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