Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - How a Prison Sentence, 7 Rejections, and 1 "Yes" Changed the World | Damon West

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://www.findingpeak.comFinding Peak podcast: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyJoin our community of fearless leaders in search of unreasonable outcomes...Want to become a FEARLESS entrepreneur and leader? Go here: https://www.findingpeak.comWatch on YouTube: https://link.ryanhanley.com/youtubeDamon WestWebsite: https://damonwest.orgThe Coffee Bean Book: https://amzn.to/4l35zu66 Dimes and a Nickel Book: https://amzn.to/4metOq3Damon West shares his transformative journey from a life sentence in prison to becoming a motivational speaker and author.He discusses the importance of resilience, the power of gratitude, and the philosophy of the coffee bean, which emphasizes the ability to change one's environment.Damon also introduces his new book, 'Six Dimes and a Nickel,' which encapsulates life lessons learned from his experiences.The discussion highlights the significance of mindset, personal growth, and the impact of storytelling in inspiring others.Episodes You Might EnjoyFrom $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delkFrom One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymelloIs Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9Recommended Tools for GrowthOpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opusRiverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riversideMagai: All-in-One AI for Professionals: https://link.ryanhanley.com/magaiTaplio • Grow Your Personal Brand On LinkedIn: https://link.ryanhanley.com/taplioKit: Email-First Operating System for Creators (formerly ConvertKit): https://link.ryanhanley.com/kit--Recommended Tools for GrowthOpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opusRiverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riversideWhisperFlow: Never waste time typing on your keyboard again: https://link.ryanhanley.com/whisperflowCaptionsApp: One app for all your social media video creation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/captionsappGoHighLevel: It's time to take your business workflow to the Next Level: https://link.ryanhanley.com/gohighlevelPerspective.co: The #1 funnel builder for lead generation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/perspective--Episodes You Might Enjoy:From $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delkFrom One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymelloIs Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9This show is part of the Unplugged Studios Network — the infrastructure layer for serious creators. 👉 Learn more at https://unpluggedstudios.fm.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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That's rubr-b-r-k.com. The last words he ever said to me in Dallas County Jail, when the prison bus is getting ready to come pick me up, he said, hey, West, be a coffee beam. Those four words, be a coffee beam, were the four words that changed my life because those four words put the power back inside me. And if the power is inside me, it cannot be in the world around me, right? The criminal justice system, the guards, either inmates, it's in me. And if I keep the power inside me, I won't survive prison, I'll thrive in that prison. And I want everybody listening to know that the power is inside you. It's not inside all those nose that you get.

It's not inside that time you quit before you got to your dream. It's not inside all the difficulties you're facing every day in life. It's not inside the idea that you haven't been able to make that business deal work or that dream with your family work because it just hadn't happened yet. But if you keep the power inside you, you don't survive the adversity. You thrive in the adversity. If your biggest breakthrough is waiting on the other side of your biggest breakdown. After getting fired from my third executive position, I realized God didn't create me to work for someone else. So I found it my own company, bootstrapped it, and sold it for seven figures in less than four years.

This podcast is for unreasonable people seeking unreasonable results. My name is Ryan Hanley, but most people just call me Hanley. And if you're ready to stop making excuses and start making moves, you're in the right place. This is the way. I wanted to start with something that I saw on your website that just caught me. and you write on your website, there's a little bit of preamble, but the last sentence is do not quit before the miracle happens.

And the question that hit my brain was, how do you know when the miracle happens? Like, how do you know you've hit that point? Yeah, I think that's a very good question, a good place to start this thing. And I'll tell you the answer. And I'm going to tell you a story behind this, how I know this to be the answer.

The answer to when the miracle happens is when you've not only achieved the goal you're trying to achieve, but it's something bigger than you could have ever imagined, right? There's the miracle, right? We have, everybody's got goals in life, things they want to set out to do, but it's when you stand up and you say, oh, my God, I didn't just hit the goal. I hit way past the goal. How did I get here, right? Like I tell my wife every day, I can't believe this is my life. And the story behind this is back in 2007.

I had been out of prison for two years at this point. And about 14 months, this date I'm going to tell you about. The date's January 11th, 2017. I know the date, you know, like it's my birthday. January 11, 2017, I've been out of prison for 14 months. I live in my parents' spare bedroom in a town called Port Natchez, Texas. And, you know, living in my parents' spare bedroom at 41, 42 years old, you know, I'm on parole for the rest of my life because I committed a bunch of crimes in Dallas back when I was a meth addict. I was the leader of an organized

crime ring. We broke into homes all over Dallas. And a jury in Dallas back in 2009 sentenced me to life in prison, or 65 years is what the sentence was. And so the jury sentenced me to life in prison, and I went to prison and transformed myself in there. And after I got out of prison on early release, which is parole, I knew I wanted to share this story because I had an incredible story, the message of the coffee bean, and we'll talk about the coffee bean later, but I didn't have a lot of places to share this story when I got out in 2015, 2016, even 2017, because I'm an ex-con. And so many ex-cons that have come before me have burned the bridge to the ground, right? I mean, how many ex-cons and the history of ex-cons

have gone back out and messed up again? A lot of us, right? I mean, the list is so long. So I'm, I've got this story to tell, and I know that the right audience at the time is going to be college football because I played Division I played Division I quarterback back in the day I was a starting quarterback at the University of North Texas in the mid-90s. In fact at 20 years old I was a starting quarterback on a division one team. So I've got this great cachet to spend with college football teams but I don't have any coaches. I don't know any coaches

20 years later in 2017. But a buddy of mine in Houston Texas calls me up. Houston is 90 miles away from where I live. He said hey get to Houston right now. He works in the media. He said get to Houston right now. It's the Bear Bryant coach of the year award. they're going to name the best college football coach in America, the eight best coaches in the country are in this room right now. I've got an extra press pass. I'm going to sneak you in.

