The Ryan Hanley Show - 3 Hard Truths of Personal Development

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comToday, we break down the toughest lessons I've learned on my personal development journey. ✅ Join over 10,000 newsletter subscribers: https://go.ryanhanley.com/ ✅ For daily insights and ideas on peak performance: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhanley ✅ Subscribe to the YouTube show: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanleyThis path from an entrepreneur to an advisor and executive coach has taught me the power of detaching from emotions and recognizing them as mere data points, not our defining essence. Drawing from Michael Singer's "The Untethered Soul," I discuss the significance of observing the mind rather than identifying with it. I also integrate wisdom from stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, highlighting the importance of not allowing feelings to control our actions. Whether it's my life's narrative or the insights gained from coaching others, these truths are the bedrock of thriving in any personal or professional capacity.In another thought-provoking segment, I tackle the concept of resistance and the role discipline plays in personal growth. Hear about practical techniques like journaling, the 'two-day rule', mentorship, and counseling that can help maintain accountability and foster self-improvement. Inspired by thought leaders like Steven Pressfield and James Clear, the conversation turns to the relentless pursuit of excellence through mental toughness programs and the realization that our fate rests firmly in our own hands. I also reflect on the empowering words of Maya Angelou, reinforcing the message that the most important validation comes from within. Engage with us, share your thoughts on YouTube, and subscribe for more content that empowers you to take the reins of your life.

Today we're going to discuss three hard truths about personal development. As we have dived deeper in this show and my own work moving out of being an entrepreneur myself and an executive to now working as an advisor for startup companies. And I have recently begun doing executive coaching for leaders and would-be leaders who want to take their game to a whole nother level. Think of it as kind of life and business performance coaching. And actually, I'm getting an incredible amount of joy out of that work. What's been really interesting is it's forced me to dive deep into my own experiences, my own thoughts. I've gone back and read a lot of things that I wrote 5, 10, even 15 years ago to kind of document and understand the growth process, the feelings I was having at those times.

One of the beauties of creating and publishing is that you can actually see how your viewpoint has morphed, grown, adopted to your changing life situation and how maybe philosophically certain aspects have either pivoted 180 degrees, maybe they have just matured into a deeper, richer understanding of certain concepts. And I wanted to take today because we have rapidly grown in this channel quite a bit. Big, huge thank you to all the new viewers on YouTube, listeners on the podcast. We recently hit number 13 in the entrepreneur category of Apple. We've been inside the top 40 in all of business for a few weeks now, which is absolutely phenomenal.

So thank you for everyone that's coming. A lot of that has been our shift to this interview and solo episode format where we're doing incredible interviews with incredible people on Mondays and then on Thursdays launching these episodes where I deep dive into different topics. So coming out of all that, one of the things that I wanted to spend just a little bit of time on are three really hard truths that I had to learn in my own journey towards personal development. So my journey began in 2017. I had a health moment in a very big business event that kind of woke me up to the fact that I was not living intentionally. I was not attacking life. I was not the best version of myself. I was overweight. I had foggy brain. I was constantly distracted. I did not communicate as well as I would like. I did not perform as

well as I was like. I didn't have the longevity or stamina to work through hard problems. I would get through a few hours of intensive thought or in a meeting and need to take breaks. It just was not a place that I loved being. So I rapidly, first by focusing on my health and then diving deep into the mental side, have developed a lot of the lessons that I talk about here on this show, things to discuss with various guests, and then obviously what I'm deploying in my work as an advisor and executive coach, that is all born out of real life beats. Like this isn't stuff that I read in books and then just regurgitate to you, although

I do read a ton of books and think we all should. These lessons come out of the real beats of my life. And I hope that you take these three hard truths for exactly what they are, not a hand slap or chastising or trying to pontificate or say that somehow I know something you don't or that I'm better. I don't mean that in any regard if it comes off that way. These are really hard beats that I had to work through and now hold as reality. And I don't think I make these mistakes, certainly not as often as I used to,

although we always find ourselves falling back into old traps, old habits. But now being aware of them and having the knowledge, skills, and resources coupled with experience, I feel very confident in sharing these with you, sharing some of the core ideas that helped me crack these ideas in my head and ultimately move past them. So what are those three hard truths? Hard truth number one, when it comes to personal development, your feelings do not matter. Your feelings don't matter. If you want to mature, grow, if you want to become a success in whatever it is that you choose to do, if you want to feel, even if you don't get the results that you are operating at your absolute best, you have to disregard your feelings. They are nothing more than data points. You are not your feelings. You

are not your emotions. The absolute best book that I have read on this particular topic is The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. And he has this tremendous quote in there. There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice in your mind. You are the one that hears it. Think about that. When you're having these feelings of fear, of the insecurity, of selfishness, of egotism, these things are just data points. And we need to think of them as data points. We need to detach from the idea that our feelings and our emotions are who we are. They are not. They are signals being sent to us. And unfortunately, because we are not trained on these things as children, very few people talk about these things and only in obscure YouTube videos and from crazy people like

