#115: Ben Eden - From HR Executive to Purpose-Driven Coach

Ben Eden is a keynote speaker, leadership consultant, and the creator of the Eden Model, a transformative framework designed to help high-achieving leaders evolve from the inside out. With a background as an HR executive and as the author of How We See Ourselves, Ben has developed a unique ability to guide successful business owners and corporate leaders who, despite their outward achievements, seek greater clarity, balance, and fulfillment. Ben specializes in helping those who carry the weight of performance realign with their true selves, enabling them to lead with increased confidence, deeper connections, and greater time freedom. His work combines practical leadership wisdom with profound insights into personal identity, making him a sought-after guide for leaders looking to make meaningful transformations.

Connect with Ben Eden:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benedenspeaks/

- Instagram: www.instagram.com/benedenspeaks

- Book: https://howweseeourselves.com/ 

🫡 My Why: I’ve seen the cost of poor leadership — how it can destroy morale, break trust, and in the worst cases, lead to lives lost, including through suicide. That’s why I’ve committed my life to helping others lead with purpose. Through Tales of Leadership, I share real stories and actionable insights on how to overcome adversity and become the kind of leader people remember for the right reasons.

👉🏽Leadership Resources: https://linktr.ee/talesofleadership

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Chapters

• 0:00 Emotional Needs Behind Behavior
• 0:48 Show Intro And Mission
• 2:43 Guest Intro: Ben Eden’s Background
• 4:15 Defining Leadership Through Inspiration
• 9:05 Early Leadership: Scouts And Church
• 13:12 Influence Without Title
• 16:12 Faith, Mission Work, And Responsibility
• 22:40 Aerial Perspective And Transformational Leadership
• 26:41 Micromanagement Versus Empowerment
• 31:18 Fear, Pace-Setting, And Bottlenecks
• 36:05 Failure, Iteration, And Learning
• 40:20 How Ben Found HR
• 44:04 Reframing HR As Strategic Partner
• 47:14 Identity Shock: “We Hate HR”
• 52:05 Coping, Addiction, And Silence
• 56:16 Sponsor Break: Tenth Mountain Whiskey
• 57:54 Breaking The Cycle And Seeking Help
• 1:01:22 Emotional Needs And The Eden Model
• 1:06:58 Shifting Identity: From Results To Values
• 1:12:04 Inside-Out Thinking And Values

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Every behavior we do is based on an emotional need. We want to feel a certain way. That's why we turn to coping mechanisms, or that's why we can overcome insane amounts of fear to go save somebody's life. Because it's an important emotional need. That's why it works. So when I understood that we are turning to these addictive behaviors because of an emotional need, not because we're bad people, that was a game changer. So instead of judging me, I started to say, whoo, let me understand the emotional need, and maybe I can meet it in a different way. So that's the foundation of what I teach and why I do what I do, because I turned it around and I said, Wow, if I'm the successful HR professional who suffered in silence and felt this way, I wonder if anybody else has. And I turned to my professional friends and I said, Hey guys, have you ever felt this way before? And they said, Dude, we all do. The problem is nobody talks about it.

SPEAKER_00: 0:48

You're listening to the Tells the Leadership Podcast. This podcast is for leaders at any phase on their leadership journey to become a more purposeful and accountable leader. What I like to call how. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06

All right, team, welcome back to the Tells the Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Josh McMillian. I'm an Army Leadership Coach, the founder of McMillian Leadership Coaching, and the host of this podcast, Tells the Leadership. And I'm on a mission to become the best leader that I possibly can. And I plan to do that by bringing on other purposeful, accountable leaders or pals, those who lead with intention, integrity, and impact. I also grow myself every single day through self-study, leadership habits, and journaling my experience, which I will share with you through the lens of my leadership journey. And my ultimate goal is to impact one million lives by providing powerful leadership content. But before I begin again, I want to arm you with some free tools just so you know you have them. You can go to McMillian Leadership Coaching.com slash tells of leadership, and you'll find every single podcast episode that I've released with exclusive summarized articles associated with them and leadership articles. I post a leadership article every month, and I think I'm up to 30. And those are everything that I do both in army coaching and in my personal coaching. Why? Because I want you to be armed in this world to go challenge yourself and be able to break through those challenges that you're going to face. You can also go to Tales of Leadership.buzzprout.com. You'll be able to find all of my podcast episodes there, or you can listen on any platform, whatever you choose to, because you can find this podcast everywhere. And as always, when you go to make a million leadership coaching.com, make sure you subscribe so that way you'll get notified when new podcasts or articles are released. But on today's episode, I'm super excited to bring on Ben Eaton. He's a seasoned HR expert turn leadership coach and the driving force behind reach your ultimate potential. Uh, with over seven years of experience as an HR executive, Ben scaled a global company from 2,000 employees to new heights, rate rising from an HR intern to a global HR leader while expanding the company's global footprint. Now, through his global talent HR consulting, he coaches HR professionals and businesses to achieve their full potential. A senior certified professional with a bachelor's and a master's degree earned at an accelerated pace, Ben is also the author of two transformational books, How We See Ourselves, Exploring the Role of Self-Perception and Leadership, and Seven Steps to Reach Your Ultimate Potential, a system to overcome emotional barriers and just excel in life. He's fueled by this question Where is HR for HR professionals? He's become a sought-after speaker in HR conferences worldwide, helping leaders reclaim optimism and resilience. Ben believes the ultimate gift is helping people reach their ultimate potential, a mission that defines his work. And this is a great episode. And as always, make sure you stay at the very end, and I'll provide you what those top three takeaways are that I pulled from this. Ben, welcome to the Tells the Leadership podcast, brother. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02: 4:16

I'm so good. Thanks for having me here.

SPEAKER_01: 4:19

Yeah. So I again I say this every one of the episodes that I get a chance to record, but I always find it uh humbling to have conversations with other people that share the same passion as me, which is leadership. And I think you are going to be a very interesting um guest on the show because 90% of the people I have are from the military, military background. Uh, you I think uh come from a civilian background, especially within HR. So I'm very interested to kind of get your perspective on it. But before we start, I always like starting off with uh kind of an asthmoth check of how you define leadership to kind of set the tone for the podcast episode.

SPEAKER_02: 4:57

Ooh, great question. Uh, one of the favorite ways that I've heard about leadership is being one who can inspire others to be better versions of themselves.

SPEAKER_01: 5:07

I think that kind of goes exactly how I define leadership. So the army defines it as purpose, direction, motivation, or the power to influence others. And I've always kind of thought through uh that word influence in a way, kind of sounds toxic in a way, of like you're manipulating people to do things. So, what's a better way of doing that leaders inspire? So I'm a hundred percent aligned with how you uh define leadership. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 5:31

And can I add something to that?

SPEAKER_01: 5:33

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 5:34

So, to your point, where you know, influence is a very powerful word, and there's a lot of um, let's say, power there. But to your point, maybe some people interpret it as a little bit of manipulation. But the inspiring is when somebody can see themselves in you. In other words, they're they're they're they're looking at Josh and saying, Wow, I want to be like him. Imagine what they are going to be willing to do for you. So, yes, it translates to behavior, yes, it translates to results, but there's no manipulation at all. There is tons of influence because they trust and respect you, because they see themselves in you, which is very powerful.

SPEAKER_01: 6:13

Yeah, and it kind of goes back to a quote that I always find myself going back to by John Quincy Adams is that if your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more you're a leader.

SPEAKER_02: 6:24

There you go. That's pretty much where my thought came from. Well done.

SPEAKER_01: 6:27

So we'll start off like uh just the early, early times have been, right? So I always like digging back into your leadership journey at at the beginning. So start start there. Where where did you believe that your leadership journey of where you are right now began?

