“There is a real direct application to being human with what you learn in theatre and Improve.” Robert Bendetti Today, our guest is Robert Bendetti, Jr., CPA, who is the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Life Cycle Engineering. As CFO, he is responsible for all financial operations of the company and accounting contracts, purchasing, Process automation, and IT. Before Life Cycle Engineering, Robert served as VP of Finance at Galey and Lord and CFO of the Coastal Logistics Group and a financial management position within Lockheed Martin, Hormel Foods, and Hilton Hotels. Robert is also president and founder of the Global CFO Council. The purpose of the global CFO counselors is to provide an educational and networking forum for senior financial executives to share the best practices, discuss current financial issues, and learn about current topics related to their job performance. There are 1500 members in 32 countries. Robert has a great sense of humor and embraces Improv due to his background in the performing arts. There are four L's that goes into changing your mindset. These include Learning, Leading, Listening, and Leaving. The first L is learning, which comes from podcasts, books, mentors, and networking, and it could be professional certifications, which is a great way to learn in whatever field you're in. The second L is leading, which includes serving and empowering others and volunteering wherever you're. In the current environment, community, civic, and industry associations desperately need folks like us to volunteer at any phase of your career. There's no greater way to learn and change your mindset than by embedding yourself with others and serving and empowering them. The third L is listening, and a great way to grow is by being a mentor and having mentees and listening to them. Another way to do this is to listen to your customer, and the only way you can listen to the customer is if you're out with the customer. It is also essential to listen to your team members and learn from them. I am primarily an internal consultant to the CEO and the business operations leaders. But also, my customers include the end-user of the service and products and solutions that we sell, and then I have all the team members at the company. My job is to keep everybody happy, engaged, excited and equipped to do their job. The last L is Leaving, and sometimes to change your mindset, you got to change some things about your environment. You need to take out some things and leave like negative influences, some bad friends or some habits. To affirm those that are listening and doubt themselves, you can learn enough so that you can have an enjoyable conversation and interact with people, or have the confidence to say something in a meeting or to your boss in the moment, instead of on the way home and have all the regret not doing it. Those are the kind of skills that you can learn by doing maybe a little reading or listening to a podcast or taking an Improv class. To learn more and for the complete show notes, visit petermargaritis.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices