In this clarifying episode, Scott Ritzheimer, Founder of Scale Architects, shares how to decide whether you should stay in stage 1 as a purposeful employee or move to stage 2 and start your own thing. If you’re a dissatisfied employee feeling pulled to launch but unsure if it’s right for you, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What signs show it’s truly time to move from level 1 to becoming a startup entrepreneur
– Why level 1 can be the ideal stage for mastering your craft and living with stability
– How to become a purposeful employee instead of settling as a dissatisfied one
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome once again to the Start, Scale, and Succeed podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven levels of your journey as a founder. I’m your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and today we are tackling a question that our culture, at least here in the West, rarely lets you ask: Do you actually need to start your own thing? Do you really need to quit your job or drop out of school to start your own business? Do you really need to take the leap and launch your own church or nonprofit? You see, especially over the last five, maybe 10 years, now we’ve been sold the myth that if you’re not building your own thing, then you’re settling, and that pressure pushes really good people to launch businesses and nonprofits that they never needed to launch. So let’s figure this out, and whether or not they should is entirely irrelevant. What we want to figure out today is whether or not you should, because take it from someone who’s helped 20,000 people do this, a lot of them shouldn’t have, and take it from someone who’s had probably just as many conversations with folks who are thinking about it, and many of them should have, but they never did, and so what I want, I don’t want to talk you into, you know, if you should or if you shouldn’t, that’s not the goal of this episode.
The goal of this episode, and quite frankly, for the remainder of this series, because this is part two of a seven part series, by the way, if you missed one, go back, because you’re going to get some really, really helpful context for what this series is all about. Links in the show notes, just go back there and watch if you’re on YouTube, or if you’re on Spotify, or Apple Podcast, the video is available on all those platforms. If you’re anywhere else, or if you prefer audio, you can listen to it as well. All right, so what we really want to figure out is, is I want to give you the information that you need to make the best decision about whether or not launching your own organization is right for you. So what we’re talking about here again is the difference between level one being that dissatisfied employee, and the two alternatives to that, which are for this series, at least, which are to actually stay in level one, and instead of being a dissatisfied employee, become what I call a purposeful employee, and for the vast majority of people feeling the dissatisfaction of level one, that’s the right way to go. So we’re going to talk about that.
The other alternative is to progress to the next level, which means moving to becoming a startup entrepreneur, and that’s pretty cool for the right people too. But which one is right for you? Maybe even which one’s right for you, for right now, because those are two different things. Reasons one. Let’s start here. Reasons one. Reasons why level one might already be your ideal level. So, what are the circumstances that fit? How do you know if you have what it takes to succeed here, so first off, and this, this won’t necessarily be true for a lot of you, but it can be, is if you’re in a role, and if not, if you can find a role where you can build valuable, marketable expertise, so even if one day you’re going to start your own organization, if for now, or even if you’re not going to start an organization for as long as you’re working, if you can find a role that makes you more valuable, that’s awesome, that’s fantastic, and and it might not be in your current role, you might have to do the hard work and vulnerable work of finding another, but if you can, if you can find a role that adds value to you and and creates marketable expertise that can only help if or when the time comes that you do want to make the leap and start your own organization, so that’s the first one. Second one, can you work for an organization that values mastery and rewards excellence?
Scott Ritzheimer
Because one of the things that folks mistake, they think that if you’re great at cutting hair, for example, that you should go and start your own hair business, because that’s where you’ll cut hair, but the truth of it is you’ll, you can cut more hair, and you can, you can develop a greater mastery for doing that, and get more reward from it in level one than you can by going and starting a business doing it, because if you go and start a business doing it at most. Cutting hair is like half of what you’re going to do, because you have to go find new clients, you have to deal with all the administrative stuff that comes along with that, you have to deal with the problems that come with that. There are so many other things that you have to do that aren’t cutting hair, that if, if whatever it is that you do is what you want to do. You’re probably going to have a better experience doing that in the context of an enterprise that already has other people to do all that other stuff. So, if you don’t want to do all that other stuff, but you really just want to master what it is that you do, or you want to get in a role where you can master what it is that you do, then it’s probably better to stay in level one than to start your own business or nonprofit, because your attention is going to be divided a lot in level two. Another reason why you might find that level one is a fit is if your vision for your life is to become world class at what you do, so this is closely related to the earlier point, and it’s kind of the theme of this is like if you want to be great at what it is you do, now what is it that you do?
