Thriving Through Transition - A Conversation with Ben Baker

Speaker A: This is leadership beyond your community of conversation. Today we are talking again to Ben Baker. Too many of us focus on communicating our value outside our organization. The challenge is if people inside your organization do not understand and believe in your story, what you do and why, who you do it for, and why they should care, they won't be able to communicate it to clients, prospects, or vendors. For more than a quarter century, Ben has been helping organizations tell their story, build cultures around it, share their vision, mission and goals, and drive change all through developing more effective internal communication strategies and processes. Ben is the author of two books, Powerful Personal Brands, A, uh, Hands On Guide to Understanding Yours and Leading Beyond a A Conversation about what's Next, and has been podcasting for more than a decade. Ladies and gentlemen, Ben Baker.

Speaker B: What I really took away from this conversation, mostly watching him model it, is when he decided to make the transition. He had to discern what to keep and what not to keep. And what he modeled really well, is communicating to his audience why he's making the change, what he's changing to, and welcoming comments from his audience. And so that's just practicing what he's been teaching for years. And he also admitted it's often easier, and my fellow coaches know this, uh, to, to support other people than it is to look in the mirror and do the thing that's worked for you. So I like the way he presented that in story, which is true to form and it just helps us to unpack the intentional transition versus just being swept away by the change.

Speaker A: Yeah, I would agree. I think what one thing that Ben has demonstrated in, in the process that he is shepherding himself through is the power of networks, the power of connection to others and leveraging the resources that you have and not being ashamed or afraid to ask for help or ask for feedback and input and at the same time balancing that with, thank you for that feedback. And I've decided to go this direction and standing strong in what aligns with your own value system and your own beliefs and the direction that you're setting for yourself. So this is a great conversation. I think it's so timely given many transitions that are happening for people today. And hopefully you get some great advice from Ben, uh, as we did in this conversation. Welcome, Ben Baker. Ben Baker, welcome back.

Speaker B: Good to see you, Ben.

Speaker C: I am excited about this conversation. It's been a long time coming. I can't remember last time I was on the show, but it was. It's been way too long. And I loved our last conversation. So, you know, I'm strapping in for this one. Yeah.

Speaker A: You never know where we're going, so

Speaker C: that's half the fun of it, Buck.

Speaker A: Right. But we do know that we at least have the theme today of, uh, transitions, which is I think a timely topic on many levels.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: Small and big, close and global.

Speaker C: Is there something going on in the world that warrants the conversation?

Speaker A: I mean, you know, it kind of feels like we are in a different kind of pandemic. But that's all to say that change is constant. Right. And so let's talk about that. I don't know if you would like to share, Ben, a little bit about the transition that you decided to go on and then we can kind of take it from there and weave in change and transition and how we cope with all those things.

Speaker B: And resilience.

Speaker C: Yeah. And resilience is a big key thing, is it? Creativity, adaptability and resilience. And we can get into all that. Yeah. I spent the last 17 years at the helm of a company called your brand marketing. We are a communication consulting company. And the end of December 2024, just to give everybody some type of reference, in case you're listening to this, three years from now, I decided to burn down the ship. I decided that it was time for what was next. It was reached part of my career, you know, an age, whatever you want to call it, where I decided, you know what, owning my own agency, being at the helm, the doing everything and being responsible for, for all those that team, in terms of the greater sense of things, was not what I really want to be doing anymore. I want to be spending the time creating impact, coaching, mentoring and leading the next generation and helping organizations communicate more effectively internally and externally and leaving the minutia to other people. They'll be part of a larger organization, so a mid to large sized national or global organization. And it's taken some time to do that transition, to be able to understand who I am, what I do, what I do best. And the big thing that I do is, I realize is I solve problems. My raison d', etre, my reason for being is I'm a problem solver. And I find that that transition has really got me excited about what's next. The conversations, the people I'm meeting, the opportunities being put in front of me. And it's enabling me to sit there and say, okay, I can get reinvigorated for the next 15, 20 years and be able to put myself in a position where I can enable others to shine. I can help organizations to grow And I can help develop that impact that, that really needs to be done out there. So that's the transition that I'm going through. And it's, it's been a fun and wild ride and I'm excited to see, you know, where this is going to end up and how it's going to come across. But, you know, this is, this is where I am and this is what I'm doing.

