In this myth-busting episode, Scott Ritzheimer, Founder of Scale Architects, shares why legacy is not reserved only for Level 7 and how you can start building one right where you are. If you believe lasting impact must wait until the end of the journey or feel stuck without a clear path to purpose, you won’t want to miss it

You will discover:

- Why most founders are not called to Level 7 and can leave a powerful legacy sooner

- How to move from dissatisfied employee to purposeful employee and find meaning in the margins

- What unique capital Level 7 founders accumulate that unlocks a different scale of impact

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stages 1,, 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/

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

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

talk to a lie that quietly robs founders of the very best part

of this founders game. The lie is that the legacy that we want

to leave behind is reserved only for the summit. That only the

rare founder who can reach level seven and become a visionary

founder, who can really invest in this question: What do I want

to leave behind? We think that they're the only ones who've got

the opportunity to leave a lasting legacy, but that creates

a real problem because it's my belief that most founders aren't

actually called to level seven. In fact, a very, very, very

small percentage of founders are, and maybe even a smaller

percentage do. And so, we can't just leave legacy for the last

stage. There's got to be a better way. And today I'm going

to show you why that myth is dead wrong, and how you can

start leaving a legacy this month, and show you how some of

our pre-release content can help you do that even faster. So

let's unpack this myth. What's going on here? So, as you know,

there's seven different levels from pre-launch to post-exit. We

go from being a dissatisfied employee to becoming a visionary

founder. And those of you who followed a little bit more

closely know that the defining question of level seven is what

do I want to leave behind. But just because that's the question

of level seven doesn't mean that we don't ask it in any other

stage. It's just not as central as it is in level seven. And

just because it's central in level seven doesn't mean that we

can't leave a legacy from these other levels. And that creates a

real challenge, and and can do way more damage than it would

seem at surface value because if a founder feels like the only

way to leave the legacy that they want is to reach level

seven, they might end up spending their entire career

doing things that they don't want to do because they're

working through levels that they don't actually need to work

through. The second is even those who are trying to reach

level seven, you have the opportunity to defer the change

and benefit that you can in these earlier levels, and hope

that you'll just make up for all of it in level seven, and that

doesn't work either. And so, what? of the things that I've

done is actually we're currently doing this is we're creating a

course that's designed one course for each level of the

game. There's a course for dissatisfied employees wanting

to become purposeful employees or maybe even start their own

business, and we'll talk about the names of those and how

you'll be able to find them in a bit. But what I want to draw

attention to is the last course in this series is called the

Founder's Legacy, and it has a special role in in the grand

scheme of things because it's not only a practical playbook

for level seven founders who do want to leave that legacy

behind, but one of the things that we do differently in course

seven from any of the others is because of the way that seven is

the accumulation and and and aggregate really of all the

levels before it, all the skills and knowledge, ability,

resources and success-all of those are what actually make

seven possible. And so, as I was looking at the design of the

course, and I was thinking about how I could help move founders

downfield, one of the things that I decided was, wouldn't it

be fun if we could give this away free to a whole bunch of

people? And we've figured out a way to do that. So whether

you're in level seven, or whether you're dreaming about

being in level seven, or whether you want to dispel this myth

that legacy is only reserved for level seven, I've got some

exciting news because we're making the entire level seven

course, the entire founders level course, founders legacy

course, free for anyone who orders the book on presale. So

any time from now, presale is already open, starting on

Amazon.

It'll be available in other places soon through february 9.

So your last day to get the course for free is february 8.

If you'd like to get a copy of the full Founders Legacy course,

which includes hours of video training and tools and resources

and worksheets that you can use to define the legacy that you

want to leave. If you want to get access. How you can start

that right here in the level that you're in, then I'd highly

encourage you to head on over to thefoundersgame.com. On that

page, you're going to find everything. It's got a, it's got

the Amazon link on it. It has a form a little bit lower in the

page, and so the way that you need to the the thing the next

step that you need to do so go order it on Amazon. But the next

step that you need to take is to head back to thefoundersgame.com

and right there you'll see a little section where you can

upload your order invoice from wherever you bought it, and

that's what's going to unlock your free resources. And what do

you get immediately? You will get the the founders game

introduction. You get the first chapter of the book, formatted

and everything. It's awesome. It's beautiful. It's very cool.

You'll get to hear my story. You you'll get to see the most

common mistake that founders make, and you get an idea of

what is included throughout the rest of the book, you'll get

that for free immediately. As soon as you plug in your

receipt, you have an opportunity to download that, and you can

start reading it right away. You'll also unlock two more

resources that are coming in the future. The first one is a

companion workbook that's going to walk through the the book

content, but with place for you to actually write down your

answers to the questions and to think about what level do you

want, what level are you in, how do you need to adapt your

strategies or your skills or your mindset, you'll have an

opportunity to work through all of that in the workbook. You'll

get the workbook PDF 100% for free, and like I said earlier,

the other thing that you get is access to the full course seven

founders legacy course, and so that's super exciting because

here here's the truth and where I want to spend some time in

this this episode is that not only is the founders legacy not

reserved for the very end of this game. There's actually a

very specific but very powerful way that you can maximize your

legacy in every level that leads up to it, and so whether you're

there choosing to stay, let's say, in level two, which I see

many folks do, or whether you're just passing through level four,

in either case, there's a tremendous opportunity to start

building your legacy right then and right there. And so, what I

want to do is take a quick peek at a couple of these, and we're

not going to go through all of them for the sake of time. But I

want to explore a couple just to give you an idea. And the first

one I want to start with is is probably the least obvious, and

I'll admit it's a little bit of a misnomer because if you choose

to stay in level one and never become a founder, that's great.

There are lots of people who can create a massive impact. There's

there's a beautiful legacy that you can leave behind.

Technically, it's not a founder's legacy, but I want to

explore a little bit about what the legacy could look like, even

in level one. Because if you can find the ability to leave your

legacy from level one, then you can do it in any level between

there and seven. And here's what it looks like. So one of the

things that you'll discover as you read through the book is

that there is this move. So let me start with in level one,

every founder begins as some kind of dissatisfied employee or

student or plain old individual. There's there's just something

wrong, and getting another job doesn't feel like it's going to

do the trick. But just because something's wrong doesn't

actually mean that another job won't do the trick.