SPEAKER_02: 6:44

Good question. So, yeah, let's go way back, right? I was raised in a family and environment where there were a lot of leadership opportunities around me. I did the Boy Scouts of America, so there's a lot of leadership there, and I earned the Eagle Scout Award. Um with Oh, that's awesome, brother. Yeah. With church, there's the opportunities to serve as leaders there. I've been in choirs, I've been in associations, and often I've been presidents of those associations. So lots of opportunities to lead, but even then, as we all know, leadership can happen without the formal leadership title, right? So I've had many opportunities like that, whether it's in soccer or just traveling or just with friends, where people say, wow, Ben either has it together or he understands this, he's smart, he's respectable, and therefore he's the leader, right? So I've had a lot of those opportunities growing up, whether it's formal or informal, and I've learned to love it. I've learned that it's very interesting. So not only do I study it, but I actually help develop leadership training programs today.

SPEAKER_01: 7:46

Yeah, I think something that I want to pull on there is that we can be in a direct leadership role, or we can be in an influential leadership role, meaning that we don't necessarily have direct influence or authority over people. And for me, that that was something that I struggled with uh in the military, being in combat arms for a very long period of time. I had direct supervisory authority uh over people. So it's easier when when you're given a clear task and purpose, if you have direct authority over someone to actually get them to do the things that needs to be done. But when you don't have influence over people, you're in like that indirect uh level of leadership, that's much harder. Um and that's really where the art and the science of leadership come down. So, how did you learn when you were put in those leadership roles involuntary, right? How did you learn to kind of overcome that and get to inspire people to do the right thing?

SPEAKER_02: 8:42

Well, here's what I've learned. You can have what it comes down to is does the obedience or does the following or does the respect from your followers, let's say, does that come from your title, or does that come from who you are? Because, let's put these in some quadrant, let's say, right? If somebody respects you for who you are, regardless of your title, that's powerful. If somebody respects you only because of your title, then that's a problem. They don't respect you as a person, they're just like, well, I guess you're my boss and I have to listen to you. But as soon as the day comes that that title is not over me, then I'm out of here. I'm never gonna talk to you again, right? So I rarely have aspired to leadership. I mean, it's rare that I say, well, I want that title because I want to be in charge of everybody. But my way of doing things is more I like to understand how this machine works, right? This whole organization or this department or this project. I like to understand it. I like to get to know the people who are on the team. And yeah, not all not all the time do we get along. That's normal. We're all human beings, but then you get to learn the skill of working with people who may not be like you. And if you can learn to do that and understand what's going on, that's a natural fit for becoming a titled or a formal leader.

SPEAKER_01: 10:02

Yeah, no, I think that's powerful. And I think two things too, in your early childhood, I've noticed several people that I've had on the show, an Eagle Scout is like a common theme within people who've like always continued to inspire to become more. But church is one I think that's unique in a way that I've never really had anyone bring that up in the past. If I I come from uh a faith background with my family, I'm very astute with going every Sunday with my children to kind of set them up for the values that I think will make them successful in life. But you kind of growing up in uh that background and having church is a more active role in your in your life. How did some of the key tenets of faith um really play an impact in your early career and then you starting off in the HR realm?

SPEAKER_02: 10:51

Beautiful question. So I'll give you a little bit of context. Uh so I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Uh, some people used to refer it to as Mormons, and in it, there are different, you know, as you grow, you are placed in different groups, let's say. So when you're 12, you're a deacon, when you're 14, you're a teacher, when you're 16, you're a priest. So those are different areas, and you can always have, they call them callings. So it's specific responsibilities that you have. So you can be president of the deacon's quorum, or you could be president of the teacher's quorum. So even at 12 years old, you can have a formal leadership responsibility. Now, of course, it's different because you're young, but it's fascinating and powerful because even as a 12-year-old, the adult leaders who support you encourage you to take the lead. They encourage you to lead the lessons, to take care of your, to take care of your brothers, to find out what their needs are and how to meet them, how to plan the activities. So even as young as 12, you start to learn those kinds of things. And then I served a church mission. So for two years I was in Brazil. And as a missionary, you have uh you know you're set up in pairs. So there's two missionaries walking around Brazil preaching the gospel, and you have leadership opportunities. One of you is senior, meaning they've been there longer than you, and so they are the active leader that says, here's what we're gonna do today, here's how we're gonna teach, here's who we're gonna teach. And of course it's teamwork, but ultimately there's somebody who's a leader. So how faith plays a role in all of this, especially when you're young. I mean, as a missionary, I was 19 years old, learning Portuguese, spending two years in Brazil, I've never been there, never spoken Portuguese before. And so there's a lot of, let's say, responsibility and expectations placed on you. It's easy to think, what do I know? I'm 19. I just barely graduated high school. You know, I've done one year of college, which was my situation. And sure, I don't have a full degree. There's lots of things that I don't know, but I am here mainly because of faith. I believe strongly in God and Jesus Christ, and I say, look, if they want me to do this, then I believe that they will strengthen me and qualify me to do this. And what's super interesting, there's actually a book called Jesus CEO. Great book.

SPEAKER_01: 13:14

Oh, I love that book.

SPEAKER_02: 13:15

Yeah, right? The principles pulled out of there are fascinating. And really what it comes down to, even today, prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his name is Russell M. Nelson, he shares any question you have can be answered by studying the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. And if he so Russell M. Nelson, he's 100 years old, he's on the list of who's who in America, he's a very uh influential man and he's a prophet. So if he can say something like that after all of his study, and of course, you know, God speaks through him, all questions can be answered by studying the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. Wow, if you can trust that and have faith in those answers, that's amazing. So any of our leadership roles, whether it's in the military, whether it's stepping into a new leadership position at this new company, where yes, you have a lot of excitement because like, oh yay, I got the formal title, I have the opportunity, I got the promotion, I got the raise, and whatever it does. But it also, if we're trying to honest with each other, it comes with some trepidation. It comes with some, oh, this is lonely, what am I supposed to do? And there's some overwhelm. And in those moments, what do we do? Do we just push forward and we say, Look, I'm the boss, you got to listen to me? Yes, some people do that. They don't keep their employees very long.

SPEAKER_01: 14:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 14:32

Or do they humble themselves and say, Wow, who could I learn from? Because the best leaders have been the greatest followers, okay, because they know how to do that. So then they can influence and inspire others how to do it. And so, Christ, for example, if you study his life and teachings, he's the ultimate leader. People still follow him today.

SPEAKER_01: 14:52

I think that that is one of the best books that anyone can read to uh really pull from the key leadership lessons from scripture and apply it to modern business today. So, one of the things that always has stuck with me, and now I've kind of led with this, is an aerial perspective. And that's one of the key chapters in the book, is that as a leader, you have to pull yourself above. And I I always go through the the lens of the military because that's where I cut my teeth, right? But the battlefield. If I'm at the tactical level with my troops, I'm only seeing, you know, 50 meters out. Um, and as a leader, you have to be able to pull yourself out of that tactical space to be able to see the entire battlefield and operate from an aerial perspective, understanding that there's a bigger picture than just the obstacles that you're seeing right now. And and I love how you shape um exactly what I kind of look at between two different types of leadership uh philosophies. I think there's a transitional, and there's tons of different ones, but these are the two that always focus on transitional leadership style and then a transformational leadership style. Transitional leadership habits, yes, you'll get success in the short term, which you're hinting to there, but you will not sustainably continue to grow and push other people. And I see that in the military all the time is that you kind of go through these six phases of leadership. You get put into a situation or a position of where you have rank, title, and authority. But the first thing that you should do before you actively start asking people to do hard things is to build those relationships. And if you cut that step, if you don't focus on the people, you're never going to achieve the results that are possible unless you actually lead with a servant's heart and meekness, right? Like, which is one of the things that I absolutely love.

SPEAKER_02: 16:38

That's right. That's right. It reminds me of two examples. When I was an HR executive, I had a coworker who I'm going to tell you two stories of two different co-workers. One happened to be the boss's sister, and she was in this realm of leadership where she had never been trained. She was put in this place of leadership, and she was a very high performer. So she could get things done to the point where the boss, the CEO, said, Wow, anything she touches turns to gold. Okay, cool. But from the HR perspective, I'm thinking, yes, she gets results, but she bulldozes everybody else. Right? But that was hard to see because the CEO is like, okay, sister and results, so those are pretty darn important. And I guess we can deal with the turnover, right? I can change the story. Or there's another coworker that I had who did have formal leadership experience. She had come from being a VP of you know leadership at a large, very large company, and she was more of, I will inspire and I will lift up my people to get the work that we need to get done. And that was amazing because how you could tell the difference by how these two talked. The first, who bulldozed everybody, said, I have to get everything done. If I'm not there, it will not get done. And the other person said, How can I spend more time with this person so that I can elevate what they need to do? Guess who stuck around longer for the leaders? Which employees stuck around longer? Wow. Option B. You know what I'm saying? These people loved working for this person. The other people wouldn't even do an exit interview with me. They say, No, I don't, I don't want to answer these questions.

SPEAKER_01: 18:20

Yeah. You're speaking to my soul because I see the exact same trends uh in the military, and we kind of look through the lens of like leaders who are put into positions of influence, title, and authority when they micromanage, they're putting a cap on their leadership potential. But when they allow themselves to operate like for mission command, have you have you ever heard that term before mission commands? And essentially it just means like being able to delegate authority down to individuals. So you're giving you're allowing them to be a part of the solution and you're not micromanaging, giving them the influence and the ability and the space to make tactical level decisions that you yourself can't do. And I always pull it from like a bigger picture of just like modern day battlefield, right? Like if you look at like how the Russian military typically fights, it's very hierarchical, meaning that the decisions have to go all the way up to general levels before you can make a tactical level decision. Well, time matters, especially when uh you have a very short dynamic time to make something when life and death is online, versus with us, we empower our junior leaders all the way down to really like a corporal level or a buck sergeant and E5 to make those levels of uh decisions. And what I've learned, and what I I would love to hear, like within the HR space that you've seen too, is that the difference is that you inspire a growth mindset, a problem-solving organization's mindset versus you're micromanaging and you're making a problem uh organization, meaning that they can't solve their own problems. They come to you every single time. And I don't want that. At least when I grow in my influence, I want people to come to me with a problem, hey sir, um, or hey Josh, we we encountered this obstacle, but here is two ways that we want to get after it. What do you think? Like, hey, I think that's a great idea. Like, go go forth and conquer 100%.

SPEAKER_02: 20:16

So, yeah, I'll share some examples again. The micromanaging mindset comes from many places, let's say, but one has to do with fear, right? The person's internal version of themselves, the way they see themselves is if I don't get if I don't get results, then I'm a failure. And I can't be a failure. So I have to get these results, which means I have to have an eye on everything. I have to know exactly what Josh is doing at every minute, and if I don't approve it, then that's a problem. Okay? That comes from that mindset. I haven't been trained, maybe I don't have the trust, maybe I haven't performed. So this is my one way to know how to survive and succeed, is I have to be in charge. That's also called pace setting, a different term. But if the leader is pace setting, then nobody will get ahead of him or her. And to your point, they become a bottleneck. Everything has to go through this person, so it's a bottleneck. And they feel important, they like to feel involved, they know the answers, and that's cool, but ultimately the company or the organization or the you know the troop is slowed down, and that can be detrimental. In the world of competition, they will out uh outpace you. In the world of military, you might get hurt, right? And what's the opposite? Exactly what you're saying is how do I empower my people? Guess what? I'm I'm I happen to be in this place of formal leadership. Wow, lucky me. You know, sure, maybe I earned it, but I'm sure there's some other people who could do a pretty darn good job if they were in my position. So I'm not the god here. I don't have all the answers, and that's okay. Certainly, I may have more answers than others because I have that experience, I have that vision, that's great. You definitely do need that sense of self-confidence, certainly, okay? But at the same time, if you can see it as it's not up to me to solve all of this. I get to inspire my team to solve this. And so if I have a team, let's just say of 20, I can see it as everything goes through me and we're limited to my knowledge, or how do I elevate all 20 of us so we can have synergy to have incredible solutions? Because the person at the front of the line, 50 miles away, they see things that I don't, and I see things that they don't. So if we together can say, here's the best answer, but at this moment you know enough to make the decision for yourself, then two things happen. Number one, they feel empowered, and because they feel that trust from you as their leader, they gain more loyalty to you as their leader. And number two, you speed up the growth and the decision-making power or process, because just like you did as a leader, the reason why you are there as a leader is because you've made decisions. Some of them were right, some of them were wrong, but you learned. And if you micromanage, you take away the opportunity to learn from your people because they cannot make a mistake. Therefore, they cannot try, they cannot risk.

SPEAKER_01: 23:15

There's a powerful message, I think, that uh I want to circle back on and just make sure I really like hammer this home because I think you're spot on. And then it comes back to that fear mindset is that leaders fear of losing power or they fear of losing control or whatever it is. But really, it's fear of failure. And what I've had to learn like over time, like within leadership roles, failure is inevitable. It's going to happen, but we have to kind of reframe how we view failure. And I've kind of learned this, you know, going get a systems engineering degree, transitioning out of combat arms and working in acquisitions, uh, now working in the field of robotics, it's like a dynamic space. And how does engineering happen? It happens incrementally with valid user feedback. And if you can learn that as a leader, that we never truly fail as long as we learned from that. If we learned and we identified why we failed, we can improve. So next time we'll become back even stronger. And I don't know if you're like a comic book fan, but like Doomsday, right? Every time the Superman kills that dude, he comes back stronger because that is no longer his weakness.

SPEAKER_02: 24:24

Yeah. And I'll share an example with that too. Are you familiar with the truck, the Ford Maverick?

SPEAKER_01: 24:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 24:30

So it's newer, but when they did it, how they did it was they said, okay, we see this need, we have this idea, but instead of saying, guess what, we have this idea, let's build a truck and make it amazing and hope you like it, they literally did focus groups and they built something and they took it to some people and said, What do you think? And they looked for those surprised yes moments or the what are you doing moments. So they got that feedback, and because of that feedback, they designed the Ford Maverick according to that feedback and they sold out when they first launched it. So, as leaders, what we need to do, to your point, is not avoid failure. Because if we are in a mindset of avoiding, guess what? We're not pushing forward, we're living in a place of survival. So we're looking around in fear. Who's gonna hurt me? Where should I stop, right? And if you're in a mindset of stop, stop, stop, then that's exactly what happens. But if instead of avoid failure, you have the mindset of how can I learn fastest? How can I find the lessons fastest? Then sure, you say, okay, mistake there, awesome, we learned. Okay, failure there, cool, we learned, and bam, bam, bam, and you'll get to the solution fastest. Here's one more example, real quick. The iPhone. The iPhone came out what, in 2007, version one? That didn't have the the whatever megapixel camera they have today, it didn't have the internet like it does, it didn't have all the apps, it didn't have the storage, didn't have the battery life, anything else. If Apple had waited until they did have all those things, we still wouldn't have the iPhone. The reason why we have what we have today is because they started back in 2007 with what today is considered garbage. But at the time it was revolutionary. So even in the military, any type of leadership we say, okay, together we're gonna do the best we can, we're gonna move forward. But instead of avoiding failure, we're going to accept failure because it's a mistake or it's learning, it's lessons. Guess what, guys? I've made mistakes too. And I'm still the leader, you know, the formal leader. I trust you to be the leader of your area. If it's just them in their particular area, I trust you to be the leader in your area. How can I support you in that?

SPEAKER_01: 26:45

It's crazy to think that uh the iPhone came out in 2007 and how much it has grown since then. Like it's it's mind-boggling like what we are capable of doing when we actually take that iterative mindset and continue to grow. One thing I'd love to like take it back to is like your journey, right? Like, how did how did you niche down into HR? Did you just know you were going to go to college and study to be an HR professional, or like how did that passion for HR come about?

SPEAKER_02: 27:14

Great question. No, after my mission that I mentioned in Brazil, I came home and I was actually interested in computer science. I've always been a computer fan, very interested in how things work, and I started going to those classes, and I even got a job with Microsoft. I was demoing their newest and greatest stuff at the time. So literally, I had a super fancy laptop and I had what's called the Zune. It was like their iPod, which at the time was super cool, big screen and everything else. I was like, wow. So that was cool, but as part of my job, I had to demo it, which means in the afternoon after my classes, I just have to go around college campus and say, hey guys, can I show you some cool stuff? And you fill out this survey. And for a while that was fun, but after a while, it's like, well, I've already talked to them and they said no to me, and I'm looking around, I'm starting to focus more on failure than on growth. So then so everywhere I looked, it's like, I don't want to do that, I don't want to be embarrassed, I don't want to be told no, and everything else. So those kinds of mindsets started to appear, but also I was starting to feel lonely. Because my other friends had different jobs, or they were still in class, so if I wasn't busy working, there was nobody to hang out with. So I was like, this isn't the life I wanted, a bored, lonely afternoon. And so I started looking into other options of what I could do. And I did what most or many people do is they go online and take a test and say, What should I be when I grew up, right? And funny enough, uh, it came up with a couple things. One, it said I should be a lawyer. Another, have you seen born identity?

SPEAKER_01: 28:50

Uh oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 28:51

So Pam, the director, it said I should be that person. I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. And the other was employee relations specialist. I had no idea what that was. But I went and talked to a college counselor, and she's like, oh yeah, that's HR. So I was like, I don't know what HR is, I've never heard of it, but if you want me to take intro to HR, okay. So I took it and it was very much common sense to me. How you organize people, how you treat people, how you get things done through people, policies, procedures, and everything else. I'm like, wow, this makes sense, and it was very easy to me. I was top of the class in a lot of these things. And so kind of got onto that train and just moved forward and it was all making sense. I finished my bachelor's degree, finished my master's degree in human resources, and I even became a senior certified professional through the National HR Association. So yeah, HR was my world because it made sense. Because I could study leaders, I could emulate leaders, and I could train leaders.

SPEAKER_01: 29:50

I always kind of for me, we have a branch, or I guess like a shop within most uh headquarters companies, and they call it S. One S1 is our human resources. They do the Art Gigar paperwork. I think that they are underutilized, at least from the military's perspective of like how the civilian world looks at and views HR as a tool to help individuals and organizations grow. I think the military, we look at HR S1 shops just as like an administrative portion. I want to kind of like take it there from your perspective, right? Like you spent a lot of time kind of climbing through the ranks of global HR companies before you started your own company. How did you change the minds of leaders within those companies that hey, HR is a tool in your toolkit that is going to make the organization better? It's not just here for paperwork and when bad things happen.

SPEAKER_02: 30:47

Yeah, great question. And I will tell you that although I tried, it didn't always work. So this is actually part of the story that explains why I am here today, why I do what I do today. So I told you the part where I climbed the ranks, I did the education, I went from an HR intern to running the HR department at an exec or sorry, at an executive level of an international company. And I had done what the world teaches is the path to success. Because they say, sure, go to school, get your degree, get a job, climb the corporate ladder, get the house, get the car, and hey, you're successful, cool. So I did all that in my 30s, or sorry, in my 20s. Yeah, executive in my 20s of an international company, traveling the world, having the nice things. And my friends in also in their 20s say, dude, you made it. How'd you do that? And and for a couple of years, that was awesome because I was meeting the definitions of success. So I thought I should be happy because I did what the world told me I should I should do. Followed the steps, right? But one day, after I had finished my education, I didn't want to go back for a PhD, so I said, what's next? And my travel had started to slow down because we had reached a size of company that said, well, it doesn't make as much sense for the HR executive to travel, so we're going to delegate it to some other people. So now I was kind of stuck at the home office doing copy and paste kind of things. As we opened new locations, it's like, well, I've done this 75 times, so let's do it a 76th time. But anyway, one day my boss, the CEO, who we had worked together for at least five years by then, with him being my direct supervisor, he came to me one day after I had pushed this agenda of HR can do so much for you. I understand your goals, I understand how to reach your goals, and I understand how to move your people so that we can reach your goals. I see some problems. If you would listen to me, we would solve them. Or if we could implement this solution, imagine what it would do for your company. So I was trying to push all these things, but one day my boss comes to me and says, Ben, we have nothing against you. We just hate HR.

SPEAKER_01: 32:58

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02: 33:00

And so I'm like, what am I supposed to do with that? I had spent the last seven years plus defining my life on HR, defining myself by HR, because the world says this is success. This is the path I've decided to be successful, and I have defined myself as the successful HR executive in my 20s. But when my boss, the CEO, said we have nothing against you, we just hate HR. I thought to myself, well, you must hate me because I am HR. Everything that I've tried to push was now, well, we just kind of don't like Ben. We don't want him in the room.

SPEAKER_01: 33:37

Yeah, it's been your identity. You spent the majority of your life mastering that craft of being the best HR representative that you could be. Yes. So I can fully understand that.

SPEAKER_02: 33:46

Yeah. And so when they say they hate that, it's like, well, that's me, so you hate me, right? It's like being in the military. Well, I just hate uh I hate corporals. I hate people like this. And you're like, okay. So that changed and rocked my world. For years, that was my pinnacle of success. I had reached it. I thought, okay, now what's next? And then my boss, the CEO, who I thought, okay, this is the real world. It's not school, it's not friends, it's real world. And the CEO is telling me that he hates HR. My world was crushed. So now I thought, well, what in the world am I supposed to do? I didn't know where to turn. So I started to turn internal and started to question myself. Did I do the right thing? Am I good enough? People don't even care about what I do. Do they even care about me? And then it started to go even deeper that says they don't even want me in the room. Do people even like me? Should I even be in the room? Right? Now I never went to the realm of suicide, but it's very related to those types of thoughts. Because here's where I actually wrote about it in my book, How We See Ourselves. When the mind doesn't like how it feels, it desperately searches for a solution, anything to make it change how it feels. So for a time, society teaches us this, but also high-performing males specifically. Now, of course, it applies to many others, but high performing males specifically. It says if you succeed, if you accomplish, if you do, then you'll feel good. And that's why I did top of the class and bachelor's, top of the class masters, and so on and so forth. Become the executive early, bam, because I wanted to feel good. I wanted to feel successful. When that didn't work in quotations, right, all of that was a quote-unquote failure. I thought, oh my heck, what have I wasted my life on? And where am I supposed to go from here? Because this was my future. This was my life. So when all of that didn't work, I started to turn to other things, which everybody has them, but I call them coping mechanisms, self-medication, whatever you want to call it, right? Something that you do to feel better, whether it's binge watching, you know, on Netflix, eating, shopping, or turning to the more harmful things of drugs, alcohol, addiction, pornography, whatever it is, right? So when my brain said I have to feel something different, I turned to all those addiction or sorry, those coping mechanisms and ultimately fell into the world of addiction. And guess what that does? I mean, it makes you feel, sure, I'm solving a short-term problem because at this moment I feel better. But what happens afterwards? You hate yourself. You hate what you've done, you hate how you feel, and you hate yourself. And that's what I experienced. So even though Ben, the Eagle Scout, the one who was raised in the church, has good values, was raised in a good family, was a very successful HR professional, was now suffering in silence, couldn't tell anybody because when you have problems, you go to HR. So who's HR supposed to go to? I'm a man, I don't share my feelings. I mean, all of these masks that I had to wear. And now that I was doing something that I hated and I hated myself, I did not know where to turn. Until you know, I got deep enough into the addiction that I started to see how it how I had changed the way I saw myself and how it had changed the way I saw others. And I was not okay with what was happening.

SPEAKER_01: 37:06

Today's show sponsor comes from Tenth Mountain Whiskey and Spirit Company. They are a philanthropic award-winning craft distillery located in the heart of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. For being a listener of Tales of Leadership, you get 10% off on any order using the promo code PandoCommando when you place an order at 10th Whiskey.com. Both of those are in the show notes, so you'll be able to find them. 10th Mountain Whiskeys and Spirit Company honors heroes and they craft legacy. I've commanded two organizations in the 10th Mountain, and both of which are very deeply impactful to me. This is a company that I stand behind. And if you're looking for a great bottle of bourbon, look no further at 10th Mountain Whiskey and Spirit Company. Back to the show. I think that that's something I deeply resonate with. So self self-sabotaging behaviors, right? Like if we allow negativity to creep in, even like in a minute level, like mentally, uh then we're allowing darkness to come in. And I and I genuinely believe this is that we we are what we believe, uh what we surround ourselves with. It kind of goes back to that quote um from Matthew. I can't remember exactly which one it is, but like we're the light on top of the hill. And we're providing that beacon of hope for other people. And I think a lot of that is like mental too. If I surround myself around an identity, like I'll use the military for one, because we were talking about this before we started the show. Like one of my deep passions in life is helping service members find their passion after they've served. And like when you give something holy or you give yourself over to something just complete, like HR in your case, or in my case, go in to be a military professional, a a professional. I've gone through countless schools, I've gotten master's degrees through this, uh, I've led troops in combat in some of the most chaotic places you can. Like, that is who I am. I am a servant leader in the military. That is my identity. And then after 20 years of that, 25 years of that, you're told, hey, thank you for your service, but now you gotta go do something else. And I see what you just said is fire. People try to find short-term solutions to fill that darkness, and they use coping mechanisms, they use drug or they use sex or they use uh alcohol, all these things that are toxic, that are self-sabotaging, that are taking you away from like what your true purpose is. How did you kind of break through that uh self-sabotaging behaviors to not necessarily reinvent yourself because I don't think you did, but to really double down on this is my purpose in life, this is my God-given purpose, and I'm all in. Let's move forward.

SPEAKER_02: 39:55

Yes, and thank you for allowing me to share this part of the story. First, I want to comment on what you said, and then I'll share that part of the story because it's super, super common for people to go through exactly what you said. You build an identity and then you're told to leave. Whether it's a layoff, whether it's a thanks for your service, whether it's an I don't want to do this anymore, everybody, well, many people reach this moment of I need to do something else, but can I do something else because I've defined myself accordingly. I have this title, I'm a VP of this, I this was my world. How am I supposed to leave that? And so, yeah, the brain says, well, uh, what worked in the past was success, so go do something. And what's easily in our control is maybe the coping mechanisms or maybe doing something. And so people start to judge and say, Wow, that guy got out of the military and he just turns to that, no wonder, right? And they start to say things that applies to everybody. Oh, he was this, and now he's doing this, so here's the story that makes sense so I can judge him. Guess what that does to the person who's suffering at that moment? They're suffering with an identity crisis, and now people are judging them. So what are they gonna do? They're gonna turn more internal. They're not gonna reach out. You guys are judging me, so I'm gonna try to solve it myself as I always have, turning deeper and deeper into the darkness. But how do you get out of that? Because, as, you know, I'll share this in my part of the story. So, yeah, successful HR professional, people had even said, Ben, you have the picture, perfect life, everything that people want. Okay, cool. And at the time there were a lot of those truths, but a lot of things that I felt was missing too. And as I said, I got to the point where this addiction had changed the way I saw myself and had changed the way I saw others, and I was not okay with it. I was tired of living the double life, the suffering and silence. Everything's fine here, but ultimately I'm miserable, not happy at all. When at first people said, Ben, what do you do for work? I'm like, well, you know, I do all these cool things. After a while, they'd say, Ben, what do you do for work? And I'd say, eh, I do HR. I do HR, right? That's it. Didn't even really want to talk about it. So the addiction reached a certain level where I said, This has to change. Yes, I'm a successful, high-performing individual. I'm used to getting success on my own, but I've tried for years to get rid of this addiction on my own. Has it worked? No. It's still with me. It still haunts me. I still hate it, right? So I reached out for help. I turned to my parents and I said, guys, I need help. And thankfully they didn't judge me. They didn't say, dude, we've taught you better, man. Get your own help, right? No, they didn't say that. They said, Great, let's get you the help. So they got me with my religious leader, my bishop, and I said, I need anything you can give me to get rid of this addiction. So he directed me to a recovery group. And as I looked into this recovery group, it cost money. And I'm thinking, am I serious enough to actually spend money? Can I not just do this myself? You know? But I said, nope, this has to change. There are no options. This is a must. This has to change. So I paid the money, and it hurt. And I remember going to the first class, getting out of the car and looking up at that building, and thinking to myself, this is the moment. This is the moment where I have to admit to people what I've been doing. So now I have to take off the mask of Picture Perfect Ben. And people are going to see who I am inside. That's what I was thinking, right? And I wasn't proud of what people would see, right? What I thought people would see. I said, yep, if this has to change, I'm just going to do it. And I go into this room and I remember looking around, and I had all these things of what I thought I would see, but I looked around and I saw other men that looked just like me. They were successful business owners. They had degrees. Many were fathers. Many were husbands. They were good people who happened to turn to an addictive behavior to feel better. And when I made that realization, a weight was lifted off my shoulders. Because you have to remember, yes, the mask was Ben's picture perfect, cool, he has everything together. But internally I hated myself because I thought I was the problem. Nothing against you, Ben. We just hate HR. We just hate you. That's what I thought. I thought there was something wrong with me because I knew better, and yet I'm turning to this behavior. Why would I do that? Why would I do that? Right? Questions of me, the problem. But again, when I learned this and I realized that these are other good men, then I thought, well, maybe I am still a good man. Maybe I am still a good person. Maybe I can still do good things with my life. Maybe I'm not the problem. So that was crucial because I started to change the way I saw myself, not as the problem, not as broken, not as impossible, but as I'm still good, I can still achieve, I can still have a good life. Okay, so then I can start understanding other things, which here was crucial. Every behavior we do is based on an emotional need. We want to feel a certain way, that's why we turn to coping mechanisms, or that's why we can overcome insane amounts of fear to go save somebody's life. Because it's an important emotional need. That's why it works. So when I understood that we are turning to these addictive behaviors because of an emotional need, not because we're bad people, that was a game changer. So instead of judging me, I started to say, whoo, let me understand the emotional need, and maybe I can meet it in a different way. So that's the foundation of what I teach and why I do what I do, because I turned it around and I said, Wow, if I'm the successful HR professional who suffered in silence and felt this way, I wonder if anybody else has. And I turned to my professional friends and I said, Hey guys, have you ever felt this way before? And they said, Dude, we all do. The problem is nobody talks about it. That was in 2019. I left my HR executive role in February of 2020. Good timing, I know. And yes, believe that this is God's calling for me. God says, This is what I need you to do. I've taught you, you I've taken I've brought you through this experience so that you know what you know so you can help the people who are suffering in silence, who need to change the way they see themselves because they are not bad people, they are not broken. There is nothing wrong with them. They are just suffering with something they don't fully understand, and there is a better way, and I want to help them. So I get to do that. And after four years, actually now five, of coaching and speaking on stages full time, I have seen a common denominator of everybody that I help, no matter the solution, no matter the result that they're looking for, it always comes down to this how they see themselves.

SPEAKER_01: 46:20

Oh wow. How do you get people to break that mindset? So and I can completely resonate with it. Like in and to provide some level of you know vulnerability, because you you shared something vulnerable, is that like I've always done well in leadership roles, right? And I mean I I've won awards marked around leadership excellence, but I've lost soldiers. And some of those positions that I was given awards for, I 100% do not believe I deserved it. I think I was a poor leader, I would think I was a bad leader because I've lost soldiers to things that shouldn't have happened. And I began to wrap my identity around, I have to achieve, um, I have to continue to do more, I have to continue to try to chase all these medals and things to really cope with some underlying emo emotional trauma that I was facing about, hey, you know, I I lost good men, and I a hundred percent could have prevented those things. I, like you, just solved my own problem. I didn't really go out and like seek guidance like how you did, which is awesome, because I think that leadership starts with ourselves, and unless we're willing to pour into ourselves, mind, body, and soul, we're never going to continue to move. But I started journaling, I started like really getting back into faith. I started like asking hard questions myself and just sitting in silence and reading books and like meditating on those topics until I began to break through and really understanding why. I I understand everyone's different, right? Like, I have that level of fortitude. Maybe it's because like I'm Scotch-Irish background and we're just stubborn people uh that I was able to kind of break through that. Uh, but with you, when you're coaching these individuals, how do you get them to change their paradigm? Like, hey, this is how you see yourself, but here's some tools. This is how you should be thinking.

SPEAKER_02: 48:11

Yeah, great questions. And it's an art, right? If I could just give the solution, then this would sell a million copies already. But it is definitely an art because it's different for everybody, and I can't just tell you, I have to help you discover it, right? Because God was trying to tell me the whole time, but I had to discover it. So, let me give an example. This is what I actually do in coaching. People can watch this recording and they'll notice what I'm going to point out right now. In what you exactly just told me, Josh, you told me two separate mindsets. You first said turning to achievements. I had to succeed. I wasn't a good leader because I had poor results. You didn't say poor results, but you said I lost soldiers, right? But that's in the category of results. If I hadn't lost soldiers, then I had good results, and I'm a great leader. Yay. But because I didn't, I didn't get the results, I was a poor leader. So you've defined your leadership, yourself as a leader by your results. Did you catch that?

SPEAKER_01: 49:10

Yeah. Yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_02: 49:12

And then what you did is when you said, Oh, I'm a Scottish-Irish descent, you had a different energy level. You were talking about your identity in a positive, fun way, right?

SPEAKER_00: 49:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 49:23

That is key. Those are some things that I point out to people because when you defined yourself by your result, your emotional energy was negative. When you defined yourself by who you are, by what's important to you, your emotional energy was positive. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01: 49:40

100%.

SPEAKER_02: 49:41

So I help point that out to people, and I help people change the way they talk, change the way they focus, and change the way they think. Because if I can help reprogram you to instead of uh you know talk exactly the way we did, okay, results, and if I have it, I'm great, if I don't, I suck. To well, who am I at my core? And I'm not gonna get perfect results every time, but that's okay. I can still be a leader, I can still be a good person. Guess what? I am still a good person, I am still a leader, then you will happen to get the good results plus some. Okay? And this is the key of every transition that we're talking about. I'm gonna give you this link, Josh, so you can share it with your listeners. But this is a picture of the Eden model, which is described in my book, how we see ourselves. So I'll give you this link.

SPEAKER_01: 50:28

I was getting ready to ask you that question next. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02: 50:31

Yeah, yeah. So I'll give you this link so people can see it, because I know in a in a screen sometimes it's tough. But what it does is it exactly breaks down this process. And I'm gonna give you one more story just to make it all super clear for everybody listening. When we're in school, they're taught we are taught to chase results because you're supposed to get certain grades. And if you get A's, what does that mean about you? You tell me.

SPEAKER_01: 50:54

Uh, if I get A's, then that is uh it means I am smart. It means that I am skilled and that I can go to college all these things. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 51:04

So we have a ton of meaning associated with a grade. And ultimately, sometimes we say to ourselves, or maybe our parents or a or a loving person says, that's an A student. My boy's an A student.

SPEAKER_01: 51:15

So we put you put bumper stickers on the back of your card.

SPEAKER_02: 51:18

There you go. I know, right? So we give identities to ourselves based on the grade. But Josh, what happens if you get an F? What does that mean about you?

SPEAKER_01: 51:26

So I have a I have a legitimate story behind this, but I'll keep it uh I'll keep it short and sweet. It sours me against school. It makes me not enjoy school, it makes me uh become less involved, like in the day-to-day, but also like self-study. I'm not going to improve myself because I'm going to suck at this. So why do I even want to try?

SPEAKER_02: 51:45

Oh, there you go. That happens. Good. And so for the benefit of all listening, I literally do this on stages, so thank you for doing it here. What does it make you what does it mean about you if you get an F?

SPEAKER_01: 51:56

Now or in the past. Or in the past.

SPEAKER_02: 51:59

When you get the F, what does it mean about you? I felt that I was a failure. There you go. And that's interesting because the F grade does not mean failure. It means a failing grade. And yet, most people, again, I do this on stages, and this is what most people say. They think it means you are a failure, but it doesn't mean that. Okay? But that's that's what we've learned through school, therefore, that's what we experience through work, through military, through whatever we're going through. If we get the result that is accepted by everybody, that we define as success, then that means I am successful. Therefore, I'm a good person. If I get the result that is looked at as a failure, then by definition, I am also a failure. So let's go through this example, right? Somebody is told after 25 years of military, thanks for your service, good luck. Then we can have whatever interpretation that we want and say, you know what, either I was an amazing leader, that was the coolest 25 years of my life, awesome, or we could look back and say, well, because I lost some people, because I didn't do this perfectly and everything else, then my definition of my 25 years experience in the military was I was a failure. That's an option. Okay, so I'm just giving you contrast. But it's important to understand that because as we move forward, that's important to know this difference. If we keep the mindset of my identity is based on my results, then what we will do moving forward is we will stress out and say either I have to get this next degree, or I have to become a titled leader in the next six months, or I have to get something done, because if I don't, who am I? I'm a nobody. And that sucks. We do nobody wants to feel like that. And if that doesn't work at the timeline that we want, we turn to coping mechanisms, which eventually turns into addiction and so forth. That's literally the psychology of why things happen. So how do you flip it? This is back to your point. How do we flip it? And this is what I teach. You'll get a copy of this Eden model, and of course, you can get the book, How We See Ourselves. But it explains how instead of starting with the result, you start with your identity. Who am I regardless of my results? Regardless of the results in the military, who am I today? What did I learn? Who have I become? What's important to me? And instead of saying, what degree do I need to earn in the next 12 months in order to become somebody? You reverse the question and say, Who do I want to be in 12 months? And when I am that person, because here's the power of the mind. If whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve, we can literally look sorry, literally look into the future and see it. We can visualize it. That's the power of the mind. So you can look forward 12 months. I'm getting chills as I'm talking about this. You can look forward 12 months and say, who do I want to be? Sure, I just left the military, sure I was just laid off, sure I just left my job of 25 years. Who do I want to be in 25, or sorry, in one year? Visualize that person and then reverse the process and say, Great, well, what results does that person get? How does that person feel about themselves? How does that person talk about themselves? And this is what I do in coaching. When we can answer those better questions, we get better answers. And here's what's cool. You can see that person that you want to be in 12 months, but you can be that person today. You can feel that courage, you can feel that confidence, you can feel that accomplishment today. And with that positive energy of knowing who you are regardless of your results, you will not only achieve better results in 12 months, but even if the results that you thought you would get don't look exactly how you thought they would, you won't feel like a failure. You say that, okay, you know, I still know who I am. I learned, sure, the house doesn't look the same, but I got something better.