myself who are interested in these things do we actually as adults start to learn that all these signals that are being sent to us, they're not who we really are. That fear, that anxiety, that stress, these are just data points. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't acknowledge them it just means we need to detach from those feelings as being who we are you want something you're gonna feel fear if you associate yourself as that fear then it hinders you from moving forward. Instead, you say, you take that fear as a data point and you go, this might actually be something worth my time because my body and my

mind are sending me fear signals, meaning this is going to be a challenge. It's going to be tough. And all great things are tough. So we need first and foremost to detach from our feelings. They are not who we are. You're going to have them, but they are not who we are. Marcus Aurelius has a tremendous quote, the Roman emperor who was alive around the time of Jesus. The soul becomes dyed with the color of our thoughts. If we allow ourselves to think and marinate and ruminate on fear and anxiety and stress, that becomes who we

are. Our soul becomes dyed with that. We become an anxious, stress, small, insecure, weak person because we're constantly thinking about these things instead of just taking them in as data points. And just like we do with every other data point that we get in our life, we take them, we acknowledge them, we move them to the side, we keep moving forward. Mark's really says another incredible quote. You have power over your mind, not outside events. When you realize this, you will find your strength. Those feelings, those emotions should not dictate your action. They should be data points. We cannot allow ourselves to be pushed around, to be bullied by

our emotions and our feelings. And the one piece of advice that I'm going to give you, because I've read so many different articles from so many different thought leaders on this idea. And frankly, I've never seen anyone articulate it exactly this way, although I'm sure someone has. I'm not going to try to grab this as an original thought, but it is my absolute best advice on this particular topic. Experience the emotion. Let it wash over you. Use it as a data point and move on. Where you will get yourself in trouble on this particular topic is if you try to avoid the emotion. If you try to stiff arm the emotion, if you try to put walls up and not allow the emotion in. If something terrible happens and you need to experience that emotion to continue to grow as an individual, experience it, let it wash through you, let it be a data point on your life and move on. But if you don't allow

yourself to experience that emotion, if you don't allow it to wash through you, you'll never be able to get to the next level. And I had this happen to me when I was fired as the CEO of a six location fitness franchise here in my local area. I took that position, was excited, wanted to grow and did my job. I had tremendous success there. So much success that the business became so profitable that the founder came back into the business and wanted to become CEO again because the business was fun and there was nothing I could do.

I was his biggest expense and he wanted to play the game again and I was gone and it hurt because I loved that place and I loved the people there. But at that point in my life, I had developed the skills to be able to allow the negative emotions to, I felt them. Trust me, I was angry. I was disappointed allow the negative emotions. I felt them. Trust me, I was angry. I was disappointed. I was sad. I was frustrated.

And I allowed all those things to wash through me and took them as data points. And two months later, I started my own business and became an entrepreneur for the second time, a business that ultimately five years later I exited from. Two months later, if I didn't allow those feelings to wash through me, if I didn't take them as simply data points, if I allowed my sense of frustration and fear of what I was going to do next to take hold and to, as Marcus really says, die my soul, I could have never gotten to that next level. I would have never taken action so soon. I would have never built a business

that is a defining moment in my career as an entrepreneur. So your feelings are not you and they do not matter other than as data points. Boom. Okay, hard truth number one. Hard truth number two, right? Hard truth number two, everything inside you is going to fight you during this process, right? So those emotions, those feelings that you need to disregard and detach from,

every bit of you is going to fight. Now, Steven Pressfield calls this the resistance, right? And he's got some great quotes. The resistance, and this is from his book, The War of Art, although he does bring it up in some of his other work. The resistance is not a peripheral opponent. The resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. Resistance is the enemy within.

Your body is going to fight you from doing great things. Your mind is going to fight you from doing great things because great things put us at risk. They put our status at risk. They put our physical body at risk. They put our relationships at risk. They put our place, our routine. They put it at risk and therefore our body and our mind are going to scream and fight. And that resistance, that evil that comes in that stops us from being the best version of ourselves,

it is going to fight you tooth and nail. Do not think that those are indicators that you should not be doing this thing you want to do. Whatever this growth aspect of your life is, this development, this improvement, your body's going to fight you though. Your mind is going to fight you. Do not think you're going to walk into this journey and that going for a run every day or eating better or working on kindness and gratitude or putting in long hours to start that business. Do not think that every part inside you is not going to fight you and try to keep you from doing that because it changes you. And your mind and your body do not want change. Change opens us up to risk. And this resistance, whether you believe it in the ethereal way that

Steven Pressfield talks about it or just simply that this is going to happen. It's real and it's there. Steven Pressfield's got another great quote on the resistance. Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. If you take the resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Meaning if you allow the resistance, if you allow that negativity, if you allow that fight inside you, that evilness, that resistance, if you allow it to keep you from doing the thing, then you get exactly what you deserve, which is nothing. You are going to be in a battle when you take on personal development, when you're trying to grow as a human, honestly and sincerely, not just giving it lip service. When you really start to put in the work, you are in for a battle,

not just running that mile or lifting those weights or not putting that donut in your face. You're in for a battle with everything inside you. And the only answer is discipline and Mike Tyson has this incredible quote that on discipline that that that you're nothing without discipline okay how good you are anything you don't have discipline you ain't nobody right because you give up on the slightest struggle without discipline 100% discipline is doing what you hate to do, but do it like you love it. Doing what you hate to do, but do it like you love it. That is a great quote.