And so one of the ways that I coach and encourage dissatisfied

employees who are considering whether or not the

entrepreneurial journey is right for them is to actually take a

look at what is the actual root of your dissatisfaction. are Are

you feeling dissatisfied because of something external that you

can change, or are you feeling dissatisfied because of

something internal that you can change? And that's important

because if you think that your dissatisfaction is rooted in a

bad job, and it's really rooted in you, you're going to take you

with you to either your next job or to becoming an entrepreneur,

and that dissatisfaction will never leave. And so, what we

really want to do before we even consider fully whether becoming

an entrepreneur is right for you, the first thing that we

want to do is get to the place of understanding, and to

whatever extent it's possible as an employee. Finding and

fulfilling your purpose, or at least moving toward it, and what

this means is we move from being a dissatisfied employee to

becoming a purposeful employee, and that rubs a lot of

pre-founders the wrong way. We just want to jump in and figure

it out, and as you'll discover in the book, there's a whole lot

of reasons why that doesn't work. But what would I want to

address here is not that. What I really want to dive into is when

you make that work, when you find out how you can move from

dissatisfied employee to being a purposeful employee, what does

that do for the legacy that you can leave behind? And and here

here's it in a nutshell. When you're an employee, you have the

the the glorious luxury that you don't yet recognize. That it

kind of doesn't matter. Like the whole organization could go

away, and you can find another job. And if your founder and the

whole organization goes away, you got a lot of unpacking to

do. It's it's going to be a gnarly process, and so at the

end of the day, there really is a freedom in being an employee,

and that is a freedom from the burden of being a founder of of

having everything rise and fall with you. Now, if you want to be

an entrepreneur and you choose to do that, then you're willing

to take on that risk, and and that's fine, but think about the

the margin that you can have in your life. Think about the the

strength that you can have when you're think when you're trying

to leave a legacy. If you're doing it from the place of being

purposeful, of being content, of succeeding in your role, think

about how many doors that opens, maybe professionally, but even

more relationally. And what you'll find, and and you see

this in a lot of wonderful, wonderful employees and

executives, and and and these folks who don't necessarily go

the entrepreneur route, but still find their way of pouring

into the people around them to contributing to the things that

matter most. Some of the greatest philanthropists weren't

necessarily founders. Now many were, but there are lots of

people who just, especially more recently, have risen up the

ranks inside of another organization, and really only

found that kind of entrepreneurial edge in their

legacy, and the reason that they're able to do that is

because they have the margin to do that. Because you can make

great money as an employee, you can control your schedule to a

significant degree as an employee, you can retire as an

employee, and because of that, what you can do your legacy move

in level one is to find meaning in the margins, to work to

create margin in your life, so that your work, your job at

least, doesn't consume every last minute of your of your time

or every last ounce of your energy. It leaves you with maybe

some finances to spare, maybe some time to spare, maybe some

relational energy to spare, because you don't have to bear

the burden and waste all of your time, energy, and resources on

someone else's business. You need to align with your purpose,

and then you can find meaning in the margins. And you can

volunteer, you can mentor, you can help out in in local areas.

You can invest in different initiatives. You can donate and

give.

There are so many ways that you can leave a legacy, even as an

employee, and even more so than if you were to tie up all of

that resources in an entrepreneur's journey. And so I

hope that this kind of illustrates we've got this dual

thing going on where there's something that that's special

about each level, and that includes level seven because

there really is something special about being a founder in

level seven. I'll talk about that in just a moment, but we

don't have to wait for that moment to be able to build a

legacy, and so you might be sitting there thinking, maybe,

maybe not. But hey, if I can leave a legacy in any level,

then why would I get to level seven? That's a great question,

and the answer for most people is you wouldn't. You would just

find the legacy in the level that you want. However, for some

of you, level seven is the destination. Level seven is the

destiny, and why that matters is because there's a

different-pardon the pun-but there's a different level of

impact that you can create from there. Because to to do the

things that you have to do, to learn the things that you have

to learn to have the success that you have to have to get to

level seven, you will have accumulated lots of different

types of capital, knowledge capital, financial capital,

relational capital, wisdom capital, and because of the

abundance of all of that. And because of like really practical

things, like you don't need to get paid to help out at

something, and not only do you have to not get paid, but you

might even be able to pay to help out at something. You might

be able to volunteer for a nonprofit and give to it. You

might be able to mentor a young visionary and invest in his

business, without needing a return, you might be able to do

that because of the abundance that you've created leading up

to level seven. And so, while there is a legacy that can be

left from every level, there's a special legacy. There's a

special ability. There's a special level of challenge that

level seven founders can overcome that's pretty hard, if

not impossible, to do in the other levels. And so, if any of

this is interesting to you, if you've been thinking about your

legacy and what you want to leave behind, or if you're just

trying to figure out if this journey is right for you or what

it is, then I would strongly recommend head on over to

thefoundersgame.com and get a copy of the Founders Game by the

pre-release, and then upload your receipt and get the

introduction for free, the workbook whenever we release,

and a copy of the Founders Legacy, so you can figure out

how to navigate these stages, but also how to leave a lasting

legacy-one that outlives you and and serves generations of people

to come. With that, I hope that this opened your eyes to some

new opportunities. I hope this conversation was helpful for

you, and without further ado, I cannot wait to see you next

time. 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 10-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.