Speaker B: You reminded me of something that, uh, Mrs. Field famously said when she people said, we love your cookies, you ought to sell them. And she sold more and more. And then she started opening stores and, and she was dealing with accounting systems and she said, I, uh, haven't baked a cookie in two years. She found herself hating cookies, which is what got her into. The thing is to just recognize what is your core contribution and how you deliver it may change. Um, and when you said it was a wild trip, uh, since then, what are some of the challenges once you know that you have to not do something you did for 17 years, but not lose what you did that was vibrant? What are some of the struggles in that?

Speaker C: The big thing was, was transitioning out of an organization that you had built for 17 years, uh, and rebranding yourself, changing the story, changing the narrative, changing, you know, the brand. I mean, I re, I rebranded the company, it created a brand new website. What I did is I've kept the old website and what I've done is I forwarded it to the new website. Same with the email. Because the one thing that you do, and I've been branding people for 25 years, is you don't leave people behind, you don't leave people guessing and you don't leave people stranded. So, you know, my cell number remained my cell number, my email, even for the next two, three years, will transition to the new email, the website for the next two or three years will transition to the new website. Um, you know, and be able to put all those things together and create that new story and have these conversations, both in podcasts, in real life, and online conversations through social media to let people know what the transition is and what I'm looking for. You know, what is my next and how can they be part of this journey? How can I build the champions around me to say, you know what, Ben, I don't have a job for you, but wait a second, I know this person, they need to meet you. Hang on a second, let me set up a meeting and let's have a three way conversation and then I'll get out of the way. And that's happened a couple of times, and it's enabled me to talk to companies in Australia and Europe, throughout North America, um, and look at a whole whack of different opportunities that I never would have considered. Um, that might be 75% of my wheelhouse, but the other 30% is really interesting stuff. And it's stuff that I have to learn and have to experience and have to grow with. And. And that's exciting, too, but it's realizing that the world is changing. How do you make sure you don't lose people along that journey? How do you make sure you bring people along with you on that journey? And how do you make sure that that story, that journey, is told in a way that not only people listen to, but they understand, they value it, and they're compelled to engage. And it started with, what was I going to call the new entity? And I called it I am, uh, Ben Baker. And by calling it I am Ben Baker, all of a sudden, there's impetus for people to say, wait a second here. That's new, that's different. Click. Oh, okay. And then they get into the story within the website, and it's fun taking people down a new journey without losing who I was and who I still am as I become who I want to be.

Speaker A: How hard was it to take yourself through your own consulting and coaching? I mean, this is what you've done.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: Our audience of coaches knows exactly what you're asking. I would never let my clients do what I'm doing here. Guilty is charged.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's all the time. I tell my, well, if I were talking to a client, I would say, do this. And then I go and do something completely opposite. Right?

Speaker C: Yeah. Um, and thank God I'm smart enough to enlist. I have a bunch of friends in the branding business. I have friends of mine in change management business. I have friends of mine in copywriting, in, you know, in. In social media and web design and video design. And I showed them stuff along the way, and they said, you're 90% the way there. But have you ever thought of this? And it's enough to be able to have the ego to say, you know what? This is who I am, but also have the humility to say, you know what? I'm a little too close to this. It's really good to have somebody else's viewpoint to sit there and say, you could do this better. And the beautiful thing about the digital world is, you know, I go into the back end, uh, of WordPress, I click a few buttons, I make a few changes and there it goes. You don't like the video, I make a few edits. You know, if, if the, if the music's too loud, I change the, I bring the music down. If this, this uh, image doesn't really work, I change the image and it's, it's, you know, and so in a matter of minutes or days, you can make those tweaks that elevate the conversation. And you know, over the last 9,000 days that I've been working on this, there have been iterations to the website, there have been iterations to the social media, there have been iterations to the conversation and it has allowed me to be stronger and better every time. But it's, it's through listening to feedback and listening to what other people are saying that has enabled me to be able to move forward. If, if I was doing all this within a, uh, you know, cone of silence and just listening to my own self talk, I don't think the message would be anywhere as clear. I don't think the, the presentation would be anywhere as good and I don't think the brand would be as anywhere as strong.

Speaker A: What I hear in that is that you gave yourself the time and space, you didn't rush it.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: You called in your resources. Right. First of all, it began with a whole lot of courage, a whole lot of courage to, to, I don't know if you would call that a left turn, a huge turn, it's jumping off

Speaker C: a right turn, uh, jumping off a cliff.

Speaker A: It's a whole new destination for sure. Right. How you got there. So you know, there's, there's courage, there's the calling in your resources, the I think of Tom's coaching of think. Remind me to think big, even bigger, start small, even smaller and keep going. Right. And you, you got stuff out and you knew it wasn't perfect and you got it out anyway and you just iterated along the way. And probably most of us didn't notice those tweaks right. There maybe might have been important tweaks, but we didn't notice it because you did the splash initially and we rolled with that and maybe we, we went back to the site and oh, it looks good. Still looks good. Looks good from the beginning. Right. But there were tweaks in there that were important that you made along the way. The humility of hearing the feedback. Can you take us through a little reflection though, on, on what it meant for you to take the time and space. Like what did that feel like, because I feel like there's a lot of people who are losing their jobs. Right. Maybe they're on unintentional, uh, transitions, like they didn't control those transitions. And some of us are making intentional transitions. But some tips from you around creating that time and space to get through that.

Speaker C: Well, I will admit there was a little bit of a push. Legally, if I was going to shut down the company by December 31, there had to be a new brand. Your M brand marketing had to cease to exist. That means the website, legal entity, bank accounts, everything had to cease to exist. And therefore I couldn't leave people in a vacuum.

Speaker A: And therefore it's important to you?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's important to me. You didn't want to leave people going, where did he go?

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: What happened?

Speaker B: But you created those deadlines, so that gives us a cue of knowing self awareness. You needed to create those deadlines.

Speaker C: Yes. And I think that's important.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's an important distinction because there's intentionality even there.

Speaker C: Oh for sure. I mean that the deadline is, you know, for me it was, it was the fact that it was fiscal year end. So that made sense.

Speaker B: Yeah, but makes sense. I just want to point out you're right.

Speaker C: There was an intentional deadline. There was a, there was a day where you sit there and say, okay, after this day, the new brand has to be ready. You know, it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be, you know, it doesn't have to be completely and utterly sussed out. We know that, you know, whatever I put out on the first day has to be good. It doesn't have to be perfect. And you know, that's something that I've always taught myself and something I've always taught my clients is that we live in a world where there is forgiveness, there is grace, there is, you know, people, you know, if you've built up that credibility, if you built up that brand, if you built up trust with individuals, they will forgive those little sidesteps along the way when you say, huh, yeah, you're right, I made that mistake, let me fix that. But if you take it from a series of position of ego, where it's look at me, look how wonderful I am, look how incredible I am, all of a sudden people start looking for those mistakes and they start looking for positions to be critical. And I've always come to the position of sitting there going, you know what? This is the first, you know, and I've told people this as I was positioning I said, look, this is round one. This is draft one. What do you think? What do you think? Give me your, uh, you know, give me your feedback. Tell. Tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly. Tell me that my baby is ugly. I'm okay with that as long as you tell me why. And I've always had the mental capacity to basically say, I'm not a perfect individual. I can make mistakes. I don't know everything. I know a lot. I'm very good at what I do, but I can't know everything. I can't see everything. And sometimes you're just too close to something to notice it. You know, I. There was a glaring spelling, uh, mistake on my homepage. I didn't. I looked at that homepage 50 times. I didn't see it. Somebody saw it. It's three seconds. And, you know, your brain glosses over stuff.

Speaker A: Definitely.

Speaker C: And enabling yourself the grace to sit there and say, it's not going to be perfect, but you're going to be able to make it better. And how do we build our worlds based on. I don't even think about change anymore. I think about evolution. Uh, I think it was a conversation you and I had, Adrian, off, uh, air, about. Change has a beginning, middle, and end. Evolution is a continuum. Evolution is something we're striving towards, but we're never going to. We're never going to reach that perfection. We're never going to reach the pinnacle based on the fact that the world will change along the way. Uh, and our job is to sit there and say, how can we be resilient, adaptive, and creative to be able to sit there and say, as the world morphs and as the world changes, as our clients needs change, how do we change with them to remain relevant, to let them know that we understand their changes and we're here for them and we're holding their beer. I've got you. I got you. And if it means me as an organization having to evolve because you've evolved and it's important for me to still be there for you, I either sit there and say, you know what? You've gone in a different direction. We do this. That's all we do. I thank you very much. I wish you well. Let me. Let me transition you to somebody else. Or you sit there as an organization, say, you know what? You're not the only person thinking that way. M. Maybe I need to adapt my methodology. Maybe I need to adopt my product line. Maybe I need to adopt how I, you know, invoice how I Act, how I react, how I train my staff to be more adaptable to what the audience that I already have and who know like and trust need. And that's a continual conversation. And it's as much about listening as it is about talking. In fact, it's far more about listening and empathizing and valuing other people than it is, you know, saying if, if I gave, if I gave the world what they wanted, they just want a faster horse.