So, man, Ryan, I drive the 90 miles from Beaumont to Houston. He sneaks me in the back door Toyota Center, and he hands me a press pass. And so there I am in this room, and all these coaches are there. USC, Wisconsin, Penn State, P.J. Fleck. They're all in this room. And I'm in this room, too, with my dream and my pitch that I'm going to pitch to these guys of why they should bring me to talk to their team. So I'll go around that room that night, Ryan, and I meet every one of these.

coaches. I shake their hand. I give my pitch. And to tell them why they should bring me in to talk to their team. And every single coach I meet that night, slams the door in my face. They all tell me no. It's a bloodbath of nose. In one hour, I got seven nose from eight coaches. It's a no every eight minutes. So now I'm standing in the corner of Toyota Center. I'm 10 feet from the door. I'm licking my wounds. I'm feeling sorry for myself. And the voice in my head is screaming at me, go home. The voice in my head is telling me things like you don't belong in this room. The dream was too big for you, Damon. The voice in my head is calling me an imposter, and I know every single person listening to this podcast right now knows the imposter voice. But I'm going to tell you something I quit

a long time ago, Ryan, listening to myself. And I found out why I started listening to myself, listening to myself, sometimes the voice in my head that was talking to me that I was listening to was fear talking to me. And you don't want to listen to fear because fear's a liar, right? So instead of listening to myself, I talked to myself. It's a technique I picked up while I was in prison. And I remind myself that night, Damon, you survive prison. This is a lot. This is a lot of is going to hurt you like prison. You came to talk to eight coaches. You're not leaving to that. Last coach in the room tells you no. And the last coach, Ryan, hardest got to get to in the room. His team had just beat Alabama two nights before for the national championship. Everybody is in line to talk to this coach.

But I'm relentless. So I stalk Dabo Sweeney around this room, the head coach of Clemson. And I look at a crazy person, Ryan. I'm hiding behind fake plants. I'm pushing people out of the way. Dabo sees me. And security sees me too. They're going to throw me out of the Toyota Center. but I get in front of dabble, I give him my pitch, and I come up for air, and dabble looks terrified. He's like, man, you got a card on you? It looks more like a stick up than a pitch, right? Oh, man, I was like, I've seen that look before. And, you know, inside the wheels are to spend a minute.

This is terrible. I give him my card. He looks at it. He said, I'll check you out. He takes off. He's a nice enough guy, but that's a no. But I would tell you what I felt good about that night was that final no, because that final no meant that I left it all on the field. And that's one of the biggest takeaways I got from playing sports.

on my life. Or like this old guy that told me the story about the coffee being in county jail. He said, you don't have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight all your fights. And so that night, I fought my fights. I lost them all. And I went home and I slept like a baby. Because I did everything I could, my power to make that dream come true. And I just kind of resigned myself to maybe the dream's not going to happen. Well, four months later, I got an email out of the blue. It's the director of football operations at Clemson University. Guy named Mike Dooley. Mike Dooley's email said, hey, Damon. Coach Swinney-Metcher you at a board show in Houston. He'd love to have you come talk to his team. Do you have August

first open? And I'm like, brother, I got every first open, man. I got nothing going on, man. The only thing I'm doing at 2017 when he emails me is the entire time that I've got this presentation I want to do in front of people, but I don't have a lot of options. I practice my presentation every night in my parents' spare bedroom. They got a mirror in there, a little vanity mirror my mom had when I moved in. So for two years, I've been practicing my presentation, myself ready, getting into my reps, because anything you wouldn't be good at in life, you've got to practice that in life. There's no such thing as an overnight success. It doesn't exist. It's not real. So that day I told Mike Dooley, man, look, you can have any Monday you want

in 2017, man, because I'm just talking to a mirror at this point. He said, well, let's set the day for August 1st, 2017. August 1st, 2017, I go speak to the Clemson Tigers, the defendant National Championship College football. And when I get done my presentation tonight, dabble's in my face now. And dabble is a high, energy guy, man. He's like, Damon, that's the most amazing story I've ever heard. I've never seen my players respond like that to a speaker. He said, have you been in Alabama to talk to their

football team? And I'm like, no, man, I hadn't been anywhere. I've been to Clemson. He said, well, we're going to see about that day. And he said, I just text Nick Saban from the back of the room. Ryan, the next day when my flight lands in Houston for my trip to Clemson, I turn my phone on. There's a voicemail and a text message from the director of football operations

at the University of Alabama. The whale. The biggest program in America with the best coach to ever do it. And here's what the voicemail said. Hey, Damon, Dabo called Coach Sabin last night. Coach Savenan cannot wait to hear your story. He said, how does August 21st, 7.30 p.m. work for your calendar.

And I'm like, man, I'm laughing out loud. I don't even have a calendar at the time, right? And I was like, man, I'll be there. So just like that, Davo Swinney just kicked open the biggest daughter to college football. And Dabo didn't stop there because Kirby Smart's calling, Lincoln Riley, Chip and Lynn Kiffin, Ryan Day. every coached America starts picking up the phone and call me

because Davo becomes the friend, the client, that turns the whole Rolodex over to me. So the dream is real, Ryan. I mean, this is it, man. I wanted to be a speaker. Now I'm a speaker. I'm speaking in all these rooms to college football. I mean, I'm going everywhere at this point.

But the biggest event hadn't happened yet. The dream was way beyond, the reality was way beyond what I had even dreamed it could be, you know, what you were asking the original question. The biggest event had to happen yet. I hadn't met this second servant leader. You know, Dabo's the first servant leader. This other guy's the second.

So it's August of 2018, one year after that first presentation of Clemson, I get a phone call out of the blue that day. And on the other end of my phone is a guy named John Gordon. Now, John Gordon is one of the biggest speakers and authors in America. This is the energy bus guy. And I'm like, John, I follow you, man. I know who you are. How do you know who I am?

He said, Dabo Swinney. He said, Damon, I just got done speaking to Clemson's team. Abba brought in the office for 30 minutes to tell me your whole life story. And John said this before the pandemic. John said, Damon, the world needs the coffee beam messages, Damon. Let's deliver this message to the world. He said, will you write a book with me? We're going to call it the coffee beam.

And in the summer of 2019, the book, the coffee bean came out, and it took the whole world by storm, the whole planet. It starts off in America first. Four to six weeks, it's riding high at the top of every bestseller list. gets a global publishing deal attached to it. Ryan, global publishes are rare. That's when your book gets reprinted in every language in the world. The book starts popping up in Chinese and Spanish and Arabic, French, Italian, German, Vietnamese, Korean,

just in time for the year 2020. And everybody remembers the year 2020. You'll never forget when a global pandemic hit, right? The entire world became a pot of boiling water, and the entire world was searching for the right message, and that's when the entire world discovered the coffee bean guy, Damon West. And man, my life went from this horizontal to straight up vertically. And it hadn't stopped yet.

Since the year 2021, I've gone around the world sharing this story. Every month, I'm on the road 20 to 25 days of every month, sharing the story somewhere on the planet. But it all goes back to one night in Houston, Texas, January 11, 2017. The night I had seven nose in the first hour. And I was, remember, I was 10 feet from the door getting ready to walk out and leave. And if I walk out that door that night, I mean, we're not having this conversation today. And the world doesn't have the coffee me message. So, you know, I guess what I'm telling you is this, that you know the miracle happens whenever

it's bigger than what you'd ever dream. You know, and that's what I tell everybody in life, you know, you can't quit because life gets tough. You don't give up on your dreams because life gets hard. You don't not ask your questions in life. The only question you know the answer to in life, Ryan, is the one you do not ask. That answer is no every time because you never ask your question. I think Wayne Gretzky said it best. Wayne Gretzky said you miss 100% of the shots you do not take.

So you got to go take your shots in this life. You can't quit before the miracle happens. But so many do. What how do we, what's something we can wedge into their brain? The people that are listening to this show who got the seven nose and did give up, right? But are willing to try again. Got the seven nose and quit, but they're willing to try again. What can we?

wedge in their brain today listening to this show wherever they are so that when they do when they do go after those eight coaches again they get all eight and you know in their world whatever that is what's what's a thought or an idea that they can hold on to when they walk into that room so they don't stop at seven they get all late and they go home and they sleep like a baby yeah so here's here's a great place to introduce the coffee beam because that's what i think is the thing that everybody can take with them. And, you know, anybody from five to 95 years old can pick this message up. So in 2009, the jury sends me to life in prison for organized crime.

And in the little intermediate period between the time that I've been sentenced and the prison bus comes to get me, I'm in Dallas County Jail. And I'm asking all these people in Dallas County Jail, how am I going to survive? What am I going to do? And everybody's telling me the same thing. You've got to get into a gang. You can't survive without a gang. But my mom and my dad had made me a promise. so I wouldn't get to a gang.

So I run into this old black Muslim man named Muhammad. Now, Muhammad's a career criminal in and out of prison's entire life. But he's the most positive guy I've ever met my life. And Muhammad comes every morning, he comes by myself and he picks me up. You know, he checks on me. So this particular morning he comes by, he's like, hey, listen, West, I've been watching how you're dealing with these knuckleheads and these dummies talking about, you've got to get into a gang. He's like, man, don't listen to these fools.

But let me tell you what prison's really going to be like. And that's when he tells me what prison is going to be like, the racial dynamic in there, the fact that I'm going to have to fight. That's what he tells me, you don't have to win all your fights, but you've got to fight all your fights. But he sees the fear in my eyes, and that's when he shares with me. He says, listen, let me break this down for a different way. He said, I want you to imagine prison is a pot of boiling water. He said, anything we put into a pot of boiling water will be changed by the heat and the pressure inside this pot. He said, I'll put three things in this pot of boiling water and watch how they change.

a carrot, an egg, and a coffee bean. So here's where I first heard the story of the coffee bean. It was the summer. The holidays are here, and that means it's the most wonderful time of the year to save with rackaton. Use racketon to stack cash back from your favorite stores on top of holiday sales.

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He said, if I put a carrot in the pot of boiling water, he said, what happened to the carrot? I'm like, the carrot's going to turn soft. He said, that's right. He said, but the carrot goes in the water really hard and firm. But the water, the prison, will turn the hard, carrot, soft and mushy and weak. He said, you don't want to be a carrot. He said, what about the egg? What happened to the egg in the pot of boiling water? I'm like, the egg is going to turn hard, like a hard-boiled egg. He said, that's right. He said, the egg has a shell that can protect it physically on the

outside. But inside that shell, that soft liquid core, that yolk, that heart becomes hardened. He said, now, if your heart becomes hardened, you become incapable of giving or receiving love. He said, if you are incapable of giving or receiving love, you've become institutionalized, and you do not come back as somewhere your parents recognize. Then he asked me the question, Ryan. He said, what about the coffee bean? What happened to the coffee bean in the pot of born water? And, Ryan, I didn't have an answer for Muhammad on that one.

I didn't know what happened to a coffee bean in a pot of born water. And that is when Muhammad, this man who looks nothing like me, this man who doesn't come from the same America that I came from, the man who doesn't believe the same things I believe in life. This is a black Muslim man from the streets of Dallas, Texas. I'm a white middle-class Catholic from a little town called Port Arthur, Texas. But this guy is so different than me, he's about to share with me one of the most important and transformational messages I've ever received in my entire life.

And there's a moral there, too. Like, if you ever shut yourself off to other people because of their differences, different race, different gender, different ethnicity, different religion, different opinions, different political views, if you close yourself off to people because of their differences, you are going to miss some of the most important messages and some of the best friendships in this life because the messages in life can come to you from anywhere in life. Muhammad shared with me that day. He said, if I put a coffee bean in that same pot of boiling water we call prison,

he said, now you've got to change the name of the water to coffee. Because he said the coffee being, West, the smallest of the three things, small like you, has the power to change the entire atmosphere. sphere inside that pot because the power is inside the coffee bean. He said just like the power is inside of you. Everything else in life, he said, Ryan, is changed by the waters of life. Carrots are changed by the water. Eggs are changed by the water, but not a coffee bean. The coffee bean is the only thing that can change the water because it's the change agent. He said, if you want to come back as someone your parents recognized, you've got to be like a coffee bean too. In fact,

the last words he ever said to me in Dallas County Jail, when the prison bus is getting ready to come pick me up, he said hey west be a coffee beam right those four words be a coffee bean were the four words that changed my life because those four words put the power back inside me and if the power is inside me it cannot be in the world around me right the criminal justice system the guards their inmates it's in me and if i keep the power inside me i won't survive prison i'll thrive in that prison and i want everybody listening to know that the power is inside you it's not inside all those nose that you get it's not inside that time you quit before you got to your dream. It's not inside all the difficulties you're facing every day in life. It's not inside the

idea that that you haven't been able to make that business deal work or that dream with your family work because it just hadn't happened yet. But if you keep the power inside you, you don't survive the adversity. You thrive in the adversity. And when the power's inside of us, Ryan, we understand too that there's, you know, coffee beans know that there's only a few things you can control. You can control what you think, what you say, what you feel, and what you do. There's four things. That's it. What you think, what you say, what you feel, and what you do. And if it's not one of those four things, you don't control it. So being a coffee bean means that, hey, if it's something I don't control that I won't focus my time, the most precious resource I have. Because once time is gone, it's gone for good. And all the money the world can't buy one more second of time. But when you start focusing your time on things you actually can change, the things you can impact, the things you can control, that's when you get closer to your dreams. You talk a lot about this idea of resiliency, and what I heard in that message was, like, almost the core underlying philosophy of what resiliency really is, is continuing to push through and believe in what's inside here and not allowing the external, right? Talk maybe, explain a little bit how resiliency plays into this idea.

You know, I think a lot of people can empathize with, or empathize is a wrong word, understand, and, appreciate the pain and the hardship and the difficulty of surviving that prison and coming out. But I think we also get lost in the mundane of our lives as well, completely different, but the day-to-day, easy, comfort, routine of day-to-day can lock us in almost as much as a set of bars can. How do we break free and create this concept of resiliency in a life that ultimately is almost set up to be convenient at every step. Yeah. So I tell people all the time that I meet more people out here in the free world that are locked up than I ever did when I serve time in a real prison

because more people are imprisoned by their thoughts, by their things, by their prejudices, then by steel bars and barbed wire and concrete combined. And that's the prison in your mind. And that's a very, very serious thing you need to watch out for because when you become a prison in your own mind. That's the hardest prison ever get out of. Like, whenever I got out of prison, Ryan, I wouldn't, that wasn't the first time I was free. I had already freed myself spiritually and mentally and emotionally. I was free even though my physical body was locked up. So when I walked out of prison in 2015, it was almost like a trifectar freedom, right? Spiritually, mentally, now physically, I'm a free man. But in order for me to hold on to that freedom, I've got to practice

the same things I practiced when I was inside that dungeon and I freed. myself. And that's kind of the thing I go back to every day is like, hey, listen, man, if you weren't locked up mentally in there, you're not going to be locked up mentally out here, Damon. So here's a few things that I think you have to do to become free in your mind and spiritually, mentally, is one, you have to have a spiritual awakening. And I don't mean something religious here because I think religion and spirituality are two very, very different things. religion is a man-made concept. All right.

