Is this it ? .... A Guide to finding your purpose, with Ingo Rauth Phd

Welcome to Building your Leader Brand. This week on the show, Bob is speaking with Ingo Ralph. One of my core values is wisdom, deeper understanding of things. If I'm in a room with somebody who has a deeper understanding or we have a conversation, we would deepen our standing, like this one, for example. I'm getting excited. I'm leaning in. And this is also how you can tell when other people act in accordance with their values. If they act in accordance with their needs, they won't respond the same way. They're not leaning in. They're not as passionate as they are when they are acting in line with their values. Hi there, and welcome back to Building your leader brand. My name is Bob Gentle, and every week I speak with incredible people who share their secrets to building, marketing, and monetizing their expertise, intentionally amplifying their unique personal brand and the mindset you need for your business to grow and thrive. If you're new to the show, even if you regularly listen, take a moment to subscribe and then give yourself a pat on the back for being so smart. Number one, for being here, and number two, for making sure you don't miss it next time. So this week, I am really, really excited to speak to my friend Ingo. Ingo Rout, welcome to the show. Thank you, Bob. Great to be here. So at this point in the podcast, normally, I ramble ahead really enthusiastically, introducing the guest terribly. I'm going to rein myself back, and I'm going to invite you to just tell us a little bit about who you are, where you are, and what it is you actually do. Okay. Thank you so much for that openness. So as you already said, my name is Ingle Raoult. I am a coach that help people figure out what it is they actually want and how to get it when it comes to the most, for me, interesting and exciting periods of our lives which are actually in between careers. So usually when we think about being out of a job or out of a career, there is this moment of nothingness. And I believe that this moment has the potential for you to live the life and get the life that you want. However, most of us are scrambling for jobs, and we try to get something done because our identities are so much tied into this narrative of a role of a career or a job. And so what I do is I support people with using that and leveraging that as an opportunity. And I call this phase, which is perfectly normal, by the way, we all go through it, the purpose turn. It's where success stops being enough We actually want to focus on, and we have the opportunity to focus on what matters. I think that moment, and for me, you're, in broad terms, the purpose guy. And I think these Mid career professionals are the people who experience this the most often. It's something people very rarely prepare for. Nobody prepares us for that. We're thrown into the situation where the thing that we defaulted into or the That was the thing that we were enthusiastic about and was going really, really well. Suddenly somebody says, We don't want you to do that anymore. You need to go find something new. And then you think, Okay. And I think that's where a lot of people naturally have of these conversations. I have an end degree. I was going to say there are three categories. The second category is somebody who perhaps isn't in that crisis moment from an external perspective, but there's an internal, I'm not happy. I don't understand this. Apparently, I was very successful. Apparently, I am, but I'm not feeling happy. And then there's the organisational side of things where an organisation may They're commercially doing okay, but they don't really know where they fit in the world. What is their purpose? I'd be quite keen to maybe spend a little time looking at each of those situations. Sure, I'm more than happy to. But we should probably start with crisis. Yeah. If we talk about the purpose turn, I think motivation and mission and vocation and purpose. What's my purpose? People approach that very, very differently. And as somebody who spends a lot of time thinking about why people choose to do the things they do, how do you help people towards this? Because I think a lot of people have never looked at, Well, what do I want? Yeah, well, that's important to me. It's quite interesting because most of the time when people or when we think about, What do we want or what do I want? We look into the world and we see reflections of our desires. So what we see is actually something that holds the promise to make us happy and fulfilled. We don't know if that's the case. And most of the time, we also don't know 100% what it really truly represents to us. So for example, when I talk to people, a lot of times what comes up, what do you want, especially in crisis, first thing that comes to mind is? Money. Money, right? But then you could ask, what for? What do you need to afford? What's important to you? And when you ask that yourself or others, you will get to a deeper truth. And that truth represents a need. That need is something you seek to fulfil through money, through a job. So when it comes to crisis, we are drawn out and we seek resolution in the outside. But what's the most important thing to do is before you do that, it is important to go out, but before you do that, get clarity on what it is that you want and need. Because the thing is, if you're actually acting in line with your needs and what you uniquely want and capable of, you show up as more confident, more authentic, more goal-oriented. You stop wasting time, you're more directing in your conversations, especially when it comes, for example, to hiring conversations. And all these things come from doing the opposite of what we're naturally inclined to do, which is look out there. Now, stop. First thing is look inside, figure out what your needs are. And then once you know that, act with intention, because this is a unique opportunity where you can actually align the world with yourself. Chances if you lost your job or if you quit your job or whatever, chances are who you are is not in tune anymore with the environment that you were part of. You evolved, your environment evolved. Great. Find a new, better match. Don't try to replicate the stuff that doesn't work. Look at yourself, look inwards, and then act with intention. I think there are perhaps two different types of person. That's obviously a bit too binary, but there are people who are quite self-aware and understand intuitively, simply listening to you, they'll know, Oh, I know where to go with this. There are others who perhaps don't have that level of natural, easy self-reflection. In that situation, things like frameworks can be really useful in order that they've got structured lenses to look at themselves with. Are there any frameworks that you... I should also introduce you as Ingo Raoult, PhD. This guy knows what he's doing. One thing I know about academics is they've always got a system. Of course we do. So just to pause there for a second. If you feel like you're not self-aware enough, I can assure you, drawing on my academic side, there is research stating that 95 % of people are actually not completely self-aware. It's completely normal because we are social creatures, and we look for confirmation and acceptance out there. And doing so, we disturb ourselves. We disturb ourselves in the circumstance or in the environment. So that makes it hard to really pinpoint. Plus, you're always in development. The person you were when you were 17 is not the person that's right in front of me or right in front of the mirror. So give yourself some grace, cut yourself some slack. Totally fine. I check in with myself, who I am every couple of years. And I notice these shifts just to help me focus on the things that are important to me right now, because I know when I do, I get more energy out of it. So it's a continuous realignment with self. So that just, on the if you don't know yourself side, it's completely normal. When it comes to the framework, what I do with people and the biggest thing for us to invest in, and it doesn't actually take that long. I'm so surprised people are doing this. So in psychology, we have this idea of core values. These are the lenses with which we evaluate the world around us. Think about the latest family viewed your had, how your parents viewed something, how you viewed something. And this clash is usually the result of it, or the reason why we clash is usually in our values. I had a client that I talked to. He was aggravated about his dad, giving him all the freedom in the world, but all he wanted is guidance. His dad values freedom over anything, and he thinks it's the greatest gift he can give to his son. Now, on the other hand, the son, what he's looking for has looked for all his life. What he's drawn to, what he wants to work in is related to structure scaffolding logic. And so they are at this point where he tries to figure out what he wants to do. Ask his dad, and his dad just goes like, So what do you want to do? Tell me. That's not what he's looking for, right? So he saw the same moment based on a different lens. And it doesn't mean that this guy doesn't appreciate freedom. We all do. But if you ask yourself this question right now, so if you had to choose between freedom and structure, which one is more important to you? And it tells you a lot about the person that you are. Neither or is bad. Doesn't mean you prefer one over everything of the other. And of course, it depends on your situation. But what it gives you is a glimpse of the lenses that you have through which you evaluate and see the world. So when When you look out there, for example, for job opportunities, you're not necessarily after that particular job or that particular company. You want to find something that confirms what you think is right or wrong. To give you an example, a client that I worked with, he was very much drawn towards high tech AI and work for those leading companies. And I asked him, Hey, make a list. And by the way, you can do this exercise right now if you want to figure this out. Make a list of all the companies you're drawn And he made that list. And then I said, Write down what you value about this company. You have never worked for them. So what do you value about them? And he wrote down things like, Oh, cutting edge and challenge and pushing boundaries. And so there was a quite fair bit of challenge and novelty and all these things that excite them that he values. Then I ask him, What about this company? Because there was one company, I've never heard of it. It's the middle of nowhere in the US. I was like, I've never heard of this place. Tell me about this company. And he was like, Yeah, they're very boutique, they're very small, they're doing this, this, and this. I only understood half of it because I'm not that much of a techie. But the interesting thing was that he said, Well, this company is located in a very small town, very remotely, and it gives me access to nature. I was like, Okay, that's what you're looking for. It's interesting. If you take these variables What you value in terms of cutting edge, challenge the status quo, tech/AI, and nature, and you feed that into an AI, what companies are coming up that you're not aware of. And that's actually the difference between desire, like what's out there, and my need. My need is nature, cutting edge, being challenged. My desire, as a result of that, what I saw, my lens, shows me this, like examples that is on everybody's mind, and with that, highly competitive. And I don't see all the other things. So once you understand what you truly need, you're desires or the companies you could desire, the roles you could have, the careers you could have, they start to multiply and you see more opportunity. You're not as narrowly focused. So core values is a very broad canvas, and it's something, personally, I've struggled with. In my business, I have a manifesto. It's business-oriented, and it probably has the distilled core values, but more in in pros rather than in distinct values. When I've tried to sit down and write my core values, the canvas is so vast, I really don't know where to begin. That's one aspect of it. Another aspect of it is I don't know if people remember the smurfs, but they used to make these smurf models. My parents gave my brother and I the little devil smurf and the little angel smurf. And sitting on my shoulder, there's always the devil smurf and the angel smurf, fighting with each other. And it's really difficult in that tension to understand core values because they somehow should sit above all of that. How do you help people with narrowing the field a little bit? I think there's two things. First of all, we have needs, immediate needs. When we are out of a job, when we don't have an income, our values might be out of sight a little bit. That's totally fine. We all need to generate income, and that's okay. But there's also the opportunity to be a little bit more intentional, and that requires us to lead ourselves. I know there are a lot of solopreneurs who listen to your podcast, right? And I think you can relate in terms of we have to lead ourselves. There's nobody else telling us, Oh, this is what you should focus on. This is your company value. We have to hold ourselves accountable to that and not let ourselves be distracted by the next shiny thing. And that's really hard in this oversaturated, overstimulating world. And so the values give you a little bit of direction. They give you a compass. They tell you what's true and what's right for yourself. The needs, on the other hand, is more what you need right now. So you can almost see it as the needs are more representative of the goal or the thing that you want to attain in the moment, and the values help you to engage in a way that's right and true for you. So it helps you navigate the journey while the need helps you become more clear on what it is that you want to focus on, that you want to get out of your next up in your journey. Listening to you, it's really interesting and becoming very clear why working with a psychologist on this thing could be productive, because Because if I am looking at this tension between, I need to pay the mortgage next month, on the one hand, balanced against, I want to work with people whose business and vision I feel is adding to the world. Right. If you're going to take on a client that you think, Maybe I'm compromising core values for money, well, that requires a bit of honesty, and you need to understand that that's the case. You need to actually look at the monster in the face and say, I'm going to do it anyway. And appreciate, I am compromising my integrity here. But this is who I am right now, and it's going to motivate me to work so that I don't have to do this anymore because core values just It became the compass. Yes. And I love your example because it shows how uncomfortable it feels to act against what you really value. You're somebody who's really mission-oriented, who's impact-oriented, who wants purpose in his life expressing that through his work. And when you act against this, you get an emotional response. And that emotional response actually tells you something about yourself, which is rooted in what you really value. So the thing about values and distinguishing it is that, first of all, values show up anywhere in your life. It's not just work, it's in your relationships. It's like the five people you surround yourself with. If you make a list of those five people similar to the companies, you list what you value about them, you will end up with similar things that you value in these companies because it's a reflection of your evaluation. And so what you will What you'll realise is that once you are aware of them, and once you meet a new person, for example, or a new client, you will immediately be able to articulate what irritated or stimulated you just by knowing your values. For me, For example, about our conversations, I love going deep with you. One of my core values is wisdom, deeper understanding of things. If I'm in a room with somebody who has a deeper understanding, or we have a conversation, we would deepen our standing. This one, for example, I'm getting excited. I'm leaning in. And this is also how you can tell when other people act in accordance with their values. If they act in accordance with their needs, they won't respond the same way. They're not leaning in. They're not as passionate as they are when they are acting in line with their values. I have a bit to unpack here, personally. It's really interesting. I think when somebody is in crisis, I think this is a double-edged sword. But I think it is important in these moments to look at, if I was uncomfortable where I was, clearly, I'm uncomfortable where I am, how can I make sure that I'm investing in a future I can get excited about? I think that aspect of the purpose-turn process makes perfect sense. I imagine it's very similar when people are maybe planning a change. I'd like to spend a little bit of time looking at this person. I am getting really excited about the organisational purpose. This has just become very meaningful. But let's talk a little bit about if somebody is unhappy in their situation, but they're not yet in a crisis, how can they begin looking at things so that when it comes to make a change, it's a genuine change towards purpose and happiness. So the good thing when we're not in a crisis is we don't have to deal with things like money and immediate needs. Usually, that's all for. But that's also a problem because we don't have the urgency. It's a nice to have. Like, Viktor Frankl coined this term Sunday neurosis. It's like when you think about the week ahead and going back to work and realise, Oh, man, why am I still doing this? So it It's important to give that time and space. And depending on how you like to process, for example, I'm a verbal processor. I love to have conversations. Other people love to write. It's important to make time for that, even if it's just 10 or 15 minutes, to develop an understanding, as we said before, what do I really value? What is my compass? Because it will not only tell you what you want, but it will also tell you why what you're doing, is actually no longer working for you, how you have outgrown that. For me, for example, when I was years back, when I was still in academia, I had this moment where I was in front of a class and we talked about the meaning of life of all things, very philosophical topic. And I was listening to my students, and as I was listening to my students, I all of a sudden realised that this is meaningful. But what I do back at my university in my capacity as a researcher, if I'm honest, and that was tough to admit that, it's not that meaningful. And if I'm true to what I value, which is wisdom, deep deeper understanding, which is meaning and impact, then I shouldn't be doing with my life what I'm doing with my life. And it took me a day to come to terms with. I even called my mum and was like, Hey, mum, this is as we all do. But in this moment, I found the clarity that allowed me to do the thing that frightened me, which was... And by the way, this is not the best tactic, but at the time, it was for me to I had this lecture on Wednesday and on Friday to go into the office and say, That's it, I'm quitting. And it was a surprise to everybody who worked with me. But given what I've learned about myself in that moment, it felt intuitively right and true. And that's the thing about values and purpose. It's not necessarily a logical argument. The logic would have been, you invested like 10 years into a PhD, you are hyper specialised, you're on the track to get tenured, you are well connected in the industry. It's like, who in his right mind, logically speaking, would do this? Well, yes, that's the right mind. But what about the right heart, right? Or what about the right life? Career is such a small part of our life, yet it has blown out of proportion. It's a big part of who we are in society. So it's not easy. But that brings me to the second step. So after you know what your truth is, who you are, what you want out of this life, what you value, then the next step is to start to live that out, live that out loud. And that doesn't have to be a dramatic bang. It doesn't have to be, I quit my job. It starts with starting to speak your truth. And usually that starts with friends, family, people who are close to us. Because the more we speak it, the more we learn to trust ourselves, the more confident we feel in who we are. And what we essentially do is we detach from that role, from that thing that has been the cloak that we have been wearing or the uniform that we have been wearing for so long and say, Hey, this is not me. This is part of me. I can put that uniform on and I can perform there, and I'm great at it. But there is more to me. And when you are there, what it will do naturally is when people start to talk about that, if you have a little bit of time, start, and it