Starter Girlz Podcast

Being vs Doing: The Inner Shift That Changes Everything (with Ryan Gottfredson, PhD, Leadership Researcher & Bestselling Author of Becoming Better)

• Jennifer Loehding

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Are you stuck in the cycle of doing more but not actually growing? In this powerful conversation, leadership researcher and bestselling author Ryan Gottfredson breaks down the crucial difference between being and doing and why upgrading who you are matters far more than upgrading your to-do list.

Whether you're a leader, creator, entrepreneur, or someone navigating burnout, this episode will help you understand why traditional self-improvement often fails… and what it really takes to transform your life from the inside out.

With Ryan, we explore why high achievers often hit invisible ceilings, why burnout keeps returning, and how your inner operating system — your mindsets, nervous system, identity, and sense-making — determine the quality of your relationships, leadership, and long-term success.

In today’s world, we’re taught to hustle harder, learn more skills, collect certifications, and keep pushing. But Ryan reveals a life-changing truth:
Real transformation doesn’t start with doing more; it begins with becoming more.

Together, we explore why high achievers often hit invisible ceilings, why burnout keeps returning, and how your inner operating system, your mindsets, nervous system, identity, and sense-making determine the quality of your relationships, leadership, and long-term success.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✅ The game-changing difference between horizontal vs. vertical development
✅ Why the most skilled people still struggle to lead effectively
✅ How your childhood wiring shapes your adult decision-making
✅ What “heat experiences” are and how they can fuel rapid growth
✅ Practical tools for strengthening self-regulation and emotional resilience
✅ How to shift out of self-protection and into value creation
✅ Why you can’t outwork or outthink a dysregulated nervous system
✅ How identity, confidence, and self-worth impact your leadership
✅ Simple daily practices to develop your “being” side

Why You Should Watch:

If you're ready to lead with clarity, reduce burnout, and unlock deeper personal transformation, this episode is for you.

Connect with Ryan Gottfredson

🌐 Website: https://ryangottfredson.com

Connect with Starter Girlz Podcast

🌐 Website: https://startergirlz.com

🙌 Partner: Walt Mills Productions

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Subscribe to the Starter Girlz Podcast for bold, inspiring conversations that fuel your personal and professional growth. Don’t forget to like, share, and leave a review — your support helps spread these stories further.

Ryan Gottfredson:

These are all attributes about ourselves that aren't really connected to our doing side, but are deeply embedded in our being side. And so while she she was seeking after a solution in the wrong place, she was going after more doing side development, and what she needed was being side development. And so that's the space that I play in: helping people awaken to their being side, evaluate their altitude along their being side, and help them upgrade along their being side.

Jennifer Loehding:

Welcome to the Starter Girlz Podcast, your ultimate source of inspiration and empowerment. We're here to help women succeed in every area of their lives: career, money, relationships, and health and well-being. While celebrating the remarkable journeys of individuals from all walks of life who've achieved amazing things. Whether you're looking to supercharge your career, build financial independence, nurture meaningful relationships, or enhance your overall well-being, the Starter Girls Podcast is here to guide you. Join us as we explore the journeys of those who dare to dream big and achieve greatness. I'm your host, Jennifer Loehding, and welcome to this episode. Welcome to another episode of the Starter Girlz Podcast. I am your host, Jennifer Loehding, and wherever you are tuning in today, we are so glad to have you. All right, so here we are, another episode, another fabulous guest. I'm going to open up with this. What if doing more, more skills, more credentials, more hours is actually keeping you stuck? My guest today challenges the conventional path of growth for high achievers and shows while real transformation comes not from doing better, but from being better. And so I know this is gonna be an awesome conversation. I'm looking forward to been looking forward. But before I welcome him on, I do want to do a quick shout out to our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Walt Mills Productions. Need to add excitement to your YouTube videos or some expert hands for editing? Look no further. Walt Mills is the solution you've been searching for. Walt is not only your go-to guy for spicing up content, he's the force behind a thriving film production company with numerous titles in the pipeline. Always on the lookout for raw talent, Walt is eager to collaborate on film and internet productions. With a background deeply rooted in entertainment and promotion, Walt Mills leverages years of skills to give you the spotlight you deserve. Want to learn more about Walt and his work? Head on over to Walt Mills Productions.net and let your content shine. All right. And with that, I do want to make a mention to head on over to startergirlz.com. I tell you this every single week. Why? For three reasons. One, because if you have missed an episode, it's a great place to catch up. They're all there. You can also sign up for our community newsletter, stay in the new, or excuse me, stay in the know so that you knew that know the new that's coming out. And of course, if you are an aspiring entrepreneur or maybe you are in the thick of it right now and you want to know what your number one subconscious block is that may be hindering your success. Well, I have a fun two-minute quiz over there that I created that you can do and take, and um, it might just tell you what uh is keeping you stuck in place. And so head on over to startergirlz.com and do your thing. All right, time to bring the guest on. So excited about this. All right, so today we're gonna be talking with Ryan Gottfredson, a leadership development expert, best-selling author, and professor at California State University of Fullerton. Ryan helps leaders and high achievers break free from the limits of the traditional doing better path, the endless chase of credentials, certifications, and action, and shift to the being better path where real growth comes from evolving who they are at their core. Through his research, books, and coaching, Ryan provides practical insights and tools that help leaders develop confidence, navigate challenges, and create sustainable success without burnout. So, Ryan, welcome to the show. We're so excited. I cannot talk today. I am excited to have you here today.

