The Corvus Effect

Ep. 64: The EOS Rebellion That Created System and Soul with Benj Miller

• Scott Raven • Episode 64

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Episode Links:

System & Soul -- https://www.systemandsoul.com

Benj Miller -- https://www.benjmiller.com

LinkedIn: Benj Miller -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/benj-miller-business-growth-impact-framework-coach

Benj Miller Daily Newsletter -- https://www.systemandsoul.com/261

Summary:

In this episode of The Corvus Effect, Benj Miller, CEO and co-founder of System and Soul, reveals how he transformed from running what he calls a "frat party business" into building a framework that helps founder-led companies scale without sacrificing their soul. After a naive decision cost him his biggest channel partner, Benj faced a brutal choice: close up shop, scale back, or learn what it actually means to run a business.

Benj shares his journey from EOS implementer to renegade business coach, including why he fired himself from a client who only cared about their exit strategy. He explores the critical balance between systems and soul, his philosophy that companies should grow their people rather than use them, and why the number one thing he sees after business exits isn't a Lamborghini—it's a divorce. This conversation dives deep into creating operational independence, building authentic leadership communities, and the infinite ripple effects of healthy leaders.

Show Notes:

00:32 Guest Intro: Benj Miller, CEO of System & Soul

04:56 Early Career & Identity Crisis

08:18 EOS Journey and Evolution

11:39 Balancing Systems and Soul

15:16 The Renegade Leader Philosophy

18:26 Building System and Soul Framework

23:43 Creating Community and Impact

28:27 Legacy and Ripple Effects

33:48 Final Thoughts

Intro

Scott Raven: Welcome to The Corvus Effect, where we explore what it takes to succeed professionally and truly enhance all parts of your life. I'm Scott Raven, Fractional COO and your host. Each episode we go behind the scenes with leaders who've mastered the delicate harmony of growing their professional endeavors while protecting what matters most. Ready to transform from Chief Everything Officer to achieving integration in all facets of your life? Let's soar!


Guest Intro: Benj Miller, CEO of System & Soul

And hello everyone. Welcome back to The Corvus Effect. I am Scott today I am thrilled to have Benj Miller on the podcast. So Benj is the CEO and co-founder of System & Soul, a business operating framework that helps founder-led companies scale without sacrificing their soul. A serial entrepreneur who started 10 businesses, Benj experienced his own identity crisis in 2009, and he realized that he was the business rather than having a business as a former EOS implementer turned Renegade Business Coach. Benj now helps leadership teams build companies with both strong systems and authentic soul. He's also the father of four, including a son headed to West Point, and helps people operate from a position of abundance rather than scarcity. With a value driven approach to scaling, not just seeking revenue at all costs. So Benj, welcome to the podcast, man.

Benj Miller: Thank you. Thank you. It's fun to be with people that you find out very quickly you are like-minded and on a same mission.

Scott Raven: Absolutely. And you know, when you are on these like-minded missions, you often have interesting similar points. So I have my own origin story and transformation point, but you also have the same as we look back at really the start of how System & Soul was developed back in 2009, 2010, and your critical identity crisis moment, that really was the catalyst behind everything that has happened since. So help paint the picture in terms of that event and how that has shaped you.

Benj Miller: Yeah, that's a big one, and it did shape me for what became System & Soul, but that was not until 2021, so there's a decade in between. But in 2009, the company I had started grew 300%, which is like, you know, yay. Yeah, yeah. Well, when you're small, you can make small numbers make big percentages. But it was a great year and unfortunately it all went to my head. So I found myself, I had allowed these like labels, I think about like post-it notes literally on my chest. This like young, creative leader, entrepreneur, successful, whatever it is. And at the end of 2009, I made what was probably in most cases would've been a fatal decision. It was not fatal as we play the story out, but it was a naive decision at the time and that caused our biggest channel partner to basically disappear overnight. So all the revenue that was creating the growth that I was planning and building for and toward went away.

