Latest / The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast / The Founder’s Legacy with Scott Ritzheimer (stages 1, 7) - Ep. 422

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The Founder’s Legacy with Scott Ritzheimer (stages 1, 7) - Ep. 422 · 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
• 0:09
  founder. I'm your host Scott Ritzheimer, and today I want to
• 0:12
  talk to a lie that quietly robs founders of the very best part
• 0:17
  of this founders game. The lie is that the legacy that we want
• 0:22
  to leave behind is reserved only for the summit. That only the
• 0:27
  rare founder who can reach level seven and become a visionary
• 0:31
  founder, who can really invest in this question: What do I want
• 0:36
  to leave behind? We think that they're the only ones who've got
• 0:41
  the opportunity to leave a lasting legacy, but that creates
• 0:45
  a real problem because it's my belief that most founders aren't
• 0:48
  actually called to level seven. In fact, a very, very, very
• 0:53
  small percentage of founders are, and maybe even a smaller
• 0:57
  percentage do. And so, we can't just leave legacy for the last
• 1:04
  stage. There's got to be a better way. And today I'm going
• 1:07
  to show you why that myth is dead wrong, and how you can
• 1:12
  start leaving a legacy this month, and show you how some of
• 1:16
  our pre-release content can help you do that even faster. So
• 1:21
  let's unpack this myth. What's going on here? So, as you know,
• 1:25
  there's seven different levels from pre-launch to post-exit. We
• 1:27
  go from being a dissatisfied employee to becoming a visionary
• 1:30
  founder. And those of you who followed a little bit more
• 1:33
  closely know that the defining question of level seven is what
• 1:37
  do I want to leave behind. But just because that's the question
• 1:43
  of level seven doesn't mean that we don't ask it in any other
• 1:46
  stage. It's just not as central as it is in level seven. And
• 1:51
  just because it's central in level seven doesn't mean that we
• 1:54
  can't leave a legacy from these other levels. And that creates a
• 1:59
  real challenge, and and can do way more damage than it would
• 2:03
  seem at surface value because if a founder feels like the only
• 2:09
  way to leave the legacy that they want is to reach level
• 2:13
  seven, they might end up spending their entire career
• 2:16
  doing things that they don't want to do because they're
• 2:19
  working through levels that they don't actually need to work
• 2:22
  through. The second is even those who are trying to reach
• 2:26
  level seven, you have the opportunity to defer the change
• 2:32
  and benefit that you can in these earlier levels, and hope
• 2:36
  that you'll just make up for all of it in level seven, and that
• 2:39
  doesn't work either. And so, what? of the things that I've
• 2:44
  done is actually we're currently doing this is we're creating a
• 2:48
  course that's designed one course for each level of the
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  game. There's a course for dissatisfied employees wanting
• 2:56
  to become purposeful employees or maybe even start their own
• 2:59
  business, and we'll talk about the names of those and how
• 3:03
  you'll be able to find them in a bit. But what I want to draw
• 3:06
  attention to is the last course in this series is called the
• 3:10
  Founder's Legacy, and it has a special role in in the grand
• 3:16
  scheme of things because it's not only a practical playbook
• 3:20
  for level seven founders who do want to leave that legacy
• 3:23
  behind, but one of the things that we do differently in course
• 3:27
  seven from any of the others is because of the way that seven is
• 3:32
  the accumulation and and and aggregate really of all the
• 3:37
  levels before it, all the skills and knowledge, ability,
• 3:40
  resources and success-all of those are what actually make
• 3:45
  seven possible. And so, as I was looking at the design of the
• 3:49
  course, and I was thinking about how I could help move founders
• 3:51
  downfield, one of the things that I decided was, wouldn't it
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  be fun if we could give this away free to a whole bunch of
• 3:59
  people? And we've figured out a way to do that. So whether
• 4:03
  you're in level seven, or whether you're dreaming about
• 4:05
  being in level seven, or whether you want to dispel this myth
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  that legacy is only reserved for level seven, I've got some
• 4:14
  exciting news because we're making the entire level seven
• 4:17
  course, the entire founders level course, founders legacy
• 4:20
  course, free for anyone who orders the book on presale. So
• 4:27
  any time from now, presale is already open, starting on
• 4:30
  Amazon.
• 4:30
  It'll be available in other places soon through february 9.
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  So your last day to get the course for free is february 8.
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  If you'd like to get a copy of the full Founders Legacy course,
• 4:44
  which includes hours of video training and tools and resources
• 4:51
  and worksheets that you can use to define the legacy that you
• 4:56
  want to leave. If you want to get access. How you can start
• 5:01
  that right here in the level that you're in, then I'd highly
• 5:04
  encourage you to head on over to thefoundersgame.com. On that
• 5:09
  page, you're going to find everything. It's got a, it's got
• 5:15
  the Amazon link on it. It has a form a little bit lower in the
• 5:19
  page, and so the way that you need to the the thing the next
• 5:23
  step that you need to do so go order it on Amazon. But the next
• 5:26
  step that you need to take is to head back to thefoundersgame.com
• 5:30
  and right there you'll see a little section where you can
• 5:31
  upload your order invoice from wherever you bought it, and
• 5:36
  that's what's going to unlock your free resources. And what do
• 5:40
  you get immediately? You will get the the founders game
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  introduction. You get the first chapter of the book, formatted
• 5:50
  and everything. It's awesome. It's beautiful. It's very cool.
• 5:53
  You'll get to hear my story. You you'll get to see the most
• 5:56
  common mistake that founders make, and you get an idea of
• 5:58
  what is included throughout the rest of the book, you'll get
• 6:02
  that for free immediately. As soon as you plug in your
• 6:04
  receipt, you have an opportunity to download that, and you can
• 6:07
  start reading it right away. You'll also unlock two more
• 6:09
  resources that are coming in the future. The first one is a
• 6:15
  companion workbook that's going to walk through the the book
• 6:18
  content, but with place for you to actually write down your
• 6:21
  answers to the questions and to think about what level do you
• 6:25
  want, what level are you in, how do you need to adapt your
• 6:29
  strategies or your skills or your mindset, you'll have an
• 6:32
  opportunity to work through all of that in the workbook. You'll
• 6:34
  get the workbook PDF 100% for free, and like I said earlier,
• 6:39
  the other thing that you get is access to the full course seven
• 6:43
  founders legacy course, and so that's super exciting because
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  here here's the truth and where I want to spend some time in
• 6:51
  this this episode is that not only is the founders legacy not
• 7:00
  reserved for the very end of this game. There's actually a
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  very specific but very powerful way that you can maximize your
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  legacy in every level that leads up to it, and so whether you're
• 7:19
  there choosing to stay, let's say, in level two, which I see
• 7:25
  many folks do, or whether you're just passing through level four,
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  in either case, there's a tremendous opportunity to start
• 7:35
  building your legacy right then and right there. And so, what I
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  want to do is take a quick peek at a couple of these, and we're
• 7:43
  not going to go through all of them for the sake of time. But I
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  want to explore a couple just to give you an idea. And the first
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  one I want to start with is is probably the least obvious, and
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  I'll admit it's a little bit of a misnomer because if you choose
• 7:59
  to stay in level one and never become a founder, that's great.
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  There are lots of people who can create a massive impact. There's
• 8:06
  there's a beautiful legacy that you can leave behind.
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  Technically, it's not a founder's legacy, but I want to
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  explore a little bit about what the legacy could look like, even
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  in level one. Because if you can find the ability to leave your
• 8:19
  legacy from level one, then you can do it in any level between
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  there and seven. And here's what it looks like. So one of the
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  things that you'll discover as you read through the book is
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  that there is this move. So let me start with in level one,
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  every founder begins as some kind of dissatisfied employee or
• 8:43
  student or plain old individual. There's there's just something
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  wrong, and getting another job doesn't feel like it's going to
• 8:51
  do the trick. But just because something's wrong doesn't
• 8:55
  actually mean that another job won't do the trick.
