Latest / The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast / Your Achievements Are Hiding The Real Problem with Esther Zeledon (stage 1) - Ep. 420

Transcript

Your Achievements Are Hiding The Real Problem with Esther Zeledon (stage 1) - Ep. 420 · The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast

• 0:00
  Scott Ritzheimer: Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome once again
• 0:02
  to the Start, Scale, and Succeed podcast-the only podcast that
• 0:05
  grows with you through all seven levels of your journey as a
• 0:08
  founder. I'm your host Scott Ritzheimer, and today we're
• 0:11
  talking about the strangest kind of stuck. You have what just
• 0:16
  about anyone would call a great job, where everything on paper
• 0:22
  is right, and yet you still feel like you're living the wrong
• 0:26
  life. The trap is that your success is the thing that's
• 0:30
  keeping you stuck as a dissatisfied employee. Because
• 0:33
  let's be honest, nobody quits a good job over a feeling that
• 0:37
  they can't explain. But there's so much more that you can do
• 0:40
  starting today, and here to help show us the way is Dr. Esther
• 0:44
  Zeladon, who's an award-winning author, global speaker, and
• 0:47
  coach. She guides founders and changemakers to clarify their
• 0:50
  vision, create actionable plans, and persevere. A former diplomat
• 0:55
  with a PhD from UC Berkeley, Esther has worked across more
• 0:58
  than 100 countries, supporting leaders, entrepreneurs, and
• 1:02
  communities in unlocking their purpose and creating meaningful
• 1:06
  impact. She's the author of the Amazon number one best-selling
• 1:09
  book, "Create Your Limitless Life on Your Terms, which has
• 1:13
  won multiple awards and helped 1000s of people align their work
• 1:17
  and life with their deeper mission. Well, Esther, so
• 1:21
  excited to have you here, and and in many ways, I I get the
• 1:26
  sense, and and you say this in the book that that was your
• 1:29
  life, and and and this is not something that you've read about
• 1:33
  in a book somewhere or studied, you know, from afar, but it's
• 1:36
  something that you live. Tell us more. When did you find yourself
• 1:40
  in this position, and what'd you do about
• 1:42
  Unknown: Yeah, yeah, and it's a it's real. Sometimes people
• 1:45
  don't really understand it, right? Because they're like,
• 1:48
  "What do you mean you left this? You were at the executive level.
• 1:52
  You had climbed the ladder, especially as as a female
• 1:55
  Latina, right? Had shattered, as they call, right, the glass
• 1:58
  ceilings. But I think for me, it was I had gone to this point
• 2:01
  where I had I had used my problem solving approach, right?
• 2:04
  So we all have this unique way of solving problems. It's really
• 2:08
  unique that everyone else can see, but we can't see, and
• 2:11
  that's what we bring to our jaws, was bring to our orgs. And
• 2:14
  I had used it, and I had raised this money, deployed this money,
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  but then at the point of when it got to the point where it was
• 2:21
  just like managing and operating, I just kind of felt
• 2:24
  my light fade, like I, you know. And then it was like it-it was
• 2:27
  like the next step would be to go and redo it again. And there
• 2:31
  was something about that that I was like, this is not my legacy.
• 2:34
  And actually, I read this in my book because you know there was
• 2:38
  something there. I had this great, you know, I had like
• 2:41
  school paid for. So if anybody doesn't know about the
• 2:43
  diplomatic career, you have a full package. You know, you get
• 2:47
  your school paid for, you have the fancy house, you have the
• 2:50
  the money, and all this stuff. And I remember going home for
• 2:53
  Christmas, and my dad was looking at. I mean, I and I go
• 2:56
  to him. You know, I really, I'm really thinking of like I really
• 3:00
  want to leave this, and I really want to start my own thing. And
• 3:03
  he looked at me. He's like, "You can't do that. You have a
• 3:07
  family. You have this job. What do you mean? This was everything
• 3:10
  we worked towards. And I remember like having this
• 3:13
  moment, and I like shouted, which I rarely do to him. And I
• 3:16
  was like, "That's not my legacy. And they all just stared at me
• 3:19
  with these big eyes, going, "Okay, I'm not sure what's going
• 3:23
  on here. But that's what it was. You know, when I looked at my
• 3:26
  future, that's not what I saw myself doing, and it's not. And
• 3:29
  it was a misalignment that was inside that I was like, I am
• 3:33
  meant to do myself. And on top of that, you know, we all have
• 3:36
  we all have these legacies, these things where we want to
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  bring bring our solutions to right. We want to feel valued.