So we were like, I really quickly found myself upside down, burning cash. And I really realized that I had no idea what I was doing running a business period. I was just riding the waves of my own kind of success. I started just trying to go out on my own and then just needed help and hire, hire, hire. And you know, now I had, I don't remember, 20 something employees at the time, and now there's no revenue. I don't know what to do. So that became both a critical point in the journey for me as a person in my own personal internal development. And when you're that bad in business, the writing was on the wall. I have three options. Close it up. Go get a job, like a normal human.

Scott Raven: Right.

Benj Miller: Scale it way back and take it back to where it was a fun little lifestyle business. Or the third was like, I could learn what it looks like to run a business. And I chose that third path.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Benj Miller: That third path just turned into like a lifelong fascination with the game of business and how do we build it. And that's really curated that whole road.

Scott Raven: You know, it's interesting, so thank you for painting the picture, because there are a couple of elements I want to dive a little bit deeper into. Right. When you say actually running a business, there's a part where what I hear is you realized you were the business versus having a business and what that epiphany felt like for you at the time.


Early Career & Identity Crisis

Benj Miller: It was worse than that. You know, I know exactly what you're talking about because I deal with it all the time. I wasn't even to that point yet. This was, you know, people that run businesses that are the business. There's still some structure, there's still some systems, there's still something there. It was like a frat party that I was running. I was a very, very soulful leader. I cared a lot about my people, about the clients, about the work that we did. But there was really very, very little structure to the business. So yes, I was the business in a lot of ways, but it's almost exaggerating to even get to that point. It was really the wild West, you know, the work would come in and we'd figure out how to make it happen.

Scott Raven: You know, another element as I hear this, because I hear this all the time in terms of people who make this venture and want to have a family feel, but sometimes that family feel doesn't have enough of a parental mentality to what they're doing, and that impacts not only their business, but also the home life as well.

Benj Miller: Well, I had come from a couple different stints with actual jobs where I felt that over-bureaucratized red tape kind of culture, and I wanted nothing to do with that.

Scott Raven: Right.

Benj Miller: So I swung the pendulum the whole way. And Scott, here was my greatest fallacy that I believed in that time.

Scott Raven: Okay.

Benj Miller: Is that to give somebody very, very clear instructions on this is exactly what you're supposed to do, how you're supposed to do it, and how you'll be measured felt undignified to me, like I was demoralizing the people. Again, looking back, this is crazy because once I started to do that and realized that my people were craving that from them and I was holding it back from them, but I was like, man, people are more than a number and I shouldn't demean them to that level. And so I had to come to the grips with, it was actually one day when I was in one of these soulful meetings and literally somebody was like, Ben, you're trying to do all this stuff. People just want an actual job description so they know if they're winning at the end of the day. And I'm like, what do you mean everything's good? I haven't told them they're not winning. Right. Like, again, everything was based on me and my gut and I wasn't giving them clarity.

Scott Raven: You know, kind of insightful moment in terms of we don't have clarity.

Benj Miller: A hundred percent.

Scott Raven: In terms of what good looks like for us and from you.

Benj Miller: Yes, a hundred percent. They had no, where I loved the ambiguity. Figure it out. You know, not everybody's wired that way, so they weren't able to take a new project and figure out how to get it done. So all that kind of came back again to me. So yeah, there was a big waking up that happened in that season where I had to realize like, oh, they need more. And I'll tell you what I ended up doing. I was in a meeting with my coach.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Benj Miller: I was kind of going through this and he was asking me a bunch of questions related to like running a business. And I'm like, but I don't want to do any of that. And he's like, well, you don't have to, but the business needs it. And it was kind of one of those beautiful moments where we're sitting in a coffee shop and just as that happened, the sun broke the horizon and a beam of light hits my face. If you ever hear him tell the story, he'll say that I said, I know what I'm gonna do, and then I got up and left. I don't know if that's true, but I did get up and left.


EOS Journey and Evolution

Scott Raven: To a certain extent, right? Because, you know, now as we bridge a little bit forward, right? And you went from that place to eventually becoming an EOS implementer, which has a lot of regimen, a lot of structure, a lot of different artifacts. But an interesting point in your journey with EOS is you fired yourself from a client.

Benj Miller: Oh yeah.