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  And so one of the ways that I coach and encourage dissatisfied
• 9:01
  employees who are considering whether or not the
• 9:04
  entrepreneurial journey is right for them is to actually take a
• 9:09
  look at what is the actual root of your dissatisfaction. are Are
• 9:15
  you feeling dissatisfied because of something external that you
• 9:19
  can change, or are you feeling dissatisfied because of
• 9:23
  something internal that you can change? And that's important
• 9:27
  because if you think that your dissatisfaction is rooted in a
• 9:29
  bad job, and it's really rooted in you, you're going to take you
• 9:34
  with you to either your next job or to becoming an entrepreneur,
• 9:38
  and that dissatisfaction will never leave. And so, what we
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  really want to do before we even consider fully whether becoming
• 9:48
  an entrepreneur is right for you, the first thing that we
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  want to do is get to the place of understanding, and to
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  whatever extent it's possible as an employee. Finding and
• 10:01
  fulfilling your purpose, or at least moving toward it, and what
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  this means is we move from being a dissatisfied employee to
• 10:08
  becoming a purposeful employee, and that rubs a lot of
• 10:14
  pre-founders the wrong way. We just want to jump in and figure
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  it out, and as you'll discover in the book, there's a whole lot
• 10:19
  of reasons why that doesn't work. But what would I want to
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  address here is not that. What I really want to dive into is when
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  you make that work, when you find out how you can move from
• 10:31
  dissatisfied employee to being a purposeful employee, what does
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  that do for the legacy that you can leave behind? And and here
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  here's it in a nutshell. When you're an employee, you have the
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  the the glorious luxury that you don't yet recognize. That it
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  kind of doesn't matter. Like the whole organization could go
• 10:55
  away, and you can find another job. And if your founder and the
• 10:59
  whole organization goes away, you got a lot of unpacking to
• 11:02
  do. It's it's going to be a gnarly process, and so at the
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  end of the day, there really is a freedom in being an employee,
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  and that is a freedom from the burden of being a founder of of
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  having everything rise and fall with you. Now, if you want to be
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  an entrepreneur and you choose to do that, then you're willing
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  to take on that risk, and and that's fine, but think about the
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  the margin that you can have in your life. Think about the the
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  strength that you can have when you're think when you're trying
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  to leave a legacy. If you're doing it from the place of being
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  purposeful, of being content, of succeeding in your role, think
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  about how many doors that opens, maybe professionally, but even
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  more relationally. And what you'll find, and and you see
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  this in a lot of wonderful, wonderful employees and
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  executives, and and and these folks who don't necessarily go
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  the entrepreneur route, but still find their way of pouring
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  into the people around them to contributing to the things that
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  matter most. Some of the greatest philanthropists weren't
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  necessarily founders. Now many were, but there are lots of
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  people who just, especially more recently, have risen up the
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  ranks inside of another organization, and really only
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  found that kind of entrepreneurial edge in their
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  legacy, and the reason that they're able to do that is
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  because they have the margin to do that. Because you can make
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  great money as an employee, you can control your schedule to a
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  significant degree as an employee, you can retire as an
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  employee, and because of that, what you can do your legacy move
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  in level one is to find meaning in the margins, to work to
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  create margin in your life, so that your work, your job at
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  least, doesn't consume every last minute of your of your time
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  or every last ounce of your energy. It leaves you with maybe
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  some finances to spare, maybe some time to spare, maybe some
• 13:04
  relational energy to spare, because you don't have to bear
• 13:08
  the burden and waste all of your time, energy, and resources on
• 13:12
  someone else's business. You need to align with your purpose,
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  and then you can find meaning in the margins. And you can
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  volunteer, you can mentor, you can help out in in local areas.
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  You can invest in different initiatives. You can donate and
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  give.
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  There are so many ways that you can leave a legacy, even as an
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  employee, and even more so than if you were to tie up all of
• 13:36
  that resources in an entrepreneur's journey. And so I
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  hope that this kind of illustrates we've got this dual
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  thing going on where there's something that that's special
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  about each level, and that includes level seven because
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  there really is something special about being a founder in
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  level seven. I'll talk about that in just a moment, but we
• 13:57
  don't have to wait for that moment to be able to build a
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  legacy, and so you might be sitting there thinking, maybe,
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  maybe not. But hey, if I can leave a legacy in any level,
• 14:08
  then why would I get to level seven? That's a great question,
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  and the answer for most people is you wouldn't. You would just
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  find the legacy in the level that you want. However, for some
• 14:19
  of you, level seven is the destination. Level seven is the
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  destiny, and why that matters is because there's a
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  different-pardon the pun-but there's a different level of
• 14:34
  impact that you can create from there. Because to to do the
• 14:38
  things that you have to do, to learn the things that you have
• 14:40
  to learn to have the success that you have to have to get to
• 14:43
  level seven, you will have accumulated lots of different
• 14:48
  types of capital, knowledge capital, financial capital,
• 14:51
  relational capital, wisdom capital, and because of the
• 14:57
  abundance of all of that. And because of like really practical
• 15:02
  things, like you don't need to get paid to help out at
• 15:05
  something, and not only do you have to not get paid, but you
• 15:08
  might even be able to pay to help out at something. You might
• 15:12
  be able to volunteer for a nonprofit and give to it. You
• 15:15
  might be able to mentor a young visionary and invest in his
• 15:20
  business, without needing a return, you might be able to do
• 15:24
  that because of the abundance that you've created leading up
• 15:29
  to level seven. And so, while there is a legacy that can be
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  left from every level, there's a special legacy. There's a
• 15:39
  special ability. There's a special level of challenge that
• 15:43
  level seven founders can overcome that's pretty hard, if
• 15:48
  not impossible, to do in the other levels. And so, if any of
• 15:51
  this is interesting to you, if you've been thinking about your
• 15:54
  legacy and what you want to leave behind, or if you're just
• 15:58
  trying to figure out if this journey is right for you or what
• 16:00
  it is, then I would strongly recommend head on over to
• 16:04
  thefoundersgame.com and get a copy of the Founders Game by the
• 16:10
  pre-release, and then upload your receipt and get the
• 16:14
  introduction for free, the workbook whenever we release,
• 16:19
  and a copy of the Founders Legacy, so you can figure out
• 16:23
  how to navigate these stages, but also how to leave a lasting
• 16:27
  legacy-one that outlives you and and serves generations of people
• 16:32
  to come. With that, I hope that this opened your eyes to some
• 16:38
  new opportunities. I hope this conversation was helpful for
• 16:41
  you, and without further ado, I cannot wait to see you next
• 16:46
  time. Take care. Hey everyone, Scott Ritzheimer here. Thank you
• 16:55
  so much for listening to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast.
• 16:58
  I hope this episode gave you exactly what you need for the
• 17:01
  level you're in right now. If you want to discover what level
• 17:05
  you're in, take our 10-question Founders Evolution Quiz for free
• 17:09
  at foundersquiz.com. That's foundersquiz.com. It'll pinpoint
• 17:14
  exactly where you are and give you tailored tips to move
• 17:17
  forward and reach that next level in your journey as a
• 17:21
  founder, if you got something out of today's episode, don't
• 17:24
  forget to subscribe, rate, or review. It helps us reach more
• 17:28
  founders like you, and let's be honest, it means a ton to me, my
• 17:32
  team, and all our incredible guests. So keep starting,
• 17:35
  scaling, and succeeding, and I'll see you in the next
• 17:38
  episode.