How To Generate a Successful Path to Self-Discovery

Plan Better EventsSmart Event TipsLeadership InsightsPodcast

Jul 6

Guest: Russell Benaroya

Russell Benaroya is an entrepreneur, author, coach, and co-founder & partner at Stride, an outsourced accounting and strategic finance firm. With over 20 years of experience in investment banking, private equity, and entrepreneurship, he’s also a speaker who works with other entrepreneurs and business owners to help them achieve their goals.

His company, Stride, assumes back-office tasks for bookkeeping, accounting, and CFO functions so business owners can focus on driving growth. Russell’s writing has appeared in Forbes, and he is the recipient of the 40 Under 40 recognition from the Puget Sound Business Journal in Seattle.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

What inspired Russell Benaroya to write One Life to Lead?
Russell’s coaching strategy for identifying principles
The core foundations of self-discovery
How Russell uses the Enneagram test to help entrepreneurs identify their weaknesses
Russell reveals what he discovered while living in Costa Rica
How does Stride execute their goals and principles to serve its clients?
Conscious leadership and how Stride implements it effectively
Who are Russell’s mentors?

In this episode…

Are you an entrepreneur struggling to achieve long-term success in your journey? Entrepreneurship requires dedication and constant self-improvement. So, how can you identify and overcome the obstacles standing in the way of your path?

The first step is to identify actionable principles that you can apply to your daily life. By recognizing and living your core values, you can hone your area of expertise. Another fundamental strategy is to determine your weaknesses. Russell Benaroya suggests taking an Enneagram test to assess your personality and leadership style. And with Russell’s approach to conscious leadership, you can establish a sense of self-awareness that will help you reach your goals.

In this episode of the “Solution Seekers,” Paige Buck talks with Russell Benaroya, the co-founder & partner at Stride, about reaching self-discovery in entrepreneurship. Russell shares his coaching strategy for identifying your core principles, the foundations of self-discovery, and how Stride teaches conscious leadership.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by Kennedy Events.

Kennedy Events creates stress-free conferences and events, providing expert management and design for all your corporate event needs—from in-person to hybrid + virtual events.

To learn more about their services, visit their website at www.kennedyevents.com and schedule a consultation today to know how they can guide you in making your event successful.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:04

Welcome to the Kennedy Events Podcast where we feature top marketing, communications and the future of work leaders and share their biggest takeaways and insights. We love these conversations and hope you will too. Let's get started.

Paige Buck 0:23

Welcome to today's podcast. I'm Paige Buck partner and Chief Strategy Officer at Kennedy Events. Before I introduce my guest, I want to give a big thank you to Stride Services. Stride provides outsource bookkeeping, accounting and CFO services for professional service firms. Go check out their website at www.stride.services for more information. So I'm super excited to introduce Russell Benaroya, co founder and partner at Stride coach, speaker and author of One Life to Lead. entrepreneurship is a journey and it's hard after 20 plus years of investment banking, private equity, tech and healthcare entrepreneurship. Russell's working with other entrepreneurs and business owners to help them achieve their goals. Hey, Russell, you ready to jump in?

Russell Benaroya 1:13

Oh, I'm so thrilled Paige, this is awesome. Let's rock and roll.

Paige Buck 1:17

I am excited to So you wrote a book called One Life to Lead that speaks to business success through better life design. What inspired you?