SPEAKER_01: 55:48

I love that. So what you just described is something that I learned through like my own self-reflection, and I kinda I call it uh inside out thinking. Most of the time, and I see it uh day to day, that we're always focused on outside in thinking. And I I really like I so I I'm an infantry uh at my core, infantryman at my core, so I like to follow the KISS model. Keep it simple, stupid. Uh so that's how my brain works. And I think of it as like an onion, right? Like we have different layers of an onion, which is like one of the most overused metaphors, but like at the core of that model is the values. What am I uh at my values level, my principles level, my integrity of how I show up in this world? The next level is the behaviors, the deeds that I'm following through every day. Are they aligned with those values and those principles that who and how I see myself and who I want to become? If I have the right values and with the character of who I want to be, and I'm emulating those every single day, then the outcomes will come naturally. But if I chase those outcomes and I neglect the behaviors uh or the habits that are going to get me there and the values and the principles that are gonna guide me there, I'm never going to get to those out uh end goals. And it what you just said is absolute fire. And it it it's end of the day, I'd love to see your Eden model. So I know you're gonna share it with me, but I'd like to dig into that. And I I kind of want to transition now, and I know you shared your book a lot, but what inspired you to write that book? I know you wrote two different books, right? So Seven Steps to Reach Your Ultimate Potential was the first book that you wrote, and then now you just uh wrote How We See Ourselves. I think writing a book, at least for me, is always a daunting thing. So, first of all, I'm always inspired by individuals that actually take the leap and they do that because it's a commitment. And I know it's not a short-term commitment, it's a long-term commitment. But what inspired you to write those two books? And then if you could, uh could you share something from uh your latter book that you wrote in the past?

SPEAKER_02: 57:52

Yeah, definitely I'll share it. I do want to comment on something you said. I love how you phrased it with the values and the behaviors and the results, right? That's that's exactly what my model goes through. When if we focus on results as the primary, then we may do something that offends our values. And that's that's what many people go through, but they don't understand why. It's like, shoot, I got the result, but now my life is nearly over, right? Because I've I've betrayed who I am at the core. But when you do it in the way that we're talking about, inside out, or starting with identity first, then we won't cut corners, we won't be unethical, we won't betray our own values in order to get a result. So another thing that we don't have time for, but the Eden model helps us redefine what success means to us. And that is super important because everybody's chasing their own definition of success. And if you can align who you are with your success, that's where you experience fulfillment. But if you achieve what you think is success to the detriment of who you are, then you're not experiencing fulfillment in any way, and you're on the never-ending race to achieve success. So just wanted to point that in there. But why I wrote the book, How We See Ourselves, first of all, as I was coaching these people, you know, over the last five years and speaking on stages and seeing this common denominator, it always came down to how people see themselves. That was pretty much given to me, this wording, how they see themselves, how they see themselves, how I see myself. That was the language people used. And so as I started, or as I was studying entrepreneurship, people often said, well, find a solution that solves a lot of problems and build a product around it. So that's what I was doing in my coaching models, but now it's like, oh, well, now I can put it into book form and get it into millions more hands than I could do with my own time. So I put it into a book. Now, part of the process, this is helpful helpful for any aspiring authors, is I had a lot of this uh content came from attending conferences, listening to books, talking to people in conversations like this, and having inspirational thoughts. This is God saying, Hey, this is important, this is important. And I'm a guy who takes notes. So my phone was full of all these notes. And after pages and pages and pages of notes, I was like, well, I probably have a book in here. I never had the plan growing up to write a book, right? I was never in my uh list of things to do. But as I had all this content, I thought, well, maybe I do have a book. So I put it all onto my computer and it had about 40,000 words. I had a coach at the time, and I said, hey, I have 40,000 words of a book, isn't that awesome? And she's like, well, you need 60,000. I'm like, well, dang it. So I got pretty discouraged because I'm like, I put I put a ton of work into this. How am I supposed to write 20,000 more words? So at the time I was like, well, I guess that's a project for another time. But two years later, again, after coaching more people and seeing this common denominator, this was when God said, You need to write the book now. I said, okay. And so it was May of 23, and I gave myself a date. You know, I saw myself in the future, I manifested, and I gave myself a date. And I said, I am going to have this book be a bestseller by December 1st. So I spent, now I have five kids, okay? So I spent, I spent the late nights and the early mornings writing, writing, writing, and I had to learn through speaking and through trying, literally, this iteration kind of thing. It wasn't what it was the first time, it wasn't what it was the seventh time, and so forth. But as I continued to try and test and just write, write, write, it started to come together. I had the format, I had what was needed. And it came to a point where I said, yep, this is where it needs to be. This is good enough to get out. And I say good enough because it's never going to be perfect. And I launched it the day after Thanksgiving, and I became a bestseller. So yeah, so it's awesome. And you know, I give the credit to God because He inspired me on the title, He's helped me with the content, He's given me my personal story and everything else. And that's helpful to know because as an author, you can have those negative thoughts still come in and say, who's gonna listen to you? Why would you why are the why are you the authority on this kind of thing? That's like, well, look, it's my story. You can't argue with my story, and it's supported by a lot of things. Anyway, I'm not gonna go into these those details.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:09

No, I'm just saying, like what you just said too is like very powerful, is that we always have those self-sabotaging thoughts come back, regardless of the level of success or where we find ourselves in our life, that darkness is always going to try to creep its its its way back in.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:22

Yes. And you know, now that you said it, it reminds me that sometimes that happens so that you can continue to relate with the people you're talking to. I mean, if it's like, oh yeah, I haven't experienced a negative voice in seven years, people are gonna like, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:37

Well, who are you?

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:39

But if but if I can say, yeah, I experienced it this morning, and I can share a personal story, then whoever's listening can say, Wow, this guy gets it. He understands what I'm going through, and not only that, but he he he has tools that can help me get through this. Because living with that negative voice is not fun. And the problem is most of us listen more, or let's say believe more the negative voice than we do the positive one, that it's also always there. That's that's a section that's gonna answer your question. That's a section in this book. I call it the voices in our head. They're there. But if we can learn which one to listen to, then we can learn permission. It's actually a military story in there. If we can learn permission to actually get rid of and destroy that negative voice, you do have permission to do that. You don't have to be nice and say, oh well, please don't talk to me. No, get out of here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:29

It's funny, like I think there was a Harvard study or something. It came across my feed one day, uh, and it basically said is that we all talk to ourselves. And it's funny if you really think about that, like, and you catch yourself like legitimately having conversations in your mind when you ask yourself questions or you think talk. And that's something that uh a good buddy of mine uses that term think talking. But it's true is that we have uh that inner voice inside our heads of when we're coming up with a hard question or we're wrapping ourselves around a hard problem, we kind of formulate our own thoughts, and those thoughts are jumbling around. And there's definitely different versions of Josh out there, like you have like the little angel on your shoulder, and you have the little demon on your shoulder, and like getting up every morning. Little demon's like, Josh, you don't have to get up, sleep an extra hour. It'll be okay. The world will go on, and then the angel's like, hey, bro, like we need to start off with when it's time to get up because you know that you're going to punish yourself if you don't get your workout in before you go to work and you're going to be poopy. It's like those Snickers commercials, in a way, uh, if you remember any of those. So, dude, I I I love that uh that you're taking continued inspired action, uh, writing a book, continuing to help build what I like to call a purposeful, accountable leader pals. But what's what's next for you? So you're you're a public speaker, you run a successful company, you wrote several best-selling books. What are you working on now? Any current projects or anything that you want to do in the future?