Ryan Gottfredson:

Well, thanks for having me. Does this make me a starter girl for the next hour?

Jennifer Loehding:

You get to be one for the next for while you're on this show. You absolutely get to be one. Hey, listen, we everybody, everybody can be a starter girl for you know a moment of their time, right? That's what it's all about. I I may have shared this with you when we originally started this show back in 2019, which by the way, this is our sixth-year anniversary this month. When we started it, it the tagline was whether you're starting a business, a brand, or a movement, we're here to talk about it. So even though the show has evolved a little bit, we're still, you know, kind of talking about things. We're starting movements and brands and you know, and whatever that is. And so I think we all are a little bit of a starter in some way.

Ryan Gottfredson:

Well, we should be, right? Whether I think that's there's a lot of value jumping off of your current learning curve and onto another learning curve. And that that's how we grow.

Jennifer Loehding:

Absolutely. Yep, I agree. And if you're not learning, then you're kind of being boring, right? And nothing's happening. So, anyways, all right. Well, let's talk about this because I know last time you and I sat on the phone for a few minutes, we had a good conversation. I'm excited to chat with you. Got a lot of cool stuff going on, got a book, all these neat things happening. Tell us a little bit. I I love it because we talked, even in the intro, we talked about, you know, the preventing the burnout, which is a lot of what I talk about in my work too, right? Because burnout for high achievers is like a big thing, right? We want to kind of like not do that, you know. So talk to me. Tell me a little bit about how you're helping your clients, and then I want to kind of backpedal and talk about how you, you know, got to this place and what brought you to all of this.

Ryan Gottfredson:

Yeah, for sure. So as you had mentioned, I'm a leadership professor at Cal State Fullerton, and I and Cal State Fullerton is the second largest business school in the United States. So it's a big operation that allows me to go really deep in the things that I'm passionate about, which is leadership. And one of the things that I've learned about leadership, and I think this is applicable to many different realms of our lives, is that most leadership guidance is focused on helping leaders know what to do. But to me, this has always felt a little bit short-sighted because to me, is leadership is about being, being somebody that other people want to follow and be influenced by. And I imagine that's most of us. We want to become somebody that others want to follow and be influenced by. So the whole the last 11 years, that's been my focus of my research and also of my consulting. How do we tap into the being side of leadership? Come to find out that it relates to being an effective entrepreneur, being an effective parent, being an effective spouse, whatever it might be, because we take our being everywhere we go.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah. Well, and I want you to kind of maybe elaborate on that a little bit because for somebody, you you and I get this. We get it because we've had the conversation and I know exactly what you're talking about. We talk about the being, because we do, we get, you know, like I've said this, and maybe I shared this with you. I read a book um, I don't know, a while back by Jamie Kernleen. Kernlean, I can't even say her last name. But, anyways, she did It Cosmetics, which was bought out, I think, by Revlon. I don't know, it was a bit, you know, great story. But in the first, I want to say first chapter of her book, Worthy, she talks about the difference between confidence and worth. And so many times I think in this space, we seem to think that those two things are the same thing, and they're not really the same because confidence is tied to what you're talking about, those achievements, the credentials, the skill set, all the things we do. And so often we think, oh, well, if I go get more of those things, that's gonna make me feel better about myself. And no, it does not, it's temporary, right? You can do all that. And so for high achievers, we will put all of our energy into that thinking that I get one more check mark on my list of activities to do, and then I'm gonna show up polished and prepared and be able to conquer the world, and then we step into a space we're uncomfortable with and go, I'm skilled, but why can't I do this? Because the worth is completely different than the confidence. And so I see the worth as your being part, right? Like that's the part where we show up as the solid, healthy human being that people want to emulate. And so maybe I want to hear you kind of elaborate because I I know you get it. That's what we're talking about here.

Ryan Gottfredson:

