What's up, Champion?

This is your host, Neal, and I want to welcome you back to another podcast episode.

I am fired up about today.

Today I'm going to be teaching you something that I've learned within my career, but I believe can help you out exactly where you're at, but also as you walk forward in life.

You know, when we grow in leadership, I talk about on this show all the time that you should be growing forward and upward at all times.

Well, as you're growing forward and upward, I want you to understand that as you rise in greatness, the higher you go up the ladder, sometimes the greater the perks, the greater the pay and the greater the flexibility.

But with that, sometimes you also have limited options.

Hmm.

What do I mean by that?

Well, we're gonna dice that up and talk about that today.

Get ready.

This is your captain speaking.

We want to let you know we've been cleared for takeoff.

We have clear skies today with no wind, so we are expecting a smooth and highly enjoyable flight.

However, should you experience some personal turbulence, don't worry as you have chosen the right airline.

As we are trained in navigating unexpected bumps, our destination today is high performance and success.

Sit back, relax, get hyped, or do whatever you do.

As we too are pumped for today's flight, we understand you have options when you fly, and we are grateful that you have chosen to fly with us today.

We recognize by choosing to fly no, Reyes, you are committed to growing personal development and reaching higher than you ever have before.

Enjoy today's flight.

Be blessed, and remember, the best is yet to come.

What's up, Champion?

This is your host, Neal Reyes, and I want to welcome you to the Executive Perspective.

For years, I struggled to answer the question, what do you do for a living?

Why?

Because most people who ask only expect to hear one thing.

I am an executive with a deep level of understanding of business, operations, leadership, and technology.

I am also the president and founder of a worldwide ministry and CEO of an executive coaching and consulting firm.

My number one passion is people, and I receive significant gratitude in life from sowing into others and encouraging them them as they grow to achieve their fullest potential.

If you're a high performance individual like me, or you're simply ready to take your business leadership or inner potential to the next level, then strap in because I'm locked in and all in.

This is the Executive Perspective.

Hey, what's up, champions?

This is your host, Neal, and I want to welcome you back to the executive Perspective.

Today I'm going to be talking with you about something that I think is very important for people to understand, especially as they grow in leadership.

And what I specifically want to talk to you about today, the topic is the Ladder of Ascension.

Again, the topic that I'm going to be speaking with you about today is the Ladder of Ascension.

What exactly is that?

Well, it refers to the ladder you climb as you grow within your career.

In fact, what I will tell you is that specifically this deals for people who work with inside of companies, whether that's career minded people, intrapreneurs, things of that nature.

It also can impact entrepreneurs to a bit, but it really focuses on the career minded person.

Now remember that our podcast focuses on three areas.

We focus on leadership, business strategy and personal development.

And I think today's topic is going to help answer some questions for some people that either they're already encountering or maybe that they've been through in the past or will in the future.

And it'll help add clarity to either processing those thoughts from the past or clarity for the future if you encounter it now.

In leadership, we all strive to grow.

That's just the fact about it.

In leadership, we all strive to grow.

It's just part of who we are.

It's built into us.

We're always looking to grow our space or to grow our skills, or to grow our responsibilities.

For many people it's to grow within rank.

In other words, if they want to grow up the ladder within an organization, they want to receive different promotions or different things like that.

But what exactly is the Ladder of Ascension?

Well, what I want to speak to you about today is in this ladder and we've talked about it in previous podcasts and I told you we'd have a podcast dedicated directly to it.

And so today I'm going to do that.

But consider you have a ladder and this is a single size ladder that you lean up against a wall.

In other words, it's not an A frame that's, you know, that you fold, that you open up and it balances itself.

This is the kind that you lean up against the wall.

And they do make ladders like this.

So maybe you've seen some of them before.

But this is a ladder that has a real wide footprint, but a narrow top.

In other words, it's shaped similar to like a triangle.

It has a wide footprint at the bottom and a narrow top.

And what happens with this ladder is that when you step on the first rung or the first step on the ladder, it's a very wide step.

You got plenty of room for people to be on both sides of you.

And as you take the next step, well, now you still have room for people to be on the sides of you, but just maybe not enough or as much as there was on the first one.

And then you take the next step, the next step.

And that's how this ladder works.

It's a ladder that's designed where you can have multiple people on the ladder at one time.

