Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer: The Daily Practice That Changes Everything

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. It is my pleasure to introduce you to my guest today, Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer , a USA today best selling author, international speaker, and executive coach with more than 30 years of C-suite experience helping leaders and organizations unlock human potential. She’s the founder and CEO of Bentzen Performance Partners, creator of Human Capital Investment strategy. We’re going to talk a little bit more about that then now near next career framework and the seven minute pivot, a powerful daily practice that helps professionals move from stuck to strategic. Cynthia works at the intersection of strategy and soul, helping leaders reclaim purpose, elevate performance, and intentionally shape the careers and cultures they want. Cynthia. Welcome to the show.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Trisha. It’s so exciting to be here. Thank you for having me.

Trisha Stetzel: I’m very excited to have you on. So tell us just a little bit more about Dr. Cynthia.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Oh, yes. Well, um, you summed it up nicely in that, in that lovely introduction. I would say in addition to that, I have two grown children, um, three grandchildren and a fourth grandchild on the way. So, um, in rounding out that, which is all things Cynthia, you know, there’s there’s the part of me that is also a mom and a CC and, um, those are some of the most important jobs that I have.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that I always love to know what we want the grandchildren to call us. So CC is right in the top five that I’ve heard. I love.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : That.

Trisha Stetzel: Beautiful. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, I’d love to dive right in. In your introduction, I talked a little bit about strategy and soul. So what does it mean for leaders who feel misaligned or even burned out when you talk about strategy and soul?

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Yeah. You know, in studying leaders and and I’ve done the most of the study I’ve done is women leaders. Um, but I but this absolutely generalizes to men as well, is that we can have a vision for our career, our future, what it is that we want to do. Um, but sometimes there’s a disconnect or misalignment to your to the point of your question to does it really align with my sense of purpose? Does it really align with my core value system? And I find that when I’m coaching women and men, um, they think they know their own personal mission, vision and values. Um, but until they put pen to paper, they don’t actually know, you know. They think that they sort of have this intuition around it. It’s an exercise. And, um, those become your non-negotiables. So then you can bump up career transitions, progressions, etc. against how does this fit in with my sense of purpose, my sense of values, my mission. Um, and those can evolve and change, right? As we grow and mature and have different experiences. Um, but it gives us our true north. And and to me, it’s it’s always a both and proposition.

Trisha Stetzel: Um, I love that. So when we think about potential and permission, especially with women, where do you see the biggest gap in the way our minds work when it comes to potential and permission?

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : It’s such an important question. You know what we know from data and evidence from the studies that that we did with my thought partner as part of my first book, now near next and and many other studies that preceded our work, is that statistically, women, um, one tend to wait to be invited us to expect that this myth of put your head down, work hard, and wait to get tapped is the is the right path, um, versus leaning into our potential. Right. And again, and there’s of course, the study around women C ten requirements for a job and feel that they have to tick all ten boxes. Men tick three of the boxes and they’re like, hey, fake it till you make it. Um, by the way, not an indictment of the man listening. In fact, my advice always is we need to steal a page out of our incredible male counterparts playbook, because it’s not about waiting for permission. It’s about self-advocating. It’s about not leaving your agency in the hands of or lap of someone else. Um, and it’s leaning into the possibilities in your potential. Not necessarily the confidence that you’ve accomplished everything. And that’s a leap for a lot of people. Women and people of color in particular.

Trisha Stetzel: Um, yeah. It’s as you’re talking through that. I’m even thinking about Cynthia, the idea of the people we surround ourselves with. So how important is it that we allow the right people in our room?

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Yeah, well. Hugely important. What’s the phrase? If you, um, you’ll you’ll never saw with the Eagles if you hang out with turkeys or something like that. Um, I used to tell my kids that, um, you know, it’s a couple of things. I actually, we actually covered this in now near next about. There’s people that give you energy. There’s people that, um, maybe are pretty neutral. And then there’s those that suck energy, right? Um, so who you surround yourself has lots of layers. Number one is surround yourself with people that are pouring into you. Right. And it’s not a one way street. You’re pouring into them as well. Um, but with positivity and affirmation. Um, not people that are sucking the life out of the room. Uh, now, sometimes those are relatives or people we have to spend some time with, and I, you know, that’s a different conversation. But that’s when boundaries become important. I think the other thing is sponsorship and allyship and advocacy don’t always just happen organically. It happens when we again use our agency to seek people out that can can say our name in rooms that we’re not in. But people are not mind readers, you know. Trisha, if if if I have an aspiration to do something really amazing and don’t tell anybody, no one’s going to know that. But if I happen to tell you, like, hey, I’d like to do something that I’ve seen you do someday, and I’d love to get your advice. Two months from now, you may be in a room where somebody is looking for that exact competency and you’re like, you know what? I just talked to a gal that’s looking for that exact thing. Let’s let’s line that up. So, yes, surround yourself with people that give a give you positive energy and that are going to say your name and rooms you’re not in.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. Oh that’s so important. Thank you for bringing that out. Uh that a lot of us who advocate for each other out listening for not only opportunities for ourselves, but for those that are closest to us and that we spend time with. It’s so important. Um, let’s talk just for a minute about now. Near next. I know people have heard you say it a couple of times in our conversation already. So tell us a little more.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Yeah. So now you’re next. Um, my first book with coauthor Kimberly Roth came out in March of 24, and it was really, um, dedicated for women, high professional, high achieving, ambitious, overextended women. And in a nutshell, the through line is start working on your future today. Do your day job with excellence, but identify your next whatever that is for you, and start working on it today. And it doesn’t have to be massive steps. It can be tiny incremental shifts or pivots to get you moving there. Um, the brief backstory is when I set out to write this book, I was in a CEO position in a large organization. This was kind of something I was doing in the margins in researching and studying. Women around the globe learned that to a person, these high functioning, ambitious, very successful women, not one of them was intentional in their career journey. Um, and so many women aren’t and don’t have the luck. Serendipity. Right place, right time that the women we studied had. And so it became so clear to me that you have to start working on your next right now, not after the kids go off to school or graduate or the significant other gets their perfect job. And it saved the day for me when my position was eliminated two and a half years ago during a CEO change. Change of control. Had it not been for the research I had done and drinking my own champagne, I started journeying with the reader and building what was to be my next. I thought 3 to 5 years from now, when my job was eliminated, I was like, okay, well, I can either go find another C-suite job, which sounds exhausting as a single woman, empty nester, or I can accelerate this plan that I’d already been working toward. I would have never had had that option had I not been following this framework of in the now. Identify your next.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that and I love that. Drink your own champagne. I’ve never heard that before. I’m just going to say Cynthia coined that.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Yeah. Fair enough.

Trisha Stetzel: I love it. I think that’s fantastic. So is now a good time to talk a little bit about the seven minute pivot?

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Yeah. It’s a it’s a perfect segue because here’s here’s what we learned from. And again for the for the man listening. Let me just say this. If you’re if you have a sister, a wife, a a girlfriend, a mom, a daughter, a female coworker, please don’t tune this part out. This is this is for you as well. Um, and all of the all of the concepts of now near next work equally well for men. It just happens that they tend to be better at it Naturally. Mhm. Right. So they absolutely work but they just tend to lean into their agency more than women. Um the very first thing we heard is when we talked to women and we were on stages promoting the book and talking about the research is they’d say, listen, Cynthia, I love it. It makes all the sense in the world. I don’t have time, right? I don’t have time because whether you have children or you don’t have children, we pour into someone our church, our community or sandwich generation. We’re caring for aging parents, our community, somebody, you know, we’re leaning into. And so where the seven minute pivot evolved is this everyone has seven minutes a day, it’s more than five, it’s less than ten. And when you take seven minutes and remove all distractions, put a timer on so that it’s limited to the seven minutes. Put a timer on. Get out a piece of paper and a pen.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Because we know neurologically this really connects with that frontal lobe and starts to get us thinking in that creative head space and creates clarity and focus. And ask yourself a prompt, what is standing in the way of my next? That could be the prompt. And for that seven minutes, you’re journaling about that. But here’s the thing. You ask yourself why three times? Because most of us will go, I don’t have time. Okay, end of end of seven minutes. I still have six minutes and 55 seconds left. Right. Um. Why? Well, because of this. This and this why? And so you get underneath the thing. That’s underneath the thing. And then the beauty in the seven minute pivot is at the end. You choose one small incremental thing, just one baby step to move you slightly forward so you don’t have to make massive changes. But you’re saying, I’m going to make that phone call. I’m going to update my LinkedIn profile. I’m going to set this new boundary, whatever that one small thing is. You do that every day for a year. That’s 2555 minutes. Imagine how far off course a plane would go with just that tiny incremental shift over time. It ends up 300 miles in a different direction altogether. That’s what can happen for us in the steps that we can absorb. For those of us that are overextended, busy doing life.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, life. I’m thinking about my calendar right now. Cynthia. I think I can find seven minutes. I’m just.

Speaker4: Yeah, I think I yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: I know what a wonderful piece of advice, especially for those very busy professionals out there. It just takes seven minutes to start that direction. And we see how that played out with you. So thank you for sharing that story. That’s so important. I think for people who are listening today, I know that folks are already ready to connect with you to find out more. What is the best way for folks to reach out or to connect with you? Cynthia.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Yeah, so all the socials I’m Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer , which is a unique spelling and so I’m sure it’ll be in the show notes. Um, my website is easier. It’s Dr. hyphen com and you can connect with me there for a free coaching session. You can look up books, and I have a lot of free resources for the person listening that wants to audit how they’re doing on their own intentionality. There’s a free audit quiz, um, for the gentleman that’s listening that says, how can it be a better ally? There’s an allyship quiz. Um, so lots of free resources available and I’d love to connect.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. Thank you so much, Cynthia. And by the way, her first name is spelled c y n t h I a, just in case you’re looking for that website. And of course, it’ll be in the show notes so you can point and click if you happen to be sitting right in front of your computer. Not driving. Not driving.

Speaker4: That’s right. Yes.

Trisha Stetzel: Um, why don’t we, since we’re on the topic of high achieving leaders and people who are busy professionals and, uh, love to pour into others, what predictable patterns do you see when high achieving leaders feel restless or even stuck?

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Yeah. So it’s it’s a couple of different things. Um, again, there are some interesting dynamics from a gender perspective. Um, men for the most part tend to speak up. Um, put me in. Coach, is there something else? I really want this, you know, this is what this is the path I’m looking for. This is the next promotion I’d like to see. Um, which I love. I love that, you know, that they’re putting their agency for the most part, into the universe. Um, women tend to grow silently, restless, frustrated, stuck or stagnant and begin their search and take their ball and go elsewhere. And here’s why. And this is something leaders need to be very much aware of. We long have thought if if there’s a new position that opens up or a promotion, what have you, that if a person doesn’t raise their hand that well, they’re just not very ambitious, not necessarily the case. Women overindex on performance. We have been conditioned for the most part, but our heads down work hard and wait to get tapped. We expect that our performance and our work speaks for itself. So when the new position comes up, I’m expecting Trisha to come say, hey Cynthia, you’ve been working really hard and done all this amazing things.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : There’s this position Trisha’s expecting. Cynthia’s going to raise her hand and say, hey, what about me? And so we miss Opportunities, right? Which is why then we sort of silently take our ball and go elsewhere. So I think the the cautionary tale is twofold. Number one, all people should put their agency and their aspirations into the put their aspirations farther into the universe and be responsible for their own agency. Number one. Number two, as leaders of people ask those questions, what are your aspirational goals? What’s your aspirational next? How can I help get you there? What barriers do you see are standing in your way? You know, worst thing that could happen is somebody has a desire for something that you don’t see being a good fit podcast for another day, but there’s ways to address that and help align them better to their natural gifts and talents. Um, the worst thing you can do is not raise the question, not show a sense of investment, and then lose that talent to the competition.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, those are some great pieces of advice where we need to step forward and say, these are the things that I’m interested in. And as managers or leaders, we need to ask, what is it that you want to do next? So those are what I would consider things that are out there in the universe. What about what’s in between our ears? There’s a whole lot of mindset work, I think that goes that comes behind what we’re talking about today. So how do we shift the way we’re thinking or the way that we’ve always thought into these other spaces where we’re actually standing up and saying, hey, me?

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Yeah, well, so much of it is, um, what I refer to more as impostor phenomenon, right? I I’ve decided I don’t believe it’s a syndrome. Um, I don’t think it’s a clinical diagnosis. And I think it’s something that we can all overcome. I think it’s a phenomenon that, um, many of us have. I am still, you know, not, um, someone that that has has overcome all, all areas of of the phenomenon as it creeps in from time to time. So this is another excellent use of the seven minute pivot. And it is using it for purposes of your highlight reel. So you don’t put down in seven. Your prompt is not what are all the reasons I don’t think that I can do X. What are all the reasons that I it is what are all of the times when I have demonstrated getting through hard stuff, right? So you kind of do a highlight reel, um, and get yourself in the place of I can I’m worthy, I’m capable. Look at all the times I’ve done hard things well and succeeded. And what’s one small thing I can do today to continue to move forward in that positive direction? Um, the other thing and highlight reels I think work great.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : I think you can do those at the end of a day, you know, when you’ve had that day where you’re like, oh, that that one thing didn’t go well. If you’re like me, you beat yourself up about you can have 20 things go well. But that one thing that didn’t go well, it’s like all night long, you know, I’m replaying the fact that I called somebody by the wrong name or whatever it was. Um, what’s really happened with the client? And it was, you know, I stood over it. Um, but the reality is, it’s it’s to flip that thinking to what are all of the things I can be proud of, that I’ve done successfully, and put your energy and motion into that. Um, and how do I keep that momentum? So, yeah, there’s, there’s so much about our own self limiting beliefs and moving past that, I think oftentimes has to do with just reminding ourselves of how incredibly brilliant we really are.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. Yeah. And I think as women we beat ourselves up a lot over this small things. And you know the reality is we’re all human and things.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Yeah. You have to embrace grace, right? At the end of the day, you have to embrace grace and and over guilt.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: And surround yourself with the right people, as you mentioned. Have the right people in the room that support you when you find yourself in that spot. Right.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : That’s exactly right.

Trisha Stetzel: I’d love to shift to something new, if that’s okay with you. I’ve heard that you might be dropping a new book called Capital Investment Strategy. Can we talk about that?

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Yes, yes. So human capital investment strategy. And here’s how it links to the first part of the conversation. When when I was writing and then promoting now near next, one of the things that always would start with is, look, this is not a finger wagging at men. This is, you know, not about society, culture, etc.. Let’s just let’s just agree that there are things that hold women back that are systemic, that are somewhat out of our control. Now near next is about what we can control. What kept bugging me, having having spent over 30 years in human resources was. But there are things organizationally that are not only impacting individuals, but they’re impacting organizations in a negative way. And it’s this we use very arbitrary, um, criteria for selection and promotion that date back to the industrial revolution that are not predictive of future performance, age, years of experience, job titles, even even schools. You know what kind of pedigree somebody has when we use all of these non productive right. Non predictive measures of trying to figure out what future performance will look like. We narrow the pool, narrow the pool nor the pool to respectfully what often ends up being middle aged white men because we say you have to have 15 years of experience at this job level in this industry and this type of company, etc., right? We’re shrinking it down.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : What human capital investment strategy the through line is this. Invest in your human capital both as an individual. My human capital is mine to invest in my talent, my skill, my knowledge. And as leaders in and organizations, invest in the portfolio of human capital that chooses to come bring their gifts and talents to work every day with the same rigor and intentionality that you’re investing in your financial capital. And in doing so, find more predictive measures. Build around talent, teach skill and knowledge that is the true competitive advantage. And then what we will see is this melting pot of a portfolio of the highest performers up doing their best work that they love doing because it’s their gift and they’re wired to do it. And organizations thriving. Um, it I scratch my head sometimes because in some ways it seems so blindingly obvious. And yet organization after organization continue to fall back into what I frankly find is a really lazy way of bringing people into their company and how they manage people instead of the human capital.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Human capital investment strategy is dropping on February 3rd. Where might the listeners find this beautiful new piece of work of yours?

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Yes. So I’d love for you to buy it. Uh, pick it up in preorder and pre-sale. You can do one of two things. You can go to Amazon. It’s available for presale right now on Amazon. If you go to Amazon and then you want to email me at Hello at Cynthia Benson. Com, which again will be in the show notes and just say purchased on Amazon. I’m going to email you $728 in free content to hold you over for the few weeks until you have the book in hand. Or you can go to my website at. Com and you can order the book right there, and you will automatically receive $728 in free content to hold you over until the book arrives in your hands.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s wonderful. Thank you so much, Cynthia. This has been so fun. I have one more question for you. So for those listeners listening today who have this, this thing inside of them, that they know that there’s something more, there’s something more for them out there, but they’re not sure where to begin, where what’s their very first step? What should they do?

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : The very first step. I’m going to give you a framework. I’ll go through it swiftly. It’s aces. So that’s how you remembered. If you’re driving, remember aces. We all have aces and spaces. So think about when you finish a day or a week and you reflect and you’re like, gosh, that was an amazing day. That was such a good day at work or whatever it was you were doing. So the way you find your natural talent is it’s affirming. It feels good when I’m doing it. We can all do lots of things we don’t love doing, but it feels good. I love hosting a podcast. It’s fun to do. That’s affirming, right? It’s consistent. It’s always something you do and you do it well. It’s spontaneous. Actually, I think the E comes next. You do it with excellence, meaning you do it better than most. It comes easy for you, and it isn’t because you took a lot of classes or went to school for it. It’s just sort of part of your DNA and it’s spontaneous. You can’t help yourself. You’re the person that walks into a busy room and thinks, you know, if they put a stanchion there and added a person there, this whole thing would be so much more organized, right? Versus the person that walks in and just becomes part of the chaos. So when you think about that, when you think about what are my aces, what are the things that feel so affirming consistently? I do with excellence, and I do spontaneously start to mind map that start to journal about that. And then how do you monetize that? That becomes how you start to isolate your next, then start working on your future today. You don’t have to quit your job and go do that, you know, become a writer or a, you know, movie star. Tomorrow you start working on your future today. Baby steps.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that aces. Aces, aces. Everyone who’s listening remember aces. And you can always come back and grab the show notes for what the acronym stood for. Cynthia, this has been so much fun today. I really appreciate your time. You have given us so much gold. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer : Oh, you are so kind. And I, my little uninvited guest is in the background barking, so hopefully you don’t hear that. It has been amazing. Thank you for this time. You are such a wonderful host and interviewer.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you so much, Dr. Cynthia, it’s been my pleasure to have you. All right, guys, that’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation that Cynthia and I had, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran or a Houston leader ready to grow. And be sure to follow, rate, and review the show. Of course, it helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.