# Helping a Dev Manager Focus on Action—Not Fear • Coaching Session

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Healthy Developer
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBKHkm_rt4I
- **Дата:** 17.03.2025
- **Длительность:** 1:15:31
- **Просмотры:** 6,476
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/51654

## Описание

Get your tech career unstuck here: https://healthydeveloper.com/coaching

Ever feel stuck in analysis paralysis, trying to figure out if you should go solo or stick with a stable tech job?

In this live coaching session, I help Ben—a seasoned engineering manager and Agile coach—shift his focus away from fear and toward action.

We break down:
✅ Why even a stable tech job can still feel uncertain
✅ How fear of the unknown keeps devs stuck—and how to move past it
✅ The real way to test your next move without risking everything
✅ How to balance financial security with the drive for independence

If you’re a developer, tech lead, or engineering manager who’s thinking about making a big career move but unsure where to start, this conversation is for you.

🔹 Watch and ask yourself: What’s one action I can take today to move forward?

If you’re considering leaving software engineering for freelancing or a solo career, this coaching breakdown will help.

#TechCareers #CareerCoaching #TakeActio

## Транскрипт

### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) []

Ever watch my videos and kind of wonder what's this tech career coaching thing Jamie does that he's always talking about? What's it really like? Is this a bunch of BS or is this actually helpful? Well, today you're going to get to see that. I'm going to do a real live coaching session with a client of mine that I've been working with a little over a year. His name's Ben and Ben's been a high-level agile coach. He's been an engineering manager. He's done a lot of really great technical individual contributor work over his career and he's kind of at a crossroads. He's looking at working for himself and he's got some really cool ideas. And so I brought him on today. He knows this is going to be on YouTube to have a free session for me as a client I've worked with quite a bit already. And I hope as you listen to this today, maybe try putting yourself in Ben's shoes, almost like I'm coaching you. When I listen to other coaching content, I find I get a lot of insights myself just by hearing what the other person's going through. So this is going to be longer content than typical, probably about an hour, but just sit back, check this out and I hope if you're somebody who's considering working for yourself or just dealing with kind of the conflict around the money side of it and the uncertainty of what to do that hearing Ben's story and where he's at today really inspires you. It's been a little while. Uh I'm in it. Yeah. Since before winter, I think. Was it really that long now? I feel like yeah, I think it was the last job change I had, which I do every 6 to 9 months uh pretty much. So I think it was uh the last time we talked and I think that was like fall sometime. Nice. Yeah, I know you were I think in a engineering management position of some sort before this job. So yeah, I guess how can I help you most today? What would you like to talk about? Yeah. Um So what's interesting, so when we first started talking, you know, I was in a much different place than I am now. Um and I think you helped me kind of start taking steps towards this whole like becoming a solopreneur, starting my own gig, you know, building an online presence and I started to my own little channel for a while and I started really thinking about like what can I actually do to escape the grind which is just been grinding me down, you know, for uh what you talk about in your videos all the time, but um so in since then I've managed to actually land a pretty good job. Um like really good, actually. Uh and it's I haven't really had a job like that where I've just I haven't felt the um there's not been enough pain this you know, cuz pain can be a motivator, but there's not been enough pain like pushing me to want to escape as much as there you know, as there have been in the past. So um I kind of paused since I since I've taken this new job in October time frame and I've kind of paused a little bit on like really heavily like aggressively pursuing and of branching out doing my own thing. Sure. Um for multiple reasons, you know, some you know, like personal stuff uh like just back pain and stuff I was dealing with. I think I told you about that a little bit. We don't have to obviously go into to that, but Sure. like just having what I feel like could actually be a stable job, kind of wanting to start off on the right foot, dig in there. That's my income that I need to survive on. So I and Right. um so that's kind of I put some of that on the back burner, but um I don't want to walk away from that. I still want to I'm still pretty motivated to kind of escape the daily job or at least get to a point where I don't feel this constant fear, you know, and that So that's what kind of bring it what I think I really want to work through a little bit today is even with a good job you know, stable company, good people Mhm. um I like the work, you know, I'm back to learning like very hands-on, you know kind of a hybrid of a engineering manager and a engineer, you know, so I'm doing hands-on work, but leading a team.

### Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) [5:00]

Um so I'm kind of getting to scratch both it, you know, the itch of being technical and um bring some of the leadership that I like to do. So Nice. But even with that um I still have a lot of fear, you know, and it's just like me, you know you're you still I still have a boss, you know, there there's still I'm still playing the game of perception management. Sure. I still don't feel like I can just be myself and let my guard down, you know, I still um all the stuff that comes with having a job and having a boss. Um Even a good boss and a good job, you're still um to some degree like yeah, I don't want to overstate it, but you're wearing like it it's the way you're the way it's slavery thing. So um anyways, I still feel that looming over my head with on top of the stuff that's going on with the market and AI Yep. and just really feeling on shaky ground and it's been surprising to me even with a job that is at a company that people were trying to get into all the time. People it's stable. They were people worked there 10 years, 15 years. People leave and come back. I still don't feel stable. I still feel like I'm not in control of my own future, my own, you know uh I just feel like my family's well-being, my future is in the hands of other people and then and I just I want to get out of that. um I maybe I can do that in the job. I don't think I can't I don't think that's the path for me long-term. Mhm. um but I could also see myself staying at this company for a long time. Uh I mean I I like it here, you know, I like the people, I like the work, I like the company. um So that's kind of where I'm I feel like I'm back to being a little bit stuck. um I can also, if it makes sense, I can share with you like where how far down I've gone in this uh what I'm thinking about doing as like a product offering or a program offering. um And I know that that's kind of where I've seen some of your more recent stuff and you're shifting to sort of helping people do exactly kind of what I feel like I'm wanting to do, which is escape the grind, get my like grab the reins of my own future, my own career and like how do I stop uh just become like I'm a really good soldier, you know, like I can march to the orders that I'm given, but I want to escape that. I want to do my own thing and branch out. Um I want to actually be able to retire someday, you know, I the rate we're at now, I'm like I probably won't be able to retire ever. Like I'm just going to have to work until I it I can't anymore, you know, so I've got my financial stuff. So like financially I've got some fear there. I need to to I mean, there's two things you can do. I can spend less money, which I'm doing and I'm making a lot of progress on that, cutting out a lot of stuff. I can make more money. I mean, obviously there's the investment side, but I mean spend less, make more. I'm not going to spend less my way into retirement. I don't think. I need to find a way to supplement my income. And so that's another reason why I'm like just having the job and getting to 3% is not going to get me to retirement before I'm in my 70s, you know. Have you Anyway. Have you worked with a like a financial planner ever before and kind of looked at like you know, getting someone to help you predict let's say you estimated you're going to retire on a certain date, you know, depending on how much you think you're going to need based on your lifestyle, like how much do you need to put away? Have you ever done anything like that? Mhm. Yeah. Um It's probably going on 3 years ago now, but um yeah, we put our income in, put our expenses in and you know, given now they they're trying to sell you their funds and stuff, obviously, but given we drop our kind of diversify across their portfolio of funds. um And I want to retire at 65. This is how much we would need to put away. And the the math was like you probably could do it, but like we're talking about austerity measures, you know, in the family, like Mhm.

### Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) [10:00]

Mhm. uh selling off a lot of our stuff, you know, just like going back to just living a very, very simple, frugal life, which we are making progress towards. Um So, that was actually really helpful and I've thought about doing that again once I get my house in order, you know, like I don't need a financial planner to tell me to stop you know, going out to eat 5 days a week. Um sure. So, that kind of stuff I've as a family, we've just have a lot of behaviors to unwind. We've been doing a really good job of that the last year. Um Yeah. Okay. Well, there's a couple different things we could get into depending on what would be kind of most helpful to you today. One thing I'm hearing is just the fear that you're experiencing. We could get into that a little bit cuz I think that's something that you know, and I can only speak for my own experience, you know, when you start to pursue working for yourself, uh I found there's quite a few opportunities for new sources of fear there. Um they're not worse sources of fear, they're just different sources of fear. Um And so, we could dig in a little bit to when you're talking about the fear that you have and you talked a little bit about why you think that's happening, but I think we could maybe go a little bit deeper there. So, that's one thing we could talk about. I'm just going to kind of list a couple things we could get into. You could decide what you think would help you the most. Um The other thing is and this may not be an issue for you, but it may be. I'm finding several of the clients I'm working with right now and even me myself, I have to constantly fight this. There's a lot of noise in our industry. There always is, but there's a lot of noise particularly today. Um I've talked a little on YouTube about why I believe that is. But I feel like there's a bigger risk to like your mental health and my mental health in a way today to exposing yourself to kind of industry news than there was like let's even say pre-COVID. And so, we could talk a little bit. I'd be kind of interested in like how much are you watching videos about AI, checking, you know, tech news, how much are you looking at LinkedIn cuz I think some of that can be a source of fear as well. Um and obviously you don't want to stick your head in the sand, but there can be risks to that. Uh and then you brought up, you know, you've got it sounds like some things we could possibly get into around your ideas for, you know, if you were to work for yourself, you know, maybe your first thing that you might pursue or that you're kind of kicking around. So, you know, there's a lot that you brought up, but between getting into maybe the current sources of fear that you see, talking about maybe um what's your situation been like as far as exposure to industry news and how that might be affecting sort of, you know, your peace. And then there's also this product idea. Do do you have any idea? I mean, we might be able to get to multiple, but what would you like to start with? Yeah, I like the I mean at least getting uh your perspective and on like a reality check on the fear, I think is good. Um So, I think we can talk about cuz I think your point about fear and the noise uh is they're like those are almost one of the same topic. So, I think we could dig into there for sure. Do you want me to talk more about that? Yeah, let me try asking you a couple questions just to kind of get into this that will maybe steer us towards, you know, some insights that we can get for you here. Um so, just to share and you know some of my background and, you know, viewers who watch the channel are going to know some of this, but you know, I I lost everything uh financially other than my house essentially 7 years ago and had to start over at 40 uh what 41, 42 at that time. And so, I've kind of taken this approach of like I may never retire, you know, and it sounds like you're facing some similar things. Um And so, I kind of have been and I don't know if this is foolish or not. I mean, but we'll find out as I get older, but I've kind of taken, you know, this approach that on one hand I could choose to try to repeat the career I just had, which is get the highest paying job

### Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00) [15:00]

that's probably going to have the most pressure. Um but I know I can find a company they're going to have the paycheck, you know, kind of push myself, grind away at that, save as much as I can, cut expenses and focus almost completely on the money part and the retirement part, which is obviously an element, right? You We do I'm not going to be able to work forever. You're But there's also the other things that I don't think I was thinking about as much that I really did choose to think more about when I decided to go in the career coaching direction, which is just the direction I went. And one of them was what kind of work could I engage in where instead of thinking like as a software engineer, I'm often thinking how do I reduce my hours, stress? It's a lot about reduction of complexity and reduction of like over-commitment because we've all been in those situations where because we, you know, committed to things we burn out or we have to work extra hours. What would what kind of work could I get or what would work look like for me if instead when I do work, it actually gives me energy. It's energizing. And I know when you and I did I think we did career compass back when I called that package Healthy Dev Map. Did we do that together? Do you remember? I can't remember which package we did, but we definitely talked through this whole very deeply what gives me energy, what detracts my energy. We went through all that in detail. So, yeah. Yeah, and I've got all your notes here in Notion from that. Uh So, I mean, that that's one thing I guess I just want to throw out there as something that I'm really curious about for you is you know, when you think about the fear, um you know, maybe for you and I we can't control that the industry's changing really fast. You know, it seems like every week there's some new shocking, you know, video or article or, you know, post on LinkedIn about why if you don't know this new thing, you know, you're going to be left behind and then in a week later, well, if you don't know this thing, you're It's like it's all just, you know, you basically who can live that way? You're just going to flip out. You're putting your peace in the hands of media and influencers, right? And I don't want to be one of those people either. What what maybe we talk a little bit about and it's not that we have to avoid talking about the fear, but I'm curious for you like what kind of work you know, maybe we just explore this. What kind of work could you do that would really fire you up? Like that like when you go to do that work rather than looking at as yeah, it's good enough. I can probably deal with this and handle enough hours. Like what would excite you? What would light you up where like instead of worrying about oh my gosh, like if you thought of the prospect of maybe I never retire, it you know, obviously where you're sitting at now, I know you're like, dude, I got to retire and I get it, but like maybe you got to spot where if you didn't have to retire, you were really healthy and you were really loving what you did making an impact. And so, if you were forced into that situation where you had to work longer, you're at least not forced into it doing something that's exhausting and that isn't like you know, satisfying you and helping you grow. Like so, I don't know if this is too big of a question to ask you up front, but I want to just give you a little space to maybe you can even just freestyle a little bit on what what you feel, you know, in reaction to what I'm asking if this even makes sense. Yeah, I mean I've thought so much about this um and maybe nearly obsessed about it and I honestly I think having the the sessions with you I don't know, probably 12 months ago or more now when we first started. Yeah. And we spent a lot of time here and it got me really thinking about what do I actually want to do? Um and I won't this might be a slight tangent, but like spending so much of my life doing what I think other people should, you know, like well, yeah, this is just what you do, you know, you go to college and you get the degree job and you support your family and you just do what everybody else thinks you should do. Right. You know, and it including then when you get a job, what the boss is, right? What um the company needs you to do and you become that person. And you know, I just back burnered what I what I enjoyed to so long that I didn't even know what that was anymore. Mhm. Um I think I'm I'm getting a lot more I'm a lot more clear about that.

### Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00) [20:00]

Um Good. And it really is I've got a I've got a pretty good experience, pretty broad experience across you know, like tech roles and leadership roles and um I want to bring what I think what I would enjoy the most is helping other people through uh this is where the bakery comes in, but Sure. I want That's what really actually fires me up is like when I when I'm working on teams and we're building stuff together, I really enjoy that, too. When we're like I said about the job, the piece of that I enjoy in my current job is you know, getting to bring some leadership building stuff together, getting that satisfaction out of you know, something that we did really well and it was hard and we got through it and we accomplished it. Um that I do enjoy. Um I but I want to bring I guess like kind of bring it back. I want to bring kind of all my collective experience to help people at an individual level. Mhm. You know, it it's um that that's kind of where I was really like steering towards Mhm. some sort of online program. Now, not necessarily I don't not necessarily what you're doing with the career like the one-on-one career coaching. Um not necessarily that, but something with a similar impact and um you know, where but Yeah. Cool. If I wasn't if I wasn't fearful at all if I didn't have any fear and I could just work and do what I enjoyed and I wasn't worried about I'm never going to make enough money to retire. That's so hard for me to separate I know. what I want to you know, it's so hard to I know it's hard. I I could probably walk away from the tech side of my job and not regret that. I think I'm holding on to that. I mean, I do enjoy building. I do enjoy coding. I to an extent. Um I'm finding the older I get, the more tedious a lot of that becomes Yeah. and I'm really gravitating more towards you know, I if I could be on a team and I don't necessarily have to be the one that's on the bleeding edge all the time of what's next um but actually like build a high-performing team. Like so much of it has nothing to do with technology. But so much of what companies do to build teams is centered around, you know, like what we have to hire up these people to check all these boxes and have all of these tech skills or we have to do this process, you know, by the book. So, I think that there's that aspect, too, that I think would really fire me up. If I get to spend the rest of my career just like going to teams going to companies and helping them build like high-performing teams. Um I would really enjoy that. So, it's kind of like the individual piece building teams um and I could probably stop writing code and stop building software tomorrow, you know, I'm I continue to do that. I continue to stay sharp and listen to all the hype and the news because of fear of becoming irrelevant. And irrelevancy leads to the layoffs and then now I'm stuck without a job and now you know, now I spiral down into that fear. So, I don't I just kind of rambled, but No, that's helpful and I don't remember if I shared this with you or not. I've told this to a lot of my clients and I don't think I shared this fully on YouTube, but um you know, about seven eight well, six years ago when I was like about a year and a half two years into having lost my last corporate job when I went on my own through insomnia and all that. Um I was calling places after having What did I have at that point? About 19 years of experience. I was a high-level managing consultant. I'd worked for huge big name Fortune 50s here in Austin and around the world. Done tons of stuff. And yet I would talk to any company after I got out of consulting and they're trying to interview me you know, the same way they're interviewing like mid-level candidates. They basically they had no way to evaluate someone like me without just like lead code hacker rank that kind of stuff. And I got to this place where

### Segment 6 (25:00 - 30:00) [25:00]

I was like I don't like if I try to play the game of employment the way I have been for the you know, my career up to this point, I'm actually losing leverage in my career. Meaning like I'm losing the ability to capitalize on what's actually valuable, which is my experience in the industry. Because when you get a pure coding job or even like a principal engineer job, you know, they'll say, "Oh, yeah, we want leadership and all that. " But at the end of the day they want a lot of hard technical skills and sometimes they want you to be the primary coder. So, you know, the reason I mentioned this is I made a conscious decision at that point my strongest skills were like C# and I'd done, you know, node and angular and not I hadn't really done much react at that point. I've done some since. But I was, you know, behind on paper with some of the like more current stacks. Um but I was committed to quitting the grind and working for myself. I didn't know exactly what that looked like yet, but I knew the path I was on if I was going to stay on the employment for companies track, like I had to do something radically different. And so even though I didn't know then exactly what that was I had made a decision that I was going to do it. Um and when I made that decision, the second decision I made is I'm not going to learn anything new unless it's required for the project. In other words, I'm not going to go build tutorials or go online and read about the latest stuff and do side projects, which is you know, I'm not trying to criticize that. But like I went out and thought, "How can I find the highest paying gig with the skills I have now and get a contract part-time, 20 hours a week so that I can spend the other 20 hours building something? " And in this case, you know, a YouTube channel and starting to coach and and it was messy. It wasn't that simple, but the main thing is I did a lot of high-level, high-paid, you know, to me $160, $180 an hour, which is to me pretty good. Um That's very good for me. Um but part-time, you know, I did. NET architecture, which is again, not sexy. It's not the latest thing. It's not something to build to a 20-year career on, but it's plenty of income to just chill me out for an average amount of hours and also just compartmentalize it like this is the cash to just keep going, but it's not what I'm investing my career in. I'm doing something new and those and so I had to apply some effort to the new thing. Um so, I kind of hear you at a crossroads a similar crossroads where like you've got you know, and again, your path's going to be different, but you know, you you've got incredible amount of skills, you know, all the agile coaching you you've shared with me for high-level companies, you know, you've done tons of amazing stuff. And it's kind of like I feel like us as engineers we fall into that, you know, sort of the sunk cost fallacy situation where like we want to make progress, but we want to be able to hold on to everything we've invested in learning at this point and it's like it kind of doesn't the math doesn't work. We have to let go of our identity as being this amazing individual contributor if we want to do something where we're going to own a business or grow in, you know, marketing skills, serving people skills or something. Again, this is my opinion, so I know there's going to be people that would disagree with that. So, given that, I guess I'm kind of just sharing to try to give you permission that if you got to a point that you were really passionate about something you wanted to do, I think and I'm not trying to tell you what to do. Um you might consider what would it look like to allow yourself to say it's okay for me to choose not to watch certain YouTube videos or read about certain stuff on LinkedIn or to say like I'm not going to learn XYZ ABC. I don't know what that is for you. But just as a way to bring your anxiety level of the level of expectation that you'd be placing on yourself to both, "Hey, I want to do this new cool thing. " and I'm expecting myself to like the just cheesy and cringe and cliche as it is level up as an engineer at the same time. So, I'll just pause there. How do you feel about that kind of Is that a false dichotomy I'm talking about or does that even make sense? Uh totally makes sense. Um yeah, I think what kind of resonated was that you made a decision to

### Segment 7 (30:00 - 35:00) [30:00]

to that you were going to start putting your energy towards a different pursuit. And even at the expense of your hard skills. Yes. That had been providing for you your entire life prior, right? Your And so that I mean that's a gutsy move, you know, and I think that that's I haven't made that decision. I'm kind of you're right, I'm at a crossroads to making that decision. And whenever the thought of And you know my background a little bit like I walked I did kind of walk away from tech for a while. I mean hands-on software development when I went into coaching and management and I got swept up in all of the you know, everyone was hiring scrum coaches and stuff and I so I there was a lot of demand for that. I enjoyed that kind of work to some extent. Yep. But then I got really rusty. Then all that kind of deflated. And I saw it happening luckily and so I was able to kind of re-sharpen my skill set, get back into dev roles. And now I'm in a in a engineering lead role. So it but it was like years. I mean it didn't take long to lose the edge with the way how fast things change. Mhm. And so you hear a noise in the background, it's my bulldog just breathing normally. Um Sorry, I don't No, you're I think we're good. Yeah. Okay. Um yeah, so it took me it was a huge effort when I left my last management job back in 2021. I don't know what time it was what few years ago, number of years ago. Um to get back in to being actually be a capable hands-on contributor again in a modern stack. Yeah. And here I am again. Here I am saying, "You know what? I think I've done that. Now I can continue to remain employed. But now I need to keep this up. Yeah. need to continue to stay sharp. Now I need to continue this and it's not what's really lighting me up. And to walk away from that again after I've just put all this work into, you know, uh re-sharpening is, you know, that's probably something that's holding me back. Um Yeah. Well, let me just say first of all, it's very honorable that hey, you're trying to provide for your family. Um you're making the best decisions you can. Like you said, you had to really invest a lot in yourself and push yourself, I'm sure to to, you know, bring yourself back up to the level of skills for as an individual contributor to kind of do this again after you'd you know, switched into management for a while. Um I don't want to trivialize the effort that took and in a way I would look to that as motivation moving forward that okay, if I do something else, I not that you want to repeat what you just did, but like you were able to summon the resources within yourself to do something challenging cuz you had to do it. Um I think what I'd like to ask you about at this point is when you talk about helping other people possibly on an individual level, you've talked about um going to other companies and helping them build high-level teams. When you think about what the outcomes could look like for people who work with you. Uh and I'll give you a quick analog to my business and then maybe it'll make it easier for you to give me some ideas of what you're thinking. Um when I first started career coaching, I was literally just like, "Are you a developer and you want to talk to somebody? I'll help you no matter what it is. " That's how I started, right? Like I didn't know. Um and I would try to help people, you know, whether it was getting a new job or dealing with burnout or whatever. Um over time, I realized what a lot of people were looking for was someone to help them figure out what direction to go next. And this was mostly mid to late career engineers or you know, product managers, engineering managers, testers, whatever their role was. And so over time, it became clear to me that like, "Oh, an outcome I could help people with and I could market myself as helping them with it and I could, you know, I could make YouTube videos, I could talk about I can do this is helping with career direction. " And that became something that I started to talk about more and I was more intentional about and I started to, you know, I even have a package for it that I offer. Um similarly, there were people that just had a lot of trouble with their LinkedIn profile and they were going to people that were like just recruiters or resume writers and paying a bunch of money and ending up with just a super vanilla LinkedIn profile and then nobody would teach them

### Segment 8 (35:00 - 40:00) [35:00]

how to network with people. And so I kind of came up with a process to help them with that. I don't do that as much anymore, but I did that for a while. Um and over time, I've just kind of discovered what is it that my customer, my audience really is struggling with and I could and then and that I can help them with cuz there's things people are struggling with I can't help them with, right? Like there's a lot of people I coach that they need therapy in certain areas and I'm not a therapist. I can't help with those things. When you think about going into a company and helping people on an individual basis, what do you think are some of the challenges that they're facing today that if you were to work one-on-one with them you could maybe and again, you might not know this, but you I know you've worked in the industry a long time with a lot of people. What are some of the like specific outcomes you can think of that if you were to offer those or maybe several outcomes um that would be an area you would be excited to work with people on. Yeah, I put some uh a bit of energy into this too and I've I kind of have separated working with individuals from working with companies because and I seem to be just I think I could make a bigger impact working with people. Okay. It's some way than working because I mean you've said this in your videos before and I've experienced it. When you work for companies the outcomes they want are more cheaper. Right? They just want more done cheaper. That's actually what they want. That's where the outsourcing, you know, comes from. That's where like they're so desperate to out to for AI to take software engineering jobs. And that does not interest me. I'm not looking at trying to help them get better at managing projects. Um and creating a literal factory. Um and I just haven't seen any demand and I've experienced this too. It's why I got out of coaching. Um Agile coaching and stuff because Really, that's not what companies want. Yeah, and can I pause you? So I think you've articulated really well um what you don't want to help people with and what you don't think is going to be helpful. Let's talk a little more about like the opportunity you see there, what you could help people with. Yeah. And that to say is why I started like I want to actually help people because I think that that's what I don't want to do is just get buried in what I just said with at companies building peop- you know, building project plans and stuff. What I want to help people with is kind of what you're doing for me now, but and I see Cool. uh there's people have a lot of fear. They're burned out. They you know, I I think about this path of you're a senior level kind of tech person. Mhm. And they're they maybe are getting to the point where they want to grow, they want to become a leader. They want to lead a team. Um project, they want to shift into a uh maybe a product role, some sort of leadership role. But they've not been given this they don't have the skills. experience. They're probably like a lot of engineers and don't necessarily give off a perception of being a leader because a lot of us are quiet introverts, you know, we don't necessarily put a lot of polish. Which is what companies kind of when they see all that the person is a leader. There's a certain level of polish in the way they present themselves and um you know, they want to build a more timeless skill set. Right. You know, where it once you have leadership experience and you develop that, I really have felt like you can carry that with you. And it kind of stays. It's almost like more core principles. I'm a skill you can take anywhere you go. Yep. Any job, any role versus if you're going to stay on a senior engineer path and you want to continue to grow your effort kind of I mean it kind of keeps doing this. You know, in order to be a staff engineer, you got to be I mean you just have to be really sharp and stay on it. And so I see people at this crossroads and because I've experienced this myself. Yep. So I want to help people transform from that they're stuck, you know, they don't know like how to get to that path of becoming um a leader. Awesome. And walk them through like I cuz I've done that. I am still internally I am that awkward Okay. uh you know, And I said this

### Segment 9 (40:00 - 45:00) [40:00]

is kind of where I've put a lot of thought into. I've got like a an actual transformation statement, you know, written out. Like these are the people I want to help and this is what them transform into and by doing this thing. um Awesome. That's kind of where I am now. That that's as far as I made it. That's pretty far. Uh so let me just reflect back to you what I'm hearing. It sounds like you're saying you want to help people uh along the path to leadership within companies. Yes. Would that be fair? Probably probably yeah. stuff at least for now. You're talking about within organizations cuz that's where your experience is. I Exactly. Yeah. Let me tell you a couple reasons why I think that's a really good move for you if this is something you want to explore. First of all, those positions aren't going away. In fact, with all the AI fear-mongering which we won't get into. Uh regardless of what the engineering jobs change, they're they still need leaders. They still need technical leaders. Um also I I think um you know, someone once told me and gosh, there's so much silly entrepreneurship and marketing stuff I've learned over the last 7 years. I forget where half of it comes from to be honest, but Yeah. I heard somewhere that like when you're going to start a business or help someone with something on your own, um and this is true within jobs too, but especially if you're going to kind of market yourself as a as an influencer or an expert, you really only have to be like a couple steps ahead of your prospect. Like in other words, you don't have to be like I led Google's, you know, machine learning division or you know, or some big public like I'm the ultimate leader publicly to help people with become leaders. Really what you need is you just need to be ahead of where they were. You have to care about them enough to want to see them, you know, get to the point that that they could be, see the potential in them. And then, you know, come up with processes on how to help them get there and some of that is just like with Agile development, you know, like we talk about true Agile development. I believe at least in my experience, starting a business business itself is an Agile type of a thing meaning like I began career coaching with a bunch of theories about what engineers wanted. Some of those theories were flat out wrong. Um some of the theories were right. And some things I got through feedback that I never would have anticipated until I started actually coaching people and actually serving people, you know, and really spending time with them. So the cool thing is, you know, if you do decide to go down this road, you don't have to have it all right from the beginning. Um you are a step ahead of people you'd be helping because you've been in these leadership positions, so you don't have to like, you know, well, let me go figure out what it takes to do this first and then I'll have the credentials. You've already done it, Ben. Um Now, have you created a proven system where you can take person after person, whether it's through processes or coaching, to do it? No, but that doesn't mean that you can't start helping people. So let's kind of get down to maybe some actions you could take out of talking with me today. Um I know you just shared and I think it's great that you did that like you got a stable job. I'm sure they're really grateful to have you with all your experience. I'm sure you're going to remain committed to them while you're an employee and everything. Um What are some things maybe that you think you could start doing after we've talked today to at least, you know, move more down the direction of of pursuing this. What are your thoughts on what next steps might look like? Yeah. Um and you've mentioned this multiple times on previous calls about you want to actually practice Agile, then like go try go build something and like apply those principles versus just being a talking head and telling other people how to do it, which is what I've done in the past. The knowing-doing gap. There's a book called that, the knowing-doing gap. It's And it's like consultants, me too, I suffered from this really bad, which is I could go to your company, tell you all kinds of stuff that's totally legit, but, you know, doing it myself totally different thing. Right. Totally different. Yeah. But why that the you know, when I apply that to me taking the next step, it's doing some sort of test or validation of this idea. You know, if I'm going through everything I've learned about lean and, you know, added all the with all the talking heads have said, um

### Segment 10 (45:00 - 50:00) [45:00]

how do I do some sort of a market test or validate that you know, cuz I don't want to spend a ton of time I started going down this path actually. I started developing this program that we were talking about. I started building all that out in bullet point form, but like really going into detail and flushing out what could be in it so some sort of a program that I could walk people through. Um And it's like I'm spending a lot of time on this without even knowing if this is the right, you know, approach. So that's one thing I'm not really sure how to uh How to get started? Get some sort of like can I do I actually maybe go try and pre-sell this um to get some sort of validation that yeah, actually people want this. I've targeted the right group, the right pains that they're in and I have something that somebody would be willing to spend money on um before I go and spend 6 months and build out this perfect program, you know, so that's one of the things I was like, I don't really know, you know, how to break past that. Okay, so here's a couple thoughts there and some of this will be stuff, you know, I've talked about before, but it's just putting it in the context of what we're talking about today. Um you know, I'm a big advocate of kind of like uh Dane Maxwell's start from zero book and I think I've if I haven't talked to you about it, you've definitely seen the YouTube video I've talked about it. Um He has a you know, whether you're going to be an entrepreneur which is kind of like owning the business versus delivering services what which is what you and I are talking about. It's a little you know, his spin on it's a little different, but he has this set of five questions that you ask uh a potential prospect as a way to get information on like if the if this is a real problem people want solved. Um and it's really helpful when you've got a new novel idea that you don't see an existing product in the market for. Um it may be a problem that's already solved by other products or services, but you don't know if your idea, your way of doing it is is viable. Um We know, or at least I feel pretty confident saying technical companies are going to continue to need leaders. You don't need to validate that. Uh again, personal opinion. We'll we'll let you respond if you agree with this or not in a second. I think what you want to do is discover how do you work with someone best to get them these outcomes you're thinking of getting them? Um and how do you do it in a way where you don't, like you say, go off and build a whole system assuming that it's the right system and invest all that time and that effort cuz, you know, as we know, the more we build, the more we are attached we are that it's the right idea. That's the problem we're always complaining to people that want to do waterfall about, right? Um Yep. It Could you potentially identify some people who are at a period in their career where they want to step into leadership and maybe you offer to coach them for free for some amount of hours and some amount of frequency that's you know, that's compatible with your life that in your job, making sure you're not taking away from your responsibilities there. And maybe you have an agreement with them and just be straight up with them like I'm developing this this system. Um It's beta at this point meaning like I I'm going to test some of these things with you and learn and you're going to get some great value out of it and the only thing I'd kind of ask is if you do get some good outcomes out of this at the end, would you be willing to possibly give me a public testimonial of some sort, either like a case study just by case study, very short little write-up of kind of like before and after what happened um or, you know, what they kind of got out of it and, you know, I would just tell them if you don't get anything out of it, don't worry about it. I'm learning, you know, I'm Basically, just don't put the pressure on yourself and this is just a thought. This is what kind of worked for me. Um just get yourself working with some people at the lowest risk possible and practicing what is it like to talk to another person about their desire to become a leader and to try to guide them. Um And and here's why and I know this is I'm biased here cuz this is how I kind of did it. Here's why I'm even throwing this out there. I think as an engineer and a builder, um whenever I thought about working for myself and doing similar work as you're talking about, I felt like I had to have a system first. Like if I work with someone and I don't