Now, most ladders are not designed like that, but in leadership, this is what ladders look like.

Of course, just like any ladder, a ladder can be weight bearing, meaning that it's designed to support a specific amount of weight.

Well, the way organizations are is a lot of times when they're designing their organizational structures, they'll either develop very wide but very shallow, or they'll keep it very narrow at the top but very deep.

And what I will tell you is the best kinds of organizations that are the most effective are usually the ones that are deeper than they are wide.

In other words, when you have too many leaders at the top of an organization but not enough workforce beneath, it just tends to cause conflict and has issues.

But when you have it narrow at the top, but you have it deep in the workforce, those tend to be the most effective.

But just like an organizational chart can be too wide and too shallow, you can also have an organizational chart too narrow and too deep.

And what I mean by that is, rather than too deep, it usually is it's too narrow, meaning there's not enough leaders at the top.

But what I want to talk about today in the ladder of ascension, and this is probably the number one thing to understand, is that the higher you go up on the ladder, the less options you sometimes tend to have.

I'm going to say that again because this may be a new concept for many people, but the higher up on the ladder you go, the less options you tend to have.

Now, as you rise on the ladder, and I'm not trying to talk anybody out of wanting to rise on the ladder, you should always want to, especially if you're a striver.

You know, you've connected with this podcast.

Either it's your first time listening to it, or you've been back numerous times to listen.

Because this podcast helps to feed you.

It helps to grow you in your leadership, in your business strategies and overall personal development and quality of life.

You know, as a professional coach, one of my things that I do is I work with clients and I work with them to help connect them to their best life and their best self in Other words, their best performance.

When people are operating at peak performance, life just tends to be always better.

Now, when I say peak performance, certainly I can mean within the job or within your business or company that you run.

But peak performance can be on other areas, too.

You know, when I'm coaching with people, oftentimes I'm taking on subjects like confidence or subjects like energy.

That's a big one right there.

When I talk about energy, what would that go into?

Well, that's where we deal with the quality of sleep that they get, the quality of their hydration, how much water are they drinking and keeping their body adequately hydrated, the types of foods that they're eating, the types of supplements they're taking, and the impact on the body, how much rest they get.

Now, I said sleep already, but now I'm saying rest.

That's because rest and sleep are not the same thing.

You know, if I refer you to a biblical process and the biblical standpoint.

Oh, we have a guest.

Little Livy's back in the studio today.

She may make a cameo here in a minute, but Little Livy's walking around the studio.

That's my dog, for those of you that don't know one of my dogs.

So.

But when you have these things and you're focusing on your rest, what I was telling you is that in the Bible, it gives us an example right at the beginning of the Bible, where it talks about, in Genesis, about how God created the earth, and it talks about all the things he did in six days.

And then it said on day seven, he rested.

It didn't say on day seven, he took a nap.

It didn't say on day 7, he got 8 hours of sleep.

It said he rested.

There's a difference between rest, the difference between sleep.

But when we're talking about peak performance, oftentimes we're dealing with things of that magnitude.

Sometimes we're talking about the emotions that a person has.

Sometimes we're talking about things like confidence, which I already mentioned, or compassion or empathy.

There's so many things that we deal with when we talk about peak performance.

But peak performance and operating from your best inside and out, it's a holistic thing.

It's a balance to life.

It's a balance to your personal being, to your workspace, just to overall.

Overall having a perfect.

I shouldn't say perfect, but a good balance in life, that's what we're after.

Now when we talk about the Ladder of Ascension, this is impacting some of you guys today, and I believe that there's some of you out there who are actually starting to get promotions, or maybe you're already facing promotions.

I will tell you that in leadership, if you have leader DNA in you, and I believe that you do, and if you have a leader compass in you, meaning that your compass points north when it comes to leadership.

You want to grow.

You want to grow forward and upward.

I'm going to say that again.

You want to grow forward and upward.

Well, when you do that, you have a natural desire inside of you to rise on the ladder of success, which I'm referring to in today's topic as the ladder of ascension.

But one thing I want you to know, and this is something I recognized in my career as I grew and I grew rapidly in my career, and at times I had different things.

I've been a business owner.

I've owned franchises.

You know, I still own businesses.

I have a consulting company.

I also have a 501.

It's my nonprofit that I use for our ministry that I minister to people on.