Scott Raven: Tell me about that in terms of where did you get the balls in order to fire yourself from a client?

Benj Miller: Well, maybe some of it was self-preservation because I figured it was a clear enough not fit that they might do it too. But it was really obvious. There was a moment when, it sounds like a joke because the leadership team was three CPAs and a geologist, which sounds like the setup of a joke, right?

Scott Raven: The perfect setup for a walk into a bar, so.

Benj Miller: Yeah, yeah. At a rabbi and a horse and something else. And it's a great setup. But they had great clarity on what they wanted out of the business. It was $40 million in three years, and they all were on the exact same page. And that never happens. You get a bunch of different owners, they all want something different. Nobody's clear about it. They hadn't talked about it. So at first, my first impression was like, holy crap, these guys are aligned. They're on point. They're focused toward that thing. And I started digging into like, why does that matter? Why is that the thing? Well, there's four shareholders in the companies, and it was the four of them, and they wanted to exit, and their whole story was about their exit. And I'm like, so you want to go out there and motivate a team and clients in an industry based on a mission for you guys to get paid and abandon your clients and your employees? And they're like, yeah, we're good with that. And I was like, okay, these are not the people for me. And that's when I realized like, my reflection on what happened in that moment was EOS was really powerful for me because I was such a soulful leader.

Scott Raven: Right.

Benj Miller: So it brought the system side in to actually help me make what I intended on the soul side true.

Scott Raven: Right.

Benj Miller: And so now as I get to practice, I get to see some companies are strong in different things, but you have to have both of those things working in unity, working in harmony, in order to get a growing healthy company.

Scott Raven: Yeah, I mean we talked offline before this podcast in terms of what does it mean to have systems without soul, and you described it as you have a weekend high that fades when Monday morning shows up.

Benj Miller: Yeah, that's what happens a lot of times. You have a lot of team building, you have a lot of offsites, but when you come back and the email box hits you, everything's the same.

Scott Raven: So now you're here and you're having this realization that while you have become a phenomenal systems guy through the development of EOS, that that portion of you back in 2009 that really wanted it to be very soulful is screaming out and saying, don't forget about me. Don't forget about me. Right. How did you start to bridge these two concepts together in your mind? That as we go through, we'll eventually get to the construction of System & Soul, that's not something that readily comes at first.


Balancing Systems and Soul

Benj Miller: Yeah, well, so if we go back to that story where the sun comes over the horizon and hits me in the face, what I did was I went back to a gentleman that was already working for me and I said, Jason, I think you're supposed to run this company.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Benj Miller: He kind of looked at me like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what that means. And I gave him the keys to the building and I said, let me know what you need.

Scott Raven: Okay.

Benj Miller: And we didn't have this language back then, but in retrospect, he became the systems guy and I became the soul guy. So another fallacy is that for the company to mature, that leader has to become something they're not. I'm still not a systems guy. I can teach it. I can help you with it. I can help you create the strategy and the structure like the design of it. But asking me to do something at the same time every week the same way is I still have to have somebody else. I can do it, but I need somebody else to lead that and guide that and nurture that and make that happen.

Scott Raven: Kind of what you learned from your EOS upbringing? That you need a strong visionary, number one, to go along with strong implementer, number two, and to combine to create great things.

Benj Miller: No, because this was 2010. We brought in EOS in 15. So we had five years that gave us language and a couple other tools to help flesh that out. And it helped empower Jason to do what we had kind of been working toward. But Jason's mentality, his wiring was already perfect for this, his business acumen. All of those things were where it needed to be.

Scott Raven: Got it. Got it. So when you bring these two worlds together, and I said this conversation started in 2010, it got language and clarity within 2015 with EOS, and we know that EOS had an underlying business shift in its model around 2020 if I've got the timeline correctly. Right? And that forced you to then reflect and adapt in terms of, well, how do I accomplish my mission and my purpose with this external change now present.