It might be the actual skill, like welding or carpentry or cutting hair might be the trades, it might be the skill of leading a team, managing folks, like there are there are way easier ways to find fulfillment managing a team of employees than going and starting your own business or nonprofit, so if you want to be world class at whatever it is that you do, and generally, whatever the thing is that you spend your day doing, then that’s usually easier to do within an organization than by creating one. If you are at a stage of life, if you have other things outside of work that will benefit from stability and predictability from a paycheck, from a work schedule, from, you know, the benefits themselves. Then that’s that’s a strong plug for level one, if you are willing to let someone else carry the organizational weight while you focus on your craft, then level one might be great for you, if you are on the, you know, average to less than average in terms of risk profile, then everything comes with risk. You can be fired from a job, just like you can be fired by an employee, but there is a much, much greater level of risk in creating something from nothing than there is from taking part in an organization that’s already functioning, so if you have a, an average or less than average risk profile, then level one might, might not be a bad gig. So, the reason why I’m not necessarily talking about how to do that is because what I’ve found is that for most folks, if they develop a conviction that what they’re doing is right for them, so it is right for me to stay in level one. Well, then what happens pretty quickly is you realize everything else is just a problem to be solved, and, and so once you understand the tensions to be managed, you won’t own the thing, you’ll have to work with other people in some way, shape, or form, you won’t have absolute autonomy over how something happens. Those are tensions to be managed.
Scott Ritzheimer
Those just come with level one, but everything else, like a bad job, a bad boss, low pay, work that doesn’t interest you, those are all problems to be solved, and you can solve them inside of level one without having to take the often foolish risk of starting something else, so those are all arguments for, hey, level one’s not a bad gig. You can actually be a purposeful employee by solving some of those problems and just managing the few tensions that are left over. However, that’s not everybody, it’s not me, it’s not the many founders that I work with to get to even level three, level four, level five, where you’re being a CEO. Oftentimes the way to do that is to go through level two. There’s a caveat for buying into an organization. We’re not going to talk about that right now, but what are some signs that it’s actually time to move to level two. One of the most common, actually, is that things are going really, really well in level one. When you look at it, this is an old stat now, but founders, successful founders, if you rewind the take. To what they were doing before they started their organization, before they jumped to level two, they, they’re not unemployed slackers living in their mom’s basement, they, they’re actually typically employed, and they’re making somewhere between 125% 175% of what people normally do in in that occupation, that means they’re good at what they do.
So folks who start the dissatisfied employees who become successful entrepreneurs, successful solopreneurs, and onward, they are, they’re not failing most of the time, but the they’re not finding fulfillment, and that’s probably the clearest indication you, you have to build something, not just contribute, you’re winning in your role, but it’s not satisfying your soul, and you’ve tried, I would say, not even thought about, but you’ve tried to go to another place, and, and, and to find satisfaction in the work there, and here’s what it boils down to. You should start an organization and move to level two if you can’t do anything else, if your vision demands it of you, if your soul cannot be settled, and you give it a legitimate college try. Then, then it’s time. It could be time for you to move. Well, let me say, it could be right for you to move. Timing is a little bit different, and so if you’re, if you’re trying, if you’re thinking about starting an organization because you’re not thriving, chances are pretty good you’re going to make a bad decision. So, you really want to solve for thriving first, and then from a good place that still isn’t satisfactory.
Now you know that you know, and so for those of you that are kind of teetering on the fence, you’re not quite sure, don’t go to level two yet, yet instead, this is the timing piece I just mentioned. Figure out how to truly thrive in level one and become a purposeful employee, and from that position of I found this place where I can have mastery. I’ve done it, and it’s still not the right thing. Then you’ll know that you’ll know that moving to level two is right for you, and, and so, what are some other things that you need to know about this stage? Just real quick, level one, you know, if you’re choosing, hey, should I stay here. Level one is where you’re not limited to what you can do, which is kind of cool, like from a size perspective, you can join whatever size organization works for you. Here’s a really interesting point. There are, I would say, roughly half the population, maybe a little less will become dissatisfied working in a large enterprise because they’re really designed for the more entrepreneurial space, but that doesn’t mean that they are founders. There’s a difference in being a founder and being an being entrepreneurial, those are two different things, and so there’s a lot of folks who they don’t need to start their own thing, they just need to go and work for a smaller organization, because it’s going to fit them culturally better.
Scott Ritzheimer
So you can be in level one and work for a startup, right, as part of the team, you can work for a more established but still entrepreneurial kind of small business, if you will, medium-sized business, or many of you, about half the population, especially those who shouldn’t be a founder. They’ll find a great fit in a larger organization with a little bit more structure, a little bit more defined roles, and things of that nature. So one of the things you might want to play around with is just finding the right size organization to be part of, and that might do the trick for you. Activities, you get to do what you do best in this level. That’s what’s really cool about it. You really do get to focus the most on your craft, however you define that. From a schedule perspective, this is obviously changing a lot in COVID times, and with millennials and Gen Zs, where nine to five kind of isn’t a thing right now, but nine to five isn’t a bad thing. We’ve made being a dissatisfied employee equivalent to working a nine to five, and that’s not true. You can be a purposeful employee working a nine to five, and that’s a pretty damn great deal.