Well, to bring that to life, let me share an example that's actually in my my newest book. It's called Becoming Better, and it's the example of one of my coaching clients. And her name is Cheryl. Cheryl reaches out to me with to get some coaching, and and at the bottom of her email, I see her signature. And at the end of her name, she's got a bunch of letters, right, representing degrees. And then she's got a bunch of different stamps of different certificates that she's certified for. And I'm thinking, why does she need coaching, right? She's got all of these training, all of this credentials. Um, but but I reached back out to her and said, sure, would love to connect with you. And we get on the phone call, and she says, I am incredibly frustrated. I'm like, oh no, what's what's going on? She says, I've been in my role for the last 10 years. And every year when I get passed up for promotion, I go get a new degree and a new certificate. Well, I've been doing this for the last 10 years, and I'm still stuck in the same job. And I said, Okay, well, this is surely something we're gonna have to dig into deeper. Right. And and as we're digging into it, is she's a very qualified person. But what we discovered is that she had a very hard time taking initiative. She was great when being told what to do, right? But she struggled to determine her course of action without be turned being told what to do. And so what was going on here, and here's one of the ways that I like to talk about it, is we all have two different sides of ourselves. We've got our doing side, that's our talent, our knowledge, our skills, and our abilities. And Cheryl was pretty high on her doing side. She had a lot of different degrees, a lot of knowledge, a lot of skills. And her lack of taking initiative had nothing to do with her talent, her knowledge, and her skills. But it had everything to do with what I call our being side. And our being side is the quality of our body's internal operating system. And when it comes to things like taking initiative, being humble, being vulnerable, being patient, being emotionally regulated or emotionally intelligent, these are all attributes about ourselves that aren't really connected to our doing side, but are deeply embedded in our being side. And so while she was seeking after a solution in the wrong place, she was going after more doing side development. And what she needed was being side development. And so that's the space that I play in, helping people awaken to their being side, evaluate their altitude along their being side, and help them upgrade along their being side.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, and to your point, this is why I think change is so hard for people so often because they're tackling it in the wrong way. They're going after the wrong thing to solve the problem, right? It's kind of like I use the gym analogy because my background is in health and wellness, and I was an instructor and then a runner and all that. But you, you know, I used to kind of laugh about, you know, in January when I would be in class, and then I'd see all these people pile into the gym with their, you know, their big New Year's resolutions. And I don't want to knock anybody down because I do think we have to have goals and things that we set towards too. But you know how it is at the gym, especially if you're like me and been at the same gym for like 15 years, you see the you see the same people, and then there's the new ones, you know. That's when they would come in and they would pile in. And I used to tell you know my members, I would say, just give them, you know, give them about six to eight weeks. They're gonna, they're not, they're gonna be gone. Because I think people they they don't work on the internal stuff, the resistance that they're having, the real problem they're solving, what's keeping them from actually doing the exercise to begin with, the programming, whatever it is. They don't want to do it, they didn't grow up doing it. It's not normal programming, and now they go in full throttle trying to solve an issue over here and say, Oh, I'm gonna go exercise for three hours a day to solve it, and it doesn't solve the problem, and they fall off the wagon. And so I think what you're talking about is so applicable in so many things we do, and it's why I think people get stuck in the change because they're they're going after the wrong thing to fix the real issue. You know what I mean? Like a surface level fix.

Ryan Gottfredson:

Yeah. Well, let me put some terminology around this that just might be helpful for some of our listeners. So when we talk about doing doing side development work, that's actually what's called horizontal development. When we do being side development work, that's what's called vertical development work. Yeah. And when you think about our life's experience, learning and growing, right? That's our school systems, our athletic programs, and our organizational development efforts. Almost a hundred percent of those efforts is focused on horizontal development, doing side development. Right. And so when we, when people, when we naturally want to improve ourselves, we fall back to that form of development because that's what we are most familiar with. Right. The vertical development is just a different beast. Yeah. And because actually, at its core, it's about refining and upgrading our body's internal operating system, our body's nervous system. It isn't about learning new knowledge and new skills, right? It's about becoming a more refined version of ourselves.

Jennifer Loehding:

And I can tell you're a teacher because you just did a great layout there. I love it. You took all my words and gave it a visual, gave it a nice terminology for I'm very good at creating the pictures, and then I need somebody to come in and get the way of the words. You know, so funny the other day, I had somebody on here, just a totally different thing, but just to show you your point. I had somebody on here the other day, and we were talking about marketing and branding and how we get muddled as salespeople because we, when somebody like she was using, you're gonna love this sandwich versus stapler analogy. And she said we go in to sell, and when somebody needs food, we offer them a stapler. They don't want the stapler, they want the sandwich. It's this thing is just stuck. So now I wrote down your horizontal development and vertical development because that's gonna be something that I'm gonna probably remember now, be like, this is the horizontal, this is our vertical development. But your point, your point, yes, that the vertical development is difficult because it's the inner work and it's the deep work, and a lot of people don't really want to. I think when people get to that place that they really want to make that change, they're really ready. They they're ready. When they when they can get to that, they're gonna make change, they're gonna start working on things because so often they're doing this a lot, that horizontal stuff a lot. They don't really want to do the vertical, you know. That's why I always tell people, I don't know about you, but when I work with people, because I'm pretty authentic. And so, like how you see me now is kind of how I am off camera. I tell people, I'm like, if you're looking for a band-aid, you're probably not gonna be happy with me because we're just not, I just don't do band-aids. I'm like, we're gonna get to the bottom of why we're doing this, what the problem is, because you can't, I just don't believe you can make real change until you're willing to do that that work in the in the middle of it.