### Segment 11 (50:00 - 55:00) [50:00]

have the system first, I'm going to look unprofessional. I'm not going to know what I'm doing. Um and that would be true if I'm charging them money. Uh but and you know, even if you're I'll tell you my first few clients, I didn't have much process of anything. It was kind of scary, but um What do you think about the prospect of finding some people you could have You know, I mean, it could be people in our Discord group. It could be be, you know, co-workers you worked with in the past. It could be current co-workers if you don't think there's a conflict of interest there. Um What resistance do you have or objections to possibly just trialing helping someone for a learning experience and for a potential testimonial or something like that. Mhm. Yeah, I think it's great. Um Any resistance like first thought was Well, am I It's really about like finding that like validating that avatar exists first of all, I guess. And then are they willing to invest? And that would be my only, I guess, the only thing is are there Is this a person that I am I finding the person and identifying where they are at this crossroads at a point where they're willing to invest in themselves. Mhm. You know, like giving the free coaching I think a lot of people would accept that and it take it. Um but am I finding the people that are willing that are ready to actually cuz and why I'm thinking this and you and I've talked about this, too, when I started my own YouTube channel kind of just as a I'm just going to start talking about stuff that I think people want to hear about. You know, and I ended up um resonating with people and we just kind of like complained, you know, commiserated about the state of things together. Yeah, that's okay. And so I cast a wide net. net and then I didn't really know what to do with this audience really. It's like I don't want to just continue to stoke the flames of people's dissatisfaction. Mhm. Um I want to try to find people who are looking for help and are ready to kind of take steps towards that. Anyway, that's my But otherwise I think like, yeah, that's a great idea. Just start to Um one other I guess one other thing I was when I think about putting that into action is should I actually have a skeleton of this program? Maybe it's like a skeleton of a potential program and process to walk them through versus just like, "Hey, let's talk. " Um I'd be curious to see what you say about that. Like should I have some sort of a scaffolding built out already? Well, I Anyway, there's a thought. Yeah, I mean, I I think that can be helpful. Um I mean, when I started coaching people, I already knew okay, I'm going to run into people who are probably going to have fears and limiting beliefs and things like that. So, I have to have some sort of tools in my toolbox to try to help them with that. Um I know there's going to be people who are scared about the financial component of a career decision. So, I have to have some resources and topics we could talk about to help them feel more confident around money. You know, I know there's going to be people who have dealt with drug addiction like I had or burnout. So, they're going to want to be encouraged to get therapy when they need it. I may talk to them about recovery programs like I went through. So, I had kind of like a list of resources that I could point people to and things I might talk with people about. Um And as you know, cuz, you know, I've coached you a couple times now, you know, when I first meet someone, I'm kind of figuring out with them what would be most valuable to them right now. Like what could I really help them with that they'd get the kind of biggest bang for the buck. And that's going to be different kind of for everyone until you find sort of a pattern. So, some of it is It's a little bit of a long way of saying I think if you came up with like some high-level themes of what you're going to help people with. Like and I'm just going to make some stuff up when it comes to leadership. It could be like building confidence is some sort of theme. Um uh taking ownership right? Where you when you own things and could be a theme. You know, accountability people to you and to others could be a theme. Um your self-image or not really your self-image, your organizational image, you know, and I know we don't like to talk about image management because that can be a really

### Segment 12 (55:00 - 60:00) [55:00]

manipulative thing, but it's a it's also a real thing, you know, within an organization. How we look, how we present ourselves, how we speak, our confidence level does sorry, matter. Um I'm just making some stuff up, but you know, maybe you come up with some themes of things you'd help them with but not necessarily commit to, "Okay, over the time of working with you, I'm just going to nail it and transform you on all like five dimensions. " I don't know how you feel about this, but like for me, I didn't know how long it would take. far I could get someone. So, I kind of had to talk with them a little bit first up front and figure out like which one of these do you want to kind of start with? And then as we worked on it, some people would just really make progress fast on certain things. Other people, it might take six sessions. Um I'm just trying to think of a way that and this is I'm not saying you have to do it the way I did it, but I'm trying to think of a way that you could walk into this feeling like, "Okay, I'm not just completely like walking on a tightrope and terrified that I have no process or structure. " But how do you do this without kind of over-investing or or building false confidence, so to speak, in your potential prospect that you have it more together than you really need to when this is Let's be honest, this is an experiment, right? We talk about lean software development. You're doing an experiment. Like what what would happen? You know, you might even look at um there's uh there's a template simple and you've probably seen this similar to user stories. Uh where I think it's Is it experiment-driven development or hypothesis-driven development or something like this, but it's like, you know, I'm going to do this thing because I theorize it's going to have this outcome and I'll know it's true if I get this result. And there I'll if this goes on YouTube, I'll throw a link in the cards so people can watch the video I did about that. Um but you know, maybe the outcome that you want out of this first person you help is you know, I have a theory that if I offered this five set of themes they will pick one or two and will be able to make an impact on it and I'll know it had the result if by the end they give me a testimonial. You know, I'm kind of freestyling here, but um basically just walk into this trying to keep it casual. Um make it a win-win for you and the person you're helping. Um really go into it just with a heart of servant of service that you want to really be of service and help to them. But also put some boundaries around the amount of time, you know, maybe it's four sessions, maybe it's six sessions. I don't know what what's appropriate for you. Um so that it's not indefinite and you feel like you you don't get into a situation where you have to tell them to stop and you haven't sort of set some boundaries up front. Um I know that doesn't answer all your questions. It it You'll have to decide how much process. I guess what I wouldn't do though is like try to come up with similar to how we would as architects, "Okay, here's how the Here's all the exact components and here's the sequence they're going to go in and here's all their subcomponents and the discrete activities we're going to go through and they're going to complete worksheets at this step. " Like I I love geeking out on that stuff, but then if I build that, I'm going to walk into a discovery type of a situation with a potential prospect and I'm not going to be primed for learning. I'm like kind of forcing the thing that I thought was right down their throat, which in my opinion kind of again it it's kind of more of a waterfall-y way of starting businesses if that makes sense. Mhm. Yeah. Yep, totally. So, in as far as, you know, people being willing to invest, I wanted to just throw in there, too. Um you know, I did some research. There's a uh report out there. I think it was called Sherpa Coaching or something. It's They probably still exist today, I would guess. And they did a report like a study every I don't know, like every couple years. And they sort of would survey the coaching industry and see what people are paying in, you know, like life coaching, career coaching. Actually, I don't think they had career coaching when I started, but like business coaching, executive coaching, all these different types of coaching. And so I kind of used that as my starting point when I first started helping people, "Okay, I'll pick a rate that's kind of between like business coaching and executive coaching or I did something like that. And you know, as I first started helping people, I didn't have a lot of clients. I didn't know if it was cuz my price was too high, but you know, I started working with people and I also had a job like you do. So it wasn't like I was like, I got to have a million clients immediately. I was like, I can take my time on this. I got a YouTube channel. I'm still just figuring this all out. And once I started getting better at it and