Spirituality is your conscious contact with whatever you call God. And you can pick whatever you want to believe in. I'm a Christian, and I choose to believe in Christ. But anybody can believe in whatever they want to believe in. And I learned a lot about this. When I was in prison, I got into a 12-step program recovery called AA. Now, I don't speak for AA, but it happens to be the recovery program that I'm in. And I have found that the principals in AA worked really well for just about any

in life. You don't have to be an addict for the principles to work. Because here's what we have when we had these things called the 12 steps. The first three steps or the 12 steps are when you acknowledge that there's a higher power out there and you admit that you're powerless over whatever it is is holding you back in life. And only the higher power can help you get past this blockade in your life, whatever's holding you back. So that's when you turn your life and your will, your thoughts and your actions over to a higher power. And then the first thing, the first thing, fourth step of the 12 steps is when you make a searching and fearless moral inventory. A moral inventory is this. You find all the things that you have resentments against in life. You put them down.

You find all the things that you fear in life and you put them down. Because these are the things that hold you back. Fears hold you back. Fear is more akin to theft, I think, than anything else. Because fears rob us of things in life. You know, the new book that I just wrote, the book starts off with the question, if someone took control your life tomorrow, what's the first thing they would change? And I didn't come up with that question. I first heard it from James Clear. If someone took control your life tomorrow, what's the first thing that would change? The trick is that we all know the answer to that answer to that answer to the first thing that changes. Why have you not already made the change? I believe the answer lies in some form of fear, fear of doubt, fear of failure,

fear of success. Fears hold us back and they keep us in that place called the comfort zone. and nothing big ever happens in a comfort zone. And so in recovery, I've learned how to put my fears and resentments down and I work this moral inventory. Here's what I'm trying to get to in life. I want to keep my side of the street clean. I can't clean anybody else's side the street in life, but Damon West can keep his side of the street. And what I mean my side of the street, virtually, mentally, physically, I want to do the best

version of Damon West every single day. And so in a moral inventory, you know, I'm sitting here trying to feel. figure out what role I play in my problems. Because if I can find the role that I play in my problems, that's the one thing I can change. It's the one thing I can fix. That's the only thing I can control. And so I start putting my problems down and I start figuring out what I, you know, my fears and the role that I play, the resentments, the role that I play, then I can work on the role, my role. And that's the only thing I can control it because you can't control anybody else. Another thing I would tell people to do, wake up with gratitude. Gratitude, you have so much to be

grateful for. Even when things are spinning out of control, you have things to be grateful for. Focus on the positive, not the negative. And whenever you're going through something difficult in life, you know, your days are bad. They're just running a bunch of bad days together. You know, focus on the days that you want. Remember the successes you had in life. When I was in that corner of that room, you know, after those seven nose, I started thinking about, man, I survived prison. Damon, you're a pretty unique guy to be able to survive prison. You know, and most people listen to this, you'll never go. through a prison experience, right? Most people listen to this will never have a SWAT team coming to their living room. But I would argue that the SWAT teams of life, the SWAT teams of life

come for us in different ways. It's a bankruptcy. It's a marriage failing. It's a family falling apart. It's something happening to one of your kids. It's something having one of your pets. These are the SWAT teams of life. But if you can find this mindset that says no matter what the university is that's going to come in my way, there's an opportunity in there somewhere for me to grow and focus on to get to that opportunity, that's when I think we turn our situations around. But it's a mindset shift. When I was in prison, my first cellmate was this little guy named Carlos, and Carlos was his bank robber from San Antonio.

Neat little guy. He's serving 99 years, but a nice guy. But Carlos is telling me, he said, man, listen, you can't become a coffee bean if you don't stop seeing the way you see prison. He said, your problem is you think prisons of punishment when you should be thinking prisons an opportunity. And I did not understand what he was saying. How can prison be an opportunity? But he told me. It was very simple. You have 24 hours a day,

seven days a week now to work on yourself. You could become the best version of yourself possible while you're here. And so it was a mindset shift to start looking at my obstacle as an opportunity in life. Gratitude for where you are. Focus on you and the things that you can change, you know, and have that spiritual component to your life because it's a big universe out there, Ryan. We can't do it alone. For a long time, I completely disregarded. the idea of like a gratitude practice. It felt like huckstery. It felt like ethereal foo-foo.

Even though I'm, even though I'm also a Christian, believe in Christ myself, I felt this sense that somehow it was nonsensical or unimportant. You're coming in for it? You're leaving? All right, hold on. I told you one of them might come down. Yeah, cool, but give me a hug, bud.

Hey, say hello to Mr. West. Hi. Hi. All right. Have a good tournament. I love you, and I will be following on Game Change. All right? I love you, buddy. I love you, bud. My younger son, Colton, is playing a baseball tournament in Connecticut, and my older son is playing a baseball tournament about an hour north of here. So I'm going with my older son

and my ex-wife is going with my younger son. So that's that. Are you a Connecticut fan in basketball? No, I was a Syracuse fan for when Beheim was there, because that's the closest school. So we always hated Connecticut. Now I just kind of love watching college basketball in general. Yeah. Having Syracuse's loss. Although Jerry Mack is now the head coach, Jerry McNamara from the title run, is now the head coach of Sienna,

which I could hit with a driver and probably a five iron from my home. So rapidly becoming a Sienna basketball fan. So this idea of a gratitude practice, you know, it was always like one of those things that I thought, like, you know, life coaches taught you as like a five-step whatever and I don't know and then I started going through some hard times and was searching for things you know searching for something that I could grab onto and in the mornings I just started like sitting and I would read I've always read and after I got done reading put my book down I would just sit there for 30 seconds right God thank you for the home that I live

in the children that I had whatever right whatever hit my brain and then I'd stand up and holy shit bro like even 30 seconds, even acknowledging one thing changes your perspective on the day. Like one thing. Just acknowledging one thing. And it, you like stand up and there's this weird sensation of like, everything's not terrible. I'm going to be able to get through this thing. It's wild. You know, like I said, most people will never go through a prison, but everybody's gone

through something difficult in life. and I wake up every day and I think to myself, Damon, you didn't wake up in a prison today. Like, how great is your day going to be? Because my worst day out here is better than my best day in there. Now, that can apply to anybody, man, because think about your worst day that you're having right now versus the best day you had in that bad situation you were in, right? I mean, like, if you're going, let's say someone's going through a breakup, a bad marriage, they're getting a divorce, you know, it's tough to find good days in there, but you survive.

that and if you survive that you can survive other things in life um i think that it's normal for you to look at some of this personal development stuff and say that's kind of like rose-colored glasses or you know some of that stuff's even so ambiguous there's a lot of phonies and fakes in that world and it's unfortunate because it really taint the whole industry because you've got some really good life coaches out there but you got some you got some bad seeds out there i would say also be be careful man, watch out for these people. You know, if someone leads with the bling, the shiny, flashy objects, they're probably a huckster. If someone throws their faith out there so much in your face in the very beginning, pay attention to that. I'm not saying they're a huckster, but you want to watch their actions really heavily, right? Because look, man, when people want to tell me they're a Christian, it makes me want to grab my wallet first, because I want to make sure that, like, if they lead off with that, right, I'm a Christian, I'm a Christ, all right, now I want to grab my wallet because it feels like you're trying to pick my pocket. But now when I'm watching to see with all these people that want to profess their face publicly, because I see a lot of that.

Public professions of faith, it's a big deal. A lot of Christians are susceptible to this. And I find that with a lot of my brothers and sisters in Christ that they let their guard down when someone talks about Christ in public, right? And it blows me away because I'm like, okay, hey, listen, let's watch that person's actions, right? Because if you want to tell me how much you're a Christian, I want to see all that stuff that shows up. in the red ink of the New Testament. Show me love. Show me compassion. Show me some mercy. Show me empathy. Show me these things that show up in the red ink of the Jesus's words and the gospels. And when someone wrongs you, show me all that stuff in the red ink too. Show me that thing

about he without sin cast a first stone, right? Grace upon grace. Yeah, a lot of, yeah, show me grace, man, because grace is hard. Grace always costs the person giving it more than it cost the person who receives it. So, you know, I would say when you were talking about these, some of these people that have tainted that coaching world, and I'm not a coach. I'm just telling you from observation, some of the people have tainted this stuff, watch people's actions. Because if your actions don't align with your words, then you're not authentic. You're not real. And I think that more people would sit back and say, hey, you know what? I'm going to just watch and see what you do and take a little more time with this decision for you to be a coach in my life. I think we'd

have a lot of, a lot more mentors and mentees that are better matched up. Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more. The unfortunate part about what you just said is that so much of the advice that they would give you is actually correct and is valuable, but the delivery and the lack of, the fact that, as you said, they don't live it, right? They'll tell you it, but they don't live it. And so it gets muddled and it gets mucky and then we don't really understand. And then it takes me 42 years to realize, that gratitude and a simple, very simple and kind of salt of the earth gratitude practice is incredibly valuable to my life. And I wish that it hadn't taken 42 years to get there, right? And I think that goes for a lot of these things that I also think there's something too, man, just test shit.

Like I look at everything as an experiment or a project. I try not to put too much, too much expectation on anything, right? So it's an experience. I'm going to try this gratitude thing. Because whatever I'm doing today ain't working, right? I'm not feeling better. I'm not getting better, whatever it is. So I'm going to try this. If it works, awesome. If it doesn't work, you know, get rid of it.

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And I said, but I don't, it's not like I do it. I don't sell cold plunges. I don't have a referral code for cold plunges. I don't get sponsored by. I like that. Yeah. Like I have a quasi makeshift tank. It's right there. That's why I'm pointing off the screen for everyone watching on YouTube. And I get into it for one reason,

because I fucking hate it. I hate it. Every day, every day for five years. I've been doing it, well, I've been doing since pre-COVID, so maybe six years, like 2018, 2019. Every day, Damon. Every day I stand in front of it, and my body is screaming not to get in,

because I know how terrible it's going to be. And every day when I do it, I get out and I go, fuck you, bitch, boys. Which, right, I can get through this. So the next thing and the next thing and the next thing that day, I can get through that thing because I did this stupid thing that I hate already, right?

And I don't know. It's like little hacks like that, but if you don't try stuff, if you don't experiment a little bit, like you said, if you just stay in your comfort zone, you never figure out those things that work for you. Yeah, my dad had a phrase for this, man.

He said, do things you're afraid of so you can do things you're afraid of. And it's like the most simple thing. Yeah, do things you're afraid of so you can do things you're afraid. The more you conquer fears, the more you can conquer other fears, right? Yeah. The more you do stuff that holds you back, voluntary adversity. Put yourself through some adversity voluntarily, you know, because there's two forms of adversity in life. There's a kind you find because life is hard.