• 3:42
  We want to feel we want to feel utilized. Right, we want to feel
• 3:46
  like we're using our approach, and I couldn't explain it at
• 3:49
  that time, but I knew this that I just had to go and really see
• 3:52
  for myself if I could do entrepreneurship, and so that's
• 3:55
  that was that moment. And then, for some people, they'll just
• 3:59
  jump right away. I took um, I made a plan, like, okay, I'm
• 4:02
  going to you know have six months transition everyone
• 4:05
  because I had like a lot of like staff and salaries and things,
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  but I was like, this is this is what I'm going to do.
• 4:12
  Scott Ritzheimer: Wow, wow. So one of the things that is so
• 4:16
  important, and and I want to frame this conversation for
• 4:19
  anyone who's listening is like I'm not trying to figure out if
• 4:21
  I'm going to start my business or nonprofit. I did that a long
• 4:24
  time ago. The rest of this conversation is going to matter
• 4:28
  to you because if you haven't done some of the things we're
• 4:31
  going to talk about, you can start your own business and you
• 4:34
  can be successful at it, and you will pay the piper eventually
• 4:40
  for it, because so much of the challenge that I see when I'm
• 4:45
  working with these later level founders, like level four, level
• 4:48
  five, they're having these this kind of crisis of faith in the
• 4:54
  in themselves and in their organization. So much of it
• 4:58
  roots back to they didn't deal. With this in day one, and it's
• 5:01
  hung around in the background ever since. And so, for someone
• 5:04
  who's who's in that place, they've got the job, and it's
• 5:06
  not satisfying. We've got something for you. But for those
• 5:08
  of you who are a little later, stay tuned because you're going
• 5:11
  to find something in this that that's really important. So,
• 5:14
  Esther, I want to start with from from that point. I want to
• 5:18
  jump to this idea of inheriting dreams,
• 5:24
  Unknown: yes.
• 5:25
  Scott Ritzheimer: What what does that mean, and and and what's
• 5:28
  the problem with
• 5:30
  Unknown: Yeah, yeah, and I'm so glad you brought up the point of
• 5:33
  that it's for later too, because it doesn't matter if you're a
• 5:36
  founder, nonprofit, or anything, right? If you're misaligned,
• 5:40
  you're going to feel it at any time you've climbed whatever
• 5:43
  glass ceiling you have, and when you're talking about inherit,
• 5:46
  you know, inheriting is that like when we we see this a lot
• 5:50
  with like different parents and generations. If you have not
• 5:53
  done like you have not fulfilled your purpose and purposes, multi
• 5:57
  identities, which we can get into, right? So like a lot of
• 6:00
  things encompass your purpose, your future identity, your
• 6:03
  resilience identity, your the legacy you want to leave all
• 6:07
  that. If you have not really done your purpose right, and if
• 6:10
  you followed some check marks for external validation and not
• 6:14
  really gone after what you did, we then risk passing it on to
• 6:17
  the next generation. It doesn't even necessarily mean your. It
• 6:21
  can mean your direct children, which is where we see the most,
• 6:24
  but it could also mean when you're mentoring, could also
• 6:27
  mean when you're giving advice, right? You're passing on this
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  unfulfilled thing because you've created this belief that it's
• 6:34
  not for me. This belief that I ran out of time. This belief,
• 6:38
  well, I made this decision, so now I'm here. So instead, I'm
• 6:41
  going to pass on to the next generation that they should do
• 6:44
  all the things that I I didn't do, but the danger of that is
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  that when we're mentoring passing by, we're passing on
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  what we what our compass what we wanted to do, and then putting
• 6:55
  it on their shoulders to carry, and that's part of my story too,
• 6:58
  right? Because even though when you look at it on paper, it's
• 7:02
  probably the same with these level four business, or when
• 7:05
  you're starting, right? On paper, it looked like you know I
• 7:08
  was giving back, right? It aligned with some of my values,
• 7:12
  which was meaningful work, right? Contribution, but in the
• 7:15
  end, it wasn't about like there was still some misalignment with
• 7:18
  some of my values, some of my decision making framework. It
• 7:22
  wasn't necessarily part of that legacy I wanted to me, and so
• 7:25
  even like you were saying, even making the even when I left and
• 7:29
  decided to make the business, that had to be answered and
• 7:32
  dealt with. Of going, am I creating this for myself or for
• 7:35
  someone else? Am I really creating that legacy and the
• 7:38
  impact that I visualize? And that's going to create a
• 7:41
  different type of thing. That, for example, other people may
• 7:45
  have. You know, you create different businesses. I was
• 7:48
  like, "What is that? What kind of service do I want to give?