### Segment 13 (60:00 - 65:00) [1:00:00]

I started getting more demand and I and you know, I had email marketing and I had people coming from YouTube and like too many people, I started to raise my prices. And then prices more and I raised you know, I didn't raise it because I'm trying to squeeze people. I raised it because I could only help so many people. The demand was high enough that like the higher I raised the price, I started getting higher quality, more motivated people that I could actually have you know, make a bigger difference in their career. And it's providing for me. Obviously, that's a big part of this. Um now is there a cap to that? I'm sure there is. You know, I mean there's a cap to almost every service out there, but you know, I would think if I can charge a couple thousand dollars for a few you know, six sessions and make a real impact with people and this is helping them with direction in their career. And you're going to help people become leaders in companies, that's a pretty tangible uh return on investment. They're going to get higher paying jobs, you know, just do the math on the however 20, 40,000 extra even per year they might make by picking up those skills. You know, again, you if you're selling it, you're going to have to help people do the math and you'll learn that. That's marketing skills and you I'm sure have some of that already. Um this you know, the tech industry despite the difficulty in job hiring right now, there's a lot of money to invest in if it's really valuable, uh people will pay to get help with things like this. Um now have you thought about whether you might have companies help pay for their individuals to get like this leadership training from you or do you think just individuals completely would come on their own uh and and pay you and and kind of contract you to work with them. And the comp it's basically completely separate from the company being involved at all. Is that something you thought about? Uh I haven't thought deeply about that. Um my you know, my initial thought was it would be purely on an individual um on an individual basis and uh partly because when I'm speaking to these people I'm I want to help I want to resonate with probably the they're going to be in some level of pain at their current job. Yeah. They're going to be wanting to escape what they're either the company is there's no opportunities there. You know, so it's like I I to go in to sell to a company that I offer this leadership training because hey, they're miserable here with you. That's maybe not how I would market it, but Well, what what one thing and I know we're getting kind of near the end here. Um you know, what one thing I I know I've talked about this on our Discord server. I don't know how much I talked with you in coaching sessions about this. You know, when I first started helping people, I was recovering from drug addiction. I had really bad insomnia. Um you know, I'd lost everything financially and so you know, I'd shared a lot on YouTube of the things I'd been through and I tended to draw clients who had been through a similar situation. Maybe not as extreme of mine, but they'd gone through some burnout or some serious challenges in their career. And a lot of them were still in that place of like either current burnout or just like just got through the burnout and barely trying to get the energy to get back again. And my heart goes out to those people and those lot of them watch the channel and I care about them and I want to help them while at the same time, some of those people really would be better served by therapy and you know, addiction recovery and marriage counseling, right? And things like that I that I don't do. I can encourage them, but you know, I have limits, right? Um and so I you know, my my sort of profile of the ideal client, meaning the person I feel like I can help the best has shifted over time. And now I think it works better where I look for people who they've maybe experienced some burnout. It could even have been serious in their career. They've had some serious challenges. They've had bad projects, maybe some traumatic projects, but they're not like currently like in urgency flip out mode. They're stable, much like you, Ben. They're stable, but they are at a place where they're like, I could build from here. Like I maybe I don't know what to do yet. Maybe I'm still dealing with some of the residual effects of how difficult things have been up to this point, but I but I'm in you know, I'm in a place where I'm starting to think about what's next and I have the energy and the will to do it.