Life is going to deal you some tough stuff. But then there's the other kind of adversity that you find yourself in because of the choices that you make. And that can be voluntarily adversity too. I mean, like, you can do something bad and there's a bad consequence that happens to that. Or you can say like a cold plunge, I'm going to put myself in this situation because I need some adversity. I need to handle some adversity every day that's going to because you're going to face other adversity in life, right? Do things you're afraid of so you can do things you're afraid of. I love that you do cold plungers every day.

I love the fact that you stated you don't sell cold plunges too. There's no financial gain by me. Guys, just so we clear. there's no financial gain by me stating that I do this. It's just funny. But then you get all these commenters online, which I love the commenters online. And I want to get to your new book. But, dude, one more thing that I think is just funny, maybe you'll appreciate it.

Yeah. So I train to box. I don't spar. I don't want to get punched in the head. It doesn't matter. I played football too. I would have played football in college, but I got three concussions my senior season. So it was no more football for Ryan.

That's a good choice you made. It's a good consequence of a decision. I ended up. playing college baseball so it was all good, but whatever. So I don't want to get punched a head, but I do train to box a lot because I love the physicality of it. I love that it's aerobic, physical, you know, whatever, it doesn't matter. And for my own, again, I make no money on anything related to boxing, but I will post

these videos sometimes on Instagram mostly as like motivation. Like, look, I'm 44 years old. I'm out here fucking getting after it. Okay. Bro, these guys, and I love that, I love, they will write me essays on Instagram. on how they would knock me out. It's amazing. It's the best thing.

People are always like, don't read your comments. I love the comments because these guys would be like, oh, you jabbed with your right foot there. I would slip underneath your jab and come up with a hook. And like the amount of time that they took to analyze this guy who knows nothing about who watches YouTube videos and tries to mimic them, right? Like, it's amazing. And it's just one of the beauties of human beings and how insane we are.

Okay. But the good thing of the comments is that you have a power over that. Like someone that sends you a comment, there's nothing to say that you've ever read the comment. And so, you know, so many times people that put those out there, they want a fight. And if you don't respond back to it, you don't give them what they want. I look at the comments too, man. It cracks me. I just, I did a show recently called Soft White Underbelly.

You ever heard of that? Soft White Underbelly is this guy is in L.A. and he interviews people off a skid rope man i mean like people there's people there's drug people in active drug addiction all kinds of stuff sammy the bull of gravano somebody's interview you know and you just you sit in front of the camera and you tell your story and man this i mean there's millions of people that follow this guy and um man i did it recently and like i'm it posted like a week ago so i go in there every day and i just you know check out and this video's moving man and there's people saying oh man i love this is a great story but you got a lot

all these haters, you know, oh my God, this guy's, he's full shit and all this other stuff. I'm just cracking up. Like, people are like, this guy never did time in a real prison. I'm like, okay. But yeah, man, the comments, they don't, they don't bother me, man. It's so good. Here's another rule I live by in life. We're talking about these rules and principles I live by.

Other people's opinions of you are none of your business. Other people's opinions of you are none of your business. It doesn't matter what someone thinks about you. And another, like, really, like, foundation. principle of my life, you know, when I started working the 12 steps. And I still go to meetings to this day. I go to a couple meetings every week. I'm on the road, so I hit meetings in the road a lot. But it's this, that whenever you owe someone an apology in life, you need to make that apology. You need to own your behaviors in life. That makes you a better person. The first thing

an apology does is it frees the other person from the harm that you did to them. And that's the most important thing. Because whenever you do something to somebody, they don't deserve that. This is, again, about grace and being a good person and a person of integrity. You know, when we wrong people, and you're going to wrong people, I'm going to wrong people. You need to own it. And whenever you own it, you free them, but then you free yourself, too, because you don't have to hold that resentment against yourself. And I had that problem in my life, too. I've got a lot of victims of the crimes I committed.

I committed a bunch of property crimes, Ryan, and it's important for me to say this. Like, I broke into people's houses for three years in Dallas. And when I broke into people's homes, I didn't just steal their property. I stole their sense of security. Something I can't get back to them. You know, something I can't replace, something I can't fix. The damage is done. I can't change what I did to these people.

I can't even apologize to them. The state of Texas has a law. It's a felony to apologize to a victim of a crime. They will send you back to prison in Texas if you reach out to apologize. So my victims have to live with that for the rest of their lives. But in recovery, I found out that there was this clause that you can do about making amends and it's called a living amends. And a living amends is when you go out and do good deeds and you expect nothing in return.

You just wake up every day, look for ways to serve other people. I got this little prayer that I say. Now I'm going to give everybody this prayer because whatever faith you are, you could plug this prayer into your life too. I get up at the morning and say, hey, God, put in front of me what you need me to do today for you and let me recognize that when I see it because I don't want to miss whatever that thing is. Amen.

That's it. My life is pretty simple when I live out that prayer every day. Now, am I perfectly about this? No, man. I'm in spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection, brother. I haven't figured out to perfect this thing yet. But I do work on myself every day. I stumble and I fall and I get back up.

And that's what being a coffee bean is all about, you know. Do I have some days that I'm the carrot? You bet, man. There's some tough days out there that kind of beat you down. Do I have days that I'm the egg? I've got a lot more egg days than carrot days, to be honest with you. I think the egg is a natural evolution of most human beings. We have a tendency to get angry at a situation before we do anything else.