Ryan Gottfredson:

For sure, right? So here's here's one of the adages that I've come to love, which is the wiring that we needed to survive our childhood is not the same wiring that we need to thrive as an adult, as a parent, as a spouse, as a leader, as an employee. What fill in the blank? Right, right. We've all got to upgrade our internal operating system. And and what I've learned about this process of upgrading ourselves is that the deeper we go inward, the higher we could go in terms of our vertical altitude. And just so many people, because of being wired for self-protection, they're reluctant to look at look deeper. Because if if you're human, there's some ugliness there.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Ryan Gottfredson:

That's me, that's everybody, right? So, but if we could develop the capacity to do that, and oftentimes we need some some guidance, a help, a coach, therapist, whoever that might be, to dig into that. But that's a necessary step in order for us to elevate and upgrade ourselves.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah. So, Ryan, what got you? I'm curious to know what led you to this work. Like, I mean, clearly this is a passion, and and you, I can, I can hear it in your voice. And so you must love it. It's kind of like people, you know, people always ask me, I don't have uh clearly the certifications that you have. Um, I feel like a lot of my learning, I've had a lot of really good mentors, probably for the last. Well, I started, I started, you know, my first in Mary Kay at like age 27. I'm in my 50s now. So for at least 25 years, I've had incredible mentors, but a lot of the work that I have had to learn has really just been like hard knocks. It's just happened because I had to go through some really hard things multiple times to say, you know, we're not doing that again. And what do I need to do to get myself out of this? I'm curious to know what brought you into this work, if it was just a it's been a longtime passion or if there was any like defining moment.

Ryan Gottfredson:

Well, yeah, been a longtime passion. In fact, kind of my drive for this space occurred my senior year of high school, and I took a sports psychology class. I don't know how many high schools offer this class, but yeah, I I read a few books uh by um basketball coaches on leadership. And I remember thinking as a senior in college, if I could write books like this for a career, that would be the coolest job. But I had no clue how to do it. But, anyways, I long story short, I end up getting my PhD in organizational behavior. Um, and what I want to get to is there was a life experience that really shaped this, right? This has become very personal to me. And and I'm curious, Jennifer, have have you ever found yourself in a position where you know you had the knowledge and skills to be successful, but you weren't? Oh, yeah, I've had it multiple times, yeah. Like that sucks.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, it does.

Ryan Gottfredson:

And it'll piss you off. Yes, right. Yeah. And so I I found myself in one of those situations, and and it was um, it was in a way crippling at the time, but life-changing in a good way at the time. And I can now say that in hindsight. So I I took a job of a professor here at Cal State Fullerton, and I was here for two years, and I just had this itch to go do something different, to go do more of the consulting work. So I took a leave of absence from the university and I took a job at Gallup. So they're this employee engagement consulting company. Um, and I'm in this role for 10 months, and I kind of been pigeonholed into a position that felt smaller than what I should have been playing.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah.

Ryan Gottfredson:

And I'm thinking, I've got the talent, the knowledge, and skills to be playing bigger than what I am. And I'm on the phone one day with my manager. This wasn't my first time complaining to her, but I'm complaining about how I'm being stuck in a role that I really don't want to play. And she stops me mid-complaining. She says, Ryan, this clearly isn't working out. I'm gonna have to let you go. And I got fired, right? And I never thought I would get fired. And I get this avalanche of shame wash over me, thinking I just let my wife down, I just let my kids down, I'm you know, turning into, in some ways, my dad who was in a dead end job, like, oh yeah, like it was it was this deep amount of shame that occurred. And it's and in this moment, I'm also feeling I know I've got what it takes to be successful in terms of my talent, knowledge, and skills. So now this led to this question of why? Why wasn't I? And and so I was fortunate to be able to come back to Cal State Fullerton, no harm, no fail. Uh, and I started to revamp my research on the being side of leadership. And I started to stumble across a topic that I really hadn't dug into very deeply, but it seemed to come up over and over again. And the topic was mindsets. And so I decided I've got two months from when I got fired to when I started back teaching officially at Cal State, Florida. I'm gonna take these two months and I'm gonna dive as deeply as I can and comprehensively as I can into mindsets. And what I found scouring the academic literature is that there's four different sets of mindsets that have been researched across psychology, education, management, and marketing. Okay, and these sets exist in pairs, ranging from being more wired for self-protection to being more wired for value creation. And as I'm starting to learn about these mindsets, naturally I'm introspecting what mindset do I have? Right. And what I found is across all four of these sets is that my mindsets lean toward the self-protective side and not the value creating side. And to me, this is my answer of why I had the talent, knowledge, and skills to be successful, but why I wasn't. It's because I didn't have the mindsets that would allow me to leverage my talents, my knowledge, and my skills. And so now most of my work, and when I do this vertical development work with individuals or organizations, that's what I focus on is mindsets because it is a great way for us to inspect our body's internal operating system. In fact, I've got a mindset assessment. It's free on my website. Anybody could take it. And I've had 50,000 people take this assessment. And of these 50,000, only 2.5% are in the top quartile for all four sets of mindsets.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah.

Ryan Gottfredson:

So most of us have some mindset work to do, myself included. Yeah. Um, and so that's that was to me, that was the big trajectory altering moment was getting fired, and then on the back side of that, really digging deep into this mindset stuff.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, I have so many things to say to that. First of all, it's so interesting to me. I want to, yes, and say, we all have work to do. I agree with you because there are still moments in my life where I will do something and I will sit back and I will see somebody else, and I'm thinking, why is this person less less, here we go, less credential than me. And they got all that going on, and then so we do it. We all do it. And and it's a I think this is a continuum, right? It's a continuum. And I love it. I'm gonna go take that quiz, by the way. I'm gonna go check that out now because I love that that whole thing. I've I gotta check it out. We all go through this, right? We all continually go through this, and that's why I think it's so imperative that yes, we have to recognize that this is not an end-all, it's a continuum. We have to continue to do this. But the other thing I want to mention too is how you came to this, you started questioning and asking, right? Because I did the same thing, had a completely different story, a completely different trigger. I had that happen, I've had it happen multiple times. I've had multiple things like this happen where I've gone and questioned. But I always say, you know, like I go back and I've tell people like this this book right here that I wrote, I mean this right, it happens to be sitting right here. This was about when I got diagnosed with this whole weird, rare nerve condition in 2012. And here's what's stupid about that whole thing: it took me four years dealing with that condition before I got to a place that you're talking about right there, where I started questioning why I am doing all the things I should be doing, and I'm still sick and I'm not getting out of this disease, and why is this happening to me and playing victim? And then I went into okay, doing mode, but also what can what's been contributing to this problem? Like, where have I been having a role in this problem? And that really started when I went to a uh like a I went to a practitioner, a holistic practitioner, and he said to me, What were you doing at the time this occurred? And I got mad. I got angry, kind of like you know, like when you got fired, you're like, wait a minute, right? I got mad because I thought, dude, I didn't ask for this disease. Nobody wakes up and says, give me this disease, right? No. But in the in the that was kind of the tipping point. And in the end, I was able retrospectively able to go back and look at this and say that was one of the best things that happened to me, because it was in that moment that I got pissed off enough to start doing something about something. I start start looking into something, start asking questions, start seeing what I was doing. And to get back to all of what this work you're doing, and I'm doing this whole thing about burnout, is that was kind of the cascading point that actually allowed me to start doing my own research and and I guess introspection into why I was having like my burnout turns into medical crisis. That's what it is for me. I have now established in my 50s that that is exactly what happens. And so now I'm not as stupid as I was, you know, 12, 15 years ago. I I know better now, but um, it that was the tipping point. It was the it was the catalyst for allowing me to do what you're talking about right there and go back in and do that introspection and start questioning what I was doing and how am I contributing to this? You know, what is my role in all of that? And so I think that's the big takeaway here is is what you're talking about that when you get to that place where you start asking the questions and you go inward.

Ryan Gottfredson:

Well, let me put some terminology to there's so there's a pattern that you're just pointing out. So let me just put some words to exactly what you're saying.

Jennifer Loehding:

It's the burnout pattern.

Ryan Gottfredson:

Well, it's the vertical development pattern, right? So there's kind of three steps if we want to vertically develop. And the first step is what has been termed a heat experience. Yeah. So a heat experience is generally something that either occurs to us, I'm gonna call that an external heat experience. That's me getting fired, that's you being diagnosed with the disease. Um, there can also be internal heat experiences where simply we choose to look inside of ourselves, right? That that could also be a heat experience. Um, so that's the first thing. Now, what's interesting about a heat experience is a heat experience doesn't always translate into vertical development. How many people have these heat experiences and it doesn't lead to greater development? And and if I'm stealing words out of your mouth and you No, you're you're good. But you said what I thought I heard you say is this disease happened, and it wasn't until four years later, right? So the heat experience had occurred, but then what happened four years later is the second step, which is what we call colliding perspectives. And so on the aftermath of a heat experience, we have to open up our mind to be able to say, is my perspectives and way of thinking the right way? And I need to collide those perspectives with a different way of thinking and a different perspective. And in the process of doing that and making that collision, then that leads to the third step, which is elevated sense making. And so everything that you talked about, you went through. You went through that heat experience. Yeah. Took you a few years, you got into that colliding perspectives. And then almost the way that I like I felt you as you're saying this is you developed greater metacognitive abilities that you were better able to see the role that you played in the bigger picture. Now, when I just imagine, now I don't know your circumstances, but you are now in a place where you could say, here are some of the things that I did. Here's also some environmental factors that were outside of my control, and maybe even some other things. And all of these blended together to impact my situation. But I also played a role in this, and which allows you to come to that place of ownership, which seemed to be a pretty essential place for your healing journey.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I'll tell you because I crazy enough, I ended up getting diagnosed with another really weird condition in 22, and I got through it's not gone because they're they're chronic, but I will tell you this I got through how to navigate it much quicker because I didn't, I didn't, it did uh I don't even know. I can't even imagine going back through this again, the four years I went through that, because it took me so long to get out of that state of that victim state to do, and yes, and I recognize I didn't know that those were all the names of them, but yes, I recognize the stages. Um, I you know, and I always feel like when we go through those heat moments you're talking about, there is this massive learning, and you're right, not everybody sees the learning, that not everybody takes it and does something with it, right? I think that you have to be in that place, I think, where I don't know if it's the the pain of this was bad enough that it was so intense that I had to figure it out. It's a it's a nerve disease, and I had to figure it out. And so, um, but I can tell you, having gone through that, it's like there are very few things that I look at and don't see a way out of them because it taught me some really it taught me how to do really hard, to do the very hard so that if in and and and then when the next hard came up, I was like, okay, this is hard, but we got this. We've done the hard, we've got this, you know. So um, I love that. I love that you were able to put you have terminology for that because I think for our listeners, it makes it so much more um I don't know what the word I'm looking for, but they can see it. You know what I mean? Especially for us people that need like terminology and and visualization, kind of come together, colliding.