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:58

Yeah, so of course I'm trying to get the book into as many hands as possible because people need to learn it, right? Everybody's experiencing the negative voice, everybody's experiencing the do I chase results or do I stay true to who I am and who am I in the first place kind of thing. So that's key. But another specific thing that I'm doing is I'm actually certifying people in the Eden model. So people can learn the model in such a way that they can teach it to others. So my goal is to create a community of certified Eden model practitioners so that we can get this message out in a way that it's not just, oh, that's interesting, thanks for sharing the Eden model. But no, I've been transformed by the Eden model. I define myself based on who I am and my values, and I happen to get amazing results, versus the I'm only happy if I get the results.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:47

Yeah, I love that, brother. It's time for our final show segment that I like to call the killer bees. These are the same four questions that I ask every guest on the Tales of Leadership podcast. Be brief, be brilliant, be present, and be gone.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:06

Question one: What separates a good leader from an extraordinary leader in your eyes?

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:13

Wow, these are good questions. Along the vein of what we're talking about, I would say the good leader is one who has done enough personal work that they no longer have to focus on themselves, but they can fully focus on you to inspire you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:29

Second question is what is one resource? Um, it could be a book, it doesn't matter, a recommendation that you can provide right now that has had a significant impact on your leadership journey.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:42

Probably the 21 Irrevocable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:48

John Maxwell, yeah. I do, I love that guy. And to okay, I'm breaking my rules, but John Maxwell, if you understand how he thinks through leadership, it's biblical. At the end of the day, he models a biblical leadership style like Alpha and Omega, right? Yeah. Um okay. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:07

Well, let me say one thing real quick. My father-in-law, he's a very successful man, and I was talking to him the other day. I was like, hey, you're successful. Tell me about some books that you've read that have uh led to your success. And he's like, you know, I've read a lot of books, but really nothing teaches leadership and success as well as the scriptures do.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:28

It goes back to that one book, too, is I really think that people, if you haven't got a chance, G's a CEO. It's a short, fast read, and it it will provide you tools in your rucksack that will help you every single day, regardless of wherever you are in your leadership role. All right, number three, for someone that's just starting off in their leadership journey, what should they focus on first?

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:49

You know, what's coming to my mind is find a mentor. Find somebody who believes in you as a person so you're that can help you, not just focus on what can I achieve next.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:00

I love that, brother. And then the last one, easiest question of the day, is where can our listeners find you, connect with you, and add to your mission?

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:08

Oh, I love that. Uh so I'm very active on LinkedIn. It's Ben Eden or Ben Eden Speaks. That's also on Instagram and Facebook. Those are my primaries, but I also have a website. It's actually called reachyourultimatepotential.com. That's where you can learn about all my speaking and coaching, where you can get a copy of the book and follow my journey, but most importantly, be part of the journey.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:29

Yeah, I love that, brother. Ben, it it's been an absolute honor. Thank you for sharing the past hour with me to kind of walk through what inspired you, especially around the the skill of being an HR specialist, right? Like that that is a very hard thing to do, especially nowadays, of me seeing it within the civilian role and the purposeful action that you're continuing to take every single day. It's like people like you that keep me motivated and inspired to do what I'm doing for our country, but we continue to run this podcast. So I appreciate it, brother. Thank you, and thank you for thank you for what you do as well. All right, have a great day. I appreciate it. All right, team, it is time for our after action review. That was a great episode with Ben Eden. So I have three key takeaways. Let's jump right into number one. Number one is all about incremental growth. And this is something that it really is going to touch on two of the key takeaways. But remember, in engineering, iterative development is all about getting a good requirement, getting great feedback while you're doing that dev cycle, either software or hardware, and then incrementally improving that design until you get a production level product, right? Well, the same is true in life, the same is true in leadership. We're all on this journey together. And you have to continue to improve yourself. If you're not improving yourself, as Dave Rosenberg said in the past, then you're you're dying. We're either pushing ourselves beyond our comfort zone, and we do that by iteratively improving ourselves daily. Again, that 1% or that 0.05%. It doesn't matter as long as you're moving the needle forward and you're improving every single day. Because remember, life is a marathon, it's not a sprint. And you have to be able to sustain that level of energy throughout. And it goes back to the rule of 100%, right? You only have 100% capacity within a given day. And if you are only giving 80%, if you're only giving 75% because you're not fully in it, right? You can't give 125%, 130% the next day. That's mathematically impossible. And I always hate when leaders tell me I expect 110% out of you. Well, sir, you're gonna get 100% out of me, and you're gonna get the best 100% that I have for that day, right? Like because each day is unequal. Like if there's a death in my family or I am going through some type of hardship personally, my 100% may not look like my normal 100%, and that's okay. But we get through those things by improving ourselves, and that's iterative development. So challenge yourself, go do something new that you've always wanted to do and improve yourself. Number two is focus on growth, not failure. So we again the first one kind of feeds into this, and this will feed into the third one. When we focus on failure, we feed into those self-sabotaging behaviors, those feelings of I'm not good enough, or no one respects me, or I'm going to lose power, or I'm going to lose control, or I'm going to lose my authority. All of those are fear-based self-sabotaging beliefs. You have to be able to focus on the growth, the long-term perspective. Who do you want to become? And that feeds into number three, which is the Eden model of what Ben kind of walked through, but I kind of think of it as outside inside out thinking. Start off at the core, regardless of where you are right now in life. What are the values and the principles that hold true? Those values and principles are going to be critical because those are going to lead into the next layer, which is the behaviors. Remember one of the quotes I use all the time. I'm going to get this tattooed. Deeds, not words. I don't know where. I'll figure it out, maybe on my forearm or something like that. But if you want to emulate the values and the behaviors, the principle or the values and the principles, that's how we start to gain momentum in life when we focus truly on growth. And the final one is outcomes. Too often people are focused on outside in. They see these big obstacles or these they see these big outcomes. And like, for example, running a podcast. I'm going to start a podcast and I'm going to get 20,000 views in my first 10 episodes. I have over a hundred episodes released and I'm around like maybe 15,000 views. That's okay. But if I set unclear, unrealistic goals for myself in the short term, it's not sustainable. But if I focus on who I want to become, what are those values? What is those principles that are going to guide me? Then what are the behaviors that I need to do every single day, those habits to emulate to get to those outcomes? And here's a great metaphor that I heard from uh David Braun, uh, one of the founders of ULA, which is like a life coaching company. But he uses this metaphor of uh Skittles and Oranges in a mason jar. And how do you fit an orange which represents a very big goal? Could take a year to achieve. And then Skittles, which is all the individual tasks that lead up to accomplishing that big goal. You have a hundred Skittles versus one orange, right? They weigh equal amounts. You cannot put an orange right into a mason jar. You you may, but it's going to manipulate its shape. It's not going to be the same desired outcome that you were hoping for. But every single day through consistent action that's aligned with your integrity, with your values and your principles, you put one Skittle in a jar. And eventually, before you know it, you're going to begin to get uh cumulative growth and you're going to speed that process up. And then eventually, all hundred Skittles are in there, and you have just now achieved your outcome and you weren't even focused on it. You were just focused on the day-to-day, being the best individual that you possibly can. All right, team, do me a favor. I always ask this, but I sincerely mean it. If you find value in this episode, help me spread the word. Make sure you like, share, and subscribe this podcast wherever you are listening. Leave a review, send me feedback. I love hearing feedback because that's how we improve, right? We just talked about that iterative development. And you can do that through Buzz Sprout, or you can go to McMillion Leadership Coaching.com. Make sure you follow me on Tells the Leadership. You can go at Tells the Leadership or you can even search me by name. I don't know why, but there's a lot of people out there who've created fake accounts for me. I'm not that famous, guys. So stop doing it. But you can find me out there and I'll have a blue check mark either on X, uh, Facebook or LinkedIn or um on Instagram. But one of the biggest things that I'm actually looking for right now is a show sponsor. So if you run a company and you feel that we have an alignment, reach out. I would absolutely love to have a conversation. Uh and as always, I'm your host, Josh McMillian, saying every day is a gift. Don't waste yourself I'll see you next time.