• 7:51
  How do I want to service people? What what is that impact? Right.
• 7:55
  Those questions have to be answered because if not, you
• 7:58
  start building whatever it is, or you know, with your job, this
• 8:02
  you start building something based on externalities and not
• 8:05
  based on yourself, and you end up in the same place again, and
• 8:09
  or you don't do it, and then you pass on to that generation, and
• 8:12
  you're pushing them to then follow. So then we're creating
• 8:16
  that same exact model that we're in, where society is telling us
• 8:19
  to have this these certain check marks and paps when it might not
• 8:23
  even align with our values and our impact and our legacy that
• 8:26
  we want to leave.
• 8:27
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, it's so true, and and you said something
• 8:31
  in passing earlier in the episode that that I I think
• 8:34
  applies to this. And so many times, founders in the making,
• 8:40
  right? Let's just zoom into that group. Will recognize the
• 8:43
  dissatisfaction of their work, and they'll recognize rightly
• 8:47
  that they're they're going to go out and start their thing. But
• 8:51
  there's still space in between those two things, and there's
• 8:54
  lots of practical things that have to happen in there. And
• 8:56
  we've talked about those on the show. But one of the intensely
• 9:00
  practical things that we can get by with, you know, not knowing
• 9:03
  that we missed it, is not dealing with this purpose thing.
• 9:07
  Unknown: Yes,
• 9:07
  Scott Ritzheimer: and and so one of the things that I I I talk
• 9:10
  with folks about in this space is you need to move from
• 9:13
  dissatisfied employee not to entrepreneur. You need to move
• 9:16
  to being purposeful.
• 9:18
  Unknown: Yes, that purpose needs to.
• 9:20
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, yeah, and and so I love I love that
• 9:25
  you've you're identifying hey we're borrowing these purposes
• 9:28
  from other sources sometimes or or we're just kind of gliding
• 9:30
  through life without them but how do we go about getting
• 9:36
  beyond that how do we move from that dissatisfaction to a a
• 9:41
  purposefulness that we can move into the next level with.
• 9:44
  Unknown: Yeah, that's a great question, right? And it's like
• 9:46
  the first step is creating a psychological divide with
• 9:49
  yourself, and you're like, "What is that, Esther? Okay, but it's
• 9:52
  asking yourself big questions, like if you had, because a lot
• 9:54
  of times these decisions, you know, is just what you're
• 9:56
  talking about, right? You can go from disgruntled employee to
• 9:59
  one. But then sometimes scarcity mindset takes over, like oh, I
• 10:03
  need to make money now, or all these pools, or I need to now
• 10:07
  make the same thing, or or or sometimes safety's trauma
• 10:11
  response for us, and then we immediately start trying to like
• 10:14
  follow and mimic everyone else's patterns. So that
• 10:16
  intentionality-that's why that's what I was mentioning to mention
• 10:19
  to you about that six-month gap for me, it wasn't even just
• 10:22
  about transitioning people, but it was also making sure that
• 10:25
  whatever I built was aligned with my life's purpose. Because
• 10:29
  if not, I knew I was going to end up back in the same place. I
• 10:32
  would make all the check marks again, entrepreneurship, and
• 10:34
  then end up again going, "What am I doing? What is this for?
• 10:38
  Why did I invest all this time in this? And so part of that is,
• 10:41
  and that, and that can mean different timelines for
• 10:43
  different people. Is sitting with yourself and asking
• 10:45
  yourself, if I had unlimited resources, what global problem
• 10:49
  would I solve, and how? Because then you understand what are my
• 10:52
  patterns in solving problems, right? Because sometimes we
• 10:54
  focus so much on like, oh, I didn't want to work on that job
• 10:56
  because I was micromanaged, or these very like superficial
• 11:00
  things. But sometimes it's a lot deeper. It's because I couldn't,
• 11:04
  I couldn't solve problems the way I wanted to, or I couldn't,
• 11:07
  you know, I couldn't do the things that I want to be
• 11:10
  utilized for. But you got to know what that is first, because
• 11:14
  if not, then you're going to fall into the same trap again.