### Segment 14 (65:00 - 70:00) [1:05:00]

Um I say this to say for you, this is just a thought. You're going to learn all about this market. They're not my market per se. Um some you know, it's a little overlap. Uh you know, I don't know if you'd want to find people I don't know uh who are like at a company and they hate it and they're miserable and they're like, maybe I could be a leader. You might want to look for people I don't know uh who are like you know, I've gotten job after job and I feel like the reason I'm not growing is it seems like people aren't taking me seriously. I'm not projecting myself with sort of gravitas as a leader. I don't know exactly what that is or why that is, but I see other people who have it and I don't. How do I get that so that when I move ahead in my career, I don't feel like imposter syndrome around my ability to like uh instill confidence in people and lead people. Where the lack is sort of like I'm missing what I see other people have. It's not like I hate my job. I'm burned out. I have no energy. So now I'm going to invest in all this leadership stuff when they don't really maybe have the money or energy for it. That there could be a lot of assumptions that aren't true in what I'm saying. I'm kind of freestyling here, but what do you think about when you hear me just kind of share a little bit of how my prospect has changed and what I'm theorizing I guess you might consider for yours. Yeah, I think that's uh very insightful and when I think I was focusing you know, just a lot of my brain cells on this ideal client um around the pains that they're feeling. Like I want to and that's I want to I've experienced it, gone through it many times. Like I just really actually want to help people through that. Yeah. But if I can see where if I if I'm really honing in on people that are just in so much pain and they're miserable and I might not be the best person to help them and they might not be in a place where they would be accepting of the help that I could give. You know, so I want to I want to reach people that not only are in the pain, but that I can actually also help and who are willing to invest in themselves. And so maybe I've been thinking too much about all the misery, you know, all the misery that come that honestly like tech can be a miserable place for people even who people who enjoy tech. It can be a very unhappy miserable place to work, so. Yeah. Uh yeah. Well, I love the idea of you being someone though to make it less miserable and giving people, you know, some skills they don't have and lifting them up cuz I you know, I meet when I meet people for consultations, I meet people who are great clients that I can help and I'm you know, I just turned down somebody yesterday. I meet people that just like I they're great people. They need help. Um but it's you know, what they need help with is just something that I'm I don't feel confident I'm the right person. And so you know, I think giving yourself permission to hey, I can walk into this and I can say, this is who I feel comfortable I can help today. This is who I don't feel comfortable I can help. That doesn't mean you don't care about people who are struggling. Um I mean I I'll be honest. I get myself into trouble, Ben, when I take on clients who my heart goes out to too much and I'm not real with myself about the level of struggle they're dealing with is probably going to make it very hard to help them. Um I tend to just cuz I have a heart for people who struggle, obvious from my YouTube channel. Um I have to fight that. I have to be able to say no, you know, in in a caring way, but I have to say, hey, you know, why don't you try the why don't you get help with this other thing first. You know, maybe you need again, marriage counseling more. Maybe you need assertiveness training, you know, there's a right, there's all kinds of things that you know, that might be the bigger bang for the buck, let's say in their career. And then once they're kind of helped with that, if they want to come back to me then, would love to help them. But like I I'd almost be doing a disservice to them if I take them on as a client when I can't really get them the results that I could um just because they've got some other stuff that that's going on in their life that really that's really what needs the attention. It's not, you know, me helping them with whatever's going on in their career. So, anyway, I that's I guess an aside, but Ben, um we're sort of towards the end here. Is there anything else just kind of before we wrap up you want to ask or you know, any anything I know we're on Discord, so obviously, you know, you and I can chat a little bit there whenever. Um since it's been a while since we talked

### Segment 15 (70:00 - 75:00) [1:10:00]

any anything else you want to ask me kind of while we're just talking today or how you feeling about all this? This is I mean it's this has been good. I've taken a few pages of notes here. Um I don't know if you could hear my keyboard sounding like a machine gun in the background, you know, cuz we all love our mechanical keyboards that uh rip through the whole household, but okay. one of the few, man. I I've cheap like gas, but like I know they're awesome. My brother had one, but I just have never gotten one, yeah. Um the we can not go down this rabbit hole cuz I know we're at time, but my other what I when I said that I wasn't necessarily looking to do one-on-one coaching um not as the main service. Like eventually, I would like to build I know like online courses are nobody uses them. They don't complete them. They're not that effective. But I want to have some sort of a self-paced component with support from me and a community. Yep. That's eventually. Like but that seems like I'm not even ready to start building out what that looks like. I don't even know necessarily who I'm talking to yet. Um but do you think that that's a valid approach or any pitfalls or anything like that? I I mean, I can only give you my perspective again and you and you're and your journey's going to look different than mine. Um I will say I'm at that place right now. Like I'm literally putting together a I don't want to get into too many details cuz it's going to change between now and when it comes out, but you know, I'm I'm putting together some new ways to help people other than one-on-one coaching that are still very community-based. I'm heavily involved. They're not just like a you know, course. Um I think there you know, I think I've talked to you about this. There's different levels of ways of helping people, right? There's like you read a book, you just get the information. There's no activities. Then you have courses, which is the information plus discrete activities to help you hopefully complete them. But then the accountability's all on you. Then you have sort of like group coaching or memberships, things like that where like you know, people are kind of try to do it together. And then you have what we're doing, one-on-one coaching, which is kind of the highest impact where somebody's helping hold you accountable. They can speak directly in your situation. Um I think the best way to learn about your customer and your market, no matter what you want to do in business if you're going to start one, is potentially spending real time with people either in person or over Zoom. And just trying to help them. Even if you bring a laptop or you're helping them with tech or whatever, just like spend actual time with the person. Um I know that's not as popular. Everybody wants to just stand up some service or SaaS product and never have to talk to a living soul or customer. But I know you, Ben, too. You're the opposite of that. You I don't know if I'd say you're an extrovert, but like you you I can tell you realize the level of impact that you can have on individuals when you're working with them. Um so yeah, man, I just want to encourage you. Like I think, you know, maybe as a next step and again, you might feel completely different tomorrow cuz this stuff's all going to rattle around and you're going to figure out what's next, but I I think, you know, finding some people that would be willing to just work with you um and let you try to help them uh and you know, maybe you get you hit you agree that they or they agree that they're going to give you some sort of testimonial at the end if it goes well. Um and maybe put a limit around the time. But starting to do that um and again, I would say don't put the pressure on yourself that you got to get all the answers in that first time of doing it. You might have to do that a few times. I coached three or four people for free before my first client that I asked any money from. Um and my first client, I think I only did three sessions with them. That was it. Um so, you know, I guess it's a long way of saying if you're thinking could this lead to a more structured thing where there's more people in a community or something, absolutely. Um and would starting with individuals make it harder or easier to get there? Personal opinion, I think it'll make it easier and faster to get there if you start with the individuals cuz it's going to be less complex, right? As soon as you're dealing with multiple people, you really got to have stuff more organized and structured and when I'm real with myself, when I started this, I was recovering from marijuana addiction. I had sleep problems. The last thing I could handle was like some let's say group coaching thing with 30 people walking them through a process. I wasn't there. I didn't have the level of clarity at that time. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Makes sense. Awesome, Ben. Well, it's been great to see you, man. I

### Segment 16 (75:00 - 75:00) [1:15:00]

hope this was helpful. Thank you for hopping on here Super helpful. Yeah, giving people I just want to acknowledge you just having the vulnerability even to just come on here and kind of share a little of what it's like to work with me. I really appreciate it. I hope it helps some other people, too. And they're able to see, oh, you know, maybe I'll bet there's more people than you know who are in the same exact situation that you are. Maybe a little bit different what they're looking to do, but I think, you know, them just hearing you share is going to be really helpful to them, too. Good. I hope so. Hope it is, yeah. Appreciate it, man.