And I travel and speak a lot, both in that capacity and other capacities.

But at the same time, I'm also an executive leader.

I'm a cio, a Chief Information officer.

So when I'm talking about this, understand, here's what I mean.

I can think of early on in my career when I was starting, and I'll just take the IT side of it for now.

I can think of early on in my IT career, when I was first starting off, I was maybe starting off on the first or second step.

You know, you don't always have to start for the first step.

Sometimes if you bring some good experience, maybe you start off on the second step.

Or if you have a degree with some really good grades to back it, maybe you start off on the second step.

But either way, I started off on the first step.

And as I'm on that first step, when I look to my right and I look to my left, there were a lot of people along that same step with me.

There were a lot of people to my right and to my left.

There are people in front of me, people standing behind me.

We were all on the same step of that ladder, which means I had a lot of options at that point in my career.

If I wanted to grow, I could either grow up and make it to the next step, or I can make a lateral move to do something else that maybe one of my counterparts is doing, or even jump to a different field if I wanted.

You know, if I said that, you know, it wasn't for Me, maybe I wanted to try accounting, or maybe I want to try HR or marketing or something.

There's a lot of other things out there.

But as you start growing in your career, you start moving up the ladder, the ladder of ascension.

And as you move up that ladder of ascension, one of the things you recognize is that as you start growing up the ladder, and sometimes you may not notice it right away, but the higher you rise on the ladder, the closer you get to the top, you recognize that the width of the ladder at the top is much narrower than the width that it was at the bottom.

Meaning that when you're now making decisions about your career, and in no way do I want to sound limiting to you, however, if you reach the level of director or an executive director, or vice president or senior vice president, or if you make it into the C suite of some sort, I want you to understand that the higher you go, the less options you sometimes have.

And here's what I mean by that.

If you're working for an organization and you rise up that ladder, you know, when you're just an entry level employee, if that employee doesn't work out, employment at that position, company doesn't work out.

While it may be hard to transition jobs, there are a lot of other jobs offering entry level positions.

But as you begin to grow into management and as a leader you're growing, well, the higher up you go, the less options there are.

In other words, there's not as many vice president positions in the world as there are entry level positions.

In fact, there's not as many vice president positions as there are even manager or supervisor level positions.

Just the same as there are more vice president positions than there are senior vice president or C suite executives, CEO, coo, cio, cfo, cto, cmo.

I mean, I can just keep going on and on about the C level suite, but there's so many of those.

In fact, what you'll even find even at the C Suite is that now that the C suite is developing, there used to be a certain standard of how many you had, but now that they're starting to have more C suite titles develop.

What I'm recognizing in leadership groups is that sometimes you're now having different ranks of C suite leaders.

And so this is something that happens.

However, let's take for example, you have someone who's a CFO and they're running an organization as the chief financial officer.

That's a great accomplishment.

By the way, if you, if you're in that position or you're shooting for that position, Go for it.

Remember, I told you in my other podcast, I believe in you and I believe you have the ability to go after greatness.

So I'm cheering you on.

You go for it.

But at the same time, just understand, and this is not saying you shouldn't take it.

I always believe you should grow forward and upward.

That's the way we grow forward and upward.

But as you're growing, one of the things you need to understand is you must learn to take care of not just that organization, but you must learn to take care of your space and yourself.

Because what happens is, let's say, for example, that company gets bought out.

They get bought out by another organization and that organization already has their C suite structure.

And maybe they already have a cfo.

While they may not feel that there's a need for two CFOs in the company unless they run them as separate divisions or separate entities.

And if they decide to do a merger where they bring everything underneath one roof or one banner, they may now decide that the position you maintained before is going to be eliminated.

Now, maybe they give you other options where you can take a step back in your career.

As far as title goes.

You know, there are ways where sometimes you can take a step back in title, but a step forward and pay.

And that's not always a bad thing.

So keep that in mind.

Because understand, on the ladder of Ascension, the higher up you go, the more responsibility you get as well.

Now, what goes without saying is on the ladder of Ascension, typically the higher you go, the more money you make.

That's why many people actually want to rise on that ladder.

But that's not always the right reason to rise up on there.

There's nothing wrong with you wanting to do better for yourself.

There's nothing wrong with you wanting more in life.

