KGCI: Real Estate on Air - How Your Mentality Determines Success Or Failure ft. Steffany Hanlen

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Morning Primer is your weekday boost from Mindset & Motivation Monday—quick, focused, and made for agents by KGCI Real Estate On Air. Give yourself a daily mindset reset for the daily direction you need to show up sharp and ready to win.Start your morning ahead of the market and ahead of your competition every day with KGCI Real Estate On Air. SummaryThis episode features a powerful conversation with mindset and performance coach Steffany Hanlen, who argues that your mentality is the single most important factor in achieving your goals. She reveals the core principles of a successful mindset, providing a clear blueprint for overcoming self-doubt, building resilience, and taking control of your own narrative. It’s an essential listen for anyone ready to transform their performance in business and life.Key TakeawaysMindset Is Everything: Steffany explains that success isn't determined by market conditions or external factors, but by your internal mindset. She shares how cultivating a resilient and positive mental attitude can help you navigate challenges and find opportunities where others see roadblocks.Overcoming Self-Doubt: Learn the practical steps to silence your inner critic and build unwavering confidence. The discussion offers actionable advice on how to identify and reframe limiting beliefs that may be holding you back from your true potential.The Power of Intentional Action: Understand that a strong mindset alone isn't enough. The episode emphasizes the importance of pairing a positive mentality with intentional, consistent action to build momentum and achieve tangible results.Building a "Teflon Mindset": Discover how to develop a resilient mindset that allows negativity to slide off. Steffany shares strategies for protecting your energy, staying focused on your goals, and not letting setbacks derail your progress.Topics:Steffany HanlenMindset for successOvercoming self-doubtMental resiliencePerformance coachingCall-to-ActionListen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform and start building the mentality for success! Ready for more? Subscribe now and tap into our Always Free Real Estate On Air Mobile App for iPhone and Android, where you’ll find our complete archive and 24/7 stream of proven real estate business-building strategies and tactics.

This is your Monday momentum. Extended all week. Morning Primer from the Mindset and Motivation Monday on KGCI, Real Estate on Air. Hello, everyone. This is Randy Dick of the Return on Life podcast. It's not about chasing the ROI. It's about what? The ROL, Return on Life.

And Return on Life can mean many different things. And today we've got an amazing guest that I'm sure is going to share some things about what Return on Life is. like for her versus maybe you. So we've got a really interesting guest today. I'm so excited to have Stephanie Hanlon join us. And Stephanie is an amazing individual. Thanks for joining us, Stephanie. Thank you, Randy. It's a pleasure to be here. You are not only an amazing person, but a business leader, a thought leader, a performance leader, performance coach. What have you not done? And maybe share with our audience some of the things and some of the highlights over the last, what,

is it 30 years of being a performance coach of some sort? It has been. It's been quite the ride, quite the journey. When you think about performance, I work with athletes, I work with business leaders. I have a lot of H&W clients, high net worth clients who are really wanting to take their life and their business to the next level, but doing it in a way that is truly about living from their inside, really from the inside out, hence return on life. Wow. And some of those people, do you want to share some names that maybe some of the audience would recognize?

share some of the overarching. Okay. I was in the NHL as a skating coach actually for 14 years, nine years with the Edmonton Oilers. Wow. When they were really fast and when they were winning. They're still fast. They are.

They were the fastest team in the league. And that was a real challenging thing for me back then as a skating coach to take the fastest team in the league and make them faster. So that was huge. It was a huge entry point when it came to performance and really where I found my USP when it came to coaching. Maybe we'll discuss that later. And then I retired for a bit, tried to go and take what I'd learned in the NHL and go to the business world,

but it just drew me right back in. And I ended up with the St. Louis Blues organization for just over three and a half years. And then when 9-11 hit, I was supposed to be going to Alaska for a training camp. And in that moment, didn't get on an airplane, obviously, and decided to go on a new trajectory in my life and started training as a performance psychologist. Wow, that's quite a shift. going back to when you were a performance coach for hockey, did you ever think, why me? Or did you just like fall into that? How did that happen? Well, I'm very intentional. And I think because I was very

focused, but not in the way that you think growing up. I had a really hard time focusing on school and the things that I didn't love to do. But what I love to do, I was all over it. So I learned to narrow my focus on learning to do and become excellent at the things that I was going to be good at and not spend any time on the things that I, it's like people saying, you know, work on your weaknesses. I didn't believe that. I thought, I'm going to just ignore my weaknesses. And one day, maybe I'll have people that can help me with that, but I'm going to focus on my strengths. You know, what you shared, I just find that just about every amazing person I meet along the way that's done something great says they were bad at school.

Including myself, like I flunk grade 12. I don't know if you knew this. I flunk grade 12. You know, that was one of the crucible moments of my life, but, you know, I don't know if you've got any, like, moments that it's just, like, clicked that you should be not concerned about scholastics and more concerned about it, whether it's street smarts or connecting, communicating with people in different ways. Like, what was that like and how that journey happened? Well, it was very fortunate to be raised in a family where they believed I could do and be anything that I wanted, but I had to do it in certain limitations around my values and around how we were raised in our upbringing. And having parents that believed in me was a big deal. And I know I'm

very rare in that case. I had two parents and a brother that just thought I, you know, the sunset or the moon rose or whatever, whether it was true or not, they believed in me. And I think carrying that on, I remember being 15 years old. And in Edmonton, I grew up in Emmington, Alberta. And we had tickets for the Emmington Oilers, season tickets for years and years. And I remember being at one of the first Stanley Cup games where the Eampton Oilers won the Stanley Cup. I remember being so excited and my wide-eyed. I'm 15 or 16 years old. I look at my dad and I go, dad, I'm going to be in the NHL. And he looks at me and goes, okay, okay, sweetie, that's great. He didn't patronize me. He didn't say, oh, you're a girl, probably not going to happen. He didn't say any of those things. He just paused.

because I think he knew instinctively that that was a moment in my life where if he would have squashed that, I probably would have believed him and said, you know, it's not going to happen if you're a woman. So that was one crucible moment for me. The others were very interesting. By the way, I got goosebumps and shared that. Oh, thanks. That's amazing. Yeah, I'm very, very blessed.

Yeah. So my family was that. Then, of course, one thing leads to another. And when I realized I wasn't very good at academics, but I was really good at academics. but I was really good at skating and I was really good at talking. Two good things. So I thought, well, I'll focus on skating and talking. And that's how I became a skating coach.

And I started working, you know, in ice hockey at a very young age. And partly because my parents were so enthusiastic around me wanting to work in the hockey world, didn't know how that was going to, you know, fold out. Right. But my brother ended up getting drafted into the Western Hockey League. And I drove down with him when he got in his draft year and realized, as I was watching, that these guys couldn't skate. I couldn't believe it. And as a figure skater, and I was always working in sport and as an athlete, I could see things biomechanically. And I'm not sure how I saw

those, but I could see movement patterns really, really well. So I started watching hockey players. And then when I did go to university, I studied phys ed. And every paper I wrote was on movement, was on skating, was on skating, was on sport. I couldn't shift my focus because I wasn't interested in anything else. And I would fail the courses in university, like by all or whatever because it had nothing to do with sport. I had zero interest in it. So I squeezed four years into six at the University of Alberta. Failed twice.

Welcome to the party. Then when I came out of university, I said, I'm not interested. I'm an entrepreneur. I think I'm an entrepreneur. I had a couple of really painful moments when it came to working for someone else. So I thought, I think I'm built to be an entrepreneur. You know, interesting that you would pick up on that superpower so early on. Like, you know, you ask people, hey, what's your superpower?

And they kind of look at you like, I don't know. But you picked up on that very, very quickly. I know you have more than just one superpower. But to recognize that so early on, that's pretty incredible. What a gift. Yeah, it really was. And I didn't know it was a gift. And I didn't know it was a thing.

You know, people were saying, like, I didn't know that was a thing. But when I started to realize, I see movement patterns, I see, I also have this ability innate ability to really hear what people are saying when they're saying things but not saying things. So I can help people identify what they really want and what they really want to get out of the session with me, whether it's on the ice or in a performance coaching scenario kind of in these conversations based on what they're not saying. So I also have that intuitive gift and I've used that with hockey players a lot because it wasn't easy for them to work with a woman. I know that. And I was never trying to be one of the guys. I just really kept my distance. But I used

I stayed professional, but I always listened very much through my intuition. And I thought, you know what, there's something in their way around why they're turning the wrong way or why they can't stop to the left or why they're making really silly decisions with the puck. So I started really watching and listening differently and using maybe my female intuition or my gut instinct to really help them skate faster. A hockey whisperer. Oh, there you go. A hockey whisperer.

I love it. How is that the diversity? I mean, diversity is always this question we talk about now. And how was that breaking into that? Because, you know, 20, 30 years ago, that must have been a real challenge for you. How did you manage some of that? Was it challenging, difficult, painful? All of the above.

All of the above. Yeah, but I also knew that I wanted to earn my way in. I mean, Glenn Sather was my general manager. He hired me. If you know who Glenn Sater is the Stogey and probably one of the most well-respected general managers ever in the league and talk about clarity, focus, commitment, purpose. That man had zero tolerance for anything that wasn't going to be performance related. And I was very fortunate to be in that environment because there was no glad-handing. I didn't get the job because I knew

somebody. I had to earn my way every single day and I ended up staying nine years. Well, so Glenn had this crazy ability to just go and get it. You see so many people. You've helped or tried to help so many people. What is the difference between somebody that gets it and doesn't get it from your perspective? Well, I see if I use hockey as an analogy, I see that there's the pro mentality and then there's the minor pro mentality. So it's a very small window of players who can actually. actually make the jump from the minor pros or the B team or the AHL, for example, to make it

to the big team or the NHL. And what that is, in my experience, is two things. The first one is the NHL players, the one that can make it and stick are the ones that are prepared to prove it every single day. They don't mail it in. They don't show up thinking that they're going to get there just because they were a first or second round draft pick. They keep coming. They keep working. they stay on the ice at the end of practice. They're practicing their skills when the Zamboni is coming out. The minor league mentality, and this is what I really found because I spent a lot of time working in the minors helping players get to the next level.

And it was the put me in coach, then I'll show you what I can do instead of let me show you what I can do and I'll prove to you that I belong here. So the difference in mentality is in the minor leagues or the people that didn't make it or the ones that were always on the bubble were the ones that were. almost victims. They were always waiting for somebody else to open the door for them. And what I learned very early in my career, especially with Glenn Sater, and one of the things that stuck with me my entire career is that if you want to get somewhere, you got to open some doors. You got to knock on some doors and walk through them and then prove yourself. Because during those nine years with the Emmerton Oilers,

like I said, I couldn't mail it in. I had to be there every single day. And there, you know, you say the word diversity or equity or equality or whatever. There was none of that back then. It's meritocracy. It's merit. You do the job, you stay. You don't do the job. You're gone. It's results-based, merit-based. And to me, that has stuck with me. And I will never hire somebody in my businesses. All of our businesses, we're probably the most diverse company in the world when it comes to who we have. We have people who of every ethnicity, every gender, every sexual orientation, and always have had. But I'm sure not going to put it on my website. But that's what I learned from Glenn Sayther, is that it's the merit. Put yourself.

there, do the job and take full responsibility for your results. Sounds bulletproof. Well, for me, that has been one of my, you know, my bat wings, my shield, because in order to say who I am and be who I am and to coach, I have to be that. And if I'm not that, then I'm a fraud and I'm not prepared to be a fraud. I grew up, you know, in a very positive environment, but I also knew in the world of ice hockey in the world of performance and working in even in real estate. I didn't know anything about real estate when I first started investing in real estate.

So I had a lot of fraud. I had a lot of fraud feelings that I didn't belong. I didn't know enough. And I was constantly searching, constantly growing. Like I honestly had a bookshelf of every single self-help book, every athletic book, every psychology book that you can imagine. I don't even know where they are anymore because it just got to the point where I had to own it myself. So with that, a lot of people would cower in fear.

But fear can be many different things. It can cower, it can be a motivator, a friend, a foe. How do you manage that then and how do you manage it today? I think the same way is I embrace it. I don't try to ignore it. I don't walk around it. In a sense, I embrace it and I harness it. Same as the adversity training we did years ago with Paul Stoltz and Dr. Paul Stoltz.

I was there. That was awesome. So amazing. So I can either avoid fear or I can harness it. Because it's the same feeling. Fear and excitement are the same feeling. They're just translated differently because one we perceive as negative and the other one we perceive as positive. So I just flip it into excitement.

I was totally excited. Oh, well, actually, I was scared to death for the first five years with the Oilers. And then when I got comfortable, that's when I have to start really challenging myself again because I didn't ever want to be comfortable. Hmm. Who are you when you're not, when you're uninterrupted or in the silence, shifting gears a little bit? Who are you then? Because I know, I mean, I know you're wound, but what happens when you're just uninterrupted? Well, it's really funny, even though I'm really good at skating and talking, I don't talk a lot. So I do a lot in silence. I cook, I clean, I, I, um, I.

work out, mostly in silence. You won't ever, a lot of times don't hear music in the background. Silence is my friend. I spent a lot of time in my garden. I spent a lot of time walking outside. I'm not interested. I'm a big fan of sports or anything like that. So when I'm in my in my flow and in my space, it's usually has to do with silence. I wanted to be committed to being the same person I am at home as I am on vacation, as I am in the office, as I am on the ice so that people could trust me because I'm in a business that is very vulnerable. And if people don't trust me and if I'm different, let's say they see me at a party or they see me at an event or then they see me, you know, coaching. And I'm all these different people. It's confusing and it

creates a lack of trust. So what I've worked really hard on and my own personal development is having a consistent way of being so that I have an authentic way of being that is the same. We had actually had some friends we met on vacation years ago and they ended up coming and staying at our house for a couple nights. And we're having coffee on the last day. And they came up up the stairs to have coffee. And one of them said, you know what? You're the first people we've met on vacation that are the exact same as you are at home. This is kind of weird.

And then that's when Patrick started talking about, you know, when your vocation becomes your vacation, you never work a day in your life. And if you don't have to leave your life to go on vacation, wow, what an accomplishment. So that's been my work. Has it been easy? No, because I get challenged every day. He said a big goal, you're going to get a big challenge, right? So it's challenging all the time. So it's really important for me to make sure that I'm the same here when I'm talking to you

as when I'm talking to a client or I'm talking to the Zamboini driver or the custodian at the rink. And that is true from my perspective. You're always pretty much the same. bringing great leadership. And silence is powerful. It's such a powerful tool. Meditation, silence, just being within ourselves is so important.

And I think we as leaders, you as a leader, people see great value in that. Do you have a leadership model, way that you do things? I know I've shared this with Patrick. Mine is legacy plus leverage. So leverage plus legacy equals true leadership. So if people can leverage everything through me and vice versa, and I'm creating legacy in their world of some sort, then I can say, okay, Randy, you were a true leader.

Do you have anything that you run with or that you say is? Oh, man, I have a lot of stuffisms. I have probably what 150 stephisms I started writing. But the truth for me is I lead from behind. You know, when I am with a client, and like I said, I have to be myself all the time, and I have to be a space for them to show up in and for me not to coax them.

So as a coach, I've had to really learn, and from a leadership standpoint, is how do I put the people that I'm supporting in the center of their circle and put them ahead of me and put them in the way that I can see and step back and see what they're going to, what they're conflicted by,

what they're challenged by, so that I'm not in the way of them on their journey. And I really see leadership for me as something about creating the spaces for people to figure out their own journey. Because the line that I use all the time is the truth is, you already know. When they ask me, I don't know what to do. And I'm, yeah, you already know. We need to get to it. Yeah.

Let's figure out what we need to do to get to it. Wow. That's profound. That's really profound. And I know that the athletes that you have coached, mentored, encouraged all those words. They're at such a high level, but at the same time, I'm sure they have their moments

where the ice is very thin. Very. As a metaphor. That's really good, actually. It's true. Right now I'm working with the best ice dancers in the world. I've been to three Olympics. My last one was in Beijing in 2022,

and I really plan on going to one more as a performance coach with ice dancers. And it's funny how I've gone from hockey to ice dance. I mean, I played hockey and I ice densed, but I was never good at either of them, right? I was average at best, but what I wanted to be was an amazing coach. So what I was able to do is to humble myself and go, you know what, I'm never going to be as good as you, especially with the hockey players. Like, you're the best in the world. You know what? I have a privilege of helping you with my gift, my gift of being able to see how you can skate faster, et cetera. The same thing

with the figure skaters. I find the partnership in ice dance, the dynamic of the masculine and feminine is so beautiful. It doesn't matter if they're gay or straight or a couple that live together that are married, whether they can't stand each other. But the dynamic of the masculine and feminine, if we can bring that sacred space to the sport, I believe that to me is beautiful. But in order to get there, there's a lot of pain. There's a lot of heartache, a lot of stuff they go through. order to get there. So when you see them on the podium or you see athletes at the Olympic Games, we see those moments in time, but rarely do we see the pain that they've been through, the trauma, the struggle. When you set a big goal, there's a lot of pushback. So if you're not prepared to go

through that chaos or that adversity, then it's not really, is it really worth it? How do they get to that point when they don't like each other to look like they just, it's like, magic. It's like, Jake on ice. I can't, I don't know how you do that. I guess it's good acting. It's good acting, it's performance, but it's also putting your goal and your common goal that they have together ahead of their personal opinions, for example. And that's one of the journeys that I go on. Country first. Country. Well, no, actually, that's a whole other conversation. That's really tough because that really is grounded in pride. And when you have pride as your number one value, it's very limiting. So, you know, you put the jersey on, you put the flag up, you sing the national anthem.

But what happens if something doesn't go well? Then what? You've got the whole country on your back. Right. So part of the journey I take the athletes on is, yes, country absolutely represent your country. Be pride, be proud, where the, where the colors. But the truth is, you have to represent yourself. You have to represent each other. Because really at the end of the day, when that flag comes down, the anthem is finished. Everybody starts to. leaving, nobody cares. They get on their phone, they go and get in their car and drive away and you're standing there going, what was it for? And they've just spent their entire life. Wow. So we have to decide very early on on the champion's journey with athletes, whether it's hockey, figure skating,

even with, I find a lot of my business clients, if it's just the deal, it's not enough. Who do you have to become as you're going towards the deal because of the deal falls through? Are you going to be devastated? Are you going to be decimated? If you don't win the Olympic gold medal, is your life destroyed? No, it's who you've had to become. So my commitment is also to move them through the signing of the deal, the earning of the medal, the Stanley Cup, whatever it is. That's just part of the vehicle. That's the eye of the needle. Who you had to become to get that and then live your life after with those values. That's powerful. Fascinating. Fascinating. Coaching. I coached mentor a lot of agents in real estate. You coach mentor a lot of athletes. You mentioned,

I was never the best at this. I was never best at that, but I'm a great coach. How do you get through the player? Because, I mean, I've been in the moment where somebody wants to coach me and I go, what have you done? Yep. Show me. Show me your credentials. Exactly. And if they don't have much of a story, I kind of go, like, what can you do for me? How do you get into these amazing athletes, minds, souls, bodies, and get them to do things that maybe they wouldn't do for anybody else. That's a great question, Randy. My first instinct is to say, I don't know how I do that. But I think if I'm really honest, it's because I put them first.

And I don't pretend that I know more than I know. And I look at it as a discovery. I'm there for a reason. I've been hired by them or their coaches or they're. their general managers or whomever, I'm there for a reason. So I give them permission. If they're not comfortable to work with me, they don't have to work with me. I've actually been on the ice with players. Some of them, of course, in the NHL don't speak English. Some of them are from Eastern Bloc countries that have zero respect for women or the only reason a woman would be there

would be for alternate reasons. And I have a couple funny stories that I can't say on camera, about the comments that they would make when I would show up and they were like, who are you? So I always believed that I had to earn their trust. Trust wasn't a given. I wasn't going to come in and show them what I know. Because unfortunately, for some of them, I could skate faster backwards than they could skate forward at the beginning.

And they didn't realize it's because in how I was trained was to use different muscles. And in figure skating, for example, you're skiing backwards a lot. In hockey, you're skating forwards mostly unless you're a defenseman. So I started understanding the game. game and started using my strengths and then just being that. So I didn't compete with them, but if I was doing a drill with them, I didn't back down. Sometimes if I was doing a drill and I had to work with them and hold her stick or using it as a teaching aid or something, they'd be like, oh, no, are you a can't? Like, trust me, I got this. I got you. Right? So I didn't have to,

because I worked out, I was strong. I didn't compete with them. I didn't have to prove myself. I just wanted them to be faster. I wasn't looking for a husband. It wasn't. wasn't looking to party with them, I just wanted them to get faster. So the more that that was consistently showing up in my actions and in my words. And, you know, for example, early on, if I ended up, I was young, right? So if I was at the bar with my girlfriends and some of the players that I worked with would come in, the deal I had with the management is that I left. No questions asked. And my girlfriends would get so angry. They'd be like, why do we have to leave? The hockey players, I said, because that's my business. But the other thing is that if I was there first,

and they showed up, they would leave. What a level of respect. It was very cool. But that, again, was earned. Yes. You know, they tested me. You have to. They tested me.

Oh, my goodness. Wow. Yep. That's incredible. Balanced life, balanced athlete, an athlete, is there any, is balanced life, does that even exist? Because there's a saying that balanced life equals. broke. Or boring.

Or boring. Yes, or boring. Another B word. I think this is striving for mediocrity that I just don't understand. And that's what I think living up, trying to balance it. If you're trying to go, you know, 50, 50% on life and 50% on work or 50% on family or, like, I just don't, that confuses me, all those numbers. I think we have one life.

And we have the opportunity to thrive. and really strive to be the best we can be. I mean, or why would we be here? So when I'm in family mode, I'm in the value or the pillar of my family. And I want to be the best family. I want to be the best wife and the best bonus mom and the best mentor and the best whatever that I can be.

And when I'm in work mode, I want to be the best coach I can be. But I don't have all these different hats. If I did, I'd get super confused. And so would the people around me. So what I've realized is that what the balance is for me is about telling the truth. And when I'm tired, I say I'm tired.

I need to dial it down. I need to do my meditation. I need to go for a walk. Sometimes when I'm redlining, and the people I call my chosen family that live around us and stuff, they know when I'm redlining. When I put too much in

or I'm not nurturing myself, or I've let go some of my self-care, they will remind me. And that's the great thing about having people who don't have you on a pedestal is that they'll call you on it. Right.

So to me, long story short, balance is a myth. I believe it is too. In fact, even return on life can be a myth. I love kite surfing, as you know. I love going on a holiday with my wife, Jolene. But too much of that, like five days of kiting, I'm done. I need to go back and fill this thing with something of value.

I need to bring value to somebody else. And that just can't be this. Well, I'm going to spend 50% of my time just hanging out. here and they'll do 50% of my time. I've got to be like fooling it all the time. And the more that I do that, the better I feel. It's true. And it's a cycle, isn't it? I get out of life. Yeah. It's a cycle. And you know, I love the name of this podcast, the return on life because we think about what we're investing in is we are investing in our life. We're investing in our contribution, the way that we show up in the world, not just in business, but, you know, I think about

the contribution you can make just by paying it forward, buying somebody a Starbucks, You know, behind you, those kinds of things were very much baked into how I was raised and how I run my businesses. So if I think about the return on life and the return on the investment that I put into my life, then I then have the energy to continue to share that with other people. And when I don't do that, that's when I hurt myself or that's when I, you know, I blow up a deal or something doesn't go well is when I'm not in purpose mode, when I'm not in contribution. Right. And of course, you're creating legacy then all around you in other people as well as yourself.

So that's really important. It is. Yeah. People that have influenced you way back. Let's start out way back. Let's start out as a teenager. Influencers in a teenage years. Then maybe as you kind of matured into a young adult, maybe every couple decades.

Some influencers. Yeah, some key people in my life. I mean, I'd go back to some of the teachers that I had that were huge influence. And they were not the normal teachers because the ones that figured me out early, I remember being in. I'm smiling because I'm relating to you so much. They figured me out. The hardest part once, I think I was in, what's before grade one, kindergarten. I was in a Catholic kindergarten with the nuns and stuff.

And I was talking with my hands and I was all over the place and I was entertaining everybody and all that. and they would make me sit on my hands, right? So they would take all the things that other teachers down the road over the years would see as creativity or enthusiasm, and they tried to squish it. So I remember that clearly. Then I remember the ones who would really find spaces for me. They didn't make me sit at a desk. They didn't make me, you know, if I needed to, I wanted to play sports.

If I didn't want to play sports, then I was playing music. I found ways of doing it. And by the time I got to high school, there was a guidance counselor. who had just come from the university and she was a huge influencer on me. And she saw me right away. And she said, this girl can't finish high school the traditional way. And what was coming into the province of Alberta was a program called Earthbound. And Earthbound was a way to graduate high school, but actually not have to go to school.

So I spent the first grade 10 in school. But for the last two and a half years, I was in a project situation. So basically, I did five thesis. So instead of doing social studies, I did a thesis on the development of nursing in North America. So in math, I had to do something that had to do with math. And then in phys ed, I did scuba diving courses, and then I had to get my certifications. So there was 12 of us in the city of Emmington that were in this program. And we all graduated, but none of us graduated the traditional way.

And I had to defend each one of those thesis because I had a board. So, for example, the one that I did on nursing, for example, I did a whole theory around nursing and where it came from, et cetera. And it had something to do with the nightingale. I called it the night and gale theory. But I had the head nurse of one of the hospitals in Emmettinton on my board. Then I had a doctor and then I had a business person. And I had to present each one of these courses to this board. And it took a year and a half to do.

But I did it. And I did it in a way that was on my terms. My parents were on my board because they had to, of course, approve everything that I was doing. And the guidance counselor that got me into this, she was on every one of my boards. And I ended up years later going to her wedding. You know, so it really ended up being somebody that was a huge influence on me. Wow. We need to re-look at our whole schooling system and how people learn.

I have the same experience. I had a teacher in grade eight that changed my life. He said, it was social, and we were creating a village within the classroom. So we could pick whatever vocation or occupation we wanted. We could be a business owner, we could be the sheriff, we could be the mayor. I said, well, I want to be a business owner. And I knew my mom was really good at baking. She was an amazing baker.

So I thought, I'm just going to bring mom's bake goods and sell them and make a wicked profit. And he was so amazing that he got me thinking differently that it wasn't about scholastics. It was about just how do I make things work in the real world. And so yeah, we really need to look at our education system. I agree. And I think that we're really doing a disservice, especially now by minimizing what we believe kids are capable of. And when I'm on right now, I'm running a program at the Hollywood and country club in West Vancouver. And I'm watching these players, these athletes, thrive in an environment of challenge in an environment where they're not being told what to do and where they're being able to be creative and and have fun and be loud and be men.

You know, being young men really empower them to just play and have fun. And I'm watching these players just and thinking what's happened in the last couple of years and how they were squished and on Zoom and screens. And it was devastating. And now I get to create environments where these athletes just get to play. And the more young men play, the more successful they'll be. I believe that. I agree.

While we're on topic of baked goods. Yes. Baking and cooking, both done in the kitchen, both use the same ingredients in a lot of the cases, heat, to create something. Yet baking is more of a science than cooking. You need to add ingredients at the right time and do it at the right pace, the right temp. We're cooking. You can kind of like paste it, add a few things. A pinch of this, pinch of that. How much your success is from the concept of baking or cooking? You're a cook. No recipes. None. Just wing it. Right now I'm hooked on these Instagram recipe things.

I'll get one idea. Move on, try it. Move on, try it. Because it's also how I coach. is that if I was trying to do a program or a recipe or the Stephanie Hanlon's program and then you, Randy Dick signs up for it, you'll fail it. But if I create the Randy Dick program for you, which is based on the foundational things that I know work in that recipe, then your influence and your results become permanent and they become baked in to your success. So when you use that analogy, I'm definitely, I'm a cook. You're a cook. So speaking, of social media platforms, they're becoming the university of our young people. So I call it the university of IG, the university of TikTok. I guess we have to be a bit careful about some of that.

We do. Yeah. How is social media fit into Stephanie's world? Is it important? Is it one of those things you just kind of have fun with? That's a great question. For me, social media, right when it first started coming out. I was always kind of a little bit not taking advantage of it, which I could have been with like the internet, those types of things. But when it comes to social media, I know there's a downside and I know there's a dark side. So I started paying attention to what the athletes were paying attention to and starting to hear their languaging. So I put a little course together called social media for athletes and understanding how they can use social media, how I can your social media as a platform to get your message out, all that, but not to then take it personally

when people are judging you or people are, you know, comparing because it's not real. So I started very early in my career when it came out using it in a way that I was using it as a teaching tool. For myself, I got kicked off Facebook early in 2020 because how I communicate is very much about self-responsibility and owning your power and making sure that. you are, you know, studying, doing your own research, being, having a critical mind. I, you know, I did critical thinking all through school. Like, I had to because I didn't like reading. And I mean, I loved to read, but I didn't learn that way.

So I had to become a critical thinker. So I learned early on is that these platforms are not my friend. If I don't use them, they're going to use me. Right. So that's how it did. Then I started to learn a little bit of Instagram. I've got Instagram. a Facebook page, but I use them for business. So I've got Champions Journey, I've got skating

success, I've got Quantum Speed, Rain, but not, Stephanie Hanlon doesn't need a platform. Right. If I'm going to need a platform, then I'm not who I say I am. Right. We need to be so careful social media because it could be a weapon of self-destruction. Exactly. Yeah, so, so important that we have to be so careful of that. Vision boards, I think the most powerful, vision board is right here. God gave us these amazing imaginations, curiosity, but we all seem to have a vision board of some sort too. What's on your vision board? Oh, hilarious, funny story. When I started doing vision boards back probably 35 years ago, I was very fortunate. I've never not had a coach. I don't know if you knew this. No. I've had a coach. I struggle with that. Yeah, I've rarely had a coach.

That's hilarious. Isn't that bad on me? No. Why bad? No, no, no. Why? Because then you're getting your influences from somewhere. Right?

But for me, back in the day, I needed a coach. Because when I hired a personal development coach and started doing the personal development work, I opened up this whole universe of possibility that I didn't even know was available to me. So the first thing I did, one of the first things I did was a vision board. So I put all this stuff. I actually cut out things out of a, you know, out of a mess. magazine and took the glue stick and put it on the way. Anyway, so I had it up for years in my office.

Then Patrick and I ended up moving to British Columbia years later. One thing, these two another, we saw the house in Emmington. I go back. I unpack the office. There's the vision board. Kind of fold it up. I open it. I looked at it, Randy. Every single thing on the vision board had come true. Whoa. I'm like, this is creepy. Like everything except the color of the Jeep. I wanted a white Jeep Cherokee. Another. a goose bone moment for me. Right, but it was blue. Wow.

That's the only thing that was different. But I had totally forgotten about it. So I believe our belief systems and when we can project what we want and be true and aligned and then pull the trigger and go in the direction of our dreams, then the vision's going to happen. Absolutely. But when I saw that vision board, I sat down, I started bawling. It's like everything had happened.

Everything was on there. Even the shape of the ring that Patrick had bought me 10 years later, like, I was. like he didn't see that vision board. And then same thing with the when we ended up moving downtown Vancouver. I saw where I wanted to live. And Patrick's like, you're crazy. He's like, you're crazy. I said, no, here's where we're going to live. I woke up one morning. I said, 22 foot ceilings. It's going to be surrounded by water and mountains. And I'm going to be above the clouds. And I started just riffing off all these things. And I woke up with this vision. He's like, oh yeah, okay, whatever. place in the world, I don't think, that has a 360 view of water, mountains, city. Yeah, good luck

with that. Maybe New York. 22-foot ceilings, blah, blah, blah. Right? All of that. Totally, this was in Chilwaukee about 15 years ago. Then 2012 or so, we're walking downtown Vancouver on Albany Street. We see this little for-sale sign. We wander in. We just, we like real estate. Let's go check it out. Sure enough, it was the Shangri-La Hotel. And I I remember thinking when I was a child and I used to watch soap operas with one of my nannies, you can live in hotels. You can live in a little house coat, little pimo or whatever it's called, walk around in high heels and drink, you know, around the middle of the day and get room service.

You can do that? It's a real thing. And sure enough, we went up as just speculators and we came down as renters. And for three years, lived in the Shangri-Rla Hotel because when we walked in, I walked in, there was no furniture in this apartment. 22-foot ceilings, completely 270 degrees. English Bay, mountains, Cole Harbor. Patrick and I just both stood there and went, like, talk about goosebumps.

And I just said, this is it. This is where we're going to live. This is ROL. This is ROL. And he's like, oh, yeah, I doubt it. And sure enough, we're with a realtor. And he goes, just a sec, let me talk to my client. Maybe they'll rent it to you.

Wow. It was for sale. It wasn't for rent. They were trying to sell it. They were original owners in that building and they were trying to get rid of it and one thing led to another and we ended up leasing it for three years. We had the best time. But when it was over, it was over. Wow. And then you found your next ROL property, which investing in real estate has been magic for you and Patrick. It's actually set you up for just about everything that you do, correct? Correct. Well, for a couple of Northside kids from Emmington that really weren't raised. with a wealth mindset. I mean, lots of love and lots of all that stuff, but certainly not an abundance mindset of our ROI, you know, appreciation, nothing like that. I mean, my dad and mom, we had some properties and stuff and he had some stocks and bonds invested in gold and silver, but it wasn't front and center. So until we found rain, actually, in 2001, I think, neither of us had really had an understanding of what real estate could do. So we went into,

to the business of real estate, completely naive, both of us. But because of that, we didn't try and reinvent the wheel. We just followed the systems, like a couple of nerds, right? Like we just followed every single system of the real estate investment network. And we just chugged away and bought property, bought a property, refinement, refine us, bought a property. The next thing you know, we've got a multimillion dollar portfolio. No, we had no idea.

One day we woke up and Patrick goes, I think we're millionaires. Wow. I'm like, what? I go, how do you become a millionaire? He's like, well, your assets have to be higher than your liabilities. And we're sitting there looking at the spreadsheet. He's going, I think we're millionaires. Oh, my God, don't tell anybody.

It was so fun. Wow. But that's what allowed us because then we were smart. Then we rented the place of our dreams and we let the real estate pay for it. Right. Right. And we're still running our businesses, still paying attention and doing all the things that you have to do in society and making our contributions, all that.

But living exactly the dream life. I wanted that life. I saw it in my vision. I walked in. I knew it. But when it was over, it was over. But real estate allowed that.

Right. And so there's somebody that influenced you at that point, the power of proximity. Who was that person? Who are those people? Was it just a matter of bumping into the right people or in the right room?

I mean, we always talk about being in the right room with the right people, at the right time. Yeah. And standing on the shoulders of giants. There were some people in those early rain rooms

that were, so generous, you know, so, so generous with their time, with their knowledge. And I think we also brought something to the party, too. I mean, we were, we were naive enough in real estate, but we had other business things and we were really well connected in sport. So people were able to, they were able to leverage us as they were sharing their knowledge. So I believe it was like a fair exchange kind of a thing. But the people we've met through rain, honestly, and still, to this day, many of them are still in our lives. Many aren't, because that's what the other thing, I've learned over time is that in order to grow to the next level, not laterally or hierarchically,

you have to be able to be willing to let go and let people go and let people come and go. And my mom always said people are going to come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. And you choose what that is. And then let people go when it's time for them to go. And that's what's happened over the years. I mean, we have been remember since 2020, 2021. We bought our first property. And the ownership has changed several times since then.

And Patrick's, I think, the owner, it's 38 years now, and he owns the company and was able to, the privilege of buying it from Don Campbell and that Don had bought it from somebody, you know, Tim Johnson and Alan Jackson all the way back to the beginning of a four guys sitting around a table in North Vancouver. Wow. To what it is today. That's great. You have many businesses or have owned many businesses.

has the biggest idea or best idea been played out yet? Or do you have a bigger plan, bigger goal, bigger ideas? See, we kind of get to that crest sometimes with plateaus. And I'm a little bit there. At least my wife, Julie, would want me to be there. But honey, let's keep going. This is fun. I think it's fun too.

I don't know if I'll ever retire. Patrick and I will say we're on the freedom. You know, back in the day it was a Freedom 55, then we're on the Freedom 95 plan. We, I think, will always work or always own businesses. But there has to be a purpose. There has to be a contribution. It's generally about supporting other people to be their best selves. That's what drives us both.

But ultimately, I know there's something undone in our world of skate tech group of companies. Just before 2020, we had China almost locked down. down in terms of business. We had a growth model. We had a way of doing business that was going to be international. It was called Skate Tech Global. Hockey, figure skating, mental performance coaching, and high-end retail. So we hit all the buttons, the only company in the world that does all of those four and does it well.

And then 2020 hit and everything kind of stopped, obviously. We had to reevaluate, look at things differently. We lost some really key people, which is sad. We had to shut down one of the stores. So we had to go through a lot of pain. But right now we're coming up the other side. We now have a new group of people, a new team of people who are taking this initiative and this vision to a whole other level.

So I do believe skate tech global because hockey and skating and just really being the best in that ice sports world in Canada is a leader. We're still going to be a leader. Whatever small businesses are going to be destroyed and whatever industries are going to be transformed, let's say, I believe in Canada ice sports are going to stick around. So I believe we still have a vision about what that can be like. Well, it's one thing for Canada, but it's another thing to have you involved. You know, it's always about the people.

Yeah, true. And so great people attract and find great people. It's not always the how, it's the who. It's really about the who. So I'm sure many people are seeking you out. I often say that to people that are in my world. I say, right now, somebody is screaming your name. Where is Randy?

Where is Stephanie? I can't find Stephanie. I'm sure right now people are just screaming your name, Stephanie, because of what you've accomplished, who you are, the vibrations, the frequencies that you're giving off. I mean, that's just so, so important. And I'm sure there's somebody just yelling your name right now. Well, thank you. And they're searching and seeking you out. I hope I can hear it and that I can receive that amount of respect.

That's amazing. I love that an analogy. Thank you. Who's the best in the world at what you do? For me, I'm the best in the world at what I do. So I remember the first time I said that, floored everybody. And they're like, you're so arrogant. I'm so arrogant.

What do you mean I'm arrogant? If I'm not the best Stephanie Hanlon in the world, who's going to be the best Stephanie Hanlon in the world? If you're not the best Randy Dick. Who is? Who is? Might be my twin brother. Yeah, exactly, right?

But then he has to be his best self. Yes. So when I explain it that way, yes. When you need to be the best in the world at what you do, I'm not saying I'm better than you or I'm a better Randy Day. I'm not. But my goal has to be, I have to be the best in the world at what I do.

And I remember saying that right from the very start, when I was trying to figure out this whole performance coach thing, I wrote a business card. I just wrote it out by pen on paper and I said Stephanie Hanlon, personal performance coach, by referral only. I didn't have one client. I didn't have one client and my cell phone number and I had a cell phone back then. My parents had got me a cell phone for Christmas. I like have the original cell phone, right? The big giant. Stephanie Hanlon, personal performance coach, buy referral only. And I don't know why I put that on there. And I remember years later people saying to me, that was genius.

That was genius because I wasn't seeking or trying to sell myself or promote myself. I flipped it. And that's one of my, I think my secret sauce is that I always do the opposite, not the obvious, when it comes to business or when it comes to trying to figure things out. If people are up against a issue or a problem or something like that, then I go, well, let's do the opposite. Let's try. Let's start from the back.

If you're having a hard time going forward, let's go backwards. And that's been really helpful when it comes to that. I love that answer because I've asked that question many times. And people often come up with somebody else rather than their own best version. Oh, that's tricky. Good for you. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Okay. Let's maybe wrap up with a couple of questions. One is, I know we've been dancing around this return on life, but I haven't really heard a true Stephanie ism on return on life because you love your isms. Yeah, I do. Is there something that you want to share about what is really return on life to you? That is kind of a Stephanieism. Oh, man, there's so many.

I think the biggest one is be who you say you are. Be who you say you are because if I give that to you and you invest in that and you give me your best self, and I invest in you, then we have a synergy. But if I don't give you my best self and I'm not who I say I am, then I'm a liar. And then you're investing in a liar. And that is like building a house on a really shaky foundation. So for me, it's I need to be who I say I am. Wow.

Period. Mic drop. That's good. Very, very good. Okay. Speed round. Okay. Last question.

Last few questions. Fine dining, takeout, Uber Eats, or a home-cooked meal? Home-cooked meal. Awesome. What do you do to let your hair down? I think you garden, but maybe there's something else. What do you do to let your hair down? I love to dance.

I'll have dance parties in the kitchen by myself. Music or not. That is awesome. Favorite band. You two. I'm going to the U-2 concert in Vegas at the New Sphere in October. Check it out. I will.

Text, talk or in person? Talk, talk, talk, talk or talk? Audible or book? Book, pages. Yeah, you got to feel it. I got to feel it. Got to write it, got to feel it, yep. Okay, trick question.

If you're a scratch and sniff sticker, scratch and sniff sticker, what would you smell like? I would smell like soft rose with one. soft rose with lavender and a hint of red wine. I love it. And garlic. And a little bit of garlic. That's quite a combination. Those are my favorite smells.

So I would hopefully I would want to do that. Except for when back in the day when Patrick and I first got married and I would go out with my girlfriends, we'd go for Italian dinner and I'd come home smelling like garlic and red wine. And then toothpaste. He didn't like that a lot. It was pretty gross. Awesome. Stephanie, thank you so much.

Wow. What a great guest you've been on Return on Life Podcast. Thank you so much. Thank you, Randy. This has been a pleasure. Awesome. Thank you.