Russell Benaroya 1:26

In 2018, my family and I decided to move to San Jose, Costa Rica for a year. And the impetus for that decision came from a moment as often is the case when you decide to change your life trajectory. At some level, there's some moment and the moment was during a snowy car ride back from a ski trip over winter break. I had two kids that were preteens and we're driving in the car. I'm listening to this Tony Robbins podcast, my wife is like rolling her eyes next to me, but bearing it. And the title of the podcast was three steps to a breakthrough. And Tony Robbins said something that triggered a thought that I had. So I turned on the radio and I look to my wife and a little I'll say kind of like in an irritated fashion. I said, Yeah, Melissa, well, why haven't we ever talked about where we want to be in five to 10 years, like as if it were her responsibility, or I was being critical? And she said, Well, that's because it's never really been about us. It's always been about you. And we've just been along for the ride. And she was talking about this journey of entrepreneurship and trying to build this business and raise money and stay in the game. And that was the beginning of a thread that over the course of the next 810 months we pulled to really realign what is the life that we're trying to architect and what behaviors and patterns was I not that aware of obviously, that were contributing to creating some of my consistent challenges. And when we moved to Costa Rica, and I created a little bit of space to just reflect on those patterns. I started to write and I wrote a lot. And then I got back to the US and I thought hmm, this, this isn't just about me, I don't think I'm alone, as entrepreneurs often feel like, oh, it's very isolating. But I don't think I'm alone. I think a lot of entrepreneurs feel the same way. And I went and interviewed a bunch of entrepreneurs. And that began the makings of what ultimately became the book.

Paige Buck 3:42

Wow. So when you and Melissa are there in that moment? And I don't know if that's like I stabbed you in the heart with that comment about herself. But but when you were able to like pull up from there. What was like, what was the very first step to reflecting and then I don't know whether that was the first step that was a baby step that led to Costa Rica.

Russell Benaroya 4:05

Yeah, the the first step was letting go of control. The first step was letting go of having to find a solution. What did I do? I did what many people do, which is like, Oh, well, then let's find a five to 10 year goal. I'm going to go find these worksheets and we're going to work through them and we're going to sit down and we're gonna plan it out and and like that wasn't the answer. The answer wasn't to find a solution. The answer was just to lean into the relationship and start to talk, like partners and share our fears, our goals and our dreams but let me get back to really our fears and like, I realized that I spent so much of my time living by Between my ears, right living in stories in my head that really weren't serving me. So a story, my head might look something like, people really care about what I do or don't do, right? So I need to make sure that I'm showing up at all these events that I'm doing all these things. And I am a venture backed entrepreneur. And I'm this and I'm that, like, that's just a story. The truth is, most people don't really care what I do, why am I spending all this time worrying about the perception of others? That's a good example.

Paige Buck 5:35

Today's there's a fear the fear in there? What's the fear under under that? Because since you since you started fear, and then you went to?

Russell Benaroya 5:42

Well, I think I think the underlying fear is not being worthy. And so the underlying fear is, oh, I need to prove my worth, versus live, my worth, my worth, versus live my worth. And as Melissa and I continue to dialogue around what it really means to build a fence around our relationship and our partnership. And we could talk from the place of context, not content like context, like how am I feeling, we could start to find some common ground around architecting, a shared path forward rather than it being Oh, this is just the Russell Benaroya show. And the the, the key takeaway from ultimately from the book is that how you lead your life is how you lead your business. And so there is a business orientation to the book, of course, but so much of what we bring to the business comes from all that we've created and manifested in our day to day in some is something serve us well. And some don't, let's be aware of what doesn't doesn't.

Paige Buck 6:58

But I really liked that it also kind of dovetails with that, like how you do something is how you do everything, or how you do one thing and how you do everything. But you're you in the early in the book, I remember getting very stuck on your call to investigate and identify what your principles are. I was like, Well, I mean, I think of myself as a principle person, and certainly I have values, but what the heck can I name one? What are they? Oh, totally. What was that exercise like for you? And then like, how do you coach somebody through an exercise? Like identifying their principles?

Russell Benaroya 7:34

Yeah. Oh, the the exercise for me was was a lot of fun. I took it from two points of view. One was, think about times in your life, where you found yourself feeling like you compromised, or you found yourself in a, in a situation that really wasn't wasn't good. Like a, like, maybe it was a deal that you did with a client. And you're like, Oh, I knew I shouldn't have done that. But I did it anyway. Well, why did I? Why did I do that? How would How Would having a certain set of principles maybe have mitigated against that happening? And so that's what I thought about is like, Okay, how would a principles based approach to decision making, keep me from some of the things I have done, that have required a lot of time to crawl myself out of that's number one. Number two was make my principles a little bit aspirational. So if I have a principle of AI, I wake up every day, with the intent of pursuing fun and adventure, right? That's a pretty aspirational principle now, how that could manifest itself 20 different ways. And so the idea of principles is not like values, you stick up on the board and just see them, but you actually make them living like, okay, what are some ways that that can manifest itself and it could be small things, for example, I have a principle of I show gratitude in small ways, often, well, one way to show gratitude in small ways often is keep $25 gift cards for Starbucks in your backpack. And when you see somebody in line at the store, like just turn around and give them one or just pass them out, because you have a nice thought about some like small things that you can do to embed. That's been pretty fun to just work on. And it's really just working on yourself. You're working on your code. And it's that's a lifelong journey. It's not like oh, write them down. And you got it all figured out.

Paige Buck 9:46

Right? It's a bunch of things on my wall that I felt like once they were on my wall, they were somehow embedded and then three months goes by and I realized I haven't looked at the wall. So it is a lifelong practice, you say

Russell Benaroya 9:58

and choose one right? choose one thing for this month that I'm going to orient some actions around that are in service to this thing that I call my principles.

Paige Buck 10:12

This is all very actionable lessons you're sort of applying to yourself. And then I imagine this is this, similar to what it looks like when you're coaching entrepreneurs. But tell me a little bit about that. You talked about talking about focusing energy on critical success factors.

Russell Benaroya 10:28

Mm hmm. Yeah. So the entry point for supporting an entrepreneur in their, in their journey of self discovery varies like some people are really, really focused on wanting to scale their business, how they, how they get from here to there, and what got them here won't get them there like that. That's an example. Some people are really focused on building out a real intentional culture in their organization. And so my starting point really depends on where that person is in their process. But yes, it usually comes back to a few core foundations, one is leading with principles, knowing and getting into your zone of genius. Understanding where you get energy, and where you don't get energy, what gives you energy and what drains your energy. That's number three. Number four is, how do you separate all the crazy stories in your head with the facts, because so much gets manifested that is purely made up. And then we talk about action and execution. So to your last comment about critical success factors in action, you could call them OKRs, or whatever, it's, you could have the best ideas in the world, you could, we could talk about all this forever, but unless you execute with the intent of learning something and have the courage to learn, it doesn't matter. So that's a bit of coaching.

Paige Buck 12:01

Yeah, I'm gonna go. Yeah, are there? Are there challenges and blind spots? Do you think entrepreneurs have that others don't? Or, or they're big ones that you see arise over and over again?

Russell Benaroya 12:14

That's a good question age. Let me think, are their blind spots that they have? You know, the reason I'm pausing on that is because it depends, it depends on the personality type of the individual. And that's why for everybody I work with I always have, I always start with the Enneagram. And the Enneagram is a great assessment of style and personality, because depending on your Enneagram type really does dictate a bit more about how you see the world. Do you see the world really carefree? Or do you see the world like something that you're not going to let control you? Or do you see the world as something where you really want to define yourself as an individual? Or do you see the world as something you need to show up and be a chameleon and please everybody, and so you always put on the right suit for the right circumstance, because you always want to look like you've got everything nailed. Depending on where your Enneagram is at will often dictate where your blind spots are. And I have found that to be such a powerful opening for the process.

Paige Buck 13:28

And so if I love the Enneagram, I've definitely got a Enneagram book on my shelf. And I think it was actually my business partner that introduced it to me like 20 years ago, but it's one of nine numbers. And then there's like a wings that, that flesh out a little bit more about who you are. And there's what you go to when you're under stress. I'm so curious wrestler, what is your Enneagram number?

Russell Benaroya 13:55

Do you want to guess I wrote down

Paige Buck 13:57

seven. Are you a seven?

Russell Benaroya 13:59

Oh, you wrote that seven? No, I am a three.

Paige Buck 14:01

You're a three.

Russell Benaroya 14:02

Yeah, I am. I am a three, which, which in many ways if you really dig into it probably supports why I wrote this, this book in some ways. But yes, I am a three. Three is known as an achiever, like a high producer. I'm like always on, it's a little hard for me to unlock my feelings, because I spend a lot of time making sure that other people are, are happy. And I want to show up in a way that like everybody feels great. Right? Everybody feels good. And I'm confident I got it. And so when I told you early on when Melissa and I were trying to figure out our partnership, unlocking like what is really underneath the words is a little harder for threes. And so in many ways the book was a catharsis exercise more than more than anything else. For you, I'm going to say Say, I'm gonna guess I'm gonna guess your a nine,

Paige Buck 15:06

a one. So you're very close. Like the diplomat wing. I don't know what that exact word is for nine. But one when you were talking about your orientation to the world I was like, or it's something broken that only I can fix, like, everything is wrong and I have to fix it, including myself. That's a that's an ungenerous viewpoint of the one right the perfectionist. Yes. Perfectionist. Three was, you know, I remember taking the test, and it was like, you could be a one or a three. Because it's like, in the the shorthand I was taught for three was like, you just want to get it done. And you're like, what is holding me up checking this next thing? Get out of my way. I want the checkbox checked.

Russell Benaroya 15:46

So right, yeah. Interesting. Oh, my gosh, yeah, totally.

Paige Buck 15:50

What was that process for you of living in Costa Rica and writing, and you didn't have a list, as long as your arm have all of the things you needed to do and all of the things you needed to achieve.

Russell Benaroya 16:02

I finally realized when when I was there, that when I let go of trying to come in dear a list of tactic of tasks that were designed to make me feel productive when I finally let go of the list of tasks to make me feel productive, that the world in fact got a lot bigger, it got more abundant, more, more serendipity, more opportunity, more curiosity, more exploration, more energy, more possibility, more people that I met more this or that, and I was like, wow, I get it. Like, you know, sometimes you see people that you're like, man, things just land for them. But they don't seem like like super structured or organized at all. Like I tasted that. And it was a really amazing opportunity for me to let go of worrying about what other people think and just doing what gives me energy. And it was helpful to be out of the country to do this. By the way, I think it'd be a little bit harder if I weren't here in Seattle. But it's Listen, it's, that's the work. The work is not Oh, I had that experience. I figured it out. I'm all good. I'm done that I'm done now. And I again, that's why I really appreciate having the book as a ongoing guide. Because we're constantly being presented every week, every day with moments of content of of a situation or a circumstance that will draw us back into that storytelling will drive us back into those tasks will drive us back into like managing just that thing I need to get done. Unless you're aware enough to say, Okay, I see what's going on here. Let me let me pause and do the work.

Paige Buck 17:57

Mm hmm. Well, it's that pause that that sounds one so beautiful, and creates all that space. If you can build it in

Russell Benaroya 18:06

Yeah, yeah. And it's hard. Right? Like it's, it's, it's hard, but it's so powerful as a, it's purposeful. And it's powerful as a set of tools, when you finally acknowledged that so much of what it is that makes you write crazy and frustrated and anxious and fearful, is just made up in your head.

Paige Buck 18:33

I was gonna say what this is like, being an American, like,

Russell Benaroya 18:38

yeah, we do. This is what we do. Make and we're making it up, because it hasn't even happened yet. Yeah, we usually fear of something that is in the future, which we don't even know. All we know is like right

Paige Buck 18:53

now. Yeah. So when we met, you had been on this journey, you'd been to Costa Rica, you'd come back you hadn't yet read. You hadn't yet written the book. And you were running Stride. And you were the first time I met you, you were leading a finance workshop. But you were already building in you were bringing in so much of what you learned and your spirit of coaching and sharing and helping people grow. So how does that dovetail with Stride services and what it does, and why it exists. When,

Russell Benaroya 19:31

when we started Stride, my business partner, Eric page, and I, and we have a couple of other co founders too. In fact, just as a fact, we acquired this business about three and a half years ago. But when we stepped back and said, Why does this exist? Not what do we do but why does this exist? We really wanted to lead with something that was purposeful, beyond just the deliver We have the services, which we can certainly talk about. But the why of Stride is we help people with a thirst for continuous improvement, achieve their highest and best use whatever that may be. So we help people with a thirst for continuous improvement achieve their highest and best use. And we do that by using data to help people make better business decisions. And we happen to do that today through the delivery of bookkeeping, accounting and CFO services. But when we start with the why it becomes so much less about the numbers, and so much more about why does that even matter? And not only why does it matter, but who does it matter to so we want to work with people that have a thirst for learning. And we want to have people on our team employees that have a thirst for continuous improvement. And so just stipulating that purpose, orient us to a particular way of talking about what is typically seen as like pouring dish finance, and making it more meaningful in people's lives.

Paige Buck 21:13

Do you have a minute have lots of thoughts about the way you provide your services that are different from and better than the five or six different bookkeeping firms and people we have worked with before you? And I think that's probably a common problem, right? You probably encounter clients who are like, I've either been more than working with one person I've outgrown, or I've been everywhere and not found somebody. But can you tell me how that the why you exist and drove the way you do what you do, or the way your team functions together? Sure,

Russell Benaroya 21:52

if we're truly going to help an individual with a thirst for continuous improvement achieve their highest and best years, some things are really important. One is they need to have a high degree of confidence. The information needs to be accurate. They would like some assistance in achieving their goals, their financial goals. And they probably like to have a thought partner that they can talk to, to make sure that in pursuit of their highest and best use, they're oriented toward good financial responsibility, right. But number one is confidence. Number one is confidence more than anything else. And so what we realized is that what we're really delivering is we're delivering confidence. And oh, by the way, we also do bookkeeping and accounting. So to answer your question, the confidence piece starts from the very moment that you have that first interaction with an individual its Stride, how we ask questions, how we follow up, how we guide you, how we give you confidence that there's a team of people that's actually working on your account. So if, for example, you lost your client success manager at Stride because they went on vacation, or they took a great another job, you're not feeling now anxious, or lot losing confidence that things are going to fall through the cracks. Now, are we perfect? No, we're not perfect, but it is the orientation with which we execute. And a lot of that is how we grab you by the arm, metaphorically and guide you on a journey where you feel safe, so that you can spend more of your energy on the reason that you started you. And now you started Kennedy events.

Paige Buck 23:48

Yeah, I even remember some of you are a lot of your visuals look like getting outdoors, they look like they could be your feet on the ultra running trail out there. And, and I was like, well, that's beautiful. But what does that have to do with getting me good bookkeeping. And then you I think you do a beautiful job of articulating like this. Even in some of your language like this frees you up. This is giving you confidence and informing you in a way that frees you up to make decisions or escape from the you know, that level of detail, because you can trust that we've got it.

Russell Benaroya 24:28

And it's difficult in this area of business because there's so many moving parts in its day to day and everybody's touching it and different people are touching it. So there is a lot of process, discipline and process design. You know it right because you've you've obviously are subject to some of it. And it's really all about living our principles. We live we live at Stride based on 12 principles. One of our principles is relentlessly pursue the creation should have the impossibly perfect machine relentlessly pursue the creation of the impossibly perfect machine. That's a principle. And that principle embeds in how we talk about servicing our clients and our business. We also have a principle which is get in stay in sync. So maybe you've had an experience with us page where things were a little bit unclear, a little ambiguous. Maybe you were a little frustrated, or we were a little unsure. And usually Sure,

Paige Buck 25:27

it's me like,

Russell Benaroya 25:28

Well, we appreciate what you make you make that easy for us. But I assure you, that's not always the case. So it's it's important that we exercise that principle of how do we address conflict in a really constructive way, so that we can root cause it, solve it systemically and move forward? That's a that's a principle. So we try to be pretty principles based in how we roll.

Paige Buck 25:53

That's fascinating. Have you had and what have been some of your big turning points, or growth, milestones or Stride? Oh, I

Russell Benaroya 26:02

think the biggest growth milestone for us, which we're still growing into is the shift from having a Federation of Independent bookkeepers and accountants to a company to a team of people where there is no reliance on any single individual. And that's, that's a major shift for us. So today, we have a growing team in the Philippines, I think we have about 25 employees in the Philippines today, they all work in pods at different levels, and they work on a group of accounts, we have a client success management team here in the United States, we've invested a lot in process, automation, transparency, measurement reporting, because we knew that we could not live our purpose, if we were still just a federation of independent individuals that if one of them left, you wouldn't be confident anymore. And frankly, we weren't confident because we didn't know what they were doing. Because we didn't have enough transparency around how work flowed. That we weren't, we weren't what we would be saying selling. And what we would be doing would be two different things. And we weren't gonna we weren't gonna build a business that way. And we want to scale this business. It's hard to scale by just adding bodies SkyMall while simultaneously not living your purpose.

Paige Buck 27:31

Right, right. Right. So what are some of the things I mean, that sounds like a big one. But what are some of your other things either in this or in your coaching that you're most proud of?

Russell Benaroya 27:42

I think more than anything else, I am most proud of our team at Stride that has bought into these principles of life design architecture, like what Well, what we, that's that's like really wordy and unnecessary. It's called conscious leadership. It's conscious leadership. And conscious leadership is about having the self awareness that many of the issues and obstacles that we face in our professional and personal lives are typically of our own making, or at least we had a role or responsibility in that. So before we get on the, on what we call the Drama Triangle of victimhood, villain hood, or hero aid. Before we get on that drama, triangle, and rant, we have a culture that is willing to acknowledge that we're in this situation, because we were both unconsciously committed to being here at some level. And I think when you create a culture that accommodates that kind of desire to live that way, it's very low drama, and you just learn a lot about yourself and we spend 70% of our time in the work environment. Why? Why could it could it not be the place where you truly learn to thrive as a human being?

Paige Buck 29:03

Do you bring your entire team a lot of these like leadership principles or leader I should say like leadership, lessons that you have acquired that you just mentioned, like the Drama Triangle, which I'm familiar with, but do you bring that to your team and what does it look like when you do that? All employees

Russell Benaroya 29:22

that join Stride they they get two books. So one is One Life to Lead. One is The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, which is really the seminal book. Jim Detmer and Diana Chapman are two of the authors and they've done an amazing job. And then what we've also done is we've opened up some conscious coaching. We have somebody from the outside that does conscious leadership coaching for employees that would like to have it and we just pay for it for them. We also are very open about Be willing to participate in a get and stay in sync conversation between two employees and treat it as a learning opportunity. I have a friend once that said something I really liked, she said, turn the subject into the object, turn the subject into the object. And so we take the subject, which, oh, I've got this issue with this client not uncommon, you got this issue with this client? Well, let's take that subject and put it on the table, like create an object out of this issue. And now let's use it as an ally, to learn something. Okay, so let's walk around it. Let's look at how we're reacting to it. Let's look at maybe another way to look at it. And it's amazing when you do that, how it just helps dissipate some of that frustration and anger. And what makes it awesome is if the both parties are willing to engage in that same conversation, you're a great example of that I could easily see if something went completely sideways with us, for some reason, some accounting related thing that we could get on the phone. And we could work through it by sharing our respective feelings, talking about the crazy stories that we have in our head about it, talking about how it makes us feel and coming to some acknowledgement about what was my responsibility in this? What was your responsibility in this? And what is the realm of possible resolution? That's amazing.