But if you're only focused as money, that can bite you.

Because with the higher position and the higher pay also comes a lot more accountability and a lot more responsibility.

Sometimes you're now responsible for more people than you were before, and not everyone is cut for that.

And not everybody desires that.

But let's go back to that CFO position for a second.

If you happen to be that CFO and your company just got bought out, they may offer to keep you on, but not at your same capacity as cfo.

They may offer to give you a different position within the organization and may still be within the finance group or the accounting group, whatever department you work for.

But it might be a notch down or a couple notches down and then you'll have a decision on your hands.

Do you stay working there, or is it time to spread your wings and look elsewhere?

Well, what you'll find, and I'm not speaking over you, that you won't find another job easily.

I believe if you're a top talent, you'll find a job very easily because you're a striver and a high performer, and I believe in you.

But one thing to understand is that not all markets are created equal.

You know, if you live in a smaller community where they don't have many big organizations, well, if you go to look on the job boards for a CFO or you work with a recruiter who helps the executive searches for positions, they may tell you that there's not a lot of positions out there at that time, because just naturally, the less organizations or the less home offices in that area, the less CFO positions they may have.

But as you grow both also in city, you know, if you're in a bigger market, like if you're in a market like Los Angeles or New York or Miami or Atlanta, or if you're in, like Houston or where I'm at, the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, there are lots of opportunities for a CFO here, much more than in other areas, partly not just because of big city, but also because where I'm at in particular in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex of Texas, there are many, many home office and corporate offices located in this area.

And it's usually at the home office or the corporate office where a CFO might work.

Now, with the emergence of remote work and hybrid work environments nowadays, it's getting more common that you can be in other places and still maintain those roles, which I think is fantastic.

But many organizations still want you in the home office or the corporate office.

And so therefore, you may be faced with a move if you want to move into a new role or if you're looking for a promotion.

But what happens is that even in those giant markets, when you go to look at the board, you know, if you're at the entry level, there may be thousands, hundreds, if not thousands of positions just in that one marketplace and that one metro and that metropolitan where you have hundreds, if not thousands of positions of the same type of position because you're lower on the ladder of ascension.

But as you rise up that ladder ascension, and if you start to cap out at the top, at the very top, you'll find that while there may be options, you may only find 50 or 60 CFO positions as opposed to the hundreds or thousands that you would at the bottom.

That's not a bad thing.

That's a mark of success that you've risen and that you've grown.

But you need to understand that the higher you move up, sometimes the less options that you have.

Now, I spent a good amount of time on that.

But I also want to tell you that there's benefits, driver, there are benefits for you.

Listen up, champion.

There are benefits for you to move up.

And I always encourage people to move forward and upward within their ranks, forward and upward within their walk, forward and upward within their career.

What I will tell you is that as you move up that ladder of ascension, sometimes there's different perks that come along with those jobs as well.

Sometimes you'll get things like housing allowances or vehicle allowances or certain types of spending accounts they allow you to have.

Sometimes they'll give you certain things like extra pto, paid time off or vacation.

Maybe your benefits are a little different.

You know, sometimes in most organizations or many organizations, when you're a new employee, you might get like two weeks of vacation, but if you hit the five week mark, maybe you get three or four weeks of vacation and the more senior you go, well, that also works as you rise in title too.

They don't always necessarily give the entry level employee the same amount of vacation that they might give a vice president or senior vice president or C suite executive, because those are the people who are making the most difficult decisions around that organization and ensuring its success.

Now some people might say, well, that's not fair.

Oh, that's very fair.

Because now it may not be equal, but it's very fair because oftentimes the people on those positions, they went to school more, they studied harder, they did different things, they put in a lot more hours or a lot more work.

Sometimes it doesn't come down to degree, and nowadays a lot it doesn't.

Sometimes it comes down to experience.

Being in the right places at the right time.

The amount of education you gave yourself outside of a degree, how much are you growing yourself?

How much are you growing your space?

You know, when you connect with the podcast, even like this one, the executive perspective, you're going to learn a lot about life, but you're going to learn a lot about leadership and you're going to learn a lot about business.

And if you take these things and don't just use them for entertainment value, but you apply them and cultivate them within your life and begin to practice them, people are going to see a different kind of leader.

In you.