• 11:16
  So that question of $40 billion of what would I do with that.
• 11:20
  The problem you pick is not as important, right? A lot of your
• 11:23
  listeners right now would pick maybe water, homelessness, you
• 11:26
  know, climate change, scarcity mindset. What matters is how you
• 11:29
  answer that. So, what is that first thing you reach for?
• 11:33
  What's the second thing you do? What's that third thing? You
• 11:37
  know, we could even do it here, but like it's like, what is that
• 11:39
  first thing? Do you connect people. Do you first research?
• 11:44
  Do you first think about? Ooh, well, like for me, I would go
• 11:47
  first into being like, why is this happening? Right. I go on
• 11:50
  this whole root cause. What are the patterns? And then you know,
• 11:54
  and that makes sense. Those my books about what are your
• 11:56
  patterns, right? And then from there, I look at the incentives
• 12:00
  that people have and create awareness, and then boom! Once
• 12:02
  we know it, we can go and grow, and then that's when, when
• 12:06
  knowing that pattern, I realized ah, that's why my job was
• 12:09
  misaligned because I did that for a while, and then once that
• 12:13
  stopped, it became more operational. I wasn't using my
• 12:15
  problem-solving approach anymore, right? So then I knew
• 12:17
  exactly when that was happening to me and why I wasn't doing it.
• 12:21
  So when I went to make a business, I'm like, I need to
• 12:24
  make a business where that is part of my growth, and I can
• 12:28
  grow with that, right? And so you have to spend some time, and
• 12:32
  and that's just one piece. The next, you know, the next
• 12:35
  exercise, and and that's what the workbook does. It doesn't
• 12:38
  have very easy questions, but it's actually much deeper. It's
• 12:41
  looking at all these multiple identities you have and knowing
• 12:44
  what are my patterns. So next one is, imagine yourself sitting
• 12:50
  in front of you. That's 20 years from now, 40 years from now.
• 12:53
  What are they telling you? What are they doing? How are they
• 12:56
  living? Right, and talk and have them talk to you in present,
• 12:59
  because that gives you insights on what do I value? How do I
• 13:03
  want my day to look like? Right? What is the impact I want to
• 13:06
  make? Because if you're building something that does completely
• 13:11
  doesn't match that, that's already a red flag, right?
• 13:14
  And the things a lot of times we have that answers in us, but
• 13:16
  it's all the noise, and so it's taking that time to really study
• 13:21
  what are my patterns, and then even understanding what have I
• 13:23
  overcome and how that resilience piece. Because guess what,
• 13:27
  that's always going to keep happening to you. So how do I
• 13:30
  also create those structures where I'm thinking about that,
• 13:35
  anticipating that? So it also doesn't stop me from going after
• 13:39
  my purpose, right? That's equally as important as even
• 13:42
  going after it, right? So taking that time to really dig that,
• 13:46
  and that's why that time frame is really dependent on you.
• 13:49
  Because if you've never asked these things to yourself for the
• 13:51
  first time, the first time you do it's really emotional. It's
• 13:55
  really confusing, and and sometimes you can be like, "What
• 13:58
  did I do in my life? And those feelings are normal. And and I
• 14:03
  just read this really great post the other day about the Toms
• 14:06
  founder. He talks a lot about this because if you see him on
• 14:09
  paper, he built this great Toms, right? Family, we all know them.
• 14:13
  But he talks about that he didn't keep with his purpose,
• 14:17
  right? So he had this like impact he kept with, but he
• 14:20
  didn't keep it on through the growth, and then he lost himself
• 14:23
  in it. So it's something you have to also revisit. You know,
• 14:26
  it doesn't matter if you're pre like like we're talking about
• 14:29
  right one or four. You got to constantly because you're making
• 14:32
  decisions constantly and looking at different opportunities.
• 14:36
  Whether you're leaving a job or whether you're already in stage
• 14:40
  four of your company, you have to always think: Am I still in
• 14:43
  the alignment of my purpose? Am I still making decisions that
• 14:46
  align with the impact I want to make?
• 14:49
  Scott Ritzheimer: And what a tremendous advantage for a
• 14:52
  founder who does get into the game to do it armed with that.
• 14:56
  Just yeah, can't can't say enough about it. The. So many
• 15:03
  different ways I want to go with it, but we we promise our our
• 15:08
  listeners to keep this short. So what I want to do, I want to I
• 15:11
  want to make room for a question that I ask all my guests, and
• 15:14
  and I'm going to ask if you're very interested to see what you
• 15:16
  have to say here. But the question is this: What is the
• 15:20
  biggest secret that you wish wasn't a secret at all? What's
• 15:23
  that one thing you wish every founder or pre-founder listening
• 15:27
  today knew?