Ryan Gottfredson:

Yeah, good. Well, that's what I found is if we can put labels on this type of stuff, it just makes it easier to focus on it for sure.

Jennifer Loehding:

I love it. I love it. Good stuff. So tell me about your book. Tell tell us a little bit about that. What's what is all I know you mentioned a story out of it, but tell us a little bit about it.

Ryan Gottfredson:

Yeah, so becoming better, it is all about introducing people to this being side, right? So, what I've learned is that there's nothing wrong with doing the horizontal development, right? But when we do it, I've just found for myself and others it's only incrementally helpful. But if we could do this being side development, it's transformational. I hopefully that's kind of been conveyed in my story. I sense that that's been conveyed in your story. Um so this being side development is just something most people aren't familiar with. So as I mentioned, it uh it's kind of got three parts to the book helping people understand what our being side is. I've got some tools to help us evaluate our being side altitude. And then the third part of the book is okay, now I know where I'm at, how do I go about elevating along? My being side. And maybe it makes sense just to touch on maybe the three different approaches about how we do this being side.

Jennifer Loehding:

I was going to say you might want to share that. I was about to just ask you if there's something we could tell somebody how to tap into this or something that they could do. Because for some of us, like you and I, we kind of know, you know, we know because we've done this, but somebody that's out there, like, what is this? How do you even, you know, into that?

Ryan Gottfredson:

So I think it's helpful to think about three different layers of doing this being side work. I'm going to call it surface level work, deeper level work, and deepest level work. Now, what makes being side development so unique, is as I was mentioned previously, is we need to focus on refining our body's nervous system. And so the surface level work is generally things like, and you're sure you've heard of them, uh, meditation, journaling, gratitude journaling, yoga, cold plunging, etc. Things in that space, then we're not going to learn new knowledge, we're not going to gain new skills, but we're going to gain greater self-regulatory abilities and capacity. So those are those the starter level work, uh, surface level work. Then when we get to that deeper level, this is when we start to inspect the programming of our internal operating systems. This is where I focus on mindsets. Mindsets is a great thing to focus on here. Another simple tool that we could do is what I call if-then programming. And we all have if-then programming in our body. If I get cut off on the freeway, then how does my body want to respond? Or if I receive constructive criticism, then how does my body want to respond? And so if we can awaken to our if-then programming and evaluate that, then it could give us a sense of what we need to focus on for upgrading. Um, and if you want more about that, then dive into the book or go to my website. Um, and then the third level, the deepest level, what I found is that there's a couple of big factors that affect a lot of people and affect our body's nervous system and hinder our being side development. And a couple of the biggest factors are trauma and neurodivergency. Yeah. And so these factors affect almost everybody, um, and they do impact our being side altitude. And so, therefore, if we've got significant, uh if we've experienced significant trauma or if we have neurodivergencies, generally we're gonna need some help by some professionals. Um, so that's generally some sort of therapeutic help. So that could be trauma therapy, that could be neurofeedback therapy. Uh, I've even got my ear to the ground on the psychedelic assisted therapy and the research that's coming out. Yeah. And so these are these aren't the place to start. But what I've found is that as people start this journey, they generally take those three steps and they they get eventually get down to that deepest level. So hopefully those are just a uh hopefully that's a simple framework to help people understand if they're doing being side development work or not.

Jennifer Loehding:

No, that's good, Ryan. And you know what's interesting is when I was kind of going through um this back, I guess in round 22, when I was kind of dealing with this second condition, I actually started studying. I knew about nervous system stuff, not a lot, but I knew some just from exercising. I ended up going and getting certified in nervous system regulation and a lot of that, because I had I had trained in like transcendental meditation. I was unfamiliar with like cold plunging and like sometimes I just go in there and throw cold water on my face just to like reboot my system if I'm having anxiety. So all of these things you're saying, yes, are so true. And when I was going through that, I was caught in a loop because I was sick and I was having anxiety because I wasn't getting better, which is kind of this vicious cycle you get in when you're not healing. And so, yeah, I ended up going in and studying. I got certified in nervous system regulation, and I did all of that because I was trying to heal myself. I was trying to find, you know, methods and tools and ways to bring my nervous system back down because you can't really outthink your body. Like you can't, if your body's dysregulated, like you're talking about with trauma and all of that stuff, it's really hard to be at your high level, right? When you've got all that stuff manifesting. And so that's why all these three steps you're talking about, I think, are so important because you've got to address those pieces. You can't do one, you can't have trauma and then be doing this and not working through the trauma, right? Like this is helpful, but you got to work through the trauma, right? Like, and you can't do you can't be over here trying to be leader, but then you're like chaotic nervous systems over here and you're not sleeping well, and all the other things that are going on with that, you know. It's really this whole intricate, it's not hard, but it's a puzzle at the same time. That's what I what I say to people. It's not, you can so many times it's like you talk about people are like doing these one things, one little one offers like go to the gym and they think, well, if I exercise, that's enough. No, if you're not sleeping, I mean that's gonna help. You're better off doing that than not, but it's not gonna fix everything if you're not sleeping well, you know, all these things I I feel like really just sort of come together. So thank you for touching on that. I think it's great. And I agree with you on all of it. I always love talking to my psychology friends. I have fun with them. Yeah, that's in the same conversation stuff, and it's so crazy because my so I joke about my sister all the time. She's my younger sister, she says, She'll go, she'll just go to her therapist, and I'll say something to her. She'll go, my therapist said that. Said your therapist is smart. I love talking to my therapist friends and my psychology people. It's always good conversation. And I think it's it's good when you when you um you really start learning this stuff for yourself because I think it can make a difference in your life. I mean, you really can create solid change when you start understanding these things. And I think you putting these into actual terminology and words that people can grasp onto, they can see it's kind of like going in, and if you're gonna talk numbers and you know, I'll give you the example. When I was in Mary Kay, all the years I was in Mary Kay, we learned selling techniques, right? But we never had names for them, we just knew how to do them, right? Like I knew that I could go in and sit down across from you, and I'd be like, Ryan, tell me a little bit about yourself. And I would know within a couple sentences which of the DISC personalities you are, and I knew how to sell, right? But we didn't have language for all of this. And then I started working with this firm and I read the book Spend Selling, which is a book about selling, it's selling like larger, you know, like higher ticket things, but it it had terminology and it had a process. And I'm like, oh, that's what I've been doing for 20 years. There's actually a name for all of this. We have like a system, you know. So I think it's good when people can have like some kind of a you know, a system that they can do. And even in my work, I had to go in and, you know, because I was talking about all this stuff that you're talking about, and I didn't really have like a sort of formula. And so I actually created a four-step formula that I it's a lot of what you're talking about, but I created this four-step system that I have that has my own language words now, but I can actually articulate that and say, this is what the step one is, this is the two, so people can grasp it, right? So good stuff, Ryan. I think it's awesome and uh what you're doing. And um, I'm sure your students love you.

Ryan Gottfredson:

I we have a lot of fun, that's for sure. Well, I think the thing that's so cool about doing this being side work is it it is it is just it's transformational and it is deep. And if you have some of these frameworks, you can get there really deep, really quick, and see some pretty big changes um much more quickly than I think most people anticipate, right? Yeah. Because we're so, to your point at the very beginning of this, we're so used to just kind of pushing harder, right? And effectively, kind of what we're saying here is you don't have to push any harder, you've just got to change the game that you're playing.

Jennifer Loehding:

Absolutely. Work smarter, right? Be ahead of it. Be once that's what I say. Once you know you can't look back, that's what I'm talking about. Once you're once you start traveling here, it's hard to because I don't look at myself, and people that see that meet me now don't realize, you know, like even 10 years ago, I'm I'm five, ten years ago, I was a different person than I am today because I've had so much growth in the last few years, you know. But it's so crazy to me because it's like you when you're over here, you look back and you're like, you just see I just see the world differently. I see things very differently. I see, and I listen to people and I pay attention to what they're doing, and I'm like, why are they making that so hard? It seems so easy to me. Just stop doing that. Just don't do that anymore. You're you don't mean any. So I can imagine it's because you have you guys have a lot of fun in your class. I want to ask you a couple questions about your book writing because I that's you know, is this your first book that you did?

Ryan Gottfredson:

This is the third book.

Jennifer Loehding:

Third book. Okay, so you're kind of you're a pro with this. So okay, we're good. But these are gonna be good questions. I want to know, like, take us back to the very first one you did because I've written one and I have no desire to do any more right now. But people ask all the time about this. So, what were some of maybe the like hurdles you had to overcome in the book writing process when you went into that? Do you remember anything that came out?

Ryan Gottfredson:

Well, yeah, well, how many do you want? Yeah. So well, here's what really helped out. I I decided I wanted to write a book, and I signed up for a local like writer's uh conference that was here in Southern California. Yeah, and I show up and I'm must have been looking really green uh because the head of the conference is at like the welcome table. And I I check in and he's like, Hey, buddy, let me pull you aside here. So he pulls me aside, you know, figuratively puts his arm around me and he says, I'm gonna teach you the number one lesson about authorship. And I'm like, awesome, this is why I came to this conference, right? And he said, You're gonna spend way more money on your book than you're ever gonna make from writing it. That is probably true. And I was like, Oh, that was not what I was expecting. Yeah, tell me why do I want to do this now? That's right, guys. Oh, well, tell me more. And he essentially said, 96% of people, um, 96% of books, uh, never sell over a thousand copies. Um, and and so he's like, the odds are is you're not gonna sell a ton of copies, you're not gonna make a lot, and it costs a lot of money to bring a book to life. So you're not gonna make much money, don't anticipate making money from books.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, being sold.