Because you can take someone like me who has over 28 years of management experience and over 15 years of C suite experience at the executive level, and when I share the things with you that I've done that help make me successful, you can help to replicate those in your same environments or study them and apply them in your environments, how they fit and exponentially.

You're growing at a faster rate now because you had examples from someone else, someone like me or others who are sharing our experiences with you.

You know, when I produce this podcast, the greatest desire in my heart is to help people.

You know, if you listen to my intro, my number one passion in life is people.

I love to help people.

And I get significant gratification in life, personal gratification.

When I'm able to help others, know that it benefits them.

Even if they don't tell me, thank you.

Even if they don't reach out to me and write me a nice email, that's okay.

I'm not after those external things.

I know I'm after just wanting to be a blessing to others.

I truly feel that in my life, I've been blessed to be a blessing and I want to help people.

And if I can help people live a better life, whether if it's in their emotional set or their mindset, or if it's in their attributes within work or attributes of character or personality, if there's any way I can help you in some way grow and have a better life and connect with your best self, I'm passionate about that.

Not everybody is, but that's how I'm wired.

That's how Neil's wired.

That's what I believe in.

And so when I'm sharing these things with you, I thoroughly want to help you out.

You know, my whole purpose of getting this podcast off, and it's taken off like wildfire.

So for all of you who are.

All of you who are following it and all of you who watch it and share it, thank you.

From the bottom of my heart, me and my family, thank you.

But I'm producing this podcast.

Not so much so I can get, but so that I can give.

This is one of my contributions so I can give and help people.

Now, that being said, I want to share knowledge with people, and that's why I created this podcast.

Now, going back to the Ladder of Ascension, if you're growing in your ranks, just understand that as you grow, sometimes with title, there's also pay.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

That should be part of the game.

But in addition to that, you're taking on so much more responsibility and so much more accountability that it's fair that you get compensated differently than if you're at the bottom.

In addition to that, though, a lot of the people are at the bottom.

They work a few hours and go home, but the top boss, sometimes they're there well after hours.

And so it just kind of depends on your lifestyle and how you do that.

Now, I believe you need to have healthy boundaries within your life.

So you don't just work, work, work, but as you rise, you know, sometimes you also have different freedoms or flexibilities that you can do.

And as that happens, those are rewards for you being in those positions.

But at the same time, usually people don't just get those positions.

You usually have to display some type of experience or some type of knowledge that you have that transfers to why you should be in those roles.

Guys, this is an important thing.

And I hope that the podcast, they helped you understand what the Ladder of Ascension is so that you understand your options as you grow.

As you move forward and grow upward.

As you do that, I hope that you understand how your options work.

At the same time, hopefully it also helps you in your planning so that if you ever need to make a transition or a change, this helps you with being able to understand the best ways in order to do so.

And I'm going to share with you because I just feel impressed too.

Networking is one of the best things you can do as an organization, but as a person, on an individual level, networking is one of the most important things you can do.

It's good for organizations, but it's also extremely beneficial for individuals.

Why?

Because you have other people in the workspace who are in similar industries or similar type of verticals as you, and they can benefit off of your knowledge and your communication with them.

At the same time, as you're growing in your environment, maybe one of those connections you have, they know about a position that's available that they think you'd be great for, or vice versa.

Maybe you can help them out in some way.

These are the benefits of networking.

Just some of them, but these are benefits of networking.

Guys, I hope that this teaching today helped you understand some things.

These are some basic things we talked about today, but they're things that sometimes people don't think about, but they're important to.

Now, what I encourage you to do, I encourage you to move forward and upward.

You should climb as high on that ladder as you possibly can.

You should go for it.

Striver and understand that I believe in you.

I believe you have what it takes inside of you to make that change and to grow the way you need to and to achieve your best performance.

Guys, as we close today, I want to remind you to swing by our website@neil Reyes.com.

that's where we have all of our teaching resources available for you to watch and stream and listen to.

In addition, if this podcast is meaning something to you, then please follow it and share it with a friend.

And if you feel you're up to it, please leave us a review.

We welcome your kind feedback, but at the same time, I want you to understand that I believe in you and I think you have greatness inside of you.

And if I'm the only person you hear it from today, I want to encourage you to go out and smash it.

You have everything in you.

You need to be successful and I see promise in you and I believe in you.

Thank you so much and have a blessed day.