• 15:30
  Unknown: Okay, that's a great one. So, pre-founder, any stage,
• 15:33
  I think the biggest secret I can tell you is that it's 90% in
• 15:38
  your mind, right? And so, like, there is a huge action piece,
• 15:43
  but if you don't believe it, and you don't believe it's of value,
• 15:48
  and you don't believe the world needs it, and you know that,
• 15:50
  then no one else will. Like you know, when we look at pitch
• 15:53
  decks, these beautiful ones, right? There's all these
• 15:55
  structured things that all of them have, but in the end, what
• 15:59
  you're doing is creating the story of why they should believe
• 16:03
  in you or your business, and that, and so the more clear you
• 16:06
  are in that work we're just talking about, the more it's
• 16:10
  going to echo through and it's going to land, and so I think
• 16:14
  that's the the biggest secret because people spend so many
• 16:16
  time, so much time and effort on that part to make it like
• 16:20
  everyone else's, but it's about your own story, visions, that
• 16:26
  all of that stuff that's based on you believing it and you
• 16:30
  knowing that value that you bring. That's outside of the
• 16:33
  conventional things, how you solve problems, and the impact
• 16:36
  you want to make.
• 16:37
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yes, so good, so good. It's. Yeah, it's just
• 16:43
  so important to every every part of the journey. Now, one of the
• 16:46
  things that I really liked about the book and the workbook is
• 16:51
  when when you say, "Okay, what's your purpose? That's such a
• 16:55
  gigantic question that it's just like instantly our brains turn
• 16:58
  off, and and and every other part of us, like we just like
• 17:02
  it, just feels too big. But with the book, it's just so
• 17:07
  practical. And so I'm, I'm wondering, how can folks get a
• 17:11
  copy of the book? How can they get a copy of the workbook?
• 17:14
  Where can they find out more so they can take that next step and
• 17:16
  do it well?
• 17:17
  Unknown: Yeah, definitely. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes
• 17:20
  Noble, anywhere. And Scott, I can also send you a link that
• 17:24
  people can download the Kindle for free. Because for me, it's
• 17:27
  about you having this information, arming yourself.
• 17:29
  Because the more of us that are in alignment and feel abundant,
• 17:34
  the more that we collectively can make impact. Right, the more
• 17:38
  that we can then make these work environments these great places
• 17:41
  that we all want to be in. So, this is like bigger than myself,
• 17:45
  right? Again, this is about purpose, right? I also want to
• 17:49
  put that all these concepts we just talked about-it's made
• 17:52
  really easy for you and break it down because I felt that it was
• 17:55
  like that, such an overwhelming question when I was when I was
• 17:58
  younger, and I wasn't really given direction. Like, what are
• 18:01
  those questions that I can explore and really understand
• 18:04
  this myself? And that was the purpose in writing the books.
• 18:07
  That no one else has to feel that way, overwhelmed about it.
• 18:10
  You can do an exercise a day, you know, 15 minutes, and you're
• 18:13
  gonna get that clarity and that next direction that you need, so
• 18:17
  that you can be fulfilled. And then instead of us telling other
• 18:20
  people what they should do, we're going to empower them to
• 18:23
  go after what they want
• 18:26
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, that's excellent. The book "Creating
• 18:28
  Your Limitless Life on Your Terms. We'll get the link in the
• 18:31
  show notes for you. You can go straight there, and yeah, highly
• 18:35
  recommend it. Esther, thank you so much for being on and sharing
• 18:38
  with us today. This is one of those conversations that
• 18:41
  probably could have gone a very long time. You made my my job
• 18:44
  keeping it short quite difficult, but really appreciate
• 18:47
  you taking your time and spending it here with us today.
• 18:50
  It means the world. And for those of you watching and
• 18:53
  listening, you know that your time and attention also mean the
• 18:56
  world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as
• 19:00
  I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
• 19:03
  Unknown: Thank you.
• 19:08
  Scott Ritzheimer: Hey everyone, Scott Ritzheimer here. Thank you
• 19:09
  so much for listening to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast.
• 19:12
  I hope this episode gave you exactly what you need for the
• 19:16
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• 19:20
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• 19:24
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• 19:29
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