Benj Miller: Yeah, yeah, it was beginning of 2021. They rolled out a new arrangement with their, they call them implementers. And that forced me to, are you gonna sign the document or not? And for me, it wasn't a good fit one, just because I've already told you I'm not good at following rules. And this is a rules-based contract, so I know I'm gonna break it. It's just not a good fit. And the other thing was, this was pretty recent after my experience in a leadership team with a company that had no desire for bringing soul into their business. And so I knew that I couldn't just live on the one side. I needed to bring in what I had learned. What I had believed in some of these other tools that I had, got from some other great business leaders out there on the soul side, team health side, leadership development, personal development.

Scott Raven: Right.

Benj Miller: That's all gotta be present to do what I wanted to accomplish with businesses in the world.

Scott Raven: Right. And it's interesting because you talk about this rebellious portion of you, you describe yourself as a renegade leader, and to a certain extent you are building an army of renegade leaders, but you also did an assessment, an Enneagram, where you came up as five wing four. And I'll let you explain what that means a little bit and how those two don't necessarily line up together.


The Renegade Leader Philosophy

Benj Miller: Hmm. Wow. Okay. Nobody's ever asked me about this. This'll be fun. Let's go with the first question, which I already forgot, because the second one was so interesting.

Scott Raven: Yep.

Benj Miller: Renegade leader. So I break this out in my book, renegades and the idea is that most founders start off as renegades. They're trying to do something new that's never been done or do it better or do it in a different way, and we get to some level of success and then, you know, Harvard Business Review and every other smart piece of literature tells us, well, we need to grow up and mature and lose the renegade. And I'm like, please stop. The world needs renegade energy so much. We've lost so much renegade energy. Please don't lose your renegade, but the company needs to mature and I want you to go from a renegade founder to a renegade leader because founding a company is something you did in the past. The company doesn't need that anymore, but the company needs leadership. So what does it look like to keep your renegade energy and focus that into the leader that the organization needs?

For me, you're right. So Enneagram is a deep, deep rabbit hole that I will not begin to go into. But there's nine types and the wing is because you can kind of pull energy from the ones to the side of you. It's really just a map of kind of the mask that you've put on to deal with the chaos and complexity of life. And this happens in early childhood. But one of the things that the primary negative attribute, there's positive and negative of all these, but a five is, they call it a hoarder, but what they're talking about is like a hyper-awareness on my energy and resources that I have available. So it's like I wake up this morning and I see I've got this conversation with Scott and I'm like, man, am I gonna have the energy for that? And then I see my whole calendar. Am I gonna have the energy? And then I see my whole week and I start to get anxiety because I feel like I have a battery that I'm constantly using. It's a lie. I've never actually ran out and tapped out. It's just this lot. Same thing with money, which you kind of led into it at the beginning. This is a scarcity mindset, right?

The Enneagram is just a map of like where you are to get out of, to get to somewhere better. And so it's really forced me into this thinking, this belief that I have to re-challenge myself all the time that I'm living out of abundance and when I live out of abundance. If there is no battery, it's infinite, you know? So, all right. What was your question?

Scott Raven: No, I think you summed it up quite nicely because now as we're into 2021 and you're making these orientation changes and you're realizing that small businesses that need renegade leaders or renegade founders transitioning to renegade leaders need something different than traditional EOS and the strategic shifts that they need to go through in order to maintain their sense of self and soul, but still progress and grow these companies and how that has led to the development and refinement of System & Soul.


Building System & Soul Framework

Benj Miller: No, that's accurate. And please hear me. EOS changed my life for the good in many, many ways.

Scott Raven: Yep.

Benj Miller: And we at System & Soul are not for everyone. If you're like, I just need some structure to get some accountability in this business. EOS will do that. However, I've talked to many entrepreneurs, they're like, Hey, we had a great culture and we put in EOS and it almost killed us.

Scott Raven: Right.

Benj Miller: So if your heartbeat, I say it like this, Scott, like there's companies that use their people to grow their business and there's companies that use their business to grow their people. I only want to work with the second. If you're not, if that's not driving you a motivational thing for you, then you're not for us. I'm not for you. And that's fine. No problem. Actually better that you get something more aligned so you can go the direction you want to go faster. But many companies, and there are great companies out there that do a lot of soulful work, personal development, leadership development, team development, culture development, all of that.