The discipline is the only way to get things done. And it is the only way to beat the resistance is to show up again and again and again, regardless of your feelings and your emotions and what your mind is telling you, what your body is telling you. If it's important to you, if it gets you where you need to go, show up. Keep going. Amateurs wait till they're motivated. Professionals show up. This is so incredibly difficult. But there are some ways that you can work on this. I found journaling incredibly helpful, right? Just writing down every day your intentions, holding yourself accountable at the end of the day. Were you disciplined today? Did you do your work? Did

you take care of the things you need to take care of? Or did you allow the resistance to beat you? And if you abide by the two-day rule, meaning you can miss one day, but you can't miss two, give yourself that grace, right? I have this, it's a Bible verse, grace upon grace. It's a snippet of a Bible verse, but I just keep that thought in my head. I give myself grace for my misses, but I get back to work as soon as I recognize them, right? The two-day rule, don't miss twice. Journal, have a mentor, have an accountability partner, get a counselor. Best advice I ever got was from one of my own mentors five years ago. He said, go find a counselor, meet with them every other week for the rest of your life, and consider it a life expense. I have taken that advice and it has helped me exponentially. It has given me

someone outside of my friend circle, outside of my family circle, someone who listens to me, questions, pushes back on ideas, helps me sort out ideas. It's a wonderful thing. Prioritize discipline at all costs. And if you're looking for a way to test your discipline, I actually, back in the fall of 2023, I did 75 hard for the first time. If you're not familiar with 75 hard, just Google it. You'll find it. It's a mental toughness and discipline program, which basically focuses on, I think it's six core activities for 75 days in a row. And you have to do them every day. And if you miss one of them any day,

you go back to zero and you start again. So test yourself. How disciplined are you? Give yourself a program if you need one. Journal, find a mentor, find an accountability partner. Counselors are great as well. But discipline is the answer to fighting that battle that's gonna be happening inside of you.

All right. Last but not least, despite all your fears, despite all your feelings and emotions, despite the battle that you're going to have to fight against the resistance, you are 100% capable of doing this. Now, that sounds positive. But it should also scare the shit out of you because no one is coming to help you. The other side of you being 100% capable and 100% in control of your own destiny is that no one is coming to save you. No one cares if you lose 20 pounds. No one cares if you write that book. Nobody cares if you start that business.

Nobody cares. They may say that they do, and they may like to see you be successful, but they're not going to stop their life to get you there. You have to do it. And the beauty is, you're 100% capable of it. The bottom line is no one's coming. No one.

No one's coming to push you. No one's coming to tell you to turn the TV off. No one's coming to tell you to get out the door and exercise. Listen to Mel Robbins. She's brilliant. David Goggins has this wonderful thought that he shares quite often. I believe that most human beings are only living at about 40% of their capability. And what's funny is when he first said that, I thought people were going to push back on him.

And frankly, there hasn't been much pushback against this concept. It is widely, widely understood that we do not operate at 100% of our capacity all the time. Now, I don't think operating at 100% of our capacity all the time is maybe healthy for us, but we need to be able to get there when we need it. And we are not operating anywhere close to that on most given days, which means you have a ton of room to improve. And even if we just focus on, as James Clear talks about, 1% better every day. Get 1% better every day and you'll be 37 times better at that particular thing after one year. 1% improvement every day equals 37 times improvement.

37 X improvement at the end of one year. It's in you. You are capable of it. But no one's coming to save you. You can't listen to your emotions. You can't let their resistance get you. You have to own it and be disciplined. Maya Angelou has this quote,

you are enough and you have nothing to prove to anybody. And while I think it's a wonderful quote, I think she missed two words. You are enough and you have nothing to prove to anybody but yourself. If you want this, if you want to grow, if you want to be a better leader, a better husband, a better spouse, a better mom, a better partner, if you want to be a better friend, if you want to be a better leader, a better husband, a better spouse, a better mom, a better partner, if you want to be a better friend, if you want to be better at a particular task, if you just want to wake up every day and feel the confidence and satisfaction of knowing you are giving life everything you have, then you have to take control. It's in there. My friends, I love you for watching this show. If you're not subscribed, please subscribe.

If you have questions, comments on this particular episode, I would love for you to leave them in the comments on YouTube. It's a great place for me to collect them, see what you guys are asking, see what you guys are talking about. If you enjoyed this show, share it with a friend. You got this. I promise you.

What you focus on is who you become. This is the way. I'm out of here. Peace. Let's go. Yeah, make it look, make it down, yeah, they know. Running this game ain't a thing for me. I never switched up, no changing me.

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