. And and here's the problem: if I'm really specific with it,

business books are written for a certain level, or they're

written for a certain stage, but then they're read by everyone in

all levels, and then everyone in all levels, to some extent, and

it varies from person to person and topic to topic, but that

leaves us as readers feeling like we're then responsible for

implementing what we read. I remember I'm going to forget it

now, but this idea that that you know information without action,

right? Information without transformation is just a waste

of time. I couldn't agree more if it's the right information at

the right time. But I think it's even worse to have information

and transformation try to apply that information if it's not

right for you right now, and fundamentally, just about every

single book is written for a stage or two.

It's written by an author trying to solve a problem, oftentimes

one that they've lived through themselves, either directly or

helping someone else through it, and it happens at a specific

point in a time in in in a specific industry or in a

specific business, and while there are lessons to be learned

from that, one of the biggest lessons is that's what happens

at that stage in that industry at that time. Just because

something worked doesn't mean it's a universal principle, and

so what we have to start. To do as readers is we start. We have

to, and I think this is more a reader thing than it is an

author thing. We have to start to discern who was this book

actually written to. Who does you know? If it's a business

book and it's written by a consultant or or a thought

leader or something like that, who are they working with

regularly? What level are they in? What specific problems are

they trying to solve, and how relevant are those to the level

that you're in? And so, the first thing we want to do is

well, what level is this really written for? Because

the way that you engage in leadership when you're in level

two by yourself is very very different and requires a

different definition of leadership than how you engage

in leadership in level four, which is really all about

leadership. So the first thing we have to recognize is that

books aren't written for everyone all the time, and most

authors aren't necessarily really clear on which level

they're writing into. Even if they don't use my framework or

my methodology, they're not always clear on who exactly the

book is for. So that's the first one. We have to figure out what

stage they're written to, and and to kind of help you figure

this out, I have I've been collecting a list of books that

I really really like, and that I recommend to folks. And I was

realizing before I I kind of figured this whole thing out

that I would love to recommend some books to some people, but

not to others. And it wasn't for a long time that I finally

discovered I was actually doing the level thing intuitively. I

just couldn't quite articulate it, and so in the the show

notes, you'll see a link to this this lesson, or sorry, this

podcast. We're recording lessons as well. This podcast, and on

the page on our website that's dedicated to this podcast,

there's a list of my recommended reading for every single level.

That's really helpful for a couple reasons. One, if you're

in level one, there's all kinds of really great books for level

one. That at least great by my standard. But number two, if

you've read a book and you're wondering, hey, does this apply

to me? Should I really be, you know, doing the hard work of

putting this into action? Go there and at least see what I

think that that book is mostly written toward, because if it's

something like Jim Collins, who I love and adore and would love

to be one day, he's Jim's awesome, and his work is

amazing. But it's written for a very specific group of people,

and that might not be where you are right now, or another huge

influence in my life is Patrick Lencioni, or John Maxwell, or

John Kotter. These are really, really bright, really, really

great authors who've who've got really great works, especially

when you understand the level that they're written to, because

every single one of those has a default writing pattern and a

default writing destination, and again, that may or may not be

where you are. So that that's the the first big problem that I

have with with the business book system, the way that they're

written, the way that they're marketed, and the way that we

read and interpret and apply them. We have to take a much

more stage-based approach, and I say that it's simple, and to

some extent it is. But at least just asking the question, what

do I think this was written to? Because if it was written to a

stage in the past and would have been helpful for you five years

ago, you know it's not five years ago.

If it's written to a stage in the future and it would will be

helpful in five years, well, then you've got to do other

things to to create the framework and the foundation for

those things to work later. So really try and figure out is

this a book that's written to to our level and you know somewhat

shameless plug I guess there's a little shame in it, but the

Founders Game, which is coming out in February, Predictable

Success, which is behind me, even Rachel's-I've just totally

forgotten her last name. I'll put it in the show notes. But

Rachel wrote the Founders. I can't even remember the name of

the book. This is terrible. We'll put it in the the notes.

If you want a book that's not written by me that deals with

different stages, the Founder Survival Guide by Rachel

Something. She was on the podcast. I'll link that as well.

Is another brilliant example of someone who recognized the

timing of this and and applied it to a book and really helped

folks to recognize which even part of her book is relevant to

them, Rachel Turner is the name. So that's the first thing. The

second challenge with business books, in particular, I don't

find this in fiction anywhere near as much. But in business

books, especially for folks who write a lot, there's this

tendency to have to fit. Everything to the format of a

book, which is going to be somewhere in the 50,000 word

range for most books. And fifty thousand words is a lot of

words. Sometimes it's not a lot of words on other topics, but

for a lot of business concepts, you don't need fifty thousand

words to do them. But it's a total pain to write a book,

publish a book, promote a book, and make it a success and get it

in the hands of people and and allow it to change their life.

And so, if you're gonna take the time to do all of that, you're

probably going to take the time to fill those fifty thousand

words. Unfortunately, I've read books where about forty thousand

of the words were padding, and you know what I'm talking about.

You've read a book, you've read the first couple of chapters;

they were amazing, and then the rest of it's just filler. It's

just not great at all. And a big part of the reason that this

happens again is is just the structure of the book world. And

so, as founders, these two big problems, the they both result

in very very similar symptom, or I'll say a range of symptoms. So

I felt these, and I've seen them in a lot of the founders I've

worked with. So the first one is, I read the this book. There

was all these success stories. I applied it, and it didn't work

for me. Somehow I'm just different or fundamentally

flawed. That's the first thing, and that's very isolating. It's

very disheartening. It's it's discouraging. It's a real

challenge because you feel like, hey, if I don't know it and

these pros don't know it, what do I do? Maybe this is it. The

other challenge is how do you really wait and evaluate whether

it's content for a different stage or it's just fluff filling

the rest of a book, how do you sift the wheat from the chaff?

How do you how do you eat the fish and spit out the bones, if

you will? And so again, just where I'm trying to go with this

is that if we just take business books for the words on the page.

I think that makes our lives harder as founders, not easier.

But at the same token, we don't want to just live in isolation.

We can't ignore the rest of the world. It's not like these books

don't have a wealth and treasure trove of wisdom. I think we just

need to do a little bit more work to recognize when to apply

that wisdom and what wisdom to pursue and what to just let go

of for now. And so again, the best thing that I can do to to

help jumpstart the is one, just get you to ask the question:

Who's this written to, and does it match where I am right now?

That might mean you need to know where you are right now if you

don't know that already.

Most of you do, but if you don't, then you can just go to

foundersquiz.com and find out which level you're in. But find

out what level you think the book's written to, what level

you're in, and see if they match. If they do, great. Even

if it's challenging, you really will want to try to implement

what you see there. And some of it'll rub you the wrong way

because it's just new territory, and that's okay. If it's not,

you may not want to read the book just now, even if it's

great. And if you do, you just have to read it through the lens

of this is going to serve me well someday. I'll pick it up

back again then. And if you can do that, that's fantastic. What

you don't want to do is read something from level five, try

and apply it to level three, and think that you're going to scale

magically doesn't work that way. If you're in level three, you

need level three books. If you're in level three, you need

level three strategies. If you're in level three, you need

level three tactics, and there's there's plenty of resources to

do that, even in level three, which is one of the least served

by the business book world. So, ask yourself what level it's

written to, what level you're in. Do they match? And then,

when you find yourself getting into a book and it's the right

level, and you get through the first few chapters, and the rest

is just filler, put it down. Like there's no moral imperative

that you finish the book, and and hopefully that that gives

you some freedom because again a lot of the founders I work with

are folks who really want to learn like they really want to

do it right they really want to lead their people well and we

trust that these books are are right and they might be right

they're just not always right for right now in fact most of

the time they aren't. Then in terms of tactics that you can

take and run with, so the first one is check out the reading

list. There's lots of great books in there, lots of great

books for your level, and there might be a couple in there you

haven't read yet. So that'll be really cool. Check out the

reading list, and you might find there were some books that you

picked up in the past that weren't all that helpful, but

now you're actually in the level they were written to. And if you

read them again, you might learn just a whole new range of skills

and and wisdom. So check out the reading list. The other thing

I'd encourage you to do is to go ahead and get a a copy of the

Founders Game. The pre-order is open right now. There's lots of

goodies if you pre-order on Amazon and then upload your

receipt. You'll get a free course and free workbook and all

kinds of stuff. But what you'll get right now as well is the the

excerpt from the book that outlines what all seven levels

are in just one real simple, concise way. If you're

interested, it's got my story in there as well. A lot of stuff I

haven't shared here on the podcast, so maybe that will

interest you. That's right in that first free chapter, which

you'll get immediately, and so you can do that. If you don't

want to do the pre-order, you can still get the first chapter

for free on the same page. It's all at thefoundersgame.com.

We'll put those links in the show notes. So lots of links in

the show notes today. Make sure you check out Rachel and and her

book, The Founder Survival Guide. It's fantastic. I really

like that book. And check out her episode. She was on the show

back in the first hundred somewhere, I think. Check out

thefoundersgame.com. Get a copy of the book on pre-order right

now from Amazon, and then get the first chapter for free and

some other goodies with it. And then check out the reading list.

I think you'll really enjoy it. If you've got some books that

you think should be on the reading list, and you have a

guess at which level they should be. Let me know.

I'd love to make that a community thing and add to it.

So, if you've got a book for founders that isn't on the list,

and you think that it should be, and you've got an idea on which

level it's best for, send it my way. I'd love to out it, and

we'll build it all together. With that, hope this was helpful

for you. When you're reading books, you don't have to do

everything in them. You get to choose and decide, and

hopefully, you can do that a little bit better after this

episode. With all that, can't wait to see you next time, and

I'll catch you there. Take care. Hey everyone, Scott Ritzheimer

here. Thank you so much for listening to the Start Scale and

Succeed podcast. I hope this episode gave you exactly what

you need for the level you're in right now. If you want to

discover what level you're in, take our ten question Founders

Evolution Quiz for free at foundersquiz.com. That's

foundersquiz.com. It'll pinpoint exactly where you are and give

you tailored tips to move forward and reach that next

level in your journey as a founder. If you got something

out of today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, or

review. It helps us reach more founders like you, and let's be

honest, it means a ton to me, my team, and all our incredible

guests. So keep starting, scaling, and succeeding, and

I'll see you in the next episode.