Scott Raven: Right.

Benj Miller: There's some really smart companies out there, but there's very few companies that are looking at this holistically and trying to solve it holistically. And honestly, it's not, from a marketing standpoint, it's not even very smart because you're like, Hey, we're gonna address all these things, not just this one sliver of pain that you want fixed right now. So of course, it's harder, of course it's gonna take a little longer. Of course the work is deeper and it's gonna require more out of the people we're working with. But it's important work.

Scott Raven: But isn't that a key to somebody who is the effective self leader? When we talk about self-leadership here, within the Corvus paradigm, self-accountability is one of the three pillars which you talked about in terms of a system like EOS can bring, but self-awareness and self-belief are the other two. And having that awareness beyond all the masks, the blind spots, et cetera, to know, no, I'm not doing this as people, is my most valuable asset, so let me run them into ground and replace. People are my most valuable asset because they represent the future of my legacy, both in and outside the business. And that's how I want my company to operate. Do those people who have that awareness need to really take a look at themselves in the mirror and say, how do I bring this middle ground together? Because you're right, it's not easy. It's not easy to bring these worlds together.

Benj Miller: It is not easy, and I'll tell you what's breaking my heart right now is the number of leaders, founders, CEOs that I'm seeing, they're struggling to take care of their people.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Benj Miller: But worse than that, they're struggling to take care of themselves and they know that they can't shut off the machine when they go home at night. They are probably actively avoiding the fact that their marriage is a wreck.

Scott Raven: Yes.

Benj Miller: The number one thing that I see happening after an exit is not a Lamborghini, it's a divorce. So we're literally racing toward our own demise and just like businesses don't take the time to stop and work on the business, very few leaders are taking the time to go, wait a minute. I set out on this journey for these five reasons.

Scott Raven: Right.

Benj Miller: I'm not, I've got a potential of one of them. I've got, you know, I get to make my own schedule and be my own boss. Well, I'm the worst boss and I have the worst schedule, right? Like, that's the reality. And so this is literally breaking my heart. And that's I think, the core of the problem because if we can get healthy leaders in organizations, then that can multiply. So it's not even about the people being the greatest asset to the business.

Scott Raven: Yeah.

Benj Miller: It's about the people being the greatest impact that you'll ever make as a person on this planet.

Scott Raven: I think about that too. I call it the accidental prison problem, right?

Benj Miller: Yeah.

Scott Raven: You started a business in order to pursue your definition of freedom. It's now what is trapping you.

Benj Miller: Yeah.

Scott Raven: And that goes beyond, you know, what you talked about in terms of challenges with yourself and your significant other, right? And you know, like you have four kids, right? Your kids see it as well, and what you're trying to teach them in terms of here is a way to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness through freedom, that they're not seeing it line up in your own actions and behavior at that point.

Benj Miller: Yeah. And that's gonna cause a riff in their worldview and a riff in your relationship with them.

Scott Raven: Yes. Yes. So now let's boil this back up to System & Soul, which, yes, it is a set of frameworks and tools, et cetera, right? But really it is about a community of like-minded people that refuse to settle in terms of this or that scenario. Right? I'd love you to go further in terms of how that community of like-minded people helps amplify each other and help rise the tides.


Creating Community and Impact

Benj Miller: Yeah. That was really well said. You should be my spokesperson. So when I think about the community right now, it's predominantly through the coaches that we have that are out in the marketplace. We've got 40 or 50 coaches. Last year we expanded into a couple new countries. So it's the community. It's also like almost this movement of people that aren't gonna settle. And I love that. And someday, like, I like just future vision. I can't wait for the day that we get these leaders and founders of all these companies that we're impacting in the room together. And that can become its own community because that's gonna be really, really powerful.

Scott Raven: Yes. Yes. You know, one of the things in terms of that both today and tomorrow vision, right? And having a whole bunch of like-minded people together is, I gotta assume that it breaks people out of the hero ball mentality. That it breaks them away from I'm the only one who's, I am unique, right? And while yes, in the world, in the marketplace, you do have to settle yourself as one of one and the best thing since sliced bread. I get that right. It's good to know that you have a tribe of like-minded people around you that are there to support you.