Paige Buck 31:29

Yeah, so true. It makes me think of if the phrase just went out of my head, but the Oh, the phrase in improvisation that's like, what else could this be? Right? Like, it's a coffee cup. And like, if you have an improvisational mind, like, what else? Could it be it? Could it be a hat, it could be a flower pot, it could be you know, whatever, you could play a game about what this is all day. And if you were to take what did you just say, take the subject, make it the object, and then play that sort of light game with it. It just loosens up like, you discover some new possibilities,

Russell Benaroya 32:03

right? Because your cup example the hat, or the pot or the mug, they're neither any less true than the other. It can be all of those things could be all those things.

Paige Buck 32:16

And maybe you are seeing it as one thing. And I was seeing it, that's again, I'm always using the blind men and the elephant example. Like, you're only seeing a piece of it. And I'm seeing a piece of it over here.

Russell Benaroya 32:26

Yeah. And so if you're unwilling to engage in that kind of conversation, which is not uncommon, right? There are many unconscious leaders out there as there are conscious leaders, probably more unconscious leaders than conscious leaders, then what do you have to fall back on what you have to fall back on is what we call integrity, what we call principles. Being an integrity is living your principles. Being in integrity is what you feel and what you think and what you say, are in unity. And that's all you can do. Because you can't control what the other person does, says, etc. But you can stay true to your principles. So maybe that's a bit of a joiner on the train.

Paige Buck 33:15

Oh, that makes perfect sense. And so I'm going to shift gears and ask you something. You're, you're bringing all this wisdom to this discussion? And I always find that when we talk something you're curious about something you're trying to learn something, something new out there for you. Mm hmm.

Russell Benaroya 33:38

Okay, I am feeling I've seen in my wife yesterday that I'm a little unsettled right now, because I don't have like a big boulder or a big rock that I'm trying to move. I have a son that's heading to college, which is a big deal. But like, last year, at this time, I was on the precipice of publishing a book. I just ran 100 mile Ultra Trail race, like I trained for it for a long time. And right now, in this moment, right now, I don't have like, Oh, what's that next thing? That's the three coming out. And by the way,

Paige Buck 34:19

I was gonna say that comes back to the Enneagram Yeah,

Russell Benaroya 34:21

it's so Enneagram right? It's so Enneagram. And honestly, like, I'm, I'm human, like I'm struggling with it a little bit. So what I'm curious about is, can I just sit in the space in the moment and acknowledge what is without getting anxious about what isn't?

Paige Buck 34:45

getting curious about the presence. Yeah, that's like looking for the next either like long list of tasks or I met him like mountain to climb.

Russell Benaroya 34:55

Yeah, it's to do it. And that's the work like it's doing the work. This wasn't a this one. isn't a book I wrote because like, Hey, I got it all figured out. Now you can do this was like, no, no, this is this is the journey. It's not just mine. It's a lot of entrepreneurs. It's everybody's and reference it. Frequency maybe.

Paige Buck 35:13

Yeah. You mentioned this great book, which I can't wait to look at 15 commitments of conscious leadership and the authors of that book, but who are some of your other mentors? And what's, uh, what's the best piece of advice that you've taken away from someone,

Russell Benaroya 35:28

one of one of my two, two mentors. One is a guy named Andy sack, Andy sack is a, he's an entrepreneur in in Seattle. And he's, he's an amazing human being. He was, he was the individual that taught me the concept of it's the Get to it to get to. And this wasn't a moment a number of years ago, where I had a situation that was not seemingly not very favorable to me. And I was really upset about it. And I came to him and I'm, like, emotional, I'm like, Oh, my God, like, life's over type of thing. And he said, is anybody going to die? Like, no, they're not, but I feel like I am. He's like, listen, not that many people get to go through what you're going to deal with. It's a get to, like a get to us. Yeah, you get to do this, you get to have this experience. And you're going to learn from this and you're going to be better for this. I was like it to get to, so I really appreciate him for that. And then the other mentor I have is, his name is Lex Sistani and Lexis SNI. si s any why he wrote a book called organizational physics. He was a coach of mine for many years. And he just wrote another book called designed to scale. And what I appreciate about Lex is he, he's super talented when it comes to organizational design and organizational structures. He's a terrific coach and mentor, and is given me a lot of tools, many of which I reference in the book and give him due credit for which he deserves.

Paige Buck 37:12

Nice. Nice. So looking for a quick wrap up here, but you've already touched on so many of these what? Like, your most important daily rituals? That'll be our final question. Oh,

Russell Benaroya 37:25

my most my most important daily ritual is fitness. I'm, I'm an avid Ultra runner, as you you know, but like, there's nothing more important to me than physical activity, not as a path to like, losing weight, but as a path to mental health.

Paige Buck 37:43

Yeah, yeah. You're one of those if I don't do this every day, I'm a crazy person. Yeah, yeah. people I know who are ultra anything. Ultra marathoners, ultra trail runners are like might be drug addicts. If they weren't that oh, that functioning on their fitness?

Russell Benaroya 38:04

Many, many. And there are many amazing success stories. There's a guy named Ben Gibberd. From Death Cab for Cutie popular band. I met him on an ultra edit Ultra race. We were running together. And he's like talking about a sold out show at Red Rock. And I'm like, You must be like a serious star, which he is. Yeah. But then I went online, and he has some documentaries that have been done on him. Really just about what you said it's a very addictive type of activity that can be can displace another addictive type of activity in a healthier way.

Paige Buck 38:48

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's brilliant. I envy. I envy you that I wish I wish I had the part of me wishes I had the addictive tendency that would get me to that, because I recognize it when a minute but I don't have the the drive or the need. So that's exciting. Well, thank you so much for your time. Russell. This has been delightful. Really appreciate inaugural podcasts

Russell Benaroya 39:10

like Nagara podcast. So I'm so thrilled and just happy to be able to spend time with you. So thank you.

Paige Buck 39:17

Well, I'm grateful to you and I always get so much out of any conversation we have together.

Russell Benaroya 39:21

And mutual Paige. Thank you for having me

Paige Buck 39:24

so much. All right. Oh, I'm supposed to wrap by saying we've been talking to Russell Benaroya, co founder and partner of Stride, host of the Stride 2 Freedom podcast and executive coach Russell, where can people learn more about you?

Russell Benaroya 39:39

Oh, I'd love for them to check out Stride Services at www.stride.services. So you can find me there and you can certainly find me on LinkedIn and send me an email. It's all it's all in the

Paige Buck 39:53

show notes. We'll put it thanks so much for your time.

Russell Benaroya 39:57

Thanks, Paige.

Outro 40:03

Thanks for listening to the Kennedy Events Podcast come back next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes

Ready to Learn More About What the Kennedy Events Team Can Bring to Your Event?

The KE team excels at incorporating opportunities to delight at every stage of the event planning process. With a clear roadmap to event success, we champion our knowledge, resources, and connections to ensure your event goes off without a hitch. Whether you’re planning a live, in-person event, something in the virtual realm, or a hybrid with virtual components, our event experts are here to guide you. Schedule a 30-minute consultation with us today.

PAIGE BUCK

Paige Buck is the co-owner of Kennedy Events, a large-scale event management company based in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. Our team creates stress-free conferences and events with a positive impact, which allows our clients to resonate with their audience. Kennedy Events specializes in producing flawless product launches, award ceremonies, fundraisers, and multi-day conferences while keeping our eye on retention and engagement goals.

About Kennedy Events

Kennedy Events began with one goal in mind—to produce high-level corporate events with just as much strategy as style. Maggie founded the company in 2000, found her match in Paige, and in 2011 the two became official partners. Since then, these two resourceful and brilliant creatives have pooled their strengths to build one one of the most the most sought after corporate event companies in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.