requires tremendous amount of courage and vulnerability. Start to talk your truth. Live out loud. Talk about your values. Talk about the things that aggravate you. Talk about your ambitions. Giving yourself that space creates the trust and the confidence that you seek, not in the outer, but within you. And with that, you become independent of that uniform, of that company, of whatever it is, which allows you to take a step back, not burn the mid-light oil, see everything a little bit more relaxed, and avoids you with the space you need to go through this properly, to figure out, Okay, what's the next thing? Hey, I have this amazing platform. I'm performing. I'm okay. I have my base needs met. Amazing. So what is it that I want to create for myself? And by the way, A huge shout out to you because I know you're an amazing coach. If you are in a moment like this, and if you think like, I don't have anybody to talk to. And I certainly been there. I hired a psychotherapist to help me out because I felt like I needed space. Then go out there, get somebody that affords you, that gives you that space. Whether it's Bob, whether it's me or a psychotherapist or somebody else, doesn't really matter. They are all trained to give you space and not advice, because that's what you need. You need to experience yourself talking a truth, and then from talking to acting. As you were speaking, I was reflecting, it's very similar to what I've heard about the grieving process. It's the five stages. Oh, yeah. And you bring almost a similar structure to that. And it's about identity change. Yeah. So the grieving Curve or the Change Curve by Kubler Ross, just had to drop that reference, is actually fundamental to our understanding on how we change behaviour, identity, how we let go of the old and go towards the new. It's a very emotional stage. When we think about change, we usually think about the next thing. But it's actually two phases that we ignore. One is letting go. And there's a guy, William Bridges, who wrote a book about that. It's important to let go of the old. And it's hard because if you're in a job, the old is what gives you security, social status, income, come, affords your reputation, all these amazing things, right? And then there is the new, which hasn't evolved yet. And you think like, oh, that's just uncertainty. And uncertainty naturally leads to us feeling fearful. So what happens as we start to go through this process is we go from maybe resentment, maybe disappointment, maybe an awareness of this no longer fits us into what's called the valley of despair, where we don't know, where we start to question ourselves, we start to question our jobs, we start to question our surrounding, we look here and there, we try different things, we start side hustles, whatever not, just in order to find a reflection of ourselves in the out there that gives us enough confidence to pursue something. And that's where we, back at what we talked about before, it's so much more efficient and effective to understand yourself first, find a confidence there, and then see what's there in the outside that resonates with that, Then it is to look at all the opportunities out there that you can conceive. And by the way, that's limited. And try to fit that more once again, just to be disappointed once again. So to your point, yes, there is a process to it. It's a curve. It's a roller coaster. It's not pretty. But the good thing is that if you know these things, if you know that, first of all, there's a process to it. There's a name to We all go through it. It's scientifically studied. It also tells you that we understand the mechanisms to climb out that uncertainty, like valley of despair, quicker, faster, bounce back. You don't need to spend years on this. You can spend a couple of days or week on this, depending on what you do. And it's very feasible to make that and turn that into whatever it is that excites you and you're passionate and purposeful about next. I'm listening to this and I'm reflecting, I have been running the same company since 2009. Same company. But this company has done several different things. And at each stage, this has happened. There's been the purpose term process. I haven't gone and got a new job. I haven't killed something to do something else. But the decision to become somebody different has had to happen several times. And I think there are lots of solopreneurs, business owners listening or thinking, Well, I've got the business I've got, but it's maybe not the business I love. We could do something about that. Everything we've described today, we can apply to the business we have right now. But this point about identity shift is extremely important. That the living as if or projecting yourself into that future and letting the version of you that isn't bringing you joy stay in the past. I want to add something here because I think there's this idea living as if, right? And it might feel very pretentious and very uncomfortable, and it feels clunky, and this is not who we are. But at your core, You're already that because you feel a misfit between where you are and an unfolding future. You know that there is something different. And the reason why you know is because you evolved already. So it's not that you necessarily We have to catch up with reality or to a higher goal or something like that. You have to catch up with yourself, first and foremost, and then live that out as you did with your business, as you do with your business. The beautiful thing about being a solopreneur, the business can evolve with you. You are the boss. It's not always clear on how that journey works out. But the interesting thing is if you think back about your life and any moment where you felt like, I don't know, I don't know. And you look back at that moment, five years later, what happens is you see the through line. You know exactly, yeah, this is how it went. And if somebody asked you, you can tell them the story on how, for example, in my case, I was in the military, it at some point. I was a graphic designer at one point, industrial designer. I was a camera assistant. I was a programmer. I had all these jobs. And my parents were like, what's going on with him? But for me, whenever time I talk to somebody about the The thing that I was doing, I justified my now drawing on this diverse experiences I had in my past and created that logic. The meaning of your life is created. You created. And that's a beautiful thing, especially when you're a solopreneur, because it allows you to create not only a good career, but a meaningful life. There's a guy, Roger James Hamilton, wrote a book called The Millionaire Master which I'm not necessarily recommending. I enjoyed it. In that book, he talks about how it's statistically extremely unlikely that your first business is the one that builds wealth. And that could be quite depressing for a lot of people to think, I'm doing this. I've just started this thing. It's getting off the ground. Statistically, it's unlikely to be the thing that builds my dreams. What I took away from that is not that you need to just assume you're going to fail. Or that you're just going to get by, but that you are going to need to pivot. There is going to need to be a series of turns and adjustments, and that the thing you're doing now is probably temporary. The more aligned you are with what you're doing, the more of a flow state you're going to be in when you're doing it, the more you're going to come across as high value in doing it, the more people are going to trust you, the more credible and authoritative you can become with that, and the path unfolds in front of you without resistance. For me, this is why this really matters. I think you touch upon a very important point here, which is that purpose is basically an alignment of yourself with the world around you in a way that contributes to the world around you and fuels It holds you. So there is this continuous cycle that helps you to feel more energised and energetic while also doing more and more and better and better work. And that's basically what you want to get into. Because at that point, when you're doing that, your work stops feeling like work. You feel excited. You go like, and you probably know people like that, and you think they're super annoying, but there are people out there who just love their work, and they seem to like, do everything effortlessly. And it's because who they are is aligned with what they do and what they are driven to accomplish in a way that what they accomplish feeds, again, who they are. And talking about frameworks and values here, what's very important to realise is that you probably heard the word strength and character strength. So it's basically what you're really good at, that when you do it, afforts you an experience of flow. Time evaporates, but you're still productive. It's this perfect balance between challenge and being optimally stimulated while being at the edge of your capabilities. And so the interesting thing about that, which is often forgotten, is that the reason why this works is because when you do something that is a strength of yours, you confirm your values. So to give you an For example, I told you already, I love wisdom, deeper understanding of things. I'm that nerd that sits down on a Friday night and attempts to learn a topic in a weekend. And I will be in such a flow state for that weekend. I forget about my crying kids and sleep and everything else because I'm just so fueled by what I'm doing. The reason why that is, is because what I do signals to myself I'm doing the right thing. And that's why it's so important. Once you know your values, understand your strength, and understand how your strengths doing the right thing fuels you. And then the last thing is when you think about, okay, I know that a lot of entrepreneurs, they're like, who am I serving? Who should I help? And the interesting thing is, I mean, yes, we all want to be altruistic. We all want to do good things. But at the end of the day, if you just do good things without it rewarding you, you burn out. We all know that. We all have been in circumstances where that happened. So it is important to contribute to things, to contribute to people, to contribute to causes that you value. Once you know that, the likelihood that what you do actually once again fuels you through your lenses, through your values, is really, really high. So once you have your values, think about your strength and think about which causes or people or groups of