Ryan Gottfredson:

Now, he said, not that that can't happen, but just don't anticipate it. So, what you got to know coming into this conference is if you want to make money from this journey, you've got to figure out a business that allows you, you can sell things on the back end of this book. And and ultimately, uh, that proved to maybe be the best thing that I've ever heard in terms of the authorship space, in terms of just setting my expectations for the journey and what it was gonna be like, the risk I was gonna have to take, the investment I was gonna have to make, really with not knowing what would come from it. Um, and to be quite honest with you, though I'm in my third book. I've taken a completely different uh kind of marketing and promotion approach to every book. And I would say um some of the things have held over, and the things that have held over have not been similarly successful. And some of the things that I tried with one, so some of the things I did with one book that went well, that was great, but it didn't work with the other book. And then some of the stuff that I hadn't tried before flopped, but then some of the stuff that I hadn't tried before also worked. So I've kind of found that it's just a complete learning journey. Every single book has been a learning journey. I think my advice is you probably shouldn't write a book unless you feel like you have to, because there's a variety of other ways to get the benefits of writing a book without having to go through the time, effort, investment, etc. And it's it's more than I anticipated. Um, but for me, it's been an awesome journey. But I don't talking to enough authors out there, it's not an awesome journey for everybody.

Jennifer Loehding:

Right. And I think it's all expectation, right? Like what you expect. I mean, I know like when I did mine, I didn't really go into it with this idea that I was going to be a big seller. I kind of did it really as sort of part of my process of healing, really more as a release, a way for me to document it and get it on paper, kind of thing. So I've never, I honestly I've never put it. I mean, I've sold it at events when I've gone to speak or if somebody asked me, but I've never really like campaigned to try to. I'm just honest about that. And I kind of said the same thing about the podcast too when I started that. I had realistic expectations. I mean, podcast has been doing is growing pretty rapidly now, but I kind of went into that, you know, at the beginning is really just a place to give back and create community and share inspiring stories, you know, with I guess there's something flying in the air. Um, share inspiring stories with other people. So I mean, I think it's all expectation, but thank you for sharing that because I do come across, I'm sure you do too, I come across a lot of people that want to write books, and I think clear expectations are always important. So good stuff. Sure. Okay, so Ryan, fun question because you're from California, and I know we talked about the hamburger thing last time. So, what is it? Is it is is In N Out Burger, is that the thing? Is that the hamburger place in California, the one to be?

Ryan Gottfredson:

It's our that's our gym. Yeah, I mean, I would say, and I've got married, got two kids, and so and my kids play sports, so we have to eat on the run quite a bit, and uh we try to eat healthier, but also I just the rising cost of everything. But in and out like hasn't risen their costs in like the last four years, it's unreal. So, you know, we we'll spend double at Chick-fil-A, is what we do at In N Out.

Jennifer Loehding:

So Chick-fil-A is a is it wherever it's everything. What is the Chick-fil-A? Wherever they are, they're always crowded, right? But I I laugh about the hamburger because I shared with you last time they brought them to Texas, and you know, here we have the Whataburgers are like the big thing here, and it's like everybody's like we have we have this kind of rivalry thing. Is it like in and out or is it Whataburger? I'm a Whataburger fan. I don't dislike In N Out burger. I think they're they're okay, nothing wrong with them. But I grew up on you know eating Whataburger, and to save all of it, I don't even really eat a lot of hamburgers, so it probably doesn't even matter.

Ryan Gottfredson:

I wouldn't I tried to eat like kind of more keto friendly, so to go in and out. I get the flying Dutchman, the four by four flying Dutchman with pickles on the side, and it uh I eat my burgers.

Jennifer Loehding:

That's how I do it. I went to LSA Burger the other day and I had a mushroom Swiss burger with no bun. I'm like, Don't bring bring me some broccoli for the fries, we're good. Put a little pearls on. I'm I'm good. So I love it when I hear places are doing that. Makes it so much easier for people like us to be able to, you know, kind of still enjoy hamburger. So oh yeah, for sure. So if our audience wants to get in touch with you, maybe they want to take this quiz. I'm gonna go take it. Tell us what website we need to plug in for you.

Ryan Gottfredson:

Yeah, Ryangottfredson.com. Uh, and then I'm also on social media. I'll even throw this out. If you go to my website, take my mindset assessment, and reach out to me either through my website or through a social media channel, uh, and you want me to walk you through your results, I'll do it. So just go take the assessment, reach out to me, and it'd be fun to connect.

Jennifer Loehding:

Absolutely. We'll make sure we get that in the uh show notes too when we get all the bells and whistles on this episode. So good stuff, Ryan. I am so glad we got to meet. I'm glad we got to get you on here. You got great energy and uh keep doing all the good work. And um, and I guess and if you're inspired to keep writing, keep writing.

Ryan Gottfredson:

All right, yeah, we'll see what happens. But appreciate you having me on. Thanks for creating such a great podcast. And uh yeah, it's just an honor to be here. Thank you.

Jennifer Loehding:

And of course, to our audience, we appreciate you. Hope you found this episode both inspiring and informative. Make sure you reach out to Ryan, take the quiz, and he'll he can go over those results with you. And as I always say, if you enjoyed the episode, do all the things like, share, comment, everything so we can keep sharing all this fabulous content. And as I always say, in order to live the extraordinary, you must start, and every start begins with a decision. You guys take care, be safe, be kind to one another, and we will see you next time.

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Jennifer Loehding

Host
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Ryan Gottfredson

Guest