Benj Miller: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I think even knowing you're not crazy. And I'm not alone. And this is, you know, some of the things that I'm dealing with is normal. You know, everybody likes to feel like a special unicorn in this space and they all are in there because they're all unique with a unique background and unique story. But everybody that comes to me and starts telling me about their business, and they're like, you know, this problem that we have is super unique and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm, it's some version of the same story. You know, this that we've heard over and over and over again, and the solutions aren't unique either, right? It's like there's a couple principles that we need to go back to, and a lot of times some of those are just that founder hasn't made the hard decision that they know they need to make.

Scott Raven: Well, when we talk about the hard decisions, and you know, in the Corvus world we have the six dimensions of professional freedom, one of the biggest ones that gets a lot of focus is operational independence. Being able to put yourself in a position where the business can operate without you. So you can take that vacation without being constantly on the grid. Right. How does System & Soul create true operational independence, both for its purveyors and for the companies that it helps?

Benj Miller: Yeah. So the first thing that I think about when you say that is, yes, it's so they can take a vacation. It's also so that they can lead the business because, as long as that founder's still the chief rainmaker or chief delivery officer, or you know, whatever that they're getting their head in the weeds on. They're not thinking about the next evolution of the business, the next partnership, the next strategic thing that's gonna create the two x or 10 x. They're not developing their people, they're not investing in themselves, they're not building their community and their network. And so all these things that we know are what we need out of the primary leader of our business. They become absent because a lot of those things are things that we shouldn't abdicate and delegate as the leader. So they just don't happen in our business. And that can ultimately make that prison effect even worse because we're not only are we not getting out of the prison today, but the walls are getting bigger for the future because we're not building a path out of it.

Scott Raven: I assume that in that scenario, accountability is eroding, trust is eroding. The people are losing faith in the vision and starting to look elsewhere, and it's just a vicious cycle at the end of the day.

Benj Miller: Yeah, it's probably either like, I'll oversimplify this. Okay. It's probably either clarity is non-existent in the business, which is all the things you said, or there's a not intentional culture.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Benj Miller: So either like, Hey, we're winning, but it sucks to work here.

Scott Raven: Right.

Benj Miller: Or it's great to work here, but we're not winning. Right? So if I'm oversimplifying, but usually it's one of those two things that is severely lacking and is also the path to getting out of that for that founder.

Scott Raven: Let's talk about that path for a second, right? Because you know you have the classic mantra. Know where your feet are, know where the bright point on the horizon is that you want to go to and figure out the path to get there. Let's talk about that second part, the bright point on the horizon. What do you want the legacy of System & Soul to be? What are you marching towards?


Legacy and Ripple Effects

Benj Miller: Yeah, it's exactly what you were saying earlier. If we can help, if we can help these founders out of their own prison, then we can impact not only the organization from a P&L but like if people are healthy in an organization, if they're in the right job, if they're thriving, if they're actually excited to go to work on Monday, then they come home on Friday not being burnt out, not needing two and a half days to recover. They have energy to bring back to their house, their home, their community, their church, whatever it is that they want to be involved in. And so, money's money. But time is finite. And after time, if we're thinking about time, then we're thinking about energy.

So if we can increase people's energy in life to bring to the time that they have, my analogy for this is a ripple effect. And these renegades are ripple effects into the business, into their families, into the communities. And so if we have a healthy leader leading a healthy company, it's infinite. We'll never be able to track the ripples of one healthy leader. And that's why I spend so much time with my coaches because one coach working with 20 entrepreneurs we're multiplying the ripples that we were able to create. So that's what I want to look back and see is just the stories. You know, I have a lot of the personal stories. I have stories from our coaches, of other clients, but those are the things and it's all the way from, hey, if we didn't have this clarity to focus on this one metric that we got out of a strategy session,

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Benj Miller: literally we're gonna add a hundred million dollars in top line revenue this year. That's one actual case. And on the other side of it, I've got a company that was performing very well, a blue collar kind of construction industry, and they decided they were going to be one of the top people development companies in the country,

Scott Raven: Okay.

Benj Miller: just so happens to pour concrete, right?

Scott Raven: I mean, you know, hey, you don't see those things line up, but I mean, at some point, right? You're like, all right, pouring concrete is getting boring. What's next?

Benj Miller: Well, not only that, but if you're growing as any business, you're looking at what is the number one thing creating the capacity lid on our business. And if we can unlock that, then we unlock a next round of growth.

Scott Raven: Yes.

Benj Miller: And for them, this really was a heartfelt mission and it was we can only grow to the speed that we can grow great leaders in this company. And so if we, you know, we've got the concrete figured out, let's go figure out how to be the best people development company in the world.

Scott Raven: Yes. It's a beautiful segue as we start to close this episode. I always close with a tip of the cap to Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture and his final head fake of this book was written for my kids. So you got four kids. One's heading to West Point, as we talked about. They've just listened to this podcast episode. What do you want them to take away?


Final Thoughts

Benj Miller: I think it's the primary message, like, don't lose your renegade spirit. And I'm not dictating what that is or what it should look like, but there's a renegade in all of us and the world is at odds trying to tame your renegade.

Scott Raven: Mm-hmm.

Benj Miller: Please don't let that happen.

Scott Raven: Amen. Amen. Let's give some information in terms of how people can reach out to you. Find out about System & Soul. You got the book, you have a podcast. You got a lot of details to go over, so

Benj Miller: Super simple. Yeah, super simple. BenjMiller.com. BenjMiller.com. And everything that you just said you can link to from there. Including, I have a daily newsletter, which sounds awful, but it's something you can read in less than 20 seconds. That's a reminder, a tip, an action that we all need to remember and do as we're leading organizations or teams.

Scott Raven: There you go. There you go. Ben, any final thoughts or comments before we close this episode out, man?

Benj Miller: Man, well, let me spin one back on you. This is all your world, you know, like I started, we're still like minded. What are you thinking about after this conversation that you're like. Which is what's coming to top of mind for you?

Scott Raven: You know, for me it is, like you said, never lose your renegade spirit. Right. And you know, I'm very upfront and honest in terms of that. I was great through 2017, and then it's been the rollercoaster ever since with ups, downs and everything in between. And the one thing that I remark as I reflect on this conversation is I'm giving myself a little bit of a pat on the back, excuse me, to not settle to not say, all right, I folded my hand. Right. The broader environment has basically beat me down so that I have a lower self-worth and that I will just accept whatever scraps from the table are being provided. Right? And that I am heartened to continue to pursue that, which I believe is my legacy, but at the same time, making sure I'm aware where my feet are, keep grounded, move a step at a time. Right, and that's a lot of what I heard from this conversation.

Benj Miller: That's awesome. I love that. Thanks for sharing.

Scott Raven: No worries. No. Well, thank you for asking. I appreciate it. I mean, that's what makes these podcasts so great and the value that we can share with others. So Ben, again, thank you for being on the podcast. It has been an honor and a pleasure man.

Benj Miller: My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.

Scott Raven: Yeah. To my listening audience, thank you for the time and the focus in terms of listening to this so that we can truly gain the freedom that we're looking for from our professional endeavors and the independence in what we seek and how it relates to us as people and our families. I encourage you guys to subscribe. If you haven't already on your favorite platform, share with those who could use this. Leave us comments because we're always trying to make these things better. But until then, I am Scott. We'll see you next time on The Corvus Effect. Take care.


Outro

Scott Raven: Thank you for joining me on The Corvus Effect. If today's conversation sparked ideas about how to free yourself from overwhelm, visit TheCorvusEffect.com for show notes, resources, and our free sixth dimensions assessment, showing you exactly where you're trapped and how to architect your freedom. While you're there, check out the Corvus Learning Platform, where we turn insights into implementation. If this episode helped you see a new path forward, please subscribe and share it with others who are ready to pursue their definition of professional freedom. Join me next time as we continue exploring how to enhance your life through what you do professionally. It's time to make that your reality!