people or organisations have the same values that you have. Chances are when you start talking to them, no matter if it's a client, no matter if it's a company recruiter, no matter if it's somebody you want to collaborate with, you hit it out of the park. The two of you are just like, Oh, my God. This was the most amazing conversation I ever had. The reason was because you talked authentically based on who you are and what you value. And the other person having similar values gets so ignited, so triggered, so energised by it that it fuels them, and they express themselves in the same way. So you create this beautiful synergy that leads to the both of you getting super excited and feeling like you have an amazing conversation. So that's in a micro your cosm of a one-to-one. But think about the cosm of one-to-many. Think about you being in front of an audience, talking. Being in front of the right audience can make all the difference, no matter how good your talk is. Being in front of the right recruiter or the right next boss and sharing openly and feeling you can express yourself truly, that connexion builds an amount of trust that no resume can build. So once you understand that and once you have those aligned, it actually creates a little bit of a fuel tank, if you like, that keeps you going and allows you to move and continuously feel inspired and energised. I have one more question that I want to ask, and I think maybe we're going to have you back and we'll talk about purpose from an organisational perspective another time, rather than try and squeeze it into it. It would be very fair for somebody listening to think, This is a recipe for an easy life in utopia. I'm not going to have to work or be uncomfortable anymore. We need to honour discomfort a little bit. Yes, 100 %. And I absolutely agree. You You know that all of all people, you know this. And anybody who's in business for themselves knows this, right? It's not just doing the thing that feels great and energising all the time. I mean, if you're in business for yourself, you probably spend 60 % marketing and doing stuff like bookkeeping. And I hate bookkeeping. Who's with me, right? It's like, yes, there is a price to pay, but there's also a ratio to be established. And if you are in a situation in a career, in a circumstance that stops fuel fueling you, where you feel drained and you're dreading going back to work, chances are this ratio is not working. So there's too much discomfort. There's too much stuff that doesn't fuel you, that doesn't add to your life, where you're burning out because it doesn't give you anything back. And I think this is where it fits in to not only pay attention to what's demanded of you and what's needed of you, because that depletes you, but also think about how does this fuel me? And I think stuff like, for example, outreach, marketing, sales. I think the most important thing for me is to understand, Okay, how can I make this generative? Not in the lead generative operating sense or profitable sense, but in the very real sense of how I feel on an everyday basis. Because I know without that motivation, that energy that I have for my topic and for what I'm passionate about, This will feel like an endless dread. And I only get to do what I want to do, maybe, I don't know, 40% of the time. And that's not worth it. So when you know these things, have the opportunity to reshape what you're doing in a way that suits you. And I want to give you an example here. It's actually not very much related to the solopreneur life. But when I became a PhD, and Maria, my former boss, or PhD supervisor, if you hear this, I'm sorry. But On my first day, she asked me, Hey, Ingo, do you like reading? I was like, Yes, I love reading. I love accumulating knowledge, as I told you, right? And then she asked me, Hey, do you like writing? I said, Yes. And it was a lie. I hated writing. I was not really I got at it. I'm partially dyslexic, so writing, not my forte. And then a year and a half into my PhD, my second supervisor came and he was like, Hey, doing a PhD is also about writing, right? You got to produce. I was like, Yeah, yeah. And so I took a course in academic writing. Until that point, I saw academic writing as a mystery, as something that highly talented, skilled people can do, which I didn't have any access to. So dreadingly, I went to this course. I sat there, and the instructor, she had taught academic writing like she was in her 60s, so I'm assuming for 40 years, 30 years. She was amazing. The one that this woman did for me, it showed me how academic writing is a creative act that follows rules and can be designed. And with that, she made this translation from something that I felt never competent in into something that relates to something that I understand as my strength. And all of a sudden, skill and strength, by the way, not the same thing. All of a sudden, I could apply my strength in terms of structure, creativity, to this subject that I was treading, the skill that I was treading. That unlocked me in a way that I've never assumed was possible. I could write academic papers on my phone. I started teaching academic writing to graduate students. I would have never pictured myself doing that. And it was because knowing this and how to approach this based on who I am allowed me to bring myself to it in an authentic way that fueled me, and that allowed me to continuously, till this day, do that and frankly, enjoy it. So not that useful academic writing if you do your own business, but it gave me this important life lesson, and it allowed me to get a real sense of, Okay, I can do these hard things, these 60%, 40% that don't feel like me, when I allow myself to bring myself to them. I think There are a conversation I have quite often with business owners when they have a team. A lot of the time, I'm having conversations with a business owner that has a team because they want the team to carry the business. They've built this business through their own charisma and their own energy, and they want to start enjoying the fruits of this and everybody else step up. Almost always end up hearing from me is, you can't expect them to do what you do because You have purpose and mission in this business. They have a job. Yes and no. Well, this is where I'm getting to, and I think this is where the organisational purpose comes in, which we're going to talk about another time. But I think if you're at home thinking, for example, personal visibility is something a lot of people struggle with. I struggled with it in the beginning. If you're not really aligned with the mission in your business, you're not motivated to do it. There's no motivation to do difficult things. But if you wake up in the morning as that annoying person for whom work is not work, it's a joy, and they feel like they're making an impact in the world, and every time they win a client, the world wins, you feel very differently about doing difficult things because now you're carrying the flag for something bigger than you. And I think that's where this is really important for my clients. For everybody, this is very, very important. And I saw you You're wanting to jump in and translate me. Go for it. I think I just want to add to it because I'm 100 % in agreement with what you say. First of all, as a founder, what you do is you build your organisation based on your values, which means it's super meaningful for you, and you feel like you're doing the right thing. But the reason why your people join while they're in the first place, it's not because they value the same things. It's because they see something that resonates with them individually. And this is where organisational purpose becomes tricky, and we'll talk more about this in part two, I guess. But your job as a leader, especially if you have a small team, is not to assume that what you put out there is meaningful to your people. It's understanding what's meaningful to your people and help them see themselves in what you offer. I really like that. For the listener who's sitting there thinking, I need a bit of Ingo route in my life, how can they make this happen? How can people get closer to you or perhaps have something as wild as a conversation? If you want more of this, if you want to follow my thoughts, I regularly share on LinkedIn, so don't hesitate to reach out, even hit the connect button, and Let me know what you're going through. For me, this is my life's work. I always enjoy hearing what people are going through, the stories that unfold for them. So please don't hesitate. Also, I keep two hours a month, roughly, for people that heard me on a podcast who have questions or want to reflect on something. So if that's you, if you feel like there's something I need to clarify or I want to know more about something, please reach out. It also helps me to keep myself fueled and energised as you just heard. Doing this is intensely rewarding to me. It's not that I can give it away for free, but these two hours a month are really important to me, and I love the conversations that usually come from something like this. So please Please feel invited. Reach out, say hi, and we take it from there. I'll put a link to your LinkedIn profile and your website in the show notes. I'm also going to say to the listeners, when people say things like this on the podcast, although the podcast gets a lot of downloads, I know from experience that not that many people take up offers like this. If you're sitting there thinking, Oh, I don't want to bother him. He's going to get hundreds of people. It's not going to be the case. You're probably going to be the only one. So don't be shy. Engo, this has been the best fun I've had on a podcast for a long time. I'm really looking forward to part two. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you so much, Bob, for inviting me and having me and for this inspiring conversation. And I'm looking forward to part two. So for you, home, that does bring us to the end of another episode. Thank you very much for listening. If you've got this far, then I would invite you to leave a five-star review wherever you listen to podcast. It's five. Count them before you click because the hitting the four is easier than you would imagine. And don't forget to follow or subscribe to the podcast. Again, if you did enjoy the show, you will love the Personal Brand business roadmap. It's 50 pages of everything you need to start, scale, or fix your expert business. Thanks again for listening, and Ingo, thanks for your time.