Speaker A: There's a piece of vulnerability that is so important, and I talk about that a lot in the context of building trust. Right. Like, and, and you're demonstrating that vulnerability of it's not perfect, but it's, it's good enough, move on. Right. Like, what's the GMO good enough, move m on. Right. Or and move on is keep going. Right. So maybe it's.

Speaker B: Or it's evolving.

Speaker C: Good enough. Do I make it better in the long run?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's evolving. Your story has certain eternal principles and other evolving methods and approaches.

Speaker A: Yeah. And, and we can't reach perfection because by the time you get to perfection, it's changed again. Your definition of what's perfect has changed again. So this notion of getting to the end of anything anymore, I think is, is just old thinking because we'll never get to the end. There's never the end of the to do list. There's never the end of the business plan. Right. Because it's always going to need to shift or you'll find yourself all alone and empty handed because everybody else has moved on.

Speaker C: I, uh, look at it like owning a house. You can continually to spend an exorbitant amount of money owning a house because there's, you never finish renovating because as soon as you finish renovating the whole house, you look at it and sit there going, yeah, but I want to change that now. I did this. Or I missed when I did this. I didn't do this. Or wait a second here.

Speaker B: The.

Speaker C: I, I like this new, you know, philosophy on this and I want to incorporate it into my house. And when I change that, well, that's going to affect this and that's going to affect this. And it's a continuous cycle and you either have to be the person that is continually evolving or you need to be the person that sits there and says, you know what? I've done this and that's okay. I'm, um, not. Not. It's. We're never, it's never going to be done. So this is what I'm doing for now. And Maybe later I'll do something else. But it's, it's a, it's a different mentality of the people that constantly, I know people that are constantly, you know, they always have a contractor in their house doing something and then there's those of us who do something and 10 years later we might do something else, you know, and it's, it's a matter of whether you need to be up to date and modern and new and fresh and you know, stylish or whether you're the type of person that sits there goes, I've got a 15 year old car. It gets me from A to B. I'm good with that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think there's, there's a component of this of just being grounded strongly enough in your own value system, in your own definition of you. I think Tom, you mentioned this when we started just understanding who you are, what you're bringing to the world, which can look different but the root of that should be the same. Right. And those are things that we tend to not evolve on or lose along the way. If you really have it down to the root value of what you want to bring to the world.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Ben, help us to. You did this quite naturally because you've been working on story all these years. But uh, what I, what I hear is discerning what is core to your story that needs to be carried forward and what was just stuff that sort of. I'm thinking of the. What are those fish that grab onto barnacles or whatever they are. It's like along the way someone said you need this, you need this and maybe you picked it up. Now when you're in a transition there's a lot of letting go but you don't let go of your core. And because of all the experience you've had with that, I think it happens more organically for you. But help someone who knows they need to change and maybe wants to change how to decide what's essential to bring forward and then have the courage to let go of stuff, uh, that maybe they over identified with like a blog. I just made up the blog. I've been doing this blog for 15 years. Everyone expects my blog, but it really isn't about the blog. And, and so help, help the listeners to understand how to discern what needs to come forward. That's truly you and what's just stuff along the way.

Speaker C: Yeah, uh, it's interesting because I wrote a book on this for university students seven years ago called Powerful Personal Brands. A Hands on Guide to Understanding Yours. And it really is, what are your core beliefs? What are the things? What, you know, what are you willing to go to battle over? What are you willing to fight for? What are you willing to fight against? If you had to decide on three core values for you, never mind the stuff that you're going to put on a website, it just looks pretty because everybody else has it. Three core values. What are the things you're willing to strap on the armor and fight for? And I think that we, we all need to think about that for ourselves. You know, some, some people it's time. Some people it's family. Some people, uh, it's, it's something else. But it's not the word itself. It's what does it mean to you and why is it important to you? And how does this being a core value get you from where you are today to where you want to be?

Speaker A: It's very helpful.

Speaker C: Uh, it's, it's really looking at it from, from a, from a, you know, Simon Sinek getting to why point of view, where you take a look and you sit there and say, these are my core values. They're important to me because, and they enable me to do this where I can't do this if I, if I don't have those, those core values as my North Star.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: You know, what, what are the, what are the things that keep. You keep your, you know, your boat aligned in the ocean? You know, I keep going back, I keep going back to, to see analogies. So, you know, maybe it's, it's my sailing upbringing, but it's.

Speaker B: Yeah, go at it, Adrian.

Speaker C: Yeah. What, what keeps, what keeps you in a straight line? What keep, what keeps you heading, you know, with, with the wind in the, in your sails. What keeps you, you know, um, you know, focused on the horizon. And it's, it's, it's looking at your life and sit there and say, and it's going to be different for Tom, is going to be different for Adrian. It's going to be different for me. And me trying to have Tom's values don't make any sense, or Adrian's values don't have any sense. They may mesh. They may have, you know, we may use the same word, but we may define the word differently as it relates to ourselves and our families and our lives. And it's, it's the definitions. It's not the words, it's the definitions. And what does that definition mean to you personally? You know, that, that I think is, is the core things that people need to be thinking about when they're going through any type of transition. What are the things that are going to get me through this transition? And those are your core values.

Speaker A: Let's talk a little bit about the critics that, you know are going to come your way when you go through things like this. Both the external critics who tell you how you should do what you should do and, and when you should do. Right. And then harder, the internal critics.

Speaker C: Uh, you mean this guy right here?

Speaker A: Yeah. Or for me, it's how fast I should be doing something, because it's always used to be doing that faster. You should get that out quicker.

Speaker C: Um, I am very good at listening to people's opinions and taking what I value and leaving what I don't.

Speaker A: That is a hard skill.

Speaker C: It's a very hard skill. And I'm not perfect at it in any way, shape or form. I don't think anybody is right. But I am a big believer of everybody's got an opinion, everybody's got an opinion and it might be right for them. You know, you look at people that, you know, go to these, you know, uh, lectures where there's 3,000 people and there's somebody on a pulpit espousing their views of life, and guess what? 8% of the people that, that go to those things might truly benefit if they follow this guy one word for word, maybe 3%. But if you take the messages that resonate with you and incorporate it with your own values and you incorporate it with your own hopes, wants, needs, desires and fears, you're going to do better. So there's a little bit of truth in everything that you hear. The question is, is being able to sift it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And being able to align it with your. With, with who you are as a person. Like, somebody told me I needed to, you know, redo my website and, you know, and, and have it in this brand new modern template and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to. Yeah, because that's going to make them money. Because this is one of their templates and they want to redo my website and, and all of a sudden it's going to cost me $30,000 and all of a sudden it's going to cost me 12 weeks of my time. And I didn't have either at the time. So with a new fresh 20, 25 templates make me look a little bit more modern. Yeah, it would, absolutely. But what's the ROI on it? You know, are people going to dismiss who I am and going to dismiss what I do? Because of the way that I built my website. No.

Speaker A: If they're at least not people you want to be in your circle anyway.

Speaker C: Exactly. You know?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And I think that that's. That's where we need to be with our external demons. Uh, when it comes to our internal demons, it's a lot harder. I am the most critical, personal of myself. You know, I am. I am horribly critical of myself. And, you know, nobody has to tell me that what I did was dumb or stupid or any of those type of things, because I already. I've already thought it myself. You know, you don't have to tell me it was a bad idea. I've. I've been there. I've already. I've already crossed that chasm. I. You don't have to let me know about it. Thank you very much. Um, but when I do that, it makes me better because for me, it pushes me to sit there and say, okay, what else could you have done? How could you have done this better? What could you learn from this? I'm a big believer of that every mistake is an opportunity to learn and an opportunity to do better. If I just sit there and beat myself up and say, you're dumb, you're stupid. You're not good enough. You're this, that, the other thing. It doesn't do anything for me. If I sit there and say, well, that was really dumb. I went, okay, why is that dumb? What was actually dumb? What was good about it? What can we keep? What was successful and why? Okay, what didn't work and why? And how do we fix what was wrong and make everything better? And that might be from my old direct mail days where it was all ab testing, where, you know, you had a really good copy and a horrible subject line and nobody opened it. As soon as you tweak the subject line, guess what? The same exact copy got 10 times the amount of response rate. And it's just little things. There's little tweaks that sometimes result in major, you know, major opportunities. But you have to be able to have the ability to sit there and say, okay, how do I learn from this?

Speaker B: And.

Speaker C: And what. What do I take? And what do I sit there and say, yeah, I get where you're coming from, but that doesn't really apply to me. That doesn't really apply to my clients. It doesn't really apply to what I want to do. Thanks for. For the information. Uh, I'm still going to keep it. I'm still going to park it somewhere. But that's not what I'M acting on today.

Speaker B: Adrian, you can guess what time we're coming toward.

Speaker A: I know I was. I had two thoughts, though of course, I'll forget one. Now that I said two thoughts, you can blame me every single time. Like, I had two thoughts, but one just left.

Speaker C: Start with the first one and then we'll get to the second one.

Speaker A: Um, so the first thought was, um. Oh, I was hearing the words as you were explaining that you know, how to, how to address your critics, inner and other and inner and external. Thank you for that. What can I do now? Right? Like, don't bother going back because whatever you did, you did, but what can I do now? And a recognition that everybody comes with their own unique lens, which is not your lens.

Speaker C: Correct?

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So those were the two thoughts I thought of.

Speaker C: There you go. I knew you would. I knew you'd come out of it

Speaker A: because I drank my coffee this afternoon.

Speaker C: Well, that's important. It's important that you got your coffee. And I agree with you. I think that, you know, your lens is not my lens. You know, neither of our lens is Tom's lens. We, we all come to whatever situation we're at with our own biases, our own fears, our own wants, our own desires, our own, you know, desire to, to. To accomplish whatever. And they may be in conflict. And that's okay, because your needs are different from my needs, are different from Tom's needs. And none of this is wrong. But it may be wrong for us.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: Yeah, it might be right for them. And, and we have to sit there and, and take people's viewpoints with the, with the understanding of. They're giving advice based on what they think. Sense and sensibility is what they think should happen next. What they think is right in the world, what they think is wrong in the world. Um, and we all interpret. There is, There is no right in the world. There's no wrong in the world. It's what's right or wrong for us in this particular point in time.

Speaker A: So, final question, and at the risk of sounding like you're telling people what they should do, what piece of advice would you give for anyone who is considering embarking on a transition or who has just gotten themselves into a transition?

Speaker C: Take the first step.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: And then take another, and then take another, and then take another. But take the steps one at a time. Don't try to eat the elephant all at once. If you try to eat the elephant all at once, you're going to choke on it. But we can all eat an Elephant, it's just might, you know, it might take each of us a little bit more time than the other.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker C: And it's, it's looking at the elephant as, as parts and sit there and say, okay, we did this. Now we do this. Now we did this. Now we do this. Okay, this, this, and this can be grouped. Great. Let's group all three of these things and, and do all those three things at the same time. This is important, but this isn't important. Okay, what isn't important? Let's shelf it, don't forget about it, and we'll come back to it once we get this, this, and this done. Transitions happen because we're deliberate about it. Transitions happen because we do things intentionally. But the most important thing, uh, about, uh, transitions is they happen when we communicate, um, when we let the world know that we're going through a transition. And we build the champions and we build the relationships with people we have trust with. And we let people know where we're going and why we're going and, and how, how we want to get there. People tend to grab us by the hand or they put a little, they put a hand in the small of our back, or sometimes they pick up a phone and they make that introduction that, that they can and you can't. And it's, it's enabling people to be generous and thanking them when they are. Um. None of us can transition on our own. None of us can be all knowing. None of us can be all it.

Speaker A: It.

Speaker C: We need a tribe. And the more we realize we need the tribe, the more we can cultivate the tribe, the more we can be there for people. So when, when, when they, when we need them, they're there for us, the better and smoother things happen. I built a life of sitting there going, how can I help you? And it's amazing. When I started going through this transition, I started getting people asking me, how can they help me?

Speaker A: Yeah, it comes back, right?

Speaker C: It comes back. The goal is.

Speaker B: And I'm so glad you're part of our community of conversation. Thanks so much for joining us today, Ben.

Speaker C: I appreciate that, Tom.

Speaker A: Um, thank you. Great conversation. Thank you for listening to the Leadership beyond podcast. We hope you benefited from this conversation as much as.

Speaker B: As we have.

Speaker A: We invite you to join our community of conversation. Subscribe to our podcast on itunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget to Sign up at aleadershipbeyond.com for free materials and updates. That's aleadershipbeyond.com. join us in two weeks for our next episode.