But I can always snap out of it and always become a coffee bean, no matter what time of the day, noon, 4 p.m., life's not going right? Hit the pause button, take a step back, take a deep breath, and just tell life. I'm not going to live like that. I'm not going to be the carrot. I'm not going to be the egg. And then run and jump back in that pot of boiling water and water called Life and tell life, you know what? Turn it up. I got this, man.

I could be a coffee bean too. Dude, to your point about how you approach negativity in your life, a comment on a social poster otherwise, whenever someone writes a post about how they would beat the shit out of me or knock me out or whatever, however they phrase it, I always respond, thank you. I'm going to work on that. Dude, the next, I'm telling you, and then not everyone, but I'd say three out of every 10 is then just as long on advice. They immediately go, oh, bro, well, hey man, here's what you.

you do? You know, here's a box step routine or here's a this, then they become super nice. So like the first post is like, you're a jerk, you're terrible. I'd beat the crap out of you. And then just by going like, thanks, man, like, I'm a work on that. Or like I appreciate the feedback. All of a sudden, now they're my boxing coach. Yeah. Now they're my boxing coach. Turn it around on them. You flip the script on them, yeah. To your point about, you know, you can only respond how you respond and saying, you know, apologize and whatever, you know, I think there's so much to that and we just, I think so many people want to and they hold it in for whatever reason. And every once in a while, again, like what your dad said, you know, I do things that I'm scared

of to do things that I'm scared of. Like, if it scares you to respond or apologize, try it once and see how it feels. Yeah. Dude, I want to finish with the time that we have left. I just want to finish with your new book, right? I highly recommend, I'll have it linked up. The coffee bean is amazing. I have a copy. I've given a copy to my older son, my younger son is working on it, right now, the one that came in during the middle of the podcast. That's cool, man. But love that. It's absolutely phenomenal.

But six times in a nickel. Let's talk about that book. Where to come from. You got it on the screen here. If you're watching on YouTube, we'll have it linked up. Guys, this episode is coming out. If you're listening to it on release day, the same day that six times and a nickel goes live. So we'll have it all linked up and you can go get the book.

But tell us about what we're doing now. So six times at a nickel is the title comes from the prison slaying for 65 years. which is what a jury sentenced me to. Every 10 years in prison is a dime, every five years of a nickel. I got 65 years by a jury in Dallas. So that's six dimes in a nickel. And really what it is, Ryan, it's all the life lessons from a life sentence. So I told you the beginning of the book starts off with the question. If someone took control your life tomorrow, what's the first thing that would change? My goal with this book is to give you the principles, the stories behind the principles I live by, and the applications of all these principles in my life that help.

me to not only answer that question and make that change, but hold on to that change. I want you to be able to make the change in your life that you're holding back on and hold on to your change too. Every chapter is a principle in which I live my life by. The body of the chapter is the story behind how I learn the principle because I believe people learn from storytellers. We love good storytellers, right? We love stories about redemption, the underdog journey. We love stories that have sports. Sports is the great Uniter. But we really love True crime and prison stories. And I've become a really good storyteller, Ryan. So every chapter is every title of a chapter is a principle. The body of the chapter is the story behind where I learned

the principle. And the end of the chapter is the application of the principle in your life too. I have learned a lot about writing books. This is my sixth book and probably going to be my final book, to be honest with you, man. Writing books, it's hard. I'm on the road. I'm so grateful for my life. I've got a lot of demand as a speaker right now. Like I said, I'm on the road, 20 to 25 days every month speaking somewhere, sharing this story with corporations, sports teams, school districts, associations, but writing books is hard. And so I wanted to put it all into one book. And this book right here, it'll read like a movie because it's a life story that's

the backdrop of, but you're going to get the principles that I've churned my life around and you can use in your life too. I love it. Damon, dude, you are your national treasure, bro. love that you're out there telling your story. It's your, your ability to take this, this incredible experience that you've had that so many would have fallen apart through and, and to share it in a way that I think, while you said, so many won't be able to relate because they won't have spent time, but, but you, but you, you can grab onto it. That's what I loved about the coffee bean,

was I was like, I will never, hopefully never, I shouldn't say never, hopefully never, experience this life. But I felt like I was there with you. I was learning with you. And it's as meaningful to me today as when I read it. Dude, please, just keep doing what you do, bro. I love it. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much for your time. Ryan, thanks for, thanks for having me on today. And if anybody wants to find me, my website is damonwest.org. That's where people find me for speaking. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks, man. What if I told you that your biggest breakthrough is waiting on the other side of your biggest break?

What if the very thing you're afraid of, losing control, facing uncertainty, getting knocked down is exactly what you need to discover who you're really meant to be. This podcast is for unreasonable people seeking unreasonable results. If you're tired of playing small, if you're frustrated with where you are versus where you know you should be, if you're ready to stop making excuses and start making moves, then you're in the right place. My name is Ryan Hanley, and after getting fired from my third executive position, I finally realized something. God did not create me to work for someone else. That's when I founded rogue risk, bootstrapped it from the ground up, and sold it for seven figures in less than four years.

This is also when I developed the reality OS framework, a leadership methodology that helps entrepreneurs find their signal in a world of noise. Whether you're stuck in revenue growth, struggling with leadership, or simply know you're capable of more, but can't figure out how to get there, this show will give you the clarity, tools, and inspiration you need to break through to the next level. So subscribe to the Ryan Hanley Show wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want to go deeper down the rabbit hole, visit Findingpeak.com to join our community of leaders who refuse to accept ordinary results.

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