Like, if you can show up nine to five, do something that you’re passionate about and that you’ve mastered, that makes your five to nine life better. It doesn’t make it worse, and so if your nine to five is sucking life out of you. Don’t settle for that, but also don’t buy into the fact that the only way out of that is to go start your own business or nonprofit, because that’s a false choice. There is a middle ground there that’s great. Pros of staying in level one, for those of you who think, “Hey, I might not need to start my own enterprise, there is zero ownership pressure, which means that, especially once you control for taking control of your situation, the chaos stays at the office, and this is one of those things that’s hard. If you’ve never had the pressure of ownership, it’s difficult to understand what that feels like. I was actually just working with a client and friend of mine who’s going to be buying into an organization, and we spent a whole session just talking about the move from not owning to owning, and the pressure that that creates. It’s financial, it’s it’s a lack of clarity, it’s volatility.
There’s an immense pressure for owners, right? Which, when you become a startup entrepreneur, you’re an owner, you’re not in the owner stage, but or level, but you, you have ownership pressure, and the benefit of level ones, like it’s someone else’s problem, which is fantastic, and you get to focus on mastering what it is you do. There’s there tends to be a lot more stability in something like this. There’s a lot of pros here. There are some cons. We have to be honest about those. One of the biggest is just the what ifs. I see a lot of folks, and you’ll see this with any person, regardless of whether they choose one or two, but there’s a especially later in life. Well, what if I had done that? What if I had taken the chance? And so, for those of you who really should go to level two, but don’t, because of fear, insecurity, anxiety, just a lack of intentionality in pursuing it might suffer from the what ifs that that can gnaw at you, especially later in life. You do have to play by the rules, at least to some extent. You have to engage with other people’s priorities, and while that sounds like, man, if I could just be my own boss, I wouldn’t have to do with, do with any of that. That’s kind of never true, I guess. To some extent, it’s true in level two, where you get to set your priorities, but what’s actually happening in level two is your clients are setting your priorities, and then once you get to level three, you’ve got to have priorities that are shared with everybody else. Now you have a little bit more say in them than you would otherwise, but not full say, because, like, we’re going to talk about in that episode, people need stuff from you, and, and so that’s there.
Scott Ritzheimer
And then there’s this temptation to phone it in. I think that’s true of every level, but it’s particularly true of level one, and so what this really boils down to is what’s your vision for your life. What’s the work that you want to do, and if you can achieve that vision, and if you can do that work within the context of someone else’s organization, you probably should. If you can’t, if there’s a better way, and, and the, the way for you to get that, either the only, or at least the best way to get to that other way to create that other product, to add that other service, to help those other people, is to start an organization, then that might be the right call for you, because the world needs both. The world needs people who are world class at what they do. The world needs entrepreneurs who are changing the way that we do what we do. What the world doesn’t need is more people chasing someone else’s borrowed vision. We don’t need more people buying the lie that level two, starting your own thing is inherently better than level one. That’s patently false. And so, if you’re sitting there and you’re struggling with this question, should I start my own thing? Here’s the great news that I want to end with. You have two really good options. I want to say that you have two really good options.
You can find a way to stay in level one and thrive as a purposeful employee, or this might just be the moment where you make the call, you start getting ready, and you ultimately take the leap and start your own organization. In either case, I’m rooting for you. I’m excited for you. If you’re, if you’re a dissatisfied employee, there truly is really only one way to go, and that is up in one way, shape, or form. When you take control of the situation and you decide what’s best for you, so that’s level one for those who are thinking about going to level two. Hope this was great for you. If you’re one of those folks who’ve already been there, you’ve already done that, you’ve already started your own thing. Then the next episode might be just the perfect episode for you. We’re going to jump forward to the transition from level two to level three, and we’re going to talk about this question of should you really hire and manage a whole team, or is there another way? We’ll talk about what that other way might be in the next episode, and with that, you know your time and attention mean the absolute world to us.I hope you got just a little bit more clarity than you had before, and I cannot wait to see you in the next episode in this series. Take care.
Hey everyone, Scott Ritzheimer here. Thank you so much for listening to the Start Scale and Succeed Podcast. I hope this episode gave you exactly what you need for the level you’re in right now. If you want to discover what level you’re in, take our 10 question founders evolution quiz for free at foundersquiz.com, that’s foundersquiz.com It’ll pinpoint exactly where you are and give you tailored tips to move forward and reach that next level in your journey as a founder. If you got something out of today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, or review. It helps us reach more founders like you, and let’s be honest, it means a ton to me, my team, and all our incredible guests, so keep starting, scaling, and succeeding, and I’ll see you in the next episode.
Contact Guest Name
Scott Ritzheimer helped start nearly 20,000 new businesses and nonprofits and with his business partner started led their multimillion-dollar business through an exceptional and extended growth phase (over 10 years of double-digit growth) all before he turned 35.He founded Scale Architects to help founders and CEOs identify and implement the one essential strategy they need right now to get them on the fast track to Predictable Success.
Want to learn more about Scott Ritzheimer’s work at Scale Architects? Check out his website at https://www.scalearchitects.com/
Connect with